Four Years in Rebel Capitals. T. C. De Leon
to pile on top of each other.
A berth there was utterly impracticable to any man with any of his senses in active operation. That squirming, dense mass of humanity was more than the oldest traveler could stand, and I gave up my place in the rush. Luckily, there was an express car along, and I found the agent. He was very busy; and eloquence worthy of Gough, or Cicero, or Charles Sumner got no satisfaction. Desperation suggested a masonic signal, with the neck of a black bottle protruding from my bag. The man of parcels melted and invoked terrible torments on the immortal part of him if he didn't let me "g'long wi' the 'spress," as he styled that means of locomotion.
The accommodation was not princely—six feet by ten, cumbered with packages of all shapes and sizes and strongly flavored with bacon and pipe. Yet, "not for gold or precious stones" would I have exchanged that redolent corner. The agent waxed more and more polite as the bottle emptied, regretted the want of room, regaled himself with frequent "nips," and me with anecdotes of a professional nature.
From him was learned that he was with the train that had carried my old friends, the Zouaves, to their fresh fields of glory in Virginia. They retained a lively recollection of their lesson at Montgomery, and had kept rather quiet till reaching Columbia. There the devil again got unchained among them, and they broke out in a style to make up for their enforced good behavior.
"Sich a shooting of cattle and poultry, sich a yelling and singing of ther darned frenchy stuff—sich a rolling of drums and a damning of officers, I ain't hear yit"—said the agent. "And they does ride more on the outside of the cars than the inside, anyhow."
Beyond Weldon a knot were balancing themselves on the connecting beams of the box-cars. Warned by their officers, they laughed; begged by the conductors, they swore. Suddenly there was a jolt, the headway of the cars jammed them together, and three red-legged gentlemen were mashed between them—flat as Ravel in the pantomime.
"And I'm jest a-thinkin'," was his peroration, "ef this yere reegement don't stop a-fightin' together, being shot by the Georgians and beat by their officers—not to mention a jammin' up on railroads—they're gwine to do darned leetle sarvice a-fightin' of Yanks!"
After this period the agent talked, first to himself and then to the black bottle; while I, seated on a box of cartridges, lit my pipe and went into a reverie as to the treatment the surgeons would use in the pneumonia sure to result from the leaks in the car.
In the midst of an active course of turpentine and stimulants, I was brought to myself by a jolt and dead halt in mid-road. The engine had blown off a nut, and here we were, dead lame, six miles from a station and no chance of getting on.
My Express friend advised very quietly to "quit this and walk onter Florence."
"'Taint but a small tramp after all," he said. "And ye'll jest catch the A.M. up train and miss the sojers. Jest hand this yere to the A. & Co.'s agent, and he'll help yer ef she's crowded. Here's luck!" and he took a long pull at the bottle and handed it back—rather regretfully—with a dingy note on the back of an Express receipt.
For the benefit of literature in ages yet unborn, I give a careful transcription of this document:
"Deer bil this gentilman Is a verry peerticular frend of mine—also My brother-en-law. And you must give him sum Help ef he needs any cos Our engen she's run of the track And I won't be long afore to morrer.
"Yours trewly,
"Grimes."
Thus armed, I shouldered my bag and started on my tramp over the wet and slippery track, reaching Florence at gray dawn. As I came in sight, there stood the train, the engines cold and fires unlit. I had full time, but my good luck—the first since I started—put me in a glow, and I stepped out in a juvenile pace that would have done credit to "the Boy" in training days. As I came nearer, my mercury went rapidly down to zero. Every car was jammed, aisles packed and box-cars crowded even on top. The doorways and platforms were filled with long rows of gray blankets that smelt suggestively human! Crowds of detained passengers and three companies of the "Crescent Guard" had taken their places at midnight, and slept with a peacefulness perfectly aggravating. As I walked ruefully by the windows, there was no hope! Every seat was filled, and every passenger slept the sleep of the just; and their mixed and volleyed snoring came through,
"Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme."
There was no sort of use. I'd have to try the Express, and deep was my chuckle as I reread my friend Grimes' remarkable production. It would be an oasis in this desert—that Express car; but lo! when I went to look for it there was none on the train!
Dead beat I sat on the platform and awaited day. When a fireman began operations on the engine, I meekly queried where the Express was.
"Be n't none," was the surly rejoinder.
I was wet and tired and generally bewildered. Was it a wonder that I then and there swore at that fireman, as only meek and long-suffering men, when aroused, can swear? The volley was effective, however, and he very politely told me the agent would "be roun'" before the train started. Presently he pointed out the desired individual, to whom I hastened to hand my note. Now the terrible denunciations my former friend had made on his own soul were as nothing to what the present representative of Adams & Co. called down upon his own and everybody else's immortal function.
"Well, I hope to be eternally———— by——! But it ain't no use!———— my—— soul, ef yer shan't ride somehow!" remarked this profane expressman. "Yer be Hector Grimes' brother, and by——! go yer shell! Yer married his sister Cynthy—the one as squints? Why———— me! I knowed her when she wasn't knee high—and yer done———— well, by——! Here, Potty!" and he addressed a greasy man just mounting the mail car—"Here be Grimes' brother, as must git to Weldon, by————! So hist him along, will yer?"
"O.K. Jump in, Mr. Grimes," agreed the mail agent; and by this time I was so wet and disgusted I didn't care who I was. So in I went, playing Grimes "for this night only."
"Here's luck, Potty! may———— me, but I'm glad I met yer, Grimes," remarked my profane friend, taking a long pull at the bottle I handed him in my gratitude. "Here's to your wife, Grimes!" and the cars starting just then, "deer bil" took another pull and, with great absence of mind, put the bottle in his pocket and waved us adieu.
The Mail car, like the Express, was a box ten feet by six—one-half the space filled with counter and pigeon-holes, and the other half with mail-bags. Into the remainder were crammed the agent—specific gravity equal to that of two hundred and ninety pounds of feathers—a friend of his and myself. The friend I soon found was what is known as "a good traveling companion;" i.e., a man who keeps himself primed with broad stories and bad whisky, and who doesn't object to a song in which the air always runs away with the harmony. After we started I tried to sleep. It was no use. Lying on one mail-bag with another for a pillow, that is liable to be jerked out at any station to the near dislocation of your neck, with a funny man sitting nearly on you, are not sedatives. My bottle was gone, so I drank gin out of the funny man's. I hate gin—but that night I hated everything and tried the similia similibus rule.
We missed connection at Weldon. Did anybody ever make connection there? We were four hours late, and with much reason had, therefore, to wait five hours more. If Kingsville is cheap and nasty, Weldon is dear and nastier. Such a supper! It was inedible even to a man who had tasted nothing but whisky, gin and peanuts for forty-eight hours. Then the landlord—whose hospitality was only equaled by his patriotism—refused to open his house at train time. We must either stay all night, or not at all—for the house would shut at ten o'clock—just after supper. So a deputation of the Crescents and I waited on him, and after a plain talk concluded to "cuss and quit." So we clambered into some platform cars that were to go with the train, and, after a sumptuous supper of dried-apple pies and peanuts, slept the sleep of the weary.
CHAPTER XI.