hour I heard a repetition of the same painful scene. The poor man had
returned, I reasoned. Taking them all together, I thought they certainly
were a most peculiar family, and I determined to enlist my husband's
interest when he returned. Something had prevented my telling him the
day before. That evening as we were sitting on the veranda I carried my
resolution into effect and, though he listened with his usual sweet
patience, my description of the disturbance, to my surprise, excited in
him more mirth than sympathy.
Just as I had finished telling my story, our baby was brought in to be
enjoyed and put to sleep. "The little pig went to market," "the mouse
ran up the clock," "the cock-horse" was ridden "to Banbury Cross," and
after innumerable "Hobble-de-gees," baby was ready, and so were we, for
his "Bye Baby Bunting."
When his sweet little "ah-ah-ah" accompanying ours grew fainter and
fainter, we began to sing in the Chinook jargon the Lord's Prayer, which
my husband had taught the Indians on the Pacific coast, and which we
always sang at the last to make baby's sleep sound. At the words,
"Kloshe mika tumtum kopa illahie, kahkwa kopa saghalie" (Thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven), from through the open door of the
room to our left a voice clear and sweet joined in the same jargon with
ours to "Our Father," and as the last invocation was chanted, "Mahsh
siah kopa nesika konaway massachie--Kloshe kahkwa" (Send away from us
all evil--Amen), a handsome stranger stepped out and, with outstretched
hand, said to my Soldier, with great cordiality, "Klahowya sikhs,
potlatch lemah" (How do you do, friend; give me your good hand). Then
followed a conversation between them about the Pacific coast, Fort
Vancouver, San Juan Island, Puget Sound, the Snohomish tribe and their
many mutual friends of the Salmon Illehe.
All the while I was wondering what could have become of the other
family--if they had gone--and yet now and then I caught a tone in our
visitor's voice as he talked to my Soldier, that sounded very similar to
the tones of the man in trouble belonging to them, though I did not see
how it would be possible for any one to drive, or wish to drive, him out
of one's home. When, after awhile, I came in for the compliments of the
season, my astonishment knew no bounds when I learned that he had been
the sole occupant of that room since Sunday night.
The clock in the court struck seven. Rising hastily, and with many
apologies, this strange-family man wrote something on his card, and
handing it to my husband, said, "I am playing at the theater here
to-night--come and see me," and was gone.
To this kind stranger, William Florence, I was indebted for my first
taste of the pleasures of the theater. Almost every evening he joined us
on the veranda, shared our play with baby, cheered and entertained the
General, and kindly took us afterward to see the play. Yet, during the
whole of his stay--four days--he never once, in the most remote way,
intruded himself upon our confidence; and though he knew there was some
mystery, in his innate delicacy he made no allusion to it.
On Saturday evening, when his engagement was over and he came to say
good-bye, after lingering over the pleasant evenings we had passed
together, and putting great stress upon the benefit they had been to
him, he stopped abruptly, saying:
"Confound it all! Forgive me, if I put my foot in it--but here is
something to buy a rattle for the youngster. I swear I absolutely have
no use for it. In fact, I never had so much money at one time before in
my whole life, and it belongs by rights to the young rascal; for, if it
had not been for the 'cat's in the fiddle,' the 'cow jumping over the
moon,' 'getting the poor dog a bone,' and 'Our Father who art in
heaven,' I should have spent every red cent of it on the fellows.
Please--I insist," he said, as my husband refused. "I know you have had
more money than you seem to be bothered with now; take this."
Though we were both very much touched by the kind generosity of this
stranger in a strange land, my Soldier was firm in his refusal.
"Well, good-bye and good luck to you," he said. "You are as obstinate as
an 'allegory on the banks of the Nile.' Here it goes," putting the fifty
dollars back into his pocket, and turning to me, with a tone I so well
remembered, he wished me happiness.
"Good-bye," I said; "may 'Our Father' who art in heaven and his little
ones of whom he says 'suffer to come unto me,' keep your heart
thoughtful for others, and gentle and kind all through this life.
Believe in soul and be very sure of God."
In all the years that came afterward the friendship formed then between
my husband and our first "Left-hander" was never broken--and to me it
was a legacy.
The following week I noticed his rooms were taken by a lady and
gentleman whose actions were very strange. I saw there were two of them
this time. The second evening, as I was putting baby, who was unusually
restless and fretful and would not be amused or comforted, to sleep, the
queer lady, with a "Banquo-is-buried-and-can-not-come-out-of-his-grave"
tone and manner, came in and said, "The child--is't ill, or doth it need
the rod withal!" Whether the child needed "the rod withal?" or Mrs.
Winslow's soothing syrup, he stopped crying at once and, while she
talked on, he never took his startled eyes from her face till he wearily
closed them, hypnotized to sleep.
"Hast thou a nurse--one that thou call'st trustworthy?" she asked, after
I had put the baby in his little bed.
"Yes, madam," I answered, "one whose love makes her so."
"It is well" she said, "and if thou dost not fear to leave the watch
with her, wilt thou and thy husband come as our guests to see our
Hamlet as we have conceived him to be?"
It was the first of Shakespeare's plays I had ever seen, and my blood
ran cold as I breathlessly watched the portrayal of it by these, the
most celebrated actors of their day (Charles Kean and his wife, Ellen
Tree), with talents so versatile that I cried over the tragedy as if my
heart would break, and laughed with equal heartiness over "Toodles," the
farce which followed.
At the close of the play the actress brought her husband into the box
and introduced him. Unlike her, he did all his acting on the stage; she
stabbed her potatoes and said, "What! no b-e-a-n-s?"
We accepted their kind invitation to share their carriage back to the
house, and enjoyed, too, some of the delicious supper prepared for them.
It was their last year on the stage, and I never saw them again, though
I treasure their little keepsake, given me in exchange for one not half
so pretty, and gratefully remember the pleasure they put into our lives
during the days they were our "Left-handers."
Among others, there came in time that king of comedians, noble in mind
as he was perfect in art, Joe Jefferson. This pleasant acquaintance did
not end with our Canadian experience. The next time we saw Joe
Jefferson he gave a performance in Richmond and turned over the whole
proceeds to a war-ruined Confederate who had assisted him in early days,
all in such a quiet manner as to fulfill the spirit of the Scriptural
injunction regarding the right and left hands. The kindness which was
shown by the wealthy tobacconist--the seeming favorite of fortune--to
the poor lad in the beginning of that career the distinction of which,
even then, could be foretold, was thus gracefully repaid a thousand
times by the successful actor.
Our landlady made a tour of inspection of all the rooms every Friday,
but to us she made her visits longer each time, showing a growing
interest in our affairs. She could not solve the mystery of our having
come from such a palatial home to her boarding-house. Then, too, one of
my "shilling visitors" happening to be the Governor-General and another
an English officer, they were also a cause of wonder. She was so
insistent in this unbounded curiosity that we were compelled to seek a
larger house where we should be more lost to sight, especially as just
at this time two prominent Southern gentlemen, Mr. Beverly Tucker and
Mr. Beverly Saunders, had been gagged and taken through the lines,
though their release was immediately demanded by the English government.
Much to my husband's relief, I volunteered to assume the disagreeable
task of notifying her, which notice she seemed intuitively to have
anticipated and determined to thwart by telling of her troubles, all of
which she laid at her husband's door.
"He is got so high-minded now," she said, "he refuses to blacken all the
boots at night--leaves the top floor ones till morning. Wants to set
upstairs with me and the girls, instead of staying down in the kitchen,
looking for chaws and to be handy; expects us to hunt tins to shine and
mend, and nails to drive; won't eat the boarders' leavings; reads the
Stateser's newspaper that he sends to his girl; sets on it when he hears
us coming; took money from Stateser, too, and was that sly he was going
to spend it on himself, and I giving him all he needs."
Taking advantage of her pause for sympathy, I edged in my notice. She
immediately put all the blame of our going on "that Johnson," and,
though I assured her that he had nothing whatever to do with it, wailed:
"You can't fool us, you can't fool us--he drives every boarder out of
the house."
Our next rooms opened on the Champs de Mars, the attractions of which in
part made up for the loss of the veranda, but not for that of our
"Left-handers," who had made oases in our lives.
XXIX
BORN WITH EMERALDS--NEMO NOCETUR
"Come, look at the soldiers," I said, as I saw a shadow in the General's
smile and heard a sigh when the music, almost under our very windows,
signaled the hour for dress-parade.
The shadowy ghost of despair vanished with my entreaties, as we stood at
the window and watched the soldiers, keeping time with them to step and
tune outwardly, while hiding the muffled sound within, each playing we
were enjoying it, without one marring thought of the crumpled-browed
past, trying to fool each other till we really fooled ourselves. It was
with thankfulness that I saw my Soldier watch with unfeigned interest
the maneuvers of the troops day after day, and pleasantly welcome
reveille and tattoo. Our baby learned to march almost before he walked.
While we were enjoying our congenial surroundings and each other, spite
of poverty, fears for the future, and grief for the past, my husband
became very ill. In the crisis of his illness, when he required all my
attention, our baby was seized with croup. The kind old Englishman,
recommended by my good friends, was very attentive, but failed to
inspire me with my wonted faith. The chief reason, I think, must have
been that he was not called "Doctor," but "Mister." For two weeks he
came once, and sometimes twice a day, going first to see and bring me
news of the baby, who had been kindly taken by our friends to their home
to be cared for. I was a source of unending amusement, an unsolvable
mystery to the English doctor, though we were very good friends.
During all this long illness I never once stopped to consider the cost
of anything, whether it were food, medicines or delicacies of any kind,
if prescribed or suggested, but purchased regardless of expense. When
the danger was past, and our board bill was sent up, I counted over our
little store and found there was not enough left to meet it.
My husband was still too ill to be annoyed or troubled about anything,
and with the bill hidden away in my pocket, I was making a plan of
battle and maneuvering how I could fight my way out of the
intrenchments, when he noticed that I was looking pale, and suggested
that I go out for a little fresh air.
Eagerly taking advantage of the excuse thus offered, I put on my bonnet
and went down to the office and took from my box in the safe an
old-fashioned set of emeralds and, asking the proprietor to direct me to
the most reliable jeweler and to send some one to sit with my husband
until my return, went out.
I had had very little experience in buying of merchants, and none
whatever in selling to them, but I feigned great wisdom and dignity as I
told the young man who stepped forward to wait upon me that my business
was with the head of the firm. He took me back to an inner office, where
an old man with grizzly-gray hair and a very moist countenance was
looking intently, through something which very much resembled a
napkin-ring screwed into his right eye, at some jewels lying on a tray
before him. He wore his teeth on the outside of his mouth, and his upper
lip was so drawn, in the intensity of his look, as to be almost hidden
under his over-reaching nose. His face, too, was wrinkled up into a
thousand gullies in his concentration upon his work.
"We don't hemploy young women 'ere," he said, looking up and frowning as
he suddenly became aware of my presence.
"I came," I explained, taking out my emeralds and handing them to him,
"to ask you if you would not, please, sir, kindly buy some of these
stones from me, or, at least, advance me some money on them."
"This is not a pawnbroker's shop, heither, mum," he replied, as he
carefully examined the jewels, and then, suddenly popping the
napkin-ring out of his eye, turned both of the piercing little gray
twinklers upon me and said:
"Where did you get these hemeralds from, miss?"
"I was born with them, sir," I said indignantly.
Either from my appearance, or for some other cause, he became suddenly
suspicious, and not only would not purchase them of me, but refused to
let me have them till I could prove my right to them. I was too young
and inexperienced to be anything but furious, and the bitter, scalding
tears that anger sometimes unlocks to relieve poor woman's outraged
feelings, were still falling fast when I reached the hotel with the
clerk whom the jeweler had sent back with me that I might prove by the
proprietor my ownership of the jewels with which I was born.
He, in his sympathy, shared my anger and, after expressing his sincere
regret that I should have been subjected to such an indignity, advised,
as he snatched the case from the clerk with a withering look of scorn
translated into more emphatic language, that I should look carefully
over them to be sure that neither this hireling nor his master had
abstracted any of the stones, for his experience had been that suspicion
was born of guilt.
As he again locked up my emeralds in his safe he kindly asked how much
money I needed and begged that in the future I would permit him to
advance for me if I should need any, and furthermore, "as to the board
and expenses here," he said, "Mr. Edwards and I will arrange all that
when he is well--entirely well." My friends would have been glad to
advance me the money but I did not wish to trouble them.
Through the goodness of God and the skill of my kind physician, my loved
ones were spared to me, and one day, some time after they were well, as
I was reading the paper to my husband, I chanced across an advertisement
for a teacher of Latin in Miss McIntosh's school. The professor was
going abroad and wanted some one to take his place during his absence.
The chuckle of delight which I involuntarily gave as I read it, provoked
from my Soldier the remark that I was keeping something very good all to
myself. I slyly determined that this little suspicion should be
verified and that I would make an application at once for the position;
then, if I should fail, I alone would suffer from the disappointment.
So, just as soon as I could arrange it, I donned my best clothes,
assumed a most dignified mien, went to the number advertised and asked
for the professor.
I was shown into the primmest of parlors--the kind of room one feels so
utterly alone in, without even the suspicion of a spirit around to keep
your own spirit company. Each piece of furniture was placed with
mathematical precision, and all was ghost-proof. The proprietress, who
came in response to my call, seemed put up in much the same order. She
was tall and angular, and her grizzly-red hair was arranged in three
large puffs (like fortifications, I thought) on each side of her long,
thin face, high cheek-bones, Roman nose, and eyes crowded up together
under gold-rimmed spectacles. As she held my card in her hand and looked
at me with a narrow-gauge gaze, piercing my inmost thoughts, and with
that discouraging "Well!-what-can-I-do-for-you?" expression, I felt all
my courage going. My necessities aroused me from my cowardice, and I
said as bravely as I could:
"I have had the good fortune to read your advertisement, madam, in the
paper this morning, and have come in answer to it. May I see the
professor?"
Looking curiously at my card and then over her glasses at me, she said:
"The advertisement was for a teacher, not for a pupil."
"I am perfectly aware of that," I answered, "and came in response, to
offer the professor my services as a teacher."
A most quizzical expression bunched up the corners of her mouth and
wiggled across her little colorless eyes as she said:
"I will send the professor down to you."
Looking over her spectacles again, as if for a verification of her first
impression of me, she left the room.
Returning after a little while, she said:
"The professor requested me to ask if you would be so good as to come up
into the recitation room."
I saw as soon as I had entered that a description of me had preceded my
coming, and not a very flattering one, either, I judged, from the faces
of the professor and the pupils.
The class consisted of fourteen young ladies, all of them apparently
older than I was. The professor finished the sentence he was translating
on the board, rubbed it out, wiped his hands on the cloth, replaced it,
came forward and was duly presented by Miss McIntosh, who remained in
the room. He had a pleasant, round, smooth face, a bald head and large
gray eyes, was short and stout, with a sympathetic, cultured voice and
manner.
"Miss McIntosh tells me you came in reply to my advertisement. I have
been forced to advertise in order to save time, as my going abroad is
unexpected and brooks no delay."
"I am very glad you had no option but to advertise, else it might not
have been my good fortune to know of, and respond to, your wants, sir."
"And you have really come to apply for the position?" he asked.
"I have, sir."
The expression on Miss McIntosh's face, the nudging and suppressed
titter among the pupils which this answer brought forth was not
calculated to lessen my embarrassment.
"Have you had any experience in teaching?"
"No, sir," I said.
"May I ask where you were educated?"
"I was graduated at Lynchburg College."
"Is that in England?"
"Oh, no, sir," said I, with astonishment at his ignorance, and then
recollecting myself just as I was about to inform him that Lynchburg was
the fifth town in population in Virginia, was on the south bank of the
James River, one hundred and sixteen miles from the capital of the
State, and within view of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Peaks of Otter, I
stopped short, embarrassed by my imprudence. The professor, taking no
notice of my confusion, went on to say:
"And so you were graduated there? My class here has just finished Cæsar.
Do you remember how Cæsar commences?"
"Yes, sir," I said, and repeated: "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes
tres."
"You have the Continental pronunciation, I see."
He gave me several sentences to translate; then an ode from Horace and
some selections from Catullus and Tibullus. By this time the pupils were
silent, and Miss McIntosh's expression was changed.
He then asked me to write and parse a sentence, which I did, saying
_sotto voce_ as he took the chalk from me:
"That was a catch question."
"Please translate and parse this," said he, without noticing my aside,
and he wrote in Latin, "The late President of the United States said
'nobody is hurt----'"
Before he wrote any further, instead of translating, I looked up at him
and said:
"But, oh, sir! somebody was hurt."
Quickly he cleared the board, put down the cloth, wiped his hands,
turned his face to me and offering his hand, said, not to my surprise,
because I had faith in prayer, but rather to that of Miss McIntosh and
the young ladies:
"I will engage you, Mrs. Edwards, and will be responsible for you."
We went down to the parlor, and I gave him the names of the only friends
I had in Montreal of whom he could make inquiries regarding me. The next
day I gave my first lesson to the class. I became very fond of them all
and, after my embarrassment of the first few days, got along very well
with them.
My Soldier was curious to know where I went every day, but, knowing it
gave me great pleasure to be thus mysterious, humored me and asked no
questions.
My first month's salary was spent in part payment on an overcoat for
him, and only Our Father and the angels know what joy filled my heart,
that with the work of my hands I could give him comfort. Then my secret
was out.
I was sorry when the cold weather came. The snows not only put an end to
the military reviews, but covered up the beautiful green. There were
very few diversions for us, but I was just as happy as it was possible
for me to be. Indeed, those were the very happiest days of my whole
life and I was almost sorry when General Rufus Ingalls wrote to my
Soldier, inclosing a kind personal letter from General Grant, together
with the following official assurance of his safety:
"HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES
Washington, D. C, March 12th, 1866.
Geo. E. Pickett, a paroled officer of the Southern Army, is exempt
from arrest by Military Authorities, except directed by the
President of the United States, Secretary of War or from these Hd.
Qrs. so long as he observes the conditions of his parole.
The restriction requiring paroled officers to remain at their homes
is removed in this case, and he, Pickett, will be allowed to travel
unmolested throughout the United States.
U. S. Grant,
Lt. Gen."
General Grant also wrote that it had not been at all necessary for us to
go away in the first place, and that the terms of his cartel should have
been respected, even though it had necessitated another declaration of
war.
We stopped in New York en route to Virginia, expecting to remain there
only three or four days, but we found that our board had been paid in
advance for two weeks, that a carriage had been put at our service for
that length of time, and that in our box was a pack of wine-cards marked
"Paid." To this day I do not know how many people's guests we were, for
a great many of my Soldier's old army friends were there at the time,
and they all vied with each other in making us happy.
XXX
TURKEY ISLAND
As soon as we could make our plans we returned to our ruined home on
Turkey Island by the James River, where we built a small cottage in the
place of the colonial mansion which had been burned by Butler.
The ancestral trees had all been cut, even the monuments in the family
cemetery had been broken, but it was home and we loved it. The river and
the woods and our own garden supplied our table. We planted vines to
wind lovingly around the melancholy stumps of the old oaks and elms
which had fallen victims of the vandalism of war. In our own flowers my
Soldier found the perfumes that he loved. He gathered geranium leaves to
keep around him, scattered rose-petals through his bureau drawers, and
put fragrant blossoms into bags and laid them in the folds of his
clothing. In war-time a friend going North asked him, "What shall I
bring you!"
"A bottle of new-mown hay and a bottle of heliotrope," was the reply.
Turkey Island, called by the Federal soldiers Turkey Bend, is in Henrico
County, which is one of the original shares into which Virginia was
divided in 1634. Historic Richmond, the State capital, a town
established in the reign of George II, on land belonging to Colonel
Byrd, is its county-seat. Brandon, the home of the Harrisons; Shirley,
the home of the Carters; and Westover, the home of the Byrds, where
Arnold landed on the 4th of January, 1781, and proceeded on his march
toward Richmond, are neighboring plantations. Malvern Hill, where one of
our internecine battles was fought, adjoins Turkey Island.
Not far distant is the famous Dutch Gap Canal, the useful legacy which
Butler left to the State of Virginia, and which, in the advantages it
gave the commonwealth, to some extent atoned to my Soldier for the
destruction of the Pickett home.