highest mountains of the South. You can't imagine how glorious it was to
be up there so far away from the earth. When I first looked down from
their lofty heights the sky and the earth seemed to be touching, and
presently the rain began to pour. I could see the glimmering, glittering
drops, but could not hear them fall. I was above the clouds and the
rain, up in the sunshine and stillness, the only audible sound being a
strange flapping of wings as the hawks and buzzards flew by. Suddenly
the rain ceased, the haze vanished and I saw below the rugged mountains
the level country that looked like a vast ocean in the distance.
"The words of John Randolph echoed in my heart with this infinite
mystery of nature. He with only a servant spent the night on those
mighty rocks and in the morning as he was watching the glory of the
sunrise he pointed upward with his long slender hand and, having no one
else to whom to express his thought, charged his servant never from that
time to believe anyone who said there was no God.
"'No, sah, Marse John; no sah,' said the awe-stricken servant. 'I ain't
gwine to, sah. I ain't gwine to let none of Marse Thomas Didymuses'
temptatious bedoutin' tricks cotch no holt of my understands of de
Lord.'
"Once, too, I----"
"You have relatives in Baltimore?" said the gentleman, abruptly
interrupting me; otherwise, feeling that geography and history were safe
subjects, I should have rattled on till I had told him all I knew.
"Yes, sir," I replied. "I am going to visit them."
"Where were you from this morning?"
"I came from a little country village about thirty miles from
Norfolk--Chuckatuck, in Nansemond County."
As I was about to launch another tide of historic information upon him
he again interrupted me.
"I saw your father as he was leaving the steamer. I was attracted to him
because he made an appeal to all Masons, asking of them protection and
care for his child and grandchild. He was thus making himself known to
any of us, his brothers, who might be aboard when he disappeared at the
turn of the boat. So you can safely confide in me, and I will help you
in any way possible."
"Thank you," I replied. "I know my dear, dear papa is a Mason, and that
he was anxious about me, but there is nothing to confide--nothing. I
want only a stateroom and my tickets and some milk for the baby. I do
not wish for any supper myself; I am too lonesome to eat. It is wicked
to feel blue and downhearted, with baby and all the kind friends to
watch over me, as you say; and then God is always near."
"Yes, that is true; but did you lose your husband in the war?"
"No, sir."
"He was in the war, though, was he not?"
"Yes, sir."
A fear came into my heart that I was talking too much. I did not want
him to know anything concerning my husband, whose rank it was especially
important to keep secret. I encouraged myself with the reflection that
the end justified the means, even though a slight deviation from the
truth might be involved, and said:
"You could not have heard of him, and he was not of sufficient rank to
have made an impression upon you if you had."
"Where is he now?"
"In the country."
"And you are leaving him?"
"Yes, sir, but just for a little while."
Then he talked of how much the Southerners had lost and how much they
had to forgive; how easy it was to bear victory and how hard to endure
defeat, saying that if he had been born in the South he would have been
a rebel, and that his sympathies even now were with the Southern people.
A sudden suspicion came to me and I said:
"I wish there had never been any rebels at all; not even the first
rebel, George Washington; and now, sir, please, I do not want to talk
about the war. I am very weary and sleepy and would like to retire. If
you please, sir, will you get me my stateroom and ticket? I am so
tired--so very tired."
Baby was lying asleep on my lap, hypnotized by the chandeliers. The man
looked down on him for a moment and then said, "Of course, I will get
them for you," and was going, when an ex-Confederate officer, one of my
Soldier's old comrades and friends, came up and, cordially extending his
hand, greeted me:
"How do you do, Mrs. Pickett? Where is the General? What are you doing
here, and where are you going?"
He himself was returning to his home in the far South, but had been
called back to Baltimore on business.
"Thank you, General," I replied. "My husband has gone to farming and I
am on my way to visit his aunt, whom I have never seen. He is to come to
us after a little while; could not leave conveniently just now. He is
very well, I thank you."
"I am so glad to have met you," he returned. "Will see you later on,"
and was hobbling away on his crutches. He saw by my manner that he had
said something to embarrass me and left with a pained look. He was still
dressed in his old Confederate gray, from which the brass buttons had
all been cut, in obedience to the order from the custom-house office,
and replaced by plain steel. For several moments not a word was spoken.
Then I looked up and said:
"My tickets and stateroom, please."
"I thought you said your name was Corbell," he of the hooked nose
rejoined as he held my money shaking in his hand. "I thought you said
your husband's rank was not sufficient to have made an impression; that
in all probability I had never heard of him."
Oh, that smacking sound of jaw and tongue, and that beak of a nose, and
those little black eyes which grew into Siamese twins as they glared at
me like the eyes of a snake!
"Did I say that?" I asked and, with a face all honesty and truth, I
looked straight into those eyes and told, without blushing, without a
tremor in my voice, the first deliberate falsehood I had ever told:
"Did I say so? Well, my friends think that my mind has been unbalanced
by the way the war has ended and they are sending me from home to new
scenes and associations to divert me, with the hope of making me well
and strong again. Corbell was my maiden name, but I do not know how I
happened to say that my husband's rank was low, for I was so proud of
it; I could not have been thinking. Will you please be so good as to get
my ticket? I am so tired I don't know what I am saying."
He went away, and the stateroom keys were brought to me by a waitress
who unlocked the door for me, and I went in, too frightened now to think
of supper, too frightened to sleep, and wondering if, in my imprudence,
I had hurt my husband and what would happen if I had.
All night long the noise of the wheel was to me the sound of the
executioner's axe. All night long it rose and fell through seas of
blood--the heart's blood of valiant men, of devoted women, of innocent
little children. Near morning I fell asleep and dreamed that it was I
who had destroyed all the world of people whose life-blood surged around
me with a maddening roar, and that I was destined to an eternity of
remorse.
When I awoke the boat had landed. Dressing hurriedly I went to the door
and found that it was locked on the outside. As the chambermaid did not
answer my repeated call, I beckoned to a sailor passing my window and
asked him to tell her that I was locked in and wished that she would
come and let me out. When she came she told me that she was not
permitted to open the door. I asked if we were not at Baltimore and an
officer who was with the maid answered that we were, but that I was to
be detained until the authorities should come and either release or
imprison me, as I was supposed to be a suspicious character.
On a slip of paper I wrote--"A Master Mason's wife and daughter in
distress demands in their name that you will come to her," and gave it
to the chambermaid, asking her to take it to the captain. As she
hesitated the officer said, "You might as well."
She went and while I was trying to hush the baby a voice as kind and
gentle as the benevolent face into which I looked, said:
"What can I do for you, madam? You sent for me."
"No, sir," I replied, "I sent for the captain of the boat, but I am glad
you came; you seem so kind and may help me in my trouble."
"I am the captain of the boat," he answered. "What can I do for you?"
"You are not the gentleman who represented himself as the captain of the
boat last night, sir, and bought for me my ticket. He was short and
dark----"
The gentleman interrupted me, saying that the pseudo captain was a
Federal detective who had advised that I be detained on the steamer
until his return with the authorities and warrant.
I told him what the man had said about my father and the Masonic sign.
The captain replied:
"Your father did make that sign and placed you in our care. Come, I am
captain of this steamer, and a captain is king in his own boat. Where
did you say you wish to go! Stand aside," he said to the officer in
charge.
Giving me his arm, he placed me and baby, carpet-bag and basket, in a
carriage and the driver was told to go to 97 Brenton Street.
"Yis, sor," said the Irishman. "97 Brinton Strate, sure."
"God bless you and watch over you! Good-bye, little baby."
After driving some time, the Irishman impatiently told me there was no
street by that name and I would have to get out, but not until I had
paid him for the time he had been hunting for 97 Brenton Street.
I did not know enough to go to a drug store and consult a directory. I
was at my wits' end, if I had ever had any wits.
"Drive me back to the captain of the boat, please," I said. "I don't
know what else to do."
When I went on board the captain was not yet gone, which was an unusual
thing. He had waited to see the officers before leaving. I answered the
smile that came into his face, in spite of his kind heart, by handing
him the letter of my aunt who wrote a hand that was not only peculiar
but illegible.
"Read, captain, and see if this is not Brenton Street, the place to
which my aunt has written me I must come."
"'Go to 97 Brenton Street, where my niece, Mrs. C----, will bring you to
my house,'" he read. "It might be anything else as well as Brenton," he
said. "It looks like Brenton, but I have lived here all my life and have
never heard of such a street. I will get my directory and look. No; but
it may be Preston; let's look; but there are no C----s living there. You
might try this house, at any rate, 97 Preston Street, and if you do not
find your friends, come to the number on this card, where my wife and I
will be happy to have you as our guest, you and the little lost bird,
till you can write to your friends and find out where they want you to
come."
Off again I started and arrived at 97 Preston Street. I wrote on my card
and sent it in:
"Does Mrs. C---- live here--a niece of Mrs. S----?"
In a moment there were two or three faces at the windows, and in another
moment as many voices at the carriage door asking, "Is this George
Pickett's wife and child?" and I was thankful to be once more where they
knew George Pickett's wife and child.
Besides the lovely people whose home it was, there was with them, on her
way to visit her mother, Mrs. General Boggs, one of the most charming
women I ever met. She had just returned from the South. Her husband was
in the Confederate Army. The next day we both went out to the home of
her mother, my Soldier's aunt, Mrs. Symington.
XXV
"EDWARDS IS BETTER"
The week I spent in Hartford County, Maryland, reminded me of my
childhood, when I used to play that I was a "Princess" or a "Beggar," or
"Morgiana of the Forty Thieves," or "The White Cat," or whatever
character it would please me to select to play, for my heart and soul
were separated from my body. I was not what I pretended to be. My body
went to parties and receptions and dinners, and received people and
drove and paid calls, while my soul waited with intense longing for the
telegram, "Edwards is better."
One day I had been out to dine and, coming home, found awaiting me the
message for which eyes and heart had been looking through a time that
seemed almost eternal.
That night I took the train for New York, starting out all alone again,
baby and I. I was tired and sleepy, but there was such joy in my heart
as I thought of soon seeing my Soldier that I did not think of my
discomforts. I repeated the telegram, "Edwards is better, Edwards is
better," over and over again. I sang it as a lullaby, putting baby to
sleep to the measure of the happy words, "Edwards is better." Only for
us was that sweet refrain. When he slept I leaned back and closed my
eyes and saw a world of beauty and bloom as the glad words went dancing
through my heart. Was there ever so sweet a slumber-song since babies
were invented to awaken the deepest melody of mother-hearts! I went to
sleep with my little one in my arms. I had not money enough to get a
berth--just barely enough to buy my ticket and pay my expenses through
to Montreal, Canada, at which point the telegram was dated.
When I awakened later I found that a home-spun shawl had been placed
under my head. I never thought about who had been so kind, nor why the
shawl was there. All my life long everyone had been thoughtful of me;
things had been done for me, courtesies had been extended to me, and I
had learned to accept kindnesses as only what I had a right to expect
from the human race. Murmuring softly the comforting words, "Edwards is
better," I turned my face over and went to sleep again on the shawl and
did not awaken until my baby became restless.
We took the steamer up the Hudson from New York to Albany. My poor
little baby was not well and I censured myself for having allowed him to
catch cold on the train while I was sleeping. He was teething, and was
very fretful. He had been used to his nurse, his black mammy, and missed
her customary care and attention and was tired of me, preferring anybody
else. Some philanthropic ladies on board the steamer seemed very much
concerned, and at a loss to understand why he was so unhappy with me,
not knowing that he was accustomed to a circle of admiring friends to
whom he might appeal in turn.
"Nurse, why do you not take the child to its mother?" one would say, and
a look of incredulity would follow my assertion that I was its mother.
"Then, why don't you quiet the child, if you are, and find out what is
the matter with it?" and so on.
I was indignant and my manner must have made them think there was
something wrong with me and the child, for they followed me about,
asking intrusive questions and making offensive remarks. I was walking
the deck, trying to quiet him, all tired and worn out as I was, when a
gentleman came up to me. On his shoulder I recognized the shawl that had
been put under my head on the cars the night before. He said:
"Madam, excuse me, but I do not think you have had any dinner, and you
must be worn out with hunger and fatigue from fasting and carrying the
baby. Won't you let me hold him while you go down and eat something?"
Even though he carried the shawl which bespoke my faith, I was afraid to
trust him with so precious a treasure, and would rather have starved
than have permitted my baby to go out of my sight.
"Thank you, very much, but I could not think of troubling you," I said.
"No--oh, no."
Then he asked:
"May I order something for you here?"
I was hungry, and was glad for the open way he had found for me, and
said, "Yes," handing him twenty-five cents. It was all I could afford to
pay for dinner, but as I looked at the tray when it was brought to me, I
thought, "How cheap things must be in New York," for there were soup and
fish--a kind of yellow fish I had never seen before, salmon, I afterward
learned it was--stewed with green peas, a bird, asparagus, potatoes,
ice-cream, a cup of coffee and a glass of sherry.
Upon his insisting that it would be restful to the baby, I let him hold
little George while I ate my dinner. I had not known how hungry I was,
nor how much I was in need of nourishment. Baby immediately became
quiet in his arms. Whether it was due to the change or not, I do not
know, but in a little while he was fast asleep. I covered him up with
the shawl to which the gentleman pointed, finished eating my delicious
dinner, taking my time and enjoying it, while he read his book and held
my baby. When the servant came and took away the tray, I arose and,
thanking the stranger for his kindness, said:
"I will take the baby now, if you please."
"If you would rather," he said, "yes, but I think he will be more
comfortable with me for awhile. Then, too, you might waken him if you
moved him. Let me hold him while you rest. Here is a sweet little book,
if you would like to read it. I think, however, it would be better for
you to rest; to sleep, if you could. You look really fagged out."
The book he gave me was a child's book--it may have been "Fern Leaves."
I can't remember the name, but pasted in the book was a letter written
in a child's irregular hand:
For my dear darly popsy who is gon to fite the war fum his little darly
dorter little mary
Dear popsy don kill the por yangees and don let the yangees kill you my
poor popsy little mary
Dear popsy com back soon to me an mama an grandad thats all. I says
your prayers popsy evry day fum little mary
Beneath little Mary's name was this line:
"Little Mary died on the 16th of May, 1864--her fifth birthday."
I rested, but thought of little Mary as I watched my own baby who was
sleeping so sweetly in this childless stranger's arms--till presently
the waves brought back to me the days of my childhood--the story of the
sailor with his stolen mill, grinding out salt, forever and forever, and
the lost talisman lost still--back to my grandmother's knee, listening
with wonder-eyes to "Why the sea is salt," the while my soul chanted to
music those all-healing, blissful words, "Edwards is better," gaining
strength for the o'erhanging trial I least dreamed of--and the shadows
rose to make place for one darker still.
XXVI
ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALL
On the train from Albany my attention was attracted by a man in close
conversation with the conductor. I was evidently the subject of
discussion, for they would look carefully over the paper they held and
then at me as if comparing me with something therein described. Had I
been a hardened criminal they would probably not have taken the risk of
thus warning me of the fact that I was under suspicion. As my appearance
would seem to indicate that, if a law-breaker, I was a mere tyro in
crime, they supposed they could safely take notes of me. I was
absolutely sure that they were talking of me and trembled with a
presentiment of coming evil. I tried to turn my face to the window but
my eyes were fascinated. A thousand preposterous fears passed in review
before my mind, though the real one never suggested itself. I endeavored
to dispel them each in turn, arguing that the scrutiny of the men
foreboded nothing, because I seemed an object of curiosity to everybody
and, recalling my appearance, I do not wonder.
My dress was different from that of those around me, though I was
unconscious of any defect in my apparel, being garmented in my very
best, the traveling gown in which I had been married, and which had been
bought and made under great difficulties and kept afterward with
scrupulous care. So I was perfectly well satisfied with myself.
I wore a long, loose-fitting black silk mantilla with three ruffles at
the bottom, while those around me were dressed in tight-fitting, short
cloth jackets. My gray straw bonnet, sewed into poke shape by our
fashionable village milliner, extended far over the face, its wreath of
pink moss-rosebuds inside tangled in with my dark brown hair. It was
trimmed on the outside with several clusters and bunches of hand-made
grapes of a lighter shade of gray. My collar was about five inches wide
and pinned in front with a cameo breastpin. The prevailing collar worn
by the world around me was linen, very narrow, only an edge showing, and
small jaunty hats, worn back on the head, were the style.
The conductor seemed to be arguing with the strange man as I caught his
eye. Just then my baby sprang forward and snatched a newspaper that an
old gentleman in front of me was reading, and shrieked when it was
loosened from his grasp, the old gentleman looking daggers in answer to
my apology. After this diversion I found that the two men were gone, for
which I thanked Heaven.
I had just settled back, a little unnerved and weak, when from behind me
came a touch on my shoulder and, turning around, I saw the strange man
and the conductor. The former said, "I have a warrant for your arrest,
Madam," and forthwith served it upon me.
There on the cars, all alone, miles away from home and friends, two
dollars and ten cents all my little store, I was arrested for--stealing!
Stealing my own child! I could not read the warrant as it trembled in my
hands--I had never before seen or heard of one. Baby thought it was a
compromise for the old gentleman's paper, and it was with difficulty
rescued from his little clenched hands, after being torn in the
struggle.
As soon as my confused wits grasped the meaning of this I said:
"This baby! This baby, sir? It is mine--mine--it is named after its
father--it is mine and I can prove it by everybody in the world,
and----"
"Well, well," said the conductor kindly, his voice trembling, "that's
all he wants, lady. You will be detained, probably, only till the next
train."
"But I must go on," I said, "for my husband is looking for me and I
could not bear to stay away another minute longer than the time at which
he expects me. Please, everybody, help me."
My fright had attracted attention, and some stared, some were too
refined even to look toward me; others merely glanced over their glasses
or looked up from their books and went on reading. Some kept their faces
carefully turned toward the landscape; a few, just as heartless and more
vulgar, gathered around me in open-mouthed curiosity.
One woman's good heart, thank God, redeemed them all. She came forward,
her tender blue eyes moist with sympathy, her black crêpe veil thrown
back from her lovely face and her waving hair with the silver threads
all too soon among the gold, and said in a voice so sweet that it might
have come from the hearts of the lilies-of-the-valley that she wore
bunched at her swan-white throat:
"Come, I will stop off with you if it must be. Let me see the paper."
Simultaneously with her, the gentleman of the home-spun shawl came from
I don't know where and asked, too, to see the paper and both got off
the train with me.
I was so weak that I could not hold my baby, for all at once there came
over me the sense of my utter helplessness to prove that my child was my
own. There was no one to whom I could telegraph without revealing my
identity and the purpose of my journey. A telegram to my friends at home
would alarm them and might betray me. A message to my Soldier would
jeopardize his safety, for he would surely come to me at once.
"Look, look!" I said to the magistrate and officers when they read aloud
the suspicions and accusation of the philanthropic ladies who were with
me on board the Albany steamer and who, in their zeal to secure a right
and correct a wrong, ignorant of the cause of my child's discomfort and
unhappiness with me and the reasons for my rather suspicious reticence,
had caused my arrest.
Thus do the pure and holy ever keep guard over the sins of the world and
throw the cable-cord of justice around the unregenerate to drag them
perforce into the path of rectitude. May they reap the reward to which
their virtues entitle them.
"Look at his eyes and look at mine," I exclaimed, holding his little
face up against my own. "Can't you all see that it is my child?"
"That may be, but give us the name of some one to whom we may
telegraph--some tangible proof. If he is your own there must be some one
who knows you and can testify in your behalf."
"No, no," I said, "there is no one. I have nobody to help me, and if God
does not show you all some way and your own hearts do not convince you I
don't know what I shall do."
My poor little, half-starved, in-litigation baby refused to be
comforted. The kind gentleman with the shawl could amuse him no longer.
He had dashed from him the keys and pushed the watch from his ear and
demanded impatiently the right of sustenance. The dear, good woman
beside me, with the smile of the redeemed and a look of relief lighting
up her face, touched mine, whispering in my ear while I held the baby's
hands to prevent him in his impatience from tearing apart my mantle and
untying my bonnet-strings:
"Do you nurse your baby?"
"Yes," I replied, "and he is so hungry, poor little thing."
She stood up, leaning on her cane, for she was slightly lame, and said
in a voice clear and sweet: