THE DEPARTURE.
The 13th Regiment was ordered to Elmira, and the day had arrived for the
departure of the volunteers. Bright was the sun, and cloudless the sky
which shone on Rockland, that spring day; but cloudless sky nor warm
spring sun could comfort the hearts about to part with their treasures,
some forever, and some to meet again, but when, or where, or how, none
could tell save Him who holds the secrets of the future.
There were mothers who had never felt a pang so keen or a pain so sore,
as when with hearts too full of anguish for the dry, red eyes to weep,
they watched their sons pass from the threshold of the door, and knew
that when the golden sunlight, falling so brightly around them, was
purple in the west, they would look in vain for that returning step, and
listen in vain for tones which were the first, perhaps, to stir the deep
fountains of maternal love. Fathers, too, were there, with heads bent
down to hide the tears they deemed it weak to shed, as they gave the
farewell blessing to their boy, praying that God might be over and
around him, both when the deafening battle roar was sounding in his ear,
and when in the stilly night he wrapped his blanket about him, and laid
him down to rest, sometimes with the southern star shining upon him, and
sometimes with the southern rain falling on his unsheltered head, for
all these vicissitudes must come to a soldier on the field. Wives and
sisters, too, there were, who shuddered as they thought how the dear
ones to whom they said good-bye, would miss the comforts they were
leaving, miss the downy pillow, the soft, warm bed made with loving
hands, and the luxuries of home never prized one half so much as now,
when they were to be exchanged for a life within the camp. And there
were maidens, from whose cheeks the roses faded, as they gave the
parting kiss, and promised to be faithful, even though the manly form
the lover bore away should come back to them all maimed and crushed and
crippled with the toil of war. Far better so than not to come at all. At
least so Annie Graham thought, as, winding her arms around her husband’s
neck, she whispered to him:
“If the body you bring back has my George’s heart within it, I shall
love you just the same as I do now,” and with her fair head lying on his
bosom, Annie wept piteously.
Not till then had she realized what it was to let him go. She had become
somewhat accustomed to thinking of it,—accustomed to seeing him pass in
and out, dressed in his stylish uniform, which made him look so
handsome, and then she had hoped the regiment would not be ordered for a
long, long time, never perhaps; but now that dream was over; the dreaded
hour had come, and for a moment Annie felt herself too weak to meet it.
Through the livelong night she had prayed, or if perchance sleep for a
moment shut the swollen lids, the lips had moved in prayer that her
husband might come back to her again, or failing to do so, that he might
grasp, even at the eleventh hour, the Christian’s faith, and so go to
the Christian’s home, where they would meet once more. She had given him
her little Bible, all pencil-marked and worn with daily usage,—the one
she read when first the spirit taught her the meaning of its great
mysteries,—and George had promised he would read it every day,—had said
that when he went to battle he would place it next his heart, a talisman
to shield him from the bullets of the foe. And Annie, smiling through
her tears, pointed him again to the only One who could stand between him
and death, asking that when he was far away, he would remember what she
said, and pray to the God she honored.
“It’s time, now, darling,” he said, at last, as he heard in the distance
the beat of the drum.
But the clinging arms refused to leave his neck, and the quivering lips
pressed so constantly to his, murmured:
“Wait a little minute more. ’Tis the last, you know.”
Again the drum-beat was heard mingled with the shrill notes of the fife;
the soldiers were marching down the street, and he must go, but oh, who
can tell of the love, the pain, the grief, the tears mingled with that
parting,—or the agony it cost poor Annie to take her arms from off his
neck, to feel him putting her away, to hear him going from the room,
across the threshold, down the walk, through the gate, and know that he
was gone.
As a child in peril instinctively turns to the mother who it knows has
never failed to succor, so Annie turned to God, and with a moaning cry
for help, sank on her knees just where George had left her. Burying her
face in the lounge she prayed that He who heareth even the raven’s cry,
would care for her husband, and bring him home again if that could be.
So absorbed was she as not to hear the gate’s sharp click, nor the
footstep coming up the walk. Impelled by something he could not resist,
George had paused just by the garden fence, and yielding to the impulse
which said he must see Annie’s face once more, he stole softly to the
open door, and stood gazing at her as she knelt, her hands clasped
together, and her face hidden from his view, as she prayed for him.
“Will the kind Father keep my George from peril if it can be, but
if,—oh, God, how can I say it?—if he must die, teach him the road to
Heaven.”
That was what she said, and George, listening to her, felt as if it were
an angel’s presence in which he stood. He could not disturb her. She was
in safer hands than his, and he would rather leave her thus,—would
rather think of her when far away, just as he saw her last, kneeling in
her desolation and praying for him.
“It will help to make me a better man,” he said, and brushing aside the
great tears swimming in his eyes, he left his angel Annie, and went on
his way to battle.
* * * * *
Just off from Rockland’s main street, and in a cottage more humble than
that of George Graham, the sun shone on another parting,—on Widow Simms
giving up her boys, and straining every nerve to look composed, and keep
back the maternal love throbbing so madly at her heart. Rigid as if cut
in stone were the lines upon her forehead and around her mouth, as she
bustled about, doing everything exactly as it should be done, and coming
often to where Isaac sat trying to look unconcerned and whistling
“Dixie” as he pulled on the soft, warm pair of socks she had sat up
nights to knit him. Eli and John had some too, snugly tucked away in
their bundle, but Isaac’s were different. She had ravelled her own
lamb’s wool stockings for the material composing his, for Isaac’s feet
were tender; there were marks of chilblains on them; they would become
sore and swollen from the weary march, and his mother would not be there
with soothing lint and ointment made from the blue poke-berries. Great
pains had the widow taken with her breakfast that morning, preparing
each son’s favorite dish and bringing out the six china cups and damask
cloth, part of her grandmother’s bridal dower. It was a very tempting
table, and John and Eli tried to eat, exchanging meaning smiles when
they saw their mother put in Isaac’s cup the biggest lump of sugar, and
the largest share of cream. They did not care,—for they too loved the
fair-haired, smooth-faced boy sipping the yellow coffee he could not
drink for the mysterious bunches rising so fast in his throat. The
breakfast was over now. Isaac was trying on his socks, while Eli and
John, knowing their mother would rather be alone when she said good-bye
to her baby, prepared to start, talking quite loud, and keeping up stout
courage till the last moment came, when both the tall, six-foot young
men put their arms around the widow’s neck, and faltered a faint
“Good-bye, mother, good-bye.”
There were no tears in the mother’s eyes, nor in the sons’, but in the
breast of each there was a whirlpool of raging waters, hurting far more
than if they had been suffered to overflow in torrents. Eli was the
first to go, for John lingered a moment. There was something he would
say, something which made him blush and stammer.
“Mother,” he began, “I saw Susan last night. We went to Squire Harding’s
together; and,—and,—well, ’taint no use opposing it now,—Susan and I are
one; and if I shouldn’t come back, be good to her, for my sake. Susan’s
a nice girl, mother,” and on the brown, bearded cheek, there was a tear,
wrung out by thoughts of only last night’s bride, Susan Ruggles, whose
family the widow did not like, and had set herself against.
There was no help now, and a sudden start was all the widow’s answer.
She was not angry, John knew; and satisfied with this, he joined his
brother in the yard, where he was cutting his name upon the beech tree.
Thrice the widow called them back, failing each time to remember what
she wanted to say. “It was something, sure,” and the hard hands worked
nervously, twisting up the gingham apron into a roll, smoothing it out
again and working at the strings, until Eli and John passed from the
yard, and left her standing there, watching them as they walked down the
road. They were a grand-looking couple, she thought, as she saw how well
they kept step. They were to march together to the depot, she knew, and
nobody in town could turn out a finer span, but who would go with
Isaac?—“Stub,” his brothers called him. She hoped it might be Judge
Warner’s son,—it would be such an honor; and that brought her back to
the fact that Isaac was waiting for her inside; that the hardest part of
all was yet to come, the bidding him good-bye. He was not in the chair
where she had left him sitting, but was standing by the window, and
raising often to his eyes his cotton handkerchief. He heard his mother
come in, and turning toward her, said, with a sobbing laugh:
“I wish the plaguy thing was over.”
She thought he meant the war, and answered that “it would be in a few
months, perhaps.”
“I don’t mean that, I mean the telling you good-bye. Mother, oh,
mother!” and the warm-hearted boy clasped his mother to his bosom,
crying like a child; “if I’ve ever been mean to you,” he said, his voice
choked with tears—“if I’ve ever been mean to you, or done a hateful
thing you’ll forget it when I’m gone? I never meant to be bad and the
time I made that face, and called you an old fool, when I was a little
boy, you don’t know how sorry I felt, nor how long I cried in the
trundle-bed after you were asleep. You’ll forget it, won’t you, when I
am gone, never to come back, maybe? Will you, mother, say?”
Would she? Could she remember aught against her youngest born, save that
he had ever been to her the best, the dearest, most obedient child in
the world? No, she could not, and so she told him, caressing his light
brown hair and showering upon it the kisses which the compressed lips
could no longer restrain. The fountain of love was broken, and the
widow’s tears dropped like rain on the upturned face of her boy.
Suddenly there came to their ears the same drum-beat which had sounded
so like a funeral knell to Annie Graham. Isaac must go, but not till one
act more was done.
“Mother,” he whispered, half hesitatingly, “it will make me a better
soldier if you say the Lord’s Prayer with me just as you used to do,
with your hand upon my head. I’ll kneel down, if you like,” and the boy
of eighteen, wearing a soldier’s dress, _did_ kneel down, nor felt shame
as the shaky hand rested once more on his bowed head, while his mother
said with him the prayer learned years ago, kneeling as he knelt now.
Surely to the angels looking on there was charge given concerning that
young boy,—charge to see that no murderous bullet came near him, even
though they should fall round him thick and fast as summer hail. It
would seem that some such thought as this intruded itself Upon the Widow
Simms, for where the swelling pain had been there came a gentle peace.
God would care for Isaac. He would send him home in safety, and so the
bitterness of that parting was more than half taken away.
Again the drum beat just as Annie heard it. Another pressure of the
hand, another burning kiss, another “good-bye, mother, don’t fret too
much about us,” and then the last of the widow’s boys was gone.
Turn we now to the shanty-like building down by the mill, where the
mother of Harry and Bill rocked to and fro upon the unmade bed, and rent
the air with her dismal howls, hoping thus to win at least one tender
word from the two youths, voraciously devouring the breakfast she, like
Widow Simms, had been at so much pains to prepare, watching even through
her tears to see “if they wan’t going to leave her one atom of the steak
she had spent her yesterday’s earnings to buy.”
No they didn’t. _Harry_ took the last piece, growling angrily at Bill,
who, kinder hearted than his brother, suggested that “_Hal_ shouldn’t be
a pig, but leave something for the old woman.”
“Leave it yourself,” was Harry’s gruff response, and turning to his
mother, he told her “not to make a fool of herself, when she knew she
was glad to be rid of them. At any rate, if she were not, the whole
village were;” adding, by way of consolation, that “he should probably
end his days in State Prison if he staid at home, and he had better be
shot in a fair fight, as there was some credit in that.”
Around Harry Baker’s childhood there clustered no remembrance of prayers
said at the mother’s knee, or of Bible stories told in the dusky
twilight, and though reared in New England, within sight of the church
spire, he had rarely been inside the house of God, and this it was which
made the difference between that scene and the one transpiring in the
house of Widow Simms. All the animal passions in Harry Baker’s case were
brought to full perfection, unsubdued by any softer influence, and
rising from the table, after having filled his stomach almost to
bursting, he swaggered across the room, and opening his bundle began to
comment upon the different articles, he having been too drunk to notice
them when given to him on the previous night.
“What in thunder is this for?” he exclaimed, holding up the calico
housewife, and letting buttons, scissors and thread drop upon the floor.
“Plaguy pretty implements of war, these!” and he began to enumerate the
articles. “Fine tooth comb, black as the ace of spades. Good enough idea
that; hain’t used one since I can remember;” and he passed it through
his shaggy hair, whose appearance fully verified the truth of his
assertion. “Half a paper of pins. Why didn’t the stingy critters give us
more? An old brass thimble, too. Here, mother, I’ll give you that to
remember me by,” and he tossed it into her lap. The drawers then took
his attention; the identical pair Rose Mather made, and though they were
better than any he had ever worn, he laughed at them derisively. Trying
them on he succeeded in making quite a long rip in one of the seams, for
Rose’s stitches were none the shortest. Then, with a flourish, he kicked
them off, uttering an oath as he felt a sharp scratch from the needle
which Rose had broken, and failed to extricate. The woolen shirt came
next, but any remarks he might have made upon that, were prevented by
his catching sight of the _little brown book_ which lay at the bottom of
the bundle.
“Hurrah, Bill, if here ain’t a Testament, with ‘Harry Baker’ inside.
Rich, by George! Wonder if they s’posed I’d read it. Let us see what it
says. ‘Come unto me all ye that labor.’ Mother, that means _you_,
scrubbin’ and workin’, you know. Keep the pesky thing. I enlisted to
lick the Southerners, not to sing _himes_ and psalms!” and he threw the
sacred book across the floor, just as the first drum-beat sounded.
“That’s the signal,” he exclaimed, and hastily rolling up the shirt and
drawers, he started for the door, carelessly saying, “Come Bill take
your Testament and come along. Good-bye, old lady. You needn’t wear
black if I’m killed. ’Twon’t pay, I guess.”
“Oh, Harry, Harry, wait. Wait, Billy boy, do wait. Give your old marm
one kiss,” and the poor woman tottered toward Harry, who savagely
repulsed her, saying “he wan’t going to have her slobberin’ over him.”
“You, Billy, then, you’ll let me kiss you, won’t you?” and she turned
toward Bill, who hesitated a moment, for Harry was in the way.
Bill was afraid of Harry’s jeers, and so he, too, refused, while the
wailing cry rose louder.
“Oh, Billy, do just once, and I’ve been so good to you! Just once, do,
Billy.”
“Shan’t do it,” was Bill’s reply, as he followed Harry, who, as a
farewell parting had hurled a stone at a cow across the street, set the
dog on his mother’s kitten, stepped on the old cat’s tail, and then left
the yard, slamming after him the rickety gate his mother had tried in
vain to have him fix before he went.
Billy, however, waited. There was something more human in his nature
than in his brother’s. He had not thrown his Testament away, and the
sight of it in his bundle had touched a tender chord, making him half
resolve to read it. Watching his brother till he was out of sight, he
went back to where his mother sat, moaning dolefully,
“Oh that I should raise sich boys!—that I should raise sich boys!”
“Mother,” he said, and Mrs. Baker’s heart fairly leaped at the sound,
for there was genuine sympathy in the tone. “Mother, now that Hal has
gone, I don’t mind kissin’ you, or lettin’ you kiss me, if you want to.”
The doleful moan was a perfect scream as the shrivelled arms clasped
Bill, while the joyful mother kissed the rough but not ill-humored face.
“There, now, don’t screech so like an owl,” he said, releasing himself
from her, and adding, as he glanced at a huge silver watch, won by
gambling, “Maybe seein’ I’ve a few minutes to spare, I’ll drive a nail
or so into that confounded gate, and I dun know, but while I’m about it,
I’ll split you an armful of wood. I had or’to have cut up the hull on’t
I s’pose, but when Hal is ’round I can’t do nothin’.”
It was strange how many little things Bill did do in these few minutes
he had to spare—things which added greatly to his mother’s comfort, and
saved her several shillings, beside making a soft warm spot in a heart
which knew not many such. Glancing at the tall clock brought from New
England, when Mrs. Baker first moved to Rockland, Bill remarked:
“The darned thing has stopped agin. I or’to have iled it, I s’pose. It
would kind of been company for you, hearin’ it tick. I _vum_, if I
hain’t a mind to give you this old turnep,” and again he drew out the
silver watch. “You’ll lay abed all day without no time. Like enough I’ll
nab one from some tarnal rebel,—who knows?” and with his favorite
expression, “_Nuff said_,” Bill laid the watch upon the table, his
mother moaning all the while,
“Billy boy, Billy boy, I never sot so much store by you before. How can
I let you go? Stay, Billy, do, or else run away the first chance you
git. Will you, Billy boy?”
“Not by a jug full!” was the emphatic response. “I ain’t none of that
kind. I’ll be shot like a dog before I’ll run. The Baker name shall
never be disgraced by my desertin’. It’s more like Hal to do that; but
don’t howl so. I’m kinder puttin’ on the tender, you know, ‘cause I’m
goin’ away. I should be ugly as ever if I’s to stay to hum. So stop your
snivelin’,” and having driven the last nail into a broken chair, Bill
gathered up his bundle, and with the single remark, “Nuff said,” darted
through the open door, and was off ere his mother fairly comprehended
it.
There was a great crowd out that morning to see the company off.
Fathers, mothers, wives, and sisters,—those who had friends in the
company and those who had none. The Mather carriage was there, and from
its window Rose’s childish face looked out, now irradiated with smiles
as its owner bowed to some acquaintance, and again shadowed with
sympathy as the cries of some bereaved one were heard amid the throng.
Widow Simms, too, was there, drawn thither by a desire to see if Isaac
_did_ march with Charlie Warner, as she hoped he would, notwithstanding
that he had told her he was probably too short. She didn’t believe
that,—he was taller than he looked, and inasmuch as Charlie was the most
aristocratic of the company, she did hope Isaac would go with him. So
there she stood waiting, not far from Mrs. Baker, who had dried her
eyes, and come for a last look at her boys.
Onward the soldiers came, slowly, steadily onward, the regular tread of
their feet and the measured beat of the drum making solemn music as they
came, and sending a chill to many a heart; for ’twas no gala day, no
Fourth of July, no old-fashioned general training, they were there to
celebrate. Every drum-beat was a note of war, and they who kept time to
it were going forth to battle. Onward, onward still they came, George
Graham’s splendid figure towering above the rest, and eliciting more
than one flattering compliment from the lookers on.
There were John and Eli, side by side,—John eagerly scanning the female
forms which lined the walk for a sight of last night’s bride, and Eli
looking for his mother, if perchance she should be there. She was there,
and what to John was better yet, she stood with her hand on _Susan’s_
shoulder, showing that thus early she was trying to mother her.
“That’s him,—that’s John,” and Susan’s voice faltered as she pointed him
out to the widow, whose heart gave one great spasm of pain as she saw
him, and then grew suddenly still with wrath and indignation; for alas,
her Isaac, who was to have gone with Charlie Warner, son of Rockland’s
Judge, was marching with _William Baker_,—_Bill_,—who had been to the
workhouse twice, to say nothing of the times he had stolen her
rare-ripes and early melons! She had not looked for anything like this,
and could scarcely believe her senses. Yet there they were, right before
her eyes, Isaac and Bill, the former hoping his mother would not see
him, and the latter trying not to see his mother, who was quite as much
delighted to see him with Isaac Simms as the widow would have been had
Isaac been with Charlie Warner, just in front.
Mrs. Baker had followed her sons to the hall, had heard the reasons for
the captain’s decision, and she called out in a loud, exultant tone,
“Miss Simms! Miss Simms do you see your Ike with Billy? Cap’n Johnson
would have put him with Charlie Warner if he hadn’t fell short two
inches. Look kinder nice together, don’t they? only Ike stoops a trifle,
’pears to me.”
It didn’t “’pear” so to Widow Simms, but then her eyes wore blurred so
that she could not see distinctly, for, strange to say, the sharpest
pang of all was the knowing that Isaac, so pure, so gentle, so
girl-like, must be a companion for reckless, swearing, gambling Bill,
and for a time she could not quite forgive her youngest born that he had
not been just two inches taller. Blind, ignorant Widow Simms, the hour
will come when, on her bended knees, she’ll thank the over-ruling hand
which kept her boy from growing _just two inches taller_!
Onward, still onward they moved, until they turned the corner and paused
before the depot.
A little apart from the rest George Graham stood, wishing that the cars
would come, and building airy-castles of what would be when he returned,
covered with laurels, as he was sure to do if only opportunities were
offered. He would distinguish himself, he thought, with many a brave
deed, so that the papers would talk of him as a gallant hero, and when
he came back to Rockland, the people would come out to meet him, a
denser crowd than was assembled now. Their faces would not then be so
sad, for they would come to do him honor, and in fancy he heard the
stirring notes of the martial music, and saw the smile of joy steal over
the weather-beaten features of the leader of the band, the man with the
jammed white hat, as he fifed that welcome home. There would be
carriages there, too, more than now, and maybe there would be _a
carriage expressly for him_, and the dreamer saw the long procession
moving down the street,—saw the little boys on the walk, the women at
the doors, and heard the peal of the village bells. It would be grand,
he thought, if he could have a crown just as the Roman victors used to
do,—it would please Annie so much to see him thus triumphant. _She_
would not come up to the depot, he knew. She would rather be alone when
she met him, while he, too, would prefer that all those people should
not be looking on when he kissed his little wife. Just then the train
appeared, and the confusion became greater as the crowd drew nearer
together, and the man with the jammed white hat who was to fife George’s
welcome home, redoubled his exertions, and tried his best to drown his
own emotions in the harsh sounds he made. But above the fife’s shrill
scream, above the bass drum’s beat, and above the engine’s hiss, was
heard the sound of wailing, as one by one the Rockland volunteers
stepped aboard the train.
Bill was the last to go, for as a parting act he had fired the old
cannon, which almost from time immemorial had heralded to Rockland’s
sleeping citizens that twelve o’clock had struck and it was Independence
day. Some said it was no good omen that the worn-out gun burst in twain
from the heavy charge with which Bill had seen fit to load it, but Bill
cared not for omens, and with three cheers and a _tiger_ for Uncle Sam,
he jumped upon the platform just as the final all aboard was shouted.
There was a ringing of the bell, a sudden puffing of the engine, a
straining of machinery, a sweeping backward of the wreaths of smoke, and
then, where so lately one hundred soldiers had been, there was nothing
left save an open space of frozen ground and iron rails, as cold and as
empty as the hearts of those who watched until the last curling ring of
vapor died amid the eastern woods, and then went sadly back to the homes
left so desolate.