NEWS DIRECT FROM JIMMIE.
That night, as Rose sat alone in her cheerful boudoir, musing upon the
strange events which had occurred within the last few months, a letter
was brought to her, bearing her mother’s handwriting. It had passed hers
on the road, and Rose tore it open, starting, as a soiled, tear-stained
note dropped from the inside upon the floor. Intuitively she felt that
it was from Jimmie, and catching it up, she read the homesick,
heart-sick, remorseful cry of penitence and contrition which the weary
Rebel-boy had at last sent to his mother. Stubborness and proud reserve
could hold out no longer and he had written, confessing his error, and
begging earnestly for the forgiveness he knew he did not deserve.
“I am not all bad,” he said; “and on that quiet morning, when beneath
the cover of the Virginia woods I lay, watching the Union soldiers
coming so bravely on, there was a dizziness in my brain, and a
strange, womanly feeling at my heart, while a sensation I cannot
describe thrilled every nerve when I saw in the distance the Stars and
Stripes waving in the summer wind. How I wanted to warn them of their
danger, to bid them turn back from the snare so cunningly devised, and
how proud I felt of the Federal soldiers when contrasting them with
ours. I fancied I could tell which were the Boston boys, and there
came a mist before my eyes, as I thought how your dear hands and those
of little Rose had possibly helped to make some portion of the dress
they wore.
“You know about the battle. You read it months ago, and wept, perhaps,
as you thought of _Jimmie_ firing at his own brother, it might be,
but, mother, _I did not_. I scarcely fired at all, and when I was
compelled to do so to avoid suspicion, it was so high that neither the
wounded nor the dead can accuse me as their murderer; and I’m glad now
that it is so. It makes my prison bed softer to know there is no stain
of blood upon my soul.
“Poor Tom, I dare say, has written to you of our encounter in the
woods, but he does not know the shock it was to me to meet him there,
and know I could not help him. Dear Tom, my heart aches more for him
than for myself, for the Richmond Prison Guards are not like those who
keep watch over us. There are humane people there,—kind, tender
hearts,—which feel for any one in distress, but the jailers, the
common soldiers, and the rabble, are not, I fear, as considerate as
they might be. Many of them have been made to believe the war entirely
of the North’s provoking, that _Hamlin_ is a _mulatto_, and Lincoln a
foul-hearted knave, whose whole aim is to set the negroes free. But
enough of Southern politics. It will all come clear at last, and the
Star Spangled Banner wave again over every revolted State.
“Write to me, mother. Say you forgive your Rebel-boy. Say that, when I
am exchanged, as I hope to be, I may come home, and that you will not
turn away from your sinful, erring
“JIMMIE”
There was a message of love for Rose, and then the letter closed with
one last, touching entreaty that the mother would forgive her child and
take him back again to her confidence and love.
“Of course she’ll do it,” Rose said, vehemently, and seizing a pen and
paper she wrote to Will, inclosing a note to Jimmie, full of pardon and
tender love, bidding him when he should be released come directly to
Rockland, where their mother should be waiting for him, and where she,
forgetting all the past, would nurse him back to health.
Nearly a week went by, and then there came a letter from Will, telling
how he had visited the Rebel Jimmie in his prison, and Rose wept
frantically as she read the particulars of that interview when her
brother first met the sister’s husband, of whom he had never heard.
“I found him sitting apart from the others,” William wrote,
“apparently absorbed in disagreeable reflections, for there was an
abstracted look upon his face and deep wrinkles upon his forehead. If
he had not been pointed out to me, I should have known him by his
striking resemblance to your family. The Carleton features could not
be mistaken, particularly the proud curve about the mouth, and the
arching of the eyebrows, while I recognized at once the soft, curling
hair and brilliant complexion, which you will remember once attracted
me toward a certain little girl, who is now all the world to the old
bachelor Will.
“But this isn’t a love letter, darling. I’m only going to tell you how
sorry your brother looked sitting there alone in that noisy multitude,
whose language and manners are not the most refined that could be
desired, and how my heart warmed toward the solitary being, and
forgave him at once for all his errors past. Very haughtily he bowed
to me when I was introduced, and then in silence awaited to hear my
errand, the proud curve around his mouth deepening as he surveyed me
with a hauteur which, under ordinary circumstances, would have annoyed
me exceedingly. As it was, I could almost fancy myself the prisoner
and he the freeman, he seemed so cool, so collected, while I was
embarrassed and uncertain how to act.
“‘Is your visit prompted by curiosity to see how a so-called Rebel can
bear confinement, or did you come on business?’ he asked, and then all
my embarrassment was at an end.
“‘I came,’ I said, ‘partly at your sister’s request, and partly to
ascertain how much you are willing to do toward the attainment of your
freedom.’
“I do not think he understood the last. He only caught at the words,
‘your sister,’ and grasping my arm, he whispered hoarsely, ‘What of my
sister? Have you seen her? Do you know her, and does she hate me now?’
“I told him I was your husband, and with quivering lip, he asked me,
‘Is she well, my precious little Rose, whom I remember as almost a
child, and mother—has she cast me off? Oh, if she only knew how I am
punished for my sin, she would forgive her wayward boy.’
“Here he broke down in such a wild storm of sobs and tears, that the
inmates of the prison gathered in groups around him, their looks
indicative of their surprise at witnessing so much emotion in one who
up to that moment had appeared haughtily indifferent to everything
around him. With an authoritative gesture he waved them off, and then,
passing him your note, I, too, walked away, leaving him alone while he
read it, but even where I stood I could hear the smothered sobs he
tried in vain to suppress. I am inclined to think he is right in
saying that joining the Confederate army was the best lesson he ever
learned. I am sure he must be greatly changed from the reckless,
daring boy, whose exploits you have described so often. He is very
anxious to swear allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, even though he
should be doomed to prison life for five more weary months, and as I
am not a mere private now, and have considerable influence in
Washington, I hope, ere long, to write that he is free, and on his way
to Rockland, whither he will go first.
“Jimmie expresses the utmost sympathy for Tom, and says he would
gladly take his place, if that could be, for he fears the inmates of
those Richmond tobacco houses are not always cared for, as he has been
at Washington. Poor Tom, I hope he will be among the list of the
exchanged, and if so, you may expect soon to welcome both your
brothers.”
No wonder Rose wept tears of joy over his letter, while her thoughts
went after her rebellious, but repentant brother, nor tarried there,
for, farther to the South, another weary captive pined, and every fibre
of her heart bleed with sympathy for Tom—poor Tom, she always called
him—and as the days of sickening suspense went by she grew so nervous
and so ill that her mother came up from Boston to attend her, while
Annie shook off her own feelings of weary languor, and did for Rose the
same offices which Rose had once done for her.
“I do so wish you had been my sister,” Rose said to her one day, when
she had been kinder than usual “I know I should be a better woman, and
so would all of us.”
Annie made no reply, except to twine around her fingers the coils of
chestnut hair, lying in such profusion upon the pillows. For a few
moments Rose lay perfectly still, with her eyes fixed upon the paper
bordering, as if counting the fanciful flowers, but her thoughts were
intent upon a far different subject. Turning to her mother, she suddenly
asked:
“How _old_ is Jimmie, twenty-three, or twenty-four?”
“Twenty-three last May,” was the reply, and, with rather a troubled
expression upon her face, Rose continued, “_Will_ is _thirteen_ years
older than I am,” and the little curly head shook doubtfully.
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Carleton asked, but Rose did not
answer at once.
There was another interval of silence, and then starting quickly, Rose
called out, “Mother, don’t you remember that affair of Jimmie’s ever so
long ago, when he was a boy at school in New London? There was a little
girl that he fancied, and you took him home for fear of what would come
of it; when you found she was poor and nobody?”
Glancing quickly at Annie, who was attentively examining the hem-stitch
of the fine linen pillow-case, Mrs. Carleton said, reprovingly:
“You should not parade our family matters before strangers, my
daughter.”
“Oh, Annie is no stranger,” Rose answered, laughingly. “She’s one of our
folks now, besides, she is not enough interested in the love affair of a
seventeen years old boy ever to repeat it.”
“Love affair!” Mrs. Carleton rejoined, a little scornfully. “Not very
much love about it, I imagine. She was stopping with her aunt at the
Pequot House, and Jimmie saw her a few times, passing himself off by
another name than his own. If he had cared for this child he would never
have done that.”
“He seems to have a _penchant_ for assuming names,” Rose rejoined,
playfully. “He called himself _John Brown_, at Washington, while to this
little Pequot girl he was, let me see, what was it? Can’t you think,
mother?”
Rose was bent on talking about Jimmie and his Pequot girl, and knowing
that she could not stop her, Mrs. Carleton replied:
“Richard Lee, or something like that.”
“Oh, yes, ‘Dick!’ I remember now; and her name was,—what _was_ it,
mother? It makes my head ache so trying to recall it.”
“If I ever knew, I’ve forgotten,” Mrs. Carleton said, and after trying
in vain to think, Rose dismissed the name, but not the subject.
“How angry Jimmie was,” she continued, “when you brought him home, and
how awfully he swore. It makes you shudder, don’t it?” and she turned to
Annie, who had shivered either with cold or horror at Jimmie’s
profanity. “He was a bad boy once, but I most know he’s better now.
Maybe, mother, this was a real nice girl and if you’d let Jimmie alone
he might have become attached to her, and she have been his wife by this
time. Then he would not have joined the Rebel army. Don’t you think you
and Tom were a little too severe on Jimmie sometimes?”
“Perhaps so,” was the faint response, as Mrs. Carleton looked out upon
the wintry landscape, seeing there visions of a handsome, boyish,
tearful face, flushed with anger and entreaty as its owner begged of her
not to take him back to Boston, which he hated, but leave him where he
was, saying that the little girl at the Pequot House had already done
him more good than all the sermons preached from the pulpits of the Bay
State Capital.
But she had disregarded Jimmie’s wishes, and from that time forward he
had pursued a course of recklessness ending at last in prison. With a
half-regretful sigh Mrs. Carleton thought of all this, and in her heart
she blamed herself for some of her boy’s disobedience. But it could not
now be helped, and with another sigh, she turned toward Rose, still
speculating as to what the result might have been, had Jimmie been
suffered to follow up his first, and so far as she knew, only fancy.
“What do you suppose would have happened if Jimmie had staid in New
London, and this scheming aunt, whom mother feared far more than the
Pequot, had staid there too?” she asked of Annie, forgetting that the
particulars of the affair had not been repeated.
But it did not matter, for Annie answered all the same. She was sitting
now with her back to Mrs. Carleton, while, so far as Rose was concerned,
her face was in the shadow. Consequently Rose could not see its
expression, as she replied:
“Nothing probably would have come of it. I imagine the _Pequot_, as you
call her, was not more than fourteen, and you know how easily we forget
the fancies of that age. She was undoubtedly pleased with the evident
admiration of your handsome brother, and watched anxiously it may be,
for the evenings when, with others of his comrades, he came to the
hotel; but a closer acquaintance would have resulted in her knowing the
deception about the name, and after that she would not have cared for
him. If he really liked her he would not have imposed upon her thus.
She’s forgotten him ere this, and is probably a married woman.”
“Perhaps so,” Rose replied; “I wish I knew. Jimmie didn’t mean to
deceive her long. He took the name Dick Lee, partly in sport, and partly
because he didn’t wish his teacher to know how often Jim Carleton was at
the Pequot House, when he thought him somewhere else. After he began to
like her, and saw how pure and good and truthful she was, he hated to
tell her, but had made up his mind to do so when mother took him away.”
“He might have written,” Annie said, “and she may have been silly enough
to cry over his abrupt and unexplained departure.”
“Mother wouldn’t let him write,” Rose rejoined, laughingly. “She watched
him closely, and got Tom interested too. Poor Jimmie, I wonder if that
girl ever thinks of him now?”
“She may, but I dare say she is glad your mother took him home. She has
outlived all that fancy,” and Annie’s white fingers, on one of which the
wedding ring was shining, worked nervously together.
As if bent on tormenting both her auditors by talking of Jimmie, Rose
kept on, wondering how he looked, if she should know him, what he would
say, how he would act, and if he ever would come.
“I’m so glad you are here, Annie,” she said, “for you do everybody good
you come in contact with, and I want you to talk to Jimmie, will you?”
Annie only smiled, but her cheeks burned with excitement, and Rose was
about asking if her head didn’t ache, when a letter was brought in
bearing the Washington postmark. Eagerly Rose broke it open, screaming
with joy as she read that Jimmie had been released,—had taken the oath
of allegiance, and was coming home to Rockland.
“He’ll be here,—let me see,—Thursday, on the three o’clock train. That’s
to-morrow. Oh, I’m so glad!” and in her delight the little lady forgot
that for the last week she had been playing _sick_, and leaping upon the
carpet, danced about the room, kissing alternately her mother and Annie,
and asking if they were ever so pleased in their lives.
“Oh, I forgot!” she suddenly exclaimed, as she saw the great tears
dropping from Annie’s eyes, and guessed of what she was thinking. “I did
not mean to make you sorry contrasting Jimmie’s coming home with that of
poor George. Dear Annie, don’t cry,” and the chubby arms closed
coaxingly round the now sobbing Annie’s neck. “Don’t cry. You’ll like
Jimmie, I know, and if you don’t, I know you’ll like dear Tom. He’s
perfectly splendid, and he gave his place to George, you know.”
Yes, Annie knew, but it only made her tears flow faster as she thought
of Rose, so full of hope, her husband yet alive, and her brothers coming
home, while she, without a friend on whom she could lean, was alone in
her desolate widowhood. Excusing herself from the room, she sought her
own pleasant chamber, and there alone poured out her grief into the ear
of One who almost since she could remember had been the recipient of all
her sorrows. And Annie had far more need of help than Rose suspected.
She could not stay there and meet Jimmie Carleton face to face after
what she had heard, while a return to the lonely cottage seemed
impossible. Widow Simms’s home suggested itself to her mind; but if the
prisoners were exchanged, and Isaac came home, she might be an intruder
there, and besides, what truthful reason could she give to Rose for her
strange conduct? It was a sad dilemma in which Annie found herself so
suddenly placed, and more than an hour of solitary and prayerful
reflection, found her still uncertain as to the course duty would
dictate in the present emergency. It seemed expedient that she should go
away, and when in the evening she joined Rose, who chanced to be alone,
she suggested leaving her house, at least during Jimmie’s stay, and
going either to the cottage in the Hollow, or to stay with Widow Simms.
In the utmost astonishment Rose listened to the proposal, and then
replied:
“_You_ go away because Jimmie is coming! Preposterous! Why, I want you
here on his account, if nothing more. Besides, where will you go? Widow
Simms has taken Susan to live with her at John’s request, and that
little _teenty_ place will not begin to hold three women with _hoops_!”
“You forget the widow does not wear them,” Annie suggested, her heart
beginning to sink, notwithstanding her playful words.
“Yes, I know,” Rose replied; “but you are not going there. If you are in
the way here with Jimmie, you’d surely be more in the way there with
Isaac. Don’t you see?” and Rose looked as if this argument were
altogether conclusive.
“I can go home,” Annie said, faintly. “The cottage is mine till the
first of April.”
Rose colored, and hesitated somewhat, as if a little uncertain how what
she had to say on this subject might be received; then, resolving to put
a bold face upon it, she said:
“I ought to have told you before, I suppose. Don’t you remember the day
you had the sick headache, more than a week ago? Well, while you were
asleep, a man came to know if you’d let him into the cottage till
spring, as he was obliged to leave where he was, and could find no other
place. I did not wish to wake you, and as I knew you would not care, I
said yes on my own responsibility, and sent Bridget down to pack all
your things in the chamber, as he only wanted the lower rooms. She put
them away real carefully, Bridget did, for I’ve been myself to see,”
Rose added, quickly, as she saw the color mounting to Annie’s cheeks,
and feared she might be indignant at the liberty.
“And is he there?” Annie asked, conquering all emotion, and speaking in
her natural tone.
“Yes, he’s there,” Rose answered. “You are not angry, are you? He’s a
nice man, and so is his wife.”
“I am not angry,” Annie replied, “but more sorry than I can express,
though, had I been consulted, I should undoubtedly have done as you
did.”
“Oh, I’m so glad, for it has bothered me a heap, wondering what you’d
say!” Rose cried, throwing her arms around Annie’s neck. “And now you’ll
stay with us, for you see you have nowhere else to go; shan’t she,
mother?” and she appealed to Mrs. Carleton, who had just come in.
“Of course Mrs. Graham will stay” was Mrs. Carleton’s reply; for, during
the few days of her sojourn at Rockland, she had become greatly
interested in the sweet young Annie, and already foresaw the benefit she
would be to Rose, who needed some such influence to keep her in check.
Mrs. Carleton was proud, and at first her daughter’s growing intimacy
with the wife of a mechanic had given her pride a pang, but a closer
acquaintance had dispelled the foolish prejudice, for she saw in the
gentle Annie unmistakable marks of education and refinement, while she
was not insensible to the charm thrown round the beautiful stranger by
the lovely Christian character which shone so brightly now in the dark
hour of affliction. Coming nearer to her, and laying her hand in a
motherly way upon her pale brown hair, she said:
“We all want you, Mrs. Graham, and as Rose, by an act which I will admit
was too presuming, has virtually closed your own doors against you, I
see no alternative but for you to stay with us. Rose needs you, and as
she says, you may do Jimmie good, while _Tom_, if he ever comes, will be
glad to meet the wife of one in whom he was greatly interested.”
After this, Annie offered no further remonstrance, though in her heart
she hoped Jimmie’s residence in Rockland would not be very long. Of Tom
she had no dread. She rather wished to see him than otherwise, for he
had been kind to George, and in fancy she had enshrined him as a
middle-aged, greyish haired man, stooping a little, perhaps, and withal
very fatherly and venerable in his appearance! This was _Tom_,—but
_Jimmie_, handsome, saucy-eyed, mischievous Jimmie, putting angle worms
in Rose’s bosom, and frightening the little Pequot with a mud-turtle,
found on New London beach, was a very different thing, and though
trusting much to the lapse of years and change of name, Annie shrank
nervously from the dreaded to-morrow, which was to bring the Rebel home.