Irving Bacheller

“ The troopers sit, their brows all knit, a left hand
on the reins.
Their hats are gray, and their shirts of blue have
a sabre cross and 7,
And little they know, when the trumpeters blow,
they'll halt at the gates of heaven.
Their colors have dipped at the top of a ridge—
how the long line of cavalry waves!—
And over the hills, at a gallop that kills, they are
riding to get to their graves. ”

“ But the boy kep' a-whisperin' to himself, as if
'twas all he knew,
"God'll take o' you, Bill, God'll take care o'
you."
He's never known us since that day, nor his
sweetheart, an' never will;
Father an' mother an' sweetheart are all the same
to Bill.
An' he groans like a wounded soldier, sometimes
the whole night through,
An' we smooth his head, an' say: "Yes, Bill,
He 'll surely take care o' you."
Ye can stop a war in a minute, but when can ye
stop the groans?
Fer ye've broke our hearts an' sapped our blood
an' plucked away our bones. ”

“ If ye pray with faith believin', why, ye'll certainly
receive,
But that God 'll break His own good law is more 'n
I'll believe.
If it grieves Him when a sparrow falls, it's sure as
anything,
He'd hev turned the arrow, if He could, that broke
the sparrow's wing.
Ye can read old Nature's history that's writ in rocks
an' stones,
Ye can see her throbbin' vitals an' her mighty rack
o' bones,
But the soul o' her—the livin' God, a little child
may know
No lens er rule o' cipherin' can ever hope t' show. ”

“ FAITH
Being some words of counsel from an old Yankee to his son Bill when the latter is about to enter college.
Faith, Bill? You remember how ye used to wake
an' cry,
An' when I lit a candle how the bugaboos 'u'd fly?
Well, faith is like a father in the dark of every
night—
It tells ye not t' be afraid, an' mebbe strikes a
light.
Now, don't expect too much o' God, it wouldn't
be quite fair
If fer anything ye wanted ye could only swap a
prayer;
I'd pray fer yours, an' you fer mine, an' Deacon
Henry Hospur,
He wouldn't hev a thing t' do but lay abed an'
prosper. ”

“ We close the ranks, and they break again, when a
dozen more fall dying;
And some too hurt to use their guns stand up with
the others trying.
"Lie down an' give 'em a volley, boys—quick there,
every one!
"Lie down, you little devils!—Down! It's better
to die than run."
And huddling under the tender wheat, the living lay
down with the dead,
And you couldn't have lifted your finger then
without touching a piece of lead.
"Look up in the sky and see the shells go over
a-whiskin' their tails";
"Better not lift yer hand too high or the bullets
'll trim yer nails." ”

“ If all things come so easy, Bill, they'd hev but little
worth,
An' some one with a gift o' prayer 'u'd mebbe own
the earth.
It's the toil ye give t' git a thing—the sweat an'
blood an' care—
That makes the kind o' argument that ought to
back yer prayer.
Fer the record o' yer doin'—I believe the soul is
planned
With some self-workin' register t' tell jest how ye
stand.
An' it won't take any cipherin' t' show, that
fearful day,
If ye've multiplied yer talents well, er thrown 'em
all away. ”

“ Lie low in the grass till the troopers pass and then
they creep over the trail.
The trumpets have sounded—the General shouts!
He pulls up and turns to the rear;
"We can't go back—they've covered our track—
we've got t' fight 'em here."
He rushes a troop to the point of the ridge, where
the valley opens wide,
And Smith deploys a line of the boys to stop the
coming tide.
A fire flames up on the skirt of the hills; in every
deep ravine
The savages yell, like the fiends of hell, behind a
smoky screen.
"Where's Reno?" said Custer. "Why don't he
charge? ”

“ WHISPERIN' BILL So ye 're runnin' fer Congress, mister? Le 'me tell
ye 'bout my son—
Might make you fellers carefuller down there in
Washington—
He clings to his rifle an' uniform—folks call him
Whisperin' Bill;
An' I tell ye the war ain't over yit up here on
Bowman's Hill.
This dooryard is his battle-field—le's see, he was nigh
sixteen
When Sumter fell, an' as likely a boy as ever this
world has seen ”

“ And when the battalion stood in line we heard the
welcome warning:
"Breckinridge needs the help o' the corps; be
ready to march in the morning."
And many a boastful tale was told, through the
lingering hours of night,
And the teller fenced with airy foes and showed
how heroes fight. ”

“ I knowed we never could win it.
"Custer is dead—they're all of 'em dead an' I
shall be dead in a minute."
They're all of them down at the top of the ridge;
the sabre cross and 7
On many a breast, as it lies at rest, is turned to the
smoky heaven.
Three wounded men are up and away; they're
running hard for their lives,
While bloody corses of riders and horses are
quivering under the knives.
Some troopers watch from a distant hill with hope
that never tires ”

“ And the troopers who met us, riding fast from the
thick of the army hives,
Said: "Sigel has come with an awful force, and
ye'll have to fight fer yer lives."
But we wanted to fight, and the peril of war never
weakened our young desires,
And the third day out we camped at dusk in sight
of the picket fires ”

“ Fer de loss o' me leg, t'ree times a year, I gets me
little wad,
But dere ain't any pension fer losin' yer heart
unless it comes from Gawd.
If anythin' busts ye there, me boy, I t'ink ye'll be
apt t' find
Ye'll either drop out o' de game o' life, er else go
lame in yer mind.
I never c'u'd know de reason why, till de lady
helt me head,
Dat a man 'll go broke fer de woman he loves er
mebbe fight till he's dead.
When I t'inks dat I never had no friends an' what
am I livin' fer? ”

“ How he—Fide Scott—was hankerin' fer suthin'
fit to eat
"———!" says he. "Le's you an' me go out an'
find some meat."
We paddled off a-whisperin' beneath the long birch
limbs
An' we snooked along as silent as a sucker when
he swims;
I could hear him slow his paddle as eroun' the
turns he bore;
I could hear his neck a-creakin' while his eye run
up the shore.
An' soon we come acrost a buck as big an' bold
as sin
An' Philo took t' swallerin' to keep his
feelin's in ”

“ An' he added, kind o' sorrowful, an' hove a mighty
sigh:
"I'd be 'shamed t' meet another deer an' look him
in the eye.
God knows a man that p'ints so never orter hev no
grub,
What game are you expectin' fer t' slaughter with
a club?" ”