The Better Angels of Our Nature Read Online Free PDF Page B

Brigade, commanded by Colonel Buckland. He watched as the men went about their important business, serving breakfast to the wounded and sick inside the tents, while two men the corporal identified as doctors did their daily rounds, moving from cot to cot examining and then discussing the patients.
    While the boy watched and ate, still wrapped in the blanket like an Indian squaw, the corporal, whose name was Cornelius Grimes, and who, between cooking for the patients and generally making himself useful, talked. He seemed to like to talk more than anything, mostly about those he served with.
    “…the Dutchman, Sergeant De Groot? He’s okay, I guess, fer a Barble reader. Reads the Barble like it was—” He blinked his lidless eyes rapidly as he thought about it. “—Well, like it was a Barble, I guess,” he concluded and burst into a wet laughter that sprayed the boy with spittle. “Queer thing, though, he reads the Barble but he don’t go to church,” he continued quizzically, scratching his few gray hairs. “I been ’round ’im two months or more and I ain’t ever seen ’im go ter church. If’in he’s so taken with the Barble why don’t he go ter church like other ree-li-jus folk, that’s what I wanna know.”
    Army food was another of his favorite themes.
    “Hardtack.” He crumbled the large dense cracker into the bacon grease the boy had left on his plate. “Ain’t no mystery. Shortenin’ and flour. Only mystery is how a man can stay alive on these things. Boys call ’em wormcastles on account a the weevols and maggits livin’ in thar.” On his plate was now a wholly indigestible mess, which the old soldier proceeded to eat with undisguised relish, a starving man tucking into the greatest banquet ever set before a king. “Ain’t no point wastin’ good bac’n grease. If’in yer break up yer hard bread into yer coffee an see those weevils a swimmin’ around on the surface yer just skim ’em off this away.” He showed the boy. “An’ they don’t leave no taste, well, hardly any. That’s a-why most boys is shy a drinkin’ thar coffee in tha dark. No tellin’ what yer might swallow!” He laughed his crazy cackling laughter, giving the boy his second showering of the morning, and then shoveled the mess into his toothless mouth. “If’in yer can’t eat ’em, yer just hurl it at Johnny Reb.” He produced a clay pipe with a stem as long as his arm and nearly as thin. He looked across at the tent where two doctors were engaged in animated debate. Actually, the younger of the two was animated; the older man was merely listening with set, arrogant features. “Them sawbones know nuthin’, they’s jest guessin’ most a the time. If they cures us they takes the cred-ite, if they kills us they go blaming God a’mighty. What you got in that knapsack yer keep aholdin’?” Cornelius fixed the boy with his red-rimmed eyes buried in so many sun-baked wrinkles it was impossible to see where the sockets began and the wrinkles ended.
    “Bread and cheese and an apple,” said the boy, “given to me by General Sherman. I would consider it an honor to share them with you at suppertime.” Jesse brought the food from his knapsack and the wily old corporal stared at the
real
baked bread with the dark brown crusty edges and soft, white interior. “I don’t expect to be around here for too long.”
    “Why’s that, boy, where yer plannin’ on goin’, Richmond?” Cornelius dug something out of his bulbous, pockmarked nose.
    “No sir, but I expect to become one of General Sherman’s servants.”
    “Is that a fact? Well, yer expicktitions is gonna be disappointed. Gen’als don’t need servints, they git dumb-arsed niggers to fetch an carry and such like, and them orderlies git the best jobs, like ridin’ round the country deliverin’ messages no one, least of all other gen’als, wants ter hear, and secondly what makes yer reckon the gen’al even knows yer alive?”
    “I told you, sir, it