The autumn opened. Anne, walking on the lake shore at sunset, saw the vessels steal out from port one by one, and opening white sails, glide away in the breeze of evening silently as spirits. Then came the colored leaves. The town, even in its meanest streets, was now so beautiful that the wonder was that the people did not leave their houses, and live out-of-doors altogether, merely to gaze; every leaf was a flower, and brighter than the brightest blossom. Then came a wild storm, tearing the splendor from the branches in a single night; in the morning, November rain was falling, and all was desolate and bare. But after this, the last respite, came Indian summer.
If there is a time when the American of to-day recalls the red-skinned men who preceded him in this land he now calls his own, it is during these few days of stillness and beauty which bear the name of the vanished race. Work is over in the fields, they are ready for their winter rest; the leaves are gone, the trees are ready too. The last red apple is gathered; men and the squirrels together have gleaned the last nut. There is nothing more to be done; and he who with a delicate imagination walks abroad, or drives slowly along country roads, finds himself thinking, in the stillness, of those who roved over this same ground not many years ago, and tardily gathering in at this season their small crops of corn beside the rivers, gave to the beautiful golden-purple-hued days the name they bear. Through the naked woods he seesthem stealing, bow in hand; on the stream he sees their birch-bark canoes; the smoke in the atmosphere must surely rise from their hidden camp fires. They have come back to their old haunts from the happy hunting grounds for these few golden days. Is it not the Indian summer? The winter came early, with whirling snow followed by bitter cold. Ice formed; navigation was over until spring. Anne had heard from Dr. Gaston and Miss Lois, but not from Rast. For Rast had gone; he had started on his preliminary journey through the western country, where he proposed to engage in business enterprises, although their nature remained as yet vague. The chaplain wrote that a letter addressed to Erastus in her handwriting had been brought to him the day after the youth's departure, and that he had sent it to the frontier town which was to be his first stopping-place. Erastus had written to her the day before his departure, but the letter had of course gone to Caryl's. Miss Vanhorn, without doubt, would forward it to her niece. The old man wrote with an effort to appear cheerful, but he confessed that he missed his two children sadly. The boys were well, and Angélique was growing pretty. In another year it would be better that she should be with her sister; it was somewhat doubtful whether Miss Lois understood the child.
Miss Lois's letter was emphatic, beginning and ending with her opinion of Miss Vanhorn in the threefold character of grandaunt, Christian, and woman. She was able to let out her feelings at last, unhindered by the now-withdrawn allowance. The old bitter resentment against the woman who had slighted William Douglas found vent, and the characterization was withering and picturesque. When she had finished the arraignment, trial, and execution, at least in words, she turned at last to the children; and here it was evident that her pen paused and went more slowly. The boys, she hoped (rather as a last resort), were "good-hearted." She had but little trouble, comparatively, with Tita now; the child was very attentive to her lessons, and had been over to Père Michaux at his hermitage almost every other day. The boys went sometimes; and Erastus had been kind enough to accompanythe children, to see that they were not drowned. And then, dropping the irksome theme, Miss Lois dipped her pen in romance, and filled the remainder of her letter with praise of golden-haired Rast, not so much because she herself loved him, as because Anne did. For the old maid believed with her whole heart in this young affection which had sprung into being under her fostering care, and looked forward to the day when the two should kneel together before Dr. Gaston in the little fort chapel, to receive the solemn benediction of the marriage service, as the happiest remaining in her life on earth. Anne read the fervid words with troubled heart. If Rast felt all that Miss Lois said he felt, if he had borne as impatiently as Miss Lois described their present partial separation, even when he was sure of her love, how would he suffer when he read her letter! She looked forward feverishly to the arrival of his answer; but none came. The delay was hard to bear.
Dr. Gaston wrote a second time. Rast had remained but a day at the first town, and not liking it, had gone forward. Not having heard from Anne, he sent, inclosed to the chaplain's care, a letter for her. With nervous haste she opened it; but it contained nothing save an account of his journey, with a description of the frontier village—"shanties, drinking saloons, tin cans, and a grave-yard already. This will never do for a home for us. I shall push on farther." The tone of the letter was affectionate, as sure as ever of her love. Rast had always been sure of that. She read the pages sadly; it seemed as if she was willfully deceiving him. Where was her letter, the letter that told all? She wrote to the postmaster of the first town, requesting him to return it. After some delay, she received answer that it had been sent westward to another town, which the person addressed, namely, Erastus Pronando, had said should be his next stopping-place. But a second letter from Rast, sent also to the chaplain's care, had mentioned passing through that very town without stopping—"it was such an infernal den"; and again Anne wrote, addressing the second postmaster, and asking for the letter. This postmaster replied, aftersome tardiness, owing to his conflicting engagements as politician, hunter, and occasionally miner, that the letter described had been forwarded to the Dead-letter Office. This correspondence occupied October and November; and during this time Rast was still roaming through the West, writing frequently, but sending no permanent address. Now rumors of a silver mine attracted him; now it was a scheme for cattle-raising; now speculation in lands along the line of the coming railway It was impossible to follow him—and in truth he did not wish to be followed. He was tasting his first liberty. He meant to look around the world awhile before choosing his home: not long, only awhile. Still, awhile.
The chaplain added a few lines of his own when he sent these letters to Anne. Winter had seized them; they were now fast fettered; the mail came over the ice. Miss Lois was kind, and sometimes came up to regulate his housekeeping; but nothing went as formerly. His coffee was seldom good; and he found himself growing peevish—at least his present domestic, a worthy widow named McGlathery, had remarked upon it. But Anne must not think the domestic was in fault; he had reason to believe that she meant well even when she addressed him on the subject of his own short-comings. And here the chaplain's old humor peeped through, as he added, quaintly, that poor Mistress McGlathery's health was far from strong, she being subject to "inward tremblings," which tremblings she had several times described to him with tears in her eyes, while he had as often recommended peppermint and ginger, but without success; on the contrary, she always went away with a motion of the skirts and a manner as to closing the door which, the chaplain thought, betokened offense. Anne smiled over these letters, and then sighed. If she could only be with him again—with them all! She dreamed at night of the old man in his arm-chair, of Miss Lois, of the boys, of Tita curled in her furry corner, which she had transferred, in spite of Miss Lois's remonstrances, to the sitting-room of the church-house. Neither Tita nor Père Michaux had written; she wondered over their new silence.
Anne's pupils had, of course, exhaustively weighed and sifted the new teacher, and had decided to like her. Some of them decided to adore her, and expressed their adoration in bouquets, autograph albums, and various articles in card-board supposed to be of an ornamental nature. They watched her guardedly, and were jealous of every one to whom she spoke; she little knew what a net-work of plots, observation, mines and countermines, surrounded her as patiently she toiled through each long monotonous day. These adorations of school-girls, although but unconscious rehearsals of the future, are yet real while they last; Anne's adorers went sleepless if by chance she gave especial attention to any other pupil. The adored one meanwhile did not notice these little intensities; her mind was absorbed by other thoughts.
Four days before Christmas two letters came; one was her own to Rast, returned at last from the Dead-letter Office; the other was from Miss Lois, telling of the serious illness of Dr. Gaston. The old chaplain had had a stroke of paralysis, and Rast had been summoned; fortunately his last letter had been from St. Louis, to which place he had unexpectedly returned, and therefore they had been able to reach him by message to Chicago and a telegraphic dispatch. Dr. Gaston wished to see him; the youth had been his ward as well as almost child, and there were business matters to be arranged between them. Anne's tears fell as she read of her dear old teacher's danger, and the impulse came to her to go to him at once. Was she not his child as well as Rast? But the impulse was checked by the remainder of the letter. Miss Lois wrote, sadly, that she had tried to keep it from Anne, but had not succeeded: since August her small income had been much reduced, owing to the failure of a New Hampshire bank, and she now found that with all her effort they could not quite live on what was left. "Very nearly, dear child. I think, withthirtydollars, I can manage until spring. Then everything will becheaper. I should not have kept it from you if it had not happened at thevery timeof your trouble with thatwicked old woman, and I did not wish to add to your care. Butthe boys have what is calledfineappetites (I wish they were not quite so 'fine'), and of coursethiswinter, and never before, my provisions were spoiled in my own cellar."
Anne had intended to send to Miss Lois all her small savings on Christmas-day. She now went to the principal of the school, asked that the payment of her salary might be advanced, and forwarded all she was able to send to the poverty-stricken little household in the church-house. That night she wept bitter tears; the old chaplain was dying, and she could not go to him; the children were perhaps suffering. For the first time in a life of poverty she felt its iron hand crushing her down. Her letter to Rast lay before her; she could not send it now and disturb the last hours on earth of their dear old friend. She laid it aside and waited—waited through those long hours of dreary suspense which those must bear who are distant from the dying beds of their loved ones.
In the mean time Rast had arrived. Miss Lois wrote of the chaplain's joy at seeing him. The next letter contained the tidings that death had come; early in the morning, peacefully, with scarcely a sigh, the old man's soul had passed from earth. Colonel Bryden, coming in soon afterward, and looking upon the calm face, had said, gently,
When Anne knew that the funeral was over, that another grave had been made under the snow in the little military cemetery, and that, with the strange swiftness which is so hard for mourning hearts to realize, daily life was moving on again in the small island circle where the kind old face would be seen no more, she sent her letter, the same old letter, unaltered and travel-worn. Then she waited. She could not receive her answer before the eighth or ninth day. But on the fifth came two letters; on the seventh, three. The first were fromMiss Lois and Mrs. Bryden; the others from Tita, Père Michaux, and—Rast. And the extraordinary tidings they brought were these: Rast had married Tita. The little sister was now his wife.
"A slave had long worn a chain upon his ankle. By the order of his master it was removed. 'Why dost thou spring aloft and sing, O slave? Surely the sun is as fierce and thy burden as heavy as before.' The slave replied: 'Ten times the sun and the burden would seem light, now that the chain is removed.'"—From the Arabic.
"A slave had long worn a chain upon his ankle. By the order of his master it was removed. 'Why dost thou spring aloft and sing, O slave? Surely the sun is as fierce and thy burden as heavy as before.' The slave replied: 'Ten times the sun and the burden would seem light, now that the chain is removed.'"—From the Arabic.
Miss Lois's letter was a wail:
"My poor dear outraged Child,—WhatcanI say to you? There is no use in trying toprepareyou for it, since you would neverconceivesuchdouble-dyedblackness of heart! Tita hasrun away. She slipped off clandestinely, and they think she has followedRast, who left yesterday on his way back to St. Louis and the West. Père Michaux has followedher, saying that if he found them together he should, acting as Tita's guardian, insist upon amarriagebefore he returned! He feels himself responsible forTita, he says, and paid no attention when I asked him if no one was to be responsible foryou! My poor child, it seems that I have been blind all along; I neverdreamedof what was going on. The little minx deceived me completely. I thought her so much improved, so studious, while all the time she was meeting Erastus, or planning to meet him, with a skill far beyondmycomprehension. All last summer, they tell me, she was with him constantly; those daily journeys to Père Michaux's island were for that purpose, while I supposed they were for prayers. WhatErastusthought or meant, no one seems to know; but they all combined in declaring that the child (child no longer!) was deeply in love with him, and that everybody saw it saveme. My New England blood could not, I am proud to say, grasp it! You know, my poor darling, the opinion I havealwayshad concerning Tita's mother, who slyly and artfully inveigledyour honored father into atrap. Tita has therefore but followed in her mother's footsteps.
"That Erastus has evercared, or cares now in the least, for her, save as a plaything, I willneverbelieve. But Père Michaux is like amulefor stubbornness, as you know, and I fear he will marry them inanycase. He did not seem to think ofyouat all, and when I said, 'Anne willdieof grief!' he only smiled—yes,smiled—and Frenchly shrugged his shoulders! My poor child, I have but little hope, because if he appeals to Erastus'shonor, what can the boy do? He is the soul of honor.
"I can hardly write, my brain has been so overturned. To think thatTitashould have outwitted us all at her age, and gained her point over everything, over you and over Rast—poor, poor Rast, who will be somiserablysacrificed! I will write again to-morrow; but if Père Michaux carries out his strangeJesuiticaldesign, you will hear from him probably before you can hear again from me. Bear up, my dearest Anne. I acknowledge that, so far, I have found it difficult to see the Divine purpose in this, unless indeed it be to inform us that we are all but cinders and ashes; which, however, I for one have long known."
Mrs. Bryden's letter:
"Dear Anne,—I feel drawn toward you more closely since the illness and death of our dear Dr. Gaston, who loved you so tenderly, and talked so much of you during his last days with us. It is but a short time since I wrote to you, giving some of the messages he left, and telling of his peaceful departure; but now I feel that I must write again upon a subject which is painful, yet one upon which you should have, I think, all the correct details immediately. Miss Hinsdale is no doubt writing to you also; but she does not know all. She has not perceived, as we have, the gradual approaches to this catastrophe—I can call it by no other name.
"When you went away, your half-sister was a child. With what has seemed lightning rapidity she has grown to womanhood, and for months it has been plainly evident that she was striving in every way to gain and hold the attention of Erastus Pronando. He lingered herealmost all summer, as you will remember; Tita followed him everywhere. Miss Hinsdale, absorbed in the cares of housekeeping, knew nothing of it; but daily, on one pretext or another, they were together. Whether Erastus was interested I have no means of knowing; but that Tita is now extremely pretty in a certain style, and that she was absorbed in him, we could all see. It was not our affair; yet we might have felt called upon to make it ours if it had not been for Père Michaux. He was her constant guardian.
"Erastus went away yesterday in advance of the mail-train. He bade us all good-by, and I am positive that he had no plan, not even a suspicion of what was to follow. We have a new mail-carrier this winter, Denis being confined to his cabin with rheumatism. Tita must have slipped away unperceived, and joined this man at dusk on the ice a mile or two below the island; her track was found this morning. Erastus expected to join the mail-train to-day, and she knew it, of course; the probability is, therefore, that they are now together. It seems hardly credible that so young a head could have arranged its plans so deftly; yet it is certainly true that, even if Rast wished to bring her back, he could not do so immediately, not until the up-train passed them. Père Michaux started after them this morning, travelling in his own sledge. He thinks (it is better that you should know it, Anne) that Erastusisfond of Tita, and that only his engagement to you has held him back. Now that the step has been taken, he has no real doubt but that Rast himself will wish to marry her, and without delay.
"All this will seem very strange to you, my dear child; but I trust it will not be so hard a blow as Miss Hinsdale apprehends. Père Michaux told me this morning in so many words: 'Anne has never loved the boy with anything more than the affection of childhood. It will be for her a release.' He was convinced of this, and went off on his journey with what looked very much like gladness. I hope, with all my heart, that he is right." Then, with a few more words of kindly friendship, the letter ended.
The other envelope bore the rude pen-and-ink postmark of a Northwestern lumber settlement, where travellers coming down, from the North in the winter over the ice and snow met the pioneer railway, which had pushed its track to that point before the blockade of the cold began.
Tita's letter:
"Deerest Sister,—You will not I am sure blaime your little Tita for following the impulse of herhart. Since you were hear I have grown up and it is the truth that Rast has loved me foryeersof his own accord and because he could not help it—deerest sister who can. But he never ment to break his word to you and he tryed not to but was devowered by his love for me and you will forgive him deerest sister will you not since there is no more hope for you as we were married by Père Michaux an hour ago who approved of all and has hartily given us his bennydiction. Since my spiritual directeur has no reproche you will not have enny I am sure and remain your loving sister,
Angélique Pronando."
"P. S. We go to Chicago to-day. Enny money forclosefor me could be sent to the Illinois Hotel, where my deerest husband says we are to stay.
A. P."
Père Michaux's letter:
"Dear Anne,—It is not often that I speak so bluntly as I shall speak now. In marrying, this morning, your half-sister Angélique to Erastus Pronando I feel that I have done you a great service. You did not love him with the real love of a nature like yours—the love that will certainly come to you some day; perhaps has already come. I have always known this, and, in accordance with it, did all I could to prevent the engagement originally. I failed; but this day's work has made up for the failure.
"Angélique has grown into a woman. She is also very beautiful, after a peculiar fashion of her own. All the strength of her nature, such as it is, is concentrated upon the young man who is now her husband. From childhood she has loved him; she was bitterly jealous of you even before you went away. I have been aware of this, but until lately I was not sure of Rast. Her increasing beauty, however, added to her intense absorbed interest inhim, has conquered. Seeing this, I have watched with satisfaction the events of the past summer, and have even assisted somewhat (and with a clear conscience) in their development.
"Erastus, even if you had loved him, Anne, could not have made you happy. And neither would you have made him happy; for he is quick-witted, and he would have inevitably, and in spite of all your tender humility, my child, discovered your intellectual superiority, and in time would have angrily resented it. For he is vain; his nature is light; he needs adulation in order to feel contented. On the other hand, he is kind-hearted and affectionate, and to Tita will be a demi-god always. The faults that would have been death to you, she will never see. She is therefore the fit wife for him.
"You will ask, Does he love her? I answer, Yes. When he came back to the island, and found her so different, the same elfish little creature, but now strangely pretty, openly fond of him, following him everywhere, with the words of a child but the eyes of a woman, he was at first surprised, then annoyed, then amused, interested, and finally fascinated. He struggled against it. I give him the due of justice—he did struggle. But Tita was alwaysthere. He went away hurriedly at the last, and if it had not been for Dr. Gaston's illness and his own recall to the island, it might not have gone farther. Tita understood this as well as I did; she made the most of her time. Still, I am quite sure that he had no suspicion she intended to follow him; the plan was all her own. She did follow him. And I followed her. I caught up with them that very day at sunset, and an hour ago I married them. If you have not already forgiven me, Anne, you will do so some day. I have no fear. I can wait. I shall go on with them as far as Chicago, and then, after a day or two, I shall return to the island. Do not be disturbed by anything Miss Lois may write. She has been blindly mistaken from the beginning. In truth, there is a vein of obstinate weakness on some subjects in that otherwise estimable woman, for which I have always been at a loss to account."
Ah, wise old priest, there are some things too deep for even you to know!
Rast's letter was short. It touched Anne more than any of the others:
"What must you think of me, Annet? Forgive me, and forget me. Ididtry. But would you have cared for a man who had to try? When I think of you I scorn myself. But she is the sweetest, dearest, most winning little creature the world ever saw; and my only excuse is that—I love her.
E. P."
These few lines, in which the young husband made out no case for himself, sought no shield in the little bride's own rashness, but simply avowed his love, and took all the responsibility upon himself, pleased the elder sister. It was manly. She was glad that Tita had a defender.
She had read these last letters standing in the centre of her room, Jeanne-Armande anxiously watching her from the open door. The Frenchwoman had poured out a glass of water, and had it in readiness: she thought that perhaps Anne was going to faint. With no distinct idea of what had happened, she had lived in a riot of conjecture for two days.
But instead of fainting, Anne, holding the letters in her hand, turned and looked at her.
"Well, dear, will you go to bed?" she said, solicitously.
"Why should I go to bed?"
"I thought perhaps you had heard—had heard bad news."
"On the contrary," replied Anne, slowly and gravely, "I am afraid, mademoiselle, that the news is good—even very good."
For her heart had flown out of its cage and upward as a freed bird darts up in the sky. The bond, on her side at least, was gone; she was free.Nowshe would live a life of self-abnegation and labor, but without inward thralldom. Women had lived such lives before she was born, women would live such lives after she was dead. She would be one of the sisterhood, and coveting nothing of the actual joy of love, she would cherish only the ideal,an altar-light within, burning forever. The cares of each day were as nothing now: she was free, free!
In her exaltation she did not recognize as wrong the opposite course she had intended to follow before the lightning fell, namely, uniting herself to one man while so deeply loving another. She was of so humble and unconscious a spirit regarding herself that it had not seemed to her that the inner feelings of her heart would be of consequence to Rast, so long as she was the obedient, devoted, faithful wife she was determined with all her soul to be. For she had not that imaginative egotism which so many women possess, which makes them spend their lives in illusion, weaving round their every thought and word an importance which no one else can discern. According to these women, there are a thousand innocent acts which "he" (lover or husband) "would not for an instant allow," although to the world at large "he" appears indifferent enough. They go through long turmoil, from which they emerge triumphantly, founded upon some hidden jealousy which "he" is supposed to feel, so well hidden generally, and so entirely supposed, that persons with less imagination never observe it. But after all, smile as we may, it is only those who are in most respects happy and fortunate wives who can so entertain themselves. For cold unkindness, or a harsh and brutal word, will rend this filmy fabric of imagination immediately, never to be rewoven again.
Anne wrote to Rast, repeating the contents of the old letter, which had been doomed never to reach him. She asked him to return the wanderer unopened when it was forwarded to him from the island; there was a depth of feeling in it which it was not necessary now that he should see. She told him that her own avowal should lift from him all the weight of wrong-doing; she had first gone astray. "We were always like brother and sister, Rast; I see it now. It is far better as it is."
A few days later Père Michaux wrote again, and inclosed a picture of Tita. The elder sister gazed at it curiously. This was not Tita; and yet those were her eyes, and that the old well-remembered mutinous expressionstill lurking about the little mouth. Puzzled, she took it to mademoiselle. "It is my little sister," she said. "Do you think it pretty?"
Jeanne-Armande put on her spectacles, and held it frowningly at different distances from her eyes.
"It is odd," she said at last. "Ye—es, it is pretty too. But, for a child's face, remarkable."
"She is not a child."
"Not a child?"
"No; she is married," replied Anne, smiling.
Mademoiselle pursed up her lips, and examined the picture with one eye closed. "After all," she said, "I can believe it. Theeyesare mature."
The little bride was represented standing; she leaned against a pillar nonchalantly, and outlined on a light background, the extreme smallness of her figure was clearly shown. Her eyes were half veiled by their large drooping lids and long lashes; her little oval face looked small, like that of a child. Her dress was long, and swept over the floor with the richness of silk: evidently Père Michaux had not stinted the lavish little hands when they made their first purchase of a full-grown woman's attire. For the priest had taken upon himself this outlay; the "money for close," of which Tita had written, was provided from his purse. He wrote to Anne that as he was partly responsible for the wedding, he was also responsible for the trousseau; and he returned the money which with great difficulty the elder sister had sent.
"She must be very small," said mademoiselle, musingly, as they still studied the picture.
"She is; she has the most slender little face I ever saw."
Tita's head was thrown back as she leaned against the pillar; there was a half-smile on her delicate lips; her thick hair was still braided childishly in two long braids which hung over her shoulders and down on the silken skirt behind; in her small ears were odd long hoops of gold, which Père Michaux had given her, selecting them himself on account of their adaptation to her half-Oriental, half-elfin beauty. Her cheeks showed no color; there were brown shadows under her eyes. On her slenderbrown hand shone the wedding ring. The picture was well executed, and had been carefully tinted under Père Michaux's eye: the old priest knew that it was Rast's best excuse.
"MISS LOIS SIGHED DEEPLY.""MISS LOIS SIGHED DEEPLY."
Now that Anne was freed, he felt no animosity toward the young husband; on the contrary, he wished to advance his interests in every way that he could. Tita was a selfish little creature, yet she adored her husband. She would have killed herself for him at any moment. But first she would have killed him.
He saw them start for the far West, and then he returned northward to his island home. Miss Lois, disheartened by all that had happened, busied herself in taking care of the boys dumbly, and often shook her head at the fire when sitting alone with her knitting. She never opened the old piano now, and she was less stringent with her Indian servants; she would even have given up quietly her perennial alphabet teaching if Père Michaux had not discovered the intention, and quizzically approved it, whereat, of course, she was obliged to go on. In truth, the old man did this purposely, having noticed the change in his old antagonist. He fell into the habit of coming to the church-house more frequently—to teach the boys, he said. He did teach the little rascals, and taught them well, but he also talked to Miss Lois. The original founders of the church-house would have been well astonished could they have risen from their graves and beheld the old priest and the New England woman sitting on opposite sides of the fire in the neat shining room, which still retained its Puritan air in spite of years, the boys, and Episcopal apostasy.
Regarding Rast's conduct, Miss Lois maintained a grim silence. The foundations of her faith in life had been shaken; but how could she, supposed to be a sternly practical person, confess it to the world—confess that she had dreamed like a girl over this broken betrothal?
"Do you not see how much happier, freer, she is?" the priest would say, after reading one of Anne's letters. "The very tone betrays it."
Miss Lois sighed deeply, and poked the fire.
"Pooh! pooh! Do you want her to beunhappy?" said the old man. "Suppose that it had been the other way? Why not rejoice as I do over her cheerfulness?"
"Why not indeed?" thought Miss Lois. But that stubborn old heart of hers would not let her.
The priest had sent to her also one of the pictures of Tita. One day, after his return, he asked for it. She answered that it was gone.
"Where?"
"Into the fire."
"She cannot forgive," he thought, glancing cautiously at the set face opposite.
But it was not Tita whom she could not forgive; it was the young mother, dead long years before.
The winter moved on. Anne had taken off her engagement ring, and now wore in its place a ring given by her school-girl adorers, who had requested permission in a formal note to present one to their goddess. As she had refused gems, they had selected the most costly plain gold circlet they could find in Weston, spending a long and happy Saturday in the quest. "But it is a wedding ring," said the jeweller.
But why should brides have all the heavy gold? the school-girls wished to know. Other persons could wear plain gold rings also if they pleased.
So they bought the circlet and presented it to Anne with beating hearts and cheeks flushed with pleasure, humbly requesting in return, for each a lock of her hair. Then ensued a second purchase of lockets for this hair: it was well that their extravagant little purses were well filled.
To the school-girls the ring meant one thing, to Anne another; she mentally made it a token of the life she intended to lead. Free herself, he was not free; Helen loved him. Probably, also, he had already forgotten his fancy for the lonely girl whom he had seen during those few weeks at Caryl's. She would live her life out as faithfully as she could, thankful above all things for her freedom. Surely strength would be given her to do this. The ring was like the marriage ring of a nun, the tokenof a vow of patience and humility. During all these long months she had known no more, heard no more, of her companions of that summer than as though they had never existed. The newspapers of Weston and the country at large were not concerned about the opinions and movements of the unimportant little circle left behind at Caryl's. Their columns had contained burning words; but they were words relating to the great questions which were agitating the land from the Penobscot to the Rio Grande. Once, in a stray number of theHome Journal, she found the following paragraph: "Miss Katharine Vanhorn is in Italy at present. It is understood that Miss Vanhorn contemplates an extended tour, and will not return to this country for several years. Her Hudson River residence and her house in the city are both closed." Anne no longer hoped for any softening of that hard nature; yet the chance lines hurt her, and gave her a forsaken feeling all day.
April. The sound of military music; the sound of feet keeping step exactly, and overcoming by its regularity the noise of thousands of other feet hurrying on irregularly in front of them, abreast of them, and behind them. A crowd in the square so dense that no one could pass through; the tree branches above black with boys; the windows all round the four sides filled with heads. And everywhere women pressing forward, waving handkerchiefs, some pallid, some flushed, but all deeply excited, forgetful of self, with eyes fixed on the small compact lines of military caps close together, moving steadily onward in the midst of the accompanying throng. And happy the one who had a place in the front rank: how she gazed!If a girl, no matter how light of heart and frivolous, a silence and soberness came over her for a moment, and her eyes grew wistful. If a woman, one who had loved, no matter how hard and cold she had grown, a warmer heart came back to her then, and tears rose. What was it? Only a few men dressed in the holiday uniform these towns-people had often seen; men many of whom they knew well, together with their shortcomings and weaknesses, whose military airs they had laughed at; men who, taken singly, had neither importance nor interest. What was it, then, that made the women's eyes tearful, and sent the great crowd thronging round and after them as though each one had been crowned king? What made the groups on the steps and piazzas of each house keep silence after they had passed, and watch them as long as they could distinguish the moving lines? It was that these men had made the first reply of this town to the President's call. It was because these holiday soldiers were on their way to real battle-fields, where balls would plough through human flesh, and leave agony and death behind. The poorest, dullest, soldier who was in these ranks from a sense of loyalty, however dim and inarticulate it might be, gave all he had: martyr or saint never gave more. Not many of the gazing people thought of this; but they did think of death by bayonet and ball as the holiday ranks marched by.
Down through the main street went the little troop, and the crowd made a solid wall on the sidewalk, and a moving guard before and behind. From the high windows above, the handkerchiefs of the work-girls fluttered, while underneath from the law offices, and below from the door-ways, men looked out soberly, realizing that this meant War indeed—real and near War.
By another way, down the hill toward the railway-station, rattled the wheels of an artillery company; also a little holiday troop, with holiday guns shining brightly. The men sat in their places with folded arms; the crowd, seeing them, knew them all. They were only Miller, and Sieberling, and Wagner, and others as familiar; six months ago—a month ago—they would havelaughed inexhaustibly at the idea of calling Tom Miller a hero, or elevating Fritz Wagner to any other pedestal than the top of a beer barrel. But now, as they saw them, they gave a mighty cheer, which rang through the air splendidly, and raised a hue of pride upon the faces of the artillerymen, and perhaps the first feeling in some of their hearts higher than the determination not to "back out," which had been until then their actuating motive. The two shining little guns rattled down the hill; the infantry company marched down behind them. The line of cars, with locomotive attached, was in waiting, and, breaking ranks, helter-skelter, in any way and every way, hindered by hand-shaking, by all sorts of incongruous parting gifts thrust upon them at the last moment by people they never saw before, blessed by excited, tearful women, made heart-sick themselves by the sight of the grief of their mothers and wives, the soldiers took their places in the cars, and the train moved out from the station, followed by a long cheer, taken up and repeated again and again, until nothing but a dark speck on the straight track remained for the shouters to look at, when they stopped suddenly, hoarse and tired, and went silently homeward, pondering upon this new thing which had come into their lives. The petty cares of the day were forgotten. "War is hideous; but it banishes littleness from daily life."
Anne, brought up as she had been in a remote little community, isolated and half foreign, was in a measure ignorant of the causes and questions of the great struggle which began in America in April, 1861. Not hers the prayerful ardor of the New England girl who that day willingly gave her lover, saw him brought home later dead, buried him, and lived on, because she believed that he had died to free his brother man, as Christ had died for her. Not hers the proud loyalty of the Southern girl to her blood and to her State, when that day she bade her lover go forth and sweep their fanatical assailants back, as the old Cavaliers, from whom they were descended, swept back the crop-eared Puritans into the sea.
Jeanne-Armande was not especially stirred; save byimpatience—impatience over this interference with the prosperity of the country. It might injure property (the half-house), and break up music classes and schools! What sympathy she felt, too, was with the South; but she was wise enough to conceal this from all save Anne, since the school was burning with zeal, and the principal already engaged in teaching the pupils to make lint. But if Jeanne-Armande was lukewarm, Miss Lois was at fever heat; the old New England spirit rose within her like a giant when she read the tidings. Far away as she was from all the influences of the time, she yet wrote long letters to Anne which sounded like the clash of spears, the call of the trumpet, and the roll of drums, so fervid were the sentences which fell of themselves into the warlike phraseology of the Old Testament, learned by heart in her youth. But duty, as well as charity, begins at home, and even the most burning zeal must give way before the daily needs of children. Little André was not strong; his spine was becoming curved, they feared. In his languor he had fallen into the habit of asking Miss Lois to hold him in her arms, rock with him in the old rocking-chair, and sing. Miss Lois had not thought that she could ever love "those children"; but there was a soft spot in her heart now for little André.
In June two unexpected changes came. Little André grew suddenly worse; and Jeanne-Armande went to Europe. A rich merchant of Weston, wishing to take his family abroad, engaged mademoiselle as governess for his two daughters, and French speaker for the party, at what she herself termed "the salary of a princess." The two announcements came on the same day. Jeanne-Armande, excited and tremulous, covered a sheet of paper with figures to show to herself and Anne the amount of the expected gain. As she could not retain her place in the school without the magic power of being in two places at once, the next best course was to obtain it for Anne, with the understanding that the successor was to relinquish it immediately whenever called upon to do so. As they were in the middle of a term, the principal accepted Miss Douglas, who, although young, had proved herselfcompetent and faithful. And thus Anne found herself unexpectedly possessed of a higher salary, heavier duties, and alone. For Jeanne-Armande, in the helmet bonnet, sailed on the twentieth of the month for England, in company with her charges, who, with all their beauty and bird-like activity, would find it impossible to elude mademoiselle, who would guard them with unflinching vigilance, and, it is but fair to add, would earn every cent of even that "salary of a princess" (whatever that may be) which had attracted her.
Before mademoiselle departed it had been decided that in consequence of little André's illness Miss Lois should close the church-house, and take the child to the hot springs not far distant, in Michigan, and that Louis and Gabriel should come to their elder sister for a time. The boys were to travel to Weston alone, Père Michaux putting them in charge of the captain of the steamer, while Anne was to meet them upon their arrival. Miss Lois wrote that they were wild with excitement, and had begged all sorts of farewell presents from everybody, and packed them in the two chests which Père Michaux had given them—knives, cord, hammers, nails, the last being "a box-stove, old and rusty, which they had actually taken to pieces and hidden among their clothes." Jeanne-Armande went away on Monday; the boys were to arrive on Saturday. Anne spent all her leisure time in preparing for them. Two of the little black-eyed fellows were coming at last, the children who had clung to her skirts, called her "Annet," and now and then, when they felt like it, swarmed up all together to kiss her, like so many affectionate young bears. They were very dear to her—part of her childhood and of the island. The day arrived; full of expectation, she went down to meet the steamer. Slowly the long narrow craft threaded its way up the crooked river; the great ropes were made fast, the plank laid in place; out poured the passengers, men, women, and children, but no Louis, no Gabriel. Anne watched until the last man had passed, and the deck hands were beginning to roll out the freight; then a voice spoke above, "Is that Miss Douglas?"
She looked up, and saw the captain, who asked her to come on board for a moment. "I am very much troubled, Miss Douglas," he began, wiping his red but friendly face. "The two boys—your half-brothers, I believe—placed in my care by Père Michaux, have run away."
Anne gazed at him in silence.
"They must have slipped off the boat at Hennepin, which is the first point where we strike a railroad. It seems to have been a plan, too, for they managed to have their chests put off also."
"You have no idea where they have gone?"
"No; I sent letters back to Hennepin and to Père Michaux immediately, making inquiries. The only clew I have is that they asked a number of questions about the plains of one of our hands, who has been out that way."
"The plains!"
"Yes; they said they had a sister living out there."
A pain darted through Anne's heart. Could they have deserted her for Tita? She went home desolate and disheartened; the empty rooms, where all her loving preparations were useless now, seemed to watch her satirically. Even the boys did not care enough for her to think of her pain and disappointment.
Père Michaux had had no suspicion of the plan: but he knew of one dark fact which might have, he wrote to Anne, a bearing upon it. Miss Lois had mysteriously lost, in spite of all her care, a sum of money, upon which she had depended for a part of the summer's expenses, and concerning which she had made great lamentation; it had been made up by the renting of the church-house; but the mystery remained. If the boys had taken it, bad as the action was, it insured for a time at least their safety. The priest thought they had started westward to join Rast and Tita, having been fascinated by what they had overheard of Rast's letters.
The surmise was correct. After what seemed to Anne very long delay, a letter came; it was from Rast. The night before, two dirty little tramps, tired and hungry, with clothes soiled and torn, had opened the door andwalked in, announcing that they were Louis and Gabriel, and that they meant to stay. They had asked for food, but had fallen asleep almost before they could eat it. With their first breath that morning they had again declared that nothing should induce them to return eastward, either to the island or to Anne. And Rast added that he thought they might as well remain; he and Tita would take charge of them. After a few days came a letter from the boys themselves, printed by Louis. In this document, brief but explicit, they sent their love, but declined to return. If Père Michaux came after them, they would run away again, andthistime no one should ever know where they were, "exsep, purhaps, theMormons." With this dark threat the letter ended.
Père Michaux, as in the case of Tita, took the matter into his own hands. He wrote to Rast to keep the boys, and find some regular occupation for them as soon as possible. Anne's ideas about them had always been rather Quixotic; he doubted whether they could ever have been induced to attend school regularly. But now they would grow to manhood in a region where such natural gifts as they possessed would be an advantage to them, and where, also, their deficiencies would not be especially apparent. The old priest rather enjoyed this escapade. He considered that three of the Douglas children were now, on the whole, well placed, and that Anne was freed from the hampering responsibility which her father's ill-advised course had imposed upon her. He sailed round his water parish with brisker zeal than ever, although in truth he was very lonely. The little white fort was empty; even Miss Lois was gone; but he kept himself busy, and read his old classics on stormy evenings when the rain poured down on his low roof.
But Anne grieved.
As several of her pupils wished to continue their music lessons during the vacation, it was decided by Miss Lois and herself that she should remain where she was for the present; the only cheer she had was in the hope that in autumn Miss Lois and the little boy would come to her. But in spite of all her efforts, the long weeks of summerstretched before her like a desert; in her lonely rooms without the boys, without mademoiselle, she was pursued by a silent depression unlike anything she had felt before. She fell into the habit of allowing herself to sit alone in the darkness through the evening brooding upon the past. The kind-hearted woman who kept the house, in whose charge she had been left by mademoiselle, said that she was "homesick."
"How can one be homesick who has no home?" answered the girl, smiling sadly.
One day the principal of the school asked her if she would go on Saturdays for a while, and assist those who were at work in the Aid Rooms for the soldiers' hospitals. Anne consented languidly; but once within the dingy walls, languor vanished. There personal sorrow seemed small in the presence of ghastly lists of articles required for the wounded and dying. At least those she loved were not confronting cannon. Those in charge of the rooms soon learned to expect her, this young teacher, a stranger in Weston, who with a settled look of sadness on her fair face had become the most diligent worker there. She came more regularly after a time, for the school had closed, the long vacation begun.
On Sunday, the 21st of July, Anne was in church; it was a warm day; fans waved, soft air came in and played around the heads of the people, who, indolent with summer ease, leaned back comfortably, and listened with drowsy peacefulness to the peaceful sermon. At that very moment, on a little mill-stream near Washington, men were desperately fighting the first great battle of the war, the Sunday battle of Bull Run. The remnant of the Northern army poured over Long Bridge into the capital during all that night, a routed, panic-stricken mob.
The North had suffered a great defeat; the South had gained a great victory. And both sides paused.
The news flashed over the wires and into Weston, and the town was appalled. Never in the four long years that followed was there again a day so filled with stern astonishment to the entire North as that Monday after Bull Run. The Aid Rooms, where Anne worked during herleisure hours, were filled with helpers now; all hearts were excited and in earnest. West Virginia was the field to which their aid was sent, a mountain region whose streams were raised in an hour into torrents, and whose roads were often long sloughs of despond, through which the soldiers of each side gloomily pursued each other by turns, the slowness of the advancing force only equalled by that of the pursued, which was encountering in front the same disheartening difficulties. The men in hospital on the edges of this region, worn out with wearying marches, wounded in skirmishes, stricken down by the insidious fever which haunts the river valleys, suffered as much as those who had the names of great battles wherewith to identify themselves; but they lacked the glory.
One sultry evening, when the day's various labor was ended, Anne, having made a pretense of eating in her lonely room, went across to the bank of the lake to watch the sun set in the hazy blue water, and look northward toward the island. She was weary and sad: where were now the resolution and the patience with which she had meant to crown her life? You did not know, poor Anne, when you framed those lofty purposes, that suffering is just as hard to bear whether one is noble or ignoble, good or bad. In the face of danger the heart is roused, and in the exaltation of determination forgets its pain; it is the long monotony of dangerless days that tries the spirit hardest.
A letter had come to her that morning, bearing a Boston postmark; the address was in the neat, small handwriting of Jeanne-Armande's friend. Anne, remembering that it was this Boston address which she had sent to her grandaunt, opened the envelope eagerly. But it was only the formal letter of a lawyer. Miss Vanhorn had died, on the nineteenth of June, in Switzerland, and the lawyer wrote to inform "Miss Anne Douglas" that a certain portrait, said in the will to be that of "Alida Clanssen," had been bequeathed to her by his late client, and would be forwarded to her address, whenever she requested it. Anne had expected nothing, not even this. Butan increased solitariness came upon her as she thought of that cold rigid face lying under the turf far away in Switzerland—the face of the only relative left to her.
The sun had disappeared; it was twilight. The few loiterers on the bank were departing. The sound of carriage wheels roused her, and turning she saw that a carriage had approached, and that three persons had alighted and were coming toward her. They proved to be the principal of the school and the president of the Aid Society, accompanied by one of her associates. They had been to Anne's home, and learning where she was, had followed her. It seemed that one of the city physicians had gone southward a few days before to assist in the regimental hospitals on the border; a telegraphic dispatch had just been received from him, urging the Aid Society to send without delay three or four nurses to that fever-cursed district, where men were dying in delirium for want of proper care. It was the first personal appeal which had come to Weston; the young Aid Society felt that it must be answered. But who could go? Among the many workers at the Aid Rooms, few were free; wives, mothers, and daughters, they could give an hour or two daily to the work of love, but they could not leave their homes. One useful woman, a nurse by profession, was already engaged; another, a lady educated and refined, whose hair had been silvered as much by affliction as by age, had offered to go. There were two, then; but they ought to send four. Many had been asked during that afternoon, but without success. The society was at its wits' end. Then some one thought of Miss Douglas.
She was young, but she was also self-controlled and physically strong. Her inexperience would not be awkwardness; she would obey with intelligence and firmness the directions given her. Under the charge of the two older women, she could go—if she would!
It would be but for a short time—two weeks only; at the end of that period the society expected to relieve these first volunteers with regularly engaged and paid nurses. The long vacation had begun; as teacher, she would lose nothing; her expenses would be paid by the society. Shehad seemed so interested; it would not be much more to go for a few days in person; perhaps she would even be glad to go. All this they told her eagerly, while she stood before them in silence. Then, when at last their voices ceased, and they waited for answer, she said, slowly, looking from one to the other: "I could go, if it were not for one obstacle. I have music scholars, and I can not afford to lose them. I am very poor."
"They will gladly wait until you return, Miss Douglas," said the principal. "When it is known where you have gone, you will not only retain all your old scholars, but gain many new ones. They will be proud of their teacher."
"Yes, proud!" echoed the associate. Again Anne remained silent; she was thinking. In her loneliness she was almost glad to go. Perhaps, by the side of the suffering and the dying, she could learn to be ashamed of being so down-hearted and miserable. It was but a short absence. "Yes, I will go," she said, quietly. And then the three ladies kissed her, and the associate, who was of a tearful habit, took out her handkerchief. "It is so sweet, and so—so martial!" she sobbed.
The next morning they started. Early as it was, a little company had gathered to see them off. The school-girls were there, half in grief, half in pride, over what they were pleased to call the "heroism" of their dear Miss Douglas. Mrs. Green, Anne's landlady, was there in her Sunday bonnet, which was, however, but a poor one. These, with the principal of the school and the other teachers, and the ladies belonging to the Aid Society, made quite a snowy shower of white handkerchiefs as the train moved out from the station, Anne's young face contrasting with the strong features and coarse complexion of Mary Crane, the professional nurse, on one side, and with the thin cheeks and silver hair of Mrs. Barstow on the other, as they stood together at the rear door of the last car. "Good-by! good-by!" called the school-girls in tears, and the ladies of the Aid Society gave a shrill little feminine cheer. They were away.
The three nurses travelled southward by railway, steamboat, and wagon. On the evening of the third day they came to the first hospital, having been met at the river by an escort, and safely guided across a country fair with summer and peaceful to the eye, but harassed by constant skirmishing—the guerrilla warfare that desolated that border during the entire war. The houses they passed looked home-like and quiet; if the horses had been stolen and the barns pillaged, at least nothing of it appeared in the warm sunshine of the still August day. At the door of the hospital they were welcomed cordially, and within the hour they were at work, Anne timidly, the others energetically. Mary Crane had the worst cases; then followed Mrs. Barstow. To Anne was given what was called the light work; none of her patients were in danger. The men here had all been stricken down by fever; there were no wounded. During the next day and evening, however, stories began to come to the little post, brought by the country people, that a battle had been fought farther up the valley toward the mountains, and that Hospital Number Two was filled with wounded men, many of them lying on the hard floor because there were not beds enough, unattended and suffering because there were no nurses. Anne, who hadworked ardently all day, chafing and rebelling in spirit at the sight of suffering which could have been soothed by a few of the common luxuries abundant in almost every house in Weston, felt herself first awed, then chilled, by this picture of far worse agony beyond, whose details were pitilessly painted in the plain rough words of the country people. She went to the door and looked up the valley. The river wound slowly along, broad, yellow, and shining; it came from the mountains, but from where she stood she could see only round-topped hills. While she was still wistfully gazing, a soldier on horseback rode up to the door and dismounted; it was a messenger from Number Two, urgently asking for help.
"Under the circumstances, I do not see how I can refuse," said the surgeon of Number One, with some annoyance in his tone, "because none of my men are wounded. People never stop to think that fever is equally dangerous. I was just congratulating myself upon a little satisfactory work. However, I shall have to yield, I suppose. I can not send you all; but I ought to spare two, at least for some days. Mary Crane of course can do the most good; and as Miss Douglas can not be left here alone, perhaps it would be best that she should go with Mary."
"You retain Mrs. Barstow here?" asked Anne.
"Yes; I have, indeed, no choice.Youare too young to be retained alone. I suppose you are willing? (Women always are wild for a change!) Make ready, then; I shall send you forward to-night." The surgeon of Number One was a cynic.
At nine o'clock they started. The crescent of a young moon showed itself through the light clouds, which, low as mist, hung over the valley. Nothing stirred; each leaf hung motionless from its branchlet as they passed. Even the penetrating sing-song chant of the summer insects was hushed, and the smooth river as they followed its windings made no murmur. They were in a light wagon, with an escort of two mounted men.
"If you go beyond Number Two, you'll have to take to horseback, I reckon," said their driver, a countryman,who, without partisan feeling as to the two sides of the contest, held on with a tight grip to his horses, and impartially "did teaming" for both.
"Is there still another hospital beyond?" inquired Anne.
"Yes, there's Peterson's, a sorter hospital; it's up in the mountains. And heaps of sick fellers there too, the last time I was up."
"It does not belong to this department," said Mary Crane.
"I reckon they suffer pooty much the same, no matter where they belong," replied the driver, flicking the wheel reflectively with his whip-lash. "There was a feller up at Number Two the other day as hadn't any face left to speak of; yet he was alive, and quite peart."
Anne shuddered.
"There now, hold up, won't you?" said Mary Crane. "This young lady ain't a real nurse, as I am, and such stories make her feel faint."
"If she ain't a real nurse, what made her come?" said the man, glancing at Anne with dull curiosity.
"Twas just goodness, and the real downright article of patriotism, I guess," said the hearty nurse, smiling.
"Oh no," said Anne; "I was lonely and sad, and glad to come."
"Itdooskinder rouse one up to see a lot of men hit in all sorts of ways, legs and arms and everything flying round," remarked the driver, as if approving Anne's selection of remedies for loneliness.
They reached Number Two at dawn, and found the wounded in rows upon the floor of the barn dignified by the name of hospital. There had been no attempt to classify them after the few beds were filled. One poor torn fragment of humanity breathed his last as the nurses entered, another an hour later. Mary Crane set herself to work with ready skill; Anne, after going outside two or three times to let her tears flow unseen over the sorrowful sights, was able to assist in taking care of two kinds of cases—those who were the least hurt and those who were beyond hope, the slightly wounded and thedying. One man, upon whose face was the gray shadow of death, asked her in a whisper to write a letter for him. She found paper and pen, and sat down beside the bed to receive his farewell message to his wife and children. "And tell little Jim he must grow up and be a comfort to his mother," he murmured; and then turning his quiet gaze slowly upon the nurse: "His mother is only twenty-two years old now, miss. I expect she'll feel bad, Mary will, when she hears." Poor young wife! The simple country phraseology covered as much sorrow as the finest language of the schools. During the night the man died.
The new nurses remained at Number Two six days. Anne's work consisted principally in relieving Mary Crane at dawn, and keeping the watch through the early morning hours while she slept; for the head surgeon and Mary would not allow her to watch at night. The surgeon had two assistants; with one of these silent old men (they were both gray-haired) she kept watch while the sun rose slowly over the hill-tops, while the birds twittered, and the yellow butterflies came dancing through the open doors and windows, over the heads of the poor human sleepers. But Number Two had greater ease now. The hopelessly wounded were all at rest, their sufferings in this life over. Those who were left, in time would see health again.
On the seventh day a note came to the surgeon in charge from the temporary hospital at Peterson's Mill, asking for medicines. "If you can possibly spare us one or two nurses for a few days, pray do so. In all my experience I have never been so hard pushed as now," wrote the other surgeon. "The men here are all down with the fever, and I and my assistant are almost crazed with incessant night-work. If we could be relieved for one night even, it would be God's charity."
The surgeon of Number Two read this note aloud to Anne as they stood by a table eating their hasty breakfast. "It is like the note you sent to us at Number One," she said.
"Oh no; that was different,Inever send and take away other people's nurses," said Dr. Janes, laughingly.
"I should like to go," she said, after a moment.
"You should like to go? I thought you were so much interested here."
"So I am; but after what I have seen, I am haunted by the thought that there may be worse suffering beyond. That is the reason I came here. But the men here are more comfortable now, and those who were suffering hopelessly have been relieved forever from earthly pain. If we are not needed, some of us ought to go."
"But if we pass you on in this way from post to post, we shall get you entirely over the mountains, and into the Department of the Potomac, Miss Douglas. What you say is true enough, but at present I refuse. I simply can not spare you two. If they should send us a nurse from Rivertown as they promised, we might get along without you for a while; but not now. Charity, you know, begins at home."
Anne sighed, but acquiesced. The surgeon knew best. But during that day, not only did the promised nurse from the Rivertown Aid Society arrive, but with her a volunteer assistant, a young girl, her face flushed with exaltation and excitement over the opportunity afforded her to help and comfort "our poor dear wounded heroes." The wounded heroes were not poetical in appearance; they were simply a row of ordinary sick men, bandaged in various ways, often irritable, sometimes profane; their grammar was defective, and they cared more for tobacco than for texts, or even poetical quotations. The young nurse would soon have her romance rudely dispelled. But as there was good stuff in her, she would do useful work yet, although shorn of many illusions. The other woman was a professional nurse, whose services were paid for like those of Mary Crane.
"Nowmay we go?" said Anne, when the new nurse had been installed.
Dr. Janes, loath to consent, yet ashamed, as he said himself, of his own greediness, made no long opposition, and the countryman with the non-partisan horses was engaged to take them to Peterson's Mill. For this part of the road no escort was required. They travelled inthe wagon for ten miles. Here the man stopped, took the harness from the horses, replaced it with two side-saddles which he had brought with him, drew the wagon into a ravine safely out of sight, effaced the trace of the wheels, and then wiping his forehead after his exertions, announced that he was ready. Anne had never been on horseback in her life. Mary Crane, who would have mounted a camel imperturbably if it came into the line of her business, climbed up sturdily by the aid of a stump, and announced that she felt herself "quite solid." The horse seemed to agree with her. Anne followed her example, and being without physical nervousness, she soon became accustomed to the motion, and even began to imagine how exhilarating it would be to ride rapidly over a broad plain, feeling the wind on her face as she flew along. But the two old brown horses had no idea of flying. They toiled patiently every day, and sometimes at night as well, now for one army, now for the other; but nothing could make them quicken their pace. In the present case they were not asked to do it, since the road was but a bridle-path through the ravines and over the hills which formed the flank of the mountains they were approaching, and the driver was following them on foot. The ascents grew steeper, the ravines deeper and wilder.
"I no longer see the mountains," said Anne.
"That's because you're in 'em," answered the driver.
At night-fall they reached their destination. It was a small mountain mill, in a little green valley which nestled confidingly among the wild peaks as though it was not afraid of their roughness. Within were the fever patients, and the tired surgeon and his still more tired assistant could hardly believe their good fortune when the two nurses appeared. The assistant, a tall young medical student who had not yet finished growing, made his own bed of hay and a coverlet so hungrily in a dusky corner that Anne could not help smiling; the poor fellow was fairly gaunt from loss of sleep, and had been obliged to walk up and down during the whole of the previous night to keep himself awake. The surgeon, who was older and more hardened, explained to MaryCrane the condition of the men, and gave her careful directions for the night; then he too disappeared. Anne and Mary moved about softly, and when everything was ready, sat down on opposite sides of the room to keep the vigil. If the men were restless, Mary was to attend to them; Anne was the subordinate, merely obeying Mary's orders. The place was dimly lighted by two candles set in bottles; the timbers above were festooned with cobwebs whitened with meal, and the floor was covered with its fine yellow dust. A large spider came slowly out from behind a beam near by, and looked at Anne; at least she thought he did. He was mealy too, and she fell to wondering whether he missed the noise of the wheel, and whether he asked himself what all these men meant by coming in and lying down in rows upon his floor to disturb his peacefulness. At sunrise the surgeon came in, but he was obliged to shake the student roughly before he could awaken him from his heavy slumber. It was not until the third day that the poor youth lost the half-mad expression which had shone in his haggard face when they arrived, and began to look as though he was composed of something besides big jaws, gaunt cheeks, and sunken eyes, which had seemed to be all there was of him besides bones when they first came.
The fever patients at Peterson's Mill were not Western men, like the inmates of Number One and Number Two; they belonged to two New York regiments. Mary Crane did excellent work among them, her best; her systematic watchfulness, untiring vigilance, and strict rules shook the hold of the fever, and in many cases routed the dismal spectre, and brought the victims triumphantly back to hope of health again.
One morning Anne, having written a letter for one of the men, was fanning him as he lay in his corner; the doors were open, but the air was sultry. The man was middle-aged and gaunt, his skin was yellow and lifeless, his eyes sunken. Yet the surgeon pronounced him out of danger; it was now merely a question of care, patience, and nourishment. The poor mill-hospital had so little for its sick! But boxes from the North were at last beginningto penetrate even these defiles; one had arrived during the previous night, having been dragged on a rude sledge over places where wheels could not go, by the non-partisan horses, which were now on their patient way with a load of provisions to a detachment of Confederates camped, or rather mired, in the southern part of the county. The contents of that box had made the mill-hospital glad; the yellow-faced skeleton whom Anne was fanning had tasted lemons at last, and almost thought he was in heaven. Revived and more hopeful, he had been talking to his nurse. "I should feel easier, miss, if I knew just where our captain was. You see, there was a sort of a scrimmage, and some of us got hurt. He wasn't hurt, but he was took down with the fever, and so bad that we had to leave him behind at a farm-house. And I've heard nothing since."
"Where was he left—far from here?"
"No; sing'lerly enough, 'twas the very next valley to this one.Wewent in half a dozen directions after that, and tramped miles in the mud, but he was left there. We put him in charge of a woman, whosaidshe'd take care of him, but I misdoubt her. She was a meaching-looking creature."
"Probably, then, as you have heard nothing, he has recovered, and is with his regiment again," said Anne, with the cheerful optimism which is part of a nurse's duty.
"Yes, miss. And yet perhaps he ain't, you know. I thought mebbe you'd ask the surgeon for me. I'm only a straggler here, anyway; the others don't belong to my regiment. Heathcote was the name; Captain Ward Heathcote. A city feller he was, but wuth a heap, for all that."
What was the matter with the nurse that she turned so pale? And now she was gone! And without leaving the fan too. However, he could hardly have held it. He found his little shred of lemon, lifted it to his dry lips, and closed his eyes patiently, hardly remembering even what he had said.
Meanwhile Anne, still very pale, had drawn the surgeon outside the door, and was questioning him. Yes,he knew that an officer had been left at a farm-house over in the next valley; he had been asked to ride over and see him. But how could he! As nothing had been heard from him since, however, he was probably well by this time, and back with his regiment again.