Conn turned over and rubbed her sleepy blue eyes. It seemed to her
that the world was coming to an end all at once, there was such a
Babel of noise about her. What was it? Had everybody gone mad? Then
her wits began to wake up. She remembered that it was Fourth of July.
That worst noise of all--why, that must be Jack’s pistol, which he had
been saving up money to buy all winter and all summer. And that other
sound--that must be torpedoes; and there was the old dog, Hero, barking
at them, and no wonder: it was enough to make any respectable dog bark.
Fire-crackers--ugh! Wasn’t the pistol bad enough, without all these
side shows? Just then Jack called out from the yard below,--
“Conn! Conn!”
The girl’s name was Constantia Richmond; but she was too slight and
bonny for such a long name, and everybody called her Conn.
She shook back her fair, soft curls, as golden as a baby’s still,
though Conn was fourteen, and, putting a little shawl over her
shoulders, peeped out of the open window--as pretty a little slip
of a girl as you would care to see--and looked down on the face,
half-boyish, half-manly, which was upturned to her. If Jack had been
her brother, perhaps she would have scolded at him; for Conn loved her
morning nap, and the general din had discomposed her, no doubt. But
Jack was only her cousin, and her second cousin, at that,--and it’s
curious what a difference that does make. Your brother’s your brother
all the days of his life; but your cousin is another affair, and far
less certain. So Conn said, quite gently,--
“What is it? Can I do any thing? But I’m sure I don’t want to help you
make any more noise. This has been--oh, really dreadful!”
She spoke with a droll little fine-lady air, and put her pretty little
fingers to her pretty little ears. And Jack laughed; he had not begun
to think of her yet as a charming girl,--she was just Cousin Conn.
“What!” he cried. “Not like noise on Fourth of July? Why, you don’t
deserve to have a country.”
“I’m sure I wish I hadn’t,” said Conn, with a little dash of spirit.
“Are you dressed?” cried the boy, nearly seventeen years old, but all a
boy still.
“No.”
“Well, just hurry, then, and come down. I’m off in half an hour with
the Brighton Blues, and I want you to see first how this pistol works.”
High honor this, that she, a girl, should be invited to inspect the
wonderful pistol!
Conn began to dress hurriedly. What should she put on? Her white dress
hung in the closet,--such a white dress as girls wore then,--all
delicate ruffles, and with a blue ribbon sash, as dainty-fine as
possible. She knew that was meant for afternoon, when Aunt Sarah would
have company. But might she not put it on now? Perhaps Jack wouldn’t be
here then, and she could be careful. So she slipped into the dainty
gown, and fastened hooks and buttons in nervous haste, and then looked
in the glass, as every other girl that ever lived would have done in
her place.
It was a bright, fair face that she saw there--all pink and white, and
with those violet eyes over which the long lashes drooped, and that
soft, bright hair that lay in little rings and ripples round her white
forehead, and hung a wavy mass down to the slender waist which the blue
ribbon girdled. Conn was pleased, no doubt, with the sight she saw in
the mirror,--how could she help being? She tripped downstairs, and out
of the door. Jack whistled when he saw her.
“What! all your fineries on at this time of day? What do you think
Mother Sarah will say to that?”
The pretty pink flush deepened in the girl’s cheeks, and she answered
him almost as if she thought she had done something wrong,--
“I’ll be so careful, Jack. I won’t spoil it. By and by you’ll be gone;
and I wanted to look nice when I saw the new pistol.”
This seemed extremely natural to Jack. The pistol was to him a matter
of such moment that no amount of demonstration in its honor would
have seemed too great. Viewed in this light, it really appeared quite
a meritorious act that Conn should have put on the white dress; and
he looked her over with that air of half-patronizing approval with
which boys are apt to regard the good looks of their sisters and their
cousins.
Then he exhibited the pistol. It had--as a boy’s knife or gun or boat
always has--distinguishing and individual merits of its own. No other
pistol, though it were run in the same mould, could quite compare with
it, and it was by some sort of wonderful chance that he had become its
possessor. Conn wondered and admired with him to his heart’s content.
Then came breakfast, and then the marching of the Brighton Blues. This
was a company of boys in blue uniforms,--handsome, healthy, wide-awake
boys from fourteen to seventeen years old,--every one of them the pride
of mothers and sisters and cousins. They were to march into Boston, and
parade the streets, and dine at a restaurant, and see the fireworks
in the evening, and I don’t know what other wonderful things.
[Illustration: Conn stood and watched them.--PAGE 129.]
Jack was in the highest spirits. He was sure he and his pistol were a
necessary part of the day; and he sincerely pitied Conn, because she
was a girl and must stay at home.
“‘_Bang, whang, whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-te-tootle_ the fife;
Oh! a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!’”
he quoted; and then he called back to her from the gate,--
“It’s too bad, Conn, that there’s no fun for you; but keep your courage
up, and I’ll bring you something.”
And so they marched away, in the gay, glad morning sunshine, following
their band of music,--a boy’s band that was, too.
Conn stood and watched them, with a wistful, longing look in her great
violet eyes, and the soft, bright color coming and going on her girlish
cheeks. At last she gathered a bunch of late red roses, and put them
in her bosom and went into the house. She sewed a little, and then
she tossed her work aside, for who cares to work on holidays? Then she
took up her new book; but the tale it told seemed dull and cold beside
the warm throbbing life of which the outside world was full. She wished
over and over that she were a boy, that she might have marched away
with the rest. Then she wondered if she could not go into town and see
them from somewhere in all their glory. Very little idea had she of a
Boston crowd on Fourth of July. She had been into town often enough,
with her aunt or her uncle, and walked through the quiet streets; and
she thought she should have little trouble in doing the same now. She
looked in her purse; she had not much money, but enough so that she
could ride if she got tired, and she would be sure to save some to come
home. She called her Aunt Sarah’s one servant, and made her promise to
keep the secret as long as she could, and then tell Aunt Sarah that she
had gone to Boston to find Jack and see him march with the rest.
The girl was a good-natured creature, not bright enough to know that it
was her duty to interfere, and easily persuaded by Conn’s entreaties
and the bit of blue ribbon with which they were enforced.
And so Conn started off, as the boys had done before her, and went on
her way. But she had no gay music to which to march, and for company
she had only her own thoughts, her own hopes. Still she marched bravely
on.
There were plenty of other people going the same way; indeed it seemed
to Conn as if everybody must be going into Boston. Excitement upheld
her, and she trudged along, mile after mile, across the pleasant
mill-dam, and at last she reached Beacon Street. Her head had begun to
throb horribly by the time she got into town. It seemed to her that
all the world was whirling round and round, and she with it. But she
could not turn back then; indeed, she did not know how to find any
conveyance, and she knew her feet would not carry her much farther.
Surely, she _must_ see Jack soon. He had said they should march through
Beacon Street. She would ask some one. She had an idea that every one
must know about any thing so important as the Brighton Blues. At last
she got courage to speak to a kind-looking servant-maid in the midst
of a group on the steps of one of the Beacon-street houses. The girl
pitied her white face, so pale now, with all the pretty pink roses
faded from the tired young cheeks, and answered kindly.
She did not know about the Brighton Blues, but she guessed all the
companies had been by there, or would come. Wouldn’t the young lady sit
down with them on the steps, and rest, and wait a little?
And “the young lady” sat down. What could she do else, with the whole
world whirling, whirling, and her feet so strangely determined to whirl
out from under her? And then it grew dark, and when it came light again
there was a wet cloth on her hair, and she lay on a lounge in a cool
basement, and the kind girl who had cared for her told her that she
had fainted. And then she had some food and grew refreshed a little,
but was strangely confused yet, and with only one thought, to which
she held with all the strength of her will,--that she had come to see
Jack and must look for him till he came. So on the steps she stationed
herself, and the crowd surged by. Military companies, grown-up ones,
came and went with glitter of brave uniforms and joyful clamor of
music, and Conn watched, with all her soul in her eyes, but still no
Jack.
It was mid-afternoon at last when suddenly she saw the familiar blue,
and marching down the street came the boyish ranks, following their
own band--tired enough, all of them, no doubt, but their courage kept
up by the music and the hope of fireworks by and by. Conn strained her
eyes. She did not mean to speak, but after a little, when the face she
longed for came in sight, something within her cried out with a sharp,
despairing cry, “Oh, Jack, Jack!”
And Jack heard. Those who were watching saw one boy break from the long
blue line, and spring up the step where Conn sat, and seize in strong
hands the shoulders of a girl all in white, her face as white as her
gown, and some red roses, withered now, upon her breast.
“Conn--Conn Richmond!” the boy cried, “what _does_ this mean?”
“Don’t scold--oh, _don’t_ scold, Jack!” said the pitiful, quivering
lips. “I only came in to see you marching with the rest, and--I’m
tired.”
“Yes,” said the girl who had befriended her, “and she fainted clean
away, and she’s more dead than alive now; and if you’ve a heart in your
bosom, you’ll let your play soldiering go, and take care of _her_.”
And just then Jack realized, boy as he was, that he _had_ a heart in
his bosom, and that his Cousin Conn was the dearest and nearest thing
to that heart in the whole world. But he did not tell her so till long
years afterwards. Just now his chief interest was to get her home. No
more marching for him; and what were fireworks, or the supper the boys
were to take together, in comparison with this girl, who had cared so
much to see him in his holiday glory?
He took her to an omnibus, which ran in those days to Brighton, and
by tea-time he had got her home. He found his mother frightened and
helpless, and too glad to get Conn back to think of scolding.
* * * * *
It was six years after that, that in the battle of Malvern Hill, July
1, 1862, Jack, a real soldier then, and no longer a boy playing at the
mimicry of war, was wounded; and next day the news came to the quiet
Brighton home.
Conn had grown to be a young lady in the sweet grace of her twenty
summers, and she was her Aunt Sarah’s help and comfort. To these
two women came the news of Jack’s peril. The mother cried a little
helplessly; but there were no tears in Conn’s eyes.
“Aunt Sarah,” she said quietly, “I am going to find Jack.”
And that day she was off for the Peninsula. It was the Fourth of July
when she reached the hospital in which her Cousin Jack had been placed.
She asked about him, trembling; but the news, which reassured her,
was favorable. He was wounded, but not dangerously. It was a girlish
instinct, which every girl will understand, that made Conn put on a
fresh white gown before she used the permission she had received to
enter the hospital. She remembered--would Jack remember also?--that
other Fourth of July on which they had found each other, six years
before. As if nothing should be wanting of the old attire, she met,
as she passed along the street, a boy with flowers to sell,--for the
flowers bloomed, just as the careless birds sang, even amid the horrors
of those dreadful days,--and bought of him a bunch of late red roses,
and fastened them, as she had done that other day, upon her breast.
The sun was low when she entered the hospital, and its last rays
kindled the hair, golden still as in the years long past, till it
looked like a saint’s aureole about her fair and tender face. She
walked on among the suffering, until, at last, before she knew that she
had come near the object of her search, she heard her name called, just
as _she_ had called Jack’s name six years before,--
“Oh, Conn, Conn!”
And then she sank upon her knees beside a low bed, and two feeble arms
reached round her neck and drew her head down.
“I was waiting for you, Conn. I knew you would come. I lay here
waiting till I should see you as you were that day long ago,--all in
white, and with red roses on your breast,--my one love in all the
world!”
And the girl’s white face grew crimson with a swift, sweet joy, for
never before had such words blessed her. She did not speak; and Jack,
full of a man’s impatience, now that at last he had uttered the words
left unsaid so long, held her fast, and whispered,--
“Tell me, Conn, tell me that you _are_ mine, come life or death. Surely
you would not have sought me here if you had not meant it to be so! You
_are_ my Conn,--tell me so.”
And I suppose Conn satisfied him, for two years after that she was
his wife, and last night he gave the old pistol of that first Fourth
of July to a young ten-year-old Jack Richmond to practise with for
this year’s Fourth; and pretty Mother Conn, as fair still as in her
girlhood, remonstrated, as gentle mothers will, with,--
“Oh Jack, surely he is too young for such a dangerous plaything.”
Father Jack laughed as he lifted little Conn to his knee, and
answered,--
“Nonsense, sweetheart. He is a soldier’s boy, and a little
pistol-shooting won’t hurt him.”
But how noisy it will be round that house on Fourth of July!