III.

When Major Stafford galloped away, on his return to his command, the little group at the lawn gate shouted many messages after him. The last thing he heard was Charlie’s treble, as he seated himself on the gate-post, calling to him not to forget to make Santa Claus bring him a pair of breeches and a sword, and Evelyn’s little voice reminding him of her “dolly that can go to sleep.”

Many times during the ensuing year, amid the hardships of the campaign, the privations of the march, and the dangers of battle, the Major heard those little voices calling to him. In the autumn he won the three stars of a colonel for gallantry in leading a desperate charge on a town, in a perilous raid into the heart of the enemy’s country, and holding the place; but none knew, when he dashed into the town at the head of his regiment under a hail of bullets, that his mind was full of toyshops and clothing stores, and that when he was so stoutly holding his position he was guarding a little boy’s suit, a small sword with a gilded scabbard, and a large doll with flowing ringlets and eyes that could “go to sleep.” Some of his friends during that year had charged the Major with growing miserly, and rallied him upon hoarding up his pay and carrying large rolls of Confederate money about his person; and when, just before the raid, he invested his entire year’s pay in four or five ten-dollar gold pieces, they vowed he was mad.

The Major, however, always met these charges with a smile. And as soon as his position was assured in the captured town he proved his sanity.

The owner of a handsome store on the principal street, over which was a large sign, “Men’s and Boys’ Clothes,” peeping out, saw a Confederate major ride up to the door, which had been hastily fastened when the fight began, and rap on it with the handle of his sword. There was something in the rap that was imperative, and fearing violence if he failed to respond, he hastily opened the door. The officer entered, and quickly selected a little uniform suit of blue cloth with brass buttons.

“What is the price of this?”

“Ten dollars,” stammered the shopkeeper.

To his astonishment the Confederate officer put his hand in his pocket and laid a ten-dollar gold piece on the counter.

“Now show me where there is a toyshop.”

There was one only a few doors off, and there the Major selected a child’s sword handsomely ornamented, and the most beautiful doll, over whose eyes stole the whitest of rose-leaf eyelids, and which could talk and do other wonderful things. He astonished this shopkeeper also by laying down another gold piece. This left him but two or three more of the proceeds of his year’s pay, and these he soon handed over a counter to a jeweller, who gave him a small package in exchange.

All during the remainder of the campaign Colonel Stafford carried a package carefully sealed, and strapped on behind his saddle. His care of it and his secrecy about it were the subjects of many jests among his friends in the brigade, and when in an engagement his horse was shot, and the Colonel, under a hot fire, stopped and calmly unbuckled his bundle, and during the rest of the fight carried it in his hand, there was a clamor that he should disclose the contents. Even an offer to sing them a song would not appease them.

The brigade officers were gathered around a camp-fire that night on the edge of the bloody field. A Federal officer, Colonel Denby, who had been slightly wounded and captured in the fight, and who now sat somewhat grim and moody before the fire, was their guest.

“Now, Stafford, open the bundle and let us into the secret,” they all said. The Colonel, without a word, rose and brought the parcel up to the fire. Kneeling down, he took out his knife and carefully ripped open the outer cover. Many a jest was levelled at him across the blazing logs as he did so.

One said the Colonel had turned peddler, and was trying to eke out a living by running the blockade on Lilliputian principles; another wagered that he had it full of Confederate bills; a third, that it was a talisman against bullets, and so on. Within the outer covering were several others; but at length the last was reached. As the Colonel ripped carefully, the group gathered around and bent breathlessly over him, the light from the blazing camp-fire shining ruddily on their eager, weather-tanned faces. When the Colonel put in his hand and drew out a toy sword, there was a general exclamation, followed by a dead silence; but when he took the doll from her soft wrapping, and then unrolled and held up a pair of little trousers not much longer than a man’s hand, and just the size for a five-year-old boy, the men turned away their faces from the fire, and more than one who had boys of his own at home, put his hand up to his eyes.

One of them, a bronzed and weather-beaten officer, who had charged the Colonel with being a miser, stretched himself out on the ground, flat on his face, and sobbed aloud as Colonel Stafford gently told his story of Charlie and Evelyn. Even the grim face of Colonel Denby looked somewhat changed in the light of the fire, and he reached over for the doll and gazed at it steadily for some time.

[Illustration: COLONEL STAFFORD OPENS THE BUNDLE.]