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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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bended shoulders the coffin of their honor. And the youthful lieutenant, recollecting himself, be- gan to mutter softly in black curses. They turned when they arrived at their old position to regard the ground over which they had charged. The youth in this contemplation was smitten with a large astonishment. He discovered that the distances, as compared with the brilliant measurings of his mind, were trivial and ridicu- lous. The stolid trees, where much had taken place, seemed incredibly near. The time, too, now that he reflected, he saw to have been short. He wondered at the number of emotions and events that had been crowded into such little spaces. Elfin thoughts must have exaggerated and enlarged everything, he said. It seemed, then, that there was bitter justice in the speeches of the gaunt and bronzed vet- erans. He veiled a glance of disdain at his fel- lows who strewed the ground, choking with dust, red from perspiration, misty-eyed, disheveled. They were gulping at their canteens, fierce to wring every mite of water from them, and they polished at their swollen and watery features with coat sleeves and bunches of grass. However, to the youth there was a consider- able joy in musing upon his performances during the charge. He had had very little time pre- viously in which to appreciate himself, so that there was now much satisfaction in quietly think- ing of his actions. He recalled bits of color that in the flurry had stamped themselves unawares upon his engaged senses. As the regiment lay heaving from its hot exer- tions the officer who had named them as mule drivers came galloping along the line. He had lost his cap. His tousled hair streamed wildly, and his face was dark with vexation and wrath. |
