FullReads

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It is the surgeon-in-chief, who happens to give our particular Christmas dinner,–I mean the one that interests you and me. Huldah and the other ladies had accepted his invitation. Horace Bartlett and his staff, and some of the other officers, were guests; and the doctor had given his own permit that Major Barthow might walk up to his quarters with the ladies. Huldah and he were in advance, he leaning, with many apologies, on her arm. Dr. Sprigg and Anna Thwart were far behind. The two married ladies, as needing no escort, were in the middle. Major Barthow enjoyed the emancipation, was delighted with his companion, could not say enough to make her praise the glimpses of Virginia, even if it were West Virginia.

“What a party it is, to be sure!” said he. “The doctor might call on us for our stories, as one of Dickens’s chiefs would do at a Christmas feast. Let’s see, we should have

THE SURGEON’S TALE;
THE GENERAL’S TALE;

for we may at least make believe that Hod’s stars have come from Washington. Then we must call in that one-eyed servant of his; and we will have

THE ORDERLY’S TALE.

Your handsome friend from Wisconsin shall tell

THE GERMAN’S TALE.

I shall be encouraged to tell

THE PRISONER’S TALE.

And you”–

“And I?” said Huldah laughing, because he paused.

“You shall tell

THE SAINT’S TALE.”

Barthow spoke with real feeling, which he did not care to disguise. But Huldah was not there for sentiment; and without quivering in the least, nor making other acknowledgment, she laughed as she knew she ought to do, and said, “Oh, no! that is quite too grand, the story must end with

THE SUPERINTENDENT OF SPECIAL RELIEF’S TALE.

It is a little unromantic to the sound; but that’s what it is.”

“I don’t see,” persisted the major, “if Superintendent of Special Relief means Saint in Latin, why we should not say so.”

“Because we are not talking Latin,” said Huldah. “Listen to me; and, before we come to dinner, I will tell you a story pretty enough for Dickens, or any of them; and it is a story not fifteen minutes old.

“Have you noticed that black-whiskered fellow, under the gallery, by the north window?–Yes, the same. He is French, enlisted, I think, in New London. I came to him just now, managed to say etrennes and Noel to him, and a few other French words, and asked if there were nothing we could do to make him more at home. Oh, no! there was nothing; madame was too good, and everybody was too good, and so on. But I persisted. I wished I knew more about Christmas in France; and I staid by. ‘No, madame, nothing; there is nothing. But, since you say it,–if there were two drops of red wine,– du vin de mon pays, madame; but you could not here in Virginia.’ Could not I? A superintendent of special relief has long arms. There was a box of claret, which was the first thing I saw in the store-room the day I took my keys. The doctor was only too glad the man had thought of it; and you should have seen the pleasure that red glass, as full as I could pile it, gave him. The tears were running down his cheeks. Anna, there, had another Frenchman; and she sent some to him: and my man is now humming a little song about the vin rouge of Bourgogne. Would not Mr. Dickens make a pretty story of that for you,–‘THE FRENCHMAN’S STORY’?”

Barthow longed to say that the great novelist would not make so pretty a story as she did. But this time he did not dare.