THE DEAD ALIVE.
It was the night of the third of July, the anniversary, as she supposed,
of her husband’s death, and Rose was sitting up unusually late. She
could not sleep for thinking of one year ago, and the white-faced man
who lay upon the battle-field with the rain falling upon him.
It was a clear starlight night, and she leaned many times from her open
window and looked up at the kindly eyes keeping watch above her. But she
did not see the figure coming down the street and up the walk to their
own door; the figure of a worn-out soldier, who from the prison at
Salisbury had escaped to Tennessee, and had come from thence straight on
until the midnight train dropped him at the Rockland station.
The light was behind her, and Will saw _her_ distinctly as he went up
the avenue, and he stopped a moment to look at her. She was very pale,
and much thinner than when he saw her last, but never, even on her
bridal day, had she seemed so beautiful to him as then, when leaning
from her window, and apparently listening for something.
It was the sound of his footsteps as he came up the walk which had
attracted her attention, and when it ceased so suddenly as he stopped
under the trees, she felt a momentary pang of fear, for burglars had
been very common in the town that summer. Possibly this was one of the
robbers, and Rose was thinking of alarming the house, when the figure
emerged from under the shadow of the trees, and came directly up beneath
the window, while a voice which made Rose’s blood curdle in her veins,
called softly,
“Rose, darling, is it you?”
Had the dead come back to life? Was that her husband’s voice, and that
his step in the lower hall? Rose had supposed the front door bolted. She
had not heard it open, and now, when the steps sounded upon the stairs,
her heart gave one throb of fear, as all the old superstitious stories
of New England lore rushed to her mind. Perhaps on this anniversary of
his death he _had_ come back to see her. And perhaps——
Rose did not finish the sentence, for the opening of her own door
disclosed the wasted figure of a man wearing the army blue, his face
very pale, but lighted up with perfect joy as he stretched his arms
toward the shrinking woman by the window, and said:
“Come to me, darling; I am no ghost.”
Then she went to him, but uttered no sound. Her heart was too full for
that, and seemed bursting from her throat as she laid her head upon the
bosom of her husband, and felt his arms around her waist and neck. Her
stillness frightened him, it was so unlike her, and lifting her from the
floor, he took her in his lap, and said to her:
“Speak to me, Rose. Let me hear your voice once more. You thought I was
dead, and you’ve been so sorry.”
“Yes, killed at Gettysburgh,” came gaspingly at last; and then a storm
of tears and kisses fell upon Will’s face, and Rose’s arms were thrown
about his neck as she tried to tell him how great was her joy to have
him back again.
“I have been so lonely,” she said, “for everybody is gone. Jimmie and
Annie, and poor Tom, too, is a prisoner at last, so mother and I are all
alone, except”——
Just then it occurred to her that her husband had no suspicion of the
great joy in store for him.
“How shall I tell him?” she thought, and her eyes went from his face to
the basket and chair where baby’s clothes were lying.
The little white dress, with its shoulder knots of blue; the flannels
and the soft wool socks were all there in plain sight, and Will saw
them, too, as his eye followed Rose’s.
“Rose, tell me, what is that? What does it mean?” he asked, and then,
without a word, Rose led him into the adjoining room, where in his crib
slumbered her beautiful boy,—_their_ beautiful boy rather. He was hers
alone no longer, for the father was there now, and the happiest moment
he had ever known was that when he knelt by his baby’s cradle, and felt
how much he had for which to thank his Maker. He could not wait till
morning before he heard the sound of his first-born’s voice, and he took
him at once in his arms, every pulse thrilling with pride and exquisite
delight, as he felt the soft, baby hands in his own, and looked into the
beautiful dark eyes which met his so wonderingly as baby awoke and gazed
up into his face. It was not afraid of him, and Rose almost danced with
joy as she saw it smile in its father’s face, and then turn slily away.
“It was so terrible till baby came last Christmas,” she said, beginning
to explain how they believed him dead, and how much she had suffered.
“Even baby did not make me as glad as it ought,” she continued, “for I
could not forget how happy you would have been to come home and find him
here, and now you’ve come. God is very, very good; I love him now, Will,
better, I hope than I love you, or baby, or anything. I’ve given baby to
Him and given myself, too, but he had to punish me so hard before I
would do it.”
Then together the re-united couple knelt and thanked the Father who had
remembered them so mercifully, and asked that henceforth their lives
might be dedicated to his service, and all they had be subject to his
will. There was no more sleep in the Mather mansion that night, for by
the time Mrs. Carleton and the servants had recovered from their
surprise and joy, the early morning was red in the east, and the sun was
just beginning to show the returned soldier how pleasant and beautiful
his home was looking.
The people of Rockland had not intended to have much of a celebration on
that Fourth of July. The churchyard was too full of soldiers’ graves,
and the war-clouds were still too dark over the land, while the battle
of the Wilderness, where so many had perished, was too fresh in their
minds to admit of much festivity; but when it was known that Will Mather
had come home the town was all on fire with excitement. Every bell was
rung, and the cannon of Bill Baker memory bellowed forth its welcome,
while in the evening impromptu fireworks attested to the people’s
delight. Then followed many days of delicious quiet in which Will told
his wife and mother the story of his wanderings, but said very little of
his life in Salisbury. That was something he could not mention without a
shudder, and so he passed it over in silence, choosing rather to tell of
his journey across the mountains, where so many friendly hands had been
stretched out to help him. He had every name upon paper, and was only
waiting for an opportunity to show his gratitude in some tangible form.
Especially was he grateful to Paul Haverill, whose name became a
household word, together with that of Charlie and Maude De Vere. Of her
Rose thought so often, wishing she could see her, and resolving when the
war was over either to write at once or go all the way to the Mountains
of Tennessee to find her.
“Poor Tom!” she often sighed. “If he could only fall into so friendly
hands.”
But everything pertaining to Tom was shrouded in gloom. The last they
heard he was in Columbia, while Jimmie still pined in Andersonville, if
indeed he had not died amid its horrors. Exchanged prisoners were
constantly arriving at Annapolis, where both Mrs. Simms and Annie were,
and every letter from the latter was eagerly torn open by Rose in hopes
that it might contain some news of her brothers. But there was none, and
the mourning garments which, with her husband’s return, were exchanged
for lighter, airier ones, seemed only laid aside for a few weeks until
word should come that one or both of her brothers were with the dead
whose graves were far away beneath a Southern sky.