THE END OF THE WAR
It was three years after the troops marched away from High Knob
encampment before either Peter Junior or Richard Kildene were again in
Leauvite, and then only Peter returned, because he was wounded, and
not that he was unwilling to enlist again, as did Richard and many of
the boys, when their first term of service was ended. He returned with
the brevet of a captain, for gallant conduct in the encounter in which
he received his wound, but only a shadow of the healthy, earnest boy
who had stood in the ranks on the town square of Leauvite three years
before; yet this very fact brought life and hope to his waiting
mother, now that she had the blessed privilege of nursing him back to
strength.
It seemed as though her long period of mourning ended when Peter
Junior, pallid in his blue uniform, his hair darkened and matted with
the dampness caused by weakness and pain, was borne in between the
white columns of his father's house. When the news reached him that
his son was lying wounded in a southern hospital, the Elder had, for
the first time in many, many years, followed an impulse without
pausing to consider his act beforehand. He left the bank on the
instant and started for the scene of battles, only hurrying home to
break the news first to his wife. Yielding to a rare tenderness, he
touched her hair as he kissed her, and enjoined on her to remember
that their son was not slain, but by a merciful Providence was only
wounded and might be spared to them. She must thank the Lord and be
ready to nurse him back to life.
Why Providence should be thus merciful to their son rather than to
many another son, the good Elder did not pause to consider. Possibly
he thought it no more than just that the prayers of the righteous
should be answered by a supernatural intervention between their sons
and the bullets of the enemy. His ideas on this point were no doubt
vague at the best, but certain it is that he returned from his long
and difficult journey to the seat of strife after his boy, with a
clearer notion of what war really was, and a more human sympathy for
those who go and suffer, and, as might be anticipated with those of
his temperament, an added bitterness against those whom he felt were
to blame for the conflict.
When Peter Junior left his home, his father had enjoined on him to go,
not in the spirit of bitterness and enmity, but as an act of duty, to
teach a needed lesson; for surely the Lord was on the side of the
right, and was using the men of the North to teach this needed lesson
to those laboring in error. Ah! it is a very different point of view
we take when we suffer, instead of merely moralizing on the suffering
of others; especially we who feel that we know what is right, and lack
in great part the imagination to comprehend the other man's viewpoint.
To us of that cast of mind there is only one viewpoint and that is our
own, and only a bodily departure to the other man's hilltop or valley,
as the case may be, will open the eyes and enlarge the understanding
to the extent of even allowing our fellows to see things in another
light from our own.
In this instance, while the Elder's understanding had been decidedly
enlarged, it had been in but one direction, and the effect had not
been to his spiritual benefit, for he had seen only the suffering of
his own side, and, being deficient in power to imagine what might be,
he had taken no charitable thought for the other side. Instead, a
feeling of hatred had been stirred within him,--a feeling he felt
himself justified in and therefore indulged and named: "Righteous
Indignation."
The Elder's face was stern and hard as he directed the men who bore
his boy on the litter where to turn, and how to lift it above the
banister in going up the stair so as not to jar the young man, who was
too weak after the long journey to do more than turn his eyes on his
mother's face.
But that mother's face! It seemed to him he had never seen it so
radiant and charming, for all that her hair had grown silvery white in
the three years since he had last kissed her. He could not take his
eyes from it, and besought her not to leave his side, even when the
Elder bade her go and not excite him, but allow him to rest.
No sooner was her son laid on his own bed in his old room than she
began a series of gentle ministrations most sweet to the boy and to
herself. But the Elder had been told that all he needed now was rest
and absolute quiet, and the surgeon's orders must be carried out
regardless of all else. Hester Craigmile yielded, as always, to the
Elder's will, and remained without, seated close beside her son's
door, her hands, that ached to serve, lying idle in her lap, while the
Elder brought him his warm milk and held it to his lips, lifting his
head to drink it, and then left him with the command to sleep.
"Don't go in for an hour at least," he enjoined on his wife as he
passed her and took his way to the bank, for it was too early for
closing, and there would still be time for him to look into his
affairs a bit. Thus for the banker the usual routine began.
Not so for Hester Craigmile. Joy and life had begun for her. She had
her boy again--quite to herself when the Elder was away, and the tears
for very happiness came to her eyes and dropped on her hands
unchecked. Had the Elder been there he would have enjoined upon her to
be controlled and she would have obeyed, but now there was no need,
and she wept deliciously for joy while she still sat outside the door
and listened. Intense--eager--it seemed almost as if she could hear
him breathe.
"Mother!" Hark! Did he speak? "Mother!" It was merely a breath, but
she heard and went swiftly to him. Kneeling, she clasped him, and her
tears wet his cheek, but at the same time they soothed him, and he
slept. It was thus the Elder found them when he returned from the
bank, both sweetly sleeping. He did not take his wife away for fear of
waking his son, nevertheless he was displeased with her, and when they
met at table that evening, she knew it.
The whole order of the house was changed because of Peter Junior's
return. Blinds, windows, and doors were thrown open at the direction
of the physician, that he might be given all the air and sunlight it
was possible to admit; else he would never gain strength, for so long
had he lived in the open air, in rain and sun, that he had need now of
every help nature could give.
A bullet had struck him in the hip and glanced off at a peculiar
angle, rendering his recovery precarious and long delayed, and causing
the old doctor to shake his head with the fear that he must pass the
rest of his life a cripple. Still, normal youth is buoyant and
vigorous and mocks at physicians' fears, and after a time, what with
heart at rest, with loving and unceasing care on his mother's part,
and rigorous supervision on his father's, Peter Junior did at length
recover sufficiently to be taken out to drive, and began to get back
the good red blood in his veins.
During this long period of convalescence, Peter Junior's one anxiety
was for his cousin Richard. Rumors had reached him that his comrade
had been wounded and taken prisoner, yet nothing definite had been
heard, until at last, after much writing, he learned Richard's
whereabouts, and later that he had been exchanged. Then, too ill and
prison-worn to go back to his regiment, he appeared one day, slowly
walking up the village street toward the banker's house.
There he was welcomed and made much of, and the two young men spent a
while together happily, the best of friends and comrades, still filled
with enthusiasm, but with a wider knowledge of life and the meaning of
war. These weeks were few and short, and soon Richard was back in the
army. Peter Junior, envying him, still lay convalescing and only able
with much difficulty to crawl to the carriage for his daily drive.
His mother always accompanied him on these drives, and the very first
of them was to the home of the Ballards. It was early spring, the air
was biting and cool, and Peter was unable to alight, but Mary and her
husband came to them where they waited at the gate and stood long,
talking happily. Jamie and Bobby followed at their heels and peered up
curiously at the wounded soldier, but Betty was seized with a rare
moment of shyness that held her back.
Dear little Betty! She had grown taller since Peter Junior had taken
that last tea at the Ballards. No longer care free, the oldest but
one, she had taken many of her mother's burdens upon her young
shoulders, albeit not knowing that they were burdens, since they were
wholly acts of love and joyously done. She was fully conscious of her
advancing years, and took them very seriously, regarding her acts with
a grave and serene sense of their importance. She had put back the
wild hair that used to fly about her face until her father called her
"An owl in an ivy bush" and her mother admonished her that her "head
was like a mop." Now, being in her teens, she wore her dresses longer
and never ran about barefooted, paddling in the brook below the
spring, although she would like to do so; still she was child enough
to run when she should walk, and to laugh when some would sigh.
Her thoughts had been romantically active regarding Peter Junior, how
he would look, and how splendid and great he was to have been a real
soldier and come home wounded--to have suffered and bled for his
country. And Richard, too, was brave and splendid. He must have been
in the very front of the battle to have been taken prisoner. She
wondered a little if he remembered her, but not much, for how could
men with great work to do, like fighting and dying for their country,
stop to think of a little girl who was still in short dresses when
they had seen her last?
Then, when the war was ended at last, there was Richard returned and
stopping at his uncle's. In the few short visits he made at the
Ballards' he greeted Betty as of old, as he would greet a little
sister of whom he was fond, and she accepted his frank, old-time
brotherliness in the same spirit, gayly and happily, revealing but
little of herself, and holding a slight reserve in her manner which
seemed to him quite delightful and maidenly. Then, all too suddenly,
he was gone again, but in his heart he carried a memory of her that
made a continual undercurrent in his thoughts.
And now Betty's father and mother were actually talking with Peter
Junior at their very gate. Impulse would have sent her flying to meet
him, but that new, self-conscious shyness stayed her feet, for he was
one to be approached with reverence. He was afflicted with no romantic
shyness with regard to her, however. He quite forgot her, indeed,
although he did ask in a general way after the children and even
mentioned Martha in particular, as, being the eldest, she was best
remembered. So Betty did not see Peter Junior this time, but she stood
where she could see the top of the carriage from her bedroom window,
whither she had fled, and she could see the blue sleeve of his coat as
he put out his arm to take her mother's hand at parting. That was
something, and she listened with beating heart for the sound of his
voice. Ah, little he dreamed what a tumult he had raised in the heart
of that young being whose imagination had been so stirred by all that
she had read and heard of war, and the part taken in it by their own
young men of Leauvite. That Peter Junior had come home brevetted a
captain for his bravery crowned him with glory. All that day Betty
went about with dreams in her head, and coursing through them was the
voice of the wounded young soldier.
At last, with the slow march of time, came the proclamation of peace,
and the nation so long held prostrate--a giant struggling against
fetters of its own forging, blinded and strangling in its own
blood--reared its head and cried out for the return of Hope, groping
on all sides to gather the divine youth to its arms, when, as a last
blow, dealt by a wanton hand, came the death of Lincoln.
Then it was that the nation recoiled and bowed itself for a time,
beaten and crushed--both North and South--and vultures gathered at the
seat of conflict and tore at its vitals and wrangled over the spoils.
Then it was that they who had sowed discord stooped to reap the
Devil's own harvest,--a woeful, bitter, desperate time, when more
enmity and deep rancor was bred and treasured up for future sorrow
than during all the years of the honest and active strife of the war.
In the very beginning that first news of the firing on Fort Sumter
flew through the North like a tragic cry, and men felt a sense of doom
hanging over the nation. Bertrand Ballard heard it and walked
sorrowfully home to his wife, and sat long with bowed head, brooding
and silent. Neighbor Wilcox heard it, and, leaving his business,
entered his home and called his household together with the servants
and held family worship--a service which it was his custom to hold
only on the Sabbath--and earnestly prayed for the salvation of the
country, and that wisdom might be granted its rulers, after which he
sent his oldest son to fight for the cause. Elder Craigmile heard it,
and consented that his last and only son should enter the ranks and
give his life, if need be, for the saving of the nation. Still,
tempering all this sorrow and anxiety was the chance for action, and
the hope of victory.
But now, in this later time, when the strength of the nation had been
wasted, when victory itself was dark with mourning for sons slain, the
loss of the one wise leader to whom all turned with uplifted hearts
seemed the signal for annihilation; and then, indeed, it appeared that
the prophecy of Mary Ballard's old grandfather had been fulfilled and
the curse of slavery had not only been wiped out with blood, but that
the greater curse of anarchy and misrule had taken its place to still
further scourge the nation.
Mary Ballard's mother, while scarcely past her prime, was taken ill
with fever and died, and immediately upon this blow to the dear old
father who was not yet old enough by many years to be beyond his
usefulness to those who loved and depended on him, came the tragic
death of Lincoln, whom he revered and in whom all his hopes for the
right adjustment of the nation's affairs rested. Under the weight of
the double calamity he gave up hope, and left the world where all
looked so dark to him, almost before the touch of his wife's hand had
grown cold in his.
"Father died of a broken heart," said Mary, and turned to her husband
and children with even more intensity of devotion. "For," she said,
"after all, the only thing in life of which we can be perfectly sure
is our love for each other. A grave may open at our feet anywhere at
any time, and only love oversteps it."
With such an animating spirit as this, no family can be wholly sad,
and though poverty pinched them at times, and sorrow had bitterly
visited them, with years and thrift things changed. Bertrand painted
more pictures and sold them; the children were gay and vigorous and
brought life and good times to the home, and the girls grew up to be
womanly, winsome lasses, light-hearted and good to look upon.
Enough of the war and the evils thereof has been said and written and
sung. Animosity is dead, and brotherhood and mutual service between
the two opposing factions of one great family have taken the place of
strife. Useless now to say what might have been, or how otherwise that
terrible time of devastation and sorrow could have been avoided.
Enough to know that at last as a nation, whole and undivided, we may
pull together in the tremendous force of our united strength, and that
now we may take up the "White Man's Burden" and bear it to its
magnificent conclusion to the service of all mankind and the glory of
God.