He found Clark solemnly prodding the hard dirt floor
Of a negro cabin, while Ellis lighted the task
With a splinter of burning pine. His rage exploded
In boiling lava. They listened respectfully.
“And next time, I give you an order,” he ended up,
“Why you ⸻ ⸻ ⸻” Clark wiped his face with his sleeve.
“Sorry, Sergeant,” he said in an awed, low voice.
“Well you better be! What the hell do you think you’re at,
Playin’ tit-tat-toe or buryin’ somebody’s dog?”
“Well, Sergeant,” said Ellis, humbly, “I allus heard
They buried stuff, sometimes, under these here cabins.
Well, I thought we could take a look—well—” “Huh?” said Bailey
He seized the torch and looked at the trodden floor
For an instant. Then his pride and his rage returned.
“Hell’s fire!” he said, and threw the splinter aside,
“That’s just about what you would think, you and Clark.
Come out of there on the double! Yes, I said you!”
They were halfway down the driveway when Ellis spoke.
“Sergeant,” he said. “There’s somethin’ on fire back there.”
Bailey stopped—looked back—a smoke-puff climbed in the sky
And the wind was high. He hesitated a moment.
The cabin must have caught from the burning splinter.
Then he set his jaw. Well, suppose the cabin had caught?
—Damned old woman in black who called him a thief.
Serve her right if all her cabins burnt up.
The house wouldn’t catch—and here they were, losing time—
“Oh well,” he said. “That nigger’ll put it out.
It ain’t our detail—mosey along with it there—
The Cap won’t mind if we run it on him a little,
Now we got the Colonel’s squab, but we better step.”
They hurried along. The smoke rose higher behind them.
The wind blew the burning flakes on Wingate Hall.
Sally Dupré stared out of her bedroom window
As she had stared many times at that clump of trees,
And saw the smoke rise out of it, thick and dark.
They hadn’t had much trouble at Appleton.
It was too far off the main road—and, as for the slaves,
Those who straggled after the troops were better away.
The aunts complained, of course—well, the aunts complained.
They were old, and, at least, they had a man in the house,
Even if the man were but crippled old Uncle Paul.
It was the end of the world for him and the aunts.
It wasn’t for her. The years had worn on her youth,
Much had worn, but not the crook from her smile
Nor the hidden lightness out of her narrow feet.
She looked at the smoke again, and her eyes were grey
And then they were black as that smoke. She felt the fire
Run on her flesh. “It’s Wingate Hall and it’s burning!
House that married my lover before he saw me,
You are burning, burning away in a little smoke,
Burning the wall between us with your fierce burning,
Burning the strife between us in your black flame,
Burning down.” She trod for an instant there
A light glass floor of omen, brighter than sleet
Over a hurtless fire. Then she caught her breath.
The flesh was cool, the blackness died from her eyes.
“We’ll have to get the slaves if the slaves will go.
I know Ned will. I’m not sure about Bob or Jim.
Uncle Paul must give me his pistol. I’ll have to start them.
They won’t go without me. The aunts won’t be any use.
Why wouldn’t she come over here when we all first heard?
I know why she wouldn’t. I never liked her so much.
Hurry, Sally!” She ran downstairs like the wind.
They worked at the Hall that night till the dawn came up,
Two smoke-stained women, Cudjo and Bob and Ned,
But when the dawn had risen, the Hall was gone
And Elspeth’s candles would not light it again.
Wingate wearily tried to goad
A bag of bones on a muddy road
Under the grey and April sky
While Bristol hummed in his irony
“If you want a good time, jine the cavalry!
Well, we jined it, and here we go,
The last event in the circus-show,
The bareback boys in the burnin’ hoop
Mounted on cases of chicken-croup,
The rovin’ remains of the Black Horse Troop!
Though the only horse you could call real black
Is the horsefly sittin’ on Shepley’s back,
But, women and children, do not fear,
They’ll feed the lions and us, next year.
And, women and children, dry your eyes,
The Southern gentleman never dies.
He just lives on by his strength of will
Like a damn ole rooster too tough to kill
Or a brand-new government dollar-bill
That you can use for a trousers-patch
Or lightin’ a fire, if you’ve got a match,
Or makin’ a bunny a paper collar,
Or anythin’ else—except a dollar.
Old folks, young folks, never you care,
The Yanks are here and the Yanks are there,
But no Southern gentleman knows despair.
He just goes on in his usual way,
Eatin’ a meal every fifteenth day
And showin’ such skill in his change of base
That he never gets time to wash his face
While he fights with a fury you’d seldom find
Except in a Home for the Crippled Blind,
And can whip five Yanks with a palmleaf hat,
Only the Yanks won’t fight like that.
Ladies and gentlemen, here we go!
The last event in the minstrel show!
Georgia’s genuine gamboliers,
(Ladies and gentlemen, dry those tears!)
See the sergeant, eatin’ the hay
Of his faithful horse, in a lifelike way!
See the general, out for blood,
And try to tell the man from the mud!
See the platoon in its savage lair,
A half-grown boy on a wheezy mare.
Ladies and gentlemen, pass the hat!
We’ve got one trick that you won’t forget,
‘The Vanishin’ Commissariat’
And nobody’s found the answer yet!
Here we go, here we go,
The last parade of the circus-show,
Longstreet’s orphans, Lee’s everlastin’s
Half cast-iron and half corn-pone,
And if gettin’ to heaven means prayer and fastin’s
We ought to get there on the fasts alone.
Here we go with our weddin’ bells,
Mr. Davis’s immortelles,
Mr. Lincoln’s Thanksgivin’ turkey,
Run right ragged but actin’ perky,
Chased right handsome, but still not carved,
—We had fleas, but the fleas all starved.
We had rations and new recruits,
Uniforms and cavalry-boots,
Must have mislaid, for we can’t find ’em.
They all went home with their tails behind ’em.
Here we are, like the old man’s mutton,
Pretty well sheared, but not past buttin’,
Lee’s last invalids, heart and hand,
All wropped up in a woolen band,
Oh, Dixie land … oh, Dixie land! …”
He tossed his hat and caught it again
And
