[The Littlest Rebel by Edward Peple]@TWC D-Link book
The Littlest Rebel

CHAPTER IV
2/18

The plaster on the walls had broken away in patches, especially above the door, where the sunlight streamed through the gaping wound from a cannon shot.

The door and window shutters were of heavy oak, swinging inward and fastening with bars; yet now they were open, and through them could be seen a dreary stretch of river bottom, withering beneath the rays of a July sun.
Beyond a distant fringe of trees the muddy James went murmuring down its muddy banks, where the blue cranes waited solemnly for the ebbing tide; where the crows cawed hoarsely in their busy, reeling flight, and the buzzards swung high above the marshes.

Yet even in this waste of listless desolation came the echoed boom of heavy guns far down the river, where the "Rebs" and "Yanks" were pounding one another lazily.
From the woods which skirted the carriage road a man appeared--a thin, worn man, in a uniform of stained and tattered gray--a man who peered from right to left, as a hunted rabbit might, then darted across the road and plunged into the briery underbrush.

Noiselessly he made his way to the now deserted cabin, creeping, crawling till he reached a point below an open window, then slowly raised himself and looked within.
"Virgie!" he whispered cautiously.

"Virgie!" No answer came.


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