The first Saturday afternoon in May found a busy group of ladies and
girls in the big parlor at Broad Acres which Mrs. Wilson had given up
to Red Cross work.
Saturday was usually sacred to needle and broom and cookstove, in
preparation for the quiet, strictly kept Presbyterian Sunday; but
to-day was an exception. A Red Cross box was to be sent off next week,
and everything else was put aside to get it ready.
Mrs. Wilson was cutting out hospital shirts.
“This finishes our last piece of cloth,” she said regretfully. “I do
wish we had some money.”
There was an awkward silence. Money had to be mentioned sometimes
in a shop--asking Mr. Blair the price of shoes and umbrellas, in an
apologetic tone. But to wish for it, in public and aloud! No one had
ever before heard a Village lady do such a thing.
Miss Fanny Morrison, who had charge of the work, broke the embarrassing
silence. “These shirts ain’t ready to pack,” she said with a frown, as
she pushed aside a bundle she had just opened. “I’ve got to rip ’em
and do ’em over. Every seam is crooked or puckered.”
“If you would tell whoever did them----” began Mrs. Blair.
“Course I can’t tell her,” said the seamstress, who was supposed to
have a tongue as sharp as her needle. “It’s Mrs. Tavis. Ain’t she doing
her best, with her dim old eyes and trembly old hands? I can’t tell
her it would save me time for her to sit and twirl her thumbs, and let
me make the shirts instead of unmaking ’em and making ’em over. Well,
we’ve got a lot done. And you girls have certainly worked splendid. I
thought you-all--Alice and Ruth and Patsy and Mary Spencer and Essie
Walthall, the bunch of you--would just be a lot of trouble. But you’re
faithful and painstaking, and you do as good work as anybody.”
“We like to do it,” said Patsy, whose fingers were flying in the effort
to finish a sweater.
“This will be six pairs of socks I’ve knit,” said Alice Blair; “and I
thought I’d never get done that first pair!”
“You’ve learned how,” said her mother; then she chuckled: “Will says he
expects to wake up some night and find me knitting in my sleep!”
“Ah, dears!” Mrs. Spencer said in her gentle, quavering old voice.
“This takes me back to The War. We used to gather here, in this
very room, to knit socks and make bandages and tear linen sheets and
underwear into lint for our poor, dear, wounded soldiers.”
“Those awful days!” said Miss Fanny. “I certainly am thankful we are
not really in this war; in it with our men and our homes.”
“I am beginning to feel,” Mrs. Wilson said quietly, “that we _are_ in
it, and that this _is_ our war. There are Fayett and Jeff and William;
and the President’s war message; and now the draft.”
“It’s awful to think they may make our boys go to foreign parts to
fight,” groaned Mrs. Blair.
“They don’t seem to need much making,” remarked Mrs. Wilson.
“Europe doesn’t seem so far off as it used to,” said Mrs. Red Mayo
Osborne, who had locked herself out of the bookcase for a whole week.
“Who’d have thought, three years ago, we’d be giving up our Saturday
duties to make things to send to France and Belgium?”
“Europe isn’t so far off,” Mrs. Wilson replied. “The Germans gave us
two object lessons last year, to prove that--sending the _Deutschland_
and _U-53_ to our very harbors. And next thing we know, aircraft will
cross the ocean.”
The others laughed at the idea of such a thing.
“Well, there are other nearnesses,” said Mrs. Wilson. “The ties are
tightening among English-speaking people. Didn’t it thrill you to read
about the Stars and Stripes floating from the highest tower of the
Parliament buildings?--the first time a foreign flag was ever displayed
there.”
“I didn’t care so much about that.” Miss Fanny tossed up her chin; she
prided herself on being an “unreconstructed rebel” and kept a little
Confederate flag draped over a chromo of “Lee and his generals.” “But,”
she went on, “it did give me a queer feeling to read about that great
service the English had in St. Paul’s, to celebrate America’s joining
in the war. They sang ‘O God! our help in ages past,’ the very hymn we
were singing Sunday morning.”
“We people of the same tongue and blood, are getting together,” said
Mrs. Red Mayo.
“I don’t see anything good anywhere outside The Village” declared Mrs.
Walthall. “When my old man comes home and tells the cruel, wicked,
dreadful, terrible things”--Mrs. Walthall’s language was broken out
with adjectives like smallpox--“Will Blair reads in his paper--you feel
as if the world was upside down and something mean and awful might even
happen here!”
This was such a wild flight of fancy that every one laughed.
“Why, even during The War,” said Mrs. Spencer, “The War that we were
in, bodies of all the men and hearts of all the women and children,
even that, my dears, didn’t come to The Village, except the one raid
from Sherman’s army marching north that awful April.”
“I am glad we are shut up here in this safe, quiet little corner,” said
Mrs. Blair; “for, as Mrs. Walthall says, terrible things are happening.
Not only factories and munition plants destroyed in the North, but
railroad bridges and trestles right here in Virginia; a bridge near
Norfolk, a bridge that trains with troops and supplies and munitions
have to cross, was saturated with oil and set afire, by foreigners and
negroes.” Her voice dropped.
“There is our bridge----” began Mrs. Walthall.
She was interrupted by a little indignant stir. Mrs. Osborne said
crisply, “That bridge is just as safe as our own doorsteps.”
“They say,” Mrs. Walthall said, “that in New York poison has been put
in Red Cross bandages and dressings. I declare, I feel like we ought to
inspect our things and keep them locked up.”
“Nonsense, Anna!” exclaimed Mrs. Red Mayo. “Inspect things! And lock
them up! Who ever locks up anything in The Village? Why, we never lock
our outside doors, and in summer-time they stand wide open every night.”
“Strange and curious and terrible things are happening in other
places,” said Mrs. Walthall.
“In other places,” Mrs. Osborne repeated, dryly and emphatically.
The ladies were so absorbed in work and talk that they did not hear the
click of the front gate and the stumbling and stamping of feet coming
up the steps.
Susan opened the parlor door. “There’s some menfolks out here, Miss
Agnes,” she said to her mistress. “They say please’m they want to see
the Red Cross ladies.”
“To see me?” asked Mrs. Wilson.
“To see the Red Cross ladies; that’s what they say, Miss Agnes.”
“Ask them to come in,” said Mrs. Wilson.
Miss Fanny modestly hid a hospital shirt she was ripping and began to
knit a wristlet. Susan opened the door and ushered in nine old men.
They were feeble and broken with years, years not only of age but of
poverty and many hardships. They shuffled in, some on wooden legs, some
dragging paralyzed feet, some supporting rheumatic limbs with canes
and crutches. There were palsied arms and more than one empty sleeve.
The old fellows came in panting and wheezing from the exertion of
climbing the steps. At the door they took off their hats, baring bald
pates and straggling white locks, and stood in line.
Mrs. Wilson went forward swiftly and greeted them with gracious
courtesy, but they did not respond as friends and neighbors.
“We came on an errand to you Red Cross ladies,” Captain Anderson said
formally. “We”--he straightened his old shoulders--“are Confederate
veterans.”
At the words the ladies came to their feet, in respect and homage.
“Confederate veterans!” Captain Anderson repeated.
The bent, stiff forms stirred with a memory rather than a reality of
soldierly bearing; the bleared, dim old eyes brightened.
Their spokesman went on in his thin, quavering voice: “Ladies, fair
flowers of Virginia womanhood, we, the little remnant surviving of the
gallant defenders of our glorious Lost Cause, greet you. By the noble
generosity of The Village, funds have been raised for us to attend the
Reunion at Washington.
“It is a grand and glorious place to hold the Reunion. We are glad and
proud that--that our old comrades are to meet there--in the capital
they threatened six times by their dauntless and renowned valor, but
the streets of which they were never to tread in uniform and under
flag until now, after a half century of peace. They are to camp in the
very shadow of the Capitol of our glorious and reunited country, and
their battle-shattered and death-thinned ranks are to parade before the
President and be addressed by him--the first President since The War
born on the sacred soil of old Virginia, and the greatest President
since Washington. Three cheers for President Wilson!”
They were given with a will by the thin, cracked old voices.
“And--and----” stammered Captain Anderson.
“Gettysburg,” said old Mr. Tavis, in a stage whisper.
“Yes. Gettysburg; Gettysburg. That comes presently.” He mopped his brow
with a bandanna handkerchief. “A-ah! The President to address us. Yes,
yes! No more is needed to make it a grand and perfect occasion. But
more is to be added. The veterans in gray and their brethren in blue
are to make a pilgrimage to Gettysburg, that was the high-water mark
of our glorious and unsuccessful war; there is to be erected a monument
to our brave comrades, the heroes that fell on that bloody field. I
tell you, ladies, we are as glad and proud of it all as if we were
going to that Reunion ourselves.”
“But you are going!” cried Patsy.
“And now here’s war again--we don’t count that little skirmish with
Spain--but now the United States is in a real war, and South and North
and East and West are standing shoulder to shoulder together.
“This isn’t like The War we fought, a decent war of man against man
on the earth God gave them to fight over. This war--it’s like nothing
that ever was before in civilized times--robbing and burning towns by
the hundred, shooting down unarmed people in gangs, killing men with
poisonous gases like you would so many rats, sinking ships without
giving folks a chance for their lives, dropping bombs from airships on
homes and schools and hospitals.
“It makes our hearts sick for people to suffer such things; and it
makes our blood boil for people to do them. So we’ve talked it over
together, we old Confeds, and we’re all of one mind. We want to help
the women and children and the pieces of men left by this hellish
fighting. So here is the money, please, ma’am”--he held out a purse
to Mrs. Wilson--“that you-all so generously raised to send us to the
Reunion. We bring it to you as our contribution to the Red Cross.”
“Oh!” cried Patsy, “but you mustn’t miss it, the grandest of all
Reunions. You must go.”
He shook his head.
“This is what Marse Robert would do, if he was here to-day,” he said
simply, looking up now in his old age, as to a beacon, to the hero he
had adoringly followed in youth.
Mrs. Wilson controlled her voice and spoke: “We accept your offering;
don’t we?” She turned to her companions, and every head was bowed. “We
accept it in the noble spirit in which it is given, a spirit worthy of
your peerless leader. And we thank you from our hearts, in the name of
suffering humanity, to whose service it is consecrated.”
“But for you to give up the Reunion, the Reunion that you’ve looked
forward to!” mourned Miss Fanny.
The old men glanced at one another with a sort of shy glee. Then
Captain Anderson said: “That isn’t all. We are going to volunteer!
They’re going to have that draft and raise soldiers. Folks said at
first they’d just need American dollars and food and steel; but they’re
calling for soldiers now. And I tell you they’ll need American valor.
As long as war is war, they’ll want _men_. The young soldiers, the
drafted boys, will do their best. But we--well, we are going to write
to the President and tell him we are ready to go, and we seasoned old
soldiers will show those youngsters what fighting is!”
While the old heroes were making their offering, Dick Osborne was
creeping along the edge of a field near The Village, carrying in his
arms something bundled up in a newspaper. He scrambled through the
churchyard hedge and crept into the woodshed at the back of the church.
Now that its winter uses were over, no one else gave the shed a look or
a thought, and Dick had hidden here his mining tools and a bundle with
something white in it.
His garden task was off his hands at last, and he had planned to spend
to-day at the old mine; but Patsy had watched him keenly all the
morning, and this afternoon David and Steve were at work in a cornfield
near the road. Usually it would be easy enough to elude them, but not
to-day, burdened with the tools he had to carry. And anyway, he had
devised a plan to lend interest and excitement to the long, weary way
to the mine. In order to carry out his plan and avoid embarrassing
questions, he had obtained permission to spend the night with his
cousin at the mill.
Safe in the shed, he opened the package he had been carrying so
carefully and chuckled as he looked at its contents. It was a cow’s
skull!
“Uh, it’s a beauty!” he said, gazing admiringly at the bleached and
whitened old thing. “And when I fix it----!”
He proceeded to “fix it” by pasting green tissue paper over the
eyeholes and fastening his flashlight inside. Then he stood back and
looked at it. Ah, it was as fearful looking as he had hoped it would
be! He opened the other package and took out a sheet which he smeared
with phosphorus. It was getting dark now; late enough, Dick thought,
for him to venture out. He fastened the tools together with an old
chain and slung them over his shoulder; then he draped the sheet around
him and fastened the skull on his head. He crept out of the shed,
slipped around the corner of the church, and looked up and down the
road.
The coast was clear, and he took the road to Redville. For a mile he
had it to himself. Then he heard wheels and voices behind him. He
hesitated a minute, then prudently withdrew to the wayside. It might be
people who would accept him as a ghost; or it might not. Ah! It was
Mr. Spencer, trotting homeward from The Village, with his son Joe. Dick
crouched in the bushes.
“Wait a minute, pa,” said Joe. “There’s something queer in those
chinquapin bushes; something white and light looking. Let’s see what it
is.”
“Shuh! It’s just Gordan Jones’s old white cow,” replied Mr. Spencer.
“We haven’t time to stop. We’re late for supper already.”
When they were safely out of sight, Dick came back to the highway and
hurried along till he came to the Old Plank Road and the Big Woods.
From here on, there were only a few negro cabins, and he felt secure in
his ghostly array.
Isham Baskerfield’s cabin was dark and seemingly deserted, but the door
of the next house was open and from within came a bright light and
loud voices and laughter. Peter Jim Jones was having a “frolic.” The
guests were overflowing on the porch, and the barking of dogs and the
squealing of children mingled with the jovial voices of men and women.
As Dick stalked down the road toward the cabin, a dog began to bark
and then subsided into a whine. One of the negroes on the porch looked
around and caught a glimpse of the white, tall figure.
“Wh-what’s dat?” he stammered.
“What’s what?”
Dick took a few steps forward, clanking and rattling his chains, and
stood still in an open space, revealed and concealed by the light of a
fading young moon. His white drapery glimmered and gleamed with pale
phosphorescent light, and the green eyes in the ghastly old skull
glared like a demon’s. He uttered a sepulchral moan.
The negroes rushed pell-mell into the cabin, tumbling over one another.
“A ha’nt! a ha’nt! a ha’nt!”
Dick’s moan broke into a laugh, but that came to an abrupt end. For a
dozen dogs ran to investigate the strange appearance which, after all,
had a human scent. Dick in his flowing drapery stood for a moment at a
disadvantage. But he jerked up the sheet and gave a kick that sent one
cur yelping away. And then he laid about him so vigorously with his
bundle of tools that the dogs retreated, yelping and howling, while
their masters crouched indoors, shaking with terror.
Mightily amused and pleased with himself, Dick went on down the road.
He passed the hollow where Solomon Gabe’s cabin stood, and came to Mine
Creek. He paused to look at his gruesome image in the still, dark
water. Then he turned to follow the path to the mine.
As he turned, he faced a pile of logs, the ruins of the old
blacksmith’s hut. It was in shadow except for a ray of moonlight at
one side. In that streak of moonshine, there rose, as if the earth
had yawned and let forth a demon, a little, dark, bowed figure with a
black, evil face. It was horribly contorted, the eyes wide and staring,
the lips writhing in terror.
For a minute Dick and the fiendlike figure stood silent, face to face.
Then the boy stepped back. His foot caught on a root; he stumbled and,
with a wild gesture and an awful clanking of chains, fell flat on the
ground.
A screech quivered through the air, so sudden, so wild and terrified
that it seemed like a live, tormented thing. The dark form crashed
through the bushes and was gone.
Dick recovered himself in a minute. He scrambled to his feet and,
clutching his drapery, ran up the hill toward the old mine. He
hurriedly rid himself of his ghostly apparel, took out his flashlight,
and threw the skull and the tools into the mine hole. Then, with the
sheet bundled under his arm, he sped homeward. As he passed Peter Jim’s
cabin, he heard fervent prayers and pious groans; the “frolic” had
been turned into a prayer meeting.
Dick smiled ruefully. “I don’t reckon they were much worse scared than
I was,” he said to himself. “What--who on earth could that have been?”