"He was bringing Nina's dispatch-box. The box that was stolen from the
wagon the night of the Indian raid."
Joe started, and a strange startled expression passed over his face.
"Where was it?" he asked.
"On the prairie, very near his body. Ruth found it there."
"Great heavens! I kicked it with my foot the night of the blizzard! I
thought it was a tin can. _Nina's dispatch-box_! And it has lain all
these months on the prairies!"
"God is good," murmured Mr. Peniman. But Joe answered nothing, but
stared at his father with distended eyes.
*CHAPTER XXV*
*THE DISPATCH-BOX*
When they had brought Eagle Eye home and buried him under the willow
trees on the river bank Joe went directly to his mother.
He was seventeen now, and the dangers and hardships he had been through
and the responsibilities that had been thrust upon him made him appear
much older than his years.
"Mother," he said in a low trembling voice, "have you told Nina--does
she know?"
"Not yet, dear. There has not been time. It will of course be
something of a shock to her, and I want to tell her when we are quiet
and alone and I can prepare her for it."
For a moment the boy stood silent, his head bent forward on his breast.
Then he burst out impetuously:
"Do you think we'd better tell her at all, Mother? She is contented and
happy here, why should we tell her something that--that--might take her
away from us forever? I have always known that she was--was--different,
somehow, and this box probably contains the information about her own
people and all that. If she gets it why--why she will probably go back
to them--and--and----"
The troubled voice ceased, and his mother bent forward and putting her
hand under his chin raised his face to hers.
"Why, Joe!" she exclaimed, "why, _Joe_! Is that my own boy speaking
like this? You would keep the knowledge that must be of such
inestimable value to Nina away from her because, perchance, we should
lose her, lest she should leave us--to further her own happiness and
prosperity in life?"
Joe bent his head and his face crimsoned.
"I know I'm selfish, Mother," he blurted out; "I know I shouldn't even
allow myself to think of such a thing. But when I think of her leaving
us--of--of going off to live with some one else--I--I just can't stand
it." Then raising his head and fixing his deep grey eyes upon his
mother's face, "I'd rather die than live without Nina."
When she had at last sent him away to bed Hannah Peniman sat for a long
time before the dying fire.
Joe--her Joe--her son--her baby--was not a boy any more--he was a man!
The eyes that had looked into hers this night, the voice that had spoken
out of a heart yet unknown to itself, were not the eyes, the voice of a
child. And the knowledge left pain in her heart, and wonder.
She rose presently and going to the door called Nina.
As the girl came bounding into the room Hannah Peniman looked at her
with new eyes. The little Princess was now a slender, graceful,
beautiful girl of fourteen, with a head of rippling gold, eyes like
wood-violets, and a face so entrancingly lovely that Mrs. Peniman's
heart sank as she looked at it.
She drew the girl gently down on a chair beside her.
"Listen, dear," her voice was low, almost sad, as she spoke, "you never
knew the Indian that Ruth found on the prairies to-day and that Father
and the boys buried this evening, but he has done you a great, an
inestimable service. You have heard us speak of him, and how we took
care of Eagle Eye when he was wounded. That was at the time that both
you and Joe were away, after you were kidnapped by the Indians. Father
Peniman trusted Eagle Eye, and told him your story. He went away
without a word, but in some way he got possession of the box containing
your papers----"
Nina started up from her chair.
"The box--_the dispatch-box_--that Mother left me?"
"Yes, Nina. He got it, and he was bringing it back to us when he became
lost in the blizzard. He gave his life in the effort to restore it."
"But the box--the box--Mother's box?" cried Nina, her hands clasped, her
face white, her eyes wide and pleading.
"That was the box that Ruth found this afternoon lying on the prairie
beside Eagle Eye's body."
"And you have it--you got it--it--it----" her agitation was too great
for words.
Mrs. Peniman laid her hand over the little shaking hands that were
clasped against Nina's breast.
"Yes, dear, we have it." She rose and going to her trunk brought forth
the box and put it into Nina's hands.
The girl clasped it, bent over it, pressed it to her bosom, and burst
into a flood of tears.
"It is all I have of them," she whispered, "all that I have to remember
either of them. Oh, I hope there is a picture of Mother in the box,
some letters, something to make me know more about my dear, dear father
and mother!"
At this moment Mr. Peniman entered the room. He crossed silently to the
table and stood beside it while Nina with shaking fingers unfastened the
thongs that were wound about the box and raised the lid. On the top
were two long folded papers. She opened these and glanced at them
hastily, then threw them on the table. They were deeds, executed many
years before, to Lee C. Carroll, by his father, Edgar M. Carroll,
conveying to him and his heirs forever sole title to certain properties
in St. Louis and New York.
There was a tray in the box, and with trembling hands Nina raised this
eagerly, hoping to find the treasures she had coveted in the space
below.
_There was nothing in it but a heap of ashes._
The base, vindictive nature of the renegade, while leaving in the box
the deeds to a property he dared not claim, incited him with devilish
malice to destroy all the personal papers, all data, every scrap of
information that could lead to the restoration of the child to her
friends and relatives, or her place in society.
When the full realization of what had been done came upon her Nina
uttered a heartbroken cry and cast herself into Mrs. Peniman's arms.
With eyes that could scarce credit the evidence of their senses the man
and woman gazed into the box.
Nothing there but ashes.
Nothing to pay for the life that had been given. Nothing to bring to the
helpless young girl the knowledge without which she was cut off from all
family relation, or connection with the life from which she came.
Nothing to help her to establish her identity, or enable her to claim
the property, the deeds of which had been so sardonically left in the
box.
The utter maliciousness of it, the cold, cruel, calculating
vindictiveness of the deed left them stunned.
"Don't grieve so, darling," Hannah Peniman murmured, stroking the golden
head and pressing it to her breast, "you have the deeds, and they mean a
great deal. Property in those two big cities must be worth a great deal
of money now."
"But I don't want money," sobbed Nina broken-heartedly. "I don't care
anything about the deeds, he might as well have burned them, too. What
do I want of property in New York or St. Louis? I'll probably never go
there. I don't want to go there. I want to stay here with you. But
what I wanted--what I hoped we would find in the box--were pictures of
Papa and Mama, letters from them--things about them and me--so that I
would know something about them--about myself, so that I wouldn't feel
myself a poor forsaken, friendless waif, dependent upon your charity for
all I have and am."
Joshua Peniman crossed the room and laid his hand upon her head.
"You are not a friendless waif, Princess," he said in his low, gentle
voice, "you are our daughter, beloved, cherished, as much as Sara or
Ruth." Then taking up the deeds from the table he examined them
carefully.
"This is very strange," he mused; "I can't understand it. Why should he
have left the deeds and destroyed everything else in the box? There is
a considerable quantity of ashes here. The box must have been full of
papers. Why should that villain have destroyed them all and left these
deeds? I cannot understand it."
He puzzled over it long after Nina had sobbed herself to sleep in Ruth's
loving arms.
Where was Red Snake?
Why had he burned the contents of this box?
How had the box come to be in the possession of Eagle Eye?
What had they to expect from this new complication in a mystery he was
unable to unravel?
Little could he guess, as he went abstractedly about his work the next
day, how those questions were to be answered, or how closely that
mystery was to affect the lives of himself and those who were dear to
him.
*CHAPTER XXVI*
*TROUBLE BREWING*
The spring of 1857 was a time of promise for the Nebraska settlers.
Timely rains had fallen. The few little fields of wheat and corn
promised good harvests. Elk, deer, antelope, grouse, and wild turkey
were abundant. Buffaloes came close to their settlement and they were
fortunate enough to get many hides and much meat. The Sioux had fought
a great battle with the whites at Ash Hollow and been badly beaten and
wanted nothing so much as peace. Fifty thousand dollars had been voted
by Congress to build a capitol at Omaha, and fifty thousand more to
build roads through the Territory.
With the advance of spring more settlers began to come in. There was
now a little settlement at Beaver Creek, some five miles away, and
during the summer several families located along the Blue, and a
thriving settlement started up on the Little Blue, some three or four
miles away, which was called "Milford."
Meanwhile the friendship of the Peniman family and their new neighbors,
the Jameses, was growing apace.
To Mr. Peniman the presence of a neighbor, a man who was concerned with
the same problems, the same dangers, and the same experiments as
himself, was a great boon. He now had another man to talk to, to plan
with, to rely upon in case the danger of which he was in continual fear
should come upon them.
To Mrs. Peniman the companionship of another woman was a blessing almost
beyond expression, and to the girls the presence of another young girl
in the neighborhood brought a new interest in life.
But it was to Lige and Joe that the coming of the new homesteaders
brought the greatest significance.
The James boys had always lived in towns and had a knowledge and
sophistication of which the country-raised Peniman lads were entirely
lacking. They had also had much better educational facilities, and
there was much that Joe and Lige could learn from them. The four boys
became staunch friends, and in talking with Herbert, Joe again felt his
ambitions stimulated to study law.
When the snow had gone and the bright spring sunshine had dried up the
prairies sufficiently to allow of travel Joshua Peniman proposed to Joe
that he should go to Omaha in his place, have the wagon mended and bring
back some spring supplies.
"There is so much work to be done this spring that I don't feel that I
can go," he said. "I would not like to have you make the trip alone,
but the Jameses are needing some things, too, and you and Herbert can
make the trip together."
So it was arranged, and on a brilliant spring morning, when the sky
arched like a bowl of sapphire above their heads, when the meadow-larks
sang in the grass and the wind whispered softly over the prairies that
here and there were already showing a touch of green, the two lads set
off together.
It was a long drive, and on the way they talked of many things.
Herbert, who was a fine, quiet, serious-minded boy, was thinking much of
the political situation of the country, which this spring was showing
signs of much bitterness and agitation.
"I tell you things are in a serious condition," he said. "We are going
on indifferently living over a volcano. And it's going to burst out
some day when people are least expecting it. Slavery is a curse that no
civilized country can exist under. Are we going to keep quiet and let
Kansas come into the Union as a slave State?"
Joe's eyes blazed. "Of course we're not. That would be a terrible
thing," he cried.
"Then what are we going to do about it? Are men like Douglas going to
blind the eyes and muffle the ears of the American people until we get
all tied up in legislation that will give a preponderance of the Western
States to slavery?"
When they reached Omaha they found the entire community asking the same
question. On street corners, in stores, in halls, churches,
meeting-places of all kinds the question of slavery was being discussed,
not calmly and dispassionately, but with a bitterness that was
disturbing business, separating families, setting father and sons,
brother and brother apart.
Joe listened to it all with a growing feeling of anxiety. In spite of
himself he found himself constantly being drawn into arguments,
contending hotly on a question that he felt keenly that he knew too
little about.
In a store where the two lads went to buy their provisions they ran into
a group of a dozen men or more who were hotly debating the slavery
question. They intended to do their trading and get out as soon as
possible, but the proprietor of the store was one of the principal
arguers, so leaning his back against the counter while he waited to have
his order filled, Joe listened to the discussion.
Before he was aware of what he was doing he had answered a tall,
gangling Missourian with a tuft of whiskers on his chin, who was arguing
for State rights, and the first thing he knew he was in the midst of a
fiery controversy, in which all the bystanders took violent sides.
Among them was a man whose appearance had drawn his attention from the
first moment he entered the store. At his first glance it had startled
him with a strange sense of familiarity. Then the argument had claimed
all his attention and he noticed the man no more, until, having abruptly
terminated his part in it he gathered up his provisions and was leaving
the store when the gentleman stepped up to him.
"I congratulate you, young man," he said, holding out his hand. "You
are a born orator. It does my heart good to hear the young fellows of
our country take the stand that you just did. You are what I should
call a real American. I'm afraid we have some tough times ahead of us
before this thing is over, and it is to the young fellows like you that
we may have to look for its settlement."
"Do you mean that you think it will come to war?"
"I begin to fear so. There is too much of a pull being made by the
slave-owners and slave States,--and, I regret to say, by men in
Congress, who ought to have a stronger sense of humanity and the
country's danger."
"I agree with you," answered Joe eagerly, and before he knew it he was
speaking out his thoughts to this stranger, the long, silent thoughts
that had been forming themselves in his mind in the silence of the
prairies, when he had brooded by himself about the subject of slavery
and the danger of secession.
When they had remained talking for some time the gentleman laid his hand
on Joe's arm.
"I like you, my young friend," he said; "you are a boy of much promise.
Come up to my office with me. I am a lawyer. I'd like to talk with you
further."
Joe hesitated. He had much to do, but something in the man's face and
manner, some strange, haunting sense of familiarity, the fascination of
his presence, his smooth and elegant manner of speech, made an appeal to
him that he could not resist. They went together to the lawyer's
office, and Joe saw for the first time a real law office and a law
library.
When he saw the rows of shelves his eyes brightened.
"Oh," he cried, "what a library! How splendid! How I should like to
read them all!"
The lawyer laughed. "I'm afraid you would find some of those books
rather dry reading. They are all law books. A good many of them are
reports."
"I know. That is what interests me so much. All my life my greatest
ambition has been to be a lawyer."
"Is that possible!" cried the gentleman, evidently much pleased. "Well,
well! So you would like to be a lawyer, would you? Why don't you,
then? I am sure you would make a good one."
Joe's face flushed with pleasure.
"There is nothing in the world I want so much," he answered. "But we
have a big family, my father is not a rich man, and we have recently
homesteaded on the Blue. There is an awful lot of work to be done by
pioneers, and I don't get much chance to read." Then, after a pause,
"And besides I haven't any books."
"Would you read them if you had?"
"Yes, sir, I would, indeed," Joe answered so promptly that the gentleman
smiled.
He rose presently and went to a case.
"Here," he said, taking down two volumes; "here's a copy of Blackstone,
and one of Kent's Commentaries. I'll lend them to you. Take them home
with you, and after you have read and digested them come back to me, and
if I find that you have understood what you have read I'll lend you some
more."
Joe's face crimsoned with joy. He stammered his thanks, and after
shaking hands with his new acquaintance and promising to call upon him
the next time he came to Omaha, he left the office and joined Herbert,
who was waiting for him at the store.
When he told him of his experience and showed him the books Herbert
whistled. "Looks to me as if that was a lucky strike," he said. "Do
you know who that man is? I saw that he had taken a notion to you and
asked about him. He is Judge North, one of the leading men of the
Territory and the most prominent lawyer in the West."
Joe was not surprised to hear that the man at whose office he had called
and whose books he carried under his arm was one of the leading men of
the Territory. There was that in his manner and appearance that
proclaimed him a leader of men. Absently he opened one of the books.
On the fly-leaf was written in a bold flowing hand, "John M. North,
Attorney at Law."
Joe pointed to the last words. "I hope to write that after my name some
day," he said musingly.
"I'll be your first client," laughed Herbert.
"There's no telling but that you might," grinned Joe; "I might have to
get you out of jail some day."
As they hurried back to the place where they had left the wagon Joe was
overjoyed to find Pashepaho standing beside it.
He greeted them with a broad grin.
"Me wait," he said, "me know horses."
Joe grasped his hand and shook it with the cordiality of an old friend.
Then he introduced Herbert, who looked with some astonishment upon this
manner of greeting the red man of the plains.
"Pashepaho is one of my best friends," Joe assured him; "he saved my
life once, and probably the lives of the family. What are you doing
here, Pashepaho?"
"Come trade skin. What you do?"
"We came in to get some provisions and get the wagon mended. It broke
down in a blizzard last winter."
"Heap cold."
"It was an awful winter. Father and Sam almost got lost in the big
blizzard." Then suddenly remembering, "Did you know that Eagle Eye is
dead? He was coming to us---bringing Nina's dispatch-box--when the
blizzard overtook him. We found him dead not far from our house this
spring."
"Ai-ee! Eagle Eye dead?" The Indian's sharp face clouded. "Heap good
man." Then suddenly, "You know 'bout Red Snake?"
"No," Joe turned on him sharply. "What about him? We have been awful
uneasy ever since we knew that Eagle Eye got the box. We have been
afraid he would come to take vengeance on us for it."
"He no come now," said Pashepaho gravely. Then with a tone of surprise,
"You no hear?"
"No, we have heard nothing. We have been shut off there at the
homestead with big snows all winter. What do you mean?"
"Red Snake dead."
Joe started, and leaned forward staring into his face.
"_Dead_? Red Snake dead? How? When? Where?"
"Eagle Eye keel heem."
"Eagle Eye killed him? When?"
"Many sleep ago. Shoot heem with arrow."
Joe stood as if transfixed, staring into his face.
"Eagle Eye heap white man friend," Pashepaho went on.
"I know he was, I know he was, he was our friend, our good, loyal
friend; we felt awfully bad when we found him. But--how did it happen?
How did he get the box, I wonder?"
In his halting, broken English Pashepaho told him the story as he had
heard it from the men of his own tribe. Joe was deeply affected.
"Then he must have got the dispatch-box after Red Snake was dead, and
was bringing it to us when the blizzard overtook him. Good, faithful
Eagle Eye! We thought he was not grateful for all the folks had done in
nursing him back to life, but look how mistaken we were! He was a
faithful friend."
As Pashepaho shook his hand and rode away Joe stood still in a profound
reverie. A relief so great that it was almost like the falling of a
great load from his shoulders, came over him.
_Red Snake was dead!_
The danger that had hung so darkly and fearsomely over them was now
removed, the menacing figure that had shadowed all their days and filled
their nights with terror was gone forever!
He could scarcely wait to get back home and tell the glad news to the
family. As he hurriedly began to load the provisions into the wagon two
men in earnest conversation passed him.
"We shall have war," one of them was saying, "there is no escaping it.
The South is bound to secede."
The South is bound to secede!
The two lads turned and looked at one another, and into the
consciousness of both some strange prescience seemed to fall.
"War!" said Herbert in an awed tone.
"_War!_" repeated Joe; "I wonder what it would mean to me?"
*CHAPTER XXVII*
*WAR*
The news that Joe brought back from his trip to Omaha that Red Snake was
dead and the dark menace so long hanging over them was removed forever,
brought great relief to the whole Peniman family. To Nina especially
did it seem to bring a sense of security she had never known since the
day she had been kidnapped. She had recovered in a measure from the
bitter disappointment of the violated dispatch-box, though many nights,
and often when she was alone she felt deeply unhappy over her situation,
and the unsolved mystery that seemed to cut her off from her own.
As the summer advanced the young people of the two families were much
together, and Hannah Peniman noticed with a smile--and yet a sigh--that
the boys no longer went off by themselves on hunting or fishing or
exploring expeditions, but that wherever they went the girls were
usually with them, and that as the party came home, strolling across the
prairies or along the river bank in the moonlight, that Nina and Joe
were always together, that Herbert walked with Ruth, and that Lige
larked and sang and frolicked with pretty, gay little Beatrice.
Joe found little time for reading during the summer, but the law books
which Judge North had lent him were his constant companions in the
evening, and while he plowed and harrowed the fields in which their
first crops were to be planted he propped the Blackstone up at one end
of the furrow, and while he traveled its length he recited over and over
again a paragraph he had read at the start. When he reached the end of
the furrow that paragraph was usually committed to memory, and he took
another, reciting it over and over all down the long black furrow and
back. In this way he read Blackstone through, acquiring so perfect a
knowledge of its contents that he knew it almost by heart, and could
quote from it verbatim to the very end of his life.
His mind and thoughts were much occupied with the ominous news that
continually reached them. Everywhere trouble seemed to be in the air.
The violence and disorder in Kansas, where a state of civil war
practically existed, as the result of the pro-slavery demonstration at
Lawrence, communicated itself across the border to the sister territory
of Nebraska, and bitter arguments and controversy were heard wherever
two or three people were gathered together.
Such papers as they were able to obtain were full of menace. A seething
current of excitement and unrest seemed permeating the whole nation.
The North bitterly accusing the South of trying by trickery and
treachery to force slavery upon the nation, the South maintaining that
the North was fostering abolition, and that the real intent and purpose
of the abolitionists was to arouse a slave insurrection and bring
devastation to the whole South.
The decision in the Dred Scott case and the framing of the Lecompton
Constitution in Kansas increased the agitation of the slavery question
to a burning issue; and Joe and Herbert, sometimes accompanied by Arthur
and Lige, fell into the habit of riding over to the little cross-road
store at Milford evenings, to hear the latest news and listen to the
discussion they always found going on there.
Joshua Peniman made few comments on the situation, but he seized upon
the papers with an eagerness that showed his interest, and read them
with set lips and frowning brow.
In October that year the little settlement of which the Peniman family
had been the pioneers was increased by six families, who homesteaded
upon the West Blue and Middle Creek.
A demand soon rose among them for a school which the children of the
community could attend during the cold weather, and as there were no
funds to provide such a school or pay a teacher the settlers all came
together at the Peniman homestead to discuss the matter and see what
could be done.
After much discussion it was agreed that they should build a little sod
schoolhouse, large enough to accommodate the children of the
neighborhood, and as Joshua Peniman was a natural leader among them and
the best equipped for the purpose, that the men of the settlement should
take upon themselves his work for certain hours of each day, while he in
exchange should teach the school.
He was the more willing to accede to this proposal because he had never
entirely recovered from the effects of the exposure he had suffered in
the blizzard, and was subject to rheumatism and bronchitis, and was not
sorry to have the heavy outdoor work done by some of the younger and
stronger men during the severity of the winter.
A location was chosen on the prairies about midway between the different
homesteads, and on a cold, bright morning in October the sod was broken
for the schoolhouse.
There were men and teams enough to accomplish its construction quickly,
and within a few days a solid little structure, about thirty feet
square, was erected.
The question of heating and seating had arisen at the meeting, and it
had been decided that each settler should furnish one desk or chair, and
that each settler who had timber should cut a load of cord wood and
those who had no timber should contribute their share by hauling it to
the nearest market and selling it, buying a stove with the proceeds.
This program was carried out, two of the settlers who had no timber
driving forty miles to Nebraska City, where they bought a good
second-hand stove, which was set up in the schoolhouse.
The new schoolhouse was ready for occupation the first of November, and
from that time on throughout the long, cold winter the little sod
schoolhouse accommodated about twenty children, of all grades and sizes,
of whom Joshua Peniman was the teacher.
Within a short time after the opening of the school a general feeling
arose in the settlement that the Sabbath should be observed, and at the
general request of the settlers Joshua Peniman consented to act as
leader, holding services every Sunday in the sod schoolhouse. As the
settlers were of all creeds and denominations the services were
necessarily non-sectarian. The services were very simple, consisting of
the reading of the Bible, prayers by members of the congregation,
responsive reading from the Psalms, and hymns led by the clear, sweet
voice of Hannah Peniman.
In the fall of that year another great boon came to the pioneers. A
stage-coach line was established, the terminal of which was the Big
Sandy station on the Little Blue. This line carried mail and
passengers, thus doing away with the long, lonely, dangerous ride across
the prairies to get mail, and bringing a postoffice, with mail and
newspapers within about six miles of the Peniman homestead. After that
it was possible to get papers not more than a day or two old, and to
send and receive letters without the perilous journey hitherto
necessary.
Joshua Peniman had proved up on his claim, and was holding fast to the
claims he had staked out next his own for Joe and Lige, with two other
160-acre tracts which he hoped to hold for Ruth and Nina as soon as they
should be old enough to take them. The harvest of that year was rich
and plentiful, and the winter of 1858-9 saw the family comfortably
established in a home that was beginning to have the appearance of a
real farm, with hay, grain and corn stored in their granaries, a
cow-house and chicken-house added to the buildings, and many substantial
improvements added to their dwelling.
During the winter whenever Joe could snatch time from his other duties
he and Herbert James trapped beaver, mink, and otter in the river. In
Beaver Creek, where a beautiful little town was springing up, they got
many fine beavers, the skins of which sold for from two to three dollars
a pound, many of the beavers weighing from two to three pounds apiece.
With the money he made by the sale of the skins he bought law books,
adding one at a time to his precious collection, and studying them so
industriously that when he went to Omaha to return the books he had
borrowed from Judge North he rendered to the lawyer so good an account
of his reading that the Judge called him a prodigy.
"You are the kind of a boy I like," he said genially, patting Joe on the
shoulder. "I'd like to take you into my office to study law. You are
highly gifted, and I believe will make a great success of the
profession."
Joe glowed under his praise. Nothing would have given him greater
happiness than to enter Judge North's fine offices as a student. It was
a great temptation. But there was much work to be done at home, his
father was no longer strong, and his work much interrupted by his
teaching and ministerial duties, and much of the responsibility of the
farm work had fallen upon him and Lige, who was now a tall, handsome,
well-set-up lad of seventeen, while Joe had grown to the full stature of
a man, and was approaching his nineteenth birthday.
"I can't come into your office now, Judge North," he answered
regretfully, "but I would like to come and talk with you whenever I can,
and have you advise and help me. I want to be a lawyer, and even though
I cannot be spared from home now I can go on preparing myself until the
younger boys get old enough to take my place on the farm."
"Good lad," said Judge North; "I like you none the less for your
faithfulness to your duty."
As he smiled at him again that strange sense of familiarity came over
the boy. Where had he seen that man before? Who was it of whom he so
reminded him?
There was something about him that was not like a stranger, that carried
a subtle sense of warmth, affection, to his heart. In the gleam of his
deep blue eyes there came and went an expression that eluded him like an
evanescent perfume. For some reason that he could not account for to
himself the lad's heart warmed to him strangely. In the long, friendly
talk that followed Joe told him of his ambitions, and of how that
ambition had been roused in his breast by hearing a lawyer, a man by the
name of Lincoln, make a Fourth of July speech in Illinois.
"Lincoln?" said Judge North, much interested. "Do you mean Abraham
Lincoln? Well, well! So you heard one of those great speeches, did
you? I wish it had been my privilege. Have you followed his debates
with Douglas? He has a grip on this slavery question that no other man
in the country can equal. Did you know that he is being talked of as a
candidate of the new Republican party to succeed Buchanan as President?"
"No," cried Joe, much astonished. "_That_ Mr. Lincoln? Why, he was only
a country lawyer, a member of the legislature from Sangamon County, when
I heard him!"
"He is the greatest man in this country to-day. A great lawyer. A
great statesman. I hope that he may be elected."
Joe went home more eager and encouraged in his study of the law than
ever before. He felt that if in so short a time a country lawyer like
Mr. Lincoln should have become the nominee for President that there was
hope for him in the years that lay before him.
A few evenings after his return there was a citizens' meeting at
Milford, and he and Herbert rode over. His father, who had automatically
become the leader of the settlement, had been asked to preside. Joe had
had no intention of speaking, his purpose was to attend the meeting
simply as a spectator. But before he was aware of it his blood was up
and he was on his feet making a fiery anti-slavery speech.
He scarcely knew what he was saying. But with the first words he
uttered all the long, deep thoughts that had been growing up within him
while he worked in the fields in the vast silence of the prairies burst
forth in a torrent, and he only came to himself when the little hall
rocked with shouts and applause.
After that he was often asked to speak at meetings, and no one was more
astonished than he when he was asked to accept the presidency of the
Young Men's Republican Club, that was being organized in the county.
Feeling was running hot and high everywhere. And in the fall (1859) the
torch was set to the smouldering powder of public opinion by John
Brown's seizure of the national arsenal at Harper's Ferry.
Instantly the war-spirit of the country sprang to life.
Troops were hurried to the spot and the little band of hot-headed
abolitionists seized. But though they paid the penalty of their
well-meant but misdirected enthusiasm with their lives, the blaze was
started. Nothing could stop it now.
War was inevitable.
The song,
"John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,
But his soul goes marching on,"
was born in a night and swept the country like wildfire, old men and
young singing and cheering it.
The Republican party, born of the slavery agitation, grew apace, and
"denied the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Legislature, or any
individual to give existence to slavery in the Territories." It
repudiated the doctrine of State sovereignty and the Dred Scott
decision, and nominated Abraham Lincoln for President.
The nomination of the man whose anti-slavery speeches were read and
quoted from ocean to ocean was a challenge thrown down to the
slave-holding States, which responded to it with haughty defiance and
the nomination of John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. The Northern
Democrats, unable to endorse the attitude of their Southern brothers,
split from their own party and nominated Stephen A. Douglas.
The nomination of Lincoln--his inspiration and guide--left no doubt in
Joe's mind as to his course of action. He accepted the nomination of
president of the Young Men's Republican Club, stripped off his coat and
plunged into the campaign with the same energy, the same efficiency, the
same unbounded enthusiasm that he had always brought to every task
before him.
He spoke in sod houses, dugouts, schoolhouses, stores, churches, and
halls, extolling the Republican candidate for President, and praising
the man who seemed to him the very embodiment of the spirit of the
freedom and democracy of America.
At many of these meetings Joshua Peniman presided. And as he heard the
fiery utterances of his son his heart grew cold within his breast.
The campaign was a fierce and bitter one, but Lincoln was elected.
The South, angry, defiant, outraged by the election of a "nigger-lover,"
a plebeian, a country lawyer and rail-splitter, and the defeat of their
own aristocratic candidate, Mr. Breckinridge, was incensed to fury. Many
times they had threatened that the Southern States would no longer
remain in the Union if the Republican party was successful, and on
December 20, 1860, they made good their threat. A popular convention at
Charleston passed an order of secession.
Throughout the intense excitement that followed Joe and his father had
many discussions, in some of which Lige joined.
That war was inevitable they now knew. But how it was to be met by
them--Quakers--was a thing upon which they could come to no agreement.
"We cannot take up arms," Joshua Peniman said firmly. "We are Quakers.
Our religion, the Bible, the Word of God Himself forbids it."
"But it is our duty, Father," Joe urged passionately. "If we have to go
to war with the South they will have all the advantage. They are ready
for war. The Federal arsenals in the Southern States have fallen into
their hands and furnished their soldiers with equipment. You know that
we are not prepared. A great army will have to be raised and furnished
with the munitions of war. Should we, whom you have always taught to
love and honor the flag, sit still and see that flag torn down, our
country divided, and left a prey to foreign nations?"'
Joshua Peniman blanched. "God forbid," he cried quickly. "But if it
comes to that terrible pass there are others--not Quakers--who have not
been reared in the faith that makes it impossible for them to fight. Let
them go. Let them protect the country."
"It will take us all, Father," put in Lige. "This war is going to be no
light matter. The South has the men, the money, the military training.
It is going to take all the men the North can raise to hold the nation
together if war comes."
And war did come.
Early in the spring Fort Sumter was fired upon.
This roused the North to the highest pitch of excitement. In April
President Lincoln called for volunteers to suppress the rebellion.
The hour had come that Joshua Peniman and his sons had so long prayed
might be spared them.
On the morning of June tenth Joe came and stood before him in the
living-room of the little soddy.
Neither had slept. Joe's face was pale and his lips close set as he
stood looking at his father.
"I enlisted last night, Father." He spoke in a hoarse, shaken voice,
and his lips moved stiffly as if he could with difficulty frame the
words.
Joshua Peniman started. He knew that it must come, yet the dart passed
no less cruelly through his heart because it had been anticipated.
"Already?"
He looked grey and worn. Lines that had not been there a few months
before had written themselves in his forehead and creased his cheeks.
As the lad looked at him his heart rose up and choked him.
"Oh, Father," he cried, "I _had_ to do it! It breaks my heart to go
against your will. But I had no choice. I must go. Why, think what a
skulker I would be if after all I have done and said I were to--to stay
at home!"
"You were already under orders," Joshua Peniman said slowly. "You are a
member of the Quaker Church. By your covenant with that body you have
forsworn war. Your church and your God forbid you to fight. God
Himself has commanded that 'Thou shalt not kill.'"
"Oh, but, Father, that means a different kind of killing. War is not
_murder_!"
"War is always murder. The coldest, bloodiest, most terrible murder.
Murder of the soul as well as the body."
"Oh no, Father, no, that isn't so!" cried out the boy. "Think of the
men who have engaged in war! Think of Washington--his soul was not
killed by war. This is a thing that must be done. It is a duty. We
must fight for the Union--liberty--freedom--for our own homes and
firesides."
"This issue need not have been met by war. It would not have been if
war-crazy hot-heads had not forced it upon us. There is a better way
for countries and nations to settle their difficulties than by war.
Sometime men will come to realize its brutality and nations will combine
to adjust their controversies by reason, not might."
"I don't believe that such a time will ever come. But if it does it is
not here _now_. This issue is upon us. What are we going to do?--sit
passive and let the South secede and break up the Union? Why, even
Jesus did not suffer evil passively. He drove the money-changers from
the Temple. And He Himself said 'Think not that I come to send peace on
earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.'"
"But the 'sword' that the Master speaks of in that passage of Scripture
is not the literal sword, the sword used in war, but the sharp sword of
conscience. Better that the Union be dissolved than that the hands of
men should be stained with the blood of their brethren."
"Oh, Father," cried Joe, "how can you say so! Do you care nothing for
the preservation of your country?"
Joshua Peniman flinched, and a hot flush passed over his face.
"God knows that I love my country as well as any man," he answered
sadly. "But dearly as I love my country I love my God, my religion and
the commands that He has given more."
"But remember what the Lord said to His disciples, in the twenty-second
chapter of St. Luke: 'But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and
likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment,
and buy one.' The time has come, Father, when it is our duty to go to
war, when the man who tries to escape that duty is dishonoring his God
as well as his country. The time has come, when, as Jesus told His
disciples, 'He that hath no sword should sell his very garment and buy
one' and go forth to battle for the right."
Joshua Peniman gazed into the face of his son with sorrowful eyes.
"Thee knows thy Scripture, Joe," he said in an unsteady voice. "I have
striven mightily for thee. I thought I had brought thee up in the faith
of our fathers----"
Hot tears sprang into Joe's eyes. "You have, you have, Father! As God
hears me I would not take up arms against my fellow-man for anything
less sacred than the preservation of our nation. I have studied deeply
into this question. I have searched the Scriptures. And I feel that it
is my sacred duty to go. Remember what the Lord said to Ezekiel, 'Son of
man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I
bring the sword upon a land, if the people of that land take a man of
their coasts, and set him for their watchman: If when he seeth the sword
come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; Then
whosoever heareth the trumpet and taketh not warning; if the sword come,
and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the
sound of the trumpet and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him.
But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman
see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not
warned; if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is
taken away in his iniquity; but his blood shall I require at the
watchman's hand!'"
As the lad finished the long quotation from the book of Ezekiel, over
which he had pored through many nights before, he fixed his gaze upon
his father's face and said in a solemn voice:
"We are the watchmen, Father. If we rise not now, if we do not blow the
trumpet, then should our nation perish, should the youth of our land be
cut down, the Lord, according to His word will require their blood at
the watchmen's hand."
Joshua Peniman gazed long and earnestly into his son's face. Then laid
his hand on his shoulder.
"Thee has read thy Scripture carefully, son. I must confess that I have
never read it in that light before. Perhaps thee is right. God knows.
I am sure that it would grieve thee to go against the teachings of thy
father, thy church and thy people. But I believe that thou art
following what thou believest to be thy duty. It is breaking my heart,
my son. But every man must settle an action of this kind for himself,
according to his own conscience and his own God. If thou believest that
the Lord sanctions thee, that it is thy duty to go, I will say no more;
go, and may God go with thee."
The fire of youth and patriotism burned hotly in Joe's breast, but it
was with bowed head and wet eyes that he left his father's presence.
All his life he had carried every pain, every grief and trouble to his
mother, and he sought her now, kneeling beside her and burying his head
in her lap.
She, too, had passed a sleepless night. Many hours of it she had spent
upon her knees, praying for strength and wisdom in the trial that was to
come upon her. She showed the strain of anxiety and labor of the past
five years, and the suffering of the present had left her wan and pale,
with heavy shadows in her eyes.
She clasped the boy to her and bowed her face upon his.
"Oh, Mother," he cried, "_you_ don't blame me, do you? _You_ don't
think that I am doing wrong? I'm not deserting God, Mother, or the
Friends' religion, or you! I love the old faith. I believe in it.
I'll live and die in it. But oh, Mother, I _have_ to go! No man who
loves his country and is a man can hold back now!"
She held him close, tears streaming down her face.
Presently he raised his head. "I'll have to go, dear. They are waiting
for me. I"--he hesitated, then said brokenly,--"I enlisted last night."
She gave a little gasping cry.
"You have enlisted--already? Oh, Joe, Joe!"
"Lige enlisted, too, Mother," he forced himself to tell her, "and
Herbert. In the First Regiment of Nebraska Volunteers."
"Lige--Lige, too?"
Her cry stabbed him like a knife.
"Yes, Mother, he asked me to tell you. You know how soft he is. He
said he--he couldn't."
"Lige--Lige, too!" she repeated in a stricken whisper. "Both my boys!
My two eldest--my sons--my little boys! We came to this far country to
save you this. We thought to keep you free from warfare and slaughter!
And now it has come--even here! You--the descendants of old Quaker
stock--you are going away to war!"
He caught her in his arms and held her close, whispering to her,
consoling her, explaining over and over again the convictions and
principles that actuated himself and his brother in this, the most
difficult and momentous decision of their lives.
At length she was calmer, and withdrawing herself from his arms, said,
"Send Lige to me."
As he was leaving the room she stopped him.
"Joe, dear," she said, "thee must not feel hardly toward thy father. He
is not a fanatic. His belief in the wickedness and futility of war is
as deep and strong as his belief in God. He could not change it
now--even for thee."
When Joe left the room his heart felt ready to burst with pain. He knew
that the call of his country was a sacred one. He felt in every fibre
of his being that he was doing his plain duty as a man and an American.
Yet the habit and training of years, the principles inculcated in him
from babyhood, were not easily overcome. Even with a mind clear and
positive upon his duty doubts and fears and questionings rose to torture
him.
Blinded by the tears that would come in spite of all his efforts he
walked toward the river.
So harassed and broken was he that he did not hear the murmur of voices
in the little arbor they had built under the willow trees until he was
very near it. Then he looked up suddenly, and stood still.
On the rough bench they had made on the river bank he saw Nina sitting,
and Lige, with arms tightly clasped about her and his face close to
hers, was gazing into her eyes.
He could not hear the words that were spoken, his heart was beating too
loud and fast, but he saw that her arms were about his neck, that her
face was wet with tears, and that her eyes gazed into his with a look of
love and sorrow.
Up to this moment Joe had always thought of Nina as his sister. He knew
that he had loved her devotedly from the first moment he had seen her;
but it was only now, when the wild plunge of his heart, the wild fury in
his breast, the hot, fierce current of blood that surged up to his brain
brought the revelation to him, that he knew that the love he felt for
her was not that of a brother.
For an instant a wild, mad rage against Lige filled him; made him want
to strike him, to hurl him headlong from the arbor and down the bank of
the river. Then the sense of fairness and justice that had always been a
leading trait of his character asserted itself.
Why, he asked himself, should Lige not love her, as well as he? She was
not their sister. He had the right. Handsome Lige. Merry, sparkling,
generous Lige! No wonder she loved him!
He stole away unobserved. Then when he had reached the house he called
out loudly, "Lige, oh, Lige, Mother wants you!"
When he saw Lige coming he turned away.
He hoped he was not selfish, but he could not speak to him then.
He made no effort to see Nina alone, but bade her good-bye the next day
with the same grave, sad, brotherly kiss that he gave to Mary and Sara
and Ruth.
*CHAPTER XXVIII*
*IN FIELD AND CAMP*
When the First Nebraska Volunteers embarked at Omaha under the command
of Colonel John M. Thayer, on July twenty-first, Joe and Elijah Peniman
and Herbert James went with it.
The troops were raw and undisciplined, the equipment poor, food scanty
and hard to get.
The Peniman boys, neither of whom had ever been away from home before,
were desperately homesick, and seeing the sordidness of war, its
meanness, its dirtiness and its horrors at close range, and losing some
of their high vision in the daily muck and grind, came gradually almost
to believe that their father was right, and that they had gone against
his will, violated the faith of their childhood, and broken their
mother's heart to follow a chimera that could only end in utter defeat.
For weeks they got no nearer to war than a hot, dirty, disorderly,
unsanitary camp, where they were drilled from morning till night with
aching shoulders and blistered feet, marched and countermarched under a
broiling sun, eating hard-tack and sow-belly, and drinking water from
foul ponds and muddy streams, and sleeping in fever-ridden swamps under
rain that poured down upon them continually.
For a long time Joe avoided his brother. The sight of Lige, so big and
handsome in his uniform, with his bright brown eyes, his rich color, the
dark curly hair that fell over his forehead under the vizor of his
soldier-cap, roused in him a bitterness that he could not overcome.
The knowledge that had come upon him so suddenly was a well-established
fact in his mind now. He knew that he loved Nina. Knew that he loved
her with all the power and strength and passion of his young manhood.
Not as a brother loves a sister, but as a man loves the one woman in all
the world for him.
He could not banish her from his mind. In camp, in field, on march,
standing guard in the rain at night, waiting for the signal to go into
battle, her face was always before him.
It angered him to see that Lige was not suffering as he suffered. He
did not appear to be eating out his heart for her. He larked and sang
with the other boys (for they were boys--mere boys--these defenders of
the nation's integrity), and before many weeks had passed had become one
of the most popular men in the regiment.
Joe could not tell his trouble to Herbert--of whom he had grown very
fond. That there had come an estrangement in his heart toward Lige,
that brother who had always been almost like another self, was a thing
of which he could not speak.
But Lige did not seem to notice. So far as Joe could see he treated him
as he always had, with his jolly, careless affection. As soon as their
drilling days were over and they were moved forward into action he
seemed to become possessed with the spirit of war. The excitement, the
danger, the fighting, the constant sense of adventure appealed to his
spirited, adventuresome nature, and he threw himself into action with an
ardor that raised him from a private to a corporal in a short time.
Whatever his thoughts, whatever his emotions, Joe could see that he
found no time to put them on paper or to dwell much upon them in his own
mind.
Transportation was poor and the distance great, and they heard from home
only at rare intervals. They had been gone two months when Joe received
a small package one day, which, when he tore it open eagerly, he found
to contain a daguerreotype of Nina.
Poor as was the early effort at photography, the face that smiled up at
him from the shiny glass was so lovely that it caught his heart like a
vise and left him gasping.
She was eighteen now--a woman! And in the proudly poised little head,
the small oval face, the great violet eyes and the shining nimbus of
golden hair there was that distinction that had always marked her as
different from all others.
He was curious to know if she had sent a picture to Lige, but could not
bring himself to ask. The letter, which reached him at the same time,
was like all her letters, clever, witty, affectionate, sisterly letters,
such as Ruth or Sara might have written, and did write on occasion.
The daguerreotype was in a little hinged case, which he carried in the
pocket of his tunic over his heart for the remainder of the war.
Throughout the years of '61 and '62 the cause of the Union suffered many
disasters. The defeat and rout of the battle of Bull Run had a most
demoralizing effect on the Federal army. It demonstrated the fact that
the soldiers needed more drilling and the army better organization
before success on the field of battle was possible. General McClellan,
in charge of the Grand Army of the Potomac, dallied and delayed, while
the South pushed on winning victory after victory. In spite of the
victories which the Northern arms had gained in the West the winter was
a gloomy one. But the campaign of 1863 brought new hope to the nation.
The battle of Shiloh was fought and won, Lee was beaten back at
Antietam, and the news of the proclamation of emancipation went flashing
over the world.
At the beginning of 1863 the army in the West under General Rosecrans
was near Chattanooga. Vicksburg and the whole Southwest was in danger,
and the whole Union army was being pushed vigorously forward. The
division of which Joe and Elijah Peniman and Herbert James were a part
were rushed north to check Lee, who, after victories at Fredericksburg
and Chancellorsville, was pushing north, even as far as southern
Pennsylvania. The opposing forces met at Gettysburg, and the three boys
were hurled into one of the most stubborn and bloody battles of the war.
The battalion with which they were connected had to cross a valley
several hundred yards in width. On the left rose a hill which was being
riddled with shot and shell. Joe, who was now a sergeant, was on the
extreme left of the advance, his platoon being the supporting platoon of
the left assault company. Along the steep slope of the hill facing them
not thirty yards away was a cannon. They swung their guns around and
opened a fusillade on the attackers. Joe, who was commanding the
platoon, was ordered to advance with his men and cover the left flank.
Suddenly as they pushed forward the valley became a shrieking Bedlam. A
company of Confederates on a hill far to the rear of the Union men
sensed a new menace in the advance and opened up wildly against their
position. The air was filled with howling bullets and shrieking shells.
Some of the men dropped flat on their stomachs, many of them were
killed. It was a clear day. There had been mists in the valley in the
morning which shrouded the hills, but as the sun rose they lifted so
that the movements of the Union men were perfectly visible to the enemy
along the ridges. They went stumbling upward through the leafy jungle,
bullets whipping and snipping off the leaves and branches about them.
Finally they debouched upon a path veering to the left in order to get
behind the enemy. Joe's detachment made preparations to charge. But
before they could move it seemed to them that all hell broke loose. Joe
caught a glimpse of Lige, who was now a corporal, leading his men, his
cap gone, his hair blown back from his forehead, his eyes filled with
the lust of battle. The next moment he saw him fall.
In that one second all the love that he had ever had for his brother
came sweeping back in a great overwhelming flood. He rushed toward him,
but the demands upon him were too great, his responsibility too terrible
for him to stop even for his brother. Officer after officer was falling
around him. Colonel Baker went down with a shot through the lungs,
Captain Young was shot in the stomach, Sergeant Ellton had three bullets
through his left arm, Private James, who fought beside him, had a wound
in his shoulder. He caught a wild glimpse of him, fighting with his
left arm, while a huge Confederate with clubbed musket rushed at him.
Then Joe was swept on and saw him no more.
They fought madly, blindly, desperately. At last but seven of his
platoon were left; yet he must cover his position. The little band drew
grimly together, and the strain was so great, the excitement so
terrible, that Joe had no time to feel even a thrill of surprise or joy
when he found Lige fighting beside him. As in a dream he saw him crouch
in the grass. Then he became aware that his rifle was cracking as
regularly as the crack of a whip. For a brief instant he turned and
looked down. Crouched low in the tall grass, with his rifle at his
shoulder, Lige sighting as carefully as he was wont to do at home when
he shot the heads off wild turkeys, he was potting the Confederates who
manned the gun, dropping them one by one with the regularity and
precision of clockwork.
Suddenly an officer rose up near one of the guns, and with perhaps a
dozen men behind him came charging down the hill. The young sergeant
had no time to count his men, to see how many were left of that platoon
that started out so gayly. Fixing his bayonet, he dashed at them. When
the skirmish that ensued was over and he had time to look about him he
and Lige stood alone on the hill. The lieutenant with all his men lay
scattered about them.
It was not until the mad hell that raged about them was over and the
battle won that the two boys realized that they had done anything out of
the ordinary. Then they learned that they had cleaned out a position,
routed the enemy, and left open the channel through which the Union
troops rushed in and saved the day.
It was a desperate battle, desperately fought and gallantly won. The
Confederate army was defeated and beaten back, and Lee never tried the
invasion of the Northern States again. That battle, bloody and terrific
as it was, was really the turning-point of the war. From that time the
Confederate army began to languish. The end of slavery was at hand.
Then came victories, victories, and more victories for the North. Grant
was made Lieutenant-General and entered upon his "hammering campaign" at
Vicksburg. Sheridan was in the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman was marching
through Georgia. His telegram, "Atlanta is ours and fairly won," gave a
new courage to the whole country. Lincoln was reelected by a large
majority.
Through it all Joe fought his battle with himself as silently and
bravely as he fought the battle with his country's foes.
When a moment of leisure came and the two brothers could be together for
a few uninterrupted moments he sought Lige's society, talked with him of
home and parents and brothers and sisters, spoke lovingly and tenderly
of Nina, and gave him every opportunity and encouragement to tell his
secret. But Lige did not speak. After many trials Joe, hurt to the
quick, gave up the attempt and kept his own counsel.
Sharper and fiercer grew the fighting. Lige was captured, made a
brilliant and spectacular escape, was wounded once in the leg and twice
in the shoulder, and came out a Colonel, the most adored man in the
regiment.
At last it was over. The long, bitter, bloody struggle was ended. The
South, impoverished, exhausted, beaten, was obliged to surrender, and
Lee handed his sword to Grant at Appomattox, on a day which the United
States will never forget.
When the troops were mustered out the Peniman boys, men now, with the
stain and smirch of battle upon them, laid down their arms and returned
to the homestead on the prairies, where anxious hearts, loving and weary
hearts, were waiting to welcome them home.
*CHAPTER XXIX*
*HOME AGAIN*
Those terrible four years of war had been an anxious, sorrowful time for
the pioneers on the Nebraska prairies.
Rumors reached even to the homestead of the unsanitary condition of the
camps, of the thousands of deaths from fever, and the hearts of the
parents were rent with anxiety for their two brave lads, lest even
should they escape shot and shell they might fall a victim to disease.
With the two older boys, upon whom he had depended so much, away at war,
Joshua Peniman found the labor thrown upon him almost more than he could
bear. Sam, who was now a fine, well-grown lad of seventeen, full of fun
and energy, had done his best to take Joe's place, and Paul, whom the
family had previously looked upon as "one of the little ones" was now a
big boy of fourteen, strong and agile, intelligent beyond his years, and
able to do a large part of the work that Lige had always attended to.
As the years of the struggle went on Hannah Peniman's shining brown hair
turned grey, and the deep blue eyes that gazed out over the lonely
prairies came to have in them the look of those who wait and fear.
Nina and Ruth clung together as if some deep, unspoken bond of sympathy
lay between them, and day after day pored over the newspapers, read the
few letters that came together, and lingered over them with clasped
hands and tearful eyes.
Mrs. Peniman noticed that many of these letters that Ruth watched and
waited for so eagerly were addressed in a different hand from those of
her brothers. Seeing that the postmark on them was the same as those on
the letters of Lige and Joe she asked who they were from. Ruth blushed
deeply and said they were from Herbert.
She was seventeen now, dark and slender, graceful as a young fawn, with
soft, tender brown eyes and a color like a prairie rose. Between her
and Nina there seemed to be an affection that was deeper and closer than
that of sisters. Nina had not seemed cheerful or well of late. The
horrors of war seemed to weigh upon her with crushing sorrow. She grew
thin and pale, read the news of every battle with feverish intensity,
and often went away alone, wandering by herself for hours over the
loneliness of the prairies.
Mr. Peniman had long since set inquiries on foot both in New York and
St. Louis in regard to the property the deeds to which had been found in
the violated dispatch-box. But as yet nothing had come of them, and the
girl was as much in the dark as ever in regard to her past and future.
Beatrice James came to the homestead often, and the three girls seemed
to have much to talk about together, frequently banishing Sara and Mary,
whom they considered too young to share their confidences.
"All they talk about is the soldiers, Mother," indignantly protested
Sara, who was now thirteen and resented the indignity of being shut out;
"and they cry and snivel and get as sentimental as mush."
Mrs. Peniman smiled. "Don't mind, Sara, they're at the sentimental
age," she comforted. "You and Mary and I have more sense, haven't we?"
Mary, who was now ten, glanced up from her task of dressing Spotty in a
gingham apron.
"They all want to be _nurses_," she commented scornfully. "Huh! I'd
like to see Beatrice--or Nina either--put on a bandage! They'd faint
away, both of 'em. Ruth is the only one who would make a good nurse. I
guess"--with a wise little nod of her curly head--"I guess they'd only
want to take care of _certain_ patients, don't you think so, Mother?"
Mrs. Peniman laughed, though a bit sadly, her heart quailing at the
mention of wounds. "You're a wise little owl, Mary," she said, thinking
to herself that Mary was probably right.
There were periods of fearful anxiety, bitter disappointment and deep
depression as the first year of the war went by, and times when the
issue looked doubtful and the hearts of loyal Unionists grew sick with
fear.
In the early spring of 1864: a terrible day dawned upon them. The
Sioux, Cheyennes and other hostile Indian tribes united to exterminate
the white settlers, and a great Indian outbreak ensued, during which the
entire frontier was paralyzed with terror.
With the aid of Mr. James and Arthur a stockade about twelve feet high
was erected about the house and dugout, made from the young timbers
along the creek, which were driven into the ground so close together
that no living creature could pass through them.
For days and many weary nights they feared to sleep, but with the whole
James family as well as their own crowded into the house, watched and
waited, fearing momentarily to hear the war-whoops that would mean their
destruction. Dozens of settlers in the western part of the Territory
were murdered, their homes laid waste and their women carried away by
the savages, and the settlers from the Blue Valley, the Platte Valley,
and Salt Creek left their homes and fled to more protected counties.
Many of their neighbors abandoned their newly located homesteads and
fled for protection to the agencies or towns, but this Joshua Peniman
refused to do.
"We have worked too hard and sacrificed too much to get what we have
here, to abandon it," he said. "If thee and the little ones think best
to go into the town with the others, thee must do so, Hannah, but the
boys and I, with Mr. James and Arthur, will stay here and protect our
homes and property."
"Then I will stay with thee, Joshua," answered his wife. "I have never
yet deserted thee in danger or trouble, and I will not do so now. The
stockade is high and strong and will act as some protection, and we will
trust in the One who never forsakes us to keep us safe from harm."
For many days they lived in terror, with weapons ready to give battle at
a moment's notice from inside the stockade.
The Governor of the Territory had called out troops, and the First
Nebraska Volunteer Cavalry company was assigned duty in that locality.
The Indians were no match for the United States troops, and after
burning, destroying and massacring the homes and families of many
settlers were finally overcome, and sent flying across the border, while
peace settled down over the distracted frontier.
With April of the next spring came the glad news of Lee's surrender, and
then the letters which told them that the boys were coming home.
_The boys were coming home!_
The lads whom they had prayed for, wept for, feared for, agonized over
all these weary four years, were safe--well--_coming home_!
The news ran like wildfire over the prairies. Every soddy, every
dugout, every town and village and crossroads store was vibrant with it.
In the Peniman household the joy was too great, too deep for words.
It was decided that the whole family should go to Omaha to meet the
returning soldiers. And on a glad morning, when all Nature seemed to
laugh with joy, when the very earth seemed to be rejoicing that the
cruel war was over, they set out, Sam driving Kit and Billy, no longer
young and skittish, but sobered by years and the exigencies of pioneer
life on the plains.
The former trading-post had now developed into quite a city. Brick
buildings were going up here and there, streets were laid out, and the
"squatties" and shanties that had done service in the days of the
trading-station for Indians and trappers were giving place to good shops
and stores.
As the family passed through the little settlement on Salt Creek, at
which Mr. Peniman and Sam had spent the night before the great blizzard,
they were astonished to see its growth. It had developed from a
straggling settlement into a town, was now called Lancaster, and not
many years afterward was rechristened _Lincoln_, and made the capital of
the State.
The troops were ferried across the Missouri, and as the Peniman family,
with hundreds of others, stood watching the transports laden with the
cheering, yelling, waving boys in blue, their emotions grew too strong
to be controlled. The girls wept, the boys yelled, but Hannah Peniman
could only gaze and gaze, her whole soul concentrated in her eyes.
They saw them at last. Lige, mounted on the railing of the ferry-boat,
was waving his forage cap around his head and shouting himself red in
the face, and Joe stood beside him. He was very thin, very white, and
had a great scar across his cheek. Leaning against the railing his eyes
were fixed intently on the shore.
When the eyes of the long-parted ones met there was a great shout, a
tremulous, half-sobbing cheer, and discipline was utterly forgotten as
mothers and sons, sisters and brothers, sweethearts and lovers rushed
into each other's arms.
Lige reached them first, in a rush that bore every one in the way before
him, and caught his mother in his arms and held her to his breast. Joe
was directly behind him, and grasped his father's hand. There was no
need for words between them now. Both knew that the war and its issues
had answered all arguments, and as they held each other's hands, gazed
into each other's eyes, both knew that the past was passed and over, and
that there existed no differences of opinion between them now.
Lige rushed from one to another, kissing and hugging them all, laughing,
sobbing, half beside himself with joy. But Joe was more quiet in his
demonstrations. After he had held his mother in a long, close embrace,
shaken hands with Sam and Paul, kissed and hugged little David, and
kissed and embraced Sara and Mary and Ruth, he turned to Nina, and shook
her hand.
It was not until long afterward, when the first excitement was over,
that he asked himself impatiently why he could not greet her as he had
greeted his other sisters.
Every one was too excited to notice her pallor, or to see that Ruth's
great brown eyes were wide and terror-filled, and her face white and
drawn. She waited her opportunity, then clasping Joe's arm, said
tremulously: "Herbert, Joe--where is Herbert?"
Joe started and looked down into her face. For the first time he
realized that Ruth was no longer a little girl. For the first time he
realized the thing that had been in Herbert's heart, that had drawn them
so close together through the war.
With a quick, indrawn breath he bent and clasped his arm about her.
"Oh, Ruth," he said in a low voice, "oh, little Ruth!"
Every vestige of color faded from her face.
"Was he killed?" she whispered huskily. "We have not heard anything
from him in so long----"
"No, no," he hastened to assure her. "He was not killed. He was
captured at Gettysburg, but I heard that he had escaped. I haven't seen
or heard from him since, but I think he's all right. He will probably
turn up soon. Perhaps he may come home as a casual. He never got back
to our regiment."
The boys had been granted a furlough of a week, and the journey back
over the prairies was a happy one, every one talking at once, so much to
see, so much to hear, so much to tell, so glad and thankful to be
together once more that words would not begin to express it.
In the general hubbub of voices no one noticed that Nina was very
silent, that the color had faded from her cheeks, and the light that had
shone so transcendantly in her eyes since the news of the home-coming of
the boys had faded, leaving them dark and still.
Joe, stealing a glance at her, thought that she had never been so
beautiful; and when he turned to talk to her her laugh was so gay, her
chatter so light and merry that he thought he had fancied the shadow in
her eyes.
When they reached the homestead Joe leaped down and patted Spotty, who
came leaping and barking about the wagon, as if he too knew that the
boys had come home and was wild with joy. Then he went to the team and
put his arms about Kit's neck, laying his face against her smooth neck.
Dear old Kit! Memories of all they had been through flooded over him
and almost unmanned him.
Both the returned soldiers were amazed and delighted to see the changes
about the place. It was a wilderness no longer. Vines grew up over the
little sod house, shading its windows and throwing their green tendrils
and shining new leaves over the door. Trees had been planted about the
place, walks made, and the fertile fields were already green with
winter-wheat.
Romeo and Juliet had departed for that bourn from which no piggy
returns, but were succeeded by a large and thriving progeny, that were
rapidly increasing in weight and value.
Cherry was the mother of a fine two-year-old calf, and Mother Feathertop
and Dicky, the progenitors of the poultry yard, were no longer there to
greet them, but had been succeeded by many fine broods of chickens,
which had multiplied and accumulated wonderfully under Ruth's tender
care.
It was almost evening before the transports of rapture subsided and the
boys went to their old place in the sod house to wash up and get ready
for supper.
When Joe entered he found Lige making a careful and fastidious toilet.
"I suppose you are looking forward to a happy evening with Nina," he
said, trying manfully to keep the pain that was wringing his heart from
sounding in his voice.
Lige was shining his shoes. He turned his head and looked up at his
brother.
"Nina?" he said interrogatively, then going on with his shining with
bent head. "Why--a--no, I--I thought I would go over to the
Jameses--that is if I won't be in the way. I--a--I thought I'd like to
ask if they had heard anything about Herb."
Joe stared at him.
"Go over to the Jameses? Your first evening at home! Why, Lige!"
Lige looked up with rather a red face.
"Well, why not? We've been with the family all day, and I haven't seen
Beatrice, and----"
"But Nina--what will she think--how will she feel----"
"_Nina_? What the deuce----" Lige suddenly suspended operations on his
boots and straightened up, holding the brush extended and staring at his
brother.
"Good Lord!" he ejaculated suddenly.
For a moment he continued to stare, then dropped the shoe-brush and
caught Joe's arm.
"What d'you mean--you don't mean--you don't think--that I--that
Nina--that there is anything between _us_, do you?" he demanded.
Joe turned white to the lips.
"Why I--I----" he managed to stammer.
"_Great Jehoshaphat!_" ejaculated Lige. "That--_that's_ what's been
eatin' you! I couldn't understand it. I thought it was Beatrice----"
"_Beatrice_? What the dickens do I care about Beatrice!" panted Joe.
"I thought you loved Nina--and that she loved you. I saw you kiss
her----"
"Well, Lord A'mighty, why shouldn't I kiss her? She's my sister, isn't
she? I kiss Ruth and Mary and Sara; why shouldn't I kiss her?"
Joe's heart was pounding so he could hardly speak.
"Yes, but that's different. She _isn't_ our sister, you know. I saw
you together the night before we went away, and her arms were around
your neck and she was----"
"And she was talking about _you_ every minute of the time, you big
booby, begging me to take care of you and bring you home safe and all
that! Oh, gosh, this does beat all! Why here was me trying to do the
noble brother act and forget all about little Beatrice because I thought
you cared for her, while all the time you were hating me like the old
Harry because you thought I'd cut you out with Princess! Why, Lord love
you, boy, what's the matter with you? Are you blind as a bat? Can't
you _see_ how she feels toward you? Why, there never was any one else
in the whole world for Nina but just you, ever since that first day when
she refused to ride anywhere else in the wagons but beside you!"
Joe's face was as white as chalk, his eyes fastened on his brother's
face, and his breath coming quick and short.
"Is it--is it true, Lige?" he asked after a little interval, in a
strained whisper.
"_True_? Well, you are a duffer if you haven't seen it yourself.
Didn't you see her face when you gave her that cold little hand-shake
to-day? She could hardly keep from crying all the way home. I thought
you didn't care about her at all. I thought all the time you cared for
Beatrice----"
"Beatrice! As if I could ever think of Beatrice when Nina was around!
Do you really think she cares, Lige? That she doesn't care for me just
as a brother----"
"Go along and ask her, you old gosling," cried Lige, busily adjusting a
new tie. "As for me, I'm going over to the Jameses so fast you can't
see me for the dust. I've been afraid to even write to little Bee for
fear I'd be making trouble for you, but now that I know what a goose you
are----" He clapped on his soldier-cap and shot through the door,
leaving Joe standing motionless beside the window with wildly beating
heart.
Twilight was coming before he found courage to wander down to the river.
He found Nina sitting in the little arbor alone. She had been with Ruth
for the past hour, trying to comfort her, and her eyes were red and her
heart cold as she sat gazing down at the water.
Joe came so quietly that she did not hear him. For a long moment he
stood gazing at her, his very heart in his eyes. She was more beautiful
than ever, startlingly, exquisitely lovely, as she sat with bent head,
the sunlight flickering through the golden waves of her hair, the pure
oval of her cheek and chin a little sharpened in the years he had been
away.
He entered the arbor noiselessly and sat down by her side.
"Joe!" she cried, and started violently.
Very tenderly he took the little hand that lay trembling in her lap.
"Nina," he said, bending his head close to hers, "are you really glad I
have come home?"
"_Glad!_" The tears she had been trying to conceal rushed into her
eyes. "Glad, Joe? There are no words that can tell how glad! Oh, we
have all missed you so! Sometimes I have thought that Mother would die
of grief and longing. And Father--oh, Joe, his patience, his
gentleness, his suffering, his noble and generous admission of his
mistake----"
"But you, Nina, you----"
She lowered her lashes and gently drew her hand away.
"I, Joe? Why, of course I am glad! Why shouldn't I be glad? Both my
dear brothers back from war----"
"But I am not your brother, Princess. I don't want to be your brother."
Then suddenly the denial that he had so long set on his heart burst its
bonds and cried to her, "Oh, Nina, Nina, dearest, sweetest, loveliest
girl in all the world, I don't want you for my sister. I love you, I
love you! I want you for my love, my sweetheart, something nearer,
dearer, sweeter than a sister--I want you for my wife!"
From Nina's parted lips came a little smothered cry, and she covered her
face with her hands.
Joe drew them down gently.
"I have always loved you, Princess. Ever since the day that I first saw
you out there on the desolate prairies, lying on the graves of your
father and mother. I have always loved you----"
Nina looked up at him, tears flooding the purple splendor of her eyes.
"Oh, Joe, Joe, why didn't you tell me so before!" she cried. "You went
away to the war--and I might never have known. I thought you cared for
me only as a sister, and I have suffered--my God, how I have
suffered--thinking that you did not care for me, while I--while I----"
He caught her in his arms and pressed her to his heart.
"While you--say it, darling, say it; my heart has been breaking for
those words! I thought I should never hear them from your lips. I
thought you loved Lige. I could not speak because I thought he loved
you and you cared for him. The night before we went away I saw you in
his arms, and I thought--I thought----"
She drew herself from his clasp and gazed into his eyes.
"You thought I cared for _Lige_?"
"Yes, dearest, yes, I truly, truly, did."
"And you went away without a word! You gave up your own chance of
happiness because you thought you were adding to mine--and his! But
what about me, Joe? I almost broke my heart trying to make myself love
you like a sister. Oh, Joe, Joe, how like you! And you never suspected
about Beatrice? Oh, Joe, you dear, darling old simpleton, how _could_
you think such a thing? Didn't you know that there never was--never
could be--any one else in all the world but _you_?"
Darkness had quite come when they went back to the house together. As
they entered the kitchen hand in hand Hannah Peniman looked up, and a
little cry escaped her lips.
Nina ran to her and hid her head on her breast. Joe took her hand and
slipped his arm about her.
"I've been a great fool, Mother," he said tenderly, "but I've come out
of it better than I deserved. I thought that Lige cared for Nina, and I
was going to just step aside and never let any one know how I felt. But
I find I was mistaken, and that Princess cares for me. Are you glad,
Mother? Tell us that you are glad she is really and truly going to be
your daughter."
"She could never be more truly my daughter than she is now," said Mrs.
Peniman, kissing the white brow that nestled against her shoulder. "But
I am glad that she and you have found each other, for true love is the
greatest thing in the world."
It was long after midnight when Lige came home, bursting into the room
where Joe lay in the darkness with a tumult in his heart too great for
sleep.
Lige rushed up to the bed and grasped his hand.
"Congratulate me, old boy," he cried; "by golly, I'm the happiest chap
in all Christendom to-night. She loves me, Joe, she really loves me. I
can hardly believe it even yet. And she's loved me all the time I've
been away. I'm so happy----"
"I'll bet you're not any happier than I am," cried Joe, returning the
grip of his hand.
"You are? Bully! Then you and Nina have fixed it up all right? Good!
I'm mighty glad. Lord, Joe, I wish I'd suspected it sooner; it would
have saved us both a lot of heartaches. But no matter, they're all over
now, and perhaps we fought all the better for feeling that we hadn't so
much to live for at home."
And while the boys lay in their old bed exchanging confidences and
talking in whispers of the happiness that was to be theirs, and Nina,
glowing with a happiness she had thought to never know, kept watch and
ward through the silent night, little Ruth lay at the other side of the
curtain and wept for the boy who did not come home.
*CHAPTER XXX*
*RUTH RECEIVES A SURPRISE*
With the return of the young men of the West from the war the settlement
and development of the new country made rapid strides.
The Free Homestead Law, which had been signed by President Lincoln, took
effect in 1863 and provided that any man or woman twenty-one years old
or the head of a family could have 160 acres of land by living on it for
five years and paying about eighteen dollars in fees.
Joe and Lige, who were now of age, immediately filed claims on the
tracts of land that their father had staked out for them near his own
eight years before, and proceeded joyfully to build upon them the houses
necessary to hold the claims, which each fondly hoped would shelter a
bride before another year had rolled away.
Ruth was not yet old enough to file a claim, but Nina, who had passed
her twenty-first birthday, filed a claim on a beautiful tract of land
next to Joe's, near the river. Sam, who was only twenty, had already
taken out a timber-claim, and was planting trees upon it in his spare
time, and both he and Paul had pieces of land located upon which they
meant to preempt as soon as they were old enough.
In spite of the thankfulness she felt for the return of her brothers
Ruth could not be happy. She tried to enter into all the joy of the
household, but the sight of Joe and Nina walking hand-in-hand in the
moonlight, of Lige and Beatrice scampering across the prairies on their
ponies, caused an ache in her heart that kept her sleepless many nights
and wet her pillow with tears.
She had kept her secret while Herbert was away, feeling that they were
both too young to become formally engaged, but she knew that she loved
him as she could never love any other man, and that if he never returned
there would be a grave in her heart for all eternity.
Joe and Lige did their utmost to comfort her, but felt as the days crept
by that there was little chance of Herbert's return.
Joe's ambition to become a lawyer had never faltered, and as soon as he
had received his discharge from the army he immediately set to work to
prepare himself for his examination for admission to the bar.
He studied hard, and the reading he had done during the long days while
he plowed in the fields now stood him in good stead. A month after his
return he went to Nebraska City and took his examination, which he
passed with high honors and was admitted to practise law in the State.
He left the building with his certificate in his pocket and pride and
exultation in his heart. He was a lawyer! The ambition of his boyhood
was fulfilled. It now remained with him to make the rest of his dreams
come true.
As he walked along jubilantly he saw a group of men coming toward him
wearing the familiar blue uniform. He had returned to citizen's
clothes, but the sight of the old uniform still thrilled him, and with
the feeling of comradeship that it always inspired in him he stopped and
waited for them to come up.
They walked very slowly, and as they came nearer he saw that they
supported between them one of their comrades, who tottered like an old
man.
"That fellow ought to be in an ambulance instead of on foot," he
thought, and walked toward the group. As he reached them the man who was
being supported raised his head.
"_Herbert_--my God, Herbert!" he cried, and clutched the yellow,
skeleton-like hands.
The gaunt figure raised a haggard, ashen face, with hollow eyes and
unshaven cheeks.
"_Joe!_" he whispered in a weak voice; "thank God!"
Joe had his arm about him by this time supporting him. Casting a swift
glance up and down the street he saw a man coming toward them in a
wagon.
"Here," he shouted, "take this soldier to a hotel, won't you? He's
sick--wounded--he is not able to walk."
The war was too fresh in the minds of the people for any one to
hesitate. Willing hands lifted the emaciated frame of the young soldier
into the wagon, Joe sprang in beside him, and a few moments later
Herbert James was in a hot bath, laid in a clean bed, with a doctor and
nurse beside him.
When he could speak he told Joe that he had been captured and held in a
Southern prison, where the conditions were so terrible that it was a
miracle a single man came out of it alive. He had just been exchanged,
he said, and he and the companions whom Joe had seen with him were on
their way home when Joe met him.
Joe saw that there was something on his mind of which he hesitated to
speak, and after a little time he asked for Ruth, so bashfully, and with
an expression of such wistfulness in his hollow eyes that Joe's heart
rejoiced. He told him that Ruth was well, but very unhappy at his
failure to return, at which a faint color stained the boy's thin cheeks,
and he turned his face to the wall and lay silent for many moments.
When he had fallen asleep Joe asked the doctor how soon he could be
taken home, and was told that the sooner he reached home the better.
"All he needs now is food and rest and care," he continued, "and it will
take a lot of that, and considerable time before he is much better."
When the young soldier awakened it was to find a new suit of citizen's
clothes laid out upon a chair, his filthy, tattered old uniform
destroyed, and a barber waiting to shave him.
When he had eaten, was bathed and shaved and dressed he looked better.
"Now we're going home, old chap," Joe told him, whereat the poor broken
youth began to cry.
Joe now had a side-bar buggy, to which he drove Kit, and with Herbert
beside him made as comfortable as possible with rugs and pillows, they
started for the Blue.
When they came in sight of the homestead Herbert gave a glad cry. "I
never thought to see it again," he cried.
Joe lifted him out of the buggy and supported him into the house.
Fortunately Ruth had gone for a walk with Nina. Mrs. Peniman received
him almost as joyfully as if he had been one of her own sons. He seemed
too exhausted to go farther, and a message was sent to his parents by
David, who almost caused the death of Mrs. James by bursting into the
house and yelling at the top of his voice that Herbert had come home.
The James family arrived at the homestead a few minutes later, and Mrs.
Peniman went out and closed the door, leaving the young soldier to meet
and greet his mother.
Half an hour later Ruth and Nina came home. It was evident that Ruth
had been crying, and they walked slowly, with Nina's arm clasped about
her waist.
Mrs. Peniman sent the children away and stood in the door awaiting them.
As they came up to her she put her arms about Ruth and drew her to her
side.
"Ruth," she said gently, "I have news for thee. A message has come----"
Ruth started forward, the color ebbing out of her face.
"From Herbert?" she whispered.
"Yes, there is a message from Herbert. Is thee strong enough to bear a
shock----"
"A _shock_? Then he is dead?"
"No, no, I did not mean that. But we have news--some one has come----"
"Some one has come--_Herbert_?" and without waiting for the preparation
that her mother had intended, she rushed into the house. For an instant
she stood inside the door with white face and distended eyes. Then,
hearing the low murmur of voices, she dashed aside the curtains, and saw
Herbert lying on the bed.
The two young people uttered a simultaneous cry, and a moment later were
locked in each other's arms. It was not for many minutes that Ruth could
look at him, that she saw the wreck that war had made of the handsome
boy she had loved. But when she did see it made no difference in her
love. With the wealth of mother-love that had always overflowed her
gentle heart she soothed and comforted him, told him that he would soon
be well, and promised that she would nurse him back to life and health.
The next day she went quietly to her father and told him that she wanted
him to marry them.
"It will take months to nurse him back to himself, Father," she told
him, "and I am the one who can do it best. I can give him better care
as his wife than I could as his sweetheart, and I want to marry him
right now."
The family protested, but Ruth was never known to abandon an idea once
she had set her mind upon it, and after some argument on the subject her
family at last gave in.
"She might as well be nursing Herbert as a chicken with a broken wing or
a dog with a sore foot," smiled her father, "for you know Ruthie will
always be taking care of something. We all know and like Herbert, and
have no objection to her marrying him sometime, and I know no reason
why, if they both desire it, Ruth should not be given the privilege of
nursing her husband back to health."
Mrs. Peniman finally agreed to this, and that evening as the sunset glow
shone into the little soddy Herbert was propped up in his bed, and Ruth,
in a simple little white dress, with the flush and glow of radiant
happiness upon her face, stood with her hand in his while her father
spoke the solemn words that made them man and wife.
*CHAPTER XXXI*
*JOE HEARS A STRANGE STORY*
Civilization was now moving westward with rapid strides.
The part of the Territory in which the Peniman family had cast their lot
had been organized into a county, and a thriving little town had sprung
up about five miles from their homestead which had been made the county
seat.
It was here that Joe decided to open his law office and begin the
serious business of his life.
Sam and Paul were now old enough to take his place at home, and he saw
no reason why he should not begin his life-work, continuing to live at
home, and doing what work he could mornings and evenings.
He had managed to save up a little money, and with it he rented a small
one-story frame building containing two rooms, and after building his
book-shelves with his own hands he disposed upon them his precious
library, bought a table and two chairs, and hung out his shingle,
"Joseph Peniman, Attorney at Law."
One of his first cases was that of an Indian, brought to him by
Pashepaho, for whom he obtained justice against a white man for fraud.
This case received wide notice in the Territory, and before long the
young attorney had a large Indian clientage, whom he served with
fairness and honesty, demanding for the red men the same justice that
the law provided for white settlers.
By this time Joshua Peniman was considered one of the leading men of the
county, and the family were all well and favorably known. Joe's
anti-slavery speeches had made him many friends, and it was not long
after his admission to the bar before he had a good practice.
In the fall of '65 the first election was held, and he was nominated for
floating delegate to the legislature.
He had been too busy since his return from war to go to Omaha to call on
his friend Judge North, but shortly after his nomination, while he was
sitting in his office one day busily preparing a brief, the door opened
and Judge North walked in.
Joe sprang up to meet him joyously.
"I heard that you had returned safely," said the Judge, warmly shaking
his hand, "and I've been expecting that you would drop in to see me.
But as you didn't, and as I had business here in the county, I thought
I'd come to see you."
Joe expressed his pleasure in seeing him.
"Thought you were coming up to study law in my office?" smiled the
Judge, casting a glance about the modestly furnished little office.
Joe colored, then smiled. "I took my examination a few weeks ago," he
answered, "and as I got my certificate and felt that I couldn't lose
time I thought I'd better not study any longer, but begin work on my own
hook."
"You're right, my boy," and as he spoke the same strange, illusive
resemblance that always tormented him when in the Judge's presence again
flashed through Joe's mind.
They talked for a long time, Joe telling of the war and his experiences,
Judge North informing him of many things that had taken place during his
absence, and were soon to take place in the State.
As the sun declined Joe looked at his watch.
"Come home to dinner with me, Judge, and meet my family," he said. "I
have often talked to Father and Mother about you and I would like you to
meet them. It's only a short ride, and I have my buggy here."
The Judge, who had contemplated spending the night at the little
cross-roads hotel, gladly accepted the invitation.
It was twilight as they drove across the prairies and approached the
little soddy. The warm rosy afterglow was lingering in the sky, and
silhouetted against it a figure moved toward them across the prairie, a
light, graceful figure, the after-glow touching its crown of golden hair
into gleaming splendor.
As they drew nearer Judge North fastened his eyes upon the girl who was
coming to meet them, with a strange, intent expression.
When she raised her hand and waved to them he turned to Joe swiftly.
"Who is that girl?" he asked.
"It is my--my--a--foster--sister," Joe answered, his face flushing a
little.
"I asked"--explained Judge North,--"because as she came toward us in
this light she bore such a strange, such a remarkable resemblance to
some one I--some one I loved very dearly."
The girl had drawn nearer now, and seeing that there was a stranger in
the buggy was about to turn back when Judge North leaned forward and
stared at her, then leaped out and ran to her.
"_Marion!_" he cried, "_Marion!_"
The girl stopped, then turned to him inquiringly.
The lawyer was breathing quickly, and his face was pale, his eyes intent
as he leaned forward staring at her.
"My God!" he breathed. "Her face--her voice--her hair! It must be--I
can't be dreaming--Marion, Marion!"
Nina came toward him. For some reason she too appeared greatly moved.
"My name is not Marion," she said; "my name is Nina, but Marion was my
mother's name."
"_Your--mother's name_? Then you are her daughter--you must be the
child of Marion--Marion North!"
"No, of Marion Carroll."
"_Marion Carroll_! Oh, thank God, at last, at last!"
He sprang forward and clasped Nina's hand.
"Your mother was Marion Carroll--Marion North--my sister--my precious
little sister--who was lost, and whom I have been searching for all
these years! Where is she? Where is she? You are her living image. I
thought when I first saw you that it was she. I had forgotten the lapse
of years. I should have known you were her daughter anywhere!"
Nina had turned white, and Joe, who had thrown the lines to Paul, now
came up to them.
"Come into the house," he said quickly, slipping his arm about her.
"This is very strange. There must be much to tell and much to hear.
Come, Nina, you are shaking so you can hardly stand."
He led the way swiftly to the house. Inside the door Mr. and Mrs.
Peniman were waiting to receive them. After a hasty introduction Joe
explained to them what had just taken place.
"I know now," he cried; "I have always seen a resemblance in Judge North
to some one I had seen. Now I know that it was to Nina--to Mrs.
Carroll--whom I have never forgotten. Don't you see it, Father? Isn't
it so?"
Joshua Peniman had been gazing at the stranger with keen scrutiny.
"Yes," he said, "I see the resemblance to the unfortunate young mother
very plainly. I also see a certain look that is like Nina, which is
only natural, as Nina is the image of her mother." Then, turning to the
stranger, "I was with Mr. and Mrs. Carroll in the last hour of their
lives. I buried them on the prairies, and took their child with us in
our wagons. Sit down, friend, this is a strange dispensation of
Providence. Tell us what you know of this strange tale."
Judge North seemed unwilling to let go of Nina's hand. Drawing her
close to his side he sat down at the table. Joshua Peniman in his
clear, calm fashion told the story of the arrival of the Carrolls in
their wagon at their camp on the prairies, of Lee Carroll's tragic
death, of the subsequent death of Mrs. Carroll, and their taking charge
of the child. Of the raid upon the wagons by the Indians, the taking of
the dispatch-box, and the kidnapping of Nina by Red Snake.
The lawyer listened with intense interest.
"And this white man--this 'Red Snake'--what of him? Did you ever see
him?" he asked eagerly.
"I saw him several times," said Joe.
"What was he like?"
"He was tall, powerfully but slenderly built, with red hair, a long,
red, dissipated face, and a short, sandy mustache."
Judge North brought his hand down upon his knee with a sounding blow.
"A _red Carroll_!" he ejaculated. Then turning to Nina, who stood with
blanched face and parted lips beside him, he led her with gentle,
old-fashioned courtesy to a chair.
"Sit down, child," he said, "I have a strange story to tell, that
touches you nearly."
The family had all gathered about him now, anxious to hear the solution
of the mystery that had baffled them so long.
"I know who 'Red Snake' was," he began; "his name was Bernard Carroll.
He was a brother of the Lee Carroll whom you buried on the prairies."
"A _brother_?" cried out Joe; "why, it was he that killed him!"
"I don't doubt it at all. He was a bad man; a degenerate, a scoundrel,
from his very boyhood. The two brothers were descendants of a splendid
old family, the Carrolls, of Virginia. But every few generations there
appears in that family a _red Carroll_. The family are all of dark
complexion, and whenever a red-haired Carroll appears among them there
is sure to follow trouble and disaster. Before he was twenty years old
Bernard Carroll had broken his mother's heart and caused her death.
When he was twenty-three he fell wildly, madly, passionately in love
with my sister Marion."
"Marion--_my mother_! That was why he stared at me so! That was why he
called me 'Marion'!" panted Nina.
The Judge turned his eyes upon her. "Yes, no doubt it was. You are
marvelously like her. Startlingly like what she was at your age. He
wooed her with the same fiery zeal, with the same ardor and passion that
he carried into every act of his life. For a time his good looks, his
native charm, his passionate wooing attracted her. Then as she came to
know him better she turned from him with loathing. It was just at this
time that Lee came home from college. He too fell in love with Marion,
and she returned his love. In a short time they became engaged."
He paused, as a short, broken sob escaped from Nina's lips. He laid his
hand over hers affectionately, then resumed:
"Bernard never forgave either of them. For Lee he developed a hatred
that was shown in every act of his life. He was drinking heavily at the
time, and as his extravagance threatened to ruin the family his father
put him on an allowance, which no amount of whining or bullying would
induce him to increase. He laid all his father's sternness at Lee's
door, and set deliberately to work to ruin him in his father's
affections. With the cunning of the snake, for which he was so well
named, he crawled and wormed himself into his father's confidence, and
then with devilish malice began to poison his mind against his younger
son. Lee and Marion had married by this time, and were starting out in
life together. Bernard forged his brother's name to a check, and made
his father believe him a criminal. The father denounced him and turned
him out of the house. Lee, indignant, hurt, grieved to the heart that
his father should doubt him, high-spirited and stubborn, as all of the
Carrolls are, left home with his young wife and went to New York to earn
his living. A short time afterward a child was born to them, and they
went abroad. It was while Lee was abroad, and all communication between
himself and his family had been cut off, that Bernard again began to go
the pace. He forged another check, which was traced to him, he was
arrested, and fled the country. His father was relentless. Bernard had
prejudiced him against and separated him from his younger and dearer
son, had caused the death of his mother, and the old man was determined
to punish him to the full extent of the law. But Bernard was never
found. Once he was heard from in Iowa; some one who knew him saw him on
a wagon-train headed for the gold-fields of California. Then all trace
of him was lost. I presume that growing more and more degenerate he
took to using drugs as well as liquor, became a squaw-man and settled
among the Indians."
When his voice ceased there was deep silence in the room. Nina, with
her violet eyes fixed intently on the face of her uncle, had scarcely
stirred during the narrative. The keen mind of Joshua Peniman was busy
putting two and two together.
Suddenly he rose from his chair and going to a chest in a corner of the
soddy brought out the two deeds that had been found in the dispatch-box.
"This would indicate that the father forgave Lee, and deeded this
property to him," he said, handing the deeds to Judge North.
The lawyer examined them critically. Then he looked up with an eager
light in his eyes.
"Have you ever done anything about these?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Mr. Peniman; "I have done all that I could with the
limited knowledge and means I possessed. I have tried to set inquiries
on foot regarding them, but as yet have had no results."
Judge North put the deeds in his pocket. "I will take this matter up at
once," he said. "This should be valuable property. Bernard would never
have allowed it to fall into the hands of Lee's child if he could have
used it himself, but he knew that he dared not claim it."
Turning to Nina he laid his hand on her head.
"And so, after all the search of years I have found my niece at last! I
had almost believed I never should do so. And then," breaking into a
genial smile, "I accept an invitation to dinner with my young friend
here, and find my beautiful young niece--the very image of the little
sister I lost and for whom I had so grieved--awaiting me!----"
He put out his arms, and Nina, with a glad little cry, ran into them.
"Of course you must come and live with me now----" he began, but got no
farther, for from the whole Peniman family there rose a cry of
simultaneous protest.
Nina, blushing rosy red, turned a shy glance on Joe.
He at once came to the rescue. Crossing the room he laid his hand upon
the Judge's shoulder.
"I--a--I hope you won't mind, judge," he said awkwardly, "but--but the
truth is that Nina has just promised to--to live the rest of her life
with me."
The Judge turned and looked at him, then burst into a roar of laughter.
"Well, well, well!" he cried, "to think that the young man I have liked
so much would steal such a march as that on me! So you have promised to
live the rest of your life with this young chap, have you, niece? And I
suppose you'd much rather do that than come live with a lonely old man
like me?"
Nina could not truthfully deny the statement, but softened the blow by
putting her arms about his neck and kissing him softly on the forehead.
It was Judge North's wish to give the young couple a fine wedding in
Omaha, but this they firmly declined.
Lige and Beatrice had decided to be married soon, and the two young
couples had planned a double wedding, at which the gentle Quaker father,
minister, justice, should officiate.
It was while the preparations for the double wedding were going briskly
forward that Joe received a letter from Judge North one day, asking him
to come to Omaha at once, and bring Nina with him.
When they arrived the Judge met them at the door and led them into his
private office. They saw that he looked very grave, and they were no
sooner seated than he turned to Nina and took her hand.
"My child," he said, in a tone that sent premonitory chills of trouble
into the hearts of the two young people, "you must prepare yourself for
a great blow."
"A blow?" Nina turned pale. "What kind of a blow?"
Joe too had whitened. "What is it, Judge?" he asked, wondering if some
insurmountable barrier to his marriage with Nina had been discovered.
"I have been very busy tracing back these deeds and looking up the
estate that I hoped your grandfather Carroll had left his son," the
Judge went on, "and which you, as his only heir, should inherit. But to
my deep regret and sorrow I found that the property, the deeds of which
were found in the dispatch-box, had long ago passed into the hands of
some distant cousins, and that the fortune which we supposed Colonel
Carroll to possess was so wasted by his spendthrift son, and so
dissipated by his long search for Lee and his own long illness, that
there was nothing of it left when the will was probated."
"Is _that_ all?" Nina drew a deep breath and loosed the grip of her
hands in her lap. "Great heavens, Uncle, you nearly frightened me out
of my wits. I thought--I thought something terrible had happened."
"But--but it _is_ terrible, my dear," said her puzzled uncle. "You
don't seem to understand. There is no money for you to inherit. I
thought you would be a great heiress. I hoped you would get a large sum
of money from that property----"
Nina burst into a ringing laugh.
"Nonsense, Uncle! Who cares! What would I want with a great lot of
money? I don't care a button about the fortune. I've found you--and
know all about my dear father and mother now--and I've got Joe, so what
more could I ask?"
"But, my dear----" cried her distressed uncle, gazing at the shining
eyes and smiling face with amazement.
Nina sprang across the room and threw her arms around his neck with
another burst of laughter.
"Don't bother any more about it, dear," she cried. "Just let's forget
all about the money part of it, and be happy. I'm sure it will never
give me another thought--if Joe doesn't mind taking a penniless bride."
Joe's expression as he gazed at her would indicate that he did not mind
in the least.
"As a matter of fact," he admitted, "I feel rather relieved. I don't
know whether I should feel equal to living up to a rich wife or not."
Then more seriously, "No, Judge, don't let's lose any sleep about that.
Nina and I have grown up poor, and I guess we shall never be any happier
than we were in the little soddy back home. I have my profession, the
State is growing, new business is coming in, I have my homestead and the
little house on it where we can begin, and I guess we'll manage to get
along and be pretty happy with that."
Judge North, who had been exceedingly worried and unhappy since he had
received the news in regard to the property, looked at the young couple
with surprise, and his face cleared.
"Well," he ejaculated, "I think you're a great pair of young simpletons,
but I'm glad you take it that way. I don't think, however, that you need
feel much uneasiness about your future. The new West is opening up,
there are going to be great adventures and opportunities for young men,
and Joe has a good start and the prospect of a brilliant future."
"Of course he has," cried Nina; "why should we worry about a little old
money! Joe is going to be one of the biggest men in the new State."
The Judge patted her head and sighed while he smiled. "He ought to be,
with a love and belief like that behind him," he said, a little
wistfully.
It was now fall, and Herbert was once more almost himself again, thanks
to Ruth's good nursing. She entered into the preparations for the
double wedding with all the interest and enthusiasm she had had no
opportunity to expend on her own wedding.
It was a glorious autumn morning when the little party left the sod
house and walked quietly across the fields that were just beginning to
put on their robes of brown and russet and gold, splashed here and there
with brilliant dashes of color made by the goldenrod and sumac, and
starred with St. Michaelmas daisies, while the great yellow sunflowers
lifted their proud heads to the kiss of the morning and the meadow-larks
poured forth their thrilling melody through the golden, sunlit air.
Joe walked with his mother, his arm about her waist, his tall form bent
to hers, as he talked in low and tender tones of all that he meant to do
for her and his father and the children in the days that were to come.
Nina, radiant and lovely as the morning, dressed in the soft creamy
white she loved, was with her uncle, leaning lightly on his arm, while
she chatted with Ruth and Herbert, who walked beside them, and Sara and
Mary, who as bridesmaids to the party were charming in their garlands of
wild-flowers and their simple little dresses of virgin white.
Lige walked with Mrs. James, his handsome head thrown back, his face
shining with happiness and his eyes turned continually upon Beatrice,
who skipped gayly along by the side of her father, lovely as a picture
in her bridal white.
Sam and Paul, who were to act as best men to the wedding party, felt
just a bit out of it as they trudged along behind, and David, now a
sturdy little chap of ten years, skipped in and out, now with one group,
now with another, the pet of the family, welcomed and admired by all.
At the door of the little church on the prairie Joshua Peniman awaited
them. His hair was grey, his face lined and pale, and in his eyes was
the expression of one who had been communing with another world.
As the friends and relatives crowded into the pews and the two young
couples approached the altar there was a little bustle and stir at the
back of the church, and Joe looked back to see a sight that touched him
deeply. About the door was crowded a large party of Indians, the
friends whom he and Nina had made in their captivity among them, and
those he had made in later days.
They were all there, squaws, bucks, papooses, grinning at him from the
door, and among them was the tall form of Pashepaho and the stately
Neowage, who had come many, many miles to witness the wedding of their
friend.
Joe rushed to the back of the church to meet them, insisted that they
must all come inside, and ushered them down the aisle to the front pews,
as proudly as if they had been the mayor of the city and governor of the
State and their staffs.
They wore no hats, their hair was braided with beads and feathers in
honor of the occasion, and Pashepaho bore on his arm a magnificent otter
skin as a wedding present, while Neowage carried a wonderful pair of
elk-horns that adorned Joe's home for many years.
Slowly the gentle patriarch mounted the pulpit, quietly the two young
couples took their places before him, and with solemn voice he read the
ceremony that united their lives.
When the wedding was over they all returned to the homestead, where a
wedding feast had been prepared, and the Indians were among the most
honored guests. They refused to sit on chairs, never having become
accustomed to that luxury, but squatted on the grass they enjoyed the
feast as well as any of the guests.
When it was over Joe and Nina left for Omaha, where his legislative
duties were soon to begin. Lige and Beatrice drove over to the
county-seat, where Lige, now a cashier in the bank, had built a modest
home for his gay little singing-bird. Ruth and Herbert left for the
home that had been built on their homestead, and as the shadows of night
came down Joshua and Hannah Peniman with their shrunken household were
left alone.
"We have given much to the New West, Joshua," she said, gazing with
moist eyes about the little soddy that looked so lonely and empty in the
waning light.
"It was that for which we became pioneers," answered Joshua Peniman,
laying his hand over hers.