“In this combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard as I
did, what yelling and hideous roaring Apollyon made all the time of the
fight, he spake like a Dragon; and on the other side, what sighs and
groans burst from Christian’s heart. I never saw him all the while give
so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon
with his two-edged sword: then indeed he did smile and look upward.”
XIX
Senator St. John, attended by Margaret, her maid, and a physician, had
made the arduous journey from Washington to Portland without too much
fatigue, and it seemed reasonable to suppose that a long rest in his
comfortable house, far from the turmoil of public affairs, would do much
to reinstate his body after the savage attack of gout with complications
to which it had been subjected during six long weeks. Arrived at
Portland, he was driven to the house of his old friend Mr. Blankinship,
and helped to bed. Next morning he was seized with acute pains in the
region of the heart, and though his valiant mind refused for a single
moment to tolerate the thought that the end might be near, was persuaded
to send for his daughter and his sons.
Margaret was in the parlor with Aladdin. It was April, and the whole
land dripped. Through the open window, for the day was warm, the
moisture of the soaked ground and trees was almost audible. Margaret
had much to say to Aladdin, and he to her; they had not met for several
months.
“I want to hear about Peter,” said Aladdin--“all about him. He met you,
of course, and got you across the city?”
“Yes, and his father came, too,” said Margaret. “Such an old dear--you
never saw him, did you? He’s taller than Peter, but much thinner, and
a great aristocrat. He’s the only man I ever saw that has more presence
than papa. He looks like a fine old bird, and you can see his skull very
plainly--especially when he laughs, if you know what I mean. And he’s
really witty. He knows all about you and wants you to go and stay
with them sometime.” Aladdin sighed for the pure delight of hearing
Margaret’s voice running on and on. He was busy looking at her, and did
not pay the slightest attention to what she said. “And the girl came to
lunch, Aladdin, and she is so pretty, but not a bit serene like Peter,
and the men are all wild about her, but she doesn’t care that--”
“Doesn’t she?” said Aladdin, annoyingly.
“No, she doesn’t!” said Margaret, tartly. “She says she’s going to be
a horse-breaker or a nurse, and all the while she kept making eyes at
brother John, and he lost his poise entirely and smirked and blushed,
and I shouldn’t wonder a bit if he’d made up his mind to marry her, and
if he has he will--”
Aladdin caught at the gist of the last sentence. “Is that all that’s
necessary?” he said. “Has a man only got to make up his mind to marry a
certain girl?”
“It’s all brother John would have to do,” said Margaret, provokingly.
“Admitting that,” said Aladdin, “how about the other men?”
“Why,” said Margaret, “I suppose that if a man really and truly makes up
his mind to get the girl he wants, he’ll get her.”
She looked at him with a grand innocence. Aladdin’s heart leaped a
little.
“But suppose two men made up their minds,” said Aladdin, “to get the
same girl.”
“That would just prove the rule,” said Margaret, refusing to see any
personal application, “because one of them would get her, and the other
would be the exception.”
“Would the one who spoke first have an advantage?” said Aladdin.
“Suppose he’d wanted her ever so long, and had tried to succeed because
of her, and”--he was warming to the subject, which meant much to
him--“had never known that there was any other girl in the world, and
had pinned all his faith and hope on her, would he have any advantage?”
“I don’t know,” said Margaret, rather dreamily.
“Because if he would--” Aladdin reached forward and took one of her
hands in his two.
She let it lie there, and for a moment they looked into each other’s
eyes. Margaret withdrew her hand.
“I know--I know,” she said. “But you mustn’t say it, ‘Laddin dear,
because--somehow I feel that there are heaps of things to be considered
before either of us ought to think of that. And how can we be quite
sure? Anyway, if it’s going to happen--it will happen. And that’s all
I’m going to say, ‘Laddin.”
“Tell me,” he said gently, “what the trouble is, dear. Is it this: do
you think you care for me, and aren’t sure? Is that it?”
She nodded gravely. Aladdin took a long breath.
“Well,” he said finally, “I believe I love you well enough, Margaret, to
hope that you get the man who will make you happiest. I don’t know,” he
went on rather gloomily, “that I’m exactly calculated to make anybody
happy, but,” he concluded, with a quavering smile, “I’d like to try.”
They shook hands like the two very old friends they were.
“We’ll always be that, anyway,” said Margaret.
“Always,” said Aladdin.
“Mademoiselle!” Eugenie opened the parlor door and looked cautiously in,
after the manner of the French domestic.
“What is it?” said Margaret in French.
Aladdin listened with intense admiration, for he did not understand a
word.
“Monsieur does not carry himself so well,” said Eugenie, “and he asks if
mademoiselle will have the goodness to mount a moment to his room.”
“I’ll go at once.” Margaret rose. “Papa’s worse,” she said to Aladdin.
“Will you wait?”
“I am so sorry,” said Aladdin. “No, I can’t wait; I have to get out the
paper. I”--he smiled--“am announcing to an eager public what general,
in my expert opinion, is best fitted to command the armies of the United
States.”
“Of course there’ll be fighting.”
“Of course--and in a day or two. Good-by.”
“Good-by.”
“I’ll come round later and inquire about your father. Give him my love.”
Margaret ran up-stairs to her father’s room. He was in great pain, but
perfectly calm and collected. As Margaret entered, the doctor went out,
and she was alone with her father.
“Are you feeling badly, dear?” she said.
“I am feeling more easy than a moment ago,” said the senator. “Bring a
chair over here, Peggy; we must have a little talk.”
She brought a little upright chair and sat down facing him, her right
hand nestling over one of his.
“The doctor,” said the senator, “considers that my condition is
critical.”
“Papa”
“I disagree with him. I shall, I believe, live to see the end of this
civil riot, but I cannot be sure. So it behooves me to ask my dear
daughter a question.” St. John asked it with eagerness. “Which is it to
be, Peggy?”
She blushed deeply.
“You are interested in Aladdin O’Brien?”
Her head drooped a little.
“Yes, papa.”
The senator sighed.
“Thank you, dear,” he said. “That is all I wanted to know. I had hoped
that it would be otherwise. Peggy,” he said, “I love that other young
man like a son.”
“Peter?”
“I have always hoped that you would see him as I have seen him. I would
be happy if I thought that I could leave you in such strong young hands.
I trust him absolutely.”
“Papa.”
“Well, dear?”
“You don’t like Aladdin?”
“He is not steady, Margaret.” The simple word was pregnant with meaning
as it fell from the senator.
“You don’t mean that he--that he’s like--”
“Yes, dear; I should not wish my youngest son to marry.”
“Poor boy,” said Margaret, softly.
“It’s the Irish in him,” said the senator. “He must do all things to
extremes. There, in a word, lies all his strength and all his weakness.”
“You would be sorry if I married Aladdin?”
“I should be afraid for your happiness. Do you love him?”
“I am not sure, papa.”
“You are fond of Peter, aren’t you?”
She leaned forward till her cheek touched his.
“Next to you and ‘Laddin.”
The senator patted her shoulder, and thus they remained for some time.
A great shouting arose in the neighborhood.
The senator sat bolt upright in bed. His nostrils began to quiver. He
was like an old war-horse that hears bugles.
“Sumter?” he cried. “Sumter? Do I hear Sumter?”
The shouting became louder.
“Sumter?” he cried. “Have they fired upon Sumter?”
Margaret flew to the window and threw it open. It acted upon the
shouting like the big swell of an organ, and the cries of excitement
filled the room to bursting. South Carolina had clenched her hand and
struck the flag in the face.
The doctor rushed in. He paused flabbergasted at sight of the man whom
he had supposed to be dying.
“Great God, man!” cried the senator, “can’t you get my clothes?”
When he was dressed they brought him his whalebone stick.
“Damn it, I can walk!” said he, and he broke the faithful old thing over
a knee that had not been bent for a month.
XX
New fervor of enlistment took place, and among the first to enlist was
Aladdin, and when his regiment met for organization he was unanimously
elected major. He had many friends.
At first he thought that his duty did not lie where his heart lay,
because of his brother Jack, now fourteen, whom he had to support. And
then, the old promises coming to mind, he presented himself one morning
before Senator St. John.
“Senator,” he said, “you promised to do me a favor if I should ever ask
it.”
The senator thought of Margaret and trembled.
“I have come to ask it.”
“Well, sir?”
“I want to enlist, sir, but if I do there’s nobody to look after Jack.”
Again the senator thought of Margaret, and his heart warmed.
“He shall live in my house, sir,” said the senator, “as a member of my
family, sir.”
“God bless you, sir!” cried Aladdin.
In a state of dancing glee he darted off to the “Spy” office to see his
chief.
Mr. Blankinship was leaning against the post of the street door, reading
his own editorial in the morning issue.
“Hallo, Mr. Blankinship!” cried Aladdin.
“Hallo, Aladdin!” cried Mr. Blankinship, grinning at his favorite. “Late
as usual.”
“And for the last time, sir.”
“I know of only one good reason for such a statement.”
“It’s it, sir!”
Mr. Blankinship folded his paper carefully. His eyes were red, for he
had been up late the night before.
“I’d go, too,” he said simply, “if it wasn’t for the mother.”
The firm of John St. John & Brothers sat in its office. The head of
the firm was gorgeous in a new uniform; he had hurried up from New York
(where he had been paying vigorous court to Ellen Manners, whom he had
made up his mind to marry) in order, as oldest, biggest, and strongest,
to enlist for the family in one of the home regiments. There lingered
on his lips the thrill of a kiss half stolen, half yielded, while in his
pockets were a number of telegrams since received, and the usually grave
and stern young man was jocular and bantering. The two younger members
of the firm were correspondingly savage.
“For God’s sake, clear out of here,” said Hamilton. “Your shingle’s
down. Bul and I are running this office now.”
“Well, it’s the chance of your lives, boys,” said the frisky colonel.
“I’ll have forgotten the law by the time I come back.”
“Hope you may choke, John,” said Hannibal, sweetly.
“Don’t allow smoking in here, do you, boys?” He got no answer. It was a
hard-and-fast rule which he himself had instituted.
“Well, here goes.” He lighted a huge cigar and puffed it insolently
about the office. He surveyed himself in the cracked mirror.
“Cursed if a uniform isn’t becoming to a man!” he said.
“Chicken!” said Hamilton.
“Puppy!” said Hannibal.
“Titmouse!” said Hamilton.
“Ant!” said Hannibal.
John’s grin widened.
“Boys,” he said, “you’ve got one swell looker in the family, anyway, and
you ought to be glad of that.”
The boys exchanged glances.
Hannibal had upon his desk a pen-wiper which consisted of a small sponge
heavy with the ink of wiped pens. Hamilton had beneath his desk an
odd rubber boot which served him as a scrap-basket. These ornamental
missiles took John St. John in the back of the head at about the same
moment, the weight and impetus of the boot knocking the cigar clean out
of his mouth, so that it dashed itself against the mirror.
The gallant colonel turned, still grinning. “Which threw the boot?” said
he.
“I did,” said Hamilton.
“Then you get the first licking.”
Hamilton met his brother’s hostile if grinning advance with the hardest
blow that he could strike him over the left eye. Then they clenched,
and Hannibal joined the fray. The three brothers, roaring with laughter,
proceeded to inflict as much damage to each other and the office as
they jointly could. Over and under they squirmed and contorted, hitting,
tripping, falling and rising. Desks went over, lawbooks strewed the
floor, ink ran, and finally the bust of George Washington, which had
stood over the inner door since the foundation of the firm, came down
with a crash.
By this time the three brothers were helpless with laughter. The combat
ceased, and they sat upon the floor to survey the damage.
“You can’t handle the old man yet, boys,” said the colonel. His left
eye was closed, and his new uniform looked like the ribbons hung on a
May-pole.
Hamilton was bleeding at the nose. Hannibal’s lip was split. The three
looked at each other and shook with laughter.
“I’m inclined to think we’ve had a healthy bringing-up,” said Hamilton
between gasps.
“Better move, colonel,” said Hannibal; “you’re sitting in a pool of
ink.”
“So I am,” said the colonel, as the cold struck through his new
trousers.
The laughter broke out afresh.
Beau Larch, in the uniform of a private, appeared at the door.
“Hallo, Beau!”
“Come in.”
“Take a hand?”
“Thank you, no,” said Beau. “I just dropped in to tell you fellows that
we’ve just had a hell of a licking at Bull Run.”
“Us!” said the colonel, rising.
“Us!” said Hamilton. “Licked!”
“Us!” said Hannibal.
“And I’ve got other news, too,” said Beau, bashfully. “If I stop
drinking till my year’s up, and don’t ever drink any more, Claire says
she’ll marry me.”
Hannibal was the first to shake his hand.
“Boys,” said Beau, “I hope if any of you ever sees me touch a drop
you’ll strike me dead.”
He went out.
“I’m going to find out about this,” said John; “what did he say the name
of the licking was?”
“Bull Run.”
“Bull Run. And I’ll come back and tell you.”
He was starting to descend the steep stairs to the street, when he
caught the sound of snickers and creeping footsteps behind him. He
turned like a panther, but was not in time. The heavily driven toes of
the right boots of the younger St. Johns lifted him clear of the stairs,
and clean to the bottom of them. There he sat, his uniform a thing of
the past, his left eye blackening and closed, and roars of laughter
shaking him.
But Hamilton and Hannibal put the office more or less to rights, and
sat down gloomily at their respective desks. Up till now they had faced
being left behind, but this licking was too much. Each brooded over it,
while pretending to be up to the ears in work. Hamilton wrote a letter,
sealed it, addressed it, and presently rose.
“Bul,” he said, and to Hannibal the whole manoeuver smacked suspicious,
“I’m going to run up and see the old man for a few minutes.”
“All right,” said Hannibal.
Hamilton reached the door and turned.
“By the way,” he said, “I left a letter on my desk; wish you’d put a
stamp on it and mail it.”
He went out.
Hannibal felt very lonely and fidgety.
“I think I’ll just mail that letter and get it off my mind,” he said.
He put on his hat, licked a stamp, and crossed to his brother’s desk.
The letter was there, right enough, but it did not require a stamp, for
on it was written but one word, and that word was Hannibal.
Hannibal tore open the envelop and read:
DEAR OLD Bul: I can’t stand it any longer, but you’ll try and not be mad
with me for running off and leaving you to keep up the old place alone,
and damn it, Bul, two of us ought to go anyway....
The letter ran on for a little in the same strain. Hannibal put the
letter in his pocket, and sat down at his brother’s desk.
“It will kill the old man if we all go,” he said. “And of all three I’m
the one with the best rights to go and get shot.”
He took from somewhere in his clothes a little gold locket, flat and
plain. Each of the St. John boys had carried one since their mother’s
death. Facing her picture each had had engraved the motto which he had
chosen for himself to be his watchword in life. In John’s locket was
engraved, “In fortis vinces”; in Hamilton’s, “Deo volente”; and in
Hannibal’s, “Carpe diem.” But in Hannibal’s locket there was another
picture besides that of his mother. He opened the locket with his
thumb-nails and laid it on the desk before him. Presently his eyes
dimmed, and he looked beyond the locket.
Hamilton St. John’s ink-well was a globe of glass, with a hole like a
thimble in the top to contain ink. Hannibal found himself looking at
this, and noting the perfect miniature reproduction of the big calendar
on the wall, as it was refracted by the glass. With his thoughts far
away, his eyes continued to look at the neat little curly calendar in
the ink-well. Presently it seemed to him that it was not a calendar at
all, but just a patch of bright green color--a patch of bright green
that became grass, an acre of it, a ten-acre field, a great field gay
with trampled flowers, rolling hills, woods, meadows, fences, streams.
Then he saw, lying thickly over a fair region, broken guns, exploded
cannons, torn flags, horses and men contorted and sprung in death;
everywhere death and demolition. He wandered over the field and came
presently upon himself, scorched, mangled, and dead under the wheel of a
cannon.
After a little it seemed to him that the field of battle shrank until
it became again the calendar. But there was something odd about that
calendar; the dates were queer. It read July, right enough; but this
was the year 1861, whereas the calendar bore the date 1863. And why was
there a cross to mark the third day of July? Hannibal came to with a
shock; but he could have sworn that he had not been asleep.
“God is very--very good!” he said solemnly.
Then he opened his pen-knife, and scratched a deep line of erasure
through the “Carpe diem” in his locket, and underneath, cutting with
great pains, he inserted a date, “July 3, 1863,” and the words “Nunc
dimittis.” Below that he cut “Te Deum laudamus.”
He looked once more at the picture of his mother and at the picture that
was not of his mother, shut the little gold case, and put it back in his
pocket.
Then he inked on the white inside of a paper-box cover, in large
letters, these words:
This office will not be opened until the end of the war.
That office was never opened again.
XXI
The lives of sixty million people had become suddenly full of drill,
organization, uniforms, military music, flags, hatred, love, and
self-sacrifice, and the nations of the Old World stood about, note-book
in hand, like so many medical students at a clinic: could a heart, cut
in two, continue to supply a body with blood after the soul had been
withdrawn? And the nations of the Old World hoped that there would be
enough fresh meat left on the carcass for them to feed on, when the
experiment should be at an end. Mother England was particularly hungry,
and dearly hoped to have the sucking of the eggs which she herself had
laid.
It was a great time for young men, and Margaret shed secret tears on
behalf of five of them. It had fallen upon her to tell the old man that
his three sons had enlisted, and that task had tortured her for an hour
before she had dared go and accomplish it.
“Papa,” she said, “Ham has enlisted, and so has Bul.”
The senator had not moved a muscle.
“It was only a question of time,” he said. “I wish that I had begotten a
dozen others.”
He had borrowed her well-marked Bible from old Mrs. Blankinship and read
Isaiah at a gulp. Then he had sought out his boys and bantered them on
their new clothes.
Margaret sat very still for a long time after the interview with her
father. She knew that Bul, whom she loved best of her brothers, was
going to be killed. She had never before seen his face so serenely
happy as when he came to tell her that he had sworn in, nor had she
ever before seen that unexplainable phenomenon, known variously as fate,
doom, numbered, Nemesis, written upon a face. And there were others who
might be taken.
Aladdin came in for a moment to give her the news. He was nervous with
enthusiasm, and had been working like a horse. His regiment was to leave
Friday for the front; he could stay but a minute; he had only dashed
in on his way to drill. Would she care to come? Quite right; there was
nothing much to look at. He talked as cheerfully and as rapidly as a
mountain brook runs. And then he gave his best piece of news, and looked
almost handsome as he gave it.
“Peter’s here,” he said. “He’s outside talking to the senator. He looks
simply stunning, and he’s a whole lot of things on a staff--assistant
adjutant-general with the rank of a colonel; and he’s floated up here on
a dash against time to say good-by to us.”
Aladdin’s face puckered.
“You and Peter and I, Margaret,” he said, “Lord, what a muddle!”
“I’m terribly blue, old man,” said Margaret, “and it hurts to have you
say things like that.”
Instantly Aladdin was all concern.
“You know I wouldn’t hurt you purposely,” he said, “but I’m terribly
blue, too, dear, and one tries to keep up and says asinine things,
and”--he smiled, and his smile was very winning--“is at once forgiven by
an old dear.”
She held out her hand and gave his a friendly squeeze.
“You old darling!” he said, and ran out.
She followed him into the hall, and met Manners, who had just parted
from the senator at the front door. His uniform was wonderfully
becoming.
“Is it Peter?”
They shook hands.
“Never,” she said, “have I seen anything so beautiful!”
Peter blushed (looking even more beautiful, for he hated to be talked
about).
“Where was ‘Laddin going?” he said. “He went by me like a shot out of a
gun, and had only time to pull my hat over my eyes and squeal Peeeter.”
“He’s very important now,” said Margaret, “and wonders how anybody can
want to write things and be a poet or a musician when there are real
things to do in the world.”
Peter looked at his watch.
“Isn’t that the least bit rude?” said Margaret.
“No,” said Peter; “my train back leaves in one hour, and I could better
afford to lose my chances of heaven. I had no business to come, as it
was. But I had to come.”
Margaret sighed. She had hoped that it would not happen so soon. He
followed her into the parlor and closed the door behind him.
“First, Margaret,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something that may
surprise you a little. It did me; it was so sudden. My sister Ellen is
going to be married.”
“Ellen!” exclaimed Margaret. “Why, she always said--” “It’s only been
arranged in the last few days,” said Peter, “by many telegrams. I was
told to tell you.”
“Is he nice?”
“Yes. He’s a good chap.”
“Rich?”
“Well--rather rising than rich.”
“Who is it?”
“Your brother John.”
“My dear Peter--”
“No--I never did, either!”
“Isn’t that splendid!”
Peter pulled a grave face.
“Yes--and no,” he said.
“I hope you’re not going to be insolent,” said Margaret.
“It depends on what you call insolent. My father, you see, objects very
much to having Ellen go out of the family, but he says that he can learn
to bear that if the only other girl in the world will come into the
family.”
Manners’ voice had become husky toward the last of the sentence, and
perhaps not husky so much as hungry. Margaret knew better than to say
anything of the kind, but she couldn’t help looking as innocent as a
child and saying:
“Won’t she?”
“How do I know?” said Peter. “I have come to ask her.”
He looked so very strong and manly and frank that Margaret, whose world
had been terribly blue recently, was half tempted to throw herself into
his arms and cry.
“O Peter!” she said pitifully.
He came and sat beside her on the sofa, and drew her close to him.
“My darling,” he said brokenly.
A great sense of trust and security stole over Margaret, but she knew
that it was not love. Yet for a moment she hesitated, for she knew that
if she took this man, his arm would always be about her, and he would
always--always--always be good to her. As she sat there, not trusting
herself to speak, she had her first doubt of Aladdin, and she wondered
if he loved her as much--as much as he loved Aladdin. Then she felt like
a traitor.
For a little neither could find any words to say. So still they sat
that Margaret could hear the muffled ticking of Peter’s watch. At length
Peter spoke.
“What shall I tell my father?” he said.
“Tell him--” said Margaret, and her voice broke.
“Aren’t you sure, darling--is that it?”
She nodded with tears in her eyes.
He took his arm from round her waist, and she felt very lonely.
“But I’m always going to love you,” he said.
She felt still more alone.
“Peter,” she said, “I can’t explain things very well, but I--I--don’t
want you to go away feeling as if--”
Manners’ eyes lifted up.
“As if it was all over?” he asked eagerly.
“Almost that, Peter,” she said. “I--I can’t say yes now--but God knows,
Peter, perhaps sometime--I--I can.”
She was thinking of the flighty and moody Aladdin, who had loved her so
long, and whom (she suddenly realized in spite of the words just spoken)
she loved back with all her heart and soul.
Honor rose hot in her to give Peter a final answer now and forever--no.
But she looked into his eyes and could not. He looked at his watch.
“Margaret dear,” he said, “I’ve got to go. Thanks for everything, and
for the hope and all, and--and I may never see you again, but if I do,
will you give me my answer then?”
“I will,” said Margaret, “when I see you again.”
They rose.
“May I kiss you, Margaret?” he said.
“Certainly, Peter.”
He kissed her on the cheek, and went away with her tears on his lips.
A newly organized fife-and-drum corps marched by struggling with “The
Girl I Left Behind Me.”
In those days the most strangled rendering of that tune would bring
lumps into the throats of those that heard.
XXII
Hannible and Hamilton were privates in the nth regiment, Aladdin was
major, and John was colonel. If any of them had the slightest military
knowledge, it was Aladdin. Not in vain had he mastered the encyclopedia
from Safety-lamps to Stranglers. He could explain with strange words and
in long, balanced sentences everything about the British army that began
with an S, except only those things whose second letter stood farther
down in the alphabet than T. But the elements of knowledge kept dropping
in, at first on perfunctory calls, visitors that disappeared when you
turned to speak with them, but that later came to stay. The four young
men were like children with a “roll-the-seven-number-eight-shot-into-the
middle” puzzle. They could make a great rattling with the shot, and
control their tempers; that was about all. Later they were to form units
in the most efficient and intelligent large body of men that the world
ever saw, with the possible exception of the armies it was to be pitted
against; but those, it must be owned, were usually smaller, though, in
the ability of their commanders to form concentration, often of three
times the size. They learned that it is cheaper to let a company sleep
in tents upon hard ground of a rainy night than to lodge them in a
neighboring hotel at one’s own expense, and that going the rounds in
pitch-darkness grows less thrilling in exact ratio to the number of
times you do it, and finally, even in sight of the enemy’s lines,
becomes as boring as waltzing with a girl you don’t like. They began to
learn that cleanliness is next to godliness only in times of peace, and
that food is the one god, and the stomach his only prophet. They learned
that the most difficult of all duties is to keep the face straight when
the horse of a brother officer who mounts for the first time is
surprised to vehemence by its first experience with a brass band.
Aladdin was absolutely equal to the occasion, and developed an
astonishing talent for play-acting, and, it is to be feared, strutted a
little, both in the bosom of his soul and on the parade-ground. It was
only when he looked at two of the “tall men on the right,” Hamilton and
Hannibal St. John, who had chosen humble parts that they might serve
under their brother, that he felt properly small and resented himself.
Sometimes, too, he searched his past life and could find in it only
one brave deed, his swim down the river, and he wondered with an
awful wonder what he would do when the firing began. He need not have
troubled: he was of too curious and inquiring a disposition to be afraid
of most things. And he was yet to see proved on many Southern fields
that a coward is, if anything, a rarer bird than a white quail. Only
once in action did Aladdin see a man really show the white feather. The
man had gone into the army from a grocery-store, and was a very thin,
small specimen with a very big, bulbous head; and, like many others of
his class, proved to be a perfect fire-eater in battle, and a regular
buzzard to escape fever and find food. But during the famous seven days
before Richmond a retreat was ordered of a part of the line which the
Buzzard helped compose, and he was confronted by the necessity, for his
friends were hastening him from behind, of crossing a gully by means of
a somewhat slender fallen tree. It was then that Aladdin saw him show
fear. Bullets tore up the bark of the tree, and pine needles, clipped
from the trees overhead, fell in showers. But he did not mind that. It
was the slenderness and instability of the fallen tree that froze the
marrow in his bones: would it bear his one hundred and twenty-four
pounds, or would it precipitate him, an awful drop of ten feet, into the
softest of muds at the bottom of the gully, where a sickeningly striped
but in reality harmless water-snake lay coiled?
Finally, pale and shaking, he ventured on the log, got half-way across,
turned giddy, and fell with such a howl of terror that it was only
equaled in vehemence by the efforts of the snake to get out of the way.
After which the Buzzard picked himself up, scrambled out, and continued
his retreat, scraping his muddied boots among the fallen leaves as he
went. “Some talk of Alexander and some of Hercules,” but it may be that
an exceedingly giddy elevation coupled with a serpent would have
made shivering children of both those heroes. To each his own fear.
Margaret’s and Aladdin’s was the same they both feared Aladdin.
That afternoon the regiment was to leave for the front, and Aladdin went
to bid Margaret good-by. She and her father were still staying with the
Blankinships.
They had a very satisfactory talk, beginning with the beginning of
things, and going over their long friendship, laughing, remembering, and
regretting. Jack was to live with the St. Johns, and they talked much of
him, and of old Mrs. Brackett, and of affairs at home. Jack about this
time was in the seventh hell of despair, for his extreme youth had
prevented him from bringing to its triumphant conclusion a pleasant
little surprise, consisting of a blue uniform, which he had planned
for himself and others. No love of country stirred the bosom of the
guileless Jack; only hatred of certain books out of which he was obliged
to learn many useless things, such as reading, writing, spelling, and
arithmetic. Besides, word had come to him that persimmons were to be
had for the picking and chickens for the broiling in that country toward
which the troops were heading. And much also had he heard concerning
the beauty of Southern maidens, and of the striped watermelons in the
watermelon-patch. And so he was to be left behind, and God was not good.
Toward the end their talk got very serious.
“I’m going to turn over a new leaf,” said Aladdin, “and be better
things, Margaret, and you must save up a lot of pride to have in me if I
do, and perhaps it will all come right in the end.”
“You know how fond I am of you,” said Margaret, “and because I am, and
because you’re all the big things that are hard to be, I want you to be
all the little things that ought to be so easy to be. That doesn’t seem
very plain, but I mean--”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Aladdin. “Don’t you suppose I know
myself pretty well by this time, and how far I’ve got to climb before I
have a ghost of a right to tell you what I tell you every time I look at
you?”
Aladdin rose.
“Margaret,” he said, “this time I’m going like an old friend. If I make
good and live steady, as I mean to do, I shall come back like a lover.
Meanwhile you shall think all things over, and if you think that you can
care for me, you shall tell me so when I come back. And if you conclude
that you can’t, you shall tell me. I’m not going to ask you to marry me
now, because in no way am I in a position to. But if I come back and say
to you, ‘Margaret, I have turned into a man at last,’ you will know that
I am telling the truth and am in a position to ask anything I please.
For I shall come back without a cent, but with a character, and that’s
everything. I shall not drink any more, and every night I shall pray
to God to help me believe in Him. But, Margaret, I may not come back at
all. If I don’t it will be for one of two reasons. Either I shall fail
in becoming worthy to kiss the dust under your blessed feet, or I shall
be killed. In the first case, I beg that you will pray for me; but in
the second I pray that you will forget all that was bad in me and only
remember what was good. And so, darling--” his voice broke, “because I
am a little afraid of death and terribly afraid of myself--”
She came obediently into his arms, and knew what it was to be kissed by
the man she loved.
“Aladdin,” she said, “promise that nothing except--”
“Death?” said Aladdin.
“--that nothing, nothing except death--shall keep you from coming back.”
“If I live,” said Aladdin, “I will come back.”
Everybody of education knows that Lucy Locket lost her pocket and that
Betty Pringle found it without a penny “in it” (to rhyme with “found
it”), but everybody does not know that the aforementioned Lucy Locket
had a tune composed for her benefit that has thrilled the hearts of more
sons of the young republic when stepping to battle than any other tune,
past, present, or to come. There is a martial vigor and a tear in “The
Girl I Left Behind Me”; some feet cannot help falling into rhythm when
they hear the “British Grenadiers”; North and South alike are possessed
with a do-or-die madness when the wild notes of “Dixie” rush from the
brass; and “John Brown’s Body” will cause the dumb to sing. But it is
the farcical little quickstep known by the ridiculous name of “Yankee
Doodle” which the nations would do well to consider when straining the
patience of the peace-loving and United States.
And so they marched down the street to the station, and the tall men
walked on the right and the little men on the left, and the small boys
trotted alongside, and the brand-new flags flung out, and bouquets were
thrown, and there were cheers from the heart up all along the line. But
ever the saucy fifes sang, and the drums gaily beat
Yankee Doodle came to town
Riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his Hat,
And called it macaroni.
At the station the emotions attendant on departure found but one voice.
The mother said to the son what the sweetheart said to the lover, and
the sister to the brother. Nor was this in any manner different from
what the brother, lover, and son said to the sister, sweetheart, and
mother. It was the last sentence which bleeding hearts supply to lips at
moments of farewell:
“Write to me.”
And the supercilious little quickstep went on:
Yankee Doodle came to town
Riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his Hat,
And called it macaroni.
XXIII
A tongue of land with Richmond (built, like another capital beginning
with R, on many hills) for its major root, and a fortification vulgarly
supposed to be of the gentler sex for its tip, is formed by the yellow
flow of the James and York rivers. To land an army upon the tip of this
tongue, march the length of it and extract the root, after reducing it
to a reminiscence, was the wise plan of the powers early in the year
1862. To march an army of preponderous strength through level
and fertile country, flanked by friendly war-ships and backed by
unassailable credit; to meet and overcome a much smaller and far less
rich army, intrenched behind earthworks of doubtful formidableness, and
finally to besiege and capture an isolated city of more historic than
strategic advantages, seemed on the face of it as easy as rolling a
barrel downhill or eating when hungry. But the level, fertile country
was discovered to be very muddy, its supply of rain from heaven
unparalleled in nature, its streams as deadly as arsenic, and its
topography utterly different from that assigned to it in any known
geography. Furthermore, in its woods, and it was nearly all woods, dwelt
far more mosquitos than there are lost souls in Hades, and each mosquito
had a hollow spike in his head through which he not only could but would
squirt, with or without provocation, the triple compound essence of
malaria into veins brought up on oxygen, and on water through which you
could see the pebbles at the bottom. A bosom friend of the mosquito,
and some say his paramour, was little Miss Tick. Of the two she was
considerably the more hellish, and forsook her dwelling-places in the
woods for the warm flesh of soldiers where it is rosiest, next the skin.
The body, arms, and legs of Miss Tick could be scratched to nothing by
poisonous finger-nails, but her detached head was eternal, and through
eternity she bit and gnawed and sometimes laughed in the hollow of her
black soul. For the horses, mules, and cattle there were shrubs which
disagreed with them, and gigantic horse-flies. And for the general at
the head of the vast body of irritation there was an opposing army
whose numbers he overrated, and whose whereabouts he kept discovering
suddenly. It is said that during the Peninsular campaign the buzzards
were so well nourished that they raised a second brood.
While the army was still in the vicinity of Fort Monroe, numbers of
officers secured leave to ride over to Newport News and view the traces
of the recent and celebrated naval fight, which was to relegate wooden
battle-ships to the fireplace. Aladdin was among those to go. At this
time he was in great spirits, for it had been brought home to him
that he was one of the elect, one of those infinitely rare and godlike
creatures whom mosquitos do not bite nor ticks molest. His nights were
as peaceful as the grave, and the poisonous drinking-waters glanced from
his rubber constitution. Besides, he had forsaken his regimental duties
to enjoy a life of constant variety upon the staff of a general, and had
begun to feel at home on horseback. It was one of those radiant, smiling
days, which later on were to become rarer than charity, and the woods
were positively festive with sunshine. And the temperature was precisely
that which brings to a young man’s fancy thoughts of love. So that it
was in the nature of a shock to come suddenly upon the shore and behold
for the first time the finality of war. There was no visible glory
about it. What had happened to the Cumberland and the Congress was
disappointingly like what would happen to two ships destroyed in shallow
water. The masts of the Cumberland, slightly off the vertical and still
rigged, projected for half their length from the yellow surface of the
river. That was all. Some distance to the left and half submerged was a
blackened and charred mass that bore some resemblance to a ship that had
once been proud and tall, and known by the name of Congress. That
was all. Aladdin had hoped that war would be a little more like the
pictures.
As he rode back, pondering, toward the encampment, however, he came upon
something which was truly an earnest of what was to come. There were so
many buzzards perched in the trees of a certain wood that he turned in
to see what they had. He came upon it suddenly, just beyond a cheerful
bush of holly, and the buzzards stepped reluctantly back until he had
looked. It was only a horse. Some of the buzzards, heavy with food,
raised their eyelids heavily and looked at Aladdin, and then lapsed
back into filthy sleep. Others, not yet satiated, looked upon him
querulously, and suggested as much as looks can suggest that he go, and
trouble them no more. Others, the newly arrived and ravenous, swooped
above the trees, so that dark circles were drawn over the fallen
sunlight. Now a buzzard opened and closed its wings, and now one looked
from the horse to Aladdin, and back, fretfully, to the horse. There
seemed to be hundreds of them, dark and dirty, with raw heads and
eyelids. Aladdin sat solemn and motionless upon his horse, but he could
feel the cold sweat of horror running down his sides from under his
arms, and the bristling of his hair. He wanted to make a great noise, to
shout, to do anything, but he did not dare. It would have been breaking
the rules. In that assembly no sound was allowed, for the meeting was
unholy and wicked and worked with hurried stealth, so that the attention
of God should not be drawn. Aladdin knew that he had no right to be
there, that without knocking he had entered the bedroom of horror and
found her naked in the arms of lust. He turned and rode away shivering
and without looking back. He had not ridden the distance between two
forest trees before the carcass was again black with the descending
birds, and the blood streamed to their bills.
The Peninsular campaign developed four kinds of men: the survivors, the
wounded, the dead, and the missing. When the campaign was over Aladdin
sometimes woke starting in the night to think of those missing and of
what he had seen in the woods.
XXIV
The tedious locomotion of an army and the incessant reluctance of
the battle to be met will try a sinner; but a scarcity of tobacco and
constantly wet feet will try a saint. Aladdin was somewhat of both. But
in the fidgety gloom which presently settled upon man and beast, his,
great Irish gift of cheerfulness shone like a star. He even gave up
longing for promotion, and strained his mind to the cracking-point for
humorous verses and catching tunes. He went singing up the Peninsula,
and thumped the gay banjo by the camp-fire, and was greatly beloved by
the foot-sore and sick. He had given up worrying about what he would do
in battle, for there were much more important things to think about.
Battles are to soldiers what Christmas trees are to children: you must
wait, wait, and wait for them, and forever wait; and when they do come
the presents are apt to be a little tawdry. And you are only envied by
the other little children who didn’t really see what you really got. The
most comforting man in the army was one minister of the gospel, and
the most annoying was another. The first had the divine gift of
story-telling and laughter, and the second thanked God because the
soldiers had run out of their best friend, tobacco, which he described
through his nose as “filthy weed,” “vile narcotic,” or “pernicious
hell-plant.” And they both served the Lord as hard as they could--and
they both suffered from dysentery.
As the days passed and the temperature of the army rose, and its
digestion became permanently impaired, Aladdin, by giving out, and
constantly, all that was best in himself, became gradually exhausted.
He found himself telling stories as many as three times to the same man,
and he began to steal from the poets and musicians that he knew in order
to keep abreast of his own original powers of production. He even went
so far as to draw inspiration from men of uneven heights stood in line:
he would hum the intervals as scored by their heads on an imaginary
staff and fashion his tune accordingly, but this tended to a somewhat
compressed range and was not always happy in its results. His efforts,
however, were appreciated, and the emaciated young Irishman became a
most exceptional prophet, and received honor in his own land.
For the rest, being a staff-officer, he was kept busy and rode hundreds
of extra miles through the rain. It was a large army, as inexperienced
as it was large, and it stood in great need of being kept in contact
with itself. If you lived at one end of it and wanted to know what was
going on at the other end, you had to travel about as far as from New
York to New Haven. The army proper, marching by fours, stretched away
through the wet lands for forty miles. A fly-bitten tail of ambulances
and wagons, with six miserable horses or six perfectly happy mules
attached to each, added another twenty miles. At the not always attained
rate of fifteen miles a day the army could pass a given point in four
days. To the gods in Olympus it would have appeared to have all the
characteristic color and shape of an angleworm, without, however,
enjoying that reptile’s excellent good health. If the armies of
Washington, Cornwallis, Clive, Pizarro, Cortes, and Christian de Wet had
been added to it, they would have passed unnoticed in the crowd. And the
recurring fear of the general in command of this army was that the army
he sought would prove to be twice as big. So speculation was active
between the York and James rivers.
In the minds of the soldiers a thousand years passed, and then there was
a little fight, and they learned that they were soldiers. And so did
the other army. Another thousand years passed, and it seemed tactful to
change bases. Accordingly, that which had been arduously established on
a muddy river called the Chickahominy (and it was very far from either
of those two good things) was forsaken, and the host began to be moved
toward the James. This move would have been more smoothly accomplished
if the enemy had not interfered. They, however, insisted upon making
history, turning a change of base into a nominal retreat, and begetting
in themselves a brass-bound and untamable spirit which it took vast
wealth and several years to humble. From Gaines’s Mill to the awful brow
of Malvern Hill there were thunder and death. Forty thousand men were
somewhat needlessly killed, wounded, or (as one paradoxical account has
it) “found missing.”
Aladdin missed the fight at Malvern Hill and became wounded in a
non-bellicose fashion. His general desired to make a remark to another
general, and writing it on a piece of thin yellow paper, gave it to him
to deliver. He rode off to the tune of axes,--for a Maine regiment
was putting in an hour in undoing the stately work of a hundred
years,--trotted fifteen miles peacefully enough, delivered his general’s
remark, and started back. Then came night and a sticky mist. Then the
impossibility of finding the way. Aladdin rode on and on, courageously
if not wisely, and came in time to the dimly discernible outbuildings of
a Virginia mansion. They stood huddled dark and wet in the mist, which
was turning to rain, and there was no sign of life in or about them.
Aladdin passed them and turned into an alley of great trees. By looking
skyward he could keep to the road they bounded. As he drew near the
mansion itself a great smell of box and roses filled his nostrils with
fragrance. But to him, standing under the pillared portico and knocking
upon the door, came no word of welcome and no stir of lights. He gave
it up in disgust, mounted, and rode back through the rich mud to the
stables. Had he looked over his shoulder he might have seen a face at
one of the windows of the house.
He found a door of one of the stables unlocked, and went in, leading his
horse. Within there was a smell of hay. He closed the door behind him,
unsaddled, and fell to groping about in the dark. He wanted several
armfuls of that hay, and he couldn’t find them. The hay kept calling to
his nose, “Here I am, here I am”; but when he got there, it was hiding
somewhere else. It was like a game of blindman’s-buff. Then he heard
the munching of his horse and knew that the sought was found. He moved
toward the horse, stepped on a rotten planking, and fell through the
floor. Something caught his chin violently as he went through, and in
a pool of filthy water, one leg doubled and broken under him, he passed
the night as tranquilly as if he had been dosed with laudanum.
XXV
Aladdin came to consciousness in the early morning. He was about as sick
as a man can be this side of actual dissolution, and the pain in his
broken leg was as sharp as a scream. He lay groaning and doubled in
the filthy half-inch of water into which he had fallen. About him was
darkness, but overhead a glimmer of light showed a jagged and cruel
hole in the planking of the stable floor. Very slowly, for his agony was
unspeakable, he came to a realization of what had happened. He called
for help, and his voice was thick and unresonant, like the voice of a
drunken man. His horse heard him and neighed. Now and again he lapsed
into semi-unconsciousness, and time passed without track. Hours passed,
when suddenly the glimmer above him brightened, and he heard light
footsteps and the cackling of hens. He called for help. Instantly there
was silence. It continued a long time. Then he heard a voice like soft
music, and the voice said, “Who’s there?”
A shadow came between him and the light, and a fair face that was
darkened looked down upon him.
“For God’s sake take care,” he said. “Those boards are rotten.”
“You ‘re a Yankee, aren’t you?” said the voice, sweetly.
“Yes,” said Aladdin, “and I’m badly hurt.”
The voice laughed.
“Hurt, are you?” it said.
“I think I’ve broken my leg,” said Aladdin. “Can you get some one to
help me out of this?”
“Reckon you’re all right down there,” said the voice.
Aladdin revolved the brutality of it in his mind.
“Do you mean to say that you’re not going to help me?” he said.
“Help you? Why should I?”
Aladdin groaned, and could have killed himself for groaning.
“If you don’t help me,” he said, and his voice broke, for he was
suffering tortures, “I’ll die before long.”
A perfectly cool and cruel “Well?” came back to him.
“You won’t help me?”
“No.”
Anger surged in his heart, but he spoke with measured sarcasm.
“Then,” he said, “will you at least do me the favor of getting from
between me and God’s light? If I die, I may go to hell, but I prefer not
to see devils this side of it, thank you.”
The girl went away, but presently came back. She lowered something to
him on a string. “I got it out of one of your holsters,” she said.
Aladdin’s fingers closed on the butt of a revolver.
“It may save you a certain amount of hunger and pain,” she said. “When
you are dead, we will give it to one of our men, and your horse too.
He’s a beauty.”
“I hope to God he may--” began Aladdin.
“Pretty!” said the girl.
She went away, and he heard her clucking to the chickens. After a time
she came back. Aladdin was waiting with a plan.
“Don’t move,” he said, “or you’ll be shot.”
“Rubbish!” said the girl. She leaned casually back from the hole, and
he could hear her moving away and clucking to the chickens. Again she
returned.
“Thank you for not shooting,” she said.
There was no answer.
“Are you dead?” she said.
When he came to, there was a bright light in Aladdin’s eyes, for a
lantern swung just to the left of his head.
“I thought you were dead,” said the girl, still from her point of
advantage. The lantern’s light was in her face, too, and Aladdin saw
that it was beautiful.
“Won’t you help me?” he said plaintively.
“Were you ever told that you had nice eyes?” said the girl.
Aladdin groaned.
“It bores you to be told that?”
“My dear young lady,” said Aladdin, “if you were as kind as you are
beautiful--”
“How about your horse kicking me to a certain place? That was what you
started to say, you know.”
“Lady--lady,” said Aladdin, “if you only knew how I’m suffering, and I’m
just an ordinary young man with a sweetheart at home, and I don’t want
to die in this hole. And now that I look at you,” he said, “I see that
you’re not so much a girl as an armful of roses.”
“Are you by any chance--Irish?” said the girl, with a laugh.
“Faith and of ahm that,” said Aladdin, lapsing into full brogue; “oi’m a
hireling sojer, mahm, and no inimy av yours, mahm.”
“What will you do for me if I help you?” said the girl.
“Anything,” said Aladdin.
“Will you say ‘God save Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate
States of America,’ and sing ‘Dixie’--that is, if you can keep a tune.
‘Dixie’ ‘s rather hard.”
“I’ll ‘God bless Jefferson Davis and every future President of the
Confederate States, if there are any,’ ten million times, if you’ll help
me out, and--”
“Will you promise not to fight any more?”
A long silence.
“No.”
“You needn’t do the other things either,” said the girl, presently. Her
voice, oddly enough, was husky.
“I thought it would be good to see a Yankee suffer,” she said after a
while, “but it isn’t.”
“If you could let a ladder down,” said Aladdin, “I might be able to get
up it.”
“I’ll get one,” said the girl. Then she appeared to reflect. “No,” she
said; “we must wait till dark. There are people about, and they’d kill
you. Can you live in that hole till dark?”
“If you could throw down a lot of hay,” said Aladdin. “It’s very wet
down here and hard.”
The girl went, and came with a bundle of hay.
“Look out for the lantern,” she called, and threw the hay down to
him. She brought, in all, seven large bundles and was starting for the
eighth, when, by a special act of Providence, the flooring gave again,
and she made an excellent imitation of Aladdin’s shute on the previous
evening. By good fortune, however, she landed on the soft hay and was
not hurt beyond a few scratches.
“Did you notice,” she said, with a little gasp, “that I didn’t scream?”
“You aren’t hurt, are you?” said Aladdin.
“No,” she said; “but--do you realize that we can’t get out, now?”
She made a bed of the hay.
“You crawl over on that,” she said.
Aladdin bit his lips and groaned as he moved.
“It’s really broken, isn’t it?” said the girl. Aladdin lay back gasping.
“You poor boy,” she said.
XXVI
The girl borrowed Aladdin’s pocket-knife and began whittling at a
fragment of board. Then she tore several yards of ruffle from her white
petticoat, cut his trouser leg off below the knee, cut the lacings of
his boot, and bandaged his broken leg to the splint she had made. All
that was against a series of most courteous protests, made in a tearful
voice.
When she had done, Aladdin took her hand in his and kissed the fingers.
“They’re the smallest sisters of mercy I ever saw,” said he. She made no
attempt to withdraw her hand.
“It was stupid of me to fall through,” she said.
“Isn’t there any possible way of getting out?”
“No; the walls are stone.”
“O Lord!” said Aladdin.
“I’m glad I repented before I fell through,” said the girl.
“So am I,” said Aladdin.
“What were you doing in our stable?” said the girl.
“I got lost, and came in for shelter.”
“You came to the house first. I heard you knocking, and saw you from the
window. But I wouldn’t let you in, because my father and brother were
away, and besides, I knew you were a Yankee.”
“It was too dark to see my uniform.”
“I could tell by the way you rode.”
“Is it as bad as that?”
“No--but it’s different.”
The girl laid her hand on Aladdin’s forehead.
“You’ve got fever,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Aladdin, politely.
“Does your leg hurt awfully?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Did any one ever tell you that you were very civil for a Yankee?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Aladdin.
She looked at him shrewdly, and saw that the light of reason had gone
out of his eyes. She wetted her handkerchief with the cold, filthy water
spread over the cellar floor and laid it on his forehead. Aladdin spoke
ramblingly or kept silence. Every now and then the girl freshened the
handkerchief, and presently Aladdin fell into a troubled sleep.
When he awoke his mind was quite clear. The lantern still burned, but
faintly, for the air in the cellar was becoming heavy. Beside him on
the straw the girl lay sleeping. And overhead footsteps sounded on the
stable floor. He remembered what the girl had said about the people who
would kill him if they found him, and blew out the lantern. Then, his
hand over her mouth, he waked the girl.
“Don’t make a noise,” he said. “Listen.”
The girl sat up on the straw.
“I’ll call,” she whispered presently, “and pretend you’re not here.”
“But the horse?”
“I’ll lie about him.”
She raised her voice.
“Who’s there?” she called.
“It’s I--Calvert. Where are you?”
“Listen,” she answered; “I’ve fallen through the floor into the cellar.
Don’t you see where it’s broken?”
The footsteps approached.
“You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No; but don’t come too close, don’t try to look down; the floor’s
frightfully rickety. Isn’t there a ladder there somewhere?”
A man laughed.
“Wait,” he said. They heard his footsteps and laughter receding.
Presently the bottom of a ladder appeared through the hole in the floor.
“Look out for your head,” said the man.
The girl rose and guided the ladder clear of Aladdin’s head.
“What have you done with the Yankee’s horse?” she called.
“He’s here.”
“Where’s the Yankee, do you suppose?”
“We think he must have run off into the woods.”
“That’s what I thought.”
The girl began to mount the ladder.
“I’m coming up,” she said.
She disappeared, and the ladder was withdrawn.
She came back after a long time, and there were men with her.
“It’s all right, Yankee,” she called down the hole. “They’re your own
men, and I’m the prisoner now.”
The ladder reappeared, and two friendly men in blue came down into the
cellar.
“Good God!” they said. “It’s Aladdin O’Brien!”
Hannibal St. John and Beau Larch lifted Aladdin tenderly and took him
out of his prison.
Outside, tents were being pitched in the dark, and there was a sound of
axes. Fires glowed here and there through the woods and over the fields,
and troops kept pouring into the plantation. They laid Aladdin on a heap
of hay and went to bring a stretcher. The girl sat down beside him.
“You’ll be all right now,” she said.
“Yes,” said Aladdin.
“And go home to your sweetheart.”
“Yes,” said Aladdin, and he thought of the tall violets on the banks of
the Maine brooks, and the freshness of the sea.
“What is her name?” said the girl.
“Margaret,” said Aladdin.
“Mine’s Ellen,” said the girl, and it seemed as if she sighed.
Aladdin took her hand.
“You ‘ve been very good to me,” he said, and his voice grew tender, for
she was very beautiful, “and I’ll never forget you,” he said.
“Oh, me!” said the girl, and there was a silence between them.
“I tried to help you,” said the girl, faintly, “but I wasn’t very good
at it.”
“You were an angel,” said Aladdin.
“I don’t suppose we’ll ever see each other again, will we?” said the
girl.
“I don’t know,” said Aladdin. “Perhaps I’ll come back some day.”
“It’s very silly of me--” said the girl.
“What?” said Aladdin.
“Nothing.”
He closed his eyes, for he was very weak. It seemed as if a great
sweetness came close to his face, and he could have sworn that something
wet and hot fell lightly on his forehead; but when he opened his eyes,
the girl was sitting aloof, her face in the shadow.
“I dreamed just then,” said Aladdin, “that something wonderful happened
to me. Did it?”
“What would you consider wonderful?”
Aladdin laid a finger on his forehead; he drew it away and saw that the
tip was wet.
“I couldn’t very well say,” he said.
The girl bent over him.
“It nearly happened,” she said.
“You are very wonderful and beautiful,” said Aladdin.
Her eyes were like stars, and she leaned closer.
“Are you going to go on fighting against my people?” she said.
Roses lay for a moment on his lips.
“Are you?”
He made no sign. If she had kissed him again he would have renounced his
birthright and his love.
“God bless and keep you, Yankee,” she said.
Tears rushed out of Aladdin’s eyes.
“They’re coming to take you away,” she said. “Good-by.”
“Kiss me again,” said Aladdin, hoarsely.
She looked at him quietly for some moments.
“And your sweetheart?” she said.
Aladdin covered his face with his arm.
“Poor little traitor,” said the girl, sadly. She rose and, without
looking back, moved slowly up the road toward the house.
Nor did Aladdin ever see her again, but in after years the smell of box
or roses would bring into his mind the wonderful face of her, and the
music of her voice.
In the delirium which was upon him all that night, he harped to the
surgeon of Ellen, and in the morning fell asleep.
“Haec olim meminisse juvabit,” said the surgeon, as rain-clouded dawn
rose whitely in the east.
XXVII
Aladdin was jolted miserably down the Peninsula in a white ambulance,
which mules dragged through knee-deep mud and over flowing, corduroy
roads. He had fever in his whole body, anguish in one leg, and hardly a
wish to live. But at Fort Monroe the breezes came hurrying from the sea,
like so many unfailing doctors, and blew his fever back inland where
it belonged. He lay under a live-oak on the parade ground and once more
received the joy of life into his heart. When he was well enough to limp
about, they gave him leave to go home; and he went down into a ship,
and sailed away up the laughing Chesapeake, and up the broad Potomac to
Washington. There he rested during one night, and in the morning took
train for New York. The train was full of sick and wounded going home,
and there was a great cheerfulness upon them all. Men joined by the
brotherhood of common experience talked loudly, smoked hard, and drank
deep. There was tremendous boasting and the accounting of unrivaled
adventures. In Aladdin’s car, however, there was one man who did not
join in the fellowship, for he was too sick. He had been a big man and
strong, but he looked like a ghost made of white gossamer and violet
shadows. His own mother would not have recognized him. He lay back
into the corner of a seat with averted face and closed eyes. The more
decent-minded endeavored, on his account, to impose upon the noisy a
degree of quiet, but their efforts were unavailing. Aladdin, drumming
with his nails upon the windowpane, fell presently into soft song:
Give me three breaths of pleasure
After three deaths of pain,
And make me not remeasure
The ways that were in vain.
Men grew silent and gathered to hear, for Aladdin’s fame as a maker of
songs had spread over the whole army, and he was called the Minstrel
Major. He felt his audience and sang louder. The very sick man turned
a little so that he, too, could hear. Only the occasional striking of
a match or the surreptitious drawing of a cork interrupted. The stately
tune moved on:
The first breath shall be laughter,
The second shall be wine;
And there shall follow after
A kiss that shall be mine.
Somehow all the homing hearts were set to beating.
Roses with dewfall laden
One garden grows for me;
I call them kisses, maiden,
And gather them from thee.
The very sick man turned fully, and there was a glad light of
recognition in his eyes.
Give me three kisses only--
Then let the storm break o’er
The vessel beached and lonely
Upon the lonely shore.
If Aladdin’s singing ever moved anybody particularly, it was Aladdin,
and that was why it moved other people. He sang on with tears in his
voice
Give me three breaths of pleasure
After three deaths of pain,
And I will no more treasure
The hopes that are in vain.
There was silence for a moment, more engaging than applause, and then
applause. Aladdin was in his element, and he wondered what he would
best sing next if they should ask him to sing again, and this they
immediately did. The train was jolting along between Baltimore and
Philadelphia. There was much beer in the bellies of the sick and
wounded, and much sentiment in their hearts. Aladdin’s finger was always
on the pulse of his audience, and he began with relish:
Oh, shut and dark her window is
In the dark house on the hill,
But I have come up through the lilac walk
To the lilt of the whippoorwill,
With the old years tugging at my hands
And my heart which is her heart still.
There was another man in the car whose whole life centered about a house
on a hill with a lilac walk leading up to it. He was the very sick man,
and a shadow of red color came into his cheeks.
They said, “You must come to the house once more,
Ere the tale of your years be done,
You must stand and look up at her window again,
Ere the sands of your life are run,
As the night-time follows the lost daytime,
And the heart goes down with the sun.”
There were tears in the very sick man’s eyes, for the future was hidden
from him. Aladdin sang on:
Though her window be darkest of every one,
In the dark house on the hill,
Yet I turn to it here from this ruin of grass,
She has leaned on that window’s sill,
And dark it is, but there is, there is
An echo of light there still!
There was great applause from the drunk and sentimental. And Aladdin
lowered his eyes until it was over. When he raised them it was to
encounter those of the very sick man. Aladdin sprang to his feet with a
cry and went limping down the aisle.
“Peter,” he cried, “by all that’s holy!”
All the tenderness of the Celt gushed into Aladdin’s heart as he
realized the pitiful condition and shocking emaciation of his friend. He
put his arm gently about him, and thus they sat until the journey’s end.
In New York they separated.
Aladdin rested that night and boarded an early morning train for Boston.
He settled himself contentedly behind a newspaper, and fell to gathering
news of the army. But it was difficult to read. A sentence beginning
like this: “Rumors of a savage engagement between the light horse
under” would shape itself like this: “I am going to see Margaret
to-morrow--to-morrow--to-morrow--I am going to see Margaret
to-morrow-tomorrow--and God is good--is good--is good.”
Oddly enough, there was another man in the car who was having precisely
the same difficulty in deciphering his newspaper. At about the same
time they both gave up the attempt; and their eyes met. And they laughed
aloud. And presently, seated together, they fell into good talk, but
each refrained pointedly from asking the other where he was going.
With a splendid assumption of innocence, they drove together across
Boston, and remarking nothing on the coincidence, each distinctly heard
the other checking his luggage for Portland, Maine.
Side by side they rolled out of Portland and saw familiar trees and
hills go by. Presently Aladdin chuckled:
“Where are you going, Peter, anyway?” he said.
“Just where you are,” said Peter.
XXVIII
“Peter,” said Aladdin, presently, “it seems to me that for two such old
friends we are lacking in confidence. I know precisely what you are
thinking about, and you know precisely what I am. We mustn’t play the
jealous rivals to the last; and to put it plainly, Peter, if God is
going to be good to you instead of me, why, I’m going to try and thank
God just the same. A personal disappointment is a purely private matter
and has no license to upset old ties and affections. Does it occur to
you that we are after the same thing and that one of us isn’t going to
get it?”
“We won’t let it make any difference,” said Peter, stoutly.
“That’s just it,” said Aladdin. “We mustn’t.”
“The situation--” Peter began.
“Is none the less difficult, I know. Here we are with a certain amount
of leave to occupy as we each see fit. And, unfortunately, there’s only
one thing which seems fit to either of us. And, equally unfortunately,
it’s something we can’t hold hands and do at the same time. Shall I go
straight from the station to Mrs. Brackett’s and wait until you’ve had
your say, Peter?--not that I want to wait very long,” he added.
“That wouldn’t be at all fair,” said Peter.
“Do you mind,” said Aladdin after a pause, “telling me about what your
chances are?”
Peter reddened uncomfortably.
“I’m afraid they’re not very good, ‘Laddin,” he said. “She--she said
she wasn’t sure. And that’s a good deal more apt to mean nothing than
everything, but I can’t straighten my life out till I’m sure.”
“My chances,” said Aladdin, critically, “shouldn’t by rights be anywhere
near as good as yours, but as long as they remain chances I feel just
the same as you do about yours, and want to get things straightened out.
But if I were any kind of a man, I’d drop it, because I’m not in her
class.”
“Nonsense,” said Peter.
“No, I’m not,” said Aladdin, gloomily. “I know that. But, Peter, what is
a man going to do, a single, solitary, pretty much good-for-nothing man,
with three great bouncing Fates lined up against him?”
Peter laughed his big, frank laugh.
“Shall we chuck the whole thing,” said Aladdin, “until it’s time to go
back to the army?”
“No,” said Peter, “that would be shirking; it’s got to be settled one
way or another very quickly.” He became grave again.
“I think so, too, Peter,” said Aladdin. “And I think that if she takes
one of us it will be a great sorrow for the other.”
“And for her,” said Peter, quietly.
“Perhaps,” said Aladdin, whimsically, “she won’t take either of us.”
“That,” said Peter, “should be a great sorrow for us both.”
“I know,” said Aladdin. “Anyway, there’s got to be sorrow.”
“I think I shall bear it better,” said Peter, “if she takes you,
‘Laddin.”
A flash of comparison between his somewhat morbid and warped self and
the bigness and nobility of his friend passed through Aladdin’s mind. He
glanced covertly at the strong, emaciated face beside him, and noted the
steadiness and purity of the eyes. A little quixotic flame, springing
like an orchid from nothing, blazed suddenly in his heart, and for the
instant he was the better man of the two.
“I hope she takes you, Peter,” he said.
They rolled on through the midsummer woods, heavy with bright leaves and
waist-deep with bracken; little brooks, clean as whistles, piped away
among immaculate stones, and limpid light broken by delicious shadows
fell over all.
“Who shall ask her first?” said Aladdin. Peter smiled. “Shall we toss
for it?” said Aladdin. Peter laughed gaily. “Do you really want it to be
like that?” he said.
“What’s the use of our being friends,” said Aladdin, “if we are not
going to back each other up in this of all things?”
“Right!” said Peter. “But you ought to have the first show because you
mentioned it first.”
“Rubbish!” said Aladdin. “We’ll toss, but not now; we’ll wait till we
get there.”
Peter looked at his watch.
“Nearly in,” he said.
“Yes,” said Aladdin. “I know by the woods.”
“Did you telegraph, by any chance?” said Peter. “Because I didn’t.”
“Nor I,” said Aladdin; “I didn’t want to be met.”
“Nor I,” said Peter.
“The sick man and the lame man will take hands and hobble up the hill,”
said Aladdin. “And whatever happens, they mustn’t let anything make any
difference.”
“No,” said Peter, “they mustn’t.”
XXIX
Our veterans walked painfully through the town and up the hill; nor were
they suffered to go in peace, for right and left they were recognized,
and people rushed up to shake them by the hands and ask news of such an
one, and if Peter’s bullet was still in him, and if it was true, which
of course they saw it wasn’t, that Aladdin had a wooden leg. Aladdin,
it must be owned, enjoyed these demonstrations, and in spite of his
lameness strutted a little. But Peter, white from the after effects of
his wound and weary with the long travel, did not enjoy them at all.
Then the steep pitch of the hill was almost too much for him, and now
and again he was obliged to stop and rest.
The St. Johns’ house stood among lilacs and back from the street by the
breadth of a small garden. In the rear were large grounds, fields, and
even woods. The place had two entrances, one immediately in front of the
house for people on foot, and the other, a quarter of a mile distant,
for people driving. This latter, opening from a joyous country lane
of blackberry-vines and goldenrod, passed between two prodigious round
stones, and S-ed into a dark and stately wood. Trees, standing gladly
where God had set them, made a screen, impenetrable to the eye, between
the gateway and the house.
Here Peter and Aladdin halted, while Aladdin sent a coin spinning into
the air.
“Heads!” called Peter.
Aladdin let the piece fall to the ground, and they bent over it eagerly.
“After you,” said Peter, for the coin read, “Tails.”
Aladdin picked up the coin, and hurled it far away among the trees.
“That’s our joint sacrifice to the gods, Peter,” he said.
Peter gave him five cents.
“My share,” he said.
“Peter,” said Aladdin, “I will ask her the first chance I get, and if
there’s nothing in it for me, I will go away and leave the road clear
for you. Come.”
“No,” said Peter; “you’ve got your chance now. And here I wait until you
send me news.”
“Lord!” said Aladdin, “has it got to be as sudden as this?”
“Let’s get it over,” said Peter.
“Very good,” said Aladdin. “I’ll go. But, Peter, whatever happens, I
won’t keep you long in suspense.”
“Good man,” said Peter.
Aladdin turned his face to the house like a man measuring a distance. He
drew a deep breath.
“Well--here goes,” he said, and took two steps.
“Wait, ‘Laddin,” said Peter.
Aladdin turned.
“Can I have your pipe?”
“Of course.”
Aladdin turned over his pipe and pouch. “I’m afraid it’s a little
bitter,” he said.
Again he started up the drive; but Peter ran after him.
“‘Laddin,” he cried, “wait--I forgot something.”
Aladdin came back to meet him.
“Aladdin,” said Peter, “I forgot something.” He held out his hand, and
Aladdin squeezed it.
“Aladdin,” said Peter, “from the bottom of my heart I wish you luck.”
When they separated again there were tears in the eyes of both.
Just before the curtain of trees quite closed the view of the gate,
Aladdin turned to look at Peter. Peter sat upon one of the big stones
that marked the entrance, smoking and smoking. He had thrown aside his
hat, and his hair shone in the sun. There was a kind of wistfulness in
his poise, and his calm, pure eyes were lifted toward the open sky. A
great hero-worship surged in Aladdin’s heart, and he thought that there
was nothing that he would not do for such a friend. “He gave you your
life once,” said a little voice in Aladdin’s heart; “give him his. He is
worth a million of you; don’t stand in his way.”
Aladdin turned and went on, and the well-known house came into view, but
he saw only the splendid, wistful man at the gate, waiting calmly, as a
gentleman should, for life or death, and smoking smoking.
Even as he made his resolve, a lump of self-pity rose in Aladdin’s
throat. That was the old Adam in him, the base clay out of which springs
the fair flower of self-sacrifice.
He tried a variety of smiles, for he wished to be easy in the difficult
part which he had so suddenly, and in the face of all the old years,
elected to play. “He must know by the look of me,” said Aladdin, “that I
do not love her any more, for, God help me, I can’t say it.”
He found her on the broad rear veranda of the house. And instead of
going up to her and taking her in his arms,--for he had planned this
meeting often, as the stars could tell, he stood rooted, and said:
“Hallo, Margaret!”
He acted better than he knew, for the great light which had blazed for
one instant in her eyes on first seeing him went out like a snuffed
candle, and he did not see it or know that it had blazed. Therefore his
own cruelty was hidden from him, and his part became easier to play.
They shook hands, and even then, if he had not been blinded with the
egotism of self-sacrifice, he might have seen. That was his last chance.
For Margaret’s heart cried to her, “It is over,” and in believing it,
suddenly, and as she thought forever, an older sweetness came in her
face.
“You’ve changed, Aladdin,” she said.
“Yes, I’m thinner, if possible,” said Aladdin, “almost willowy. Do you
think it’s becoming?”
“I am not sure,” said Margaret. “The fact remains that I’m more than
glad to see you.”
Aladdin fumbled for speech.
“I’m still a little lame, you see,” he said apologetically, and took
several steps to show.
“Very!” said Margaret, in such a voice that Aladdin wondered what she
meant.
“But it doesn’t hurt any more.”
“Then that’s all right.”
“Where’s Jack?” he asked at length.
Margaret became very grave.
“I’m afraid we’ve betrayed our trust, Aladdin,” she said. “Because only
yesterday he slipped away and left a little note to say that he was
going to enlist. We’re very much distressed about it.”
“Perhaps it’s better so,” said Aladdin, “if he really wanted to go. Did
he leave any address?”
“None whatever; he simply vanished.”
“Ungrateful little brute!” said Aladdin. Then he bethought him of Peter.
“I’ll come back later, Margaret,” he said, “but it behooves me to go and
look up the good Mrs. Brackett.”
He hardly knew how he got out of the house. He felt like a criminal who
has been let off by the judge.
The sun was now low, and the shadows long and black. Aladdin found Peter
where he had left him, balancing on the great stone at the entrance, and
sending up clouds of smoke. He rose when he saw Aladdin, and he looked
paler and more worn. “Peter,” said Aladdin, “from the bottom of my heart
I wish you luck.”
Aladdin had never seen just such a look as came into Peter’s eyes; at
once they were full of infinite pity, and at peace with the whole world.
“Peter,” said Aladdin, “give me back my pipe.” His voice broke in spite
of himself, for he had given up golden things. “I--” he said, “I’ll wait
here a little while, but if--if all goes well, Peter, don’t you bother
to come back.”
They clasped hands long and in silence. Then Peter turned with a gulp,
and, his weakness a thing of the past, went striding up the driveway.
But Aladdin sat down to wait. And now a great piping of tree-frogs arose
in all that country. Aladdin waited for a long time. He waited until
the day gave way to twilight and the sun went down. He waited until the
twilight turned to dark and the stars came out. He waited until, after
all the years of waiting and longing, his heart was finally at peace.
And then he rose to go.
For Peter had not yet come.