A Yankee Girl at Shiloh

								

country, who had thought it an amusing game to frighten the small boy
for whom he had mistaken Berry.
As he walked along the ridge and down the slope to his cabin Mr.
Arnold thought to himself that, as his wife had said that noon,
however the conflict went between the armies of the North and the
South, there was small danger of its coming nearer to Shiloh church
than the defensive line of the Confederates at the river forts, and
which stretched on through Kentucky from the Mississippi River to the
Cumberland Mountains. The control of this defense was in the hands of
General Albert Sidney Johnston, a man respected alike by his opponents
and his soldiers. His line of defense included Fort Henry, on the
right bank of the Tennessee, and Fort Donelson, on the left bank
of the Cumberland River; and Mr. Arnold was confident that General
Ulysses S. Grant, the commander of Union forces in the West, would not
long delay in an attempt to conquer these river strongholds. “With
those forts destroyed Grant’s army could soon break the whole western
line of defense,” reflected Mr. Arnold, little realizing that within a
month this very thing would be accomplished.
Before Mr. Arnold reached home the sky filled with heavy clouds and it
began to snow. “Glad Berry is indoors,” he thought, as he approached
the cabin and saw the dancing blaze of the sitting-room fire shine out
through the windows. Berry and her mother were on the settle beside
the fire busy with sewing.
“It looks just like my things, only smaller,” said Berry, holding up a
blue serge blouse.
“Only Mollie’s suit is a skirt and blouse, instead of knickerbockers,”
her mother smilingly reminded her.
“Well, Mollie would like knickerbockers, but her father never would
let her wear them,” said Berry. “Why does Mr. Bragg think I ought to
wear long calico skirts, I wonder? I could not run or climb trees or
jump across brooks if I wore skirts. Mollie is always tearing hers,
and tumbling down when she runs after me.”
“Mr. Bragg doesn’t really think, my dear. He simply echoes,” responded
Mrs. Arnold. “But I am sure Mollie will like her new skirt.”
“Won’t she be surprised, Mother, to have a birthday party? And on the
very day school begins. The minute Mrs. Bragg said that January tenth
was Mollie’s birthday I thought I’d make her a present; but it was you
who thought of a party,” and Berry gazed admiringly at her pretty,
smiling mother, who was always thinking of such interesting things for
little girls to do. For it was Mrs. Arnold who had suggested ripping
up a blue serge skirt of her own and making a blouse and skirt of it
for Mollie. But it was Berry who, with her mother’s help, had cut out
blouse and skirt, and who had stitched the seams and embroidered a
star in red worsted on the corners of the collar.
When the Arnolds came to Tennessee they had brought a good store of