FullReads

It was chill, though August, and the two men sitting with bowed heads grew stiff with cold and weariness, and were forced to rise now and again, and walk about to warm their stiffened limbs It didn’t occur to them, probably, to contrast their coming home with their going forth, or with the coming home of the generals, colonels, or even captains—but to Private Smith, at any rate, there came a sickness at heart almost deadly as he lay there on his hard bed and went over his situation.

In the deep of the night, lying on a board in the town where he had enlisted three years ago, all elation and enthusiasm gone out of him, he faced the fact that with the joy of homecoming was already mingled the bitter juice of care. He saw himself sick, worn out, taking up the work on his half-cleared farm, the inevitable mortgage standing ready with open jaw to swallow half his earnings. He had given three years of his life for a mere pittance of pay, and now!—

Morning dawned at last, slowly, with a pale yellow dome of light rising silently above the bluffs, which stand like some huge storm-devastated castle, just east of the city. Out to the left the great river swept on its massive yet silent way to the south. Blue jays called across the river from hillside to hillside through the clear, beautiful air, and hawks began to skim the tops of the hills. The older men were astir early, but Private Smith had fallen at last into a sleep, and they went out without waking him. He lay on his knapsack, his gaunt face turned toward the ceiling, his hands clasped on his breast, with a curious pathetic effect of weakness and appeal.

An engine switching near woke him at last, and he slowly sat up and stared about. He looked out of the window and saw that the sun was lightening the hills across the river. He rose and brushed his hair as well as he could, folded his blankets up, and went out to find his companions. They stood gazing silently at the river and at the hills.

“Looks natcher’l, don’t it?” they said, as he came out.

“That’s what it does,” he replied.”An’ it looks good. D’yeh see that peak?” He pointed at a beautiful symmetrical peak, rising like a slightly truncated cone, so high that it seemed the very highest of them all. It was touched by the morning sun and it glowed like a beacon, and a light scarf of gray morning fog was rolling up its shadowed side.

“My farm’s just beyond that. Now, if I can only ketch a ride, we’ll be home by dinnertime.”

“I’m talkin’ about breakfast,” said one of the others.

“I guess it’s one more meal o’hardtack f’r me,” said Smith.

They foraged around, and finally found a restaurant with a sleepy old German behind the counter, and procured some coffee, which they drank to wash down their hardtack.

“Time’ll come,” said Smith, holding up a piece by the corner, “when this’ll be a curiosity.”

“I hope to God it will! I bet I’ve chawed hardtack enough to shingle every house in the coolly [coulee]. I’ve chawed it when my lampers was down, and when they wasn’t. I’ve took it dry, soaked, and mashed. I’ve had it wormy, musty, sour, and blue-moldy. I’ve had it in little bits and big bits; ‘fore coffee an’ after coffee. I’m ready f’r a change. I’d like t’ git holt jest about now o’ some of the hot biscuits my wife c’n make when she lays herself out f’r company.”