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Java Foundations: Introduction to Program Design & Data Structures, 4/e
John Lewis, Peter DePasquale, Joseph Chase
Test Bank: Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Graphical User Interfaces

Multiple Choice Questions:

1) The default layout manager used by the JPanel class is the _______________________ layout.

a) flow
b) border
c) box
d) grid
e) gridBag

Answer: a
Explanation: The flow layout is the default layout manager used by JPanel objects.

2) A(n) ___________________ is an object that defines a screen element used to display information or allow the user to
interact with a program in a certain way.

a) GUI
b) component
c) event
d) listener
e) AWT

Answer: b
Explanation: A component is an object that defines a screen element used to display information or allow the user to
interact with a program in a certain way. A GUI is a graphical user interface. An event is an object that represents some
occurrence in which we may be interested. A listener is an object that waits for an event to occur and responds in some way
when it does. AWT stands for the Abstract Windowing Toolkit, which is a package that contains classes related to Java GUIs.

3) A(n) ____________________ is an object that waits for an event to occur and responds in some way when it does.

a) GUI
b) component
c) listener
d) frame
e) panel

Answer: c
Explanation: A listener is an object that waits for an event to occur and responds in some way when it does. A
component is an object that defines a screen element used to display information or allow the user to interact with a program in a
certain way. A GUI is a graphical user interface. A frame is a container that is used to display GUI-based Java applications. A
panel is also a container, but unlike a frame it cannot be displayed on its own.

1
Pearson © 2017
Java Foundations: Introduction to Program Design & Data Structures, 4/e
John Lewis, Peter DePasquale, Joseph Chase
Test Bank: Chapter 6

4) A GUI is being designed that will detect and respond to a mouse event. How many methods must appear in the listener
object for the event?

a) 1
b) 2
c) 3
d) 4
e) 5

Answer: e
Explanation: A listener for a mouse event implements the MouseListener interface. The MouseListener
interface contains specifications for five methods to respond to different types of mouse events that can be detected. Each of
these methods must appear in the listener and have a body. If a method is not needed, its body can be an empty set of { }.

5) A container is governed by a(n) __________________, which determines exactly how the components added to the panel
will be displayed.

a) event
b) content pane
c) JFrame object
d) JPanel object
e) layout manager

Answer: e
Explanation: The layout manager determines exactly how the components added to the panel will be displayed. A
content pane's frame is where all visible elements of a Java interface are displayed. The JFrame and JPanel objects are part of
the AWT package. An event is an object that represents some occurrence in which we may be interested.

6) Which of the following components allows the user to enter typed input from the keyboard.

a) check boxes
b) radio buttons
c) sliders
d) combo boxes
e) none of the above

Answer: e
Explanation: None of the listed components allow typed input. A text field allows typed input from the user.

7) Which of the following components allows the user to select one of several options from a "drop down" menu?

a) check boxes
b) radio buttons
c) sliders
d) combo boxes
e) none of the above

Answer: d
Explanation: Combo boxes allow the user to select one of several options from a "drop down" menu.

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Pearson © 2017
Java Foundations: Introduction to Program Design & Data Structures, 4/e
John Lewis, Peter DePasquale, Joseph Chase
Test Bank: Chapter 6

8) Which of the following layout managers organize the components from left to right, starting new rows as necessary?

a) Border Layout
b) Box Layout
c) Card Layout
d) Flow Layout
e) Grid Layout

Answer: d
Explanation: The flow layout organizes components from left to right, starting new rows as necessary. A border
layout organizes components into five areas: north, south, east, west, and center. The box layout organizes components into a
single row or column. The card layout organizes components into one area such that only one is visible at any time. A grid
layout organizes components into a grid of rows and columns.

9) Which of the following event descriptions best describes the mouse entered event?

a) The mouse button is pressed down

b) The mouse button is pressed down and released without moving the mouse in between
c) The mouse pointer is moved onto a component
d) The mouse button is released
e) The mouse is moved while the mouse button is pressed down

Answer: c
Explanation: The mouse entered event is triggered when the mouse pointer is moved onto a component. Choice a best
describes a mouse pressed event. Choice b best describes a mouse clicked event. Choice d best describes a mouse released event.
Choice e best describes a mouse dragged event.

10) A(n) _______________________ is a graphical window that pops up on top of any currently active window so that the
user can interact with it.

a) component
b) dialog box
c) event
d) listener
e) none of the above

Answer: b
Explanation: The sentence describes a dialog box. Events and listeners are not windows. Components are graphical
elements that appear in windows, but they are not windows.

11) Which of the following is a fundamental idea of good GUI design?

a) Know the user

b) Prevent user errors
c) Optimize user abilities.
d) Be consistent.
e) all of the above

Answer: e
Explanation: All of the choices are fundamental ideas of good GUI design.

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Pearson © 2017
Java Foundations: Introduction to Program Design & Data Structures, 4/e
John Lewis, Peter DePasquale, Joseph Chase
Test Bank: Chapter 6

12) Which of the following best describes a timer component?

a) it starts when a GUI component is first initialized, and ends when it is destroyed
b) it generates action events at regular intervals
c) every object has a timer, and it is implicitly activated in the constructor of the object
d) it determines the amount of time it takes to execute a method
e) a timer cannot be considered a GUI component

Answer: b
Explanation: Choice b is the best description of a timer component. None of the other choices are true statements.

13) Which of the following border styles can make a component appear raised or lowered from the rest of the components?

a) line border
b) etched border
c) bevel border
d) titled border
e) matte border

Answer: c
Explanation: A bevel border can be used to add depth to a component and give it a 3-D appearance.

14) Which of the following represents a dialog box that allows the user to select a file from a disk or other storage medium?

a) color chooser
b) disk chooser
c) tool tip chooser
d) file chooser
e) none of the above

Answer: d
Explanation: A file chooser is a dialog box that allows the user to select a file. A color chooser allows the user to select
a color. There are no dialog boxes in the AWT that represent a tool tip chooser or a disk chooser.

15) Which of the following classes play a role in altering a visual aspect of a component?

a) ColorChooser
b) ToolTip
c) BorderFactory
d) ColorCreator
e) none of the above

Answer: c
Explanation: The BorderFactory class can be used to create borders, and when used with the setBorder()
method, the borders of components can be changed. The other options are not classes that are included with the AWT.

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Pearson © 2017
Java Foundations: Introduction to Program Design & Data Structures, 4/e
John Lewis, Peter DePasquale, Joseph Chase
Test Bank: Chapter 6

True/False Questions:

1) A panel is displayed as a separate window, but a frame can only be displayed as part of another container.
Answer: False
Explanation: A frame is displayed as a separate window, but a panel can only be displayed as part of another container.

2) Layout managers determine how components are visually presented.

Answer: True
Explanation: Every container is managed by a layout manager, which determines how components are visually
presented.

3) Check boxes operate as a group, providing a set of mutually exclusive options.

Answer: False
Explanation: Radio buttons operate as a group, providing a set of mutually exclusive options. Check boxes are
buttons that can be toggled on or off using the mouse, indicating that a particular boolean condition is set or unset.

4) A dialog box allows the user to select one of several options from a "drop down" menu.
Answer: False
Explanation: A combo box allows the user to select one of several options from a "drop down" menu. A dialog box is
a pop-up window that allows for user interaction.

5) The grid layout organizes components into a grid of rows and columns, and also allows components to span more than one
cell.
Answer: False
Explanation: Both the grid and the GridBag layouts organized components into a grid of rows and columns. Only a
GridBag layout allows components to span more than one cell.

6) The keyHit event is called when a key is pressed.

Answer: False
Explanation: The keyPressed event is called when a key is pressed.

7) A tool tip can be assigned to any Swing component.

Answer: True
Explanation: All Swing components can be assigned a tool tip, which is a short line of text that will appear when the
cursor is rested momentarily on top of the component..

8) A color chooser is a dialog box.

Answer: True
Explanation: A color chooser is a dialog box that allows the user to select a color from a palette or using RGB values.

9) When designing a GUI, the ability of the user is not an important consideration. A GUI should be designed with the lowest
common denominator in mind.
Answer: False
Explanation: It is important to design GUIs that are flexible and that support both skilled and unskilled users.

10) A mnemonic is a short line of text that will appear when the cursor is rested momentarily on top of the component.
Answer: False
Explanation: A mnemonic is a character that allows the user to push a button or make a menu choice using the
keyboard in addition to the mouse. A tool-top is a short line of text that will appear when the cursor is rested momentarily on
top of the component.

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Pearson © 2017
Java Foundations: Introduction to Program Design & Data Structures, 4/e
John Lewis, Peter DePasquale, Joseph Chase
Test Bank: Chapter 6

Short Answer Questions:

1) Explain the difference between check boxes and radio buttons.

Answer: A check box sets a boolean condition to true or false. Therefore if there are multiple items listed with check
boxes by each, any or all of them can be checked at the same time. A radio button represents a set of mutually exclusive
options. This means that at any given time, only one option can be selected.

2) Explain the difference between a combo box and a dialog box.

Answer: A combo box is a component that allows the user to select one of several options from a "drop down" menu.
A dialog box is a graphical window that pops up on top of any currently active windows so that the user can interact with it.

3) Give an example of a common use of a dialog box.

Answer: A confirm dialog box presents the user with a simple yes-or-no question. A file chooser is a dialog box that
presents the user with a file navigator that can be used to select a file. A color chooser is a dialog box that allows the user to
select an RGB color.

4) What method in what interface is used in a GUI application to detect that a user typed the letter 'Y'?

Answer: The keyPressed() method in the KeyListener interface can be used to determine which key was
typed.

5) Write a keyPressed method that behaves as follows. If the user presses the up arrow, the method should output "You
pressed up" using the System.out.println method. If the user presses the down arrow, the method should output "You
pressed down" using the System.out.println method.

Answer:

public void keyPressed(KeyEvent event) {

switch(event.getKeyCode()) {
case KeyEvent.VK_UP:
System.out.println("You pressed up.");
break;
case KeyEvent.VK_DOWN:
System.out.println("You pressed down.");
break;
}//end switch
}//end method

6) When, if ever, should a component be disabled?

Answer: A component should be disabled whenever it is inappropriate for the user to interact with it. This minimizes
error handling and special cases.

6
Pearson © 2017
Java Foundations: Introduction to Program Design & Data Structures, 4/e
John Lewis, Peter DePasquale, Joseph Chase
Test Bank: Chapter 6

7) Write a segment of code that will use a dialog box to ask a user to enter their age. Their age will then be stored in an int
variable named userAge. Assume that the necessary import statements to support the dialog box are already in place.

Answer:

int userAge;
String ageStr; // used for user's response
ageStr = JOptionPane.showInputDialog("How old are you"?);
userAge = Integer.parseInt(ageStr);

8) Write a short class that represents a panel with a single radio button that has the option "Yes" and the option "No." By
default, the Yes button should be checked.

Answer:

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;

public class RadioPanel extends JPanel {

private JRadioButton yes, no;

public RadioPanel() {
yes = new JRadioButton("Yes", true);
no = new JradioButton("No");

add(yes);
add(no);
} // end constructor

} // end class RadioPanel

9) Suppose we have created a class called MyGUI, which represents a GUI. Write a program that creates a JFrame object,
adds a MyGUI object to the frame and makes it visible.

Answer:

import javax.swing.*;

public class MyGUIDisplayer {

public static void main(String [] args) {
JFrame frame = new Jframe("My GUI");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

frame.getContentPane().add(new MyGUI());

frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);

} // end main
} // end class MyGUIDisplayer

7
Pearson © 2017
Java Foundations: Introduction to Program Design & Data Structures, 4/e
John Lewis, Peter DePasquale, Joseph Chase
Test Bank: Chapter 6

10) Write a short class that represents a panel with a single slider that has values from 0 to 250, with large tick marks in
increments of 50 and small tick marks in increments of 10.

Answer:

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;

public class SlidePanel extends JPanel {

private JSlider slide;

public SlidePanel() {
slide = new Jslider(JSlider.HORIZONTAL, 0, 255, 0);

slide.setMajorTickSpacing(50);
slide.setMinorTickSpacing(10);
slide.setPaintTicks(true);
slide.setPaintLabels(true);

add(slide);
} // end constructor
} // end class SlidePanel

11) Describe the areas of a border layout.

Answer: Border layout is divided into five areas: North, South, East, West and Center. The North and South areas are
at the top and bottom of the container, respectively, and span the entire width of the container. Sandwiched between them,
from left to right, are the West, Center, and East areas. Any unused area takes up no space, and the others fill in as needed.

12) One of the fundamental ideas of good GUI design is to "know the user". How does "know the user" influence a GUI
design?

Answer: The software has to meet the user's needs. This means not only that it has to do what it is designed to do, but
it also must be software that the user understands how to use. It needs to have an interface that the user is comfortable with in
order to be usable and useful to the user. A person who designs a GUI without an awareness of the user's preferences or skills
is less likely to please the user than someone who takes these into consideration.

13) What is the difference between a mnemonic and a tool tip?

Answer: A mnemonic is a character that allows the user to push a button or make a menu choice using the keyboard in
addition to the mouse. A tool-top is a short line of text that will appear when the cursor is rested momentarily on top of the
component. The difference is that the mnemonic allows for more flexibility on the users end (it allows for multiple methods of
achieving the same task), which a tool-tip is simply a helpful reminder of the role of a particular component and offers no
flexibility on the users end.

8
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Java Foundations: Introduction to Program Design & Data Structures, 4/e
John Lewis, Peter DePasquale, Joseph Chase
Test Bank: Chapter 6

14) Describe the difference between a heavyweight container and a lightweight container. Give an example of each.

Answer: A heavyweight container is a container that is managed by the underlying operating system on which the
program is run, whereas a lightweight container is managed by the Java program itself. A frame is an example of a heavyweight
container and a panel is a lightweight container.

15) When using a box layout, how is the orientation – horizontal or vertical box – specified?

Answer: The orientation is specified as a parameter to the BoxLayout constructor. BoxLayout.Y-AXIS

indicates a vertical box layout. BoxLayout.X-AXIS indicates a horizontal box layout.

9
Pearson © 2017
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House, I hear, reorganising the field-hospital service for the coming
campaign, and his wife is with him. Why not send the girl to her?”
“To Dorothy? Yes, I’ll send her to Dorothy. She will know what to
do.”
He hastily summoned an ambulance for the girl to ride in, and still
more hastily scribbled a note to Dorothy Brent—to her who had been
Dorothy South in the days of her maidenhood before the war. In it he
said:—
I am sending you, under escort, a girl whom my sergeant-major most
daringly rescued this morning from a house on the enemy’s side of the
river, after we had shelled and set fire to the place. She seems too badly
scared, or too something else, for me to find out anything about her. You,
with your womanly tact, will perhaps be able to gain her confidence and
find out what should be done. If she has friends at the North to whom she
should be returned, I will arrange with General Stuart to send her back
across the river under a flag of truce. If she hasn’t any friends, or if for any
other reason she should be kept within our lines, you will know what to do
with her. I am helpless in such a case, and I earnestly invoke the aid of the
very wisest woman I ever knew. When you see the girl—poor, innocent
child that she is—you, who were once yourself a child, and who, in growing
older, have lost none of the sweetness and especially none of the moral
courage of childhood, will be interested, I am very sure, in taking charge of
her for her good.

Having despatched this note, and the girl, under escort, Pollard
turned to Kilgariff, and abruptly asked:—
“Why did you call this coming campaign ‘the greatest and probably
the last campaign’ of the war?”
“Why, all that seems obvious. The Army of the Potomac has at last
found a commander who knows how to handle it, and both sides are
tired of the war. Grant is altogether a different man from McClellan, or
Pope, or McDowell, or Burnside, or Meade. He knows his business. He
knows that the chief remaining strength of the Confederacy lies in the
fighting force of the Army of Northern Virginia. He will strike straight
at that. He will hurl his whole force upon us in an effort to destroy
this army. If he succeeds, the Confederacy can’t last even a fortnight
after that. If he fails, if Lee hurls him back across the Rapidan, broken
and beaten as all his predecessors have been, the North will never
raise another army—if the feeling there is anything like what the
Northern newspapers represent it to be. You see, I’ve been reading
them all the while—but, pardon me, I meant only to answer your
question.”
“Don’t apologise,” answered Pollard. And he wondered who this
man, his sergeant-major, was—whence he had come, and how, and
why. For Captain Marshall Pollard knew absolutely nothing about the
man whom he had made his confidential staff-sergeant, his tent
mate, his bedfellow, and the executant of all his orders. Nevertheless,
he trusted him implicitly. “I do not know his history,” he reflected,
“but I know his quality as a man and a soldier.”
 II

OWEN KILGARIFF

T
HE relations between Pollard and Kilgariff were peculiar. In
many ways they were inexplicable except upon the ground of
instinctive sympathy between two men, each of whom
recognised the other as a gentleman; both of whom were
possessed of scholarly tastes combined with physical vigour and all
that is possible of manliness; both of whom loved books and knew
them intimately; and each of whom recognised in the other
somewhat more than is common of intellectual force.
The history of their acquaintance had been quite unusual.
Marshall Pollard had risen from the ranks to be now the captain of a
battery originally organised and commanded by Captain Skinner, a
West Point graduate who had resigned from the United States army
many years before the war, but not until after he had seen much
service in Mexico and in Indian warfare. The battery had been
composed at the outset of ruffians from the purlieus of Richmond,
jailbirds, wharf-rats, beach-combers, men pardoned out of the
penitentiary on condition of their enlistment, and the friends and
associates of such men. It had been a fiercely fighting battery from
the beginning. Slowly but surely many of the men who had originally
constituted it had been killed in battle, and Virginia mountaineers
had been enlisted to fill their places. In the meanwhile discipline of
the rigidest military sort had wrought a wonderful change for the
better in such of the men as survived from the original organisation.
By the time that the battery returned to Virginia, after covering itself
with glory at Gettysburg, it was no longer a company of ruffians and
criminals, but it continued to maintain its reputation for desperate
fighting and for cool, self-contained, and unfaltering courage. For
those mountaineers of Virginia were desperately loyal to the fighting
traditions of their race.
During the winter of 1863-4 Captain Pollard’s battery was
stationed at Lindsay’s Turnout, on the Virginia Central Railroad a few
miles west of Gordonsville. Indescribable, almost inconceivable mud
was the characteristic of that winter, and General Lee had taken
advantage of it, and of the complete veto it placed upon even the
smallest military operations, to retire the greater part of his army
from the Rappahannock and the Rapidan to the railroads in the rear,
where it was possible to feed the men and the horses, at least in
some meagre fashion.
It was during this stay in winter quarters that Owen Kilgariff had
come to the battery. Whence he came, or how he got there, nobody
knew and nobody could guess. There were only two trains a day on
the railroad; one going east, and the other going west. It was the
duty of strong guards from Pollard’s battery to man the station
whenever a train arrived and inspect the passports of every
passenger who descended from the cars to the platform or passed
from the platform to the cars. Owen Kilgariff had not come by any of
the trains. That much was absolutely certain, and nobody knew any
other way by which he could have come. Yet one evening he
appeared in Pollard’s battery at retreat roll-call and stood looking on
and listening while the orders for the night were being read to the
men.
He was a singularly comely young man of thirty years, or a little
less—tall, rather slender, though very muscular, symmetrical in an
unusual degree, and carrying his large and well-shaped head with
the ease and grace of a trained athlete.
When the military function was ended and the men had broken
ranks, Kilgariff approached Captain Pollard, and with a faultlessly
correct military salute said:—
“Captain, I crave your permission to pass the night with some of
your men. In the morning I think I shall ask you to enlist me in your
battery.”
There was something in the man’s speech and manner which
strongly appealed to Marshall Pollard’s sympathy and awakened his
respect.
“You shall be my own personal guest for the night,” he said; “I
can offer you some bacon and corn bread for supper, and a bundle
of dry broom-straw grass to sleep upon. As for enlistment, we’ll talk
further about that in the morning.”
The evening passed pleasantly. The stranger was obviously a
gentleman to his finger tips. He conversed with rare intelligence and
interest, upon every subject that happened to arise among the
officers who were accustomed to gather in the captain’s hut every
evening, making a sort of club of his headquarters. Incidentally some
one made reference during the evening to some reported Japanese
custom. Instantly but very modestly Kilgariff said:—
“Pardon me, but that is one of many misapprehensions
concerning the Japanese. They have no such custom. The notion
arose originally out of a misunderstanding—a misinterpretation; it
got into print, and has been popularly accepted ever since. Let me
tell you, if you care to listen, what the facts really are.”
Then he went on, by eager invitation, to talk long and
interestingly about Japan and the Japanese—matters then very
slightly known—speaking all the while with the modest confidence of
one who knows his subject, but who is in no sense disposed to
display the extent of his knowledge.
Finally, inquiry brought out the modestly reluctant information
that Kilgariff had been a member—though he avoided saying in what
capacity—of Commodore Perry’s expedition which compelled the
opening of the Japanese ports, and that instead of returning with the
expedition, he had somehow quitted it and made his way into the
interior of the hermit empire, where he had passed a year or two in
minute exploration.
All this was drawn out by questioning only, and in no case did
Kilgariff go beyond the question asked, to volunteer information.
Especially he avoided speaking of himself or of his achievements at
any point in his conversation. He would say, “An American” did this,
“An English-speaking man” saw that, “A foreigner had an
experience,” and so forth. The first personal pronoun singular was
almost completely absent from his conversation.
One of the lieutenants was a Frenchman, and to him Kilgariff
spoke in French whenever that officer seemed at a loss to
understand a statement made in English. The surgeon was a
German, and with him Kilgariff talked in German about scientific
matters, and in such fashion that the doctor said to Pollard next
morning:—
“It is that this man an accomplished physician is, or I mightily
mistaken am already.”
In the morning Owen Kilgariff warmly thanked Captain Pollard for
his entertainment, adding:—
“As one gentleman with another, you have been free to offer, and
I free to accept, your hospitality. Be very sure that I shall not
presume upon this after I become a common soldier under your
command, as I intend to do this morning if I have your permission.”
Pollard protested that his battery was not a proper one for a man
of Kilgariff’s culture and refinement to enlist in, explaining that such
of the men as were not ex-criminals were illiterate mountaineers,
wholly unfit for association on equal terms with him. For answer,
Kilgariff said:—
“I am told that you yourself enlisted here, Captain, when the
conditions were even less alluring than now.”
“Well, yes, certainly. But my case was peculiar.”
“Perhaps mine is equally so,” answered the man. “At any rate, I
very much want to enlist under your command, in a battery that, as
I learn, usually manages to get into the thick of every fight and to
stay there to the end.”
A question was on Pollard’s lips, which he greatly wanted to ask,
but he dared not. With the instinctive shrinking of a gentleman from
the impertinence of personal questioning, Pollard found it impossible
to ask this man how it happened that he was not already a soldier
somewhere. And yet the matter was one which very naturally
prompted questioning. The Confederate conscription laws had long
ago brought into the army every able-bodied man in the South. How
happened it, then, that this man of twenty-eight or thirty years of
age, perfect in physique, had managed to avoid service until this
fourth year of the war? And how was it, that one so manifestly eager
now for service of the most active kind had been willing to keep out
of the army for so long a time?
As if divining the thought which Captain Pollard could not bring
himself to formulate, Kilgariff said:—
“Some day, perhaps, I shall be able to tell you how and why it is
that I am not already a soldier. At present I cannot. But I assure you,
on my honour as a gentleman, that there is absolutely no obstacle in
the way of your enlistment of me in your command. I earnestly ask
you to accept me as one of your cannoniers.”
Accordingly, the man was enrolled as a private in the battery, and
from that hour he never once presumed upon the acquaintance he
had been privileged to form with the officers. With a scrupulosity
greater than was common even in that rigidly disciplined command,
he observed the distinction between officers and enlisted men. His
behaviour indeed was that of one bred under the strict surveillance
of martinet professors in a military school. He did all his military
duties of whatever kind with a like attention to every detail of good
conduct; always obeying like a soldier, never like a servant. That
distinction is broad and very important as an index of character.
The officers liked him, and Pollard especially sought him out for
purposes of conversation. The men liked him, too, though they felt
instinctively that he was their superior. Perhaps their liking for him
was in large part due to the fact that he never asserted or in any
wise assumed his superiority—never recognised it, in fact, even by
implication.
He nearly always had a book somewhere about his person—a
book borrowed in most cases, but bought when there was no
opportunity to borrow, for the man seemed always to have money in
plenty. Now and then he would go to a quartermaster or a
paymaster with a gold piece and exchange it for a great roll of the
nearly worthless Confederate notes. These he would spend for books
or whatever else he wanted.
On one occasion, when the men of the battery had been left for
thirteen bitterly cold days and nights with no food except a meagre
dole of corn meal, Kilgariff bought a farmer’s yoke of oxen that had
become stalled in the muddy roadway near the camp. These were
emphatically “lean kine,” and their flesh would make very tough beef,
but the toughest beef imaginable was better than no meat at all, and
so Kilgariff paid what looked like a king’s ransom for the half-starved
and wholly “stalled” oxen, got two of the men who had had
experience in such work to slaughter and dress them, and asked the
commissary-sergeant to distribute the meat among the men.
The next day he exchanged another gold piece for Confederate
notes enough to paper a goodly sized wall, and the men rightly
guessed that for some reason, known only to himself, this stranger
among them carried a supply of gold coin in a belt buckled about his
waist. But not one of them ever ventured to ask him concerning the
matter. He was clearly not a man to be questioned with regard to his
personal affairs.
Thus it came about that Captain Pollard, who had made this man
successively corporal, sergeant, and finally sergeant-major, solely on
grounds of obvious fitness, actually knew nothing about him, except
that he was an ideally good soldier and a man of education and
culture.
Now that he had become sergeant-major, his association with the
captain was close and constant. The two occupied the same tent or
hut—when they had a tent or hut—messed together, slept together,
and rode side by side whithersoever the captain had occasion to go
on duty. They read together, too, in their idle hours, and talked much
with each other about books, men, and affairs. But never once did
Captain Pollard ask a personal question of his executive sergeant and
intimate personal associate.
Nor did Kilgariff ever volunteer the smallest hint of information
concerning himself, either to the captain or to anybody else. On the
contrary, he seemed peculiarly to shrink even from the accidental or
incidental revelation of anything pertaining to himself.
One day, in winter quarters, a gunner was trying to open a shell
which had failed to explode when fired from the enemy’s battery into
the Confederate lines. The missile burst while the gunner was
handling it, and tore off the poor fellow’s hand. The surgeon had
ridden away somewhither—nobody knew whither—and it was at
least a mile’s distance to the nearest camp where a surgeon might
be found. Meanwhile, the man seemed doomed to bleed to death.
The captain was hurriedly wondering what to do, when Kilgariff
came quietly but quickly, pushed his way through the group of
excited men, knotted a handkerchief, and deftly bound it around the
wounded man’s arm.
“Hold that firmly,” he said to a corporal standing by. “Watch the
stump, and if the blood begins to flow again, twist the loop a trifle
tighter, but not too tight, only enough to prevent a free hemorrhage
—bleeding, I mean.”
Then, touching his cap brim, he asked the captain:—
“May I go to the surgeon’s tent and bring some necessary
appliances? I think I may save this poor fellow’s life, and there is no
time to be lost.”
The captain gave permission, of course, and a few minutes later
Kilgariff returned with a score of things needed. Kneeling, he
arranged them on the ground. Then he examined the wounded
man’s pulse, and with a look of satisfaction saturated a handkerchief
with chloroform from a bottle he had brought. He then turned again
to Captain Pollard, saying:—
 “Will you kindly hold that over the man’s nose and mouth? And
will you put your finger on his uninjured wrist, observing the pulse-
beats carefully? Tell me, please, if any marked change occurs.”
“Why, what are you going to do?” asked the captain.
“With your permission, I am going to amputate this badly
shattered wrist. There is no time to be lost.”
With that, he set to work, pausing only to direct one of the
corporals to keep the men back and prevent too close a crowding
around the patient.
With what seemed to Captain Pollard incredible quickness,
Kilgariff amputated the arm above the wrist, took up the arteries,
and neatly bandaged the wound. Then he bade some of the men
bear the patient on a litter to his hut, and place him in his bunk. He
remained by the poor fellow’s side until the effects of shock and
chloroform had subsided. Then he returned to his quarters quite as if
nothing out of the ordinary routine had happened.
Captain Pollard had seen enough of field surgery during his three
years of active military service to know that Kilgariff’s work in this
case had been done with the skill of an expert, and his astonishment
over this revelation of his sergeant-major’s accomplishment was
great. Nevertheless, he shrank from questioning the man about the
matter, or saying anything to him which might be construed as an
implied question. All that he said was:—
“I thank you, Kilgariff, and congratulate you! You have saved a
good man’s life this day, and God does not give it to many men to do
that.”
“I hope the surgeon will find my work satisfactory,” responded
the sergeant-major. “Is there any soup in the kettle, Tom?”—
addressing the coloured cook. “Bring me a cup of it, please.”
The man’s nerves had gone through a fearful strain, of course, as
every surgeon’s do when he performs a capital operation, and the
captain saw that Kilgariff was exhausted. He offered to send for a
drink of whiskey, but Kilgariff declined it, saying that the hot soup
was quite all he needed. The bugle blowing the retreat call a
moment later, Kilgariff went, quite as if nothing had happened, to
call the roll and deliver the orders for the night.
A little later the surgeon returned and was told what had
happened. After looking at the bandages, and without removing
them, he muttered something in German and walked away to the
captain’s quarters. He was surgeon to this battery only, for the
reason that the company was for the time detached from its
battalion, and must have a medical officer of its own.
Entering the captain’s quarters, the bluff but emotional German
doctor grasped Kilgariff’s hand, and broke forth:—
“It is that you are a brother then as well as a frient already. Why
then haf you not to me that you are a surgeon told it? Ach! I haf
myself that you speak the German forgot. It is only in the German
that I can what I wish to tell you say.”
Then in German the excited doctor went on to lavish praise upon
the younger man for his skill. Presently the captain, seeing how
sorely Kilgariff was embarrassed by the encomiums, came to his
relief by asking:—
“Have you taken off the bandages, Doctor, and examined the
wound?”
“Shade of Esculapius, NO! What am I, that I should with such a
bandaging tamper? One glance—one, what you call, look—quite
enough tells me. This the work of a master is—it is not the work with
which for me to interfere. The man who those bandages put on, that
man knows what the best masters can teach. It is not under the
bandages that I need to look to find out that. Ach, Herr Sergeant-
major, I to you my homage offer. Five years I in the hospitals of
Berlin am, and four years in Vienna. In the army of Austria I am
surgeon for six years. Do I not know?”
Then the doctor began to question Kilgariff in German, to the
younger man’s sore embarrassment. But, fortunately for his reserve,
Kilgariff had the German language sufficiently at his command to
parry every question, and when tattoo sounded, the excited surgeon
returned to his own quarters, still muttering his astonishment and
admiration.
In the morning Captain Pollard asked Kilgariff to ride with him, in
order that they two might the better talk together. But even on
horseback Pollard found it difficult to approach this man upon any
subject that seemed in the least degree personal. It was not that
there was anything repellent, anything combative, and still less
anything pugnacious in Kilgariff’s manner; for there was never
anything of the sort. It was only that the man was so full of a gentle
dignity, so saturated with that reserve which a gentleman
instinctively feels concerning his own affairs that no other gentleman
wishes to intrude upon them.
Still, Pollard had something to say to his sergeant-major on this
occasion, and presently he said it:—
“I did not know until yesterday,” he began, “that you were a
surgeon, Kilgariff.”
“Perhaps I should not call myself that,” interrupted the man, as if
anxious to forestall the captain’s thought. “One who has knocked
about the world as much as I have naturally picks up a good many
bits of useful information—especially with regard to the emergency
care of men who get themselves hurt.”
“Now listen to me, Kilgariff,” said Pollard, with determination.
“Don’t try to hoodwink me. I have never asked you a question about
your personal affairs, and I don’t intend to do so now. You need not
seek by indirection to mislead me. I shall not ask you whether you
are a surgeon or not. There is no need. I have seen too much with
my own eyes, and I have heard too much from our battery surgeon
as to your skill, to believe for one moment that it is of the ‘jack-at-
all-trades’ kind. But I ask you no questions. I respect your privacy, as
I demand respect for my own. But I want to say to you that this
army is badly in need of surgeons, especially surgeons whose skill is
greater than that of the half-educated country doctors, many of
whom we have been obliged to commission for want of better-
equipped men. I learn this from my friend Doctor Arthur Brent, who
tells me he is constantly embarrassed by his inability to find really
capable and experienced surgeons to do the more difficult work of
the general hospitals. He said to me only a week ago, when he came
to the front to reorganise the medical service for this year’s
campaign, that ‘many hundreds of gallant men will die this summer
for lack of a sufficient number of highly skilled surgeons.’ He
explained that while we have many men in the service whose skill is
of the highest, we have not nearly enough of such to fill the places
in which they are needed. Now I want you to let me send you to
Doctor Brent with a letter of introduction. He will quickly procure a
commission for you as a major-surgeon. It isn’t fit that such a man
as you should waste himself in the position of a non-commissioned
officer.”
Not until he had finished the speech did Pollard turn his eyes
upon his companion’s face. Then he saw it to be pale—almost
cadaverous. Obviously the man was undergoing an agonising
struggle with himself.
“I beg your pardon, Kilgariff,” hastily spoke Captain Pollard, “if I
have said anything to wound you; I could not know—”
“It is not that,” responded the sergeant-major. But he added
nothing to the declaration for a full minute afterward, during which
time he was manifestly struggling to control himself. Finally
recovering his calm, he said:—
“It is very kind of you, Captain, and I thank you for it. But I
cannot accept your offer of service. I must remain as I am. I ought
to have remained a private, as I at first intended. It is very
ungracious in me not to tell you the wherefore of this, but I cannot,
and your already demonstrated respect for my privacy will surely
forbid you to resent a reserve concerning myself which I am bound
to maintain. If you do resent it, or if it displeases you in the least, I
beg you to accept my resignation as your sergeant-major, and let me
return to my place among the men as a private in the battery.”
“No,” answered Pollard, decisively. “If the army cannot have the
advantage of your service in any higher capacity, I certainly shall not
let myself lose your intelligence and devotion as my staff-sergeant.
Believe me, Kilgariff, I spoke only for your good and the good of the
service.”
“I quite understand, Captain, and I thank you. But with your
permission we will let matters remain as they are.”
All this occurred about a week before the events related in the
first chapter of this story.
 III

EVELYN BYRD

W
HEN the girl whom Kilgariff had rescued from the burning
building was delivered into Dorothy Brent’s hands, that
most gracious of gentlewomen received her quite as if her
coming had been expected, and as if there had been
nothing unusual in the circumstances that had led to her visit.
Dorothy was too wise and too considerate to question the frightened
girl about herself upon her first arrival. She saw that she was half
scared and wholly bewildered by what had happened to her, added
to which her awe of Dorothy herself, stately dame that the very
young wife of Doctor Brent seemed in her unaccustomed eyes, was a
circumstance to be reckoned with.
“I must teach her to love me first,” thought Dorothy, with the old
straightforwardness of mind. “Then she will trust me.”
So, after she had hastily read Pollard’s note and characterised it
as “just like a man not to find out the girl’s name,” she took the poor,
frightened, fawnlike creature in her arms, saying, with caresses that
were genuine inspirations of her nature:—
“Poor, dear girl! You have had a very hard day of it. Now the first
thing for you to do is to rest. So come on up to my room. You shall
have a refreshing little bath—I’ll give it to you myself with Mammy’s
aid—and then you shall go regularly to bed.”
“But,” queried the doubting girl, “is it permitted to—”
 “Oh, yes, I know you are faint with hunger, and you shall have
your breakfast as soon as Dick can get it ready. Queer, isn’t it, to
take breakfast at three o’clock in the afternoon? But you shall have it
in bed, with nobody to bother you. Fortunately we have some coffee,
and Dick is an expert in making coffee. I taught him myself. I don’t
know, of course, how much or how little experience you have had
with servants, but I have always found that when I want them to do
things in my way, I must take all the trouble necessary to teach
them what my way is. Get her shoes and stockings off quick,
Mammy.”
“I have had little to do with servants,” said the girl, simply, “and
so I don’t know.”
“Didn’t you ever have a dear old mammy? queried Dorothy, thus
asking the first of the questions that must be asked in order to
discover the girl’s identity.
“No—yes. I don’t know. You see, they made me swear to tell
nothing. I mustn’t tell after that, must I?”
“No, you dear girl; no. You needn’t tell me anything. I was only
wondering what girls do when they haven’t a good old mammy like
mine to coddle them and regulate them and make them happy. Why,
you can’t imagine what a bad girl I should have been if I hadn’t had
Mammy here to scold me and keep me straight. Can she, Mammy?”
“Humph!” ejaculated the old coloured nurse. “Much good my
scoldin’ o’ you done do, Mis’ Dorothy. Dere nebber was a chile so
cantankerous as you is always been an’ is to dis day. I’d be ’shamed
to tell dis heah young lady ’bout your ways an’ your manners.
Howsomever, she kin jedge fer herse’f, seein’ as she fin’s you heah
’mong all de soldiers, when you oughter be at Wyanoke a-givin’ o’
dinin’-days, an’ a-entertainin’ o’ yer frien’s. I’se had a hard time with
you, Mis’ Dorothy, all my life. What fer you always a-botherin’ ’bout a
lot o’ sick people an’ wounded men, jes’ as yo’ done do ’bout dem
no-’count niggas down at Wyanoke when dey done gone an’ got
deyselves sick? Ah, well, I spec dat’s what ole mammies is bawn fer
—jes’ to reg’late dere precious chiles when de’re bent on habin’ dere
own way anyhow. Don’ you go fer to listen to Mis’ Dorothy ’bout sich
things, nohow, Mis’—what’s yer name, honey?”
“I don’t think I can tell,” answered the girl, frightened again,
apparently; “at least, not certainly. It is Evelyn Byrd, but there was
something else added to it at last, and I don’t want to tell what the
rest of it is.”
“Then you are a Virginian?” said Dorothy, quickly, surprised into a
question when she meant to ask none.
“I think so,” said the girl; “I’m not quite sure.”
She looked frightened again, and Dorothy pursued the inquiry no
further, saying:—
“Oh, we won’t bother about that. Evelyn Byrd is name enough for
anybody to bear, and it is thoroughly Virginian. Here comes your
breakfast”—as Dick knocked at the door with a tray which Mammy
took from his hands and herself brought to the bed in which the girl
had been placed after her bath. “We won’t bother about anything
now. Just take your breakfast, and then try to sleep a little. You must
be utterly worn out.”
The girl looked at her wistfully, but said nothing. She ate
sparingly, but apparently with the relish of one who is faint for want
of food, the which led Dorothy to say:—
“It was just like a man to send you on here without giving you
something to eat.”
“You are very good to me.” That was all the girl said in reply.
When she had rested, Dorothy sitting sewing in the meanwhile,
the girl turned to her hostess and asked:—
“Might I put on my clothes again, now?”
“Why, certainly. Now that you are rested, you are to do whatever
you wish.”
“Am I? I was never allowed to do anything I wished before this
time—at least not often.”
The remark opened the way for questioning, but Dorothy was too
discreet to avail herself of the opportunity. She said only:—
 “Well, so long as you stay with me, Evelyn, you are to do
precisely as you please. I believe in liberty for every one. You heard
what Mammy said about me. Dear old Mammy has been trying to
govern me ever since I was born, and never succeeding, simply
because she never really wanted to succeed. Don’t you think people
are the better for being left free to do as they please in all innocent
ways?”
There was a fleeting expression as of pained memory on the girl’s
face. She did not answer immediately, but sat gazing as any little
child might, into Dorothy’s face. After a little, she said:—
“I don’t quite know. You see, I know so very little. I think I would
like best to do whatever you please for me to do. Yes. That is what I
would like best.”
“Would you like to go with me to my home, and live there with
me till you find your friends?”
“I would like that, yes. But I think I haven’t any friends—I don’t
know.”
“Well,” said Dorothy, “sometime you shall tell me about that—
some day when you have come to love me and feel like telling me
about yourself.”
“Thank you,” said the girl. “I think I love you already. But I
mustn’t tell anything because of what they made me swear.”
“We’ll leave all that till we get to Wyanoke,” said Dorothy.
“Wyanoke, you should know, is Doctor Brent’s plantation. It is my
home. You and I will go to Wyanoke within a day or two. Just as
soon as my husband, Doctor Brent, can spare me.”
The girl was manifestly losing something of her timidity under the
influence of her new-found trust and confidence in Dorothy, and
Dorothy was quick to discover the fact, but cautious not to presume
upon it. The two talked till supper time, and the girl accompanied
her hostess to that meal, where, for the first time, she met Arthur
Brent. That adept in the art of observation so managed the
conversation as to find out a good deal about Evelyn Byrd, without
letting her know or suspect that he was even interested in her. He
asked her no questions concerning herself or her past, but drew her
into a shy participation in the general conversation. That night he
said to Dorothy:—
“That girl has brains and a character. Both have been dwarfed, or
rather forbidden development, whether purposely or by accidental
circumstances I cannot determine. You will find out when you get
her to Wyanoke, and it really doesn’t matter. Under your influence
she will grow as a plant does in the sunshine. I almost envy you your
pupil.”
“She will be yours, too, even more than mine.”
“After a while, perhaps, but not for some time to come. I have
much more to do here than I thought, and shall have to leave the
laboratory work at Wyanoke to you for the present. You’d better set
out to-morrow morning. The railroads are greatly overtaxed just
now, as General Lee is using every car he can get for the
transportation of troops and supplies—mainly troops, for heaven
knows there are not many supplies to be carried. I have promised
the surgeon-general that the laboratory at Wyanoke shall be worked
to its full capacity in the preparation of medicines and appliances, so
you are needed there at once. But under present conditions it is
better that you travel across country in a carriage. I’ve arranged all
that. You will have a small military escort as far as the James River.
After that, you will have no need. How I do envy you the interest
you are going to feel in this Evelyn Byrd!”
 IV

THE LETTING DOWN OF THE BARS

N
OT many days after Pollard’s fruitless talk with Kilgariff, the
sergeant-major asked leave, one morning, to visit Orange
Court House. He said nothing of his purpose in going thither,
and Pollard had no impulse to ask him, as he certainly would
have been moved to ask any other enlisted man under his command,
especially now that the hasty movements of troops in preparation for
the coming campaign had brought the army into a condition
resembling fermentation.
When Kilgariff reached the village, he inquired for Doctor Brent’s
quarters, and presently dismounted in front of the house temporarily
occupied by that officer.
As he entered the office, Arthur Brent raised his eyes, and
instantly a look of amazed recognition came over his face. Rising and
grasping his visitor’s hand—though that hand had not been extended
—he exclaimed:—
“Kilgariff! You here?”
“Thank you,” answered the sergeant-major. “You have taken my
hand—which I did not venture to offer. That means much.”
“It means that I am Arthur Brent, and glad to greet Owen Kilgariff
once more in the flesh.”
 “It means more than that,” answered Kilgariff. “It means that you
generously believe in my innocence—jail-bird that I am.”
“I have never believed you guilty,” answered the other.
“But why not? The evidence was all against me.”
“No, it was not. The testimony was. But between evidence and
testimony there is a world of difference.”
“Just how do you mean?”
“Well, you and I know our chemistry. If a score of men should
swear to us that they had seen a jet of oxygen put out fire, and a jet
of carbonic acid gas rekindle it from a dying coal, we should instantly
reject their testimony in favour of the evidence of our own
knowledge. In the same way, I have always rejected the testimony
that convicted you, because I have, in my knowledge of you,
evidence of your innocence. You and I were students together both
in this country and in Europe. We were friends, roommates,
comrades, day and night. I learned to know your character perfectly,
and I hold character to be as definite a fact as complexion is, or
height, or anything else. I had the evidence of my own knowledge of
you. The testimony contradicted it. Therefore I rejected the
testimony and believed the evidence.”
“Believe me,” answered Kilgariff, “I am grateful to you for that. I
did not expect it. I ought to, but I did not. If I had reasoned as
soundly as you do, I should have known how you would feel. But I
am morbid perhaps. Circumstances have tended to make me so.”
“Come with me to my bedroom upstairs,” said Arthur Brent.
“There is much that we must talk about, and we are subject to
interruption here.”
Then, summoning his orderly, Arthur Brent gave his commands:—
“I shall be engaged with Sergeant-major Kilgariff upstairs for
some time to come, and I must not be interrupted on any account.
Say so to all who may ask to see me, and peremptorily refuse to
bring me any card or any name or any message. You understand.”
Then, throwing his arm around his old comrade’s person, he led
the way upstairs. When the two were seated, Arthur Brent said:—
 “Tell me now about yourself. How comes it that you are here, and
wearing a Confederate uniform?”
“Instead of prison stripes, eh? It is simple enough. By a desperate
effort I escaped from Sing Sing, and after a vast deal of trouble and
some hardship, I succeeded in making my way into the Confederate
lines. Thinking to hide myself as completely as possible, I enlisted in
a battery that has no gentlemen in its ranks, but has a habit of
getting itself into the thick of every fight and staying there. You know
the battery—Captain Pollard’s?”
“Marshall Pollard’s? Yes. He is one of my very best friends. But tell
me—”
“Permit me to finish. I wanted to hide myself. I thought that as a
cannonier in such a battery I should escape all possibility of
observation. But that battery has very little material out of which to
make non-commissioned officers. Very few of the men can read or
write. So it naturally came about that I was put into place as a non-
commissioned officer, and I am now sergeant-major, greatly to my
regret. In that position I must be always with Captain Pollard. When I
learned that he and you were intimates, and that your duty often
called you to the front, I saw the necessity of coming to you to find
out on what terms you and I might meet after—well, in consideration
of the circumstances.”
Arthur Brent waited for a time before answering. Then he stood
erect, and said:—
“Stand up, Owen, and let me look you in the eyes. I have not
asked you if you are innocent of the crimes charged against you. I
never shall ask you that. I know, because I know you!”
“I thank you, Arthur, for putting the matter in that way. But it is
due to you—due to your faith in me—that I should voluntarily say to
you what you refuse to ask me to say. As God sees me, I am as
innocent as you are. I could have established my innocence at the
critical time, but I would not. To do that would have been to
condemn—well, it would have involved—”
“Never mind that. I understand. You made a heroic self-sacrifice.
Let me rejoice only in the fact that you are free again. You are
enlisted under your own name?”
“Of course. I could never take an alias. It was only when I
learned that you and Captain Pollard were friends—”
“But suppose you fall into the hands of the enemy? Suppose you
are made prisoner?”
“I shall never be taken alive,” was the response.
“But you may be wounded.”
“I am armed against all that,” the other replied. “I have my
pistols, of course. I carry an extra small one in my vest pocket for
emergencies. Finally, I have these”—drawing forth two little metallic
cases, one from the right, the other from the left trousers pocket.
“They are filled with pellets of cyanide of potassium. I carry them in
two pockets to make sure that no wound shall prevent me getting at
them. I shall not be taken alive. Even if that should happen, however,
I am armed against the emergency. Two men escaped from Sing Sing
with me. One of them was shot to death by the guards, his face
being fearfully mutilated. The other was wounded and captured. The
body of the dead man was identified as mine, and my death was
officially recorded. I do not think the law of New York would go
behind that. But in any case, I am armed against capture, and I shall
never be taken alive.”
A little later Arthur Brent turned the conversation.
“Let us talk of the future,” he said, “not of the past. I am
reorganising the medical staff for the approaching campaign. I am
sorely put to it to find fit men for the more responsible places. My
simple word will secure for you a commission as major-surgeon, and
I will assign you to the very best post at my disposal. I need just
such men as you are—a dozen, a score, yes, half a hundred of them.
You must put yourself in my hands. I’ll apply for your commission to-
day, and get it within three days at most.”
“If you will think a moment, Arthur,” said the other, “you will see
that I could not do that without dishonour. Branded as I am with a
conviction of felony, I have no right to impose myself as a
commissioned officer upon men who would never consent to
associate with me upon such terms if they knew.”
 “I respect your scruple,” answered Doctor Brent, after a moment
of reflection, “but I do not share it. In the first place, the disability
you mention is your misfortune, not your fault. You know yourself to
be innocent, and as you do not in any way stand accused in the eyes
of the officers of this army, there is absolutely no reason why you
should not become one of them, as a man conscious of his own
rectitude.
“Besides all that, we are living in new times, under different
conditions from those that existed before the war. It used to be said
that in Texas it was taking an unfair advantage of any man to inquire
into his life before his migration to that State. If he had conducted
himself well since his arrival there, he was entitled to all his reserves
with regard to his previous course of life in some other part of the
country. Now a like sentiment has grown strong in the South since
this war broke out. I don’t mean to suggest that we have lowered our
standards of honourable conduct in the least, for we have not done
so. But we have revised our judgments as to what constitutes worth.
The old class distinctions of birth and heritage have given place to
new tests of present conduct. There are companies by the score in
this army whose officers, elected by their men, were before the war
persons of much lower social position than that of a majority of their
own men. In any peacetime organisation these officers could never
have hoped for election to office of any kind; but they are fighters
and men of capacity; they know how to do the work of war well, and,
under our new and sounder standards of fitness, the men in the
ranks have put aside old social distinctions and elected to command
them the men fittest to command. The same principle prevails higher
up. One distinguished major-general in the Confederate service was a
nobody before the war; another was far worse; he was a negro
trader who before the war would not have been admitted, even as a
merely tolerated guest, into the houses of the gentlemen who are to-
day glad to serve as officers and enlisted men under his command.
Still another was an ignorant Irish labourer who did work for day’s
wages in the employ of some of the men to whom he now gives
orders, and from whom he expects and receives willing obedience. I
tell you, Kilgariff, a revolution has been wrought in this Southern land
of ours, and the results of that revolution will permanently endure,
whatever the military or political outcome of the war may be. In your
case there is no need to cite these precedents, except to show you
that the old quixotism—it was a good old quixotism in its way; it did
a world of good, together with a very little of evil—is completely
gone. There is no earthly reason, Kilgariff, why you should not render
a higher and better service to the Confederacy than that which you
are now rendering. There is no reason—”
“Pardon me, Arthur; in my own mind there is reason enough. And
besides, I am thoroughly comfortable as I am. You know I am given
to being comfortable. You remember that when you and I were
students at Jena, and afterward in the Latin Quarter in Paris, I was
always content to live in the meagre ways that other students did,
though I had a big balance to my credit in the bank and a large
income at home. As sergeant-major under our volunteer system, I
am the intimate associate not only of Captain Pollard, whose
scholarship you know, but also of all the battery officers, some of
whom are men worth knowing. For the rest, I like the actual fighting,
and I am looking forward to this summer’s campaign with positively
eager anticipations. So, if you don’t mind, we will let matters stand as
they are. I will remain sergeant-major till the end of it all.”
With that, the two friends parted.
 V

DOROTHY’S OPINIONS

I
T was not Arthur Brent’s habit to rest satisfied in the defeat of
any purpose. He was deeply interested to induce Owen Kilgariff
to become a member of the military medical staff. Having
exhausted his own resources of persuasion, he determined to
consult Dorothy, as he always did when he needed counsel. That
night he sent a long letter to her. In it he told her all he knew about
the matter, reserving nothing—he never practised reserve with her—
but asking her to keep Kilgariff’s name and history to herself. Having
laid the whole matter before that wise young woman, he frankly
asked her what he should do further in the case. For reply, she
wrote:—
I am deeply interested in Kilgariff’s case. I have thought all day and
nearly all night about it. It seems to me to be a case in which a man is to
be saved who is well worth saving. Not that I regard service in the ranks
as either a hardship or a shame to any man, when the ranks are full of the
best young men in all the land. If that were all, I would not have you turn
your hand over to lift this man into place as a commissioned officer.
If I interpret the matter aright, Kilgariff is simply morbid, and if you
can induce him to take the place you have pressed upon him, you will
have cured him of his morbidity of mind. And I think you can do that. You
know how I contemn the duello, and fortunately it seems passing out of
use. In these war times, when every man stands up every day to be shot
at by hundreds of men who are not scared, it would be ridiculous for any
man to stand up and let one scared man shoot at him, in the hope of
demonstrating his courage in that fashion.
That is an aside. What I want to say is, that while the duello has
always been barbarous, and has now become ridiculous as well,
nevertheless it had some good features, one of which I think you might
use effectively in Owen Kilgariff’s case. As I understand the matter, it was
the custom under the code duello, sometimes to call a “court of honour”
to decide in a doubtful case precisely what honour required a man to do,
and, as I understand, the decision of such a court was final, so far as the
man whose duty was involved was concerned. It was deemed the grossest
of offences to call in question the conduct of a man who acted in
accordance with the finding of a court of honour.
Now why cannot you call a court of honour to sit upon this case?
Without revealing Kilgariff’s identity—which of course you could not do
except by his permission—you could lay before the court a succinct but
complete statement of the case, and ask it to decide whether or not the
man concerned can, with honour, accept a commission in the service
without making the facts public. I am sure the verdict will be in the
affirmative, and armed with such a decision you can overcome the poor
fellow’s scruples and work a cure that is well worth working.
Try my plan if it commends itself to your judgment, not otherwise.
Little by little, I am finding out a good deal about our Evelyn Byrd.
Better still, I am learning to know her, and she interests me mightily. She
has a white soul and a mind that it is going to be a delight to educate. She
has already read a good deal in a strangely desultory and unguided
fashion, but her learning is utterly unbalanced.
For example, she has read the whole, apparently, of the Penny
Cyclopædia—in a very old edition—and she has accepted it all as
unquestionable truth. Nobody had ever told the poor child that the science
of thirty years ago has been revised and enlarged since that time, until I
made the point clear to her singularly quick and receptive mind in the
laboratory yesterday. She seems also to have read, and well-nigh
committed to memory, the old plays published fifty or sixty years ago
under the title of The British Drama, but she has hardly so much as heard
of our great modern writers. She can repeat whole dialogues from Jane
Shore, She Stoops to Conquer, A New Way to Pay Old Debts, High Life
Below Stairs, and many plays of a much lower moral character; but even
the foulest of them have manifestly done her no harm. Her own innocence
seems to have performed the function of the feathers on a duck’s back in
a shower. She is so unconscious of evil, indeed, that I do not care to
explain my reasons to her when I suggest that she had better not repeat
to others some of the literature that she knows by heart.
 I still haven’t the faintest notion of her history, or of whence she came.
She is docile in an extraordinary degree, but I think that is due in large
measure to her exaggerated sense of what she calls my goodness to her.
Poor child! It is certain that she never before knew much of liberty or
much of considerate kindness. She seems scarcely able to realise, or even
to believe, that in anything she is really free to do as best pleases her, a
fact from which I argue that she has been subject always to the arbitrary
will of others. She is by no means lacking in spirit, and I suspect that
those others who have arbitrarily dominated her life have had some not
altogether pleasing experiences with her. She is capable of very vigorous
revolt against oppression, and her sense of justice is alert. But apparently
she has never before been treated with justice or with any regard
whatever to the rights of her individuality. She has been compelled to
submit to the will of others, but she has undoubtedly made trouble for
those who compelled her. At first with me she seemed always expecting
some correction, some assertion of authority, and she is only now
beginning to understand my attitude toward her, especially my insistence
upon her right to decide for herself all things that concern only herself.
The other day in the laboratory, she managed somehow to drop a beaker
and break it. She was about to gather up the fragments, but, as the
beaker had been filled with a corrosive acid, I bade her let them alone,
saying that I would have them swept up after the day’s work should be
done. She stood staring at me for a moment, after which she broke into a
little rippling laugh, threw her arms around my neck, and said:—
“I forgot. You never scold me, even when I am careless and break
things.”
I tried hard to make her understand that I had no right to scold her,
besides having no desire to do so. It seemed a new gospel to her. Finally
she said, more to herself than to me:— “It is so different here. There was
never anybody so good to me.”
Her English is generally excellent, but it includes many odd
expressions, some of them localisms, I think, though I do not know
whence they come. Occasionally, too, she frames her English sentences
after a French rhetorical model, and the result is sometimes amusing. And
another habit of hers which interests me is her peculiar use of auxiliary
verbs and intensives. Instead of saying, “I had my dinner,” she sometimes
says, “I did have my dinner,” and to-day when we had strawberries and
cream for snack, she said, “I do find the strawberries with the cream to be
very good.”
Yet never once have I detected the smallest suggestion of “broken
English” in her speech, except that now and then she places the accent on
a wrong syllable, as a foreigner might. Thus, when she first came, she
spoke of something as excellent. I spoke the word correctly soon
afterward, and never since has she mispronounced it. Indeed, her
quickness in learning and her exceeding conscientiousness promise to
obliterate all that is peculiar in her speech before you get home again,
unless you come quickly.
The girl doesn’t know what to make of Mammy. That dearest of
despots has conceived a great affection for this new “precious chile,” and
she tyrannises over her accordingly. She refused to let her get up the
other morning until after she had taken a cup of coffee in bed, simply
because no fire had been lighted in her room that morning. And how
Mammy did scold when she learned that Evelyn, thinking a fire
unnecessary, had sent the maid away who had gone to light it!
“You’se jes’ anudder sich as Mis’ Dorothy,” she said. “Jes’ case it’s
spring yo’ won’t hab no fire to dress by even when it’s a-rainin’. An’ so
you’se a-tryin’ to cotch yo death o’ cole, jes’ to spite ole Mammy. No, yo’
ain’t a-gwine to git up yit. Don’t you dar try to. You’se jes’ a-gwine to lay
still till dem no-’count niggas in de dinin’-room sen’s you a cup o’ coffee
what Mammy’s done tole ’em to bring jes’ as soon as it’s ready. An’ de
next time you goes fer to stop de makin’ o’ you dressin’-fire, you’se a-
gwine to heah from Mammy, yo’ is. Jes’ you bear dat in mind.”
Evelyn doesn’t quite understand. She says she thought we controlled
our servants, while in fact they control us. But she heartily likes Mammy’s
coddling tyranny—as what rightly constructed girl could fail to do? Do you
know, Arthur, the worst thing about this war is that there’ll never be any
more old mammies after it is ended?
I’m teaching Evelyn chemistry, among other things, and she learns
with a rapidity that is positively astonishing. She has a perfect passion for
precision, which will make her invaluable in the laboratory presently. Her
deftness of hand, her accuracy, her conscientious devotion to whatever
she does, are qualities that are hard to match. She never makes a false
motion, even when doing the most unaccustomed things; and whatever
she does, she does conscientiously, as if its doing were the sum of human
duty. I am positively fascinated with her. If I were a man, I should fall in
love with her in a fashion that would stop not at fire or flood. I ought to
add that the girl is a marvel of frankness—as much as any child might be
—and that her truthfulness is of the absolute, matter-of-course kind which
knows no other way. But these things you will have inferred from what I
have written before, if I have succeeded even in a small way in describing
Evelyn’s character. I heartily wish I knew her history; not because of
feminine curiosity, but because such knowledge might aid me in my effort
to guide and educate her aright. However, no such aid is really necessary.
 With one so perfectly truthful, and so childishly frank, I shall need only to
study herself in order to know what to do in her education.

There was a postscript to this letter, of course. In it Dorothy

wrote:—
Since this letter was written, Evelyn has revealed a totally unsuspected
accomplishment. She has been conversing with me in French, and such
French! I never heard anything like it, and neither did you. It is positively
barbaric in its utter disregard of grammar, and it includes many word
forms that are half Indian, I suspect. It interests me mightily, as an apt
illustration of the way in which new languages are formed, little by little,
out of old ones.

There was much else in Dorothy’s letter; for she and her husband
were accustomed to converse as fully and as freely on paper as they
did orally when together. These two were not only one flesh, but one
in mind, in spirit, and in all that meant life to them. Theirs was a
perfect marriage, an ideal union—a thing very rare in this ill-assorted
world of ours.
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