LETTERS FROM HUGH AND IRVING STANLEY
Claib had brought two letters from the office, one for Mrs. Worthington
from Hugh, and one for Alice from Irving Stanley. This last had been
long delayed, and as she broke the seal a little nervously, reading that
his trip to Europe had been deferred on account of the illness of his
sister's governess, but that he was going on board the ship that day,
July tenth, and that his sister was there with him and the governess, "A
modest, sweet-faced body," he wrote, "who looks very girl-like from the
fact that her soft, brown hair is worn short in her neck."
Alice had a tolerably clear insight into Irving Stanley's character, and
immediately her mind conjured up visions of what might be the result of
a sea voyage and months of intimate companionship with that sweet-faced
governess, "who wore her soft, brown hair short in her neck."
"I hope it may be so," she thought; and folding up her letter, she was
about going out to the rustic seat beneath a tall maple where Mug sat,
whispering over the primer she was trying so hard to read, when a cry
from Mrs. Worthington arrested her attention and brought her at once to
the side of the half-fainting woman.
"What is it?" Alice asked, in much alarm, and Mrs. Worthington replied:
"Oh, Hugh, Hugh, my boy! he's enlisted, joined the army! I shall never
see him again!"
Could Hugh have seen Alice then he would not for a moment have doubted
the nature of her feelings toward himself. She did not cry out, nor
faint, but her face turned white as the dress she wore, while her hands
pressed so tightly together, that her long, taper nails left the impress
in her flesh.
"God keep him from danger and death," she murmured; then, winding her
arms around the stricken mother, she wiped her tears away; and to her
moaning cry that she was left alone, replied: "Let me be your child till
he returns, or, if he never does--"
She could get no further, for the very idea was overwhelming, and
sinking down beside Hugh's mother, she laid her head on her lap, and
wept bitterly. Alas, that scenes like this should be so common in our
once happy land, but so it is. Mothers start with terror and grow faint
over the boy just enlisted for the war; then follow him with prayers
and yearning love to the distant battlefield; then wait and watch for
tidings from him; and then too often read with streaming eyes and hearts
swelling with agony, the fatal message which says their boy is dead.
It was a sad day at Spring Bank when first the news of Hugh's enlistment
came, sadder even than when 'Lina died, for Hugh seemed as really dead
as if they all had heard the hissing shell or whizzing ball which was to
bear his young life away. It was nearly two months since he left home,
and he could find no trace of Adah, though searching faithfully for her,
in conjunction with Murdock and Dr. Richards, both of whom had joined
him in New York.
"If Murdock cannot find her," he wrote, "I am convinced no one can, and
I leave the matter now to him, feeling that another duty calls me, the
duty of fighting for my country."
It was just after the disastrous battle of Bull Run, when people were
wild with excitement, and Hugh was thus borne with the tide, until at
last he found himself enrolled as a private in a regiment of cavalry
gathering in one of the Northern States. There had been an instant's
hesitation, a clinging of the heart to the dear old home at Spring Bank,
where his mother and Alice were; a thought of Irving Stanley, and then,
with an eagerness which made his whole frame tremble, he had seized the
pen and written down his name, amid deafening cheers for the brave
Kentuckian. This done, there was no turning back; nor did he desire it.
It seemed as if he were made for war, so eagerly he longed to join the
fray. Only one thing was wanting, and that was Rocket. He had tried the
"Yankee horses," as he called them, but found them far inferior to his
pet. Rocket he must have, and in his letter to his mother he made
arrangements for her to send him northward by a Versailles merchant,
who, he knew, was coming to New York.
Hugh and Rocket, they would make a splendid match, and so Alice thought,
as, on the day when Rocket was led away, she stood with her arms around
his graceful neck, whispering to him the words of love she would fain
have sent his master. She had recovered from the first shock of Hugh's
enlistment. She could think of him now calmly as a soldier; could pray
that God would keep him, and even feel a throb of pride that one who had
lived so many years in Kentucky, then poising almost equally in the
scale, should come out so bravely for the right, though by that act he
called down curses on his head from those at home who favored rebellion,
and who, if they fought at all, would cast in their lot with the
seceding States. She had written to Hugh a kind, sisterly letter,
telling him how proud she was of him, and how her sympathy and prayers
would follow him everywhere. "And if," she had added, in concluding,
"you are sick, or wounded, I will come to you as a sister might do. I
will find you wherever you are."
She had sent this letter to him three weeks before, and now she stood
caressing the beautiful Rocket, who sometimes proudly arched his long
neck, and then looked wistfully at the sad group gathered around him, as
if he knew that was no ordinary parting. Colonel Tiffton, who had heard
what was going on, had ridden over to expostulate with Mrs. Worthington
against sending Rocket North. "Better keep him at home," he said, "and
tell Hugh to come back, and let those who had raised the muss settle
their own difficulty."
The old colonel, who was a native of Virginia, did not know exactly
where he stood. "He was very patriotic," he said, "very, but hanged if
he knew which side to take--both were wrong. He didn't go Nell's
doctrine, for Nell was a rabid Secesh; neither did he swallow Abe
Lincoln, and he'd advise Alice to keep a little more quiet, for there
was no knowing what the hotheads might do. He'd heard of Harney's
threatening vengeance on all Unionists, and now that Hugh was gone he
might pounce on Spring Bank any night."
"Let him!" and Alice's blue eyes flashed brightly, while her girlish
figure seemed to expand and grow higher as she continued: "he will find
no cowards here. I never touched a revolver in my life. I am quite as
much afraid of one that is not loaded as of one that is, but I'll
conquer the weakness. I'll begin to-day. I'll learn to handle firearms.
I'll practice shooting at a mark, and if Hugh is killed I'll--oh, Hugh!
Hugh--"
She could not tell what she would do, for the woman conquered all other
feelings, and laying her face on Rocket's silken mane, she sobbed aloud.
"There's pluck, by George!" muttered the old colonel. "I most wish Nell
was that way of thinking."
It was time now for Rocket to go, and 'mid the deafening howls of the
negroes and the tears of Mrs. Worthington and Alice he was led away, the
latter watching him until he was lost to sight beyond the distant hill,
then, falling on her knees, she prayed, as many a one has done, that
God would be with our brave soldiers, giving them the victory, and
keeping one of them, at least, from falling.
Sadly, gloomily the autumn days came on, and the land was rife with war
and rumors of war. In the vicinity of Spring Bank were many patriots,
but there were hot Secessionists there also, and bitter contentions
ensued. Old friends were estranged, families were divided, neighbors
watched each other jealously, while all seemed waiting anxiously for the
result. Toward Spring Bank the aspersions of the Confederate adherents
were particularly directed. That Hugh should go North and join the
Federal army was taken as an insult, while Mrs. Worthington and Alice
were closely watched, and all their sayings eagerly repeated. But Alice
did not care. Fully convinced of the right, and that she had yet a work
to do, she carried out her plan so boldly announced to Colonel Tiffton,
and all through the autumn months the frequent clash of firearms was
heard in the Spring Bank woods, where Alice, with Mug at her side, like
her constant shadow, "shot at her marks," hitting once Colonel Tiffton's
dog, and coming pretty near hitting the old colonel himself as he rode
leisurely through the woods.
After that Alice confided her experiments to the open fields, where she
could see whatever was in danger, and Harney, galloping up and down the
pike, stirring up dissension and scattering his opinions broadcast
through the country, saw her more than once at her occupation, smiling
grimly as he muttered to himself: "It's possible I may try a hand with
you at shooting some day, my fair Yankee miss."
Blacker, and darker, and thicker the war clouds gathered on our horizon,
but our story has little to do with that first year of carnage, when
human blood was poured as freely as water, from the Cumberland to the
Potomac. Over all that we pass, and open the scene again in the summer
of '62, when people were gradually waking to the fact that Richmond was
not so easily taken, or the South so easily conquered.