A Yankee Girl at Shiloh

								

“Wouldn’t it be splendid if Francis was here?” she said, as she and
her father began their luncheon.
“Not much hope of seeing Francis this winter,” replied Mr. Arnold.
“I hate war!” Berry declared, breaking open a well-baked potato, and
proceeding to sprinkle salt on it. “If it were not for war Francis
would be here this minute.”
“No; Francis would be in college,” her father rejoined.
“What’s college?” Berry demanded.
“Why, Berenice Isabel Arnold!” exclaimed her father in amazement. “I
will have to turn schoolmaster and keep you shut in the house with
books if you really do not know the meaning of ‘college’!”
Berry shook her head: her mouth was filled with hot potato, and she
could not speak.
“College is a school where young men like Francis learn more important
things than can be taught to younger boys,” explained her father. “And
I have made up my mind, Berry; to-morrow your regular lessons begin.”
“Oh, Father! Not like the school at home?” Berry pleaded. “Not
geography and maps, and arithmetic and sums, and grammar and
compositions?”
“Exactly! It will never do for a little Yankee girl, even if she does
live in Tennessee, to grow up without an education. School will begin
to-morrow!” replied Mr. Arnold.
“Then Mollie Bragg will have to go to school with me,” Berry declared.

                              CHAPTER II



                             MOLLIE BRAGG

The nearest neighbors to the Arnolds were a family named Bragg, who
lived in a cabin some three miles distant, near the road leading to
Corinth. The Braggs’ cabin was not a comfortable, convenient home
such as the Arnolds had made their own mountain cabin. The doors of
the Braggs’ cabin sagged from clumsy leather hinges; the floor of the
rough porch was broken here and there, so that anyone entering the
house had to be careful where he stepped. Mr. Bragg announced each day
that he was “gwine ter try mighty hard to find time to fix that po’ch,
an’ mend up the roof.” But days, weeks, and months went by and no
repairs were made, although Mr. Bragg spent long hours on the porch,
tilted back against the house in an old chair, smoking, and, as he
would promptly explain to any visitor, “tryin’ to rest up.”
Indoors Mrs. Bragg swept and scoured, mended the poor garments of
her family, and tried her best to make the rough place pleasant for
her children. Mollie Bragg, the youngest of the family, was a little
girl about the age of Berenice Arnold, but not as tall or strongly
built as Berry. Mollie’s eyes were a pale blue, her hair, which hung
straight about her thin little face, was a pale yellow, and her arms
and legs were so thin that Berry sometimes wondered that they did
not break as Mollie ran down the rough mountain paths, or valiantly
followed Berry in climbing a tall tree to peer into the nest of a
robin or yellowhammer. Mollie’s elder sister had left home, the year