CHAPTER V.JIMMIE.

There were loving words being breathed into Rose’s ear, when she came back to consciousness, and there was something familiar in the touch of the hand bathing her brow, and smoothing her tangled hair, but Rose was too weak and sick to notice who it was caring for her so tenderly, until she heard the voice saying to her

“Is my daughter better?”

And then she threw herself with a wild scream of joy into the arms which had cradled her babyhood, sobbing piteously:

“Oh, mother, mother, Willie has gone to the war! Willie has gone to the war!”

It was very strange, Rose thought, that her mother’s tears should flow so fast, and her face wear so sad an expression just because of Will, who was nothing but her son-in-law. Then it occurred to her that Tom might be the occasion of her sadness, but when she spoke of him, asking why her mother had not prevailed on him to stay at home, Mrs. Carleton answered, promptly:

“I never loved him one half so well, as on that night when he told me he had volunteered. He would be unworthy of the Carleton blood he bears, were he to hesitate a moment!” and the eye of the brave New England matron kindled as she added: “If I had twenty sons, I would rather all should die on the Federal battle-field than have one turn traitor to his country! Oh,Jimmie,Jimmie, my poor misguided boy!”

It was a piteous cry which came from the depths of that mother’s aching heart,—a cry so full of anguish that Rose was startled, and asked in much alarm what it was about Jimmie. Had she heard from him, and was he really dead?

“No, Rose,” and in the mother’s voice there was a hard, bitter tone. “No, not dead, but better so, than what he is. Oh, I would so much rather he had died when a little, innocent child, than live to bear the name he bears!”

“What name, mother? What has Jimmie done? Do tell me, you frighten me, you look so white!” and Rose clung closer to her mother, who, with quivering lip andfaltering voice, told her how recreant runaway Jimmie had joined the Confederate army under Beauregard, and was probably then marching on to Washington to meet her other son, in deadly conflict, it might be; his hand, the very one, perhaps, to speed the fratricidal bullet which should shed a brother’s life-blood!

No wonder that her heart grew faint when she thought of her boy as aRebel,—aye, a rebel of ten times deeper dye than if he had been born of Southern blood, and reared on Southern soil, for the roof-tree which sheltered his childhood was almost beneath the shadow of Bunker Hill’s monument, and many an hour had he sported at its base, playing directly above the graves of those brave men who fell that awful day when the fierce thunders of war shook the hills of Boston, and echoed across the smoky waters of the bay. Far up the lofty tower, too, as high as he could reach, his name was written with his own boyish hand, and the mother had read it there since receiving the shameful letter which told of his disgrace. Climbing up the weary, winding flight of stairs, she had looked through blinding tears upon that name,—James Madison Carleton,—half hoping it had been erased, it seemed so like a mockery to have it there on Freedom’s Monument, and know that he who bore it was a traitor to his country. Yet there it was, just as he left it years ago, and with a blush of shame the mother crossed it out, just as she fain would have crossed out his sin could that have been. But it could not. She knew that Jimmie was in the Southern army, and not wishing to speak of it at home, where he already bore no envied name, she had come for sympathy to her only daughter; and it was well for both she did, for it helped to divert Rose’s grief into a new and different channel; to set her right on manypoints, and gradually to obliterate all marks of what so he had called Secession.

Tomhad been her pride; the brother she honored and feared, while Jimmie, nearer her age, was more a companion of her childhood; the one who teased and petted her by turns, one day putting angle worms in her bosom just to hear her scream, and the next spending all his pocket-money to buy her the huge wax doll she saw in the shop window, down on Washington street, and coveted so badly. Such were some of Rose’s reminiscences of Jimmie, and while time had softened down the horrid sensations she experienced when she felt the cold worms crawling on her neck, it had not destroyed thedoll, the handsomest she had ever owned, nor made her cease to love the teasing boy. She could not feel just as her mother did about him, for she had not her mother’s strong, patriotic feeling, but her tears flowed none the less, while she, too, half wished him lying beneath the summer grass, in beautiful Mt. Auburn.

“How did you hear from him?” she asked, when her first burst of grief was over, and her mother replied by taking out a letter, on which Rose recognized her brother’s handwriting.

“He sent me this,” Mrs. Carleton said, and tearing open the letter, she read it aloud to Rose.

“Richmond, Va.,June, 1861.

“Dear Mother: Pray don’t think you’ve seen a ghost when you recognize my writing. You thought me dead, I suppose, but there’s no such good news as that. I’m bullet-proof, I reckon, or I should have died in New Orleans last summer when the yellow fever and I had such a squabble. I was dreadfully sick then, and half wished I had not run away, for I knew you would feel badly when you heard how I died with nobody to care for me, and was tumbled into the ground, head sticking out as likely as any way. I used to talk about you, old Martha said, and about Rose, too. Dear little Rose. Iactually laid down my pen just now, and laughed aloud as I thought how she looked when I treated her to those worms; telling her I had a necklace for her! Didn’t she dance and didn’t Tom thrash me, too, till I saw stars! Well, he never struck me a blow amiss, though I used to think he did. I was a sorry scamp, mother,—the biggest rascal in Boston. But I’ve reformed. I have, upon my word, and you ought to see how the people here smile upon and flatter me, telling me what a nice chap I am, and all that sort of thing.

“In short, mother, to come at once to the point, and not spend an hour in arguing, as Tom used to do when he took me up in the attic where he kept thegads, you know,—in short, I’ve been naturalized,—have sworn allegiance to the future Southern monarchy, and am as true a Southern blood as you would wish to see. I’ve got a Palmetto cockade on my cap,—a tiny Confederate flag on my sleeve, and what is best of all, I’ve joined the Southern army under Beauregard, and shall shortly bring the war to the threshold of the Capitol, licking the Yankees there congregated like fun. It’s about time now, mother, for you to ring for Margaret. You’ll want the camphor, and make a fuss, of course, so while you are enjoying that diversion, I’ll go and practice a little with my gun. You know I could never hit a barn without shooting twice, but I’m improving fast, and shall soon be able to pick off a Yankee at a distance of a mile!

“2o’clock, P.M.

“Well, mother, I take it for granted you are nicely tucked up in bed, with the curtains drawn and a wet rag on your head, as the result of what I’ve told you. I’m sorry that you should feel so badly, and wish I could see you for an hour or so, as I could surely convince you we are right. We have been browbeaten and trodden upon by the North until forbearance has ceased to be a virtue, and now that they’ve thrown down the gauntlet we will meet them on their own terms. I dare say they have made you believe that we struck the first blow by firing into Sumter, but, mother, those northern papers do lie so, all except theHerald, and a few others, which occasionally come within a mile of the truth, but even they have been bribed recently, or something. If you want the unbiased truth of the matter subscribe for the RichmondExaminer, or better yet, the CharlestonMercury, whose editor is a New England man, and of course is capable of judging right. He knows what has brought on this war. He’ll tell you how the South Carolinians generously bore the insultof the Federal flag flying there defiantly in their faces until they could bear it no longer, and so one day we pitched in.

“I saywe, for I was there in Fort Moultrie, and saw the fight, but did not join, for the brave fellows, out of compliment to my having been born near Bunker Hill, said I needn’t, so I mounted a cotton bale and looked on, feeling, I’ll admit, some as I used to on the Fourth of July, when I saw how noble old Sumter played her part. And once, when a shell burst within ten feet of me, turning things generally topsy turvy, and blowing shirt sleeves and coat sleeves, and waistbands and boots, higher than a kite, I was positively guilty of hurrahing for the Stars and Stripes. I couldn’t help it, to save me.

And yet, mother, I believe the North wrong,—and the South right, but so generous a people are we, that all we ask now, is for you tolet us alone; and if the Lincolnites won’t do that, why, then we must stoop to fight the mud-sills. It’s all humbug, too, about the negroes being on the verge of insurrection. A more faithful, devoted set, I never saw. They’ll fight for their masters until they die, every man of them. Tom will tell you that. What are his politics? Bell and Everett, I dare say, so there’s no danger of my meeting him in battle, and I’m glad of it, for to tell the truth, I should feel rather ticklish raising my gun against old Tom. May be, though, he is humbugged like the rest, and forms a part of that unit said to exist at the North. What sort of a thing is that, mother? What does it look like? Democrats and Republicans, Abolitionists and Garrisonites, all melted in one crucible and bearingAbraham’simage and superscription! I wish I could see it. Must have changed mightily round Boston from what they used to be when they quarreled so, some against and some for Southern rights and Southern people. But strange things happen nowadays, and it may be Tom, too, has turned his coat, and taken sides with the Federals. If so, all I can say, is, Tommie, oh, Tommie, beware of the day, when Southern bloods meet thee in battle array; for a field of weak cowards rushes full on my sight, and the ranks of the Yankees are scattered in flight. Won’t we rout them, though! I shall fight next time. I’ve played pollywog long enough. I am regularly enlisted now. Am aRebel, as you call us at home. Nothing very bad about that, either, as I can prove to you, if you’ll take the trouble to hunt up my old dog-eared History of the United States, where Washington is styled by the British theRebel Chief.

“The South are only doing what the Thirteen did in ‘76, trying toshake off the tyrant’s yoke. It’s the same thing precisely, only the shoe is on the other foot, and pinches mightily. We did not at first intend to subjugate the North, but maybe they’ll provoke us to do it, if they keep on. Now, however, we only want, or rather did want a peaceable separation, and you may as well yield to it first as last. What do you intend doing with us, any way, suppose you succeed in licking us? Hold us as a conquered province, just as England holds Ireland? Much good that will do you. It will be some like keeping a mad dog chained so tightly that he cannot get away, but is none the less snappish and non-come-at-able for that. No, no, acknowledge our independence, and call home the chaps you have dragged from Poor Houses and State Prisons, lanes and ditches, and sent to fight against Southern gentlemen. This, to me, is the most humiliating feature of the whole; and if I must beshotor taken prisoner, I hope it will be by some one worthy of my steel. This last I’m writing for old Tom’s benefit. Give him my compliments, and tell him nothing would please me more than to welcome him to our camp some day.

“Dear little Rose,—perhaps she would not let a Rebel kiss her, and I don’t know but I’d turn Federal for half an hour or so for the sake of tasting her sweet lips once more. I do love Rose, and I feel a mysterious lump in my throat every time I look at her picture, taken just before I left home. I never show it, for somehow it would seem like profanation to have the soldiers staring at it. So I wear it next my heart, and when I go into battle I shall keep it there. Perhaps it will save my life, who knows?

“I am getting tired, and must close ere long. Now, mother, please don’t waste too many tears over me. The time will come when you’ll see we are right; and if it will be any consolation, I will say in conclusion, that I have written a heap worse than I really believe. I am not a fool. I understand exactly how the matter stands, but I like the Southern side the best. I think they are just as near right as the North, and I’m going to stick to them through thick and thin. We shall have a battle before long, and this may be the last time I’ll ever write to you. I’ve been a bad boy, mother, and troubled you so much, but if I’m shot you will forget all that, and only remember how, with all my faults, I loved you still,—you and Tom and little Rose,—more than you ever guessed.

“By the way, I believe I’ll send you a lock of my hair, cut just over my left ear, where you used to think it curled so nicely. Perhaps it will enhance its value if you know I severed it with a bowieknife, such as I now carry with me. Tell Rose I’ll send her a calico dress by and by. It will be the most costly present I can make her if the blockade is carried out, but it won’t be; that old Bull across the sea will be goring you with his horns first you know. Then you’ll have a sweet time up there, beset before and behind, and possibly annexed to Canada. But I don’t want to make you feel any bluer than you are probably feeling, so good-bye, good-bye.

“Your affectionate Rebel,“James M. Carleton.”

“Your affectionate Rebel,

“James M. Carleton.”

“P. S.—I shall send this to Washington by a chap who is going to desert, you know, and join the Federals with a pitiful story about having been pressed into the Rebel service, telling them, too, how poor and weak and demoralized we are,—how a handful of troops can lick us, and so draw them into our web, as a spider tempts a fly, don’t you see? They offered me that honor, knowing that a son ofGeorge Carleton, twice M. C. from Massachusetts, and now defunct, would be above suspicion, and would thus gather a heap of items. But hang me, if I could turn spy on any terms. So I respectfully declined. You see I am quite a somebody, owing to my having had sense enough to wait until I was twenty-one, ere I ran away, and so bringing a part of my property with me. Money makes the mare go here as elsewhere, but I’m about running out. I wish you could send me a few thousand, can’t you?”

And this was Jimmie’s letter, over which the mother had wept far bitterer tears than any she shed when her eldest born bade her his last farewell, giving to her, just as Jimmie had done, a lock of his brown hair. She had it with her now, and she laid them both on Rose’s hand,—the dark brown lock, and the short black silken curl, which twined itself around Rose’s finger, as if it loved the snowy resting-place. Rose’s first impulse was to shake it off as if it had been a guilty thing; but the sight of it recalled so vividly the handsome, saucy face, and laughing, mischievous black eyes it once had helped to shade, that she pressed it to her lips, and whispered sadly, “Dear Jimmie, I cannot hate him if I try, nor see how he is greatly at fault,” while in her heart was the unframedprayer that God would care for the Rebel-boy, and bring him back to them.

Mrs. Carleton was proud of her family name,—proud of her family pride,—and she shrank from having it known how it had been disgraced, so after Rose’s first grief was over she bade her keep it a secret, and Rose promised readily, never doubting for a moment her ability to do so. Rose had already borne much that morning. Excessive weeping for her husband, added to what she had heard of Jimmie, took her strength away, and she spent that first weary day in bed, sometimes sobbing bitterly as the dread reality came over her thatWillwas really gone, and again starting up from a feverish, broken sleep with the idea that it was all a dream, or a horrid nightmare, from which she should at last awake. Callers were all excluded, and with a delicious feeling that she was not to be disturbed, Rose, late in the afternoon, lay watching the western sunlight dancing on the wall, when a step upon the stairs was heard, and in a moment Widow Simms appeared, her sharp face softening into an expression of genuine pity when she saw how white and wan Rose was looking.

“They tried to keep me out,” she said, “that brawny cook of yours and that filigree waiting-maid, but I would come up, and here I am.”

Then sitting down by Rose she told her Annie had sent her there. “She’s sorry for you,” the widow said, “and she sent this to tell you so,” and the widow handed Rose a tiny note, written by Annie Graham. Once Rose would have resented the act as implying too much familiarity, but her heart was greatly softened, while, had she tried her best, she could not have regarded Annie Graham in the light of an inferior. Tearing open the envelope she read:

“My dear Mrs. Mather—I am sure you will pardon the liberty I am taking. My apology is that I feel so deeply for you, for I understand just what you are suffering,—understand how wearily the hours drag on, knowing as you do that with the waning daylighthisstep will not be heard just by the door, making in your heart little throbs of joy, such as no other step can make. I am so sorry for you, and I had hoped you at least might be spared, but God in his wisdom has seen fit to order it otherwise, and we know that what He does is right. Still it is hard to bear,—harder for you than for me, perhaps, and when this morning I heard the car signal given, I knelt just where I did when my own husband went away, and asked our Heavenly Father to bring your Willie back in safety, and, Mrs. Mather, I am sure He will, for I felt, even then, an answer to my prayer,—something which said, ‘It shall be as you ask.’

“Dear Mrs. Mather, try to be comforted; try to see the brighter side; try to pray, and be sure the darkness now enveloping you so like a pall will pass away, and the sunshine be the brighter for the cloud. Come and see me when you feel like it, and remember, you have at least two friends who pray for you, one at the Father’s right hand in Heaven, and one in her cottage in the Hollow.

“Annie Graham.”

Rose had not wept more passionately than she did now, as she kissed the note, and wished she were one half as good as Annie Graham.

“But I am not,” she said, “and never shall be. Tell her to keep praying until Will comes home again.”

“I will tell her,” returned the widow, “but wouldn’t it be well enough to try what you can do at it yourself, and not leave it all for her?”

“Try what I can do at praying?” Rose exclaimed. “I can’t do anything, only the few words I always say at night, and they have nothing in them about Will.”

“Brought up like a heathen!” muttered the widow, feeling within herself that to the names of her own sons and Captain Carleton, William Mather’s must now be added, when, as was her daily custom, she took her troubles to One who has said, “Cast your burdens upon the Lord, for He careth for you.”

“We’ll both remember your husband, Miss Graham and I, so don’t fret yourself to death,” she said, soothingly, as Rose broke into a fresh burst of tears.

“It isn’t him so much,” Rose sobbed, “though that is terrible and will kill me, I most know, but there’s something else that ails me a great deal worse than that; at least, mother has made me think it is, though I can’t quite see how having one’s brother join the Rebel army is so very bad.”

Rose forgot her promise of secrecy, just as her mother might have known she would. The story of the Carleton disgrace was told, and perfectly aghast, the horrified widow listened to it.

“Your brother a rebel?” she almost shrieked, “a good-for-nothing, ill-begotten rebel! I thought you said he was a captain of a company;” and mentally the widow struck from her list of names that of poor, scandalized Tom, that very moment perspiring at every pore as he went through with his evening drill within the Federal camp.

“No, no,” Rose cried, vehemently, “not Tom; I have another brother, a younger one,—Jimmie we call him. Did you never hear of Jimmie, who ran away more than a year ago?”

“Never!” and the staunch patriot of a widow pursed up her thin lips with an expression which plainly said the Carleton family had fallen greatly in her estimation, in spite of all Tom had said of Isaac.

Rose, however, was not good at reading expressions, and taking it for granted the widow wanted to hear all about it, she told her what she knew, marvelling much at the rigid silence her auditor maintained.

“Isn’t it shameful?” she asked, when she had finished.

“Shameful? Yes. I hope he’ll be catched and hung higher than Haman. I’ll furnish rope to hang him!” was the indignant widow’s reply, and ere Rose could quite make out what ailed her, she had said good-afternoon, and banging the door behind her, was hurrying off, muttering to herself, “Somethin’ wrong in their bringin’ up. Needn’t tell me. I’d like to see my boys turnin’ traitor! The rascal!” and as by this time the widow had reached the shop where she was to stop for burning-fluid, she turned into the little store, and catching up the can with a jerk, spilt a part of its contents upon her clean gingham dress, and then hurried off again with rapid strides toward the cottage in the Hollow.

The Carletons, Tom and all, were below par in her opinion, and kept sinking lower and lower, until she reached the cottage, where she gave vent to her wrath as follows:

“A pretty how d’ye do up toMiss Martherses. Her brotherJimhas jined the cowardly, sneakin’, low-lived, contemptible Rebels, and is comin’ on to take Washington! The scalliwag! If things go on at this rate, I’ll jine the army myself, and tar and feather every one on ’em! Needn’t tell me.”

Annie was no lover of gossip, and knowing that the widow was terribly excited, she made no reply except to pass her a letter bearing the Washington postmark. This had the desired effect, and utterly oblivious of Jimmie, the widow tore openIsaac’sletter, in which he spoke of Captain Carleton as being very kind to him, and very popular with the soldiers.

“I would fight for him till the very last,” Isaac wrote; “he has been so good to me, always noticing me with a bow when he comes into our regiment, as he sometimes does, and when he can, speaking to me a pleasant word. He knows I sawed his sister’s wood, for I told him so. It seemed so mean-like to be passing myself off for betterthan I am, and you know a soldier’s dress does improve a chap mightily, giving him kind of a dandy air. Why, even Harry Baker and Bill look like gentlemen, though Harry gets drunk awfully, and has been in the guard-house twice, But, as I was saying, Captain Carleton didn’t appear to think a bit less of me, though he struck me on the shoulder, and laughed kind of queer when I said why I told him I sawed Mrs. Mather’s wood, and the next day I saw him talking with our colonel, and heard something about sergeant, andIsaac Simms, and ‘too young to be expedient.’ Then, when I met him again, he asked me wasn’t I twenty-one, in such a way that I knew he wanted me to tell him yes; but, mother, I thought of that prayer we said together, the morning I came away, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ and I couldn’t tell a lie, though the answer stuck in my throat and choked me so, but I out with it at last. I said, ‘No, sir, I was only eighteen last Thanksgiving,’ and then his face had the same look it wore when I told him I was a wood-sawyer. ‘And so I suppose you’ll be nineteen next Thanksgiving’ he said, adding ‘You don’t know what you lost by telling the truth so frankly, but the moral gain is much greater than the loss. You are a brave boy, Isaac Simms, and worthy of being a second George Washington.’ I do like him so much! Can’t you send him something, mother, if it’s nothing more than the nice cough-candy you used to make, or some of that poke-ointment? I notice he coughs occasionally, and I heard him say his feet were sore. I’d like to give him something, just to see his handsome white teeth when he laughed, and said ‘Thank you, my boy.’ Oh, I would almost die for Captain Carleton.”

Surely, after reading this, the widow could feel no more animosity against the Carletons, on account of Jimmie’s sin.

“Every family must have a black sheep,” she said to Annie, though where hers was she could not tell. It surely was not John, nor Eli, nor Isaac, so she guessed it must have been the girl baby that died before ’twas born, and for whom she shed so many tears. She shouldn’t do it again, she’d bet, for if it had lived, it would most likely have cut up some rusty or other, just as Jim Carleton had,—marriedBill Baker, like as not;and with this consolatory reflection, the widow took up Isaac’s letter for a second time, resolving in her own mind that she would send that Captain Carleton something if she set up nights to make it.

“I’m glad my boy didn’t tell a lie,” she whispered softly to herself, as she came again to that part of the letter, poor, weak human nature creeping in with the same thought, and suggesting how grand it would be to have him “Sergeant Simms, with the increased wages per month it would have brought.” This was the old Adam counselling within her, while the new Adam said, “Better never to be promoted than lose his integrity,” and with a silent prayer for the boy who would not tell a lie, the widow folded up the letter, and then repeated to Annie the particulars of Jimmie Carleton in a much milder manner than she would have done an hour before. So much good little acts of kindness do, stretching on link after link, until they reach a point from which they recoil in blessings on the doer’s head. Thus Captain Carleton’s friendly words to Isaac Simms were the direct means of saving his mother and sister from the bitter prejudice the Rockland people, in their then excitable state, might have felt toward them, had Widow Simms told the story of Jimmie in the spirit she surely would have told it, had it not been for Isaac’s timely letter. This, together with a little judicious caution from Annie, changed her tactics, and though she, that very night, had several opportunities for telling how “Miss Martherses brother was a rebel, and that Miss Marthers couldn’t see the mighty harm in it if he was,” she kept it to herself, speaking only of the noble Tom, so kind to her boy Isaac.

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