Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1895-11-13
FROM THE RANKS.
BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING.
Copyright, 1894, by the ]. B. Lippncott Co.
CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER Ill.
When Mrs. Maynard came to Sibley
in May and the officers with their wives
we're making their welcoming call she
had with motherly pride and pleasure
Welded to their constant opportunities
and shown to one party after another an
album Of Observation-Disclosures Of her
only daughter. There were little cartes
de visite representing her in long dresses
and baby caps; quaint little pictures Of
a chubby faced, chubby legged infant a
few months older; charming studies of
a little girl with great black eyes and
delicate features; then of tall, slender
slip Of maiden, decidedly foreign look
ing; then Of sweet and pensive face,
with great dark eyes, long, beautiful
curling lashes and very heavy, low
arched brows, exquisitely nodded mouth
and chin ard most luxuriant dark hair;
then others, still older, in every variety
of dress, even in fancy costume, such as
the girl had worn at fair or masquerade.
These and others still had Mrs. May
nard shown them, with repressed pride
and pleasure, and with sweet acknowl-
edgment of their enthusiastic praises.
Alice still tarried in the east, visiting
relatives whom she had not seen since
her fathers death three years earlier,
and long before she came to join her
mother at Sibley and to enter upon the
life she so eagerly looked forward to-
"'way out in the west, you know, with
officers and soldiers and the band and
buffalo and Indians all around YOU
there was not an officer or an officers
wife who had not delightedly examined
that album. There was still another
picture, but that one had been shown to
only q chosen few just one week after
her daughters arrival, and rather all
absurd scene had occurred, in which
that most estimable officer, Lieutenant
Sloat, had figured as the hero. A more
simple minded, well intentioned fellow
than Sloat there did not live. He was
so full of kindness and good nature and
readiness to do anything for anybody
that it never seemed to occur to him
that everybody on earth was not just as
ready to be equally accommodating.
He was a perpetual source Of delight to
the colonel and one of the most loyal
and devoted of subalterns, despite the
fact that his locks were long silvered
with the frosts Of years and that he had
fought through the war Of the rebellion
and risen to the rank of field officer in
Maynard's old brigade. The most tenn
perate of men ordinarily, the colonel
had one anniversary he loved to cele-
brate, and Sloat was his standby when
the Sd of July came round, just as he
had been at his shoulder at that supreme
moment when, needless Of the fearful
sweep of shell and canister through
their shattered ranks, Pickett's heroic
Virginians breasted the slope Of Gene
terry Hill and surged over the low stone
wall into Cushing's guns. Hard, stub
born fighting had Maynard's men to do
that day, and for serene courage and
determination no man had beaten Sloat.
Both officers had bullet hole mementos
to carry from that field, both had won
their brevets for conspicuous gallantry,
and Sloat was happy and grateful man
when, years afrerward, his old command
er secured him a lieutenancy in the
regular service. he was the colonel's
henchman, although he never had brains
enough to win place on the reglmental
staff, and when Mrs. Maynard came he
overwhelmed her with cunbrous COM
pliments and incessant calls. He was,
to his confident belief, her chosen and
accepted knight for full two days after
her arrival Then Jerrold came back
from a brief absence, and as in duty
bound went to pay his respects to his
colonel's wife, and that night there had
been a singular scene. Mrs. Maynard
had stopped suddenly in her laughing
chat with two ladies, had started from
her seat, wildly staring at the tall,
slender subaltern who entered the gate
way, and then fell back in her chair,
fairly swooning as he made his bow.
Sloat had rushed into the house to call
the colonel and get some water, while
Jerrold stood paralyzed at so strange a
reception of his first call. Mrs. Maynard
revived presently, explained that it was
her heart, or the heat, or something, and
the ladies on their way home decided
that it was possibly the heart, it was
certainly not the heat, it was unques-
tionably something, and that something
was Jerrold, for she never took her eyes
off him during the entire evening and
seemed unable to shake off the fascina-
tion. Next day Jerrold dined there, and
from that time on he was daily visitor.
Every one noted Mrs. Maynard's strong
interest in him, but no one could ac-
count for it. She was old enough to be
his mother, said the garrison, but not
until Alice Renwick came did another
consideration appear. Hewas singularly
like the daughter. Both were tall, 1.-the,
slender. Both had dark, lustrous eyes;
dark, though almost perfect, skin, ex-
quisitely chiseled features and slender,
shapely hands and feet. Alice was "the
picture Of her father" said Mrs. May
nard, and Mr.. Renwick had lived all
his life in New York, while Mr. Jerrold
was of an old southern family and his
mother a Cuban beauty who was the
toast of the New Orleans clubs not many
years before the war.
Poor Sloat! He did not fancy Jerrold