ROSE AND ANNIE.
Rose Mather’s home was a beautiful place, containing everything which
love could devise, or money purchase, and Rose was very happy there,
dancing like a sunbeam through the handsome rooms of which she was the
mistress, and singing as gaily as her pet canary in its gilded cage by
the door. No shadow of sorrow or care had ever crossed her pathway, and
the eighteen summers of her short life had come and gone like so many
pleasant memories, bringing with them one successive round of joys,
leaving no blight behind, and bearing with them, alas, no thanks for the
good bestowed, for Rose was far too thoughtless to think that the
Providence which shielded her so tenderly, might have dealt more harshly
with her. But the shadow was creeping on apace, and Rose was conscious
that the war meeting had awakened within her a new and uncomfortable
train of thought. Like many others, she had a habit of believing that
nothing very bad could happen to her, and so, let what might occur, she
was sure her husband would be spared. Still, in spite of her gaiety, an
undefined something haunted her all the way from the church, and even
when alone with her husband in her tasteful sitting-room, with the
bright gas-light falling cheerily around her, and adding a fresh lustre
to the elegant furniture, she could not shake it off, nor guess what it
was that ailed her. At last, however, it came to her, suggested by the
sight of her husband’s evening paper, and laying her curly head upon his
knee, she gave vent to her restlessness in the expression:
“I wish there wouldn’t be any war. What is it all for? Tell me, please.”
It was the first interest she had evinced in the matter. And glad to
talk with any one upon the subject which was beginning to occupy so much
of his own thoughts, Mr. Mather drew her into his lap, and endeavored,
as far as possible, to explain to her what it all was for. Much of what
he said, however, was Greek to Rose, who only gained a vague idea that
the North was contending for a bit of cloth, such as she had often seen
floating over the dome of the old State House in Boston, and with the
remark, that men’s lives were far more valuable than all the Stars and
Stripes in the world, she fell away to sleep leaving her husband in the
midst of an argument not quite clear to himself, for, like his wife, he
could not then see _exactly what the war was for_. Still, inasmuch as
there was war, he would not play the coward’s part, nor shrink from the
post of duty if his country should need his services. But this Rose did
not know, and secure in the belief that whatever might happen, Will
would never go, she soon resumed her wonted cheerfulness, and if she
said anything of the war, was sure to startle her hearers with some
remark quite unworthy of a New England daughter. She did wish they would
stop having so many meetings, she said, or if they must have them, she
wished they’d get Brother Tom to come and set them right. He had lived
in Charleston. He could tell them how kind the people were to Mary, his
sick wife, and were it not that ’twas beneath him to lecture, she’d
surely write for him to come. Rose Mather was growing unpopular by her
foolish speeches, and when at last she was asked to join with other
ladies of the town in making articles of clothing for the volunteers,
she added the last drop to the brimming bucket, by tossing back her
chestnut tresses, and “guessing she shouldn’t blister her hands over
that coarse stuff. She couldn’t sew much any way, and as for making
bandages and lint, the very idea was sickening. She’d give them fifty
cents if they wanted, but she positively couldn’t do more than that, for
she must have a new pair of lavender kids. She had worn the old ones
three or four times, and Will preached economy every day.”
With a frown of impatience, the matron who had been deputed to ask help
from Rose, took the fifty cents, and with feelings anything but
complimentary to the silly little lady, went back to the hall where
scores of women were busily employed in behalf of the company, some of
whom would never return to tell how much good even the homely housewife,
with its pins and needles, and thread, had done them when far away where
no mother or sister hand could reach them, nor yet how the thought that
perhaps a dear one’s fingers had torn the soft linen band, or scraped
the tender lint applied to some gaping wound, had helped to ease the
pain, and cheer the homesick heart. It was surely a work of mercy in
which our noble women were then engaged, and if from the group collected
in Rockland Hall, there was much loud murmuring at Rose Mather’s want of
sense or heart, it arose not so much from ill-nature, as from
astonishment that she could be so callous and indifferent to an object
of so much importance.
“Wait till her husband goes, and she won’t mince along so daintily,
taking all that pains to show her Balmoral, when it isn’t one bit
muddy,” muttered the Widow Simms, pointing out, to those near the
window, the lady in question, tripping down the street in quest of
lavender kids, perhaps, or more likely, bound for her husband’s office,
where, now that everybody worked all day long at the Hall, she spent
much of her time, it was so lonely at home, with nobody to call. “I hope
he’ll be drafted and have to go, upon my word!” continued the widow,
whose heart was very sore with thinking of the three seats at her
fireside, so soon to be vacated by her darling boys, Eli, John, and
Isaac. “Yes, I do hope he’ll be drafted, don’t you, Mrs. Graham?” and
she turned toward Annie, who was rolling up bandages of linen, and
weaving in with every coil a prayer that the poor soldier, whose lot it
should be to need that band, might return again to the loved ones at
home, or else be fitted for that better home, where war is unknown.
Annie shook her head, but made no answer. There was no bitterness now in
her heart against Rose Mather. She had prayed that all away, and only
hoped the anguish which had come to her, making her brain giddy, and her
heart faint, might never be borne by another, if that could be. George
had volunteered—was to be second lieutenant, and Annie, oh, who shall
tell of the gloom which had fallen so darkly around the cottage she had
called hers for one brief year. It was a neat, cozy dwelling, and to
Annie it never seemed so cheerful as on that memorable night of the war
meeting, when she had lighted the lamp, and sat down with George upon
the chintz-covered lounge he had helped her make when first she was a
bride. It is true the carpet was not of velvet, like that Rose Mather
trod upon; neither was there in all the house one inch of rosewood or of
marble, but there was domestic love, pure and deep as any Rose ever
experienced, and there was something better far than that, a patient,
trusting faith in One who can shed light upon the dreariest home, and
make the heaviest trial seem like nought. It was this trusting faith
which made Annie Graham the sweet, gentle being she was, shedding its
influence over her whole life, and softening down a disposition which
otherwise might have been haughty and resentful. Annie was naturally
high-spirited and proud, and Rose’s remarks concerning volunteers in
general, and George in particular, had stung her to the quick, but with
the indignant mood there came another impulse, and ere the cottage had
been reached, the bitter feeling had gone, leaving nothing but sorrow
that it had ever been there. Like Rose, she wished there would be no
war, but wishing was of no avail, and long after George Graham was
asleep and dreaming, it may be, of glories won on battle-fields, Annie
lay awake, questioning within herself, whether she ought, by word or
deed, to prevent her husband’s going, if he felt as he seemed to feel,
that it was as much his duty as that of others to join in his country’s
defence. Annie was no great reasoner, logically; all her decisions were
made to turn upon the simple question of right and wrong, and on this
occasion she found it hard to tell, so evenly the balance seemed
adjusted. More than once she stole from her pillow, and going out into
the fresh night air, knelt in the moonlight, and asked for guidance to
choose the right, even though that right should take her husband from
her.
“If I knew he would not die, it would not be so hard to give him up,”
she murmured, as sickening visions of fields strewn with the dead, and
hospitals filled with the dying, came over her, and for an instant her
brain reeled with the thought of George dying thus, and leaving her no
hope of meeting him again, for George’s faith was not like hers.
Anon, however, something whispered to her that the God she loved was on
the field of carnage, and in the camp and in the hospital, and
everywhere as much as there in Rockland, that prayers innumerable would
follow the brave volunteers, and that the evil she so much feared might
be the means of working the great good she so desired. And thus it was
that Annie came to a decision. Stealing back to her husband’s side, she
bent above him as he lay sleeping, and with a heart which throbbed to
its very core, though the lip uttered no sound, she gave him to his
country asking, if it could be, that he might come back again, but if it
were ordered otherwise—“God’s will be done.” There was no shrinking
after that sacrifice was made, though when the morning came, the
death-white face and the dark circle beneath the eyes, told of a weary
vigil, such as many and many a woman kept both North and South, during
the dark hours of the Rebellion. But save the death-white face, and
heavy eyes, there was no token of the inner struggle, as with a
desperate effort at self-command, Annie wound her arms around her
husband’s neck, and whispered to him, “You may go,—I give my free
consent,” and George, who cared far more to go than he had dared
express, kissed the lips which tried so hard to smile, little dreaming
what it cost his brave young wife to tell him what she had. To one of
his temperament, there was no danger to be feared for himself. The
bullet which might strike down a brother at his side would be turned
away from him. Others would, of course, be killed, but he should escape
unharmed. In the language of one speaker, whose eloquent appeal had done
much to fire his youthful enthusiasm, “He was not going to be _shot_,
but to _shoot_ somebody!”
This was his idea, and ere the clinging arms had unclasped themselves
from his neck, his imagination had leaped forward to the future, and
in fancy George Graham wore, if not a Colonel’s, at least a Captain’s
uniform, and the cottage on the hill, which Annie so much admired, and
for the purchase of which a few hundreds were already saved, was
his,—bought with the money he would earn. The deed should be drawn in
her name, too, he said, and he pictured her to himself coming down the
walk to meet him, with the rose-blush on her cheek, just as she looked
the first time he ever saw her. Something of this he told her,—and
Annie tried to smile, and think it all might be. But her heart that
morning was far too heavy to be lightened by a picture of what seemed
so improbable. Still, George’s hopeful confidence did much to reassure
her, and when, a few days after, she started for the Hall, she
purposely took a longer walk for the sake of passing the cottage on
the hill, thinking, as she leaned over the low iron fence, how she
would arrange the flower-beds more tastefully than they were now
arranged, and teach the drooping vines to twine more gracefully around
the slender columns supporting the piazza in front. She would have
seats, too,—willow-twisted chairs beneath the trees, where she and
George could sit at twilight, and watch the shadows creeping across
the hollow where the _old_ cottage was, and up the opposite hill,
where the cupola of Rose Mather’s home was plainly visible, blazing in
the April sunshine. It was a very pleasant castle which Annie built,
and for a time the load of pain which, since George volunteered, had
lain so heavy at her heart, was gone; but it returned again when, as
she passed a turn in the road, her eye wandered down to the hollow,
and that other cottage standing there so brown and small, and looking
already so desolate, because she knew that ere many days were over,
she should wait in vain for the loved footsteps coming down the
road,—should miss the pleasant, cheery laugh, the teasing joke and
words of love which made the world all sunshine. The cottage on the
hill became a worthless thing as poor Annie forced back her tears, and
with quickened steps hurried on to join the group of ladies busy at
the Hall.
Taking her seat by the window, she commenced the light work imposed on
her, that of tearing and winding bandages for those who might be
wounded.
“Maybe there’ll never be no fight, but it’s well enough to be prepared,”
was the soothing remark of the kind-hearted woman who gave the work to
Annie, noting, as she did so, how the lip quivered and the cheek paled
at the very idea.
“What if George should need them?” kept suggesting itself to her as she
worked industriously on, hoping that if he did, some one of the rolls
she was winding might come to him, or better yet, if he could only have
the bit of soft linen she had brought herself,—a piece of her own
clothing, and bearing on it her maiden name, Annie Howard. He would be
sure to know it, she said, it was written so plainly with indelible ink,
and it would make him feel so glad. But there might be other Annie
Howards, it was not an uncommon name, was suggested next to her, as she
tore the linen in strips, and quick as thought, her hand sought the
pocket of her dress for the pencil which she knew was there. Glancing
around to see that no one observed her, she touched the pencil to her
lips and wrote after the name, “It’s _your_ Annie, George. Try to
believe I’m there. Rockland, April, 1861.”
There were big tear-drops on that bit of linen, but Annie brushed them
away, and went on with her rolling, just as Widow Simms called her
attention to Rose Mather, as mentioned several pages back.
Annie could not account for it to herself, but ever since Rose’s arrival
at Rockland, she had felt a strange inexplicable interest in the
fashionable belle; an interest prompted by something more than mere
curiosity, and now that there was an opportunity of seeing her without
being herself seen, she straightened up and smoothing the soft braids of
her pale brown hair, waited for the entrance of the little lady, who,
with her pink hat set jauntily on her chestnut curls, and her rich fur
collar buttoned gracefully over her handsome cloth cloak, tripped into
the room, doing much by her sunny smile and pleasant manner to disarm
the ladies of their recent prejudice against her. She was nothing but a
child, they reflected; a spoiled, petted child; she would improve as she
grow older, and came more in contact with the sharp corners of the
world, so those who had the honor of her acquaintance, received her with
the familiar deference, if we may be allowed the expression, which had
always marked their manner toward William Mather’s bride. Rose was too
much accustomed to society to be at all disconcerted by the hundred pair
of eyes turned scrutinizingly toward her. Indeed, she rather enjoyed
being looked at, and she tossed the coarse garments about with a pretty
playfulness, saying that “since the ladies had called upon her she had
thought better of it, and made up her mind to martyr herself one
afternoon at least, and benefit the soldiers. To be sure there wasn’t
much she could do. She might hold yarn for somebody to wind, she
supposed, but she couldn’t knit, and she didn’t want to sew on such
ugly, scratchy stuff as those flannel shirts, but if somebody would
thread her needle, and fix it all right, she’d try what she could do on
a pair of drawers.”
For a time no one seemed inclined to volunteer her services, and Widow
Simms’s shears clicked spitefully loud as they cut through the cotton
flannel. At last, however, Mrs. Baker, who had more than once officiated
as washerwoman at the Mather mansion, came forward and arranged some
work for Rose, who, untying the strings of her pink hat, and adjusting
her tiny gold thimble, labored on until she had succeeded in sewing up
and joining together a long leg with one some inches shorter, which had
happened to be lying near. Loud was the shout which a discovery of this
mistake called forth, nor was it at all abated when Rose demurely asked
if it would not answer for some soldier who should chance to have a limb
shot off just below the knee.
“The little simpleton!” muttered the widow, while Mrs. Baker pointed out
to the discomfited lady that one division of the drawers was right side
out and the other wrong!
There was no alternative save to rip the entire thing, and with glowing
cheeks, Rose began the task of undoing what she had done, incidentally
letting out, as she worked, that Will might have known better than to
send her there,—she shouldn’t have come at all if he had not insisted,
telling her people would call her a secessionist unless she did
something to benefit the soldiers. She didn’t care what they called her;
she knew she was a democrat, or used to be before she was married; but
now that Will was a republican, she hardly knew what she was; any way,
she was not a secessionist, and she wasn’t particularly interested in
the war either; why should she be?—Will was not going, nor Brother Tom,
nor any of her friends.
“But somebody’s friends are going,—somebody’s Will, somebody’s Tom; as
dear to them as yours are to you,” came in a rebuking tone from a
straight-forward, outspoken woman, who knew from sad experience that
“somebody’s Tom was going.”
“Yes, I know,” said Rose, a shadow for an instant crossing her bright
face, “and it’s dreadful, too. Will says everything will be so much
higher, and it will be so dull at Saratoga and Newport next summer,
without the Southern people. One might as well stay at home. The war
might have been avoided, too, by a little mutual forbearance from both
parties, until matters could be amicably adjusted, for Brother Tom said
so in his letter last night, and a heap more which I can’t remember.”
Here Rose paused quite exhausted, with the effort she had made to repeat
the opinion of Brother Tom. She had read all his last letter, fully
indorsing as much of it as she understood, and after a little she went
on:
“Wasn’t it horrid, though, their firing into the Massachusetts boys?—and
they were from right ’round Boston, too. Tom saw them when they started.
They were fine looking men, he says, and Will thinks I ought to be proud
that I’m a Bay State girl, and so I am, but it isn’t as if my friends
had gone. Tom is a democrat, I know, but it’s quite another kind that
join the army.”
Widow Simms could keep silent no longer, and brandishing her polished
shears by way of adding emphasis to what she said, she began:
“And s’posin’ ’tis folks as poor as poverty struck, haint they feelin’s,
I’d like to know? Haint they got bodies and souls, and mothers, and
wives, and sisters? And s’posin’ ’tis _democrats_,—more shame for
t’other side that helped get up the muss. Where be they now, them chaps
that wore the big black capes, and did so much toward puttin’ Lincoln in
that chair? Why don’t they help to keep him settin’ there, and not stand
back with their hands tucked in their trouses’ pockets? Both my boys,
Eli and John, voted t’other ticket, and Isaac would, but he wasn’t
twenty-one. They’ve all jined, and I won’t say I’m sorry, for if there’s
anything I hate, it’s a _sneak!_ It makes me _so_ mad!” and the big
shears again clicked savagely, as Widow Simms resumed her work, after
having thus delivered her opinion of the _black republicans_, besides
having, in her own words, given “that puckerin Miss Mathers a piece of
her mind.”
Obtuse as Rose was on many points, she saw there was some homely truth
in what the widow had said, but this did not impress her so much as the
fact that she had evidently given offence, and she was about trying to
extricate herself from the dilemma when George Graham appeared,
ostensibly to bring some trivial message to the President of the
Society, but really to see if his wife were there, and speak to her some
kind word of encouragement. Rose recognized him as the young man she had
seen at the war meeting, and the moment he left the hall, she broke out
impetuously,
“Isn’t he handsome?—so tall, so broad-shouldered, and such a splendid
mark for a bullet,—I most know he will be shot?”
“Hush-sh!” came warningly from several individuals, but came too late.
The mischief was done. Ere Rose could collect her thoughts a group of
frightened women had gathered around poor Annie, who had fainted.
“What’s the matter? do tell!” cried Rose, standing on tiptoe and
clutching at the dress of Widow Simms, who angrily retorted,
“I should s’pose you’d ask. It’s enough to make the poor critter faint
clean away to hear a body talk about her husband’s being a fust rate
mark for a bullet!”
With all her thoughtlessness, Rose had the kindest heart in the world;
and forcing her way through the crowd, she knelt by the
white-faced-Annie, and taking the drooping head in her lap, pushed back
the thick braids of hair, noticing, with her quick eye for the
beautiful, how soft and luxuriant they were, how pure was the
complexion, how perfect were the features, how small and delicate the
fingers, and how graceful was the slender neck.
“I’m so sorry! I wish I’d staid at home; I _am_ so sorry,” she kept
repeating; and when at last Annie returned to consciousness, Rose
Mather’s was the first voice she heard, Rose’s the first face she saw.
With an involuntary shudder she closed her eyes wearily, while Rose
anxiously asked of those about her how they should get her home. “Oh,
Jake,” she suddenly exclaimed, as, towering above the female heads, she
saw her colored coachman looking for her, and remembered that her
husband was to call and take her out to ride, “oh, Jake, lift this lady
up, careful as you can, and put her in our carriage. Is Will there?
Well, no matter, he’ll just have to get out. Stand back, won’t you, and
let Jake come,” she continued, authoritatively to the group of ladies
who, half-amused and half-surprised at this new phase in Rose Mather’s
character, made way for burly Jake, who lifted Annie’s light form as if
it had been a feather’s weight, and bore it down the stairs, followed by
Rose, who, with one breath, told Annie not to be a bit afraid, for Jake
certainly would not drop her, and with the next asked Jake if he were
positive and sure he was strong enough not to let her fall.
Lazily reclining upon the cushions of his carriage, William Mather was
smoking his Havana, and admiring the sleek coat of his iron greys, when
Rose appeared, and seizing him by the arm, peremptorily ordered him to
alight, and help Jake lift the lady in.
“I don’t know who ’tis, but it’s somebody I made faint away with my
silly talk,” she replied in answer to Mr. Mather’s question, “Who have
you there?”
“_You_ made faint away!” he repeated, as he found himself rather
unceremoniously landed upon the flagging stones, his Havana rolling at
his feet, and his wife preparing to follow Annie, whom Jake had placed
inside.
“Yes; I talked about her husband’s being a splendid mark for a bullet,
and all that, without ever thinking she was his wife. He looked so tall,
and big, and nice, that I couldn’t help thinking his head would come
above all the rest in a fight, but I don’t believe it will. There Jake,
we are ready now, drive on,” said Rose, while poor Annie groaned afresh
at this doubtful consolation.
“Drive whar?” asked Jake. “I dun know whar they lives.”
“To be sure, nor I either,” returned Rose, turning inquiringly to her
husband, who gave the information, adding, as he glanced down the
street,
“Mr. Graham himself is coming, I see. I think, Rose, you had best give
your place to him.”
Rose, who was fond of adventures, wanted sadly to go with Annie, but
George, when he came up, seemed so concerned, and asked so many
questions, that she deemed it best to leave it for his wife to make the
necessary explanations, merely saying, as she stepped upon the walk,
“I am so sorry, Mr. Graham; I really did not mean anything wrong in
saying I knew you’d be shot, for you are so——”
“Rose, your dress is rubbing the wheel,” interrupted Mr. Mather, by way
of diverting Rose from repeating the act for which she was expressing
sorrow.
“No, it ain’t rubbing the wheel, either. It isn’t any where near it,”
said Rose, wondering what Will could mean; while George, taking a seat
by Annie, smiled at what he saw to be a ruse.
Bent upon reconciliation, Rose pressed up to the carriage, and said to
Annie, “You _won’t_ be angry at me always, will you? I shouldn’t have
thought of it, only he does look so——”
“Go on, Jake,” Mr. Mather called out, cutting short Rose’s speech, and
the next moment Annie was driving down the street in Rose Mather’s
carriage, and behind the iron greys, an honor she had never dreamed in
store for her when she saw the stylish turnout passing the door of her
cottage in the Hollow.