That was a long and dreary winter which succeeded this beginning of my experimental life. The snow fell heavily, and so frequently that my plants were completely hidden from view during a great part of the season. But, so far from doing them an injury, the fleecy mantle protected them from the open exposure to cold under which the strawberry will sometimes perish. It was a privation to me to have them thus entirely shut up from observation; but more than once, when the snow had softened under the influence of an incipient thaw, I could not refrain from plunging my hands into it and uncovering a plant here and there, to see how they were faring. So far from perishing under the continued cold, I found them holding up their heads with wonderful erectness, their leaves crisp and fresh, with an intense greenness that contrasted strongly with the white blanket in which Nature had kindly wrapped them. Thus satisfied that they were well provided for, I endeavored to check my impatience for the coming spring: for really it seemed the longest winter I had ever known.
Both my sister and myself continued our labors at the factory, though we discovered evidences that even at machine-sewing there was likely to be some uncertainty as to continued employment at the usual remunerative prices. We had learned to have entire confidence in its stability; but symptoms were appearing that the business, in some of its branches, was likely to be overdone. The makers of the first machines, having sold immense numbers at high prices, had acquired vast fortunes. This invited competition, and manufactories of rival machines having been established by those who had invented modifications of the original idea, the quantity thrown upon the market was very great, while prices were so reduced that additional thousands were now enabled to obtain machines and set them to work. The competition among the makers thus gave rise to competition among those who used the machines. Prices of work declined in consequence, and of course the sewing-girls were required to bear a large share of this decline, in the shape of a reduction of wages. We could do nothing but submit, for the needle was the only staff we had to lean upon. If we were to continue realizing as much per week as before, we could do so in no other way than by working longer and more industriously. This fell very hard upon us during that long winter. We could afford no holidays, no recreation, not even to be sick. As we felt we had no dependence but the needle, we still clung to the idea, that, if we could purchase machines of our own, we should do much betterBut though now reduced in price, yet the hope of getting them grew fainter and fainter under the reduction of wages, and hence my growing impatience to achieve some more remunerative employment.
The bright spring at last opened kindly and genially upon us. The snow disappeared, leaving my strawberries in the most healthy condition, and free from the unsightly fringe-work of dead foliage which encircles plants that have been compelled to go through a hard winter without protection. I was exultant at the promise which their vigorous appearance held forth. I even stole a view, through the cracks in the fence, at those of our disagreeable neighbors, to see if they were doing any better, and was gratified by finding that mine were equally thrifty. Fred and I contrived to stir up the ground about them with heavy rakes, though a harrow would have been more effective. April covered the whole bed with a profusion of blossoms that even our experienced neighbors could not exceed. They came often to our gate, and with more impudence than I could muster when stealing an observation through their fence, there they stood, two or three together, inspecting my beautiful rows for an hour at a time. I wondered what they could find to interest them so greatly, as in their eyes the sight could have been no novelty; but I fear, that, if surprised at my success thus far, their wonder must have been tinged with a jealousy that rendered the display as unpleasant to them as it was encouraging to me.
No one ever watched the opening of the blossoms, their dropping off, and the formation of the fruit, more attentively than I did. Every spare hour was passed among them. The bees flew over the beds, dipping into one flower after another, and filling the air with a perpetual humming. Even at the earliest morning hour, when the sun had barely reached the garden, I found them at their honeyed labors. The poet who declared that many a flower was born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air, must have believed that the winged denizens of the air had no inheritance in them,—that their sweets were wasted because no human eye was present to admire them. I cannot agree with him; for here, when our garden was a solitude, with no human eye to admire its wealth of blossoms, they were thick with bees, and surely upon them their sweets were far from being wasted. The flowers must have been created as much for the enjoyment of nameless insects as for the gratification of man.
As May advanced, I could see the fruit forming in clusters that gave token of an ample crop. But as the heat increased I found that other candidates for observation presented themselves in prodigious numbers, not near so interesting, but imperatively demanding attention. The weeds shot up all through and between the rows with a luxuriance that astonished me. The winter reading of my agricultural library had taught me that good strawberries cannot be expected when a rank growth of weeds is permitted to occupy the soil. My father's garden-tools were heavy and clumsy, made only for a strong man to use; but we plied the hoes vigorously in keeping down the interlopers. They were dull tools, with thick handles, unsuitable for women's use, so that the mere weight of the implements fatigued us more than the labor of hoeing. But all the family shared in this work until it was accomplished, and our ground was made as cleanly as that of our neighbors. Besides the extermination of a host of pests that sucked up the nutriment and moisture necessary to the plants, the operation kept the surface of the ground open and mellow, permitting the sun and air to penetrate, and thus stimulate the growing fruit into berries of superior size. I am sure that it is by attention to this single matter of permitting no weeds to grow that most of the success in strawberry-culture may be attributed.
As I watched my fruit-laden plants as attentively as if each one had been an infant, it should not be wondered atthat my ever-present eye detected the first tinge of redness that showed itself among them. No one can imagine with how absorbing an interest I hung over this pioneer evidence of complete success. I could tell which row contained it, and on which plant in the row a blushing cheek was held up to the sun. But in a day or two the identity of the ripening berry was lost, for a thousand of its fellows became equally ambitious of notice, changing their delicate green into a softened, but decided scarlet. The hot suns of early June were pouring down upon the sheltered spot where the plants were growing, and it was time for them to ripen their wealth of fruit. I presume that he who boasts the possession of a dozen acres of strawberries has never experienced sensations such as were now the ruling ones of my heart. Here was I—a sewing-girl—breaking through the ordinary routine of female occupations, and standing on the threshold of an enterprise considered by the world unsuited to my sex, unfeminine because uniformly undertaken by men, hazardous because untried by women, but practically within the power of all having taste and courage to venture upon it,—here was I about to realize the dream of a whole year, the reward of untold anxieties, the solution of the great problem whether the garden were better than the needle.
The very day I made the discovery that the first berry had begun to change color, I hastened to my friend the market-woman, intending to tell her how finely I was coming on, and that she must be prepared to sell my crop. As I had no acquaintance with other strawberry-growers, I had little opportunity of ascertaining by comparison with them whether my fruit would come earlier or later into market than that of others, but took it for granted that mine would be first. It was the mistake of an ignorance which subsequent reading and observation have corrected. Thus, when I came up to the widow's stand in the market, I was confounded at seeing her sitting beside a huge wooden tray heaped up with ripe berries. No doubt I had seen the same thing as early in the season, years before, but, having no interest in the subject as a fruit-grower, I had never consulted dates. But now, being deeply interested, the effect of this prematurely early display of fruit was that of astonishment and disappointment. I knew that being early in the market was a vital point, and supposed that I was as early as the earliest; but here was evidence that I had been forestalled. I had hardly courage to inquire where these berries came from, or what price she was getting for them. But the crowd of purchasers around the stand was so great that no one would have noticed my appearance, even if my emotions had been written on my face. They were contending with each other to be served, and at seventy-five cents a quart! This much could be seen and heard without the trouble of inquiry. How I envied the grower of the precious fruit in which so many were indulging at this extravagant price! How the sight dismayed me,—I had been so completely anticipated by some more skilful cultivator! I did not even seek to catch the widow's eye, nor to ask a single question. The spectacle so discouraged me that I moved off with a heavy heart to my accustomed avocations.
It was but dull practice on my sewing-machine during the whole of that day. It is true I thought a thousand times of my own strawberries, but then those of my successful competitor were quite as often in my mind. How this thing could happen, and why one cultivator should thus anticipate all others, and command the market when prices were so enormous, I could not then understand. But I resolved to have the matter explained. Next morning I was up at daybreak and at the widow's stand. She was already there, and was engaged in putting the little fixtures in order on which her daily stock of fruits and vegetables was to be displayed. No customers were yet visible in this early gray of the morning, and there was an opportunity for me to make the momentous inquiries I desired. But therewas the same great wooden tray, again up with at least a bushel of strawberries. My first question was as to where they came from.
"From Baltimore, Miss," was the reply. "You know they ripen there two weeks earlier than here. It is farther south, the climate is warmer, and they come here on the railroad until the price falls so low as to make it unprofitable to send them. But they are a small, poor berry, not equal to yours, and will not be in your way. When yours come to market, these will be all gone. People buy these only because they can get no better ones."
Here was a mountain of discouragement removed at once. I had not been forestalled by a neighbor, but only anticipated by some one who had taken advantage of a warmer climate. Besides, the widow repeated her cheering assurance of the year before, that she could readily dispose of all I might have,—not, however, at the high prices she then was getting, because the same sun that was to ripen mine would ripen those of all others around me, and bring them into market at the same time; but if mine should be better than others, she would be able to secure better prices for them.
I went home to breakfast with a lighter heart, and that day at the factory made up for the deficiencies of the preceding. But since then, after the experience of an entire season, I have looked carefully into this matter of the importance of being first in the market, and I find it runs through and influences almost every department of horticulture which is pursued as a source of gain. The struggle everywhere appears to be for precedence. The horticultural world knows that there is a waiting community of consumers who stand impatient for the advent of the first ripened fruits. It knows that with these the price occasions no hesitancy in the purchase: they are able to pay. Hence no resource of art or skill is left unpractised to minister to a craving appetite that yields a reward so golden. One producer erects hot-houses, into which he crowds the plants that otherwise would be hybernating, and, creating an artificial summer, stimulates the strawberry into bloom, then into fruit, even in the depth of winter the ripened berries are seen at some of the most celebrated fruit-stores. They command fabulous prices,—a spoonful of them readily bringing a dollar, without the demand being supplied. The rich always have money to spend; and though the world is never without its poor, yet it seems also to be never without an abundance of those who have more than they can wisely dispose of. This branch of horticulture must be profitable, as it is rapidly extending in the neighborhood of all our large cities. These hot-house fruits are the earliest in the market.
Other growers move off to a warmer climate, within one or two days' ride of the great city by railroad, and, by help of hotter suns, crowd their half-ripened fruits into Northern markets nearly a month in advance of local cultivators. Only those varieties being grown which are naturally earlier than all others, they blush into redness while ours have scarcely reached their full size. Taken from the vines in an unripe condition, they are crisp and firm, and the fast express-train whirls them over hundreds of miles, the ripening process, as well as the decaying one, going on meanwhile. It is costly transportation to the growers, but the impatient public pay with readiness a price so extravagant as to make for these wholesale pioneers a stupendous profit. Thus the warm alluvial lands encircling Norfolk fill the markets from Baltimore to Boston with the earliest fruit. It is unripe, and deficient in the full flavor of the strawberry; but what care the wealthy public for that? It is the first in market,—they have been a year without it,—it has somewhat of the genuine aroma,—and, ripe or unripe, they cannot refrain. Great sums are annually realized by these earliest caterers for the public palate. The hot-house process is comparatively a retail operation; but this traffic reaches to the dignity ofa great industrial enterprise, employing hundreds of hands, pouring ample freightage into the coffers of express-companies, and enriching the men by whom it is conducted. It is exclusively the offspring of Northern shrewdness, the sluggish instincts of the Southerner unfitting him for an occupation requiring incessant activity and promptness,—while its apparent littleness, the peddling of strawberries, were unworthy a race whose inheritance is cotton or tobacco.
For a few weeks these cultivators have entire possession of the Northern market. In time, however, our suns become hotter, ripening the fruits of our own fields. Then comes the rivalry among ourselves,—who shall be earliest with the best fruit;—for herein lies an important element of general success.
My berries ripened rapidly, and I knew they must be ready for picking by hearing that our neighbors were about beginning. It was a momentous day when we began. My mother and myself undertook it: for that afternoon I stayed away from the factory, as it was impossible for me to be absent from so interesting a scene. I had no idea what quantity we were to expect, though I had ransacked my agricultural library in hopes of discovering some approximate solution of this question. Crops were found to vary as unaccountably as modes of culture. One grower would obtain more fruit from a few rods of ground than another from a whole acre. These prevailing contrarieties were well calculated to make me doubtful of what my luck was to be. Hence, when we had gone over the whole half-acre, and found that we had gathered ninety quarts, I was entirely satisfied, and more so from noticing, on a survey of the bed, that there was no perceptible diminution of the quantity remaining on the vines.
The fruit was of very superior size, for perhaps few cultivators could have bestowed more labor in keeping the ground in order; and this labor of our own hands was nearly all that the experiment had cost. As I was anxious to follow the directions given by my market friend, we had a great time that evening in assorting the berries, putting them in three lots,—the very largest in one, then the next best, and the smallest in a third. They were placed in nice new baskets as assorted, so as to be handled as little as possible. These were safely stowed in a wheelbarrow, and before daybreak the next morning Fred wheeled them to market. I was with him, of course. It was my first errand,—the first fruits of my long anxiety,—my first appearance as a strawberry-girl.
The streets at that early hour were deserted and silent, for the busy multitudes were not yet stirring. No pedestrians were about but those in some way connected with the markets, whither all were repairing; nor were any vehicles moving except the market carts and wagons coming in from the adjacent country, most of them driven by women, thus early forced from home to be at their daily stands. I confess this freedom from curious public observation was not unpleasant to me. Somehow I had felt no compunction, no pride, at bearing through the streets, even at noonday, the symbol of my calling as a sewing-girl, in the shape of an unsightly bundle; but here, notwithstanding long reflection had familiarized me with what my new duties would necessarily be, yet when I came to the performance of them I felt no ambition to be publicly recognized as a strawberry-girl. My mother, who had been up to see us off, had covered each basket with a cloth, so that really it was impossible for a stranger, seeing the load I had in charge, to know whether it was work for the tailor or fruit for the market-house. I cannot account for this weakness,—why I, who had been so strong and undismayed on occasions really trying, should have been so affected on one that afforded so much reason for exultation. I have sometimes blamed my sister as the cause of this unusual nervousness. She, too, was up to aid us in getting under way, for all hearts were in theenterprise,—and knowing that I had a nervous apprehension of our neighbors, especially of Mrs. Tetchy, and that I would prefer going without any of them seeing me, she cried out suddenly, as we came through the gate,—
"Is that Mrs. Tetchy coming after you?"
It was the veriest trifle in the world; but I was so full of what I had in hand, and so really desirous of avoiding observation in that quarter, that Jane's pleasantry had an unusual effect upon me. I did feel a little ashamed at any of the Tetchys watching my movements; yet somehow, as we went along to market, the feeling insensibly expanded so as to apply to all others. But I have long since mastered it.
The widow was already at her accustomed stand, and had what appeared to me a plentiful supply of strawberries. But I saw directly, for I now had a quick and practised eye, that they were far inferior to mine. All sizes were mixed up together, just as they came from the vines. When I uncovered my best baskets and handed them to her, she was loud in expressions of admiration at their superior excellence. No customers were about, so in a few moments I had handed over my whole stock of ninety quarts, and Fred and I were about departing homeward, when the widow's first customer for the day came up to the stand. We had a natural curiosity to see what would be the result, so moved back a few paces, but were still near enough to see and hear whatever might occur.
The customer was a young man of probably three or four and twenty, dressed so genteelly as particularly to attract my attention, yet, while a model of outward neatness, with not a sign of fashionable glare about him. I think it probable that his really handsome face, and the pleasant smile that played around his mouth as he approached us, had something to do in establishing him thus suddenly in my favor, apart from my anticipating him as my first customer. He glanced a moment at the strawberries, then turned and looked at me so intently, though not at all impertinently, that I felt myself abashed and blushing. All this, however, was the sensation of but a single moment. Immediately turning again to the widow, and courteously touching his hat as he spoke to her,—a civility which was in perfect keeping with his whole demeanor,—his eye fell on my choicest berries. He seemed struck with their superiority, and was so generous in his commendation of them, that, as I heard it all, I turned my face away, as I felt the blood rushing up from my heart and covering my cheeks with deepening crimson. I did not wish him to suspect that he was buyingmyberries. He inquired of the widow where this beautiful fruit was raised, and by whom I was in terror lest she should point to me, and was moving out of hearing of the reply, when she answered that they were raised just below the city, by a young lady.
"You surprise me, Madam. By a young lady? They are the finest I have ever seen," he replied. "She must understand her business. I am greatly interested in such pursuits, and would like to know more about her. Will you have her fruit all through the season?"
I had turned away before he had made these remarks, and did not observe whether the idea could have occurred to him of connecting me with the lady culturist; but Fred told me, on our way home, that he directed his attention strongly to me, and, as my face was averted, surveyed me with a long and scrutinizing gaze, then raising the cover of quite a large basket which he held in his hand, caused it to be filled with my finest berries.
I did not hear the price, as the strangest thoughts that ever occupied my mind came thronging in with impetuous vehemence. I was unaccountably confused. Here was I with my first little venture surprised by the presence of my first customer, and he a gentleman whose whole outward demeanor seemed to me the embodiment of whatever might be considered agreeable in the other sex. I shrank with instinctive diffidence from having my little secret unfoldedin such a presence. It may have been mortification of spirit,—I will not, cannot say,—but somehow I was terrified lestheshould know that I was a strawberry-girl.
But Fred was subject to no such useless compunctions, and watched and listened with eager attention. His quick ear had caught the price,—for the purchaser had not ascertained it until after his basket had been filled.
"Did you hear that?" said Fred, in a voice intended for a whisper, but which in my confusion I was sure the young gentleman had overheard. "Half a dollar a quart!"
I moved away instantly toward home, never daring to look back at either the widow or her customer, lest my eyes should encounter those of the latter, as I was sure he must have heard my brother's exclamation, and been satisfied that it was I who raised the berries he had so much admired. It was unaccountable to me that I should be so foolish. But no one, unable to correctly analyze his feelings, can at the moment account for the strange impulses which an unlooked-for emergency will send hurrying through the heart. Time and a succession of events may sometimes unlock the mystery of their origin. I am sure that it required both to solve the problem for me.
Fred trundled his barrow at my side as we returned to breakfast. He was full of exultation at our success, and even began to count up what our profits would be. We had made so capital a beginning that he was sure they must be very large. Alas! he knew little of the world except its sanguine hopes. He reasoned only from the beginning, without knowing the stumbling-blocks that might be encountered before we reached the end. But then what would this world be, if hope were banished from it? Still, though fairly estimating all these contingent disappointments, my spirits were buoyant as his own. That was apparently a short walk to our distant home, for there was abundant conversation and debate to beguile the way. My mother stood in the doorway as we approached the house; but when Fred told her the story of the young gentleman, how he looked and behaved,—I somehow felt unable to do it,—with the crowning incident of the great basketful of berries he had purchased at half a dollar a quart, and that without even asking the price, I think I never knew my dear mother to be so delighted at any event in the quiet history of our little family. Ah, what a happy breakfast it was that we sat down to that morning! I could not repeat the exultations expressed on all hands over my success. My mother seemed so supremely gratified at the prospect now opening before us, that her delight was a bountiful reward for me. She had never manifested so much cheerfulness since we lost our father. Fred insisted on continuing his calculations of what our profits would be; but though he brought out great results on paper, for he was remarkably expert at figures, yet, even with my constitutional enthusiasm, I refused to be unduly set up by his extravagant anticipations. It seemed with him to be as great a happiness to merely calculate the profit as it was for me to produce it.
I know that all these are very trifling matters, at least to others, and that, if the gentler hearts are kind enough to become interested in them, there must be many others that will pass them by as uneventful and dull. Yet the life that all these are living is made up of incidents, which, if they would but reflect upon them, are not more exciting. But they were great affairs to us. They developed the prominent fact, that it was possible for a woman, when favorably situated, to become a successful fruit-grower, and that a new door could be opened through which she might be emancipated from perpetual bondage to the needle, without violating the conventional proprieties of the sex. This was the problem which my imperfect labors were solving for us. All aspirants may not be required to pass through the same experience, while some may be compelled to encounter even a greater diversity than I did.
Thus far my first day's picking had been very encouraging. As in a great city there are a thousand daily wants, so thousands are kept continually employed in ministering to them. When the supply of strawberries begins, the public require it to be maintained. The picking of the day is mostly eaten up before bedtime, and hence the grower must gather daily reinforcements from his vines to meet the public demand. The fruit ripens with a continuous rapidity. The hot sun of a cloudless day brings it to perfection with wonderful uniformity, while the wet and cloudy one retards and injures it. Besides, the price is gradually declining as neighboring growers crowd their products into market; hence it is imperative to pick daily while the price is up, so as to secure the highest return for the longest period. Perfect ripeness no one waits for. The consumer never secures it, because his impatient appetite stimulates the grower to furnish him with fruit which, though tinged with redness, is far from being ripe. Color alone, not flavor, is the guide; for the public taste is not yet sufficiently educated to detect the great difference between an unripe and a ripe strawberry.
I soon learned these peculiarities of my new calling, and hence picked over my beds with daily regularity. As color, not ripeness, was all the public cared for, we carried much immature fruit to market,—though no doubt we lost in bulk by thus picking before it had grown to its full size. The second day we took forty quarts to the widow, and received for the preceding day's consignment nearly forty dollars. It was less than Fred had figured up, but we were, all of us, satisfied. Our care in assorting the fruit had secured for it the highest market price, while the widow was so lavish in her commendation, as well as so full of encouragement to me for what I was doing, that the satisfaction of dealing with her was almost equal to that which attended my success: indeed, I think her kind words went far towards securing it. One day she spoke to me of the young gentleman, my first customer, who, she reminded me, had praised my fruit so highly and bought so liberally. I am sure my cheeks colored as she recalled a circumstance which I had by no means forgotten; but as there were many buyers round her stand, I knew she would not notice it. Though I went at daybreak every morning with my brother to deliver fruit, yet I never met him there but once again. Still, she said, he was as punctual as myself, only coming a little later, buying my berries, always asking if they were the same young lady's fruit, and when told that they were, taking them without inquiring the price. But I never understood why she related these little incidents to me, unless it was to show me how quickly my works had become popular. It may be that her heart melted with sympathetic tenderness toward me; for I had told her all about my condition as a sewing-girl, my hopes, my efforts, my longing to be able to lay down the needle for something that would be less exacting while equally remunerative. She, too, had been a drudge of the slop-shops, and thus understanding all that I might feel, or suffer, or hope for, it was natural that she should enter with interest into my novel enterprise.
Thus my mother and I continued to gather fruit from our little half-acre during the whole of the strawberry-season. I was away from the factory for many afternoons to assist in picking and assorting. I think no miser could have counted his gold more lovingly than we did our gains, when summing up, day by day, the yield of our miniature plantation. There were several afternoons, at the height of the season, when the product ran up surprisingly. There seemed to be a general competition among the berries as to which should ripen first. They enlarged in size, putting on a crimson corpulency into which the sunbeams infused a sweetened juiciness which is the peculiar charm of the perfectly ripened fruit. This was in the hottest days of June, which, in spite of an ample sun-bonnet, tanned me into a perfect brunette. Afterthe general ripening, the quantity picked began to decline, and the remainder was of smaller size. The price, fell off; but then, while the fruit was abundant, we had secured the highest rates, so that the declining prices affected only a diminishing quantity. Hitherto we had treated ourselves to none of the best fruit, but had reserved for home consumption only such as we considered unfit for market. As in former times, we thought ourselves too poor now to eat even our own strawberries. Every quart that we should thus consume would be an average loss of thirty cents. I was sure they were not costing us anything like that, and it seemed a positive hardship to be thus kept to such rigorous self-denial. But we held out until the price declined as the quality depreciated, and then, when we knew the sacrifice was trifling, there was a unanimous and abundant indulgence in this delicious fruit. I think it tasted even sweeter than when it was selling at half a dollar. My mother was sure that not half the sugar was required to make it palatable, and all agreed that in point of flavor it was unexceptionable. I feel certain that none ofthatcrop was lost. Thus our domestic strawberry-season began market only when that of the outer world had passed away; but though late in entering upon it, it may be set down as certain that none enjoyed it with a higher relish than ourselves.
As Fred was wonderfully exact in keeping accounts, he was ready to tell us, the moment our last picking had been made, how much our half-acre had produced. I sometimes thought it a sort of useless trouble, however, this keeping an account, because every one of the family seemed to have the figures by heart from the very day when the first picking occurred. They were talked over so often at table, that we all remembered what they were, nor was there any difficulty in our carrying forward the sum-total from day to day, as the amount ran up after each successive picking. What had we to remember that was half so interesting as this? But as what the sum-total would be was gradually becoming manifest, Fred was compelled to come down from the magnificent calculations as to profit with which he had set out. He had insisted that we were to get the same high prices all through the season, not reflecting that we had many competitors, nor that, though our early pickings were really very superior, yet there must necessarily be many that would be quite otherwise. Still, his persistency had had its effect on all of us; nor was it until we got halfway down the column of our daily receipts, and noticed the perceptibly diminishing figures, that we were thoroughly undeceived. As I had never been over-sanguine, I was not greatly disappointed. My study had been to ascertain whether it was possible for a family of inexperienced sewing-women to produce strawberries for market at a fair profit, the whole labor to be performed by themselves. If our first effort were tolerably successful, I was sure we could do better the next time, as successful horticulturists are not born, but made. Well, the result was, that we had produced a little over four hundred quarts, of which the widow had sold enough to bring us a hundred and thirty dollars, after deducting her commission. It was not much, I confess, but it was a beginning that fully satisfied me. Our half-acre had never before yielded so large a profit.
O willow, why forever weep,As one who mourns an endless wrong?What hidden woe can lie so deep?What utter grief can last so long?The Spring makes haste with step elateYour life and beauty to renew;She even bids the roses wait,And gives her first sweet care to you.The welcome redbreast folds his wingTo pour for you his freshest strain;To you the earliest bluebirds sing,Till all your light stems thrill again.The sparrow trills his wedding songAnd trusts his tender brood to you;Fair flowering vines, the summer long,With clasp and kiss your beauty woo.The sunshine drapes your limbs with light,The rain braids diamonds in your hair,The breeze makes love to you at night,—Yet still you droop, and still despair.Beneath your boughs, at fall of dew,By lovers' lips is softly toldThe tale that all the ages throughHas kept the world from growing old.But still, though April's buds unfold,Or Summer sets the earth aleaf,Or Autumn pranks your robes with gold,You sway and sigh in graceful grief.Mourn on forever, unconsoled,And keep your secret, faithful tree!No heart in all the world can holdA sweeter grace than constancy.
O willow, why forever weep,As one who mourns an endless wrong?What hidden woe can lie so deep?What utter grief can last so long?
The Spring makes haste with step elateYour life and beauty to renew;She even bids the roses wait,And gives her first sweet care to you.
The welcome redbreast folds his wingTo pour for you his freshest strain;To you the earliest bluebirds sing,Till all your light stems thrill again.
The sparrow trills his wedding songAnd trusts his tender brood to you;Fair flowering vines, the summer long,With clasp and kiss your beauty woo.
The sunshine drapes your limbs with light,The rain braids diamonds in your hair,The breeze makes love to you at night,—Yet still you droop, and still despair.
Beneath your boughs, at fall of dew,By lovers' lips is softly toldThe tale that all the ages throughHas kept the world from growing old.
But still, though April's buds unfold,Or Summer sets the earth aleaf,Or Autumn pranks your robes with gold,You sway and sigh in graceful grief.
Mourn on forever, unconsoled,And keep your secret, faithful tree!No heart in all the world can holdA sweeter grace than constancy.
The Adjutant T—— and myself, not inexperienced in battles, though, perhaps, like most Americans, infants in warfare, were captured in September last, in the Valley of the Shenandoah, Nature's noble art-gallery, on the west side of Opequan Creek, a stream that is a picture at almost any point. In one of the gallant charges which our eager cavalry, under General Sheridan, made before the great charge that captured Winchester and the Valley, our regiment had the right, and gained a fine position in the end. But two or three encounters were very close. The sea of battle surged back and forth, tormented only, however, by the mild breezes of a day like May; and as the waves of our army withdrew from the ridge on which the enemy rested, to gain greater impetus, my poor horse was shot under me, stranded, and left rolling upon the ground, midway between friend and foe. The orderly, my attendant, had another in the rear of the retreating column; but, inasmuch as that was now swept by the swift-receding current far beyond us, he could neither have me mounted nor command other present means whereby to get me off. I reclined, like Adonis, upon a soft bed of meadow-grass studded here and there with wild-flowers, an emerald velvet with silver spangles,—but suffering, unlike him, from bruises, and with my best soulless friend dead at my side. I was somewhat sprained by the fall the dying beast had given me. The enemy was close at hand, following with yells and chaotic eagerness upon our troops.
"We'll take a march to Libby," said my orderly, dropping on his knees to feel my bones.
He drew his arm through his rein, (having had no idea of deserting me in his sound health by the aid of his ready animal,) and continued his examination; whilst his sturdy favorite chopped the short grass within reach of his breathing hitching-post as closely as his long bit would allow. In a very few moments the Rebel foam was surging like wild beyond us,—a private pausing at me for a second, to poke me in the ribs with his piece.
"There's life there, Grayback," growled my attendant; and the Rebel ordered us to the rear.
Indeed, had we remained where we were, we would soon have been in the rear, so impetuously did the foe sweep by us. But private soldiers, the potent keystones of the Rebel arch, built to crush the voice of the many, command the Southern armies in every great engagement; and one of these important atoms had given us our hint to move. You never see anything but the rank and file in the heart of a Rebel corps. Our new commander mounted my orderly's horse, and soon was lost in the distance.
It is not, I have found, a very diverting entertainment to wander free a few moments (a free prisoner) in search of some authority, out of the myriads who have the opportunity, who shall choose to take charge of one. I felt peculiarly as I stood irresolute, now framing one thought, now another, casting about in my mind, weighing the odds with no light fancy-scales, which of the rushing demons on all sides would draw up before me with a curse, and command me to follow him. Our regiment, our corps, our whole army, (this last had not left its works for the little fight,) were far in the distance now; and the ground on which I stood, and which but a short time since was tramped by Northern troops, had, in the mutations of war, become a portion of the Rebel dominions. The September sun shone brightly through the white fleece of the cloud-swans swimming in the morning air; and the early spring breeze that I have mentioned—for Æolus had given freedom to but a tender dove-zephyr—played with the silk fringe of the meadowgrass, finding no olive-branch here, venturing its ripple, with the audacity of innocence, under the very heels of the contending forces. Possibly the feeling of loneliness which overwhelms a man at such a time as this is the most acute of all his feelings. I looked my orderly in the face as he supported me on his shoulder. He was gazing coolly before him.
"If we have to march soon, you had better rest," he said, deliberately. "There's a tree you can sit under. And if you have money or a watch, you had better hide them in your armpits."
We went to the tree, and set ourselves against it.
The fresh air that brushed by us, like fine steel points, relieved me of my oozing faintness, and in the ease of my circumstances I could attend somewhat to my bruises. With the aid of my canteen, I relaxed the strained muscles. It was my desire to have my loins girt about and my limbs in good order for the foot-journey that I doubted not was before us. They would march us to Gordonsville, and thence to Libby, carrying us through in an incredibly short time, and without boots at that. I had two objects to labor for, as I began to get myself into condition: first, to be taken in charge by an officer; and then—to escape from him that night, whilst the train was in disorder. I was of opinion that my companion, a taciturn machine, who labored, like the miners, well with his little light, had some such plan of his own, as I saw him buckling his belt beneath his trousers. He was stowing away his watch and a photograph,—which every soldier must have, of some poor maid or other who toils in the shades of obscurity at home,—and making himself ready for a run at any favorable moment. I thought that I would sound him.
"You had better do it, orderly, soon in the day," I said; "since the enemy will march you between two files, and you will then have but little chance."
"So I think," he replied. "I thought no time better than now. But then"——
"But what?" I asked.
"Well, it's rather hard to leave you here. What with your sprain, and your blow on the head, you're pretty sure to halt at Libby."
I had no chance to answer, for the Rebel was before me who was to have the honor of my capture.
He was of the flabby white-flesh species of the genus Rebel, a Quaker scarecrow with matty locks, that many of my brethren in arms have met; harmless in units, but ponderous, as even scarecrows will be, if hurled back and forth in thousands, swarms; lank, cadaverous, and whining; snuff-chewing, and grossly filthy, even under the best of circumstances. His flesh was set dough, and his hair was long and yellow. He spoke through the dirty causeway of his nose. The road-dust and drab of his uniform, so called in satire, have often been described. These gentlemen's faces, to me, who incline to an intelligent expression on the human index, look like tallow-vats or nursery-suet, pliable and swill-fed; and their mien and carriage have never impressed me favorably. I had seen them rush with a wild yell, an army like the Paris mob of intoxicated rags, upon our Gibraltar at Gettysburg; and had myself charged upon their Attila-works (behind which they had their household gods piled up and ready for burning) at Fredericksburg. I had even taken a ball from one of them in the shoulder, whilst skirmishing, in the shiftings of my experience; and they had before had the honor of my capture, in sunny, grape-growing Maryland. Perhaps all these scenes passed in panorama before my mind's eye, as I rose to my captor and eyed his dirty linen. Here was an indignity, indeed. My soul revolted at the thought of a journey southward, and all my instincts warned me against so dire an undertaking. I stood before the Rebel with my determination in my eye.
"A couple of Yanks, lolling under a tree," he screamed to his companions, pointing the finger, and garnishing his speech, in Rebel manner, with an oath.
"P'rhaps you thought you were off," he chuckled.
He was "goin'" to take us to the "Gen'ral." He muttered more oaths with his orders, and directed us to be "right smart," and to "git."
I glanced at my orderly, who was inaugurating an onset upon the weaker side of this mean battery, or ditch-work,—and who evidently counted upon effecting a breach by rapid, electric charges,—by handing over his pistol. It was freely offered, before demanded, and the recipient took it in silence. He then drew out his tobacco, a treasure with which, I well knew, he would not willingly part, and which was the little ewe-lamb of his unjewelled life,—which, also, was taken quickly, but under a nod of acknowledgments from the Rebel. The battery was shaken, but, in truth, continued to draw fire. "Give me your boots," said the critical captor, and the orderly knocked off his leathers in the best good-humor in the world. When we had walked a little farther, the orderly, now marching as the Moslems do on holy ground, asked our guide if he had any grub about him; and accepted a piece of pork. There was a variety of viands in the haversack from which this fragment came,—both pork and bacon,—but the fire-eaters, I have noticed, always prefer the latter meat. I divined at once that my orderly was laying in stores for a solitary tramp, and making a raven in this, to him, strange desert, of the ill-omened bird that had pounced upon us. He would conciliate his enemy, and when the latter was growing careless he would spring into some woods. The pork, with the berries to be found there, would sustain him after he had broken leash,—and would be all that he would eat, no doubt, in the course of two or three suns.
We noticed a great stir on all sides of us, converging streams of stragglers, wounded men, and prisoners, as we made our way, scattering grasshoppers, over the fields, and soon mingled with the throng of troops on the open road to Winchester. It was about three miles from this town that our capture had taken place; and from the immense wagon-trains rumbling along with us, and the excited manner of their officers, I augured not as well for the Rebel cause. Perhaps Fortune had altered her humor, and the white eagles of victory had settled with the opposite side. Other parties of Union prisoners journeyed with us, and through the urgent manner of their guards I thought I could discern a sunlit loop-hole to freedom. In five minutes' time I was assured that the Rebels were preparing to retreat. Their six-horse teams were rushing to the rear, and their outlying bodies of cavalry were being hurriedly dispatched the other way. My mind was very busy upon the new aspect of affairs.
The last I saw of my orderly was when he had divested himself of the workman's incumbrance,—his coat,—and was tramping, bootless, haltingly along in the dustiest part of the road. He had conciliated his watchman into almost indifference, and was spreading himself with the sand, (tossed knee-high in little clouds by his feet,) having then become quite a Rebel in looks. In five minutes I turned upon him; but he had fallen out of the squad. I have never seen him since.
My own plans would keep me in the Rebel lines some hours longer. It was my object to escape; but I had already decided upon the evening, when darkness, and, I hoped, rain, would settle down upon us. I indulged a hasty prayer in behalf of the vanished man, and durst not more than snatch a look at where he should have been, lest the guard should miss him also. At one mile beyond Winchester, which town we had avoided by a branching road, we came to the office of the provost marshal, a very humble shell-work; and those of us who wore shoulder-straps were hustled into his presence. He stood, the central figure in a dun picture, in an atmosphere of smoke, a dirty-looking Georgian in flying coat and high-boots. With hands in pocket he surveyed the objects brought before him, concisely delivering his orders over thestem of his teeth-clasped pipe. His clerk was at a table near, on which lay the papers of his office; and the splintered rafters behind him made the background to a cabinet-picture that should have been done in chocolate.
We were placed in charge of a rather mild-looking officer, who wore his rank upon his sleeve in so elegantly twisted a knot that I could not make out his degree, and who had on a brand-new riding-jacket, of a dark blue, to which the sleeve was attached, adorned with the staff-buttons of our army. It was his duty to command the guard that drove the captives of the Rebel hosts, in which safe branch of the service, as I afterwards learned, he had been engaged since '62. No doubt his many opportunities for demanding what he wanted, and for seizing, like Ahab, what was denied him, had furnished alike the jacket and the buttons; and were it not for his placid countenance, I should have fathered his entire outfit upon the Yankees,—as having fallen to his shoulders by the same easy process. He was directed to drive us to the road at once, and to keep his herd in motion all the time. Hurried orders had come from headquarters, that set all the small bees about this lesser hive in a whirl of confused labors, whereby our departure was delayed for some moments. The provost-marshal's clerk was even then packing up his rattling desk, pigeon-holing papers that would hatch knotty questions in the coop, and making due preparation for the departure of the Georgian magnate himself. I observed that their army-wagons kept trailing southward, like chalk vertebræ, in an unbroken string, and promised for a long while yet to obstruct the road. It was growing a little cloudy, too. It was now three hours after noon, and I hoped nervously for a sullen night.
Just before we set out on our melancholy march, I saw a man make a move towards me, and hastily clap one finger across his firm lips. It was the Adjutant T——, of whom I have spoken, and who did not wish me to recognize him. It was his object to approach me, and to walk as a stranger at my side, so that the guards should not part us,—and, I knew at once, to speak of a project common to both. The old stories of our camp-fires had flitted across his mind, and had blanched his cheek since morning. His blood was just thawing as he signalled me. I took no notice of him till after we had started, a company of men with bent brows, and he had marched on my right some forty rods. I then muttered slowly, "Speak little, and to the point"; whereat he waved his hand. It was singular and sad to ignore thus an old companion in the very hour of need, when surely a bitterness hung upon our souls that more than ever required balm. We were, perforce, to play the stranger, when at no time in life did we more thirst for the tender friend. Doubtless, our hopes of escape depended much upon each other; and we could but communicate those plans in insufficient monosyllables, which, if misunderstood, would lead to disaster. If ever plentiful words, in great ear-measures, are pardonable, it is at such moments as this,—when even half-words—diamonds flashing betrayal—are imprudent The Adjutant edged a little closer.
"Before dark, or after?" he asked.
To which I replied,—
"After."
He gradually glided away from me, and for some time marched at the other side of the column.
I had noticed that he was walking without his jacket. The guards were accosting the officers in their neighborhood, and had taken his among other vestments. Most of the party of sad victims were well peeled ere their melancholy was an hour older. A rough boor turned to me and demanded my gauntlets. A basilisk fire shone through his eyes, and the breath which he blew through the grating of his teeth, over his thin, livid lips, and into my face, was freighted heavily with the fumes of whiskey. When I made bold to refuse him, he was dumbfoundered in astonishment, and was pleased to compress his jaws.
"You d——d Yankee!" he screamed,profanely, red with the inspiration of his anger, "if you don't give me your gauntlets, I'll tear your hands from your body."
There was enough energy in his action to have guarantied even a more vehement man[oe]uvre; and as he made his threat, he raised his arm above me. But I had it in my mind to see myself through the affair in the course that I had chosen; and having noticed our mild officer a few paces in the rear of us, mounted upon his horse, and placidly sitting with his hand upon the pommel, I turned to him at once.
"If you will do me the favor, Sir," I said, with some gravity of manner, "I would like you to accept my gauntlets,—a new pair from the box, that has only seen this day's work."
"They've had an unlucky birthday," he said, not inaptly, and rather courteously, as he took them.
"Yes, my gloves heretofore have all been spoiled by the sabre," I replied, keeping step with his charger. "I don't know but that you have to thank a drunken guard for the pair, Sir; since he threatened to kill me, if I kept them on my hands."
He gave a hasty look for his orderly.
"Point out the man, if you can, Sir," he said to me, and beckoned a trooper to his side.
"I am obliged to you for your interference," I answered. "The man marches third on the left there, and has his piece slung behind him. I hope that some day, Sir, I may do you a favor."
A sense of humor, for which I must be grateful, considering the sombre dejection of my marching mates, filled my breast as I thanked him for putting one under guard for attempting (drunk) what he himself so soberly accomplished,—the capture of my buckskins. He kept the gauntlets very willingly, and ordered a sergeant to accompany me. But there was generosity and magnificence in his action; the acquisition, per duress, of others' property was a daily habit with him,—and to have a sergeant for a guard was a considerable favor.
It was my desire to cultivate the Sergeant thus cast within my reach, who otherwise might be a marplot, and who had good of some sort in him, I judged from his appearance; although, as with his kind, it was evidently very barren winter in his purse, and his summer clothes were apparently too open. His butternut jacket, a poor tweed with a cotton filling, was clasped about his throat with a shred of twine, flying away thence loosely, showing a dirty cotton shirt beneath, and the rough edge of the waistband of his pantaloons. The material of which these last were made was a very impressible jean, and marked the number of his journeys, could one but decipher them, in stains and intricate creases. He had the same face of lifeless suet, and the yellow hair, that I have noticed as very prevalent in the Rebel armies,—but withal an elasticity of carriage that seemed too honest for the cause, an almost openness of countenance, a cast of features tending towards amiability, which imbued me with a trembling hope. I had designs upon the Sergeant, and intended opening upon him with rhetoric, after, perhaps, some amicable skirmishing. His detail to guard my person was a compliment to me which only the initiated—those who have made the same journey—can appreciate. The young provost-officer with the sleeve-knots desired to offer me a delicate attention in return for my hand-furniture, and, perhaps, to impress me in some sort with his sense of right, even though he was of so wrong-headed a company. What a dainty, dew-sipping bunch of violets would be to conscious beauty,—what a quaint volume of old matter, dust-breeding and crumbling, would be to the blinking scholar,—what refined gold, or gold ore, or gold stamped in the mint, would be to a Wall-Street broker,—was this sergeant to myself. He was the gift of a royal potentate who stood not upon little matters. There was no calculation in the largess. I was to have the entire sergeant as all my own. We fell a rod behind the officer, and trudged evenly along.
Although big with an evil design, Idid not intend to address my companion at once. The monotony of my walk, as I had at present nought else to think of, I allowed to engage a number of my thoughts. I hazarded conjectures upon many idle points, as my narrative will show. I fell to watching my feet, and to placing them, as far as practicable, in the footmarks of him who marched before me, instituting a sort of comparison between our soles, finding his smaller than mine, as, behind his back, I ventured upon his measure, watched the ruts in the road, made the wagons in advance of us, and wondered if those behind us had axle-trees as wide to an inch,—as they would have, if made by the same contractor;—in which case, I mused, it is just possible the coming train may move in this same rut. It seemed, then, a comfortable sort of place. I saw the clouds of dust that had been provoked rising in anger and rolling away sullenly many a day that weary summer, and that almost buried the wretched company in which we journeyed, hover heavily above the road-side, and choke the pretty weeds blooming there, by way of a mean revenge upon its human tormentors. Thereupon I envied the blue things, not their incubus, but their insignificance: for neither artillery, nor camp wagon, nor passing prisoner was aught to them. I wondered what each man here would say, if each man could tell his thoughts. Primarily, I was convinced, each captive would declare himself sick at heart: that is the only expression which will convey the sinking feeling. Once I heard a bird sing gayly a clear-throated song from a clump of trees; at which my heart grew sick also, to render me as miserable as the rest.
My mind reverted to the Adjutant T——, of the manner of whose capture I knew nothing, and whom I had left that morning in camp, as the regiment set out for the fight. I doubted not but that he would be with me in a moment, to throw another mild projectile, a half-sentence, at me. I had myself a catechism of one question with which to greet him. As some little parley might be necessary between us, which could not go on without the consent of our guardian, I concluded that then was the time to throw a sop to my sergeant, I turned coolly upon him.
"We are marching rather briskly, are we not, Sergeant?" I said, endeavoring to insinuate the independence of unconcern in my bearing.
"Wal,—right smart," he replied.
"I cannot tell by your uniform," I continued, with a half-smile, for the fellow was all beggar's rags and patches, "whether you are in the cavalry or not; but a pair of spurs, at any rate, may not come amiss to you,—and I can have no use for mine for some time yet. They don't allow us, I believe, to kick one another in Libby?"
I took my long spurs from my boots, like fringe from my heart-strings, (of which the officer had directed my sergeant to allow no one to deprive me,—the boots, not the heart-strings, they being inaccessible: I would, possibly, not lose those till I arrived in Richmond,) and handed them over to him.
"I'm of the Thirteenth Virginia Infantry," he said, "but do right smart duty on horseback" (he liked the steel). "I'm detailed to the provost marshal. They do treat a fellow rather hard down there."
I augured ever so much good from the Sergeant's "do," upon which there was an emphasis.
"Were you ever a prisoner, Sergeant?" I asked, always careful to bestow his title.
"Once," he said, laconically.
"Well! it's all one in the end," I said, carelessly turning from him, to show that I had no desire for the conversation, if he did not relish it. "You have a chance now to give me the devil of a time, in revenge for your treatment among my friends. 'T is an ill wind that blows nobody good."
My sang-froid had the savor of a good pickle. It was a very peculiar turn to give the affair, I must own; but I saw that the Sergeant was struck by it. Possibly, that one was my best strokeof the day. I have, at any rate, ever since deemed it so.
I walked along as before, speculating, not lightly, upon the dejected beings about me, who marched, spectre-fashion, in the dust, like the unhappy (would-be) crew on the shores of the Styx, trying to appease Charon. They never would be at rest till he ferried them over to the shades of the world of death,—or (what to them seemed impossible) till they were remanded back to life among the loved ones of their race. I remember particularly one trifle of this momentous march, that threatened towards night to gnaw into my very brain-tissues. Soldiers, it is known, are not over-careful in their dress, when in daily action in the field, nor have they time to grow fastidious during the fighting summer months. They then, perforce, disregard tapes with a loftier indifference to appearances than that which distinguishes the noble cynic of the world. But officers generally use tapes about their ankles (perhaps to keep some garment in place immediately upon the stocking); and I have known them myself, for prudence' sake, to tie them in hard knots. A poor limping lieutenant, a little to the left, and some ten feet in advance of me, had not adopted this precaution, and now, consequently, more as a punishment to me than to him, one of his nursery ties had come undone, and was trailing after his foot in shadow-like persistency. I had here a world of torture in a nutshell. When, unluckily, my eyes fastened upon this appendage, I could not keep them from it. It fascinated me with more than the juggler's success upon the serpent. I fell to conjecturing how long the affair might be,—if four inches or five; and pondered the allowance to be made in the calculation by reason of the man's distance; merging this view of the matter in another, as I watched his heel touch the ground, and noted the time which elapsed between that and the jumping forward of the foot, with the string, ever faithful, behind it. I conjectured how much dust the tape took up at each step, and wondered, if, in a long march, merely by accretion thereof, the end of it would not be a sort of dirt-coil, perhaps a tenth of an inch in diameter,—soaring higher, too, in my delirium of nervousness, till I could imagine the incalculable increase in size which would be insured, should the lieutenant step into a puddle, and get the thing all wet: he would wear a sand rope for ankle-fetter, upon entering Richmond.
But the most provoking of all the phases to which my humor was reduced, and which my dilapidated body had to submit to, by means of this tape, was the almost irresistible desire to spring lightly forward, and to catch the thing beneath my toe. It invoked me to all sorts of gymnastic efforts. The impulse racked my breast, and set up an argument against every reason in favor of a jog-trotting march for the balance of the daylight. I surveyed the poor lieutenant from head to foot, and pictured to myself his surprise, should he find himself hitched to the ground. He would turn, I thought, with open, questioning eyes, and perhaps look flushed by the accident. He might only hop a step farther on, and trust to my not again overreaching him. He might, impelled by the influence that tormented me, fall behind me. I had an unwavering conviction that that tape would never be removed,—and that, consequently, in some way, the lieutenant, who played guide to it, would be my haunting demon all the weary hours of my march.
Soon after I had conferred my tart speech upon the Sergeant, and had so sealed my failure to gain his grace in behalf of my friend and myself, the Adjutant was at my side. A hale, hearty, well-made man, unperturbed usually, he was now almost another person than himself. I thought I knew what causes produced the pallor on his face and the quiver about the loose-hanging under-lip. The good fellow had had in his jacket (before it was stolen) the leave-of-absence which was to have carried him home to be married, and he was to have availed himself of it in a week.Perhaps the thought of his lady gave him the woebegone expression. All sorts of sweet dreams, that had illumined his life for months, and filled up the wide chinks of camp monotony, were now quite bitterly ended,—capped by the reality worse than the dream which is called nightmare. His smiling eyes were hooded only a little sooner than were those milder ones at home, no doubt under traced eyebrows and with far finer lashes. The marriage, perforce, was put off. The view of home was put off. Perhaps the Adjutant's solemn quietus, like an extinguisher of the light of his and his sweetheart's hopes, would drop upon him in loathsome Libby, and cancel the leave forever. This, being the weightier thought, was evidently bearing upon his mind.
I had resolved, in a business way, upon two points,—perchance brought to my decision through some such tender passage as the above: first, that, as we could not escape from the lines together, he must take the earlier, because, as in mortgages, the better risk; and second, that if he did not answer in a satisfactory manner the one question that I had kept for some time uppermost in my brain to propound to him, he must pocket my North Star.
"Have you a compass?" I muttered, as he edged by me.
"No," he replied.
My second resolution, then, was, that he should carry my compass.
"I've been robbed of everything," he said.
"Take—my—compass—quick!" I returned, and pressed it into his hand.
He was not as good an astronomer as I. He looked a hurried remonstrance at me; but was obliged to hide it at once, and could not, I knew, waste any eloquence now. Although, moreover, he was a lover, Nature had never endowed him with the art of speaking through the eye. There were stronger reasons in favor of his escape than of mine,—worldly, if not spiritual,—and he suffered from a dangerous nervousness, in dwelling upon the magnitude of the issue before him, which was not in my way.
"It is now five," I said; "at seven, if in such woods as this, you must watch your chance and double."
"Which way?" he asked.
"Travel north-northeast, seven miles," I whispered.
Then, as if anxious to burst into a flood of eager words, he began,—
"But you"——
I looked at him fixedly, and moved off towards my Sergeant. That cursed tape before me now again made a twist in my brain.
I was astonished at my Sergeant's opening a conversation.
We were travelling (wearily enough) through a piece of woods, overarching and autumn-tinted, the road being cut down, and, consequently, either side of it walled in by upheaving embankments, green-covered and yellow-fringed, over which the declining sun could not dart its rays upon us. The heavy trains of the entire army were making the march along with us, disturbing the modest influences of the spot,—some trundling forward in the van, others toiling after in our rear, the tending angels of all being drowsy, in the shape of the lazy teamsters astride their beasts. Only that peculiar music, made up of the ponderousthud(the birds had all grown still) or tramp of the men for a bass,—of the clink and clatter of the canteens for a treble,—and of a little broken conversation, in the whining, drawling tones of the guard, on their own side of the lines, and so with no quieting weight upon their tongues, for aviva-voceaccompaniment,—broke the sweet summer stillness. The shafts of sunlight bridging the road above our heads, making a golden ether-plank for the air-insects to cross upon, and lighting up the veins in the trembling leaves as the breeze put them to confusion, set me to thinking of the eyebrows that the Adjutant was engaged to, and, no doubt, of eyebrows in general. A cool air, smelling of mould and fallen leaves, perhaps a little damp, fell upon us here.The charms of Nature may have loosened the Sergeant's tongue.
"I was captured in Mar'land," he began, looking straight before him, but of course honoring me with his address.
I was grateful to him, a little for companionship's sake, but chiefly for here giving me a chance that I had hoped for, as I deemed it of considerable value,—I mean, a chance to dig down to the mine of good feeling, to the heart of this gray-covered, slumbering crater, that, an hour since, had thrust out that "do"; and also, I was beholden to him for taking my thoughts from the tape.
"How did our boys treat you?" I asked.
"Very fair," he said quickly, with a faint Judas-start, as if it were a matter of conscience, and he had now twitched it out. "They done well by me."
Here was good fortune, indeed! The mine, with all its riches, mine without any digging.
"I am glad of it," I said, briefly; for I saw that laconics were his jewels, perhaps from a sense of expediency as well as of beauty. "We always try to treat you well, whenever we are not firing our guns at you."
This he acknowledged with a nod, but without turning from his look directly front.
"I lay two months in hosp't'l," he began again,—"in Fred'r'k, in Mar'land. I was wounded in the hip."
"In '62, I suppose?" said I.
"Yes,—at Boonsboro'."
Here the conversation ended as suddenly as it had opened. It was very clear that the Sergeant had said his last word for some time. But I was convinced in my own mind that at length more good would fall to my lot.
He pondered the matter some ten minutes, and then quite overwhelmed me with his story.
"One of your boys," he began, "lay wounded by me on the field,—of a ball in the lungs,—and wanted some water. Whenever he spoke, he threw out blood, and wasn't likely to live, nohow. I said,——
"'Yank, will you take my tin?'—for there was a drop in it yet, and I rolled on my side and gave it him.
"'I am goin' to die,' he said.
"'Yes,' says I.
"'They'll treat you well,' he said; 'they'll carry you to the hosp't'l, and I hope you'll live to git home.'
"'Thank you,' says I.
"He gave me some 'baccy and a roll of money.
"'The paymaster's been about, and he gave me more 'n I want now. You'll want 'baccy in hosp't'l,—you'll want it all,' he said.
"And he run over in blood and died. He gave me right smart of money. I rolled away from him when he died, and they took me to hosp't'l."
The Sergeant paused for my comment.
Under my peculiar circumstances, I was very much touched by this story.
"Poor fellow! many such a one has gone to his account," I said, sadly.
"And I want to give back some of the money to you," said the Sergeant.
I looked at him in astonishment.
"You'll want it down there, as much as you can git. I have no need of it. It a'n't mine. It's his'n."
The Sergeant had evidently taken it in trust.
"What claim have I to it?" I asked.
"Any poor fellow's got a claim to it. It's meant to help poor fellows, that money is. It's a dead man's work."
I was more than ever touched now, in the presence of the wealth of this mine which I had tapped.
"I will take some of it, Sergeant," I replied; "and I shall do my best to use it as well as you have."
(This incident, strange to say, in its display of human purity, almost tempted me to abandon my scheme of escape, and to go with the Sergeant down to Richmond. But he was no measure of his fellows.)
After that we chatted easily off and on, and had a feeling of confidence in each other which a two or three days' march could not alone have created.
At about half after six that night, (I had made the Sergeant take my watch, which otherwise I should surely be robbed of, I told him; and he gave me the time,)—at about half after six, two officers came riding furiously up to our mild officer and kept along with him for awhile, making three dim figures above our heads (they only were mounted) in the forest shades, in place of the one that, unlike the erl-king, had continued on his way harmlessly from our outset. Their consultation over, the two strangers dashed over snapping weeds and underbrush to the command on ahead, and our mild officer ordered our column (of prisoners) to halt. We were in the woods still, but we had emerged from between those sun-spanned embankments some time since. The ground was ill chosen by our gentle ruler, but he may have depended much upon his men, whose vigilance, no doubt, he had before tried in the fall of day. They seemed to me but a handful, and only a sieve for their charge to dribble through, the latter aided by the time and place in their work of dropping off. I drew closer to the Adjutant.
"Say what you have to say for home, in case we miss," I said,—and in the confusion of the halt I could talk rather freely. "Your time has come now."
"You will write, if I'm not heard from,—and—my love to my"—he gurgled.
"Yes, yes," I said, cheerily. "All right, old fellow,—we'll both laugh over this, some day."