JIMMIE.
There were loving words being breathed into Rose’s ear, when she came
back to consciousness, and there was something familiar in the touch of
the hand bathing her brow, and smoothing her tangled hair, but Rose was
too weak and sick to notice who it was caring for her so tenderly, until
she heard the voice saying to her
“Is my daughter better?”
And then she threw herself with a wild scream of joy into the arms which
had cradled her babyhood, sobbing piteously:
“Oh, mother, mother, Willie has gone to the war! Willie has gone to the
war!”
It was very strange, Rose thought, that her mother’s tears should flow
so fast, and her face wear so sad an expression just because of Will,
who was nothing but her son-in-law. Then it occurred to her that Tom
might be the occasion of her sadness, but when she spoke of him, asking
why her mother had not prevailed on him to stay at home, Mrs. Carleton
answered, promptly:
“I never loved him one half so well, as on that night when he told me he
had volunteered. He would be unworthy of the Carleton blood he bears,
were he to hesitate a moment!” and the eye of the brave New England
matron kindled as she added: “If I had twenty sons, I would rather all
should die on the Federal battle-field than have one turn traitor to his
country! Oh, _Jimmie_, _Jimmie_, my poor misguided boy!”
It was a piteous cry which came from the depths of that mother’s aching
heart,—a cry so full of anguish that Rose was startled, and asked in
much alarm what it was about Jimmie. Had she heard from him, and was he
really dead?
“No, Rose,” and in the mother’s voice there was a hard, bitter tone.
“No, not dead, but better so, than what he is. Oh, I would so much
rather he had died when a little, innocent child, than live to bear the
name he bears!”
“What name, mother? What has Jimmie done? Do tell me, you frighten me,
you look so white!” and Rose clung closer to her mother, who, with
quivering lip and faltering voice, told her how recreant runaway Jimmie
had joined the Confederate army under Beauregard, and was probably then
marching on to Washington to meet her other son, in deadly conflict, it
might be; his hand, the very one, perhaps, to speed the fratricidal
bullet which should shed a brother’s life-blood!
No wonder that her heart grew faint when she thought of her boy as a
_Rebel_,—aye, a rebel of ten times deeper dye than if he had been born
of Southern blood, and reared on Southern soil, for the roof-tree which
sheltered his childhood was almost beneath the shadow of Bunker Hill’s
monument, and many an hour had he sported at its base, playing directly
above the graves of those brave men who fell that awful day when the
fierce thunders of war shook the hills of Boston, and echoed across the
smoky waters of the bay. Far up the lofty tower, too, as high as he
could reach, his name was written with his own boyish hand, and the
mother had read it there since receiving the shameful letter which told
of his disgrace. Climbing up the weary, winding flight of stairs, she
had looked through blinding tears upon that name,—JAMES MADISON
CARLETON,—half hoping it had been erased, it seemed so like a mockery to
have it there on Freedom’s Monument, and know that he who bore it was a
traitor to his country. Yet there it was, just as he left it years ago,
and with a blush of shame the mother crossed it out, just as she fain
would have crossed out his sin could that have been. But it could not.
She knew that Jimmie was in the Southern army, and not wishing to speak
of it at home, where he already bore no envied name, she had come for
sympathy to her only daughter; and it was well for both she did, for it
helped to divert Rose’s grief into a new and different channel; to set
her right on many points, and gradually to obliterate all marks of what
so he had called Secession.
_Tom_ had been her pride; the brother she honored and feared, while
Jimmie, nearer her age, was more a companion of her childhood; the one
who teased and petted her by turns, one day putting angle worms in her
bosom just to hear her scream, and the next spending all his
pocket-money to buy her the huge wax doll she saw in the shop window,
down on Washington street, and coveted so badly. Such were some of
Rose’s reminiscences of Jimmie, and while time had softened down the
horrid sensations she experienced when she felt the cold worms crawling
on her neck, it had not destroyed the _doll_, the handsomest she had
ever owned, nor made her cease to love the teasing boy. She could not
feel just as her mother did about him, for she had not her mother’s
strong, patriotic feeling, but her tears flowed none the less, while
she, too, half wished him lying beneath the summer grass, in beautiful
Mt. Auburn.
“How did you hear from him?” she asked, when her first burst of grief
was over, and her mother replied by taking out a letter, on which Rose
recognized her brother’s handwriting.
“He sent me this,” Mrs. Carleton said, and tearing open the letter, she
read it aloud to Rose.
“RICHMOND, VA., _June, 1861_.
“DEAR MOTHER: Pray don’t think you’ve seen a ghost when you recognize
my writing. You thought me dead, I suppose, but there’s no such good
news as that. I’m bullet-proof, I reckon, or I should have died in New
Orleans last summer when the yellow fever and I had such a squabble. I
was dreadfully sick then, and half wished I had not run away, for I
knew you would feel badly when you heard how I died with nobody to
care for me, and was tumbled into the ground, head sticking out as
likely as any way. I used to talk about you, old Martha said, and
about Rose, too. Dear little Rose. I actually laid down my pen just
now, and laughed aloud as I thought how she looked when I treated her
to those worms; telling her I had a necklace for her! Didn’t she dance
and didn’t Tom thrash me, too, till I saw stars! Well, he never struck
me a blow amiss, though I used to think he did. I was a sorry scamp,
mother,—the biggest rascal in Boston. But I’ve reformed. I have, upon
my word, and you ought to see how the people here smile upon and
flatter me, telling me what a nice chap I am, and all that sort of
thing.
“In short, mother, to come at once to the point, and not spend an hour
in arguing, as Tom used to do when he took me up in the attic where he
kept the _gads_, you know,—in short, I’ve been naturalized,—have sworn
allegiance to the future Southern monarchy, and am as true a Southern
blood as you would wish to see. I’ve got a Palmetto cockade on my
cap,—a tiny Confederate flag on my sleeve, and what is best of all,
I’ve joined the Southern army under Beauregard, and shall shortly
bring the war to the threshold of the Capitol, licking the Yankees
there congregated like fun. It’s about time now, mother, for you to
ring for Margaret. You’ll want the camphor, and make a fuss, of
course, so while you are enjoying that diversion, I’ll go and practice
a little with my gun. You know I could never hit a barn without
shooting twice, but I’m improving fast, and shall soon be able to pick
off a Yankee at a distance of a mile!
“2 _o’clock_, P.M.
“Well, mother, I take it for granted you are nicely tucked up in bed,
with the curtains drawn and a wet rag on your head, as the result of
what I’ve told you. I’m sorry that you should feel so badly, and wish
I could see you for an hour or so, as I could surely convince you we
are right. We have been browbeaten and trodden upon by the North until
forbearance has ceased to be a virtue, and now that they’ve thrown
down the gauntlet we will meet them on their own terms. I dare say
they have made you believe that we struck the first blow by firing
into Sumter, but, mother, those northern papers do lie so, all except
the _Herald_, and a few others, which occasionally come within a mile
of the truth, but even they have been bribed recently, or something.
If you want the unbiased truth of the matter subscribe for the
Richmond _Examiner_, or better yet, the Charleston _Mercury_, whose
editor is a New England man, and of course is capable of judging
right. He knows what has brought on this war. He’ll tell you how the
South Carolinians generously bore the insult of the Federal flag
flying there defiantly in their faces until they could bear it no
longer, and so one day we pitched in.
“I say _we_, for I was there in Fort Moultrie, and saw the fight, but
did not join, for the brave fellows, out of compliment to my having
been born near Bunker Hill, said I needn’t, so I mounted a cotton bale
and looked on, feeling, I’ll admit, some as I used to on the Fourth of
July, when I saw how noble old Sumter played her part. And once, when
a shell burst within ten feet of me, turning things generally topsy
turvy, and blowing shirt sleeves and coat sleeves, and waistbands and
boots, higher than a kite, I was positively guilty of hurrahing for
the Stars and Stripes. I couldn’t help it, to save me.
And yet, mother, I believe the North wrong,—and the South right, but
so generous a people are we, that all we ask now, is for you to _let
us alone_; and if the Lincolnites won’t do that, why, then we must
stoop to fight the mud-sills. It’s all humbug, too, about the negroes
being on the verge of insurrection. A more faithful, devoted set, I
never saw. They’ll fight for their masters until they die, every man
of them. Tom will tell you that. What are his politics? Bell and
Everett, I dare say, so there’s no danger of my meeting him in battle,
and I’m glad of it, for to tell the truth, I should feel rather
ticklish raising my gun against old Tom. May be, though, he is
humbugged like the rest, and forms a part of that unit said to exist
at the North. What sort of a thing is that, mother? What does it look
like? Democrats and Republicans, Abolitionists and Garrisonites, all
melted in one crucible and bearing _Abraham’s_ image and
superscription! I wish I could see it. Must have changed mightily
round Boston from what they used to be when they quarreled so, some
against and some for Southern rights and Southern people. But strange
things happen nowadays, and it may be Tom, too, has turned his coat,
and taken sides with the Federals. If so, all I can say, is, Tommie,
oh, Tommie, beware of the day, when Southern bloods meet thee in
battle array; for a field of weak cowards rushes full on my sight, and
the ranks of the Yankees are scattered in flight. Won’t we rout them,
though! I shall fight next time. I’ve played pollywog long enough. I
am regularly enlisted now. Am a _Rebel_, as you call us at home.
Nothing very bad about that, either, as I can prove to you, if you’ll
take the trouble to hunt up my old dog-eared History of the United
States, where Washington is styled by the British the _Rebel Chief_.
“The South are only doing what the Thirteen did in ‘76, trying to
shake off the tyrant’s yoke. It’s the same thing precisely, only the
shoe is on the other foot, and pinches mightily. We did not at first
intend to subjugate the North, but maybe they’ll provoke us to do it,
if they keep on. Now, however, we only want, or rather did want a
peaceable separation, and you may as well yield to it first as last.
What do you intend doing with us, any way, suppose you succeed in
licking us? Hold us as a conquered province, just as England holds
Ireland? Much good that will do you. It will be some like keeping a
mad dog chained so tightly that he cannot get away, but is none the
less snappish and non-come-at-able for that. No, no, acknowledge our
independence, and call home the chaps you have dragged from Poor
Houses and State Prisons, lanes and ditches, and sent to fight against
Southern gentlemen. This, to me, is the most humiliating feature of
the whole; and if I must be _shot_ or taken prisoner, I hope it will
be by some one worthy of my steel. This last I’m writing for old Tom’s
benefit. Give him my compliments, and tell him nothing would please me
more than to welcome him to our camp some day.
“Dear little Rose,—perhaps she would not let a Rebel kiss her, and I
don’t know but I’d turn Federal for half an hour or so for the sake of
tasting her sweet lips once more. I do love Rose, and I feel a
mysterious lump in my throat every time I look at her picture, taken
just before I left home. I never show it, for somehow it would seem
like profanation to have the soldiers staring at it. So I wear it next
my heart, and when I go into battle I shall keep it there. Perhaps it
will save my life, who knows?
“I am getting tired, and must close ere long. Now, mother, please
don’t waste too many tears over me. The time will come when you’ll see
we are right; and if it will be any consolation, I will say in
conclusion, that I have written a heap worse than I really believe. I
am not a fool. I understand exactly how the matter stands, but I like
the Southern side the best. I think they are just as near right as the
North, and I’m going to stick to them through thick and thin. We shall
have a battle before long, and this may be the last time I’ll ever
write to you. I’ve been a bad boy, mother, and troubled you so much,
but if I’m shot you will forget all that, and only remember how, with
all my faults, I loved you still,—you and Tom and little Rose,—more
than you ever guessed.
“By the way, I believe I’ll send you a lock of my hair, cut just over
my left ear, where you used to think it curled so nicely. Perhaps it
will enhance its value if you know I severed it with a bowie knife,
such as I now carry with me. Tell Rose I’ll send her a calico dress by
and by. It will be the most costly present I can make her if the
blockade is carried out, but it won’t be; that old Bull across the sea
will be goring you with his horns first you know. Then you’ll have a
sweet time up there, beset before and behind, and possibly annexed to
Canada. But I don’t want to make you feel any bluer than you are
probably feeling, so good-bye, good-bye.
“Your affectionate Rebel,
“JAMES M. CARLETON.”
“P. S.—I shall send this to Washington by a chap who is going to
desert, you know, and join the Federals with a pitiful story about
having been pressed into the Rebel service, telling them, too, how
poor and weak and demoralized we are,—how a handful of troops can lick
us, and so draw them into our web, as a spider tempts a fly, don’t you
see? They offered me that honor, knowing that a son of GEORGE
CARLETON, twice M. C. from Massachusetts, and now defunct, would be
above suspicion, and would thus gather a heap of items. But hang me,
if I could turn spy on any terms. So I respectfully declined. You see
I am quite a somebody, owing to my having had sense enough to wait
until I was twenty-one, ere I ran away, and so bringing a part of my
property with me. Money makes the mare go here as elsewhere, but I’m
about running out. I wish you could send me a few thousand, can’t
you?”
And this was Jimmie’s letter, over which the mother had wept far
bitterer tears than any she shed when her eldest born bade her his last
farewell, giving to her, just as Jimmie had done, a lock of his brown
hair. She had it with her now, and she laid them both on Rose’s
hand,—the dark brown lock, and the short black silken curl, which twined
itself around Rose’s finger, as if it loved the snowy resting-place.
Rose’s first impulse was to shake it off as if it had been a guilty
thing; but the sight of it recalled so vividly the handsome, saucy face,
and laughing, mischievous black eyes it once had helped to shade, that
she pressed it to her lips, and whispered sadly, “Dear Jimmie, I cannot
hate him if I try, nor see how he is greatly at fault,” while in her
heart was the unframed prayer that God would care for the Rebel-boy, and
bring him back to them.
Mrs. Carleton was proud of her family name,—proud of her family
pride,—and she shrank from having it known how it had been disgraced, so
after Rose’s first grief was over she bade her keep it a secret, and
Rose promised readily, never doubting for a moment her ability to do so.
Rose had already borne much that morning. Excessive weeping for her
husband, added to what she had heard of Jimmie, took her strength away,
and she spent that first weary day in bed, sometimes sobbing bitterly as
the dread reality came over her that _Will_ was really gone, and again
starting up from a feverish, broken sleep with the idea that it was all
a dream, or a horrid nightmare, from which she should at last awake.
Callers were all excluded, and with a delicious feeling that she was not
to be disturbed, Rose, late in the afternoon, lay watching the western
sunlight dancing on the wall, when a step upon the stairs was heard, and
in a moment Widow Simms appeared, her sharp face softening into an
expression of genuine pity when she saw how white and wan Rose was
looking.
“They tried to keep me out,” she said, “that brawny cook of yours and
that filigree waiting-maid, but I would come up, and here I am.”
Then sitting down by Rose she told her Annie had sent her there. “She’s
sorry for you,” the widow said, “and she sent this to tell you so,” and
the widow handed Rose a tiny note, written by Annie Graham. Once Rose
would have resented the act as implying too much familiarity, but her
heart was greatly softened, while, had she tried her best, she could not
have regarded Annie Graham in the light of an inferior. Tearing open the
envelope she read:
“MY DEAR MRS. MATHER—I am sure you will pardon the liberty I am
taking. My apology is that I feel so deeply for you, for I understand
just what you are suffering,—understand how wearily the hours drag on,
knowing as you do that with the waning daylight _his_ step will not be
heard just by the door, making in your heart little throbs of joy,
such as no other step can make. I am so sorry for you, and I had hoped
you at least might be spared, but God in his wisdom has seen fit to
order it otherwise, and we know that what He does is right. Still it
is hard to bear,—harder for you than for me, perhaps, and when this
morning I heard the car signal given, I knelt just where I did when my
own husband went away, and asked our Heavenly Father to bring your
Willie back in safety, and, Mrs. Mather, I am sure He will, for I
felt, even then, an answer to my prayer,—something which said, ‘It
shall be as you ask.’
“Dear Mrs. Mather, try to be comforted; try to see the brighter side;
try to pray, and be sure the darkness now enveloping you so like a
pall will pass away, and the sunshine be the brighter for the cloud.
Come and see me when you feel like it, and remember, you have at least
two friends who pray for you, one at the Father’s right hand in
Heaven, and one in her cottage in the Hollow.
“ANNIE GRAHAM.”
Rose had not wept more passionately than she did now, as she kissed the
note, and wished she were one half as good as Annie Graham.
“But I am not,” she said, “and never shall be. Tell her to keep praying
until Will comes home again.”
“I will tell her,” returned the widow, “but wouldn’t it be well enough
to try what you can do at it yourself, and not leave it all for her?”
“Try what I can do at praying?” Rose exclaimed. “I can’t do anything,
only the few words I always say at night, and they have nothing in them
about Will.”
“Brought up like a heathen!” muttered the widow, feeling within herself
that to the names of her own sons and Captain Carleton, William Mather’s
must now be added, when, as was her daily custom, she took her troubles
to One who has said, “Cast your burdens upon the Lord, for He careth for
you.”
“We’ll both remember your husband, Miss Graham and I, so don’t fret
yourself to death,” she said, soothingly, as Rose broke into a fresh
burst of tears.
“It isn’t him so much,” Rose sobbed, “though that is terrible and will
kill me, I most know, but there’s something else that ails me a great
deal worse than that; at least, mother has made me think it is, though I
can’t quite see how having one’s brother join the Rebel army is so very
bad.”
Rose forgot her promise of secrecy, just as her mother might have known
she would. The story of the Carleton disgrace was told, and perfectly
aghast, the horrified widow listened to it.
“Your brother a rebel?” she almost shrieked, “a good-for-nothing,
ill-begotten rebel! I thought you said he was a captain of a company;”
and mentally the widow struck from her list of names that of poor,
scandalized Tom, that very moment perspiring at every pore as he went
through with his evening drill within the Federal camp.
“No, no,” Rose cried, vehemently, “not Tom; I have another brother, a
younger one,—Jimmie we call him. Did you never hear of Jimmie, who ran
away more than a year ago?”
“Never!” and the staunch patriot of a widow pursed up her thin lips with
an expression which plainly said the Carleton family had fallen greatly
in her estimation, in spite of all Tom had said of Isaac.
Rose, however, was not good at reading expressions, and taking it for
granted the widow wanted to hear all about it, she told her what she
knew, marvelling much at the rigid silence her auditor maintained.
“Isn’t it shameful?” she asked, when she had finished.
“Shameful? Yes. I hope he’ll be catched and hung higher than Haman. I’ll
furnish rope to hang him!” was the indignant widow’s reply, and ere Rose
could quite make out what ailed her, she had said good-afternoon, and
banging the door behind her, was hurrying off, muttering to herself,
“Somethin’ wrong in their bringin’ up. Needn’t tell me. I’d like to see
my boys turnin’ traitor! The rascal!” and as by this time the widow had
reached the shop where she was to stop for burning-fluid, she turned
into the little store, and catching up the can with a jerk, spilt a part
of its contents upon her clean gingham dress, and then hurried off again
with rapid strides toward the cottage in the Hollow.
The Carletons, Tom and all, were below par in her opinion, and kept
sinking lower and lower, until she reached the cottage, where she gave
vent to her wrath as follows:
“A pretty how d’ye do up to _Miss Martherses_. Her brother _Jim_ has
jined the cowardly, sneakin’, low-lived, contemptible Rebels, and is
comin’ on to take Washington! The scalliwag! If things go on at this
rate, I’ll jine the army myself, and tar and feather every one on ’em!
Needn’t tell me.”
Annie was no lover of gossip, and knowing that the widow was terribly
excited, she made no reply except to pass her a letter bearing the
Washington postmark. This had the desired effect, and utterly oblivious
of Jimmie, the widow tore open _Isaac’s_ letter, in which he spoke of
Captain Carleton as being very kind to him, and very popular with the
soldiers.
“I would fight for him till the very last,” Isaac wrote; “he has been
so good to me, always noticing me with a bow when he comes into our
regiment, as he sometimes does, and when he can, speaking to me a
pleasant word. He knows I sawed his sister’s wood, for I told him so.
It seemed so mean-like to be passing myself off for better than I am,
and you know a soldier’s dress does improve a chap mightily, giving
him kind of a dandy air. Why, even Harry Baker and Bill look like
gentlemen, though Harry gets drunk awfully, and has been in the
guard-house twice, But, as I was saying, Captain Carleton didn’t
appear to think a bit less of me, though he struck me on the shoulder,
and laughed kind of queer when I said why I told him I sawed Mrs.
Mather’s wood, and the next day I saw him talking with our colonel,
and heard something about sergeant, and _Isaac Simms_, and ‘too young
to be expedient.’ Then, when I met him again, he asked me wasn’t I
twenty-one, in such a way that I knew he wanted me to tell him yes;
but, mother, I thought of that prayer we said together, the morning I
came away, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ and I couldn’t tell a lie,
though the answer stuck in my throat and choked me so, but I out with
it at last. I said, ‘No, sir, I was only eighteen last Thanksgiving,’
and then his face had the same look it wore when I told him I was a
wood-sawyer. ‘And so I suppose you’ll be nineteen next Thanksgiving’
he said, adding ‘You don’t know what you lost by telling the truth so
frankly, but the moral gain is much greater than the loss. You are a
brave boy, Isaac Simms, and worthy of being a second George
Washington.’ I do like him so much! Can’t you send him something,
mother, if it’s nothing more than the nice cough-candy you used to
make, or some of that poke-ointment? I notice he coughs occasionally,
and I heard him say his feet were sore. I’d like to give him
something, just to see his handsome white teeth when he laughed, and
said ‘Thank you, my boy.’ Oh, I would almost die for Captain
Carleton.”
Surely, after reading this, the widow could feel no more animosity
against the Carletons, on account of Jimmie’s sin.
“Every family must have a black sheep,” she said to Annie, though where
hers was she could not tell. It surely was not John, nor Eli, nor Isaac,
so she guessed it must have been the girl baby that died before ’twas
born, and for whom she shed so many tears. She shouldn’t do it again,
she’d bet, for if it had lived, it would most likely have cut up some
rusty or other, just as Jim Carleton had,—married _Bill Baker_, like as
not; and with this consolatory reflection, the widow took up Isaac’s
letter for a second time, resolving in her own mind that she would send
that Captain Carleton something if she set up nights to make it.
“I’m glad my boy didn’t tell a lie,” she whispered softly to herself, as
she came again to that part of the letter, poor, weak human nature
creeping in with the same thought, and suggesting how grand it would be
to have him “Sergeant Simms, with the increased wages per month it would
have brought.” This was the old Adam counselling within her, while the
new Adam said, “Better never to be promoted than lose his integrity,”
and with a silent prayer for the boy who would not tell a lie, the widow
folded up the letter, and then repeated to Annie the particulars of
Jimmie Carleton in a much milder manner than she would have done an hour
before. So much good little acts of kindness do, stretching on link
after link, until they reach a point from which they recoil in blessings
on the doer’s head. Thus Captain Carleton’s friendly words to Isaac
Simms were the direct means of saving his mother and sister from the
bitter prejudice the Rockland people, in their then excitable state,
might have felt toward them, had Widow Simms told the story of Jimmie in
the spirit she surely would have told it, had it not been for Isaac’s
timely letter. This, together with a little judicious caution from
Annie, changed her tactics, and though she, that very night, had several
opportunities for telling how “Miss Martherses brother was a rebel, and
that Miss Marthers couldn’t see the mighty harm in it if he was,” she
kept it to herself, speaking only of the noble Tom, so kind to her boy
Isaac.