I.

The sickness of the nation not being unto death, we now begin to number

its advantages. They will not all be numbered by this generation; and as

for story-tellers, essayists, letter-writers, historians, and

philosophers, if their "genius" flags in half a century with such

material as hearts, homes, and battle-fields beyond counting afford

them, they deserve to be drummed out of their respective regiments, and

banished into the dominion of silence and darkness, forever to sit on

the borders of unfathomable ink-pools, minus pen and paper, with

fool's-caps on their heads.

I know of a place which you may call Dalton, if it must have a name. At

the beginning of our war,--for which some true spirits thank Almighty

God,--a family as wretched as Satan wandering up and down the earth

could wish to find lived there, close beside the borders of a lake which

the Indians once called--but why should not your fancy build the lowly

cottage on whatsoever green and sloping bank it will? Fair as you please

the outside world may be,--waters pure as those of Lake St. Sacrament,

with islands on their bosom like those of Horicon, and shores

beautifully wooded as those of Lake George,--but what delight will you

find in all the heavenly mansions, if love be not there?

"I'll enlist," said the master of this mansion of misery in the midst of

the garden of delight, one day.

"I would," replied his wife.

They spoke with equal vigor, but neither believed in the other. The

instant the man dropped the book he had been reading, he was like Samson

with his hair shorn, for his wife couldn't tell one letter from another;

and when she saw him sit down on the stone wall which surrounded their

potato-field, overgrown with weeds, she marched out boldly to the corner

of the wood-shed, where never any wood was, and attacked him thus:--

"S'pose you show fight awhile in that potato-patch afore you go to fight

Ribils. Gov'ment don't need you any more than I do. May be it'll find

out getting ain't gaining!"

She had no answer. The man was thinking, when she interrupted him, as

she was always doing, that, if he could secure the State and town

bounty, that would be some provision for the woman and child. As for

himself, he was indifferent as to where he was sent, or how soon. But if

he went away, they might look for him to come again. Gabriel's trumpet,

he thought, would be a more welcome sound than his wife's voice.

He enlisted. The bounties paid him were left in the hands of a trusty

neighbor, and were to be appropriated to the supply of his family's

needs; and he went away along with a boat-load of recruits,--his own man

no longer. Even his wife noticed the change in him, from the morning

when he put on his uniform and began to obey orders, for she had time to

notice. Several days elapsed after enlistment before the company's ranks

were complete, and the captain would not report at head-quarters, he

said, until his own townsfolk had supplied the number requisite.

_Even_ his wife noticed the change, I said; for, contrary to what is

usual and expected, she was not the first to perceive that the slow and

heavy step had now a spring in it, and that there was a light in his

clouded eyes. She supposed the new clothes made the difference.

Nearly a year had passed away, and this woman was leaning over the rail

fence which surrounded a barren field, and listening, while she leaned,

to the story of Ezra Cramer, just home from the war. She listened well,

even eagerly, to what he had to tell, and seemed moved by the account in

ways various as pride and indignation.

"I wish I had him here!" she said, when he had come to the end of his

story,--the story of her husband's promotion.

Ezra looked at her, and thought of the pretty girl she used to be, and

wondered how it happened that such a one could grow into a woman like

this. The vindictiveness of her voice accorded well with her

person,--expressed it. Where were her red cheeks? What had become of her

brown hair? She was once a free one at joking with, and rallying the

young men about; but now how like a virago she looked! and her tongue

was sharp as a two-edged sword.

Ezra was sorry that he had taken the trouble to ascertain in the village

where Nancy Elkins lived. Poor fellow! While enduring the hardships of

the past year, his imagination had transformed all the Dalton women into

angels, and the circuit of that small hamlet had become to his loving

thought as the circuit of Paradise.

Some degree of comprehension seemed to break upon him while he stood

gazing upon her, and he said: "O well, Miss Nancy, he's got his hands

full, and besides he didn't know I was coming home so quick. I didn't

know it myself till the last minute. He would 'a' sent some

message,--course he would!"

"I guess there ain't anything to hender his _writing_ home to his

folks," she answered, unappeased and unconvinced. "Other people hear

from the war. There's Mynders always a-writing and sending money to the

old folks, and that's the difference."

"We've been slow to get our pay down where we was," said Ezra. "It's

been a trouble to me all the while, having nothing to show for the time

I was taking from father."

The woman looked at the young fellow who had spoken so seriously, and

her eyes and her voice softened.

"Nobody would mind about your not sending money hum, Ezra. They'd know

_you_ was all right. Such a hard-working set as you belong to! You're

looking as if you wondered what I was doing here 'n this lot. I'm living

in that shanty! Like as not I'll have its pictur' taken, and sent to my

man. Old Uncle Torry said we might have it for the summer; and I expect

the town was glad enough to turn me and my girl out anywhere. They won't

do a thing towards fixing the old hut up. Say 't ain't worth it. We

can't stay there in cold weather. Roof leaks like a sieve. If he don't

send me some money pretty quick, I'll list myself, and serve long enough

to find _him_ out, see 'f I don't."

At this threat, the soldier, who knew something about WAR, straightened

himself, and with a cheery laugh limped off towards the road. "I'll see

ye ag'in, Miss Nancy, afore you start," said he, looking back and

nodding gayly at her. Things weren't so bad as they seemed about her, he

guessed. He was going home, and his heart was soft. Happiness is very

kind; but let it do its best it cannot come very near to misery.

Nancy stood and watched the young man as he went, commenting thus:

"Well, _he_'s made a good deal out of 'listing, any way." His pale face

and his hurt did not make him sacred in her sight.

She was speaking to herself, and not to her little daughter, who, when

she saw her mother talking to a soldier, ran up to hear the

conversation. A change that was wonderful to see had passed over the

child's face, when she heard that her father had been promoted from the

ranks. The bald fact, unilluminated by a single particular, seemed to

satisfy her. She hadn't a question to ask. Her first thought was to run

down to the village and tell Miss Ellen Holmes, who told _her_, not long

ago, so proud and wonderful a story about her brother's promotion.

If it were not for this Jenny, my story would be short. Is it not for

the future we live? For the children the world goes on.

Does this little girl--she might be styled a beauty by a true catholic

taste, but oh! I fear that the Boston Convention "ORTHODOX," lately

convened to settle all great questions concerning the past, present, and

future, would never recognize her, on any showing, as a babe of

grace!--does she, as she runs down the hill and along the crooked street

of Dalton, look anything like a messenger of Heaven to your eyes? Must,

the angels show their wings before they shall have recognition?

Going past the blacksmith's shop she was hailed by the blacksmith's

self, with the blacksmith's own authority. "See here, Jenny!" At the

call, she stood at bay like a fair little fawn in the woods.

"I'm writing a letter to my boy," he continued. "Step in here. Did you

know Ezra Cramer had come back?"

"I saw him just now," she answered. "He told us about father." She said

it with a pride that made her young face shine.

"So! what about him, I wonder?" asked the blacksmith.

And that he really did wonder, Jenny could not doubt. She heard more in

his words than she liked to hear, and answered with a tremulous voice,

in spite of pride, "O, he's been promoted."

"The deuse! what's _he_ permoted to?"

"I don't know," she said, and for the first time she wondered.

"Where is he, though?" asked the blacksmith.

"I don't know,--in the war."

"That's 'cute. Well, see here, sis, we'll find that out,--you and me

will." The angry voice of the blacksmith became tender. "You sit down

there and write him a letter. My son, he'll find out if your pa is

alive. As for Ezra, he don't know any more 'n he did when he went away;

but, poor fellow, he's been mostually in the hospertal, instead of

fighting Ribils, so p'r'aps he ain't to blame. You write to yer pa, and

I'll wage you get an answer back, and he'll tell you all about his

permotion quick enough."

Jenny stood looking at the blacksmith for a moment, with mouth and eyes

wide open, so much astonished by the proposition as not to know what

answer should be made to it. She had never written a line in her life,

except in her old copy-book. If her hand could be made to express what

she was thinking of, it would be the greatest work and wonder in the

world. But then, it never could!

That decisive _never_ seemed to settle the point. She turned forthwith

to the blacksmith, smiling very seriously. At the same time she took

three decided steps, which led her into his dingy shop, as awed as

though she were about to have some wonderful exhibition there. But she

must be her own astrologer.

The blacksmith, elated by his own success that morning in the very

difficult business of letter-writing, was mightily pleased to have under

direction this little disciple in the work of love, and forthwith laid

his strong hands on the bench and brought it out into the light, setting

it down with a force that said something for the earnestness of his

purpose in regard to Miss Jenny.

When he wrote his own letter, he did it in retirement and solitude,

having sought out the darkest corner of his shop for the purpose. A

mighty man in the shoeing of horses and the handling of hammers, he

shrank from exposing his incompetence in the management of a miserable

pen, even to the daylight and himself.

His big account-book placed against his forge, with a small sheet of

paper spread thereon, his pen in Jenny's hands, and the inkstand near

by, there was nothing for him to do but to go away and let her do her

work.

"Give him a tall letter!" said he. "And you must be spry about it. He'll

be glad to hear from his little girl, I reckon. See, the stage 'll be

along by four o'clock, and now it's----"--he stepped to the door and

looked out on the tall pine-tree across the road,--that was his

sun-dial,--"it's just two o'clock now, Jenny. Work away!" So saying, he

went off as tired, after the exertion he had made, as if he had shod all

the Dalton horses since daybreak.

She had just two hours for doing the greatest piece of work she had done

in her short life. And consciously it was the greatest work. Every

stroke of that pen, every straight line and curve and capital, seemed to

require as much deliberation as the building of a house; and how her

brain worked! Fly to and fro, O swallows, from your homes beneath the

eaves of the blacksmith's old stone shop in the shade of the

far-spreading walnut,--stretch forth your importunate necks and lift

aloft your greedy voices, O young ones in the nests!--the little girl

who has so often stood to watch you is sitting in the shadow within

there, blind and deaf to you, and unaware of everything in the great

world except the promotion of her father "in the war," and the letter he

will be sure to get, because the blacksmith is going to send it along

with _his_ letter to his son.

She was doing her work well. Any one who had ever seen the girl before

must have asked with wonder what had happened to her,--it was so evident

that something had happened which stirred heart and soul to the depths.

So, even so, unconsciously, love sometimes works out the work of a

lifetime, touches the key-note of an anthem of everlasting praise,--does

it with as little ostentation as the son of science draws yellow gold

from the quartz rock which tells no tale on the face of it concerning

its "hid treasure." So, wisely and without ostentation, work the true

agents, the apostles of liberty in this world.

"O dear papa! my dear papa!" she wrote, "Ezra has come home, and he says

you are promoted! But he couldn't tell for what it was, or where you

were, or anything. And O, it seems as if I couldn't wait a minute, I

want to hear so all about it." When she had written thus far the spirit

of the mother seemed to stir in the child. She sat and mused for a

moment. Her eyes flashed. Her right hand moved nervously. Strange that

her father had not sent some word by Ezra; but then he didn't know, of

course, that Ezra was coming. Ay! that was a lucky thought. What she had

written seemed to imply some blame. So, with many a blot and erasure,

her loving belief that all was right must make itself evident.

At the end of the two hours she found herself at the bottom of the page

the blacksmith had spread before her. Twice he had come into the shop

and assured himself that the work was going on, and smiled to see the

progress she was making. The third time he came he was under

considerable excitement.

"Ready!" he shouted. "The stage 'll be along now in ten minutes."

She did not answer, she was so busy, and so _hard_ at work, signing her

name to the sheet that was covered with what looked like hieroglyphics.

When she had made the last emphatic pen-stroke, she turned towards him,

flushed and smiling. "There!" she said.

He looked over her shoulder.

"Good!" said he. "But you haven't writ his name out. Give me the pen

here, quick!" Then he took the quill and wrote her father's name up in

one blank corner, and dried the ink with a little sand, and put the note

into the envelope containing his own, and the great work was done.

Do you know how great a work, you dingy old Dalton blacksmith?

Do _you_ know, fair child,--who must fight till the day of your death

with alien, opposite forces, because the blood-vessels of Nancy Elkins,

as they sail through the grand canals of the city of your life, so often

hang out piratical banners, and bear down on better craft as they near

the dangerous places, or put out, like wreckers after a storm, seeking

for treasure the owners somehow lost the power to hold?

In a few minutes after the letter was inscribed and sealed, the stage

came rattling along, and Jenny stood by and saw the blacksmith give it

to the driver, and heard him say: "Now be kerful about that ere letter.

It's got two inside. One's my boy's, as ye'll see by the facing on it;

t' other's this little girl's. She's been writin' to her pa. So be

kerful."

They stood together watching the stage till it was out of sight, then

the blacksmith nodded at Jenny as if they had done a good day's work,

and proceeded to light his pipe. That was not her way of celebrating the

event. She remembered now that she had promised a little girl, Miss

Ellen Holmes indeed, that she would some time show her where the

red-caps and fairy-cups grew, and there was yet time, before sunset, for

a long walk in the woods.

The little town-bred lady happened to come along just then, while Jenny

stood hesitating whether to go home first and tell her mother of this

great thing she had done. The question was therefore settled; and now

let them go seeking red-caps. Good luck attend the children! Jenny will

be sure to say something about promotions before they separate. She will

say that something with a genuine human pride; and the end of the hunt

for red-caps may be, conspicuously, success in finding them; but still

more to the purpose, it will be the child's establishment on a better

basis--a securer basis of equality--than she has occupied before. She

forgets about Dalton and poverty. She thinks about camps and honor. She

has something to claim of all the world. She is the citizen of a great

nation. She bears the name of one who is fighting for the Union, who

_has_ fought, and fought so well that those in authority have beckoned

him up higher. Why, it is as though a crown were placed on her dear

father's head.