on the Tennessee she began to brighten. Martin had made this journey
not long before his death. The war, now so far past, was brought close
to her. The battle seemed but a little while back. On the wooded
bluffs she could almost see rebel skirmishers in hiding. Her meek,
feminine soul, which had never before directed a cruel thought toward
any individual, suddenly throbbed with fierce resentment; the slow,
easy-going natives, who strolled down to the landings and leisurely
carried their freight up the bank in primitive fashion, seemed to
her to represent a bloodthirsty, murderous people. She eyed them
malevolently.
One day the captain of the boat sat down by her side on the deck. He
was a middle-aged man of slow, soft speech and gentle manner--as far
removed from the typical bluff, gruff, profane, aggressive river man
of literature as possible. He had already won Mrs. Davis’s confidence
by his deferential courtesy and attentions to which she was a stranger
at home. There no one was unkind, but certainly no one was noticeably
considerate of the comfort of women, especially those of no particular
importance. He narrated to her bits of history about the places along
the river, with every foot of which he was familiar, and told anecdotes
of the people, half of whom he seemed to know by their Christian names.
“How can you speak so kindly of them, an’ you a soldier, too?” she
broke out at last. “Rebels I reckon they were, most of ’em, an’ killed
our men, an’ would do it again if they had a chance.”
He turned to her slowly and without a sign of surprise; she was not a
new type to him.
“Madam, these people along heah were mostly Union sympathizers during
the wah. I was a soldier in the Confede’at ahmy.”
It was a shock. Ex-rebels had found their way to her little village
since the war, but a good many sons had gone out from there to fight
for the Union, and never to return, and those wanderers from the South
were not made welcome, but had mostly drifted on to regions elsewhere
in Indiana where were friends and sympathizers. She had never so much
as talked with one before.
Then he told her, in a quiet, reminiscent way, some stories of his
youth and his far Southern home; of how the South was then all the
country he knew, and the North a far-off, cold region, whose people, he
was taught, cared only to buy and sell, and to subjugate and rob the
South; of how the war broke out and one by one his neighbors joined the
army, then his brothers, and then himself, a boy of sixteen--all filled
with fierce patriotism and the blind belief that they were fighting
for the right; of how his brothers had been slain, and how he had gone
home, when at last the conflict was over, to find that home dismantled,
the mother who had been its center forever gone, and he, yet a boy in
years, lonely, disheartened and forlorn.
It was a revelation to the woman of few ideas that rebels--rebels!--were
creatures with loves and sorrows like her own.
And they went on up the shining river, and a little of the peace and
beauty of it entered into her soul. It was May, and the fields and
forests were in freshest array. The gray-green willows, the rank water
maples and the glossy oaks that crowded the river bank were fringed
with undergrowth, and their trunks lost in a tangle of honey-suckles,
grape-vines and ivy. It was primitive wilderness, such as the Indian
must have looked at in his day.
Then came Fort Henry. The boat, which stopped accommodatingly wherever
a would-be traveler waived a handkerchief, obligingly made fast while
passengers climbed the hill and wandered over the old earthworks that
made the walls of that famous fort. In the glamour of the moonlight and
the softness of the shadows could almost be seen the soldiers who had
once crowded the place--but trees had grown up within the walls since
that day, and the soldiers--where were they?
Then Pittsburg Landing and Shiloh, and the woman from the little
Indiana town had reached her Mecca.
They wandered over the battlefield, those tourists; they saw it almost
as it looked on the fatal Sunday so long ago, only to-day the sun
shone, and then the very heavens had wept at the sight below. They saw
the place where the fight was fiercest and most furious--the “Hornet’s
Nest,” where Union men and Confederates met hand to hand and the
slaughter was so great that the dead lay in heaps. They saw the pool
whose margin had been red with the blood of wounded men who had dragged
themselves there to quench their raging thirst. To-day cattle drank
from it undisturbed.
There were houses here and there--primitive structures, hardly more
than cabins. Mrs. Davis stopped at the door of one to ask for water. An
old woman came out, a woman with a scant calico gown and clumsy shoes,
and eyes blurred perhaps with age, possibly with tears, but kindly
still. She grew garrulous in response to a timid question.
“Yes, she had lived hereabouts evah since befo’ the wah. She an’ her
ole man was Union, but their six boys couldn’t no ways agree, an’ three
j’ined the Union ahmy an’ three the Confede’at. An’, yes--yes, it’s all
done ended long ago, but some days the time seems yistiddy, an’ it all
comes back. Her ole man couldn’t keep out no ways when the boys was
gone, an’ he jined, too, when General Sherman come along. An’--yes, the
boys was all killed; three at Donelson, two here at Shiloh Church, an’
one at Chattanooga. Their pap didn’t live long after; sort o’ broke
down like. An’ if it wasn’t that the boys who died here were buried
in a Confede’at trench (did the visitor see the ridge over thataway?)
she reckoned she’d disremembah which was Union an’ which wasn’t. Such
things didn’t seem to make no difference, nohow, when they alls was
gone to rest twel jedgment day.”
The woman who had lost one and the woman who had lost seven looked
in each other’s eyes and knew the kinship of grief, and somehow the
visitor from the North felt no longer a personal resentment for her
loss. Though it might have been a son of this woman who shot her
Martin, he had thought he was right and meant no evil.
Then she entered the gates of the National Cemetery, where the Union
dead are laid in long lines, with a granite block marking each resting
place. The captain of the boat joined her at the gate, and as he passed
in he plucked a sprig of cedar. The sun shining through the branches of
the great forest trees flecked the grass upon the graves; a soft May
breeze scattered the leaves of the early blooming roses. Down between
the rows of stones they walked, and the captain, pausing at one bearing
the number 1607, lifted his hat reverently and laid the bit of cedar
upon it.
“I put a little posy there every time I come,” he said gently; “I
reckoned that may be the wife or mother of the boy lying there might
like it.”
The man lying there might be her Martin, thought the little widow, and
from that moment her heart ceased to cherish animosity toward any man
who had fought on the other side.
She stood on the bluff and looked down on the sparkling, glinting
river. The panorama of water and sky and hill stretching for miles
before her was a vision fair to see. The flag of her country floated
from the great staff above; the only sound was the singing of the
birds, and the peace of God was over all.
* * * * *
More years went by, and the Widow Davis plodded patiently through them,
getting a little more weary as they passed and finding the burden of
loneliness none the easier to bear as age crept on. That visit to
Shiloh had taught her some things, toleration among the rest, but it
had also taken away one thing that had been a secret source of comfort
to her. Until that time she had pictured to herself the return of her
husband. She was a woman with but scant imaginative power, but where
even the dullest mind dwells much upon one subject it weaves about it
a network of fancy far different from reality. She had not seen her
husband dead; a battle was a vague thing to her; he had simply gone
away and had not come back. Perhaps he had been wounded, had lost a
leg or an arm, and a prisoner in rebel hands was long in recovering.
Then, perhaps--here her fancy took a wild leap--perhaps he was told by
some one that she was dead, or that she, thinking him dead, had married
again, though she didn’t quite see how he could believe she could
marry another man. But such things had happened--she had read of them;
and supposing he had believed it, he would wander away and never care
to revisit his old home until, at last, he somehow learned the truth
and hastened to her with joy. Or it might be that he had escaped from
his rebel prison, had reached the sea-coast, had crept on board some
foreign vessel, and had been carried to far-off lands, whence he would
some day return.
Vain imaginings, but lonely women dream strange things while they
go half mechanically about their monotonous daily tasks. Even the
happiness of happy women is half in this unreal inner life. After this
visit to Shiloh these comforting pictures were conjured up no more in
Lizzie’s mind. It was all real now, the battle and the slaughter, and
she had seen the graves where the soldiers lay; her thoughts centered
about “1607,” where the captain’s tribute rested, and she felt more
and more convinced that Martin slept beneath that stone. It was nearly
thirty years, a lifetime, since he went, and he would come to her now
only after heaven’s gate had opened to let her in. She had mourned her
lost love for thirty years. She, a little, commonplace woman of whom
no one would have thought as a heroine of romance. She would not have
known what the term “grand passion” meant; she had been simply faithful
to a memory in a quiet, undemonstrative way; her life had been bound up
in a sentiment, that was all.
One day in April--it was the 30th Shiloh anniversary--she was at
her little cottage, no neighbor needing her services as nurse or
seamstress. It had been an early spring, and she went out in the garden
to look at the signs of life among her few cherished flowers. In a
sunny corner wild violets grew and had pushed green leaves above the
mold, but no buds were yet in sight.
“I remember,” she said, speaking to a neighbor who had paused in
passing, “I remember seeing violet flowers as early as this.”
She was thinking of those stuck in the band of Martin’s hat that day
so long ago when he came from the field, and as she spoke she looked
down the village street, wondering at the unusual boisterousness of
the school children. They followed after and jeered at a man who came
slowly and hesitatingly along, as if uncertain of his way. His clothing
was rough, his shoulders bent and his gait shambling. On his head was
a military cap, such as some old soldiers still insist upon wearing,
and on its side was something like a decoration on a woman’s bonnet. It
was this that made the children jeer. Mrs. Davis put her hand over her
eyes and looked at it intently. Hardly knowing what she did, she went
out upon the walk and down the street to meet him. When she came closer
she saw that the decoration was a bunch of yellow violets. She stopped
before the man and looked at him. She had never thought of her husband
as other than erect, and strong, and young; this man was feeble, and
dim-eyed, and old, but--she knew him.
“Martin!” she said; “Martin!” and reached out her hands, forgetful of
watching neighbors and wondering children.
Something like a miracle happened in that moment. The years fell away
from her as a garment; the flush in her cheek, the love light in her
eyes transfigured her.
“Lizzie!” said the man, the dull, dazed expression clearing from his
face. “Lizzie,” and he fumbled at his cap, “I--I thought ye’d like some
posies, and came round by the holler and got them.”
She took him by the hand and led him into the house, her face still
illumined.
* * * * *
The woman who wrote stories and the other who read them met again on
the street of Mullins. Toward them came Lizzie Davis. She was the woman
who had been at the station weeks before, but she was like one born
again. Her hair was faded, it is true; her complexion gray, her dress
old-fashioned and rusty, but her eyes were bright, her bearing erect
and proud, her face smiling. She stopped a moment to speak to the woman
who wrote.
“Just think, Miss,” she said; “Martin lived over in Jonesboro, just
beyond the Ohio line, and not fifty miles from here, for twenty years.
I’ve just seen a man from there. Where he had been before that time the
Lord knows. The man says that they all knowed something was the matter
with his head. Seemed to do his work well on the farm, but every now
an’ then he’d get uneasy an’ talk an’ talk about some place he’d ought
to go if he could only just think of the name; an’ when he heard any
one call ‘Lizzie’ he always got worried and fidgety. Come spring, too,
every year, he’d pick flowers an’ wear ’em in his hat. Then at last
one day his recollection seemed to come to him sudden, and he up an’
started off, the man said, acting like a crazy lunatic. He found his
way here, an’ he’s getting to be more like himself every day, an’ it
almost seems as if he’d never been away.”
A glow was on her cheek like the blush of a bride; the thirty years of
loneliness were as naught; the children that might have been hers, the
happiness and peace she had missed were forgotten. The mother heart
in her went out to the broken-down man and was satisfied. He came
shuffling down the walk.
“See how well he looks,” she said, as she hastened toward him, with
a face through which love shone as it must shine on the faces of the
angels in heaven.
“You were wrong, you see,” softly said the woman who wrote, to her
friend; “you were wrong when you declared there was no romance here;
that the people merely vegetated. That woman has lived.”
“Yes,” said the other, “she has loved.”
A FARMHOUSE DRAMA
“It was an exceptional case, that of the Marshalls, Brother Johnson, or
I never should have advised them to the course they took.”
The speaker, familiarly known as Father Allen to all the region round
about, was a minister of the Methodist denomination, who, after an
itinerant life of forty years, had, as his professional brethren put
it, “assumed the superannuated relation.” This being interpreted, meant
that he had retired from regular duty and occupied himself, as age
and strength would permit, in rendering such service to neighboring
members of his old flock as occasion called for. An old minister comes
to be identified with a family as no newcomer can. He has comforted its
members in their sorrows and participated in their pleasures; he has
been with them at their funerals and their marriage feasts, and in the
emergencies of life they turn to him.
To-day, Father Allen had accompanied the Reverend Mr. Johnson, the
young preacher lately stationed at Amber Center, the little Indiana
town whose roofs were visible far across the prairie, on his first
round of pastoral calls. They had just taken their departure from
the white farm-house of the Marshalls, bearing with them the look of
ineffable content that comes to mankind only after the consumption of a
bountiful meal, and were discussing the affairs of their entertainers,
as is the ancient custom of guests of all degree, regardless of canons
of etiquette.
Acting on the principle that a pastor should be thoroughly acquainted
with the history of his flock in order to meet its spiritual needs, as
a physician is better fitted to prescribe for a patient’s ills when
he understands his physical constitution, the old minister gave, with
somewhat garrulous, not to say gossipy, detail, particulars of each
individual’s life to the new shepherd.
“Yes, it was an exceptional case. It is hardly necessary to say, I
hope, Brother Johnson, that I am opposed to divorce. The ease with
which legal separations are to be had is one of the greatest evils of
our time; I need not enlarge on that. Still--Brother Johnson, one must
use judgment, and it is difficult to make an iron-clad rule for all
cases. ‘A rule already made,’ do you say? Well, yes, yes--of course.
As a general thing it is best to abide by the literal scriptural
injunction, and I am the last person to countenance any other course.
Nevertheless, my son, you will find, as your experience with the
realities of the world broadens, that it is sometimes inexpedient to
insist upon too rigid an application of the letter of the law.
“Now, in the case of the Marshalls, John was very deeply attached to
his first wife, whom he married on the day of his enlistment in the
army, twenty years ago; very deeply attached, no doubt of it. His wife,
pretty Rose Lytle, was fond of him in her way, too, but she was of a
clinging, dependent nature, and would, perhaps, have been equally happy
had it chanced to be another than John, who had so devoted himself to
her. The woman who loved him most deeply on the day of his marriage was
Rose’s cousin and adopted sister, Mary; but that was her secret. Many a
woman has such. Rose was a pretty creature. It was twenty years ago,
but I remember her well. She reminded me--my wife’s name was Rose, too.”
The old man’s voice faltered. It was not upon the prospect near that
his dim eyes were wistfully fixed, but upon something far beyond.
Before them the western sky was gorgeous with crimson and purple and
gold--fit reminder of the gates of the New Jerusalem--but Mr. Johnson
removed his gaze from the glory of the sunset to glance curiously at
his aged companion, knowing as he did, that the name of the present
Mrs. Allen was Sarah, and that the neatly framed portrait of her
immediate predecessor was carefully labeled, “My beloved consort,
Matilda.”
“A week later,” resumed the elder gentleman, “John was on his way with
his regiment to the South, and the women were left to each other’s
company. The months following went by slowly enough, no doubt, to the
girl in the lonely prairie home and to the man toiling in Virginia
trenches, or marching over sodden hills; time moves slowly, you know,
when one is young and impatient.”
“When the ‘body is in Segovia’ and the ‘soul is in Madrid,’” softly
interpolated the listener, who was yet young enough to permit
sentiment to come to the surface now and then.
“But time goes for all,” continued the old minister, “and before the
year’s close it had ended to the consciousness of one of the pair. A
report that John had been killed in battle came suddenly to the ears of
the waiting wife--a false report, as later appeared, like so many that
came from ‘the front’ in those days. Next day their son was born, but
the mother had no smile at the sight of the baby face. The shock of the
news had deprived her of reason. Physical strength came back in time,
but with its return the insanity increased until she raved with madness
and became dangerously violent. The husband, who had been wounded only,
came home on furlough, but his presence excited her to fierce outbursts.
“It was a long time before John or the cousin Mary, patiently devoted
to mother and child, would consent to send the cherished and petted
girl away from their own care to an institution for the insane; but
finally the safety of all demanded it. She was taken to an asylum and
is there to-day.
“John rejoined his regiment, and when the war was over came back to
find his home and child well cared for by the faithful Mary. Matters
went on in this way for a while, with the addition of himself as head
of the household. Left to himself, he would perhaps have discovered no
reason why the agreeable conditions should not continue, but when Mary,
the center of this home life, suddenly resumed her old occupation of
teaching, and would give no explanation of her course to the bewildered
man save that she preferred the change, there were neighbors willing
to enlighten him. In the matter of social conventionalities and
proprieties people in country communities are very exacting, Brother
Johnson, and it was not considered proper that Mary should remain as
housekeeper for a man who was her brother-in-law only by courtesy.
“Naturally, this was the beginning of the end. They soon discovered
each other’s sentiments and came to me for advice, separately and
together. The physicians had assured them that Rose was hopelessly
insane; that while no one could say with absolute certainty that she
would not recover, the tendencies in her case gave no encouragement for
such hope. Insanity was not specified as legal cause for divorce, but
in those days, Indiana courts were allowed by the statutes far greater
liberty and discretion than now, and, under the circumstances, there
was no difficulty in the way of securing a decree of separation. The
only question with these two, Mary and John, was whether it was right
for John to be divorced even with conditions as they were. They were
conscientious and argued for and against themselves.”
“To me it seemed one of the exceptional cases. Marshall needed some one
at the head of his establishment; he had not so warm an affection for
this woman, perhaps, as for Rose, but he would make her a good husband.
Mary cared for him as she never could for another. It is best for women
to marry. It seemed to me expedient that these two should be united,
and so I advised the divorce. I am still of the opinion that the course
was wise.”
“Mrs. Marshall’s expression did not strike me as that of a particularly
happy woman,” said Mr. Johnson. “She looked sad, I thought, and
anxious.”
“Women, as a class, are foolish,” hastily exclaimed the old man. “The
best of them have imaginary troubles. Mrs. Marshall allows herself to
be tormented by the fear that Rose will yet be cured, and reproaches
herself at the same time for dreading what ought, under other
circumstances, to be a blessing. However, as I said, women will find
something to worry over, and if it were not for this fanciful notion,
Mrs. Marshall, good, sensible woman that she is, would have some other.
I believe she did well.”
As they drove up the village street in the haze of the late Indian
summer twilight the young minister breathed a sigh. He had been
impressed by what the poet calls the large, sweet calmness of the
prairie; but peace, after all, did not, it seemed, abide with the
people. He wondered what would be the end if, at last, the innocent,
but cast-off wife should be restored to the realities of life.
* * * * *
Back in the white house on the prairie the first chapter of the sequel
to the old minister’s story had even then begun.
After the visitors had driven away, John Marshall and his wife stood on
the steps, his eyes fixed absently on the purple line of the horizon
far across the level plain, she, with her face turned toward his. A
question was on her lips, but she did not speak, only touched his arm
softly while the look of vague apprehension in her eyes deepened into
what was almost terror. At last he moved until his glance met hers.
“What you have always dreaded has happened,” he said. “Rose has
recovered her mind.”
The woman at his side did not cry out nor moan--she was not of the
demonstrative sort; but a change come over her while she stood there as
if she had suddenly grown old and feeble. Her face looked pinched and
gray. She took her hand from his arm and moved back a pace--a movement
that told its own story. After a moment he went on steadily:
“The doctor writes that it is a very unexpected recovery; quite
remarkable in the history of such cases. She is well as ever, mentally,
but oddly enough her bodily strength has as suddenly failed, and,
according to what he says, she is not likely to be better. It is not
probable at the best that she will live many months--perhaps not even
weeks; but in order to prolong her life, as well as to retain her
mental balance, she must be carefully guarded from a shock of any sort.
This, above all things, must be the care of those about her, he says,
and explains that he has said nothing to her concerning our family
affairs. And,” after a pause in which he glanced uneasily at his wife,
“Rose wants to come home.”
She looked at him with calm, tearless eyes.
“Do you wish her to come?” she asked.
“Well,” he answered, hesitatingly, “it’s a queer fix. We’re all she’s
got, you know, you and I, and to send her among strangers now--it
doesn’t seem just right. She was our little Rose, you remember,
and----. If she were well it would be different, of course. Still,
if you think it won’t do--if you can’t have it so, let it be as you
please, Mary.”