A Yankee Girl at Shiloh

								

dinner cooked in the open air, Berry was always well pleased when her
father set off in that direction; and on hearing that he intended to
start as soon as the sun was well up she quite forgot her plan to
visit Lick Creek.
Berry helped her mother clear the table and wash the dishes while her
father selected the few tools he would need, and also packed a small
basket with food for their midday meal; and when he called “All ready
for the trail,” Berry slipped on her brown corduroy jacket and her
knitted cap of scarlet wool and was ready to start.
“If there is a letter from Francis in the mail-box I will bring it
home as fast as I can, Mother,” she promised, as Mrs. Arnold stood on
the porch to watch them start.
“We will be home before sunset,” Mr. Arnold promised, and followed
Berry, who was running down the trail.
Mrs. Arnold stood looking after them for a moment, smiling at
Berry’s delight in starting off for a day in the woods, and thinking
gratefully of her husband’s improvement in health. Their cabin was
several miles from any neighbors, and Mrs. Arnold had in the first
months of their stay often been homesick for the friends and home
she had left so far away among the peaceful hills of Vermont. But
gradually the peace and quiet of their simple life in the hillside
cabin, Berry’s happiness in playing out-of-doors, and, best of all,
the improvement in Mr. Arnold’s health, reconciled her to the exile
from New England. Often she accompanied her husband and Berry on
their excursions, but this morning she intended writing a long letter
to her soldier son.
Before Berry and her father reached the mail-box, that was fastened
to a stout oak tree on the highway, the veil of snow had nearly
disappeared, and the piles of brown leaves along the trail glistened
in the morning sun. There was nothing in the box, and Mr. Arnold and
Berry turned back into a path that would lead them direct to Shiloh
church. A flock of bluejays started up from the underbrush and went
scolding and screaming into the branches of a tall chestnut tree,
their blue feathers and crested heads catching the sunlight and
brightening the shadowy path. Berry gazed after them wonderingly. “I
do think it’s a pity they squawk so,” she said thoughtfully, “when
they are so lovely to look at. And the mocking-birds are so plain and
gray.”
Berry had become familiar with the birds who nested near the woodland
cabin, and had learned much about their ways. She knew that the
handsome jay was a thief who ate the eggs from the nests of other
birds and sometimes even destroyed the birds. She knew where the
fine cardinal in his scarlet coat, and Madam Cardinal in her more
modest colors, made their nest in the underbrush along the banks of
the ravine; and the tiny wrens who fluttered about the trail were her
friends. But, best of all, Berry loved the mocking-birds, with their