The Blue Balloon: A Tale of the Shenandoah Valley — Key Ideas to Explore

CHAPTER I. OLD GRIZZLY.

Thirty-three years ago, or, to be quite exact, in the month of May 1862, the great civil war in the United States of America was in full swing. The Federals had discovered that their boast that they would finish the whole affair in ninety days had been an empty one; while the Confederates, brave as they were, and fighting with all the vigour of men goaded to fury by the horrors of invasion, were learning by slow degrees, and in the teeth of their successes, that one Southerner could _not_ whip five Yankees.

The short remnant of summer which followed the first battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, as it was named in the South, had come to an end without startling incident; the dreary winter had dragged itself to a close, unmarked by aught but skirmishes and conflicts of minor importance; but in the spring of ’62 immense armies took the field, and campaigns were begun, compared with which all that had gone before was merely an insignificant prelude.

At the first rumour that McClellan, stirring at last from his long and inglorious inactivity, was about to advance upon Richmond, the Confederate General Johnston at once evacuated Manassas, and fell back towards the threatened point; while Stonewall Jackson, who commanded the army of the Shenandoah, moved up the valley, so as to keep communication open with the defenders of the capital.

In the valley lay the town of Staunton, the capital of Augusta county, Virginia, and the presumed objective of one section of the Federal advance. Here, when the war began, lived a youth named Ephraim Sykes, more commonly known as ‘Old Grizzly.’ Not that he at all resembled that ferocious animal either in person or in disposition, for his manners were mild and inoffensive; but since his Christian name happened to coincide with the sobriquet usually bestowed upon the grizzly bear—namely, ‘Ephraim’—a happy thought occurred one day to a youthful wag of Staunton. So Ephraim Sykes was promptly dubbed ‘Old Grizzly,’ and as such was known ever afterwards.

Ephraim was between nineteen and twenty years of age, but looked much older, for he was tall and lank, with a thoughtful face and a sallow complexion, while an early and luxuriant crop of dark and curling hair flourished upon his thin cheeks and square, resolute chin. It was this chin, along with a pair of clear, steady, gray eyes, which conveyed to the physiognomist the impression that, shy and retiring as the lad was, beneath his unassuming exterior lurked the spirit of a lion, united to a will of iron.

Ephraim was a ‘hand’ in one of the large ironworks in Staunton, but he owned a soul above his humble calling, and his mechanical genius was little short of marvellous. He was for ever inventing curious toys and handy appliances, which he traded off among the Staunton boys for sums very far below their actual value. The money thus obtained he devoted partly to the support of an aged aunt, who had brought him up since the death of his father and mother, and partly to the purchase of material for the manufacture of his inventions, or, as he himself styled them, his ‘notions.’ Education, in the ordinary sense of the word, he had never had, but he had managed, nevertheless, by his own efforts and quiet persistence, to acquire an extraordinary amount of general and useful information: a neatly made bookcase, which stood against the wall of his little room, held a supply of books on science, mathematics, and the mechanical arts, which seemed curiously out of place in the homely cabin. But that Ephraim knew their use, and profited by the information he derived from the study of them, was evidenced by the character of the work he turned out, and the increasing favour in which he was held by Mr Coulter, the master of the works in which he was employed.

By the boys who formed his chief customers Grizzly was popularly supposed to be very rich, and the one fault they had to find with him was that he hoarded his gains in a miserly fashion, spending not a cent more than was absolutely necessary to provide himself and his aunt with the simple necessaries of life. Here, however, they misjudged Ephraim, for though it was true that he scraped and pinched and denied himself to put aside some small proportion of his not very extensive means, yet there was a purpose in what he did, and his motives were very different from those which the boys in their thoughtless way ascribed to him.