“That’s partly what I am here for,” he replied. “You see, when the war
first broke out, George, our oldest, you must remember him, a silent,
good and thoughtful boy, was at the high school. All Vermont was alive
with the right sort of feeling, and all the men and boys—and some of the
women, I guess,—wanted to shoulder arms and go. We were expecting all
the time to hear that George was going, but hoped the other way, and
finally one morning in June he got out of the stage with his whole kit
of books and clothes, and told his mother, whose eyes had already filled
with tears, that he had come home to go; that all the big boys of the
school had held a meeting, and agreed to enlist in the ‘Third,’ and he
was going with them. Well, I thought his mother would sink into the
ground then and there, but she didn’t. George, you know, was her
favorite. He was always a reliable, duty-loving boy. She wiped her eyes,
took him in her arms, and, while her heart was breaking, kissed him, and
said: ‘I ‘spose you ought to go where right and your country calls, but
it will be awful hard for me to part with you. I don’t know how I’m
going to live with you in danger.’ The week he spent with us, I tell
you, it was like a great shadow in that old house. His mother kept
about, but her heart was breaking with terrible forebodings, and her
eyes were always filling with tears. When he had stayed his week out,
the last at the old home, we all drove over with him to the recruiting
station, and saw him sign his name to the roll of Company ——, Third
Regiment, Vermont Volunteers, ‘for three years, or during the war.’ In
three weeks the regiment left for the field; we went over to see him
off, and he was the only happy one of the family. We were filled with
unspeakable sadness; we saw them march away, and, as the old flag
disappeared round the corner of the road, his mother fainted, and fell
into my arms. She never saw a well day after that, but kind of lived on
like a machine, taking no interest in anything but the newspapers
bringing news from the war.
“George was just as good a boy in the army as he had always been at
home, wrote encouraging letters to his mother, filled with ideas about
duty, patriotism, and all that. But it did no good. She had made up her
mind she would never see him again, and, although alive, he was as good
as dead almost to her. When the Winter ended, the Vermont troops went
with the army to Yorktown, and then came the dreadful 16th of
April—Lees’ Mills. Three days after the fight some one sent a Boston
paper to us, which gave the news of the first advance having been made
by Companies —— and —— of the Third, and the terrible slaughter of the
men, but gave no names. His mother knew her son was killed, and two days
later a letter from his Captain told us how well he had done his duty,
and how bravely he had died. The strain was more than she could bear,
she took to her bed, and at the end of five weeks we buried them side by
side, and my happiness along with them. Now do you see why I’ve
changed?”
After a slight pause, he resumed: “I forgot to tell you,—the other boy,
the one who talked to you about the meeting-house steeple five hundred
feet high, enlisted in the same company as soon as he got old enough, is
sick in the hospital here now, and I want to take him back home, and
that’s what I’m here about. I want you to help me to get him out of the
Army. He was a new recruit when he saw his brother killed, and hasn’t
been well since. You know he never was a strong boy, but he would go to
war to be with George. He wouldn’t consent to his brother facing danger
all the time, while he was safe at home. He’s all I’ve got left, except
my old father, who can’t last much longer, and they tell me if I can get
you to go with me to General —— he’ll order his discharge.”
The sad story—one of many I had heard, touched me deeply. But I could
offer no consolation, such wounds as his were too deep to be reached by
words. All I could do was to change the current of sad thoughts and
extend the meagre hospitalities of the camp. Then the ride to the field
hospital, the interview with the once bright, happy boy I had seen seven
years before, now with the seal of death implanted upon his beautiful,
honest and manly face, then to headquarters, the handing over of his
discharge, and then the parting, with heavy heart, from one whose burden
of sorrow I had been able to lighten.
Opportunities to do these acts of kindness for those kindred of the
fallen, whose hearts were overburdened with mighty sorrows, were about
the only rays of sunshine which ever invaded the tent life of those
whose responsibilities were often more burdensome than the sorrows of
others, which they were so often called upon to assuage.
In the summer of 1865, during another visit to my native town, a longing
came over me to revisit the scene of the accident to the oats, and I
searched in vain for two companions to take the places of those of
twelve years before. But, so far as I could ascertain, there was not a
known saddle horse in the county, and the race of nobody’s dogs had gone
quite out of fashion; so I was compelled to adopt the “buggy,” and,
along with it, between its “fills,” a lively and “spunky” little
specimen of a Vermont Morgan, that learned after the first hours of
driving that there was a kind friend holding the reins, and with whom,
from that moment, cordial relations were established. A very easy drive
carried me to the “old home,” about noon of the second day, and, as I
drove up to the door, a kindly faced, frank-mannered woman of middle age
came out of the house, and asked me to alight, hitch, and walk in. As I
entered I asked where they all were? “Who do you mean by all?” queried
my hostess. I answered, “The C——s who lived here twelve years ago.”
She took me to an open window, and, pointing to the top of a “Meeting
House” spire that came just above the point of a rise in the ground,
said: “Just at the bottom of that steeple you’ll find them all, save my
uncle C——, the grandfather of the boys; they are all buried there, and,
if you want to renew your acquaintance with them, you’ll have to go over
there to do it. I’m the old maid of the whole family, and taught school
until I came here right after Cousin George’s death—he was the last of
the four—to take care of uncle, who was awfully broken up, and is to
this day. I guess nothing but death will ever mend his broken heart. He
wanders about with no object in life, always wishing for the end to
come. He’s out in the fields somewhere; he will be here pretty soon and
awful glad to see you. It seems to me he only cares now for those who
knew the four who lie buried over there. He lives in the past
altogether, and takes no interest in the present or future.”
A walk of five minutes through a meadow to a group of maples brought me
to the spot where I found, reclining beneath the shades, my acquaintance
of other days. At first he did not recognize me, and was a little
offish, but gradually became interested, and at last came to me with
both hands extended and with eyes filled with tears:
“I didn’t know ye at first, but I oughter have known that voice
anywhere. Your animals scart the drove into the oats, but you were so
good to us afterward. If it hadn’t been for you, ‘Vin’ would have died
in that ere hospital, for he didn’t live long after we got him home. Oh,
he was sich a comfort to us while he did live. I shall never forgit the
last days; and may God spare me from ever goin’ through any more like
’em.”
While we were walking toward the house, I learned that Vincent, the
youngest boy, lived five weeks after he was brought home; that the
father died the next autumn, and, although nearly three years had passed
since the culmination of the “Great Sorrow,” the atmosphere seemed
impregnated with it. The want of signs of life and movement without, and
the evidence of long continued quiet and order within, told as plainly
as words the story of an all-absorbing grief.
During the dinner, the incidents of the oats, the conversation with
“Vin” about the steeple, his desire to trade for the “Kaliker” horse,
and all that was said upon the occasion of our first meeting, was
rehearsed, without a single item being omitted. The meal finished, there
came the walk to the “Meeting House Burying Ground,” where I saw the
seven simple headstones standing for four generations. The first to Mary
Gale, wife of G. C.; the second to “George C., a soldier of the
Revolutionary War, born at Old Middlebury, Mass., June 12, 1756, died in
this town, March 7, 1833;” next to him came his daughter-in-law; then a
vacant space for his son—the second George, and then the graves of the
other four of the third and fourth generation.
I have seen men stand in such a presence without being moved, but I
could never quite understand how they did it. Upon this occasion
something got into my throat, and I could not speak; something else
filled both eyes, and I had to turn away to conceal a weakness which I
could not control.
As I turned toward my companions, the elder, pointing to the line
exclaimed; “Pretty soon there’ll be four generations of Georges in this
lot, and that’s about all there is to it, I guess. There couldn’t be any
design in takin’ all of ’em from me in so short a time. A merciful God
wouldn’t have done such a cruel thing; if a kind God had had anything to
do with it, he would let some of ’em outlive me to have been a comfort
in my old age and to have kept the old place where we were all born in
the family name. No, I don’t b’leve in sich kindness; all of ’em ought
to have lived; they were jest as good as they could be, not one of ’em
ever told a lie or did a mean thing as long as they lived. Then if they
were so good, as they were, and nobody can dispute it, why were they all
taken away from me so soon, and so many mean critters, good for nothing
to nobody, allowed to live? No, the ministers may talk to me from now to
the end of eternity, that their God, if he really does sich cruelties,
is merciful, and I won’t b’leve ’em. It’s all nonsense to murder a man
alive and break his old heart and call it merciful and all for the best.
There is no mercy or best about it, it’s all wrong from beginnin’ to
end, and I don’t b’leve the heathen’s god or anybody’s God could be so
cruel and unjust.
“My father battled from Bunker Hill ’till the last Red Coat had left the
land and then came here and began a new battle with the virgin forests
of Vermont. And ever sence I was born and old enough to work, my sweat
has watered this soil so dear to all of us. There’s not a foot of the
cleared part of this old farm I have not worked over, and the whole of
it is as sacred in my eyes as if it were a lordly estate handed down
from scores of generations before me. The boys loved it as I do and
liked to work over it. Now what does it all amount to? In a short time
when I have passed over yender to join the rest on ’em, the old place
will go into the hands of unfeeling strangers who’ll care no more about
it than savages. Most likely they’ll rob the soil and skin it of the
last spear of grass, and all these noble old trees that have been my
friends sence I was a boy, will be cut down to feed the nearest sawmill.
It’s astonishing, how mean most folks act toward natur! They treat her
as though she had no rights and forgit all about the good things she
gives us. But I suppose there is no good in sentiment if God is agin
ye.”
His niece interrupted him gently: “Come away, uncle, you are nervous and
excited and saying too much.”
“No, I’m not nervous or excited; I’m saying what I b’leve, and I want
everybody to know it. Look at those graves holding all I had in the
world, and no one had better, and then tell me if I have no cause to
complain?”