MARCY CHANGES HIS CLOTHES.
Marcy Gray was blessed with as much courage as most boys, but he would
have been glad if he could have backed out of that car without being
seen, and gone into another. Perhaps the conviction that he was "an odd
sheep in the flock," and that he held, and had often published, opinions
that differed widely from those that animated the excited, gesticulating
men before him, had something to do with his nervousness and timidity;
and it may be that the revolvers he saw brandished by two or three of
the half-tipsy passengers had more effect upon him. But he could not
retreat. They saw his uniform as soon as he opened the door, and some of
the noisiest among them stumbled to greet him.
"Here's one of our brave fellows now," shouted one, firing his revolver
out of the window with one hand while he extended the other to Marcy.
"Got his soldier clothes on and going to the front before our guns in
Charleston harbor have got through smoking. Young man, you're my style.
I'm a member of the Baltimore Grays, and I'm on my way home to join 'em
in defense of our young republic. What regiment?"
"Company A, Barrington Cadets," replied Marcy, rightly supposing that
the Baltimore man was too far gone to remember, if indeed he had ever
heard, that there was a military school in the town they had just left.
"I'm going home on a leave of absence."
"Course you are," replied the man. "Services not needed at present and
mebbe never will be. The Yankees are all mechanics and small
trades-people, and there's no fight in such. We're gentlemen, and
there's fight in us, I bet you. But you show your good will in putting
on those soldier clothes, and that's what every man's got to do, or go
up to the United States. Those who are not for us are against us, and
we'll make short work with 'em. Say, we licked 'em, didn't we?"
"Of course," answered Marcy. "Fifty-one soldiers without food or powder
don't stand much chance against five thousand well-equipped men."
"It would have been all the same if there had been fifty-one thousand of
'em," declared the Baltimore man. "Aint got any business there. Fort
belongs to So' Car'lina. Why didn't they get out when Beau'gard told 'em
to, if they didn't want to get licked? Three cheers for Southern
Confed'sy!"
Much disgusted, Marcy Gray finally succeeded in releasing his hand from
the man's detaining grasp and forced his way 'to a seat; but he was
often stopped to hear his patriotism applauded, and President Lincoln
denounced for bringing on a useless war by trying to throw provisions
into Fort Sumter.
"I don't see what else he could have done," soliloquized the North
Carolina boy, as he squeezed himself into as small a compass as possible
in a seat next to a window. "The fort belonged to the United States, and
it was the President's business to hold fast to it if he could. South
Carolina wanted a pretext for firing on the flag, and she got it. She'll
be sorry for it when she sees grass growing in the streets of her
principal city. So I am taken for a rebel, am I? What would that
Baltimore fellow do to me if he knew that I have two Union flags in my
trunk, and that I mean to hoist them some day? My life wouldn't be worth
a minute's purchase if these passengers knew how I feel toward them and
their miserable Confederacy."
All the way to Raleigh, which was nearly three hundred and sixty miles
from Barrington, Marcy Gray lived in a fever of suspense. Although he
did not know a soul on board the train, he might have had companions
enough if he had been a little more sociable; but he did not care to
make any new acquaintances, especially among people who were so nearly
beside themselves. They all took him for just what he wasn't--a rebel
soldier; and being ignorant of the fact that he was going toward home as
fast as steam could take him, they supposed that the reason he was so
silent and thoughtful was because he was lonely, and felt sorrowful over
parting from his friends; and so it came about that now and then some
one would sit down beside him and try to give him a comforting and
cheering word. All the ladies who spoke to him were eager for war and
disunion. They were worse than the men; Marcy found that out before he
had gone fifty miles on his journey.
Marcy mentally denounced these sympathetic and well-meaning rebels as so
many nuisances, for they drew upon him attentions that he would have
been glad to escape. They asked him all sorts of questions, and the boy
adroitly managed to truthfully answer every one of them, and without
exciting suspicion. Matters were even worse when the train stopped. The
flags that were fluttering from the locomotive and the car windows
attracted the notice of the station loafers, who whooped and yelled and
crowded up to shake hands with the passengers. At such times Marcy
always took off his cap; but that did no good, for some one was sure to
see his gray overcoat, and propose cheers for him. Marcy trembled when
he thought of what they would do to him if they learned that he was the
strongest Union boy in the school he had left. But there was little
danger of that. His secret was safe.
Raleigh was reached at last, and Marcy Gray, feeling like a stranger in
a strange land, changed cars for Boydtown, which was a hundred and
twenty miles further on. But before doing that he stepped into a
telegraph office and sent the following dispatch to his mother:
"Will take a late breakfast with you to-morrow if you will send Morris
to meet me at the depot. Three cheers for the right."
"How much?" he asked the operator, after the latter had read it over.
"Not a cent to a soldier," he replied, reaching out his hand, and taking
it for granted that the boy was fresh from the seat of war. "Warm times
in Charleston the other day, I suppose?"
"I shouldn't wonder if it was hot in the fort," answered Marcy, with a
smile.
"But you happened to be on the outside."
"You're right, I did. It was no place for me in there."
"No; nor for any other man who believes in the right. Tell us all about
it. Were you frightened when you heard the shells bursting over your
head, and did the Yankees--"
"I must ask you to excuse me," said Marcy, hastily, "my train is ready
to go, and I have barely time to catch it."
"Well, good luck to you."
Marcy hastened from the telegraph office before any one else could speak
to him, and thanked his lucky stars that before another night came he
would be at home where he could appear in his true character; but he was
satisfied, from what his mother had said in her letters, that he would
find few friends among the neighbors. They were nearly all
secessionists, Mrs. Gray wrote, and those who were not were compelled to
pretend that they were, in order to avoid being driven from the country.
It was a bad state of affairs altogether, but Marcy knew he would have
to get used to it. He slept but little that night, and it was a great
relief to him when the train stopped at Boydtown, which was located on a
navigable arm of Pamlico Sound, and was as far as the railroad went. As
Marcy lived near Albemarle Sound, there was still a ride of thirty-five
miles before him, but that would be taken in his mother's carriage,
provided any of the negroes had been over to Nashville and got the
dispatch he sent from Raleigh the day before. All doubts on this point
were removed when the train drew up at the station, for the first person
he saw on the platform was Morris, the coachman, who greeted him
heartily as he stepped from the car. This faithful old slave was Marcy's
friend and mentor, and Sailor Jack's as well; and the boy Julius, who
had come with the spring wagon to bring home the trunk, was their
playmate. Julius was just about Marcy's age. They had hunted and fished
together, sailed their boats in the same mudhole, and had many a fight
over their marbles, in which, we are sorry to say, Marcy did not always
come out first best.
"There's my check, Julius," said Marcy, handing it over, and slipping a
piece of money into the black boy's palm at the same time. "Shut the
carriage door, Morris. I am going to ride on the box so that I can talk
to you. I want you to tell me everything that's happened since I have
been away. You are a good rebel, of course."
"Now, Marse Marcy, you know a heap better'n that," replied Morris, who
plumed himself on being the "properest talking colored gentleman on the
plantation." "Git up, heah," he shouted to his horses. "Don't you know
that the long-lost prodigal son has come back? You don't want to say too
much around heah. Everything in town got ears. Wait till we git in the
country and then you can talk. Yes, sar, your mother is well; quite
well. But she's powerful sorry."
"I know she is. Do you hear anything from Jack?"
"Not the first word. He's on the ship _Sabine_, which done sailed for
some place, but I dunno where."
"I wish he was safe at home," said Marcy. "Somehow I feel uneasy about
him."
He would have felt more than simply uneasy if he could have looked far
enough into the future to see that Jack's ship was destined to be one of
the first of a large number of defenseless vessels to fall into the
hands of Captain Semmes, who, as commander of the _Sumter_, unfurled the
Confederate flag on the high seas, June 30, 1861. But, as we shall
presently see, the _Sabine_ did not "stay captured." She escaped, and
brought the prize crew that Semmes had thrown aboard of her into a
Northern port as prisoners.
"There aint no secesh out on the watah, is there, Marse Marcy?"
exclaimed Morris.
"I'm afraid there will be some there before long. We're going to have
war, Morris. I saw by a paper I bought on the train to-day that
President Lincoln has called out seventy-five thousand men."
"Shucks!" cried the negro. "That aint half enough men. The secesh done
got a hundred thousand already."
"I think myself that he might as well have mustered in half a million
while he was about it. But the thing that rather surprises me is that he
should call upon the border States for troops," said Marcy, pulling from
his pocket the paper of which he had spoken. "Of course he'll not get
them. Hear what the Governor of this State says: 'Your dispatch is
received; and if genuine, which its extraordinary character leads me to
doubt, I have to say in reply that I regard the levy of troops made by
the administration for the purpose of subjugating the States of the
South, as in violation of the Constitution, and a usurpation of power. I
can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and
in this war upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops
from North Carolina.'"
"Marse Linkum oughter hang that man," exclaimed Morris wrathfully.
"That's what I say. He's a pretty fellow to talk about violating the
Constitution when South Carolina has already violated it by levying war
against the United States. The Southern folks seem to have little sense
and less consistency. But don't let's waste any more time on politics.
How are everything and everybody at home? Is my schooner all right, and
has Bose got over the drubbing that big coon gave him last fall? How
many of the boys have run away?"
"Now, just listen at _you_," exclaimed Morris. "Who going to run away
from the Missus, and where he going to run to?"
"To the Yankees, of course. This war will make you black ones all
free."
"Aw! Go on now, Marse Marcy."
"I really believe it. You darkies are the cause of all this fuss, and
you will have to be killed off or made free before we can be a united
people again."
The coachman's inimitable laugh rang out cheerily. The Northern folks
need not trouble their heads about him, he said. He was better off than
thousands of the poor whites in the free States, and wouldn't accept his
freedom if it was offered to him. His subsequent actions proved that he
meant every word he said; for when Marcy read the Emancipation
Proclamation to him and his fellow-servants two years later, and told
them that they were free to make their way into the Union lines if they
could, Morris refused to budge an inch. A few of the slaves had already
gone; a few more took Marcy at his word and slipped away by night with
their bundles on their shoulders, but those who could get back to the
plantation were very glad to come. Freedom wasn't such a beautiful thing
after all, because it did not bring the freedom from work that they had
looked for, and the Yankee soldiers were really harder task-masters than
the ones from whom they had been so anxious to escape.
During the ride homeward Marcy did not see a single thing to remind him
that there was a war impending--not a tent or Confederate flag or
soldier in uniform was in sight. Negroes sang as they went to their work
in the wide fields that stretched out on either side of the road, the
birds chirped, the air was soft and balmy, the wheels hummed a melodious
tune as they spun rapidly along the hard road, and all his surroundings
spoke of peace and plenty.
At last an abrupt turn brought him within sight of his home,--in every
respect a typical Southern home, with wide, cool halls, large and airy
rooms, broad piazzas, and spacious, well-kept grounds, in which fruits,
flowers, and grand old trees abounded. A few miles away, but in plain
view, were the sparkling waters of the sound, peaceful enough now, but
destined ere long to be plowed by the keels of hostile ships, and tossed
into wavelets by shrieking shot and shell. On the left, and about three
hundred yards in front of the house, was Seven Mile Creek; and the first
thing in it that caught Marcy's eye was his handsome schooner, the Fairy
Belle, riding safely at her moorings. Marcy would have found it hard to
find words with which to express his admiration for that little craft,
and the way she behaved in rough weather. With her aid, and with Julius
for a companion, he had explored every nook, corner, and inlet along the
dangerous and intricate coast of the sound for miles in both directions;
and they were as familiar to him as the road that led from Barrington to
the academy. He and Sailor Jack were good pilots for that coast as far
down as Hatteras Inlet, and on one or two occasions had been fortunate
enough to assist distressed vessels in finding a safe anchorage.
Old Bose, the dog that had been so roughly handled by the last coon
Marcy helped dispatch, was the first to welcome him when the carriage
turned into the yard, and said, as plainly as a dog could say anything,
that he was both surprised and hurt because his usually attentive master
had scarcely more than a word and a pat for him. The boy did not even
hear the greetings of the numerous house-servants who clustered about
the carriage when it was brought to a stand-still, for his eyes and
thoughts were concentrated upon the pale woman in black who stood at the
top of the wide steps leading to the porch. It was his mother, and in a
second more she was clasped in his arms.
"Are you so sorry I've come that you are going to cry over it?"
exclaimed Marcy, when he saw that there were tears in her eyes. "I know
you'll not expect me to shake hands with you until I have had a chance
to say a word to my mother," he added, addressing the blacks who had
followed close at his heels. "I will see you all after a while. Come in,
mother. I told you I would be late to breakfast, but I know you have
saved a bite for me."
After a few earnest questions had been asked and answered by both of
them, Marcy went up to his room, whither his trunk had already been
carried. His first task was to remove some of the North Carolina dust
that had settled on his hands and face, and his next to divest himself
of his uniform and put on a suit of citizen's clothes. During his long
ride that gray coat had brought him in pretty close contact with some
people he hoped he would never meet again.
"Stay there," said he, as he hung the garment upon a hook in his closet.
"I shall never wear you again, but I'll keep you to remind me of old
Barrington."
The boy afterward had reason to wish he had hidden that uniform or
destroyed it. A detachment of Sherman's cavalry scouted through the
country, after completing their famous march to the sea, went all over
the house in search of valuables and contraband goods, and one of the
first things they pitched upon was that gray suit. It might have been a
serious thing for Marcy, had it not been for the flag Dick Graham gave
him. What became of the other, the one that was hauled down on the day
the news of the surrender of Fort Sumter was received, shall be told in
its proper place.
"I feel like a free man once more," he said, when he rejoined his mother
in the parlor and walked into the dining-room with his arm thrown
protectingly around her waist. "Where's Dinah?" he added, seeing that
there was no one to wait at table.
"I preferred to have our first breakfast in private," replied Mrs. Gray.
"In times like these one doesn't know whom to trust. There's been
nothing like open enmity yet," she continued, noticing a shade of
anxiety on her son's face. "I have thought it wise to keep my own
counsel, and have taken no part in the discussions that have been held
in my presence; but I have not escaped suspicion."
"I understand you perfectly," answered Marcy. "Are there no Union people
at all in this country?"
"There may be, but I do not know who they are. There are some who have
told me, privately, that they are opposed to secession, but having the
best of reasons for believing that they said so on purpose to induce me
to express my opinion, I have kept silent. You must do the same, and be
constantly on your guard. If your friends, or those who were your
friends once, assure you that their sympathies are all for the Union,
you may listen, but you must not say one word. If you do, you may regret
it when it is too late to recall it."
"Why, this is worse than Barrington," Marcy declared. "There you know
who your enemies are; but here you've got to look out for everybody, or
the first thing you know some sneak may get on the blind side of you.
Now, mother, let's talk business. How are the darkies?"
"They seem to be as happy and contented as they ever were, and as
willing to work. The overseer hasn't a word of fault to find with
them."
"So far so good. How's the overseer; Union or secesh?"
"You must decide that for yourself after you have talked with him,"
replied Mrs. Gray. "I think he will bear watching. At any rate, I do not
trust him."
"Then if I have anything to say, he shall not stay around here a minute
after his contract runs out. We don't want anybody about that we are
afraid of. You're going to run the plantation right along. I suppose?"
"I thought I would, unless you have something better to propose."
"Well, I haven't. This is my boyhood's home and Jack's. By the way,
where is Jack?"
"On the high seas somewhere, and that is all I can tell you."
"And Rodney once said he might never get back again," replied Marcy. "He
thinks the South is going to have a navy that will beat anything the
world ever saw. Yes, Rodney is a rebel to the backbone," he added in
response to an inquiry from his mother. "Says the Northern folks will be
whipped before they can take their coats off; but for all that he showed
considerable feeling when he came to say good-by. He is under a promise
to enlist under the Stars and Bars within twenty-four hours after he
reaches home, and I know he will do it, if he can get to a recruiting
office. But to return to business. I am sure we had better keep right
along as we have been going, instead of pulling up stakes and moving to
some new place to meet dangers and difficulties of which we know
nothing. We've got to eat, and we must have something to wear; and how
are we to get things if we have no crops? Have you any money?"
Mrs. Gray started perceptibly at this abrupt question, and before
replying arose to her feet and opened, in quick succession, all the
doors leading out of the dining-room.
"Aha!" said Marcy, who thought he knew the meaning of this pantomime.
"You remind me of old Uncle Toby. _He_ had money which he lost because
he hid it in the ground instead of putting it where it would have been
safe."
"That is what I have done with ours," said his mother, in a scarcely
audible whisper. "That is to say, I have concealed it."
"How much?"
"Nearly thirty thousand dollars, and it is all in gold."
"W-h-e-w!" whistled Marcy. "What put it into your head?"
"I took warning; that is all. The Southern people have often threatened
to secede if a Republican President was elected, and I was sure they
meant it; so when the election returns came in and this excitement
began, I made several quiet business trips to Newbern, Wilmington,
Norfolk, and Richmond."
"Why, you never said a word about it in your letters."
"I know it. I did not think it necessary to trouble you with it. I drew
a little money each time, brought it home in safety, and I trust without
exciting suspicion, though on that point, of course, I cannot be sure,
and hid it in the cellar at dead of night, after I had taken the
greatest pains to assure myself that every one in the house was soundly
asleep."
"How did you cover up the place where you had been digging?"
"I didn't do any digging," his mother answered, with a smile. "I took a
stone out of the wall as heavy as I could lift, and cemented it in place
again, after keeping out a sum sufficient to meet our immediate wants.
It took me three nights to do it."
"It's a shame that there wasn't someone here whom you could trust to do
the work for you," said Marcy. "I am here to bear the hard knocks now."
The Southerners were careful of their women. If they had had the
faintest conception of the trials and privations their mothers, wives,
and sisters would be called upon to bear, they never would have fired
upon Sumter. The patience and heroic endurance exhibited by these
carefully nurtured women, during the dark days of the war, were little
short of sublime.
Marcy and his mother sat a long time at the table, and when they arose
from it Mrs. Gray knew pretty nearly what had been going on at
Barrington during the last few months (not a word was said, however,
concerning the letter Rodney wrote to Bud Goble), and Marcy had a very
correct idea of the way matters were being managed on the plantation. He
had nothing to suggest. The only thing they could do was to keep along
in the even tenor of their way, and await developments. There was one
thing for which he was sorry, and that was that he could not discharge
Hanson, the overseer, that very day. He believed his mother was afraid
of him; but the man was under contract for a year, and could have
claimed damages if he had been turned adrift without good and sufficient
reason. It was not the damages that Marcy cared for, but he was
restrained from urging Hanson's dismissal through fear of setting the
neighbors' tongues in motion.
"Hanson is secesh, easy enough," he said to himself. "If he were not,
some of those officious planters would have demanded his discharge long
ago. If we turn him away without a cause, they will say that we are
persecuting him on account of his principles, and that would be bad for
us. The man will have to stay for the present, and I'll make it my
business to know every move he makes."
Marcy devoted the first few days to renewing old acquaintances among the
black people on the plantation, who were overjoyed to see him safe at
home, and in calling upon some of the neighboring planters; but the last
proved to be rather a disagreeable duty, and one which he did not
prosecute for any length of time. It seemed to him that something
intangible had come between him and those who used to be on the best of
terms with him something that could not be seen or felt, but which was
none the less a barrier to their social intercourse. He was not of them,
and they knew it; that was all there was of it. Before he had been at
home ten days he began to see the force of his cousin Rodney's warning,
that if he did not turn his back upon the Union and proclaim himself a
secessionist, his neighbors would not have the first thing to do with
him, and during those ten days two things happened that made the
situation harder to bear than it was at first.
The little town of Nashville, to which Marcy sent his dispatch from
Raleigh, was situated about three miles distant from the plantation.
Besides the telegraph, express, and post offices it contained a court
house, two hotels, and the homes of about five hundred inhabitants. The
mail was received twice each day, and as often as it came in, rain or
shine, there was some one from Mrs. Gray's house there to meet it. This
duty was at once assumed by Marcy, who, besides having a fast horse of
his own which he was fond of riding, was so impatient to see the latest
papers that he could not wait for anybody to bring them to him. He
always read them on his way home, allowing his filly to choose her own
gait. On the day he reached home the papers told him that President
Lincoln had placed an embargo upon the seaports of all the seceded
States; but Marcy did not pay much attention to that. It was nothing
more than those States might have expected, but it was a question
whether or not the navy was strong enough to enforce the blockade. The
same paper informed him that President Davis was ready to issue letters
of marque and reprisal to anybody who would equip a privateer, and give
bonds that the laws of the Confederate States regulating the capture of
prizes should be obeyed. The boy didn't give a second thought to that
either. His schooner wasn't heavy enough to engage in the business of
privateering, and she would not have gone into it if she had been. She
had always floated the flag of the Union, and as long as she remained in
his keeping, she never would carry any other. But when on the 29th of
April Marcy read that President Lincoln, two days before, had included
the ports of Virginia and North Carolina in the limits of his
proclamation, it made him open his eyes.
"My State hasn't seceded yet, and here he has gone and shut up her
ports," exclaimed Marcy indignantly. "That's a pretty thing to do, isn't
it now? Hurry up, Fanny. Let's get home and see what mother thinks about
it."