Outside Josiah picked his lean chicken and whistled with such peculiar
sweetness as is possible only to the black man. Everything interested
him. Now and then he listened to the varied notes of the missiles far
away and attracting little attention unless men were so near that the
war-cries of shot and shell became of material moment. The day was cold,
and an early November snow lay on the ground and covered the long rows of
cabins. Far to the rear a band was practising. Josiah listened, and with
a negative head-shake of disapproving criticism returned to the feather
picking and sang as he picked:
I wish I was in Dixie land,
In Dixie land, in Dixie land.
He held up the plucked fowl and said, "Must have been on short rations."
The early evening was quiet. Now and then a cloaked horseman went by
noiseless on the snow. Josiah looked up, laid down the chicken, and
listened to the irregular tramp of a body of men. Then, as the head of a
long column came near and passed before him between the rows of huts, he
stood up to watch them. "Prisoners," he said. Many were battle-grimed and
in tatters, without caps and ill-shod. Here and there among them a
captured officer marched on looking straight ahead. The larger part were
dejected and plodded on in silence, with heads down, while others stared
about them curious and from the cabins near by a few officers came out
and many soldiers gathered.
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