|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
 |
||||
|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
|
|
||||
|
jetted toward the retreating band. A rolling gray cloud again interposed as the regiment dog- gedly replied. The youth had to depend again upon his misused ears, which were trembling and buzzing from the melee of musketry and yells. The way seemed eternal. In the clouded haze men became panicstricken with the thought that the regiment had lost its path, and was proceed- ing in a perilous direction. Once the men who headed the wild procession turned and came push- ing back against their comrades, screaming that they were being fired upon from points which they had considered to be toward their own lines. At this cry a hysterical fear and dismay beset the troops. A soldier, who heretofore had been am- bitious to make the regiment into a wise little band that would proceed calmly amid the huge- appearing difficulties, suddenly sank down and buried his face in his arms with an air of bowing to a doom. From another a shrill lamentation rang out filled with profane allusions to a general. Men ran hither and thither, seeking with their eyes roads of escape. With serene regularity, as if controlled by a schedule, bullets buffed into men. The youth walked stolidly into the midst of the mob, and with his flag in his hands took a stand as if he expected an attempt to push him to the ground. He unconsciously assumed the atti- tude of the color bearer in the fight of the pre- ceding day. He passed over his brow a hand that trembled. His breath did not come freely. He was choking during this small wait for the crisis. His friend came to him. "Well, Henry, I guess this is good-by--John." "Oh, shut up, you damned fool!" replied the youth, and he would not look at the other. The officers labored like politicians to beat the mass into a proper circle to face the men- |
