“A great hot plain from sea to mountain spread;
Through it a level river slowly drawn:
He moved with a vast crowd, and at its head
Streamed banners like the dawn.”
A bare room, the dead whiteness of whose plastered wall is only
relieved by a coarsely colored print of the Virgin Mary in blue and
scarlet, which hangs in a dingy gilt frame on the wall at the head of
the bed. A crack in the glass has relieved the features of the Virgin
of their ordinary expression of insipidity, but has substituted
therefor a look of malevolence quite unpleasant to see. Fortunately
for the man who lies, heavily sleeping, upon the pallet bed, this
picture is not where his eyes can rest upon it. Beside the bed are two
little stools, which constitute all the furniture of the room, and,
indeed, all that it is well capable of containing; for so cramped and
narrow are its dimensions, that it seems to be scarcely more than a
closet with a window in it. Through the half-open door-way, however,
can be seen long lines of beds, with the quiet figures of nurses and
physicians passing back and forth through the ward.
Two people entered carefully and noiselessly through the open
door-way,――one evidently an army physician; the other, in a captain’s
uniform now, was Tom, bronzed and sunburnt, but the same careless,
light-hearted boy as when he left Cambridge one year before. There
was a look of anxiety on his face now, however, as he bent over the
sleeping figure and asked:――
“How is he to-day, doctor?”
“Improving fast, captain,” was the reply. “His sleep is splendid,――just
what I’ve been hoping for. If he wakes peacefully, and is conscious, he
is likely to be all right again before long; and I shouldn’t wonder if
he could rejoin his regiment in a week or ten days.”
“Thank Heaven!” said Tom.
“And his physique,” said the doctor. “This colonel of yours is a tough
fellow, and a brave man; yet, if he should die to-morrow, I should
simply put down his name, and never think of him again. My note-book is
full of dead men’s names,――just a mention and nothing more. Oh! by the
way, a gentleman called here for you yesterday afternoon, and said he
would come again this morning. Here is his card.”
“Why,” cried Tom, “it is the Professor. See that he is shown up to me
when he comes, won’t you?”
“Oh, certainly! I’ll attend to that,” said the doctor, and he rushed
softly away.
Tom sat down by the side of the bed, and looked at his friend’s face.
It had changed greatly, much more than his, since they left Cambridge.
The forehead was marked now with heavy lines, and the full beard made
it seem like the countenance of a man of forty. So old can even a
boy grow in a year. Ned had trained himself, with great effort, to
unquestioning obedience. His criticism had been only upon those to whom
he gave his orders, and he had struggled not to form an opinion on
those to whom his obedience was due; thus he had become an admirable
officer. Tom sat there looking at Ned, and thinking, thinking, he
could scarcely tell of what, until he felt a hand touch his shoulder.
He turned and saw the Professor, and fairly hugged him in his delight.
“So I have found you at last, Tom,” said the Professor.
“Just think, sir,” said Tom; “it is a year now since I have seen you.”
“And the end seems as far off as ever,” said the Professor.
“Don’t say that,” said Tom, “because sometimes, you know, I have to try
very hard not to think so myself.”
“Ah!” said the Professor, “you are still the same, I see, and I am the
same; and Ned,――is this Ned?”
“Yes, poor fellow,” said Tom; “he has been sick for nearly ten days.”
“But how came you to be with him?” asked the Professor. “Why are you
not with your regiment?”
“Sit down,” said Tom, “and I’ll tell you; but don’t speak too loud, on
his account, you know!”
“Among the wonderful effects of the war,” said the Professor, in a
didactic manner, “may be mentioned the fact that it has made Tom
thoughtful and considerate. Well, go on!”
“That sounds just like you,” said Tom. “Well, the explanation is simply
this: that I had a leave of absence for a fortnight given me, and just
at its beginning Ned was taken sick.”
“So you remained here with him, and didn’t go home?” asked the
Professor.
“Of course,” said Tom, simply. “I couldn’t leave him after all we had
been through together.”
“What did your mother say?” asked the Professor. “Wasn’t she
disappointed?”
“Yes, she was disappointed,” said Tom; “but she wrote and said that
I was right. It was hard on Ned, and hard on me, and hard on her,
especially as I haven’t been home for a year. You see, in my last leave
of absence, there was some of the worst fighting that we have been in,
and it would have seemed cowardly if I had gone then.”
“It is hard, Tom,” said the Professor; “but you have done nobly. But if
I stay here with Ned now, can’t you run up North?”
“No,” said Tom; “it’s impossible. My leave of absence, you see,
expires in two days, so that I shall have to give up going home at
all for the present. I’m afraid now that Ned won’t be well enough to
satisfy me when I start for the front. He’s been perfectly delirious,
and yesterday the doctor said was the turning-point. If he only is
conscious when he wakes from this sleep! Do you think he has changed?”
“Changed!” said the Professor; “he’s not the same boy,――he’s not a boy
at all. What a developing agent this terrible war is!”
“And now you must tell me about Harvard,” said Tom.
“Wait a minute,” said the Professor. “I have one or two questions to
ask you first. I want to hear about this new rebel general who is
making such havoc with us.”
“Stonewall Jackson, you mean,” said Tom. “No one knows much about him;
but Ned declares that he is, thus far, the most striking figure of the
rebellion. Maliff, who says he knew him when he was in command at Fort
Hamilton, before the war, showed us a picture of him, in which he
looked simply prim and neat. The war has probably changed all that. I
think we are all a little afraid of him, and hope to meet him in battle
soon. Some of the men think he is a supernatural being.”
“The Hibernian element, I suppose,” said the Professor.
“Exactly,” said Tom.
“And now tell me some more about yourselves,” continued the Professor.
“Well, about ourselves,” said Tom, “there is little to say. I am a
captain, as you see; and Ned is a lieutenant-colonel, and commands our
regiment,――or what there is left of it now. We might both have been
promoted before this; but we were bound to stick together, and so we
have, in all sorts of places too.”
“I have heard,” said the Professor, “how you have saved Ned’s life.”
“Nonsense!” said Tom. “He has done just as much for me. We are
together, and we fight and quarrel, just as we did at Harvard; and,
when the war is over, Ned insists that we are to go back to Cambridge
for a year longer, so as to get our degrees; a plan which I don’t
altogether fancy.”
“I do,” said the Professor; “it will be delightful to me to have the
opportunity of marking the misdemeanors of a colonel, and perhaps of
even suspending a captain.”
“That sounds just like you, and like old times,” said Tom; “and now do
please tell me all about Harvard.”
“Yes,” said Ned’s voice feebly, from the bed, “please let us hear the
Harvard news.” And so the Professor began.