Stories by
American Authors
VOLUME VIII
| THE BRIGADE COMMANDER | ZERVIAH HOPE | |
| BY J. W. De FOREST | BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS | |
| SPLIT ZEPHYR | THE LIFE-MAGNET | |
| BY HENRY A. BEERS | BY ALVEY A. ADEE | |
| OSGOOD’S PREDICAMENT | ||
| BY ELIZABETH D. B. STODDARD | ||
Copyright, 1884, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
copyright, and are printed here by authority of the authors or their representatives.
THE BRIGADE COMMANDER.
By J. W. De Forest.
⁂ New York Times.
The Colonel was the idol of his bragging old regiment and of thebragging brigade which for the last six months he had commanded.
He was the idol, not because he was good and gracious, not because hespared his soldiers or treated them as fellow-citizens, but because hehad led them to victory and made them famous. If a man will winbattles and give his brigade a right to brag loudly of its doings, hemay have its admiration and even its enthusiastic devotion, though hebe as pitiless and as wicked as Lucifer.
“It’s nothin’ to me what the Currnell is in prrivit, so long as heshows us how to whack the rrebs,” said Major Gahogan, commandant ofthe “Old Tenth.” “Moses saw God in the burrnin’ bussh, an’ bowed downto it, an’ worrshipt it. It wasn’t the bussh he worrshipt; it was hisGod that was in it. An’ I worrship this villin of a [Pg 6]Currnell (if heis a villin) because he’s almighty and gives us the vict’ry. He’snothin’ but a human burrnin’ bussh, perhaps, but he’s got the god ofwar in um. Adjetant Wallis, it’s a —— long time between dhrinks, asI think ye was sayin’, an’ with rayson. See if ye can’t confiscate acanteen of whiskee somewhere in the camp. Bedad, if I can’t buy itI’ll stale it. We’re goin’ to fight to-morry, an’ it may be it’s thelast chance