Fifty seats in the parquette had been reserved for the members of the
class graduated from West Point on the beautiful morning of the 12th of
June. The brilliant auditorium was thronged with friends of the young
fellows. Officers of the Academy were seated in the boxes, interested no
more in the play than in the enjoyment of "the boys" just released from
their four years of hard study and rigid discipline. Two of the chairs
were vacant almost until the close of the first act, then their owners
came in.
"You fellows have missed a heap of fun," whispered a classmate. Then a
burst of laughter and applause drowned his words. "All the same we
didn't miss the train," was the reply as soon as the new-comer could
make himself heard, after the lowering of the curtain. "Poor old Dad! It
wasn't easy to let him go."
"What took him off in such a devil of a hurry? We counted on his being
with us at the last supper."
"Oh, the Parson don't take much stock in last suppers--of this kind,"
answered the other in no irreverence of spirit, for the young fellow
spoke in genuine earnestness; "still, he couldn't have gone back on us
if it hadn't been for bad news from home."
"What, his mother?"
"No--o. It's a girl. He said he had to go."
"Ah, yes, we knew all along he was engaged, though he never said
anything about it. Parson never struck me as being one of the spoony
kind."
"No, he wasn't a bit. He wrote to her every week, but her letters kept
coming all the time--regular continued stories; but he wouldn't stand
chaffing about them and didn't fancy remarks, so I quit."
"Know anything about her? Ever see her picture?"
"Once, by accident,--a mighty pretty girl, too,--but he never talked
about her; it wasn't his way. We lived together the last two years, and
I reckon there isn't anything I didn't tell him. I remember how you all
laughed at the idea of my taking up with 'Parson' Davies, but he's pure
gold."
"There's no discount on that, Jimmy; but what a time it took to find it
out! If it weren't for the riding-hall we never would have known how
much there was to him. There may be some prettier riders than Parson,
but he's all round the best horseman in the class. What on earth did he
choose the infantry for?"
"Something about that girl, I reckon. Looks to me as though he were
going to get married before he joined the regiment."
"Sacrificing himself and his profession for the sake of a spoons, is it?
Well, thank God, I'm not in love, and I wish he weren't."
Meantime the subject of this cadet chat, a tall, slender, serious-faced
young fellow, was sitting in one of the crowded cars of the night
express whistling away up the shores of the Hudson, shadowy yet
familiar, fifty miles to the hour. His new civilian dress--donned that
morning for the first time--bore something of the cadet about it in its
trim adjustment to the lines of his erect, even gaunt figure. He sat
very straight, looking silently across the aisle out on the starlit
river to his left, and holding on his knees the new dark-blue cape and
an old travelling-bag. A lone woman in search of a seat had entered the
car at Harlem and passed by a dozen unsympathetic travellers, who made
no move to share the seat over which they sprawled aggressively. The
first to lift his satchel and make way for her was the tall, thin-faced
young man in the straw hat and pepper-and-salt suit. He rose and offered
her the inner half, which she accepted gratefully, then thanked him in
broken English for stowing her various bundles in the rack above.
The conductor looked oddly at him as he unrolled his ticket.
"Going through? Don't you want a sleeper?"
"How much is a single berth to Chicago?"
"Five dollars."
"No. I'll get along here."
Not until they reached Albany, after midnight, had he a seat to himself.
Meantime, finding his companion overcome by drowsiness and her poor old
head bobbing helplessly, he rolled his new cloak cape into a sort of
pillow, wedged it between her and the window seat, and bade her use it.
As they came in view of the brightly-lighted station she awoke with a
start and made a spring for her belongings. She had slept soundly ever
since they left Poughkeepsie, and was again profuse in gratitude. "We
stay here several minutes," said Mr. Davies. "Let me help you with your
bundles." And, unheeding her protest, he marched off with a bird-cage
and a big band-box. A burly German made a rush for the car the moment
she appeared upon the platform and lifted her off with vehement
osculatory welcome, Davies standing silently and patiently by the while,
then surrendering her traps to her legal protector. "He is such a kind
young man," said the smiling frau. "He gif me his seat. We have a sohn,
yust so old as you," she added, "but he is farder as Chick-ago. He is a
soldier, out by Fort Larmie."
"Yes?" said Davies, smiling. "Then perhaps I'll see him some day. I
expect to be out there before long."
"And you are a soldier, too! Ach Gott! ein offizier?" she exclaimed, in
consternation, born of German associations.
"Not yet, though I suppose I shall be very soon. What is your boy's
regiment?"
And, jabbering excitedly now, both at once, the two old people began
pouring their tale into his ears; told their boy's name,--"He was a
gorboral alretty,"--and they were justly proud, and Davies made them
happy by noting the name and company in his book and giving his own,
though he explained that he was not yet a lieutenant, only a
just-graduated cadet, but that if ever he found the corporal, he said,
he should tell him of his pleasant meeting with the old folks, and then,
after a cup of coffee at the restaurant counter, he returned to his own
thoughts and the car.
Soon they were spinning up along the shining Mohawk, and still his
eyelids would not close. In his waistcoat-pocket lay a bulky letter,
the last of many in the same superscription--a prim, unformed,
school-girlish hand--that had come to him during the last two years of
his cadet life. Its predecessors, carefully wrapped and tied, were in
the old trunk somewhere ahead among the baggage. In his hand again was
the telegram that, reaching him at the moment when he was bidding adieu
to the academic shades he had grown so deeply to love, had determined
him in the already half-formed resolution to cut loose from his comrades
and the class festivities in New York and take the first train for the
far West.
"URBANA, June 12.
"Doctor says come quick. Almira worse.
"B."
"B" was Almira's elder sister. Urbana, the home of his boy- and her
girlhood, the home where his father lived and died, pastor of the
village flock, a man whose devotion and patriotism during the great war
had won for himself the friendship of the leaders of the armies of the
West and for his only son, years afterwards, the prize of a cadetship at
West Point. Deeply religious in every fibre of his soul, the chaplain
had labored among the hospitals in the field from first to last, and
died not long after the close of the historic struggle, a martyr to the
cause. He died poor, too, as such men ever die, laying up no treasures
upon earth, where moth and rust and thieves are said to lessen treasure
there accumulated, yet where its accumulation seems the chief end of man
not spiritually constituted as was Davies, who was imposed upon by every
beat and beggar, tramp and drab, within reachable distance of Urbana.
Far and wide had spread abroad the words of his personal creed,--that he
would rather it were recorded against him that he had been duped a
million times than that one human being had left his door hungering. His
widow was not only merely penniless, she was helpless but for the strong
arms of her son, who slaved for her as the father had slaved for the
Union. Those were the days when pensions were few. It was too soon after
the war, and facts were fresher in men's minds. Percy did all the
farm-work by day and taught school by night until, in his twenty-first
year, he was sent to the Military Academy by the President himself, who
had known his father from the days of Donelson. It was told of the tall,
taciturn young man that he seriously contemplated resigning during his
fourth class year when he found that he could not send home the little
savings from his cadet pay. If the rule of the sacred commandment could
but be made to work both ways, and days would be indeed long in the land
the Lord our God had given to him who most honored his father and
mother, no life insurance company in all America would have hesitated in
Percy Davies's case, had the policy been millions and the premium unity.
A gentle woman was Mrs. Davies, but a distressingly helpless and
dependent one, and it was an old saying in Urbana that Davies had
married poor Salome Percy because if he didn't nobody would; not because
he stood in need of her, but because she was much in need of him. And
when, not long after his father's death, Percy appealed to a well-to-do
citizen on the widow's behalf, he was refused, and the brawny son and
heir of the well-to-do citizen told of the incident, and was idiot
enough in Percy's presence to repeat this old village saw as the reason
of the refusal, it nearly led to tragedy. Seizing the first available
weapon, a flail, which he wielded with uncommon skill, in one mad moment
the indignant youth smote the other hip and thigh,--the first, and for
years the only, time he was ever known to lose control of himself. In
ten seconds the battered gossip was sprawled full length, and they who
would have rushed to tear his assailant away stood amazed to see him
tearfully imploring the pardon of the vanquished.
And then as Percy grew in years and grace, working day and night that he
might obey that last sacred whispered injunction, "Take care of poor
mother," and Urbana grew in population and importance, one mortgage was
lifted by the sale of part of their little farm, and the home made more
comfortable for the ailing, querulous woman. She loved young folks, and
yet lacked the faculty of attracting them. Striving to interest some of
the village maids in her, Percy interested more than one in himself, and
among these was a rural beauty, by name Almira Quimby. She was only
sixteen, a romantic child with an exquisite complexion, big melting blue
eyes, and curling ringlets. She lived, said other village maids, "on
Sylvanus Cobb and slate-pencils." She devoured with avidity every bit of
sensational trash procurable in the public or post-office libraries, and
made eyes at the tall, strong school-master,--the best rider, reaper,
thresher in the field, and best reader and declaimer in the winter
lyceums. He was intellectually far ahead of his fellows, and his father
had labored to teach him. He was "serious," which was our Western way of
saying he had strong religious views, and Almira became devoted in her
attentions at church, Bible-class, and Sunday-school. Still, he did not
become an adorer, and she began visiting the widow in her affliction,
and thereby seeing more and more of the widow's son. There were
strapping prairie beaux who would have given all they possessed for any
one of the soft, shy looks she stole at Percy Davies, and who began to
hate him vehemently as her fancy for him increased.
He would have been of utterly unimpressionable material could he have
looked unmoved day after day upon her budding beauty, and it was not
long before Davies found himself strangely interested, and still he
would not speak. It was not until his appointment came, and he was
preparing to go to the Academy, that he owned himself vanquished.
Almira's red eyes and not entirely concealed emotion had told the mother
how the girl was grieving at the prospective loss of her first love, and
she with motherly solicitude took Percy to task. If he cared for Almira
why didn't he say so? With perfect truth the young man replied that he
couldn't help admiring her, but had struggled against it because he was
in no position to marry, and did not know when he would be. To this the
mother replied that she had grown very fond of Almira, and had learned
to depend upon her. She was not only very pretty but, what was much
better, a very good girl, and her father was as "well-to-do" as anybody
in Urbana, except the hotel-keeper. He could well afford to give her
part of the big farm and build them a house near the widow's own roof.
She knew, or thought she knew, as do so many of us, just what her
neighbor could and should do, but overlooked the fact that old Quimby
had two sons and three daughters older than Almira. The fact that most
of them were married in no wise detracted from their expectations of
material aid from the "old man." The fact that he might care to take
unto himself a wife to replace the late incumbent now sleeping placidly
in Urbana's leafy cemetery was no more contemplated by them than by the
Widow Davies. But there was another widow in Sangamon County who knew
better and who wisely said naught. Almira's father was well off, said
Mrs. Davies. She had rich relations in the great metropolis of the
State. Her Aunt Almira was married to the manager of the Q. R. & X.
Railway,--the man who used to send father Davies an annual pass so long
as he lived. Mrs. Davies longed, she said, to see her son happily mated,
and then she would be glad to go and rest by the father's side under the
shadow of the soldier's monument. How it all happened would be too long,
too old, and by no means uncommon a story. When Percy Davies went to
West Point he left behind him a weeping maid who vowed that she would
wait for him a lifetime, if need be. It was really quite a romantic
parting, and the young man believed himself very deeply in love, and so
did Almira.
And yet he was not easy in his mind. Percy Davies was old for his years.
He was going to the Point because of his father's strong predilection
for the graduates of that institution. The son had no especial taste
for a military life. He was studious. He would far rather have gone to
some college or university and pursued a classical course, and then
studied for the law or the ministry. He had no means for such an end,
however, and accepted what was offered him on his father's account, with
no little uneasiness on his own. It was not his desire or purpose to
remain in the army. If he could honorably do so he meant to leave the
military service within the four years which his letter of appointment
stipulated he should serve after graduation. He doubted the propriety of
his accepting it under the circumstances, and he--looked upon by his
fellow-men and youths as the most enviable of their number--left his
home for the new life in no enviable frame of mind.
For some months after his departure Almira fairly lived with the invalid
mother, and was faithful both to her and to the absent lover. Not a day
passed without her spending hours with the widow and discoursing on the
perfections of the absent one. Old Quimby, a hard-fisted, hard-headed
old democrat, had made no objection to the engagement, remarking that if
'twan't Davies 'twould be somebody else, and seeing as he was the
smartest lad at farming and schooling, and that it would be four years
anyhow, why, there was no call for him to worry. Then Urbana built a
bigger school-house and got a new teacher, and for two years saw naught
of Percy Davies. Property increasing in value, another slice of the
homestead lot had been sold, and with economy the widow could be
comfortable on her little income; but it was not long before the
gossips, dropping in to cheer her up a bit, began to tell of the swains
who were making eyes at 'Mira, and then of 'Mira's growing consciousness
of her charms and fascinations. The second year of Percy's absence there
could be no doubt that three or four bucolical hearts were turned on her
account. Had there been just one devotee the absent lover's claims might
have been endangered, but there being several she was content in a
placid cowlike way in their attentions, and became less devoted to
mamma. With the second summer, however, Percy came home on cadet
furlough. The slight stoop was gone. An erect, martial carriage and
quick, springy step had replaced the somewhat plodding gait of the
school and farm. The sprouting beard and whiskers had vanished, and a
stiff moustache, which soon began to curl and twist becomingly, adorned
his upper lip. The "store clothes" of the Western town long since cast
aside, Davies appeared in stylish and trim-fitting civilian dress, but
resolutely declined all appeals to wear--except for mother's eyes--the
uniform of his famous corps. When he went on sunshiny Sundays to the
church that seemed hallowed to his father's memory, the spotless white
trousers and natty sack coat of dark-blue flannel were, however, so
military in their effect as to create, despite himself, almost the
effect of regimentals. Then he had acquired already an air and manner, a
polish that distinguished him at once above his fellow-townsmen, and
Almira's wavering allegiance gave place to new romance and fervor. The
old flame had found too little breath in his earnest, honest letters to
keep it alive. As for him, though he had belonged to what was termed the
"bachelor gang" at the Point and mingled but little in ladies' society,
he was a close observer, and Percy Davies saw at a glance that though
more radiant in her rustic beauty than before, more appealing to the
senses in the flush of her health and unconscious grace, there was still
something besides the fashion of her gown that differed widely from the
beauties who thronged the gravelled walks, the shady groves, the tented
field of the national military academy. The swains of the winter gone by
were less in evidence now, and it pleased her anyhow during the two
months of his home stay to forget them one and all and cling only to
him. Changes came in the next two years--and trouble. Old Quimby married
again. Almira's home-life became unhappy. Quarrels ensued between the
new wife and the children. Reproaches fell from the lips of the failing
widow because of Almira's tacit acceptance of the devotions of young Mr.
Powlett, son of the resident physician of the sanitarium that was now
bringing so many patients to Urbana. A handsome, dare-devil sort of boy
was Powlett, who speedily cut out all the local beaux at the parties and
picnics which filled the summer of '75. A beautiful dancer was he, and
taught Almira to waltz and "glide" in a style never before seen in
Urbana, and that other couples first derided, then envied, then vainly
strove to imitate. That Urbana censors should go to the widow with
invidious comment upon Almira's misbehavior was a matter of course, and
that the widow should transmit their tales, not entirely without
embellishment and reproof, was only to be expected. Almira accepted both
with ill grace, was moved to tears and protest. She couldn't help it if
people admired her and liked to dance and walk and talk with her. She
must either submit to it or shut herself up and mope and not go out at
all. She thought Mrs. Davies most unjust, but she did not promise to
amend. Then the widow, finding Almira obdurate, was moved to write to
Percy advising him that he should caution her, who was only
light-hearted and thoughtless, and, to the widow's surprise, Percy
refused. He gravely wrote that Almira was but a child when she engaged
herself to him. She had seen nothing of the world or of other men, and
it was a matter he would not interfere with, and one that he desired his
mother to leave alone. This was simply incomprehensible. Urbana was very
gay that autumn and early winter. The sanitarium was the means of
bringing business to town, and a number of new stores were opened, and
new young men came to tend the counter and swell the parties, and still
young Powlett held supremacy, and everybody began to say that the cadet
was cut out, and Almira Quimby had gone over heart and soul to the new
claimant, when there came a cataclysm,--a scandal at the sanitarium, a
stir at the Palace Hotel, Urbana's new hostelry, the arrest of a
recently discharged patient by the name of Brannan, an afflicted young
man with what was described as an unconquerable mania for drink, and the
sudden disappearance of young Powlett. There was investigation and more
scandal. It transpired that this young Adonis had abused his father's
trust to the extent of smuggling liquor to certain patients and of
heaven only knew what else. Dr. Powlett resigned, crushed and
humiliated. Lawyers came and bailed out the other unfortunate, of whom
it soon was rumored that he was Almira Quimby's own cousin, the son of
her rich city aunt, and that was the reason the lawyers and not the
relatives came. It was presently established that young Brannan was more
sinned against than sinning, and the holidays opened, with a fearful gap
in Urbana, for Almira's devoted lover, to the comfort of every
right-thinking maid and swain in Sangamon society, had fled, no one knew
whither.
Two weeks later the Widow Davies lay at death's door. Her son was
telegraphed for, and came. His leave was for only one week,--even that a
most unusual concession, granted only because of his unimpeachable
conduct and his safe though not high standing in scholarship. His coming
seemed to give new life to the mother, and Almira vied with him in
attention and devotion. Urbana took it much to heart that after her
months of monopoly of Mr. Powlett, of whom the most damaging and
dreadful things were now told, she should so calmly and complacently
resume her apparent sway over this martial and dignified and superior
sort of person, the widow's son. Urbana fully meant that his eyes should
be opened just so soon as the mother's were closed. But Urbana found
that luck was dead against it. The widow began to mend,--the son it was
who was suddenly prostrated on the eve of his return to the Point.
Leaving Almira at her father's door one night after seeing her safely
home, Davies was found lying in the high-road, senseless, an hour later,
and never, said Urbana, knew what hit him. Concussion of the brain was
feared, for he had evidently been assaulted in the dark from behind and
felled to earth by blows of some heavy, blunt instrument. Robbery was
evidently the motive, for his little store of money and the beautiful
and costly watch presented to his father at the close of the war were
gone. Almira had two patients now, and devotedly she attended them. When
in a fortnight Percy declared he must return, and did return to pass his
midwinter examination, she wore at last an engagement ring. Urbana did
not know that he had offered--and she had refused--freedom. Urbana did
not know that she declared she loved him as she never did before, and as
she never had another. Urbana resented it that he who was so soon to
occupy the exalted station of an officer of the regular army, and the
princely salary of something over a thousand dollars a year "with all
expenses paid,"--double the sum enjoyed by the head salesman of Miller &
Crofts,--should be so utterly deluded as to the frivolous character of
his betrothed, and means were taken to enlighten him. Anonymous letters
came to Cadet Davies of the graduating class, which that grave and
reverend senior committed, not to memory, but to flames. Whatever she
had been before his visit and mishap, Almira was all devotion now. In
May he wrote to her gravely and affectionately, bidding her remember
that he always felt that she had been pledged to him when too young to
know her own mind, that his must needs be a life of self-denial,
privation, and danger, that he must live with the utmost economy
consistent with his position as an officer, because his mother's comfort
must be a sacred charge so long as she lived, and that it might be years
before he could see his way to asking any woman to come and share his
lot. All this he had conscientiously explained to her before, and she
had met it with tears and reproaches. She could help him live
economically. They could sell the homestead and take mother to live with
them. She would welcome the day when she could leave her father's roof,
now no longer a home to her. She knew it must be that he was tiring of
her,--that he had met some proud lady in the East, and his poor little
village maid was forgotten, etc. Now, in answer to this last letter,
virtually proffering release if she so desired, her response was
vehement. He would kill her with his cruelty and coldness. She had no
hope or ambition other than to share his lot, however humble. To be her
noble soldier, her hero Percy's bride, would be her heaven, and neither
gold nor grandeur nor princely mansion could tempt her from his side,
and she would welcome the grave if he proved false to her. It was all
the high-flown, emotional, melodramatic trash to be expected of an
ill-balanced girl whose pretty head was stuffed with the romance of the
country post-office type, and Davies sighed heavily as he read.
He had planned to visit an old friend of his father's and see something
of New York harbor and city before turning his back on the East. Never
yet had he set foot in Gotham, and as it would be years before
opportunity might again be afforded him, he had weighed it all pro and
con, and decided that Dr. Iverson's advice and invitation should be
accepted. He would go with his classmates, spend the last evening with
them, and join the reverend doctor on the morrow. His mother, even in
her invalided state, urged that he should do so, but Almira heard the
plan with fresh outburst of tears. There was to be a grand picnic of
all the beaux and belles of Urbana on the 18th. She had counted on
having her soldier lover in attendance on that occasion. She had told
him of it, and that was enough. She had declined all other invitations,
saying that Mr. Davies was to hasten thither the moment the graduating
exercises were over, and now to think of the triumph and malicious
delight of the other girls was intolerable. Her lover should fly to her
like homing-pigeon the instant he was released from prison. It was
tantamount to treason that he should purpose anything else. Almira
fretted herself into a fever. She wrote one long letter to the recreant
Parson, and her sister Be_ay_trice, as they called her, followed it up
with another still more alarming. Then, as he did not wire instant
submission, the telegram was sent. Old Quimby was on the platform at the
Urbana station as Davies sprang from the train. "Nothing much," said he,
in response to the young man's eager inquiry. "Some dam girl nonsense
she and Bee have cooked up between them. When they ain't devilling the
life out of their step-mother they're worrying somebody else. Oh,
yes!--'course the doctor's been humbugging for a week,--too glad to get
a chance of shovin' in a bill."
Davies went gravely up the sunny street to his mother's home,--a meeting
that served to chase away the clouds, and then an hour later to Almira's
bower. Bee ushered him into a pretty room whose windows were overhung
with honeysuckle and pink chintz, and there in a great old-fashioned
rocking-chair reclined the lovely invalid, who greeted him with
outstretched arms and rapturous cry, and who was sufficiently restored
to exhibit him at the Sunday-school picnic as originally planned. So far
as she was concerned, all went blithely as a marriage-bell until the
morning of July 5, when there came the fearful news of the massacre of
General Custer and his troops at the hands of the Sioux. That evening
the city papers said all officers on leave were hurrying to their
regiments, that reinforcements were being pushed to the front, that
recruits were needed at once; and the next day, followed by a mother's
prayers and a maiden's unavailing protest, Percy Davies was gone. Just
as his father did in '61, leaving all to pursue the path of duty, the
young soldier, though not yet commissioned, sped to the nearest army
post, and joined the first command _en route_ for the field.