It was a long time before the family found out that David and Jonathan
didn't think alike about States' rights; and when we did find out, we
paid mighty little attention to it, for we thought they'd come to an
agreement about this jest as they had about every other question
that'd ever come up between 'em. But when the President made his first
call for soldiers, David and Jonathan both went to Mother and asked
her consent to enlist. They was of age and might 'a' done as they
pleased. But as long as one of us children stayed under Father's roof,
we never took a step of any importance that we didn't first ask
Mother's consent.
"Well, Mother looked at 'em awhile, standin' before her so tall and
strong and handsome, and she says, 'My sons, you'll never have my
consent to goin' in the army.' And David and Jonathan looked at each
other, and then David spoke. 'Well, Mother,' says he, 'if you won't
give your consent, we'll have to go without it.' And Mother says, 'You
boys never disobeyed me in your lives, are you goin' to disobey me at
this late day?' And David says, 'No, Mother, we're goin' to obey you,'
says he. 'You've told us from our youth up that we must listen to the
voice of conscience and do whatever we thought was right,--I think one
way about this matter and Jonathan thinks the other, but we're both
listenin' to the voice of conscience and doin' what we think is right
jest as you taught us to do.'
"Well, of course, Mother couldn't answer that, and so the word went
out that David and Jonathan was goin' to enlist, and all the married
brothers and sisters gethered at the old home place to say farewell to
'em.
"Maybe you know, child, how you feel the mornin' after there's been a
death in the house. It hardly seems worth while to do any thing, for
your heart's in the coffin in the dark room, but you go on and cook
and put the house in order and try to eat the same as if nothin' had
happened. And that's the way we all felt the mornin' my brothers went
to the war. Mother wouldn't let anybody help her cook breakfast. Says
she, 'It's the last thing I can do for my boys, and I don't want any
help.' So she cooked the breakfast and waited on the boys and watched
'em while they eat, the same as she'd been doin' all their lives. And
when the meal was over, Father was at the gate with the wagon to take
'em to town to catch the mornin' train to Louisville, and from there
Jonathan had to go to Camp Joe Holt over in Indiana--that's where the
Federals had their recruitin' place--and David, he was to go to Camp
Boone in Tennessee. All of us went out to the gate to say farewell,
and there wasn't a tear dropped nor a useless word said. If one had
cried we'd all 'a' cried. But we saw that Mother was holdin' her tears
back, so we all did the same. And we stood and looked till the wagon
was out o' sight, and then everybody went back to the house feelin' as
if we'd jest come back from a buryin'. Well, from that day on, all we
lived for was to hear the news from the battles and find out which
side beat. Some o' the neighbors was on the side o' the North and some
on the side o' the South, and one could rejoice to-day and another
one to-morrow, and one was prayin' for Lee and the other for Grant,
but Mother she'd say, 'It's all one! It's all one! There's no
rejoicin' for me no matter which side wins, and the only prayer I can
pray is "Lord! Lord! put an end to this war and give me back my
boys."' People used to come over and talk to Mother and try to make
her see things different. Uncle Haley says to her once, says he,
'Deborah, can't you think o' your country? There's a great question to
be settled. Nobody knows which is the strongest, the government up
yonder at Washin'ton, or the government down yonder in South Carolina
and right here in Kentucky. It's a big question,' says he, 'and it's
been botherin' this country ever since it's been a country, and this
war's goin' to settle it one way or the other for good and all, and no
matter which side a man's fightin' on, he's doin' his part in the
settlement.' Says he, 'You've got a son on each side, and you ought to
feel proud and glad that you're doin' so much for your country.' And
Mother's eyes'd flash and she'd say, 'Country! You men never told me I
had a country till you got up this war and took my sons away from me.
I'm nothin' but a poor old woman that's spent her life raisin' up a
family, and what's a country to me unless I've got my sons?'"
The mother-heart! It beats to the same measure, be it Garibaldi's time
in Italy or war-time in Kentucky.
And when Italy's made, for what end is it done
If we have not a son?
. . . . . . . .
When you have your country from mountain to sea,
When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head.
(And I have my dead.)
"If David and Jonathan had been on the same side," continued Aunt
Jane, "it would 'a' been easier for Mother; but she used to say it was
like havin' her heart torn in two, and one half of it was with David
and the other half with Jonathan, and she worried herself nearly crazy
over the fear that one of her boys might kill the other. And the
fightin' kept on, the battles longer and harder all the
time,--Manassas and Fort Donaldson and Pea Ridge and Mill Spring, and
there was hardly a time when it wasn't Kentuckian against Kentuckian,
and at last come the battle o' Shiloh."
On that fatal word Aunt Jane's voice broke. She turned away from me
and covered her face with her apron, and there was a long pause. The
rains of more than forty springs had cleansed the earth from the taint
of blood; grass and flowers and grain were growing over the old
battle-field; but, like the wand of a wizard, the rusty bayonet had
waved out of sight and out of mind the decades of peace, and her tears
flowed for a grief too deep to be healed by the flight of mortal
years.
Presently, with trembling hands she began arranging the boxes and
bundles on the shelves. There were no unfinished tasks in Aunt Jane's
life; the closet must be cleaned, and a story once begun must be told
to the end. She steadied her voice and went on.
[Illustration: "'DAVID! JONATHAN! MY BOYS! WHERE ARE YOU?'"
_Page 257._]
"You know, honey," she said, "the battle o' Shiloh lasted two days and
the evenin' of the first day a curious thing happened. Mother was
stayin' with me, for Father was with the home gyards, and in them days
the women had to huddle up together and protect each other the best
they could. I was in the kitchen cookin' supper, and Mother was in the
front room sittin' in her old rockin' chair by the winder lookin' out
at the pretty sky, when the sun had about gone down. I could hear
her rockin' and the old chair creakin'. Pretty soon it got so dark I
couldn't see what I was doin', and I lit a candle, and jest as I was
settin' it on the shelf above the table, I heard Mother give a cry and
go runnin' to the front door. I picked up the candle and went out to
see what was the matter, but as I opened the door o' the front room a
gust o' wind blew out the candle, and I run out in the dark, and there
was Mother standin' in the door leanin' forward as if she was lookin'
and listenin', and before I could git to her she rushed out on the
porch and around the house callin' 'David! Jonathan! My boys! Where
are you?'
"I thought certain Mother had lost her mind, and I went after her and
caught her by the arm, and, says I, 'Mother, what on earth's the
matter? Come back in the house; you're gittin' your feet all wet with
the dew.' And she jerked away from me and went on clear around the
house lookin' in every dark place under the trees and the vines and
callin' her boys. And when she got to the front door again, she
stopped and said to me, 'Jane, didn't you hear the foot-steps?' And I
says, 'What foot-steps, Mother' and she says, 'Why, Jonathan and
David's, of course.' Says she, 'I heard 'em comin' up the front walk
jest like I've heard 'em a hundred times before, comin' in from the
field at night.' And she started around the house again, and says she,
'May be they're hidin' out somewhere tryin' to surprise me.'
"Well, it was the longest time before I could persuade Mother to come
in, and all the evenin' she talked about the footsteps and how plain
they sounded, and every now and then she'd go to the door and look and
listen and call their names.
"God only knows what she heard, but the next day we got news of the
fightin' at Shiloh, and David was there with General Johnston, and
Jonathan, he was with Grant."
She turned away, and again there was a long silence. To me who
listened the war was but a story on a printed page, but to her who
told the tale, it was a chapter of life written in tears and blood,
and better for Aunt Jane if the old bayonet had lain forever in the
soil of the far field. But again she took up the story.
"I've heard folks say, child, that the funeral's the saddest thing
about a death; but it's a sadder thing to have a death without a
funeral.
"You ricollect me tellin' you about that picture I saw at Henrietta's,
'The Angelus?' Well, there was another picture I'll never forgit as
long as I live. It was a picture of Rizpah. I reckon you know who
Rizpah was; you ought to know, any how."
Aunt Jane looked inquiringly at me and paused for a reply. Rizpah?
Rizpah? Yes, somewhere I had heard that stately name, but where? Was
it in Greece or Rome or France or Italy? Juliet I knew, and Octavia
and Iphigenia and Aspasia--
Had Rizpah any kinship to these? Aunt Jane's eyes were searching my
face.
"Honey," she said gravely, "you might jest as well own up that you
don't know who Rizpah was. That comes o' parents not makin' their
children read the Scriptures. When I was a child we had to read our
Bibles every Sunday evenin' till pretty near sundown. I can't say we
enjoyed it much, but when we grew up we didn't have to blush for shame
when anybody asked us a Bible question. Now, you take my Bible yonder
on the table, and find the second book of Samuel. I can't be expected
to ricollect exactly the chapter or the verse, but you look around in
that book till you see Rizpah's name and then read what it says."
I made a hasty search for the passage and presently found it:
"But the King took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom
she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of
Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of
Barzillai the Meholathite; and he delivered them into the hands of the
Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord: and they
fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest,
in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.
"And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for
her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the water
dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the
air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night."
"There!" said Aunt Jane, "that's Rizpah. Now try to remember that
story, child. You couldn't help rememberin' it if you'd ever seen the
picture. It was an awful thing to look at, but somehow if you looked
at it once you couldn't help goin' back to it again. There was the sky
and the light breakin' through the clouds. I never could tell whether
it was right after sundown or jest before sunrise--and the dead
bodies hangin' from the limbs o' the trees, stiff and straight, and
Rizpah fightin' off the vultures with a club, her long black hair
streamin' down her back and her eyes blazin' like coals of fire. The
minute I looked at that picture, I says to myself, 'That's Mother.'
Many a night she'd dream of seein' the bodies of her sons lyin' on the
battle-field and the birds pickin' the flesh from their bones, and
she'd wake up cryin' and wring her hands and say, 'If I could only
know that their bodies was buried safe in the ground, I could stand it
better.' But we never did know, and--it's a curious thing, honey--when
you don't see the dead buried you never can be right sure that they
ain't alive yet somewhere or other on this earth.
"The footsteps never come again, but all her life Mother listened for
'em, and I hope and trust that when she got to the other side, the
first thing she heard was the steps of her boys comin' towards her
jest like they used to come before the war parted 'em."
She dried her eyes once more on the gingham apron and tried to smile
at me in her usual way, but the smile would not come.
"This ain't the right kind of a story to tell you, honey, on a pretty
spring day," she said brokenly, "and I never set out to tell it. But
that old bayonet got me started, and before I knew it I was right back
in war times livin' it all over. And while I'm about it, there's one
more story I'm goin' to tell you, whether you want to hear it or not.
It's about Elizabeth Taylor. I reckon I've told you Sally Ann's
experience, haven't I? And if you ricollect that, you'll know who
Elizabeth Taylor was.
"Elizabeth felt different from Mother about the war. She was strong
for States' rights, and when Harrison, the only son she had, went into
the army, he went with her blessin' and consent, and he made a mighty
brave soldier, too. I ricollect the day 'Lizabeth come over to tell us
about Harrison bein' promoted at the battle o' Port Gibson. You've
heard o' the battle o' Port Gibson, haven't you, honey? That was
another time when they fought all day long. I've heard Harrison say
the first gun was fired before daylight, and when they give up and
begun fallin' back, it was gittin' on towards dusk. Harrison said his
officers went down one by one, first the captain and then the
lieutenants, and when the last one fell, he up and took charge o'
things himself jest like he'd seen the captain do; and when they
found they had to give up the fight, Harrison somehow or other managed
to carry away two cannons out o' the six they'd been workin' that day,
and with these two he kind o' kept the Yankees off while the men fell
back, and if it hadn't been for that they'd 'a' been cut all to
pieces. Harrison was nothin' but a striplin', not out of his teens,
but he went into that battle a sergeant and he come out of it a
captain. 'Lizabeth was the proudest, gladdest woman you ever saw; says
she, 'I've had a hard life, but this pays me for all my troubles.'
"But what I set out to tell you was somethin' 'Lizabeth herself did,
not what Harrison did. It was along towards the close of the war, the
summer of '64. One evenin' in July a squad o' Yankee soldiers come
gallopin' along the pike about dark, and camped over in the fields
back of 'Lizabeth's house. 'Lizabeth said she went up in the garret
and looked out o' the window, and she could see 'em lightin' their
camp-fires and feedin' their horses and cookin' supper. There wasn't a
soul on the place with her except old Aunt Dicey and Uncle Jake.
'Lizabeth's brother was a slave owner, and when Harrison went to the
war he sent Aunt Dicey and her husband over to 'Lizabeth's to watch
over her and keep her company.
"Well, that night 'Lizabeth said she didn't feel much like sleepin',
not knowin' but what the soldiers might come at any minute to search
the house or maybe set it on fire. But she said her prayers and was
almost fallin' off to sleep when she happened to think of some powder
that Harrison had hid over in that field. Harrison was mighty fond of
huntin', and always kept a big supply o' powder on hand, and the day
before he went to the war he carried the can over to that field and
hid it in a holler tree. 'For,' says he, 'I don't propose to be
furnishin' ammunition to the Yankees.' 'Lizabeth said her heart
stopped beatin' when she thought o' that powder and the fires all
around, and the ground covered with dry grass and leaves. And she
thought, 'Suppose the grass and leaves should catch a fire and the
fire spread to the tree,' and she got up and put on her clothes and
went to the garret again and looked out o' the window, and she could
see a fire right near where she thought the old holler tree was
standin', and her conscience says to her, 'If anybody's killed by that
powder blowin' up whose fault will it be?' She said she knew she
ought to go and git the powder, but the very thought o' that made her
shake from head to foot. And she went back to bed and tried to sleep,
but when she shut her eyes all she could see was a fire spreadin'
amongst the leaves and grass and creepin' up to an old holler tree,
and she thought how every one o' them soldiers lyin' there asleep had
a mother and maybe a wife and a sister that was prayin' for 'em. And
all at once somethin' said to her, 'Suppose it was your boy in this
sort o' danger; wouldn't you thank any woman that'd go to his help?'
And then she saw in a minute that there wasn't but one thing for her
to do: she must go and take that powder out o' the holler tree and put
it out o' the reach o' fire. So she threw an old shawl over her head
and went out to the cabin and called Uncle Jake, and asked him to go
with her across the field betwixt the house and the place where the
soldiers had their camp. The old man was no manner o' protection, for
he was so crippled up with rheumatism that he had mighty little use of
his feet and hands, but 'Lizabeth said she felt a little bit safer
havin' some human bein' along with her crossin' that big field.
"The moon was about in its third quarter that night, and 'Lizabeth
said if the sentries had been awake they could 'a' seen her and Uncle
Jake creepin' through the high weeds in the field. And every now and
then she'd stop and listen, and then go on a little piece and stop and
listen again, and that way they got to the far corner of the field,
and Uncle Jake he crouched down behind a big oak stump, and she
crawled under the bars o' the fence, and there was the fires all
burnin' low, but givin' enough light along with the moon to keep her
from stumblin' over the soldiers lyin' asleep on the ground. She said
she gethered her skyirts around her and picked her way to the holler
tree and pulled the powder out and put it in the skyirt of her dress
and started back. She said she was so skeered she never stopped to see
whether there really was any danger of fire spreadin' to the tree and
settin' off the powder. She had jest one thought in her mind, and that
was to git the powder and go back home.
"Did you ever dream, child, of tryin' to go somewhere and your feet
feelin' as if they had weights on 'em and you couldn't move 'em? Well,
'Lizabeth said that was the way she felt when she started back to the
fence with that powder. It was mighty heavy and weighted her down, so
that she had to walk slow, and she could hear the soldiers breathin',
and once one of 'em said somethin' in his sleep, and she come pretty
near faintin' from fright. Every step seemed like a mile, and she
thought she never would git back to the fence. But God watched over
her, and she got out o' the camp and back to the house safe and sound.
She said when she stepped up on her back porch she felt like a weight
as heavy as the powder had been taken off her conscience, and she went
up stairs and kneeled down and thanked God for givin' her courage to
do the right thing, and then she went to bed and slept as peaceful as
a child.
"Now, you may think, child, that 'Lizabeth put on her bonnet and come
over and told me this the day after it happened; but she didn't.
'Lizabeth never was any hand to talk about herself, and it was an
accident that anybody ever heard what she'd done. I happened to be at
her house one day, maybe six months or so after the war was over, and
Harrison was searchin' around in the closet, pullin' things out like
I've been doin' to-day, and he come across the powder. He looked at it
a minute, and says he, 'Why, here's that powder I hid in the old
holler tree; I'd clean forgot it. How did it get here, Mother?' And
'Lizabeth says, 'Why, son, I went and got it the night the Yankees
camped over in the woods at the back o' the house.' Harrison looked at
her like he thought she was talkin' out of her head, and says he,
'What did you say, Mother?' And 'Lizabeth went on to tell him jest
what I've told you, as unconcerned as if she was tellin' about walkin'
from the front door to the front gate. And when she got through,
Harrison drew a long breath, and says he, 'Mother, I'm proud of you!
That's braver than anything I ever did. They made me a captain, but
you ought to be a general.' And 'Lizabeth, she colored up, and says
she, 'Why, son, any woman that had the heart of a mother in her would
'a' done jest what I did. It's nothin' to make any fuss over.'
"I ain't overly fond o' tellin' stories about war times, child,"
concluded Aunt Jane, "but I like to tell this, for it's somethin' that
ought to be ricollected. Harrison showed me a big book once, The
Ricords of the Rebellion, and his name as big as life on one o' the
pages, tellin' how he was promoted twice in one day; but 'Lizabeth
outlived her husband and all her children, and you won't find so much
as a stone to mark her grave, and in a little while nobody'll ever
know that such a woman as 'Lizabeth Taylor ever lived; yet, it's jest
as Harrison said; what she did was braver than anything he did. And
it's my belief that Harrison never would 'a' been the soldier he was
if he hadn't had his mother's conscience. It was 'Lizabeth's
conscience that made her stand up in church and own up to usin' our
Mite Society money, and made her leave her bed that night and risk her
life for the lives o' them soldier boys, and it was her conscience in
her son that kept him at his post on the field o' battle when
everybody else was runnin' off; and that's why 'Lizabeth's name ought
to be ricollected along with Harrison's."
"Poor human nature," we sometimes say, forgetting that through every
character runs a vein of gold. Now and then kindly chance rends the
base earth that covers it and shows us a hero or a heroine. But
revealed or unrevealed, all human nature is rich in the possibility of
greatness.
Here and there we build a monument; but if for every deed of noble
daring some memorial were raised, earth's monuments would be as the
stars of heaven or the sands of the sea; the names of the lowly and
the great would stand side by side; and the name of the mother by the
name of the son. For the valor of man is a mighty stream that all may
see as it rolls through the ages, changing the face of the world, but
ofttimes its source is a spring of courage rising silently from the
secret depths of an unknown woman's heart.
IX
THE WATCH-MEETING
[Illustration]
IX
THE WATCH-MEETING
It was the thirty-first of December. The short winter day had ended in
a golden sunset, and the old year was passing in a night of stars.
Aunt Jane and I stood on the porch looking westward at the clear
wintry sky, where the radiance from the silver lamp of Venus gleamed
as clearly over the bare, frozen earth as if it were lighting the feet
of lovers through the rose-gardens of June. All the winds of heaven
were sleeping, and the cold still air was like a draught from a
mountain spring. Our eyes were on the same star, but our thoughts were
far apart; mine with the years to come, and Aunt Jane's with the years
that were past.
"Fine night for a watch-meetin'," she remarked at last.
"A watch-meeting?" I queried. "What is a watch-meeting?"
Aunt Jane turned her face toward me, and through the darkness I felt
her look of deep reproach. "Child," she said gravely, "do you mean to
tell me that you don't know what a watch-meetin' is, and you livin' in
a Christian country all your life? Next thing you'll be tellin' me you
don't know what a prayer-meetin' is. However, I don't know as you're
to blame. Your grandfather and grandmother went to watch-meetin', and
your mother knows what it is, but I reckon watch-meetin's are as much
out o' fashion these days as purple caliker dresses and turkey-tail
fans. In my day, child, folks went to church New-year's eve and sung
and prayed the old year out and the new year in, and that's a
watch-meetin'."
"How interesting!" I exclaimed.
Aunt Jane chuckled softly. "Yes, it was mighty interestin'," she said,
"and there was one watch-meetin' I'll never forgit as long as I live.
But you come into the house. This ain't the weather for old folks or
young folks either to be standin' out on the porch."
We went in, and I laid a stick of wood on the andirons in the open
fireplace. A momentary splendor lit the room as the gray moss and
lichens caught fire and the swift flames ran from one end of the log
to the other and then died out, while the smoke from the kindling wood
rose in the huge chimney.