And, besides, he said often to himself with amusement, he had Carolus Depew!
It was Carolus who had told him, one evening in July, about the Pennsylvania monument. Carolus had served in a different regiment, without injury and with a thousand brave adventures. He was talking about them now.
"I'm going! I'm going back to that place. I could find it. I know where I knocked that feller down with the butt of my gun when my ammunition gave out. I know exactly where I stood when the captain said, 'Give 'em hell, Carolus!' The captain and me, we was pretty intimate."
The blind man smiled, his busy hands going on with their unending work. When he smiled, his face was indescribably beautiful; one's heart ached for the woman who fifty years ago had had to die and leave him.
Ellen appeared in the doorway, in her short, unbecoming gingham dress. She had inherited none of her father's beauty, and the freshness of her youth was gone. She looked at her father kindly enough, but her voice was harsh. Ellen's life, too, had suffered from war.
"Ellen, Carolus wants me to go with him to Gettysburg in September. A great monument is to be dedicated, and Carolus says our names are to be on it. May I go?"
Ellen turned swiftly away. Sometimes her father's cheerfulness nearly broke her heart.
"I've reckoned it all out," said Carolus. "We can do it for twenty dollars. We ought to get transportation. Somebody ought to make a present to the veterans, the Government ought to, or the trusts, or the railroads."
"Where will we stay?" asked Gunner Criswell. His hands trembled suddenly and he laid down the stiff reeds.
"They'll have places. I bet they'll skin us for board, though. The minute I get there I'm going straight to that monument to hunt for my name. They'll have us all arranged by regiments and companies. I'll find yours for you."
The hand of the blind man opened and closed. He could find his own name, thank Heaven! he could touch it, could press his palm upon it, know that it was there, feel it in his own soul—Adam Criswell. His calm vanished, his passive philosophy melted in the heat of old desires relit, desire for fame, for power, for life. He was excited, discontented, happy yet unhappy. Such an experience would crown his life; it would be all the more wonderful because it had never been dreamed of. That night he could not sleep. He saw his name, Adam Criswell, written where it would stand for generations to come. From that time on he counted the days, almost the hours, until he should start for Gettysburg.