pretty girl, all in snowy white except for touches
of red at her throat and her slender belted waist,
and upon one wrist was a bracelet of black vel
vet with old soldiers' buttons strung thickly
upon it. On a tray, daintily tricked out, she
brought the sergeant fried chicken and corn
pudding and butter beans, and the like, with
corn pones hot-buttered in the kitchen; and
finally a slice carved from the blushing red
heart of the first home-grown watermelon of
the season. Disdaining the false conventions of
knife and fork the sergeant bit into this, full face.

Upon the tub bottom his inflamed toes over
lapped and waggled in a gentle ecstasy; and
between bites, while black seeds trickled from
the corners of his lips, he related to the younger
Miss Grundy the beginning of his story of that
memorable passage of words upon a certain
memorable occasion, between General John C.
Breckinridge and General Simon Bolivar Buck-
ner. The young lady had already heard this
same beginning thrice, the sergeant having been
a guest under the parental roof since noon of
the day before, but, until interruption came,
she listened with unabated interest and laughed
at exactly the right places, whereupon the grati
fied narrator mentally catalogued her as about
the smartest young lady, as well as the prettiest,
he had met in a coon's age.

All good things must have an end, however
even a watermelon dessert and the first part of
[203] ~



OLD JUDGE PRIEST



a story by Sergeant Jimmy Bagby; and so a
little later, rejecting all spoken and implied sym
pathy with a jaunty indifference that may have
been slightly forced, the sergeant remained, like
another Diogenes, in the company of his tub,
while the rest of the household, including the
grey-haired Reverend Doctor Grundy, his
white-haired wife, Judge Priest and the two
Misses Grundy, departed in a livery-stable car
ryall for a given point half a mile up the street,
where a certain large skating rink stretched its
open doors hospitably, so disguised in bunting
and flags it hardly knew itself by its grand yet
transient title of Reunion Colosseum. Follow
ing this desertion, there was for a while in all
directions a pleasurable bustle to keep the foot-
fast watcher bright as to eye and stirred as to
pulse.

"Why, shuckins, there ain't a chance fur me
to git lonely," he bade himself "not with all
this excitement goin' on and these here hoofs of
mine to keep me company!"

Crowds streamed by afoot, asaddle and
awheel, all bound for a common destination.
Every house within sight gave up its separate
group of dwellers and guests; for during reunion
week everybody takes in somebody. Under the
threshing feet the winnowed dust mounted up
in scrolls from the roadway, sifting down on the
grass and powdering the chinaberry trees over
head. No less than eight brass bands passed
within sight or hearing. And one of them
[204]



SERGEANT JIMMY BAGBY's FEET

played Maryland, My Maryland; and one of
them played The Bonnie Blue Flag but the
other six played Dixie, as waa fitting.

A mounted staff in uniform clattered grandly
by, escorting the commanding general of some
division or other, and an open carriage came
along, overflowing with a dainty freightage of
state sponsors and maids-of -honour. As it rolled
grandly past behind its four white horses, a
saucy girl on the back seat saw an old man sit
ting alone on the Grundy porch, with his feet
in a tub, and she blew a kiss at him off the tips
of her fingers; and Sergeant Bagby, half rising,
waved back most gallantly, and God-blessed
her and called her Honey!

Soon, though, the crowds thinned away.
Where multitudes had been, only an occasional
straggler was to be seen. The harried and fret
ted dust settled back. A locust in a tree began
to exercise his talents in song, and against the
green warp of the shrubbery on the lawn a little
blue bobbin of an indigo bird went vividly back
and forth. Lonesome? No, nothing like that;
but the sergeant confessed to himself that pos
sibly he was just a trifle drowsy. His head
dropped forward on his badged chest, and as the
cool wetness drew the fever out of his feet his
toes, under water, curled up in comfort and
content.

Asked about it afterward, Sergeant Bagby
would have told you that he had no more than
closed his eyelids for a wink or two. But the
[205]



OLD JUDGE PRIEST



shadows had appreciably lengthened upon the
grass before a voice, lifted in a hail, roused him
up. Over the low hedge that separated the
parsonage yard from the yard adjoining on the
left a man was looking at him a man some
where near his own age, he judged, in an in
stantaneous appraisal.

"Cumrud," said this person, "howdy-do?"

"Which?" inquired Sergeant Bagby.

"I said, Cumrud, howdy?" repeated the
other.

"No," said the sergeant; "my name is
Bagby."

"I taken it fur granted that you was to home
all alone, "said the man beyond the hedge.
"Be you?"

"At this time of speakin'," said the sergeant,
"there's nobody at home exceptin' me and a
crop of blisters. Better come over," he added
hospitably.

"Well," said the, stranger, as though he had
been considering the advisability of such a move
for quite a period of time, "I mout."

With no further urging he wriggled through a
gap in the hedge and stood at the foot of the
steps, revealing himself as a small, wiry, rust-
coloured man. Anybody with an eye to see could
tell that in his youth he must have been as red
headed as a pochard drake. Despite abundant
streakings of grey in his hair he was still red
headed, with plentiful whiskers to match, and
on his nose a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, and
[206]



SERGEANT JIMMY



on his face and neck a close sowing of the big
gest, intensest freckles Sergeant Bagby had ever
beheld. They spangled his skin as with red
asterisks, and the gnarled hand he extended in
greeting as he mounted the porch looked as
though in its time it had mixed at least one mil
lion bran mashes.

Achieving a somewhat wabbly standing pos
ture in his keeler, the sergeant welcomed him in
due form.

"I don't live here myself," he explained, "but
I reckin you might say I'm in full charge, seein'
ez I crippled myself up this mornin' and had
to stay behind this evenin'. Come in and take
a cheer and rest yourself."

" Thanky ! " said the f reckly one. " I mout do
that too." He did. His voice had a nasal smack
to it which struck the sergeant as being alien.
"I didn't ketch the name," he said. "Mine's
Bloomfield Christian name, Ezra H."

"Mine's Bagby," stated the sergeant "late
of King's Hell Hounds. You've probably heard
of that command purty nigh everybody in
these parts has."

"Veteran myself," said Mr. Bloomfield brisk
ly. "Served four years and two months. En
listed at fust call for volunteers."

"Started in kind of early myself," said the
sergeant, mechanically catching for the moment
the other's quality of quick, clipped speech.
"But say, look here, pardner," he added, re-
suming his own natural tone, " whut's the reason
[207]



OLD JUDGE PRIEST



you ain't out yonder at that there Colosseum
with all the other boys this evenin'?"

A whimsical squint brought the red eyelashes
close together.

"Well," stated Mr. Bloomfield, rummaging
with a deliberate hand in the remote inner fast
nesses of his whiskers, "I couldn't scursely say
that I b'long out there." Then he halted, as if
there was no more to be said.

"You told me you served all. the way through,
didn't you?" asked the sergeant, puzzled.

"So I told you and so I did," said Mr.
Bloomfield; "but I didn't tell you which side
it was I happened to be a-servin' on. Twen
tieth Indiana Infantry that's my regiment,
and a good smart one it was too."

"Oh!" said Sergeant Bagby, slightly shocked
by the suddenness of this enlightenment
"Oh! Well, set down anyway, Mr. Bloom-
field. Excuse me you're already settin', ain't

you?"

For a fraction of a minute they contemplated
each other, Sergeant Bagby being slightly flus
tered and Mr. Bloomfield to all appearances
perfectly calm. The sergeant cleared his throat,
but it was the visitor who spoke:

"I've got a fust-rate memory for faces, and
the like; and when I fust seen you settin' here
you had a kind of familiar cut to your jib
someway. That's one reason why I hailed you.
I wonder now if we didn't meet up with one
another acrost the smoke back yonder in those
[208]



SERGEANT JIMMY BAGBY's FEET

former days? I'd take my oath I seen you
soinewheres."

"I shouldn't be surprised," answered Ser
geant Bagby. "All durin' that war I was al
most constantly somewheres."

"Fust Bull Run I wonder could it 'a* been
there?" suggested Mr. Bloomfield.

"First Manassas, you mean," corrected the
sergeant gently, but none-the-less firmly. " Was
you there or thereabout by any chance?" Mr.
Bloomfield nodded. "Me too," said Sergeant
Bagby "on detached service. Mebbe," he
added it softly "mebbe ef you'd turn round
I'd know you by your back."

If the blow went home Mr. Bloomfield, like
a Spartan of the Hoosiers, hid his wounds. Out
wardly he gave no sign.

"P'raps so," he assented mildly; then: "How
'bout Gettysburg?"

The sergeant fell into the trap that was digged
for him. The sergeant was proud of his services
in the East.

"You bet your bottom dollar I was there!"
he proclaimed "all three days."

"Then p'raps you'd better turn round too,"
said Mr. Bloomfield in honeyed accents, "and
mebbe it mout be I'd be able to reckernise you
by the shape of your spinal colyum."

Up rose Sergeant Bagby, his face puckering in
a grin and his hand outstretched. High up his
back his coat peaked out behind like the tail of
a he-mallard.

[209}



OLD JUDGE PRIEST



"Pardner," he announced, "I'm right glad
I didn't kill you when I had all them chances."

"Cumrud," replied Mr. Bloomfield, "on the
whole and considerin' of everything, I don't
regret now that I spared you."

If Sergeant Bagby had but worn a Confed
erate goatee, which he didn't, being smooth-
shaved; and if he hadn't been standing mid-
shin-deep in a foot-tub; and if only Mr. Bloom-
field's left shirtsleeve, instead of being com
fortably full of freckled arm, had been empty
and pinned to the bosom of his waistcoat they
might have posed just as they stood then for
the popular picture entitled North and South
United which you will find on the outer cover of
the Memorial Day edition of every well-con
ducted Sunday newspaper in the land. But
that is ever the way with real life it so often
departs from its traditional aspects. After a bit
the sergeant spoke.

"I was jest thinkin'," he said dreamily.

"So was I," assented Mr. Bloomfield. "I
wonder now if it could be so that we both of us
had our minds on the same pleasin' subject?"

"I was jest thinkin'," repeated the sergeant,
"that merely because the Bloody Chasm is
bridged over ain't no fittin' reason why it should
n't be slightly irrigated frum time to time."

"My idee to a jot," agreed Mr. Bloomfield
heartily. "Seems as if the dust of conflict has
been a-floatin' round loose long enough to stand
a little dampin' down."

[210]



SERGEANT JIMMY BAGBY's FEET

"Ef only I was at home now," continued Ser
geant Bagby, "I'd be able to put my hand on
somethin' handy for moistenin' purposes; but,
seein' as I'm a visitor here, I ain't in no position
to extend the hospitalities suitable to the oc



casion."



" Sho, now ! Don't let that fret you," soothed
Mr. Bloomfield "not with me livin' next door."
He nimbly descended the steps, but halted at
the bottom: "Cumrud, how do you take yours
straight or toddy?"

"Sugar and water don't hurt none in mod
eration," replied the sergeant. "But look here,
pardner, this here is a preacher's front porch.
We don't want to be puttin' any scandal on
him."

"I'd already figured that out too," said the
provident Mr. Bloomfield. "I'll bring her over
in a couple of chiny teacups."

The smile which, starting from the centre,
spread over the sergeant's face like ripples over
a pond had not entirely faded away when in a
miraculously short time Mr. Bloomfield re
turned, a precious votive offering poised ac
curately in either hand. "Bagby," he said,
"that's somethin' extry prime in the line of
York-state rye!"

"Is it?" said the sergeant. "Well, I reckin
the sugar comes frum Newerleans and that
oughter take the curse off. Bloomfield, here's
lookin' toward you!"

"Same to you, Bagby!"



OLD JUDGE PRIEST



China clicked pleasantly on china as teacup
bottom touched teacup brim, this sound being
succeeded instantly by a series of soft sipping
sounds. Sitting thus, his eyes beaming softly
over the bulge of his upturned cup and his lips
drawing in the last lingering drops of sirupy
sweetness, the sergeant became aware of a man
clumping noisily along the sidewalk an old
man in a collarless hickory shirt, with a mouse-
grey coat dangling over one arm and mouse-grey
trousers upheld by home-made braces. He was
a tall, sparse, sinewy old man, slightly withered,
yet erect, of a build to remind one of a blasted
pine; his brow was very stormy and he talked
to himself as he walked. His voice but not his
words came to the sergeant in a rolling, thun
dery mutter.

"Hey, pardner!" called Sergeant Bagby, hold
ing his emptied cup breast-high. "Goin' some-
wheres or jest travellin' round?"

The passer-by halted and regarded him gloom
ily over the low palings of the Reverend Doctor
Grundy's fence.

"Well," he made slow answer, "I don't know
ez it's anybody's business; but, since you ast
me, I ain't headin' fur no place in particular
I'm try in* to walk a mad off."

"Come right on in here then," advised the
sergeant, "we've got the cure fur that com
plaint." He glanced sideways toward his com
panion. "Bloomfield, this here love feast looks
mighty like she might grow a little. Do you
[212]



SERGEANT JIMMY BAGBY's FEET

reckin you've got another one of them teacups
over at your place, right where you could put
your hands on it easy?"

"That's a chore which won't be no trouble
whatsoever," agreed Mr. Bloomfield; and he
made as if to go on the errand, but stopped at
the porch edge just inside the vines as the lone
pedestrian, having opened the gate, came slowly
toward them. The newcomer put his feet down
hard on the bricks; slashes of angry colour like
red flares burned under the skin over his high
and narrow cheekbones.

"Gabe Ezell Cherokee Rifles," he said
abruptly as he mounted the steps; "that's my
name and my command."

"I'm Sergeant Bagby, of King's Hell Hounds,
and monstrous glad to make your acquaintance,"
vouchsafed, for his part, the sergeant. "This
gentleman here is my friend, Major Bloomfield.
Take a cheer and set down, pardner, and rest
your face and hands a spell. You look like you
might be a little bit put out about something?"

The stranger uttered a grunt that might mean
anything at all or nothing at all. He lowered
himself into a chair and tugged at the collarless
band of his shirt as though it choked him. The
sergeant, pleasingly warmed to the core of his
being, was not to be daunted. He put another
question:

"Whut's the reason you ain't out to the
speakin'? I'm sort of lamed up myse'f made
the fatal mistake of tryin' to break in a pair of



OLD JUDGE PRIEST



Dam- Yankee shoes on a couple of Southern-
Rights feet. I'm purty well reconciled, I reckin ;
but my feet appear to be still unreconstructed,
frum what I kin gather." Chuckling, he glanced
downward at the stubborn members. "But
there don't seem to be nothin' wrong with you
without it's your feelin's."

"I was figgerin' some on goin' out there,"
began the tall old man, "but I couldn't git there
on time I've been at the calaboose." He fin
ished the confession in a sort of defiant blurt.

"You don't say so!" said the sergeant won-
deringly, and commiseratingly too; and from
where he stood on the top step the newly bre-
vetted major evidenced his sympathy in a series
of deprecatory clucks. The third man glared
from one to the other of them.

"Oh, I ain't ashamed of it none," he went on
stormily. "Ef I had it to do over agin I'd do
it agin the very same way. I may not be so
young ez I was oncet, but anybody that insults
the late Southern Confederacy to my face is
breedin' trouble for hisse'f I don't care ef he's
as big as a mountain!"

From the depths of the foot-tub came small
splashing sounds, and little wavelets rose over
its sides and plopped upon the porch floor.

"I reckin sech a thing as that might pester
me a little bit my own se'f ," stated the sergeant
softly. "Yes, suh; you might safely venture
that under them circumstances I would become
kind of irritated myse'f. Who done it?"



SERGEANT JIMMY B A G B Y ? S FEET

"I'll tell you," said Mr. Ezell, "and let you
boys be the jedges of whether I done the right
thing. After the parade was through with this
mornin' me and some of the other boys from
down my way was knockin' round. I got sepa
rated from the rest of 'em someway and down
yond' on that main street I'm a stranger in
this town and I don't rightly recall its name,
but it's the main street, whar all them stores is
well, anyway, down there I come past whar
one of these here movin'-picture to-dos was
located. It had a lot of war pictures stuck up
out in front of it and a big sign that said on it:
At the Cannon's Mouth ! So, not havin' nothin'
else to do, I paid my ten cents to a young lady
at the door and went on in. They gimme a seat
right down in frontlike, and purty soon after
that they started throwin' them pictures on a
big white sheet a screen, I think they calls it.

"Well, suhs, at the fust go-off it was purty
good. I got consider'bly interested I did so.
There was a house come on the sheet that looked
powerful like several places that I knows of
down in Middle Georgia, whar I come frum; and
there was several young ladies dressed up like
they used to dress up back in the old days when
we was all young fellows together. Right off,
though, one of the young ladies the purtiest
one of the lot and the spryest-actin' she fell in
love with a Yankee officer. That jarred me up a
little; yet, after all, it mout 'a' happened and,
besides, he wasn't sech a bad young fellow
[215]



OLD JUDGE PRIEST



fur a Yankee. He saved the young lady's
brother when the brother come home frum the
army to see his sick baby and was about to be
ketched fur a spy. Yes, suhs; I've got to admit
that there Yankee behaved very decently in
the matter.

"Well, purty soon after the lovin' part was
over they come to the fightin' part, and a string
band began to play war pieces. I must say I
got right smartly worked up 'long about there.
Them fellows that was dressed up ez soldiers
looked too tony and slick to be real natchel
there didn't seem to be nary one of 'em wearin'
a shirt that needed searchin', the -way it was
when we-all was out soldierin' but ef you'd
shet your eyes 'bout halfway you could mighty
nigh imagine it was the real thing agin. A bat
tery of our boys went into action on the aidge
of a ploughed field and you could see the smoke
bustin' out of the muzzles of the pieces, and you
could hear the pieces go off, kerboom! I don't
know how they worked that part of it, but they
did; and 'way over yond' in a piece of woods you
could see the Yankees jest a-droppin'. I seem
to recollect standin' up long about there and
givin' a yell or two myself; but in a minute or so
a whole lot more Yankees come chargin' out
of the timber, and they begin to drive our boys
back.

"That didn't seem right to me that didn't
seem no way to have it. I reckin, though, I
might 'a' stood that, only in less'n no time a-tall
[216]



SERGEANT JIMMY BAGBYS FEET

our boys was throwin' away their guns and some
of 'em was runnin' away, and some of 'em was
throwin' up their hands and surrenderin' ! And
the Yankees was chargin' in amongst 'em, a-cut-
tin' and slashin' and shootin', and takin' pris
oners right and left. It was a scandalous thing
and a lie besides! It couldn't never 'a' hap
pened noway."

His voice, deep and grumbling before, became
sharply edged with mounting emotion. Mr.
Bloomfield looked away to avoid exposing a
happy grin, new-born among his whiskers. It
was Sergeant Bagby who spoke, the intention
on his part being to soothe rather than to
inflame.

"Pardner," he said, "you've got to remember
it wasn't nothin' but jest play-actin' jest hired
hands makin' believe that it was so."

"I don't care none ef it was," snapped Mr.
Ezell. "And, besides, whut's that got to do
with it with the principle of the thing? It
was a deliberate insult flung right in the face
of the late Southern Confederacy that and
nothin' short of it. Well, I stood it jest as long
as I natchelly could and that wasn't very long,
neither, lemme tell you, gentlemen."

"Then whut?" inquired Sergeant Bagby,
bending forward in his seat.

"Then I up with my cheer and chunked it

right through their dad-burned, lyin' sheet

that's whut I done! I busted a big hole in her

right whar there was a smart-alecky Yankee

[217]



OLD JUDGE PRIEST



colonel sailin' acrost on a horse. I says: 'Here's
a few reinforcements frum the free state of
Georgia ! ' And I let him have it with the cheer,
kerblim ! That there battle broke up right then
and there. And that's how I come to go to the
calaboose."

Mr. Bloomfield, now rigidly erect, and with
no grin on his face, opened his lips to say some
thing; but Sergeant Bagby beat him to it.

"Pardner," he asked incredulously, "did they
lock you up jest fur doin' that?"

"No," said the heated Mr. Ezell, "they didn't
really lock me up a-tall. But the secont I
thro wed that cheer there was a lot of yellin'
and scrabblin' round, and the lights went up,
and the string band quit playin' its piece and
here come a-runnin' an uppidy-lookin' man he
was the one that run the show, I take it
bleatin' out somethin' about me havin' broke
up his show and him wantin' damages. He
made the mistake of grabbin' holt of me and
callin' me a name that I don't purpose to have
nobody usin' on me. He wanted damages.
Well, right there he got 'em!"

He raised a bony fist, on which the knuckles
were all barked and raw, and gazed at it fondly,
as though these were most honourable scars.

"So then, after that, a couple of them other
show people they drug him away frum whar he
was layin' on the floor a-yellin'," he went on,
"and a town policeman come in and taken me
off to the calaboose in a hack, with a crowd
[218]



SERGEANT JIMMY BAGBYS FEET

followin' 'long behind. But when we got there
the gentleman that was runnin' the place he
wore blue clothes and I jedge from his costume
and deportment he must 'a' been the town
marshal he listened to whut we-all had to say,
and he taken a look at that there showman's
busted jaw and sort of grinned to hisse'f ; then
he said that, seem' as all us old soldiers had the
freedom of the city for the time bein', he 'lowed
he'd let the whole matter drop right whar it was
providin' I'd give him my solemn promise not to
go projectin' round no more movin'-picture
places endurin' of my stay in their midst. Well,
ef they're all like the one I seen to-day it's goin*
to be a powerful easy promise fur me to keep
I know that! But that's how I come to miss
the doin's this evenin' I missed my dinner too
and that's how I come to be walkin' way out
here all by myse'f."

In the pause that followed Mr. Bloomfield
saw his chance. Mr. Bloomfield's voice had a
crackling tone in it, like fire running through
broom-sedge.

"Lookyhere, my friend!" he demanded crisp
ly. "Ain't you been kind of flyin' in the face
of history as well as the movin'-picture indus
try? Seems to me I recall that you pleg-taked
Rebs got a blamed good lickin' about ever'
once in so often, or even more frequently than
that. If my memory serves me right it seems
to me you did indeed!"

Mr. Ezell swung in his chair and the spots in
[219]



OLD JUDGE PRIEST



his cheeks spread until his whole face burned a
brick-dust red. Sergeant Jimmy Bagby threw
himself into the breach. Figuratively speaking,
he had both arms full of heartsease and rose
mary.

"In reguards to the major here" he indi
cated Mr. Bloomfield with a gracious gesture
of amity "I furgot to tell you that he taken a
rather prominent part on the other side frum
us."

As Mr. EzelPs choler rose his brows came
down and lowered.

"Huh!" said Mr. Ezell with deadly slow
ness. "Whut's a Yankee doin' down here in
this country?"

"Doin* fairly well," answered Mr. Bloom-
field. "F'r instance, he's payin' taxes on that