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"It's my opinion," said Strong, "that he 's a rival Wandering Jew; the original Jacobs, you know, was a dark fellow." Blakely inferred from something Bladburn had said, or something he had not said which was more likely that he had been a schoolmaster at some period of his life. "Schoolmaster be hanged!" was Strong's comment.
It was merely a nickname which we gave him in camp; but it stuck to him with such bur-like tenacity, and is so inseparable from my memory of him, that I do not think I could write definitely of John Bladburn if I were to call him anything but "Quite So." It was one night shortly after the first battle of Bull Run.
I have often wanted you to talk to me about yourself, not from idle curiosity, I trust, but because I liked you that rainy night when you came to camp, and have gone on liking you ever since. This is n't too much to say, when Heaven only knows how soon I may be past saying it or you listening to it." "That's it," said Bladburn, hurriedly, "that's why I want to talk with you.
Roll-call morning and evening, guard-duty, dress-parades, an occasional reconnoissance, dominoes, wrestling-matches, and such rude games as could be carried on in camp made up the sum of our lives. The arrival of the mail with letters and papers from home was the event of the day. We noticed that Bladburn neither wrote nor received any letters.
He nodded pleasantly to me, and to each of the boys as they woke up, one by one. Blakely did not appear disposed to renew the animated conversation of the previous night; but while he was gone to make a requisition for what was in pure sarcasm called coffee, Curtis ventured to ask the man his name. "Bladburn, John," was the reply. "That's rather an unwieldy name for every-day use," put in Strong.
Bladburn was lying on the stretcher in the hospital-tent The surgeon had knelt down by him, and was carefully cutting away the bosom of his blouse. The Latin grammar, stained and torn, slipped, and fell to the floor. Bladburn gave me a quick glance. I picked up the book, and as I placed it in his hand, the icy fingers closed softly over mine. He was sinking fast.
"We never really doubted it, Bladburn." "If I did n't write home," he continued, "it was because I had n't any home, neither kith nor kin. When I said the old folks were dead, I said it. Am I boring you? If I thought I was" "No, Bladburn.
"Can you fancy a schoolmaster going about conjugating baby verbs out of a dratted little spelling-book? No, Quite So has evidently been a a Blest if I can imagine what he 's been!" Whatever John Bladburn had been, he was a lonely man.
"If it would n't hurt your feelings, I 'd like to call you Quite So for short. Don't say no, if you don't like it. Is it agreeable?" Bladburn gave a little laugh, all to himself, seemingly, and was about to say, "Quite so," when he caught at the words, blushed like a girl, and nodded a sunny assent to Strong. From that day until the end, the sobriquet clung to him.
And now," said Bladburn, rising suddenly from the tree-trunk, "if the little book ever falls in your way, won't you see that it comes to no harm, for my sake, and for the sake of the little woman who was true to me and did n't love me? Wherever she is to-night, God bless her!"
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