sume 15teen or 16teen leturs and hev not reseved but 3
leturs from you yet sences i have been in the servise
"And i wante you to write to me in answer to this letur and
let me know what you meane to doe and ef you donte intend
writin why jess say so.
"i suppose because you didente get no munny you wonte write
but ef that has insulted you i will stope to. i hope that
you may understand this.
"And i know what i say. you hev never writen to me. you
havente let me known whether you got that munny I sent you
by Edwurd Towns or no. you heve never sent me enny word
whether you got the munny or no. it is pay day nowe but they
donte wante to pay us but 7 dollurs pur munthe and thats
what i didente inlist fore. and i wonte take it. i shall
wait til congres ses what we are to hev. thats the reason i
havente got no munny to send you.
"i donte intend to stope a writin until i give you a fare
chance and then ef i donte get enny more leturs than i hev i
shall stope writin before long for ef you are mad i am
tired. i shall write so as to heare from my childrun i know
that you think i might send you some munny but ef we donte
get it we cante send it. i hope that you may doe well and
that I may see you againe.
"my deare bruther Samul Stores will you please giv this to
my deare wief and reade it to hur and write to me ef you
please. give my luv to everry boddy. and ef you see my
muther please to giv luv to hur and tell hur that i am not
well at preasante. i am verry weake at preasante. and i
donte kepe well long at a time. and i donte know how i shall
apeare in your preasance. giv my luv to everry boddy. and
tell them to pray fore mee.
"i wante to know how my childrun is. what is anny doin. aske
anny ef she cante sende mee a letur and has the absentes of
hur farthur hurt hur. but i shall remember hur to God. it
donte rendur meeany satisfaction to see othurs get leturs
and i cante gete none myself sum of our boys has gote as hye
as 20ty leturs and sum more and i donte get none, remember
me your
"afect tunate husband
"JAMES WILLIAMS.
"james harris is agoin to send a letur to the church at
spring town in the care of mister saffron to be rede in the
congration. no more at preasante fur i am verry weake
"your luvin husband
"J. WILLIAMS."
After I finished reading this poor fellow's letter, I felt like laughing
and crying. The ignorance it displays is droll enough; but the keen
yearning for home, the longing after domestic affection and remembrance,
the dread of being forgotten, are all very touching.
We replied to it immediately, and after that seldom allowed a week to
pass without writing. On Saturday afternoons Lucy would come into the
library with a little piece of sewing in her hands, and, sitting on a
stool by the dogs' baskets, repeat her proposed letter faster than I
could write it.
She related all the news of the two colored villages situated on either
side of this town; the meetings they were holding,--the jubilees and
quarterlies,--which last seemed to come every Sunday; the payment of the
church debts; the births of children; the deaths of old people; the
marriages and engagements of young ones; and even the hatching of
chickens and killing of pigs. The letters were a droll medley; and when
I could not help smiling sometimes at the odd bits of information given,
she would say, with innocent earnestness,--
"I know he'll like to hear all this, Ma'am. It'll make him and the other
boys from Spring Town and Gould Town feel like bein' among us again."
She dictated very rapidly; and her expressions were right pretty, being
so natural and affectionate. Once I remarked to her that she did it so
nicely that it sounded sometimes as if read from a book.
"Oh, it's because I keep _a-studyin_' about what to say to him," she
replied, "I talks it all over to myself when I'm alone. That's what
makes me so forgetful, and gives me this everlastin' _misery_ in my
head. I'm forever and ever _a-studyin_' so much about him."
These weekly letters seemed to make Lucy feel as if she were having a
stated talk with her absent husband. She gradually grew more cheerful
under their influence. While at her work, she would burst out into
perfect gusts of wild chanting: scraps of Methodist hymns suited her
best. There was one verse she would peal out to a shrill, weird minor
melody that was anything but cheerful or gay in its effect; and yet she
repeated it over and over, morning, noon, and night, with unparalleled
constancy:--
"I know there's room in heaven for me,
So I'm a-goin', I'm a-goin';
And don't you hope there's room for you?
Let's both be goin', let's both be goin';
I should n't wonder if room's for them,
So we'll all be goin' we'll all be goin',
Some day soon."
About two months after she came to live with me, there was a battle
somewhere South, in which several colored men from our two villages were
killed and wounded. By some mistake, William's name was included in the
list; and the publication of it set his poor wife nearly beside herself
with grief. The following day, however, some of his old companions
received a letter from him, written after the date of the battle, in
which he spoke of the others being killed, adding,--
"Tell Lucy, my deare wief im not dede yet. i havente seene a fite sence
i hev bene in the servise but i hope i shall soon. My dere bruther Samul
Stores can you finde oute why Lucy my wief donte write to me."
We immediately sent off a letter to him by mail; and I advised Lucy to
inclose one with that of the friend who had just heard from him, and who
intended writing the next day. She never tired of dictating to me; and
after this last report from him, we prepared letters and dispatched them
with redoubled energy.
One morning she came into the library, and asked me if I could spare
time to write a letter.
"I'm so full, Ma'am, of all I want to say, it kind o' bewilders me at my
work. I think I shall be more quieter, if I have it written off to him."
This letter was a remarkably pretty and touching one, and had in it the
burden of all:--
"If I could only get a letter from you, and you could get one from me, I
should not fret so much. I have not had one since January, and have only
had four since you left. For three months me and my lady have written to
you nigh about every week. All the other women go to the office, and
take out two, three, and four letters at a time, some with money in; but
if I could only get one from you, I should be happier than they are with
all their money. I don't want no money. I can make enough to take care
of me and 'Nervy" (their little daughter, glorying in the name of
Minerva). "But, my dear husband, do, do write to me."
This letter was sent off about midday; then Lucy went singing about her
work, as if she had just seen her husband. Her favorite assurance of
there being room in heaven for her and all her friends rang out so
shrill and clear that my little Skye terrier grew testy and nervous at
the reiteration. At last, when its slumber was broken for the dozenth
time, it could bear it no longer, and, leaping out to the basket,
crouched on the ground, and, raising its tiny black muzzle in the air,
gave one prolonged howl, as if protesting against the information.
I could not blame the dog, for the chant was not pleasant to my ears. It
made me feel very melancholy; but I had not the hard heart to check the
girl, she seemed to take so much comfort in the hymn. My daily papers
came in; I read them; and the news of the Fort Pillow tragedy, which
reached us that day, draped around with the crimson and black of a first
report, deepened my sadness.
After luncheon I went out with the dogs for a walk, and spent two or
three hours roaming through the woods, groping among the fallen leaves
and mosses for the spicy-smelling, pinkish sprays of the
trailing-arbutus, or Pilgrims' Mayflower listening to the song of the
robins, and the fretful, querulous note of
"April's bird
Blue-coated, flying before from tree to tree,"
and lulling my heart-pain in the fine, rushing sound made by the
pond-waters falling through the open gates of the dam.
I took a seat in a boat which was lying at anchor near the pebbled shore
of the pond, and looked up into the branches of a glowing swamp-maple,
whose starry blossoms were all aflame in the afternoon sunlight. A
congress of robins had assembled on the tree, and were in high
discussion,--probably on the rights of the blackbirds to the occupancy
of certain upper chambers of the air; presently they spread their little
wings, and as they floated off over my head, their flashing red-breasts
looked like winged scarlet tulip-petals.
"God's world is very beautiful!" I murmured, "but human sorrows weigh
the heart down."
I sat in the boat on the pond-strand without heeding the lapse of time,
just _mooning_, in that vague, listless way we women have, over
"Troubles too great to be my own,"--
the sore griefs and trials of a mighty nation.
The washing of the beautiful pond-waters on the shore gradually soothed
me: had they been ocean breakers, their solemn rhythm would have
increased my melancholy; but these inland streams have a cheerful,
every-day note. I watched the sparkling, leaping light on the surface of
the pond, and the long shimmers of rosy gleams that played over the
dancing waters, until my heart grew as bright as millions of
water-diamonds. The joyful little ripple against the pebbled bank helped
me amazingly, and so my heart slipping off insensibly form the weary,
useless fretting, I found myself at sunset feeling as free from care as
a child, and my homeward step was as springy as the gambols of my young
dogs.
I walked out into the high-road; slightly undulating country had lost
its monotonous expression under the influence of the ruddy twilight; the
distant fields and woods were bathed in a soft violet atmosphere, and a
fire-glow lay spread over the young wheat.
To the left, the smoke of the factory rolled against the purple and gold
of the sky; the dense black brought out finely the beautiful unfolding
forms of the white vapor, as the soft evening wind swept in among it;
these snowy shapes, as they mounted high and floated off, looked like
ascending spirits of the blest in a Judgment scene; at last they were
all blended with the ashen gray of the descending night.
As I struck my front-door-bell, I heard Lucy still screaming out her
assurance of a heavenly home; but the chanting had lost its irritating
sound, and I listened to it, if not with pleasure, at least with
patience: even the Skye, Ton-Ton was so improved in temper by the walk
as to coil up its little silky gray body in the basket with perfect
indifference to the domestic music. While I was dining, the watchful
ears of my dogs detected the steps of strangers on the terrace-steps of
the entrance, which news they announced in shrill barks.
"Some Spring-Town visitors to Lucy," I thought, as I heard the steps
pass under the side window, which supposition was confirmed by the
ceasing of the hopeful hymn.
There was a profound silence for a little while in the back part of the
house; and the dogs resumed their slumbers, dreaming pleasantly of their
nice walk and good meal. I pushed the little dinner-table away, lighted
the spirit-lamp under the tea, which was on a small tray on the
library-table, and leaned back in the easy-chair to read a comforting
page or two in De Quincey's Caesars. I would not disturb Lucy and her
guests for a little while at least, I thought. I had just reached,--
"Peace, then, rhetoricians! false threnodists of false liberty! hollow
chanters over the ashes of a hollow republic! Without Caesar we affirm a
thousand times that there would have been no perfect Rome; and but for
Rome there could have been no such man as Caesar"--
--when I heard Lucy crossing the anteroom. The library-door opened, and
in the poor girl tottered, sobbing bitterly as if her heart would surely
burst. She crouched down on the floor, and moaned so like a poor wounded
animal, that the dogs, who are very fond of her, ran up and commenced
whining and licking her. To my repeated inquiries as to the cause of her
weeping, she could only sob out,--
"Oh! I can't tell, Ma'am, I can't tell you!"
At last she summoned enough courage to say,--
"He's dead now real! No mistake this time,--real, real dead! He died in
the 'ospital three weeks ago,--and never, never got none of them 'ere
letters!"
Yes, the poor fellow was, as his wife said, "dead real"; and I found, on
inquiry, that, at the very time the false rumor of his death reached us,
he was then actually dying of a fever at a hospital in Florida!
She was right, too, about the ill-luck of the letters. He had not
received one of them! Not knowing of his change of place, we had
addressed the letters to the regiment station, where I suppose they
went, while he was far off in a distant hospital, tossing on a sick-bed;
and when he died, he had added to his physical sufferings the anguish of
thinking himself forgotten by the wife and friends he loved so tenderly.
This narrative is a simple report of one of the thousands of sad
romances which were daily and hourly happening to American women during
the late civil struggle.
"Too common! Never morning wore
To evening but some heart did break."
DOCTOR JOHNS.
XLIII.
The foreign letters rarely came singly; and Adele had already
accomplished the reading of her own missive, in which Maverick had
spoken of his having taken occasion to address, by the same mail, a line
to the Doctor on matters of business, "in regard to which," (he had
said,) "don't, my dear Adele, be too inquisitive, even if you observe
that it is cause of some perplexity to the good Doctor. Indeed, in such
case, I hope you will contribute to his cheer, as I am sure you have
often done. We owe him a large debt of gratitude, my child, and I rely
upon you to add your thankfulness to mine, and speak for both."
"You look troubled, New Papa," said Adele. "Can I help you? Eh, Doctor?"
And she came toward him in her playful manner, and patted the old
gentleman on the shoulder, while he sat with his face buried in his
hands.
"I don't think papa writes very cheerfully, do you?
Eh,--Doctor--Benjamin--Johns?" (tapping him with more spirit.)--"Why,
New Papa, what does this mean?"
For the Doctor had raised his head now, and regarded her with a look of
mingled yearning and distrust that was wholly new to her.
"Pray, New Papa, what is it?"
The old gentlemen--so utterly guileless--was puzzled for an answer; but
his ingenuity came to his relief at length.
"No, Adaly, your father does not write cheerfully,--certainly not; he
speaks of the probable loss of his fortune."
Now Adele, with her parsonage training, had really very little idea of
fortune.
"That means I won't be rich, New Papa, I suppose. But I don't believe
it; he will have money enough, I'm sure. It don't disturb me, New
Papa,--not one whit."
The Doctor was so poor a hand at duplicity that he hardly knew what to
say, but meantime was keeping his eye with the same dazed look upon the
charming Adele.
"You look so oddly, New Papa,--indeed you do! You have some sermon in
your head, now haven't you, that I have broken in upon?--some sermon
about--about--let us see."
And she moved toward his desk, where the letter of Maverick still lay
unfolded.
The Doctor, lost in thought, did not observe her movement until she had
the letter fairly in her hand; then he seized it with a suddenness of
gesture that instantly caught the attention of Adele.
A swift, deep color ran over her face.
"It is for my eye only, Adaly," said the Doctor, excitedly, folding it
and placing it in his pocket.
Adele, with her curiosity strangely piqued, said,--
"I remember now, papa told me as much."
"What did he tell you, my child?"
"Not to be too curious about some business affairs of which he had
written you."
"Ah!" said the Doctor, with a sigh of relief.
"But why shouldn't I be? Tell me, New Papa," (toying now with the
silvered hair upon the forehead of the old gentleman,) "is he really in
trouble?"
"No new trouble, my child,--no new trouble."
For a moment Adele's thought flashed upon that mystery of the mother she
had never seen, and an uncontrollable sadness came over her.
"Yet if there be bad news, why shouldn't I know it?" said she. "I must
know it some day."
"'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,'" said the Doctor,
gravely. "And if bad news should ever come to you, my dear
Adaly,--though I have none to tell you now,--may you have strength to
bear it like a Christian!"
"I will! I can!" said she, with a great glow upon her face.
Never more than in that moment had the heart of the old gentleman warmed
toward Adele. Not by any possibility could he make himself the willing
instrument of punishing the sin of the father through this trustful and
confiding girl. Nay, he felt, as he looked upon her, that he could
gladly make of himself a shelter for her against such contempt or
neglect as the world might have in store.
When Reuben came presently to summon Adele to their evening engagement
at the Elderkins', the Doctor followed their retreating figures, as they
strolled out of the parsonage-gate, with a new and strange interest.
Most inscrutable and perplexing was the fact, that this outcast child,
whom scarce one in his parish would have been willing to admit to the
familiarities of home,--this daughter of infidel France, about whose
mind the traditions of the Babylonish harlot had so long lingered,--who
had never known motherly counsel or a father's reproof,--that she, with
the stain of heathenism upon her skirts, should have grown into the
possession of such a holy, placid, and joyous trust. And there was his
poor son beside her, the child of so many hopes, reared, as it were,
under the very droppings of the altar, still wandering befogged in the
mazes of error, if, indeed, he were not in his secret heart a scoffer.
Now that such a result was wholly impracticable and impossible, it did
occur to him that perhaps no helpmeet for Reuben could so surely guide
him in the way of truth. But of any perplexity of judgment on this
score he was now wholly relieved. If his own worldly pride had not stood
in the way, (and he was dimly conscious of a weakness of this kind,) the
wish of Maverick was authoritative and final. The good man had not the
slightest conception of how matters might really stand between the two
young parties; he had discovered the anxieties of Miss Eliza in regard
to them, and had often queried with himself if too large a taint of
worldliness were not coloring the manoeuvres of his good sister. For
himself he chose rather to leave the formation of all such ties in the
hands of Providence, and entertained singularly old-fashioned notions in
regard to the sacredness of the marriage-bond and the mystery of its
establishment.
In view, however, of possible eventualities, it was necessary that he
should come to a full understanding with the spinster in regard to the
state of affairs between Adele and Reuben, and that he should make
disclosure to her of the confessions of Maverick. For the second time in
his life the Doctor dreaded the necessity of taking his sister into full
confidence. The first was on that remarkable occasion--so long past
by--when he had declared his youthful love for Rachel, and feared the
opposition which would grow out of the spinster's family pride. Now, as
then, he apprehended some violent outbreak. He knew all her positiveness
and inflexibility,--an inflexibility with which, fortunately, his
convictions of duty rarely, if ever, came in conflict. He therefore
respected it very greatly. In all worldly affairs, especially in all
that regarded social proprieties, he was accustomed to look upon the
opinions of his sister as eminently sound, and to give them full
indorsement. Unwittingly the old gentleman had subordinated the whole
arrangement of his ceremonious visitings and of his wardrobe to the
active and lively suggestions of Miss Eliza. Over and over, when in an
absent moment he had slipped from his study for a stroll down the
street, the keen eye of the maiden sister had detected him before yet he
had passed through the parsonage-gate, and her keen voice came after
him,--
"Really, Benjamin, that coat is hardly respectable at this hour on the
street. You'll find your new one hanging in the press."
And the Doctor, casting a wary look over his person, as if to protest in
favor of an old friend, would go back submissively to comply with the
exactions of the precise spinster. A wife could not have been more
irritatingly observant of such shortcomings; and it is doubtful if even
so godly a man would have yielded to a wife's suggestions with fewer
protests.
After due reflection on the letter of Maverick, the Doctor stepped
softly to the stairs, and said,--
"Eliza, may I speak with you for a few moments in the study?"
There was something in the parson's tone that promised an important
communication; and Miss Johns presently appeared and seated herself,
work in hand, over against the parson, at the study-table. Older than
when we took occasion to describe her appearance in the earlier portion
of this narrative, and--if it could be--more prim and stately. A pair of
delicately bowed gold spectacles were now called into requisition by
her, for the nicer needle-work on which she specially prided herself.
Yet her eye had lost none of its apparent keenness, and, inclining her
head slightly, she threw an inquiring glance over her spectacles at the
Doctor, who was now as composed as if the startling news of the day had
been wholly unheard.
"Eliza," said he, "you have sometimes spoken of the possibility of an
attachment between Adaly and our poor Reuben."
"Yes, I have, Benjamin," said the spinster, with an air of confidence
that seemed to imply full knowledge of the circumstances.
"Do you see any strong indications of such attachment, Eliza?"
"Well, really, Benjamin," said she,--holding her needle to the light,
and bringing her spectacles to bear upon the somewhat difficult
operation (at her age) of threading it,--"really, I think you may leave
that matter to my management."
"The letter which I have received to-day from Mr. Maverick alludes to a
rumor of such intimacy."
"Really!"--and the lady eyes the Doctor with a look of keen expectation.
"Mr. Maverick," continued the Doctor, "in referring to the matter,
speaks of the probable loss of his fortune."
"Is it possible, brother? Loss of his fortune!" And the spinster gives
over attention to her work, while she taps with her thimble,
reflectively, upon the elbow of her chair. "I don't think, Benjamin,"
said she, "that Reuben has committed himself in any way."
"That is well, perhaps, Eliza; it is quite as I had supposed."
"And so the poor man's fortune is gone!" continued the spinster,
plaintively.
"Not gone absolutely, Eliza. Maverick's language is, that his estate is
in great peril," returned the Doctor.
"Ah!" The spinster is thoughtful and silent for a while, during which
the thimble-finger is also quiet. "Does your friend Maverick speak
approvingly of such an attachment, brother?"
"By no means, Eliza; he condemns it in the strongest terms."
Miss Johns is amazed at this revelation; and having taken off her
golden-bowed spectacles, she passes them, in a nervous way, from end to
end, upon the Doctor's table.
"Benjamin," says she presently, with a shrewd look and her sharpest
tone, "I don't think his fortune is in any peril whatever. I think
Reuben Johns is a good match for Miss Adele Maverick, any day."
"Tut, tut, Eliza! we must not glorify ourselves vainly. If Maverick
disapproves, and Reuben shows no inclination, our course is both plain
and easy."
"But I am not so sure about the inclination, Benjamin," said the
spinster, sharply; and she replaced her spectacles.
"If that is the case, I am very sorry," said the parson.
The good man had hoped that by only a partial revelation of the contents
of the letter he might divert his sister effectually from any
matrimonial schemes she might have in hand, and so spare himself the
pain of a full disclosure. It was quite evident to him, however, that
the opposition of Maverick, if unexplained, would only stimulate the
spinster to a new zeal in the furtherance of her pet project. There was
nothing for it but to lay before her the whole disagreeable truth.