they was dying; for, av our childher die like sheep in these days, they died like flies thin. I lost me own little Shadd â but no matther. âTis long ago, and Mrs Mulvaney niver had another.
âIâm digresshin. Wan divilâs hot summer, there come an order from some mad ijjit, whose name I misremember, for the rigimint to go up-country. Maybe they wanted to know how the new rail carried throops. They knew! On me sowl, they knew before they was done! Old Pummeloe had just buried Muttra McKenna; anâ, the season beinâ onwholesim, only little Jhansi McKenna, who was four year ould thin, was left on hand.
âFoive childer gone in fourteen months. âTwas harrd, wasnât ut?
âSo we wint up to our new station in that blazinâ heat â may the curse av Saint Lawrence 5 conshume the man who gave the ordher! Will I iver forget that move? They gave us two wake thrains to the rigimint; anâ we was eight hundherâ and sivinty strong. There was A, B, C, anâ D Companies in the seconâ thrain, wid twelve women, no orficersâ ladies, anâ thirteen childher. We was to go six hundherâ miles, anâ railways wasnew in thim days. Whin we had been a night in the belly av the thrain â the men raginâ in their shirts anâ dhrinkinâ anything they cud find, anâ eatinâ bad fruit-stuff whin they cud, for we cudnât stop âem â I was a Corpâril thin â the cholera bruk out wid the dawninâ av the day.
âPray to the Saints, you may niver see cholera in a throop-thrain! âTis like the judgmint av God hittinâ down from the nakid sky! We run into a rest-camp â as ut might have been Ludianny, but not by any means so comfortable. The Orficer Commandinâ sent a telegrapt up the line, three hundherâ mile up, askinâ for help. Faith, we wanted ut, for ivry sowl av the followers ran for the dear life as soon as the thrain stopped; anâ by the time that telegrapt was writ, there wasnât a naygur in the station exceptinâ the telegrapt-clerk â anâ he only bekaze he was held down to his chair by the scruff av his sneakinâ black neck. Thin the day began wid the noise in the carrâges, anâ the rattle av the men on the platform fallinâ over, arms anâ all, as they stud for to answer the Compâny muster-roll before goinâ over to the camp. âTisnât for me to say what like the cholera was like. May be the Doctor cud haâ tould, av he hadnât dropped on to the platform from the door av a carriage where we was takinâ out the dead. He died wid the rest. Some bhoys had died in the night. We tuk out siven, and twenty more was sickeninâ as we tuk thim. The women was huddled up anyways, screaminâ wid fear.
âSez the Commandinâ Orficer whose name I misremember, âTake the women over to that tope 6 av trees yonder. Get thim out av the camp. âTis no place for thim.â
âOuld Pummeloe was sittinâ on her beddinâ-rowl, thryinâ to kape little Jhansi quiet. âGo off to that tope!â sez the Orficer. âGo out av the menâs way!â
ââBe dammed av I do!â sez Ould Pummeloe, anâ little Jhansi, squattinâ by her motherâs side, squeaks out, âBe damned av I do,â tu. Thin Ould Pummeloe turns to the women anâ she sez, âAre ye goinâ to let the bhoys die while youâre picnickinâ, ye sluts?â sez she. ââTis wather they want. Come on anâ help.â
âWid that, she turns up her sleeves anâ steps out for a well behind the rest-camp â little Jhansi trottinâ behind wid a
lotah
7 anâ string, anâ the other women followinâ like lambs, wid horse-buckets and cookinâ pots. Whin all the things was full, Ould Pummeloe marches back into camp â âtwas like a battlefield wid
Allen Brown
George Orwell
Gail Carriger
Adrienne deWolfe
John Jackson Miller
Amy Myers
Abby L. Vandiver
Laurell K. Hamilton
MacDonald Harris
T. Davis Bunn