it! Go, dearest lady, go! Nothing could hurt you; God will protect you;
oh! go. I would kneel to you if I could rise.”
“I do not want you to kneel to me; I would go at once, but it would not
be right.”
“Not right! not right!” he said, with utter despair in his tone.
“Oh! then what on earth can be right?” and covering his head in the
bed-clothes, he groaned as though from the depths of his soul.
As this is no autobiography, it matters little by what train, either of
reasoning or of cars, I reached the spot where I stood, an hour later;
nor, for the same reason, shall I be more particular in my description
of what followed, than is necessary for my narrative. Suffice it to say,
a certain account of “St. Margaret’s court,” in the matchless poem of
Aurora Leigh, was before me, stereoscoped into life, never again to be
mere word-painting.
A little, low, blue frame building; the outer room, into which you step
from the street, is apparently a small green grocer’s shop. Strings of
suggestive-looking sausages hang in ropes from the top of the door and
window; pieces of black-looking material, yclept bacon, by courtesy, are
piled up among barrels of gnarly green apples, evidently not gathered
from the gardens of the Hesperides; baskets of eggs--which I am very sure
no tidy hen would ever confess to having laid--crowd the little, low,
dirty counter, behind which stands the live stock of this interesting
apartment. And certainly the object upon which my eyes first rested did
not belie her “entourage.” It has been well said, that the soul makes a
harmony for itself in its surroundings, and thus character is developed
and declared. If so, how beautifully the unities were here preserved;
for why should we not have the unities of dirt, as well as those of
elegance? Doubtless that Celtic soul found as much enjoyment in seeing
all around her in such perfect keeping with her own appearance, as Beau
Brummel ever did in the appointments of his famed boudoir. I should
almost have hesitated to ask a question of this curious production of
nature,--something between a crone and a hag, with coarse Irish features,
loose dress, hair hanging down, and apparently guiltless of any tending
of either comb or brush since she had attained maturity, which was
certainly not yesterday,--had she not herself opened the way.
“Get out of this, will you, _Jewann_, don’t you see the lady?” addressed
to a dirty, commonplace-looking little urchin, of about nine years old,
who sat tilting himself forward and back upon the edge of one of the
aforesaid barrels, with infinite peril to life and limb. This rather
remarkable name, with her felicitous rendering of it, seemed to me
circumstantial evidence, and I gathered courage to ask, “Are you the
person who takes care of José’s children? I have come to see them for
him.”
“Yes, miss, walk in; we’ve but a poor place, as you see. Rosy, come speak
to the lady.”
But it needed not the name; as soon as my eyes rested on the child in
the corner, I was satisfied that this was her father’s darling; and who
could wonder at his love! Rarely have I seen a more perfect specimen of
“beauty unadorned”--the rarity of the jewel enhanced and thrown out by
the coarseness of its setting. She lifted her eyes from the floor, on
which she was playing, to stare at the unwonted visitor--large, liquid,
Spanish eyes--with that expression of love and confidence in them which
seldom outlives childhood. Those tangled black curls, her father’s pride,
were almost hidden beneath a common, coarse, little worsted hood, in
which she had stuck four or five chicken feathers, which gave her a sort
of picturesque air; a large stain of the dirt in which she was living,
rested on one cheek; but it seemed merely a shadow bringing out the
bright tints beneath.
“Come here, Rosy, I say, and speak to the lady; she’s just seen your
pappy.”
At that word she sprang up, and came wonderingly to my side, never taking
those eyes from my face.
“Yes,” said I; “I have just come from him, and he wants so badly to see
his little Rosita; what will she send him?”
In a moment her little arms were tightly clasped round my neck, as I bent
down to speak to her, and those rosy lips were pressed to mine, in a
warm, loving kiss.
Quite aware that this mute message, eloquent as it was, could scarcely
be delivered with satisfaction to any of the parties concerned, I drew
one of the feathers from her cap, and said, “Shall I tell him his little
girl sent him this?”
A bright, beaming smile, was the only answer I could extract. The woman
now began a piteous story of having to provide for them--no money, etc.,
etc.,--backed by her husband, who appeared, pipe in his mouth, from some
back den, evidently hoping to extort funds; but when they discovered that
I was in possession of all the facts, with regard to the support of the
children, they seemed to find it useless to proceed; and finally agreeing
to my request that one of them would take the children to see their
father, I left the direction, visiting days, etc., with them.
Once more I stood by that bedside, which I had so lately left, with that
deep groan ringing in my ears.
“Do you know what that is?” said I, holding up the feather.
No answer from the lips, but the eyes said, plainly, “I don’t know, and I
don’t care.”
I varied the question. “Do you know where that came from?”
He started, pierced me through with those keen black eyes, then said,
seizing the hand in which I held it with a grasp which secured my
remembering him for many days, “You didn’t?--you couldn’t?--it isn’t?”
“Yes,” said I; “I drew it from your little girl’s cap; she sent it to you
with her love.”
His grasp relaxed; and, burying his face in the pillow, he sobbed
aloud. I waited, thinking he would recover himself, but no word came;
hard, heavy sobs, only increasing in violence, shook the bed, and I
was frightened at the terrible emotion I had called forth. Deeming it
best not to notice it, I began quietly to give him an account of my
trip, dwelling on the least exciting parts of it, but all of no avail;
apparently he did not even hear me, and I saw that he was getting
entirely beyond his own control.
What was to be done? Here was indeed a dilemma. He was exciting the
attention of the whole ward; it was within half an hour of inspection
when the surgeon in charge goes his rounds through the wards,--what would
he say? Was this the way that the ladies excited their patients? But
beyond and above all, he was injuring himself; and with the tendency to
inflammation in his head, I dreaded the effect of such strong excitement,
and yet all I said seemed but to increase it. Suddenly it occurred to
me that (something on the principle of “similia similibus curantur,”
little as I usually admire the practice) perhaps by evoking another
feeling equally powerful, I might calm him; and knowing that no one, be
it man or woman, will ever submit quietly to blame without an attempt at
self-justification, I changed my tactics at once, and said:
“How it is possible, that a father, who has one grain of love for his
children, can permit them to remain one day, or hour, in such a den as
that, is to me a marvel that I cannot comprehend.”
The rûse was a perfect success. Starting up in his bed, with flashing
eyes, he said, with a vehemence which at another time would have
frightened me:
“How cruel! I couldn’t help it, and you know I couldn’t; haven’t I told
you how it breaks my heart, night and day, to think of them there, and I
tied here and can’t get them away?”
This was all I wanted; he poured forth a volley of eager self-defence,
and ere it was half over, my mind was quite relieved about him, and I
had the satisfaction of seeing him in a short time quite composed, and
anxiously seeking to know every particular of my visit. He would not
be content without hearing over and over the most minute details, all
the time stroking and patting the feather, as though it were indeed the
little one it symbolized.
The following Sunday, as I passed through the ward to attend service,
I saw the three children on the bed; the two boys seated at the foot,
and the little Rosita lying on his breast, with that dimpled arm round
his neck, as he had wished. He smiled as he saw me, and held up the
feather. I never saw him again. I heard, the next time that I came to
the hospital, that news had been brought him of his wife’s death at the
almshouse; he had been allowed to go out on a pass, but had failed to
return, and nothing further had been heard from him.
Poor José! We shall, in all probability, never meet again on earth; but I
can never think of him without finding, in his history, the most powerful
proof that “these men _have_ feeling.”
ROBINSON.
“War is an unmixed evil; look at it as you will, it is, it must be, an
unmixed evil!”
This, in an indignant tone, from one, standing at my side, gazing at one
of its saddest results.
“An evil, I grant,” said I; “unmixed I deny. War and its attendants have
a grand side. Do not start, and look so reproachfully at me; were we
standing on another spot, and were the circumstances different, I would
tell you all I mean; but let it pass.”
We were in no mood for argument then, and the subject dropped; but it
recurred frequently to my mind, and the more I have dwelt upon it, the
more I am convinced (your pardon, dear speaker!) that such a statement
is not, cannot be true. War has its compensations, its beautiful
compensations; and I very much question, whether, if the statistics
of the good deeds, the kind, warm, large-hearted actions, could be
registered, as are those of crime, we should not find that those
performed in times of war, greatly overbalance those in times of peace.
Great crises call forth and compel great deeds.
Where is the battle-field since Sumter’s sad surprise, which cannot
boast, not one, but many Sir Philip Sydney’s, with the earnest “Take it;
thy need is greater than mine?” Magnanimity need no longer be confined
to the field of Zütphen, and each child be taught the story as though
it stood alone. Where the hospital where we may not see something of
sublimity in the beautiful forgetfulness of self, the untiring devotion
with which plain, poor men watch, night after night, by a dying
comrade,--a stranger till those walls had made them brothers? Where the
home, high or humble, which fails to show the brave-hearted wife, mother,
daughter, or sister, giving for her country a life far dearer than her
own, to danger and to death? Is there no moral grandeur, no moral heroism
here? A sad soul, so struggling with, yet surmounting sorrow; so sending
forth her sure support and stay, then turning calmly and quietly to take
up her lonely cross and bear the burden of daily life, by virtue of such
act reaches a spiritual elevation which times of peace could rarely, if
ever, witness.
I see the laugh--I hear the cutting remark, “Such a _woman’s_ view!”
but I know these things are true, for I have witnessed them; and, be
it remembered, that ridicule is not reasoning, nor satire always sound
sense. Never can I listen to this statement, that “War is an unmixed
evil,” without longing to combat it; and added to that, but this very
morning, the same belligerent desire was excited in my mind by reading
an opinion, somewhat dogmatically asserted, that, “In these days, Apollo
must give place to Mars.”
“Not so,” I answered then; “not so,” I answer now. Apollo never gathers
in a heavier harvest--never stores stouter sheaves, than those mowed
down by the chariot wheels of the God of War, as he dashes onward in
his headlong career. Ask the world, since creation’s dawn, and she will
tell you that Apollo clings to Mars; and if he ever “gives place,” it
is only that he may follow on the fiery track of his great leader, sure
of grander opportunities in the waxing and waning of one moon, than a
life-time of peace could give.
And even granting (which I never will) that Apollo pauses in his
course--that his lyre “lingers o’er its lays”--are not the daily deeds
of our loved land, at this moment, prouder poems than this continent has
ever yet produced? Where can we find such stirring strains, such ringing
rhythm, such burning ballads, such lyric lays, such sublime sonnets, such
ever-during epics, as these times of ours call forth? Is not each soldier
a poet in his way? And shall his verse have the less power, for that it
is set to martial music? Shall it touch our hearts the less? Rather,
shall not every chord vibrate ten thousand times the more, for that
the pages on which it is written are the fair fields of our own dear
country; its pen, the sword; its ink, the heart’s blood of our brothers?
But I have wandered wide of my mark. I seated myself to note a simple
story, of one of that ever-growing army who have nobly given their young
lives to their country.
I have made allusion before to my whistling friend, Robinson, who was
brought to the hospital at the same time with our poor Darlington,
from the same regiment, and wounded in the same battle,--that of “Fair
Oaks.” His left arm was terribly shattered, just below the shoulder,
and injuring the shoulder-blade; and for a long time his case was a
very critical one, requiring the most close and constant watching. He
was entirely confined to his bed for many tedious weeks, and yet I know
not why I should apply that term to the time so passed; for they were
certainly never “tedious” to us, although we felt great anxiety for
him, and we never had any proof that they were so to him. Patient and
uncomplaining, the only sign he gave of suffering, save the contraction
of his brow, was the constant effort to whistle away the pain, and his
moans in his sleep. There was always something inexpressibly sad to me
in these moans; it seemed as though the body were compensating itself,
during sleep, for the powerful restraint imposed upon it during waking
hours.
I have rarely seen greater unselfishness in any one. During his illness,
it was all-important to keep up his strength, for as the wound began to
heal, one abscess followed another, and kept him much prostrated; we
therefore tried to tempt his appetite in every way; and often, when I
have brought him some delicacy, he has pointed me to some one near him,
with the words, “Please give it to him; he cares for such things more
than I do.”
His love for his mother, and anxiety to spare her all unnecessary
suffering on his account, was very beautiful, and attracted me to him
from the first. His weakness was so great that he was utterly unable, for
a long time, even to feed himself, and of course, could not write. When I
offered to do so for him, he declined, saying, that she knew, through a
friend, that he was here; and that the sight of a strange hand, with the
conviction that it would bring that he was too ill to write for himself,
would be worse for her than to wait for a little while.
One day, some time afterwards, I came to his bedside and found a paper
lying there with a few unmeaning scratches, as I thought, upon it; he
held them up to me.
“The best I could do.”
“What were you trying to do?” said I; “did you mean that for drawing?”
A look of intense disappointment passed over his face.
“I was afraid so,” said he; “then it would frighten her, as I thought. I
meant it for my signature, and I’ve looked at it, and looked at it, and
hoped it didn’t look as bad as I thought, at first; but if you ask what
I’m trying to do, when you see it, the game’s up, and it’s no use.”
I assured him that such a signature would be far stronger proof of the
real state of the case, than any letter I could send telling the facts,
and giving the reasonable ground for hope which we now felt. But he still
preferred to wait; and ere very long we found, by pinning the paper to
the table, to keep it firm, he could execute a tolerably legible epistle.
The weeks rolled on, and, by slow degrees, he regained his strength; his
bright, hopeful disposition, even temper, and uniform cheerfulness, were
great aids to his recovery; and we watched his improvement with great
satisfaction, and at last had the pleasure of seeing him able to be up,
and even out, for a short time.
He came to me, one morning, in our ladies’ room, saying, “Miss ----,
would it be troubling you too much, to ask you to write to mother?”
“Brought to it, at last!” said I. “Why do you ask me now, Robinson, when
you have refused so often before, and can write for yourself?”
“That’s just it; she won’t believe what I say; thinks I’m fooling her,
and pretending to be better than I really am; and has an idea they’re
going to take my arm off, and I’m keeping it from her; and I thought if
you’d just write, and tell her it wasn’t coming off, she’d be sure to
believe you.”
“Sure to believe a stranger in preference to her own son, Robinson? Does
that tell well for the son?”
“Yes, ma’am, I think so; she knows you could have no object in deceiving
her; while the thing I care most for in the world, is to keep her from
fretting, and she knows it.”
There was no combating this reasoning, and in a short time I received
a beautiful answer to my letter, well written and well expressed,
confirming all that Robinson had told us:--That he was the youngest son,
and had always been carefully and tenderly brought up; that he had two
brothers, the only other children--one had gone to Texas, before the
breaking out of the rebellion, and never having heard from him since,
they feared he had been pressed into the rebel service; fortunately she
had never heard, and I trust, now, never may hear what Robinson had told
us,--that, while pressing on, at the battle of Fair Oaks, over heaps of
the enemy’s dead, he saw an up-turned face on the field, wounded or dead,
he knew not which,--that face, he said, he never could mistake--it was
that of his brother!
We tried to convince him that this was most improbable--that his
imagination was excited at the time, and that the dread that such a thing
might happen had been “father to the thought;” but in vain; we never
could persuade him to the contrary; and yet, whether from a doubt in his
mind, or the dread of the pain it must cause, he never, as we afterwards
found, had made any allusion to the subject in his letters home.
One morning, after he had been able to be about, and even out for some
weeks, I was surprised, on going into his ward, to find him in bed again.
“Why, Robinson, I am sorry to see you there! What have you been doing?”
He hesitated, twisted the end of his coverlet, but made no answer.
“Nothing wrong, I’m very sure of that. It wasn’t your own fault, was it?”
said I, fearing he thought I doubted him, as so many of the relapses here
are caused by excess, the moment the men are able to be out, and I well
knew there was no such danger here.
He looked up at me, at once, with his clear, honest eyes, and said, “Yes,
Miss ----, all my own fault; but I thought _she_ worried so----”
“Your mother?” I questioned.
“Yes, ma’am; and if I could just slip my arm into my coat-sleeve long
enough to have my picture taken, she’d see it was better, and it would
set her mind at rest more than all the letters I could write.”
So to satisfy this mother’s heart, the poor wounded shoulder had been
forced into its sleeve, giving him, as it did, several weeks of added
suffering and confinement to his bed. Can any one wonder that such a man
should have won his way to our hearts;--or at our regret, when we found
he was to be transferred to another hospital, at some distance from the
city? We thus lost sight of him for many months. Several times when I
asked after him, at our own hospital, I was told that he had been there
but a short time since; sometimes the week before; sometimes only the day
before; but it so happened that we never met. His wound, they told me,
was far from well, varying very much; some days giving hope that it would
heal, and then bursting out again. I had received many and urgent letters
from his mother, before he left us, begging me to use all the influence
I could bring to bear, to have him transferred to a hospital near his
home; (this was, of course, before the present order on that subject had
been given) but on applying to the surgeon, I found that he considered
his wound far too serious to attempt the journey, and that Robinson so
fully agreed with him, that I wrote the poor disappointed mother to that
effect, trying to console her with the hope of restoring him to her, ere
very long, perfectly cured. The winter slipped away; the pressure of
present hospital duties and interests had almost crowded out all thoughts
of Robinson, when I am surprised, one sunny April afternoon, to receive
a note from one of our lady visitors, telling me of Robinson’s extreme
illness, and that it is scarcely supposed he can recover.
An hour later finds M. and myself driving rapidly out to the hospital
where he now is; and here we are at the gates; how shall we enter! Ah! we
do not now fear a guard with a bayonet, as we should have done some time
since; and fifteen minutes more suffices for all the necessary “red tape”
connected with admittance, and we are at the door of Robinson’s ward,
listening to the wardmaster’s answer to our question:
“Yes, ladies, walk in; but he won’t know you; he’s too low, and he’s
flighty all the time.”
“Won’t know us!” Robinson not know us! We cannot believe that; but see!
he is leading the way; and we follow to a bed where lies a man tossing
restlessly, and talking, or rather muttering to himself in an indistinct
tone; his bandaged shoulder and arm resting on a pillow, for an operation
has been performed--a large piece of bone extracted--and the result still
doubtful. Doubtful? No; too certain; that face is enough. Poor mother in
your western home, you can never look upon your boy, till you meet at the
final Bar, in the presence of your Judge! God in his mercy grant that it
may be to spend a happy eternity together!
And yet, as we stand, we find ourselves almost doubting whether this can
really be our merry, laughing, whistling Robinson. Little hope, indeed,
that he will recognize us, but let us try.
“Robinson, do you know me?” He starts, and in a moment the vacant gaze
changes into one of his old bright smiles of recognition.
“Know you! Why shouldn’t I know you? How long it is, Miss ----, since I
have seen you,--and you too,” added he, stretching out his hand to M.;
but even as he spoke, his expression changed, and his mind wandered again.
And this was the end of all our care--this the result of so many weary
months of suffering. He seemed pleased at our coming, and would answer
any direct question, but could not sustain a conversation of even a few
moments. We found our old friend, “handsome Harry,” of concert memory,
who had been transferred at the same time, established here as Robinson’s
devoted nurse, although entirely unable to move without crutches. He told
us that the surgeon had told him that morning, that if his family wished
to see him, he had better telegraph for them at once. Robinson heard
us, and catching the word “telegraph,” said quickly, “Don’t telegraph;
father’s poor, and he might come on; I’ll be better soon, and get a
furlough, and go out to them.”
“But, Robinson,” said I, “you are very ill; perhaps you may not be
better, and you would like to see your father.”
“I don’t think I’m very ill--they said so to-day; but I think I’ll come
round soon.”
The next moment he was on the field, and evidently going over the fatal
“Fair Oaks” fight.
His friend Harry told us that it had been his most earnest desire and
longing to see his father; and that he had urged him, some days ago,
if he should be worse, to let them know at home. I therefore wrote the
telegram on his table, and we drove to the office on our return to the
city, that no time might be lost.
I was detained at home for the two succeeding days; but some of our
ladies went out to see him each day, as he was a general favorite; one
lady going in a pouring rain, although she knew that she would have
nearly a mile to walk after leaving the cars; their report of the case
was most unfavorable. On the third day, the Rev. Mr. ----, who had been a
most constant and faithful friend to Robinson, in our hospital, went out
with me. When we arrived, we found him in a terrible state of excitement;
he had been talking, and was now almost shrieking, and dashing himself
from side to side.
“It’s no use speaking to him, to-day,” said the wardmaster; “he don’t
know anybody.”