COURSE OF EVENTS.
With a howl of despair, Mrs. Baker came rushing into the kitchen of the
Mather mansion, one morning in November, startling Annie with her
vehemence as she thrust into her hand a dirty, half-worn envelope, which
she said was from Bill, who had been missing since August, and who, it
now appeared, was at Andersonville.
“Might better be dead,” his mother said, and then she explained that the
letter she brought Annie had come in one to herself received that
morning from Bill.
How he ever got it through the lines was a mystery which he did not
explain; nor did Annie care, inasmuch as it brought news direct from
Jimmie. He had written to her with the pencil and on the sheet of paper
Bill had brought him, for Bill Baker was employed outside the prison
walls, and allowed many privileges which were denied to the poor
wretches who crowded that swampy pen. In short, Bill had taken the
Confederate oath,—“had done some tall swearin’,” as he wrote to Annie,
giving as an excuse for the treasonable act, “that he couldn’t _stan’_
the racket” in that horrible place, where twenty thousand human beings
were crowded together in a space of twenty-five acres, and part of that
a marshy swamp, teeming with filth and scum, and hideous living things.
Another reason, too, Bill gave, and that was pity for the “Corp’ral,” to
whom he could occasionally take little extras, and whom he would have
scarcely recognized, he said, so worn and changed had he become from his
long imprisonment.
“I mistrusted he was there,” Bill wrote; “and so when me and some
other fellow-travellers was safely landed in purgatory, I went on an
explorin’ tower to find him. But you bet it want so easy gettin’
through that crowd. Why, the camp-meetin’ they had in the Fair Grounds
in Rockland, when Marm Freeman bust her biler hollerin’, was nothin’
to the piles of ragged, dirty, hungry-lookin’ dogs; some standin’ up,
some lyin’ down, and all lookin’ as if they was on their last legs.
Right on a little sand bank, and so near the dead line that I wonder
he didn’t get shot, I found the Corp’ral, with his trouses tore to
tatters, and lookin’ like the old gal’s rag-bag that hangs in the
suller-way. Didn’t he cry, though, when I hit him a kelp on the back,
and want there some tall cryin’ done by both of us as we sat there
flat on the sand, with the hot sun pourin’ down on us, and the sweat
and the tears runnin’ down his face, as he told me all he’d suffered.
It made my blood bile. I’ve had a little taste of Libby, and Bell
Isle, too; but they can’t hold a candle to this place. Miss Graam, you
are the good sort, kinder pius like; but I’ll be hanged if I don’t
bleeve you’ll justify me in the thumpin lies I told the Corp’ral that
day, to keep his spirits up. Says he, ‘Have you ever ben to Rockland
since Fredericksburg?’ and then I tho’t in a minute of that nite in
the woods when he prayed about Anny; and ses I to myself, ‘The piusest
lie you ever told will be that you have been home, and seen Miss
Graam, with any other triflin’ additions you may think best;’ so I
told him I had ben hum on a furbelow, as the old gal (meanin’ my
mother) calls it. And I seen her, too, says I, Miss Graam, and she
talked an awful sight about you, I said, when you orto have seen him
shiver all over as he got up closer to me, and asked, ‘What did she
say?’ Then I went on romancin’, and told him how you spent a whole
evenin’ at the ole hut, talkin’ about him, and how sorry you was for
him, and couldn’t git your natural sleep for thinkin’ of him, and how,
when I came away, you said to me on the sly, ‘William, if you ever
happen to meet Mr. Carleton, give him Anny Graam’s love, and tell him
she means it.’ Great Peter! I could almost see the flesh come back to
his bones, and his eyes had the old look in ’em, as he liked to of
hugged me to death. I’d done him a world of good, he said, and for
some days he seemed as chipper as you please; but nobody can stan’ a
diet of raw meal and the nastiest watter that ever run; and ses I to
myself, Corp’ral will die as sure as thunder if somethin’ don’t turn
up; and so, when I got the hang of things a little, and seen how the
macheen was worked, sez I, ‘I’ll turn Secesh, though I hate ’em as I
do pizen.’ They was glad enuff to have me, bein’ I’m a kind of
carpenter and jiner, and they let me out, and I went to work for the
Corp’ral. I’ll bet I told a hundred lies, fust and last, if I did one.
I said he was at heart Secesh; that he was in the rebel army, and I
took him prisoner at Manassas, which, you know was true. Then I said
his sweetheart, meanin’ you, begging your pardon, got up a row, and
made him jine the Federals, and promise never to go agin the flag, and
that’s how he come to be nabbed up at Fredericksburg. I said ‘twan’t
no use to try to make him swear, for he thought more of his gal’s good
opinion than he did of liberty, and I set you up till I swan if I
bleeve you’d a knowed yourself, and every one of them fellers was
ready to stan’ by you, and two of ’em drinked your helth with the wust
whisky I ever tasted. One of ’em asked me if I was a fair specimen of
the Northern Army, and I’ll be darned if I didn’t tell him _no_, for I
was ashamed to have ’em think the Federals was all like me. I guess,
though, they liked me some; anyway, they let me carry something to the
Corp’ral every now and then, and I bleeve he’d die if I didn’t. I’ve
smuggled him in some paper and a pencil, and he is going to wright to
you, and I shall send it, no matter how. The rebs won’t see it, and I
guess it’s pretty sure to go safe. I must stop now, and wright to the
old woman.
“Yours to command,
“WILLIAM BAKER, ESQUARE.”
It was with great difficulty that Annie could decipher the badly-written
scrawl; but she made it out at last, and then took Jimmie’s letter next,
shuddering as she saw in it marks of the horrors which Bill had
described but faintly, and which were fully corroborated by Jimmie
himself.
“My dear Annie,” he wrote, “I do not know that this letter will ever
reach you. I have but little hope that it will. Still it is worth
trying for, and so here in this terrible place, whose horrors no pen
or tongue can adequately describe, I am writing to you, who I know
think sometimes of the poor wretch starving and dying by inches in
Andersonville. Oh, Annie, you can never know what I have suffered from
hunger and thirst, and exposure and filth, which makes my very blood
curdle and creep, and from that weary homesickness which more than
aught else kills the poor boys around me. When I first came here I
thought I could not endure it, and though I knew I was not prepared, I
used to wish that I might die; but a little drummer boy from Michigan,
who took to me from the first, said his prayers one night beside me,
and the listening to him carried me back to you, who, I felt sure,
prayed for me each day. And so hope came back again, with a desire to
live and see your dear face once more. My little drummer boy, Johnny,
was all the world to me, and when he grew too sick to sit or stand, I
held his poor head in my lap, and gave up my rations to him, for he
was almost famished, and ate eagerly whatever was brought to us. We
used to say the Lord’s Prayer together every night, when a certain
star appeared, which he playfully called his ‘mother,’ saying it was
her eye watching over him. It was a childish fancy, but we grow
childish here, and I, too, have given that star a name. I call it
‘Annie,’ and I watch its coming as eagerly as did the little boy, who
died just as the star reached the zenith and was shining down upon
him. His head was in my lap, and all there was left of my coat I made
into a pillow for him, and held him till he died. His mother’s address
is ——, Michigan. Write to her, Annie, and tell her how Johnny died in
the firm hope of meeting her again in heaven. Tell her he did not
suffer much pain,—only a weakness, which wasted his life away. Tell
her the keepers were kind to him, and brought him ice-water several
times. Tell her, too, of the star at which he gazed so long as he had
strength.
“It was all the companion I had after he was gone until Bill Baker
came. I shall never forget that day. I had crawled up to my sand bank,
and drawn my rags around me, and was beginning to wish again that I
could die, when a broad hand was laid upon my shoulder, and a voice
which was music to me then, if it never had been before, said to me
cheerily, ‘Hallo, old Corp’ral! Such are the chances of war! Give us
your fist!’ But when he saw what a sorry jaded wretch I was, his chin
began to quiver, and we cried together like two great babies as we
were.
“Oh, Annie, was it a lie Bill Baker told me, or did you really send me
your _love_, and say that you meant it? He told me such a story, and I
grew better in a moment. Have you relented, and if I could ask you
again the question I asked a year ago, when we sat together beneath
the moonlight, would you tell me _yes_? Darling Annie, Andersonville
is not so terrible since I am kept up by that hope. I do not mind now
if my shoes and stockings are all gone, and my trowsers nearly so, and
I watch for that star so eagerly, and make believe that it is you, and
when the dark clouds obscure it, and the rain is falling upon my
unsheltered head, I say that it is Annie’s tears, and do not mind that
either. I pray, too, Annie,—pray with my heart, I hope, though my
prayers have more to do with you than myself.
“Bill Baker said he should write and tell you about his taking the
oath, which I believe he did almost solely for my sake, and greatly
have I been benefited by it. Rough as he is, and disgusting at times,
he seems to have gained friends outside, and he does us many a
kindness, confining his attentions mostly to me, who am his especial
care. It is a strange Providence that he who took me a prisoner at
Bull Run and annoyed me so terribly, should now be caring for me here
at Andersonville, and literally keeping the life within me, for I
should die without him.
“I have not written half I want to say, but my paper is nearly used
up, and not one word have I said to mother or Rose. Tell them they
would not know me now, and tell them, too, that in my dreams, when I
am not with you, I am with them, and mother’s face is like an angel’s,
while Rose’s sparkling beauty makes my heart beat just as it used to
beat when I first began to realize what a darling sister I had. Dear
Annie, you _did_ send that message by Bill Baker, I _will_ believe,
and thus believing, shall gain strength maybe to bear up until the day
of release.
“Good-bye, my darling. From my crowded, filthy, terrible prison I send
you a loving good-bye.”
Notwithstanding the sickening details of this letter the day succeeding
its receipt was a brighter one at the Mather house than the inmates had
known for a long time. Jimmie was still alive, and with Bill Baker’s
care he might survive the horrors of Andersonville and come back to them
again. Annie showed both letters to Mrs. Carleton, who, when she read
them, wound her arms around Annie’s neck and whispered, “Is it wrong for
me to be glad that Bill Baker told that lie, when by the means our
prisoner boy is so greatly benefited.”
Annie could not tell. She was not sorry that Jimmie should think of her
as he did, and that night when the stars came out in the sky she looked
tearfully up at them wondering which was the one watched for by the
childish young man, and the little boy who died. Mrs. Carleton had taken
it for granted that if Jimmie came back Annie would be her daughter, and
she clung to her with a love and tenderness second only to what she felt
for Rose. Poor Rose! She had listened with some degree of interest to
such portions of Jimmie’s letter as Annie chose to read to her, but it
had no power to rouse her from the state of apathy into which she had
fallen. She never smiled now, and rarely spoke except to answer a
question, but sat all day by the window in her own room, and looked away
to the southward, where all her thoughts were centered. It was very
strange that nothing could be heard of her husband except that he was
shot down dead. A dozen corroborated that fact, but his body had not
been found on the field, nor was any mention ever made of him in any
official accounts. Once Rose had been startled from her stupor by a
soldier, who pretended to have seen her husband in one of the Southern
prisons, but a closer examination proved that the man was intoxicated,
and had told what he did in the hope that money might be given him for
the intelligence, and then Rose sank back into her former condition, the
same hopeless look in her eyes which had been there from the moment she
heard her husband’s name among the killed, and the same look of anguish
upon her face which never relaxed a muscle, as she watched indifferently
the preparations made by her mother and Annie for an event which under
other circumstances would have stirred every pulsation of her heart. But
when on Christmas morning, the bell from St. Luke’s was sending forth
its joyous peal for the child born in Bethlehem more than eighteen
hundred years ago, there came a softer, more natural look to Rose’s
eyes, and her lip quivered a little as she said to Annie, who was
bending over her, “What is that sound in the next room like the crying
of a baby?”
“It is your baby, Rose; born last night. Don’t you remember it,—a
beautiful little boy, with his father’s look in his eyes, and Jimmie’s
dimple in his chin?”
Annie hoped, by mentioning both the father and Jimmie, to awaken some
interest in the little mother, whose eyes grew larger, and rounder, and
brighter, as she whispered:
“My baby, I can’t understand. It is all so strange and mysterious. How
came I with a baby, Annie? Bring it to me, please.”
They brought it to her, and laid it in her arms, and then stood watching
her as the first tokens of the mother’s love came over her face and
crept into her eyes, which gradually began to fill with tears, until, at
last, a storm of sobs and moans burst forth, as Rose rocked to and fro,
whispering to her child:
“Poor darling! to be born without a father, when he would have been so
proud of his boy. Poor, murdered Will! Poor, fatherless baby! I am glad
God gave you to me. I did not deserve it. I’ve been so thoughtless and
wicked, but I will be better now. Dear little baby, we will grow good
together, so as to go some day where papa has gone.”
She would not let them take the child from her. It was hers, she said.
God had sent it to make her better, and she would have it. There was
something in the touch of its soft, warm hands, which kept her heart
from breaking. And so they left it with her, and from the day that
little life came to be one in the household, Rose began to amend, and,
in her love for her child, forgot in part the terrible pain in her
heart. Once her mother said to her:
“Will you call your baby, William?” And she replied.
“No; there is but one Willie for me, and he is in Heaven. Baby will be
called for brother Jimmie.”
And so one bright Sunday morning in March, when St. Luke’s was decked
with flowers from the Mather hot-house, and the children of the Sunday
School sang their Easter carols, Rose Mather, in her widow’s weeds, went
up the aisle, with her mother, Annie, and brother Tom, the latter of
whom gave her bright-eyed, beautiful boy to the rector, who baptized him
“James Carleton.” And all through the congregation there ran a thrill of
pity for the widowed mother, whose face, though it had lost some of its
brilliant color, was more beautiful than ever, for there was shining all
over it the light of a new joy, the peace which comes from sins
forgiven, and, after the baptism was over and the morning service read,
Rose knelt with her mother, brother, and Annie, to receive, for the
first time, the precious symbols of a Saviour’s dying love.
Rose had ceased to oppose Annie in her wish to join Mrs. Simms, who was
then at Annapolis; and when Tom, a few days after the baptism, went back
again, Annie would go with him as a regular hospital nurse.
It might be that Jimmie would be among the number of skeletons sent up
to “God’s land,” as the poor fellows called it; and Annie’s heart
throbbed with the pleasure it would be to minister to him, to call the
life back to his heart, to awaken an interest in him for olden times,
and then, perhaps, whisper to him that the decision made that moonlight
night, more than a year and a half ago, had been revoked and where she
had said no, her answer now was yes. Between herself and Mrs. Carleton
there had been a long talk, of which Jimmie and the little Pequot girl
were the subjects, and the proud lady had asked forgiveness for the
wrong done to that girl, if wrong there were.
“Something tells me you will find my boy,” she said; “and if you do,
tell him how freely I give him this little Lulu, and God bless you
both!”
A few weeks later, and news came to the Mather House that when the
battle of the Wilderness was over, Captain Tom Carleton was not with his
handful of men who came from the field. “A prisoner of war,” was the
next report, and then, as if her last hope had been taken from her, Mrs.
Carleton broke down entirely, and, secluding herself from the world
without, sat down in her desolation, mourning and praying for her two
boys,—one a prisoner in Andersonville, and one in Columbia.