Chapter Illustration
The sun that morning had touched the gold of the daffodils with promise of a clear day; but before it was half way to its meridian hour, the air grew chill, the wind veered suddenly to the northeast, the sky darkened angrily, and out of the clouds, like white petals from some celestial orchard, came a flurry of great, soft snow flakes that rested for a moment onthe young grass and the golden daffodils and then dissolved into a gentle dew, to be gathered again into the chalice of the air and given back to the earth as an April shower.
There was a strange, bewildering beauty in the scene. The tender, delicate foliage of early spring was on every bough, the long wands of peach trees were pink with bloom, daffodils and hyacinths sprang at our feet, and we looked at leaf and flower through a storm of snow flakes that ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and with a brightening sky and a warmer wind it was April again.
Aunt Jane drew a long breath of delight.
"Well, child," she said, "there's always somethin' new to be seen in this world of ours. Old as I am, I never did see exactly such a sight as this, and maybe it'll be a life time as long as mine before anybody sees it again. Such big, soft lookin' flakes o' snow! It looks like they'd be warm if you touched 'em, and fallin' all over the flowers and young grass. Why, it's the prettiest sight I ever did see." And, with a lingering look at the sky and the earth, Aunt Jane turned away and went back to the work of cleaning out a closet in the front room, a task preliminary tothe spring cleaning that was to come a little later. There was a pile of boxes and bundles on the floor, and she was drawing strange things from the depth of the closet.
"Some o' these days," she remarked, "there'll be a house-cleanin' in this house, and I won't be here. I'll be lyin' out in the old buryin' ground along-side of Abram; and my children and grandchildren, they'll be goin' through the closet and the bureau drawers like I'm doin' to-day, and every time I clean house, thinks I to myself: 'I'll make their work jest as light as I can;' so I git rid of all the rubbish, burn it up or give it away to somebody that can use it. But after all my burnin' and givin', I reckon there'll be a plenty of useless things left behind me. Here's this Shaker bonnet; now what's the use o' savin' such a thing? But every time I look at it I think o' Friend Fanny Lacy and the rest o' the old Shakers, whose like we'll never see again, and somehow I keep holdin' on to it."
She thrust her hand into the bonnet, and holding it off, regarded it with a look of deep affection. The straw was yellow with age, and the lining and strings were faded and time-stained; but looking at it shesaw the Shakers in shining garments, going through the streets of the old town, in the days when the spirit of Mother Ann burned in the souls of her followers and the blessing of heaven rested on Shakertown.
Sighing gently, she laid the precious relic aside and took up the song she was singing when I called her to the porch to see the April snow-storm. It was Byrom's "Divine Pastoral:"
The Lord is my shepherd, my guardian and guide;Whatsoever I want he will kindly provide,Ever since I was born, it is he that hath crownedThe life that he gave me with blessings all round.. . . . . . . .Thro' my tenderest years, with as tender a care,My soul like a lamb in his bosom he bare;To the brook he would lead me, whene'er I had needAnd point out the pasture where best I might feed.. . . . . . . .The Lord is my shepherd; what then shall I fear?What danger can frighten me whilst he is near?Not when the time calls me to walk through the valeOf the Shadow of Death shall my heart ever fail;Tho' afraid, of myself, to pursue the dark wayThy rod and thy staff be my comfort and stay,For I know by thy guidance, when once it is past,To a fountain of life it will lead me at last.
The Lord is my shepherd, my guardian and guide;Whatsoever I want he will kindly provide,Ever since I was born, it is he that hath crownedThe life that he gave me with blessings all round.. . . . . . . .Thro' my tenderest years, with as tender a care,My soul like a lamb in his bosom he bare;To the brook he would lead me, whene'er I had needAnd point out the pasture where best I might feed.. . . . . . . .The Lord is my shepherd; what then shall I fear?What danger can frighten me whilst he is near?Not when the time calls me to walk through the valeOf the Shadow of Death shall my heart ever fail;Tho' afraid, of myself, to pursue the dark wayThy rod and thy staff be my comfort and stay,For I know by thy guidance, when once it is past,To a fountain of life it will lead me at last.
She sang it to the cheerful tune of Hinton, as oft before when Parson Page had given it out from the pulpit of Goshen church, and she and Abram sat side by side singing from the weather-beaten hymnal that lay now near the Bible on the centre-table. I took it up and turned its yellow pages, wondering at the queer "buckwheat" notes and reading the names of the old church music, "Federal Street," whose tones beat the air like the wing of a tired and home-sick angel; "Windham," that holds in its minor strains the melancholy wails of an autumn wind; "Brattle Street," whose rich full chords are like a confession of faith,—all those old tunes that have grown richer and sweeter by carrying heavenward on the wings of song the devotion of worshipping souls.
Suddenly Aunt Jane's voice ceased in the middle of a word. I looked up. She was sitting motionless, holding in her hand a piece of rusty iron and gazing at it with tragic eyes. As she gazed, that which had been its sheath fell from it in flakes, and there before us, wasted to half its size by the dampness of years, was the dull ghost of a bayonet that once had glittered in the sun's rays on many a southern battle field.
"It's that old bayonet," she said, slowly and sadly."I ricollect the day Abram plowed it up and brought it to the house. The soldiers camped all around our place durin' the war, and to this day you can't run a furrow without turnin' up a minie-ball or an old canteen or somethin' o' the sort to carry you back to war times and make your heart ache for days to come."
She ran her finger slowly down the bayonet, laying it against the point, while the lines in her face deepened under the shadow of bitter memories.
"To think," she said at last, "that human bein's made in the image o' God, men and brothers, would make a thing like this to use against each other! The longer I live, child, the stranger that war seems to me. I couldn't understand it before it come nor while it was goin' on, and now, after all these years, it's jest as mysterious as it ever was. You know it begun in the spring, the war did, and there's a certain kind o' spring wind and the way the air smells that takes me back to the day when the news come to Goshen that Fort Sumter'd been fired on; and if I was to live to be as old as Methuselah, I don't reckon there'd ever be a spring that wouldn't bring back the spring of '61.
"The comin' of war is a curious thing, child. Youknow how it is when you're sittin' in the house or on the porch of a summer's day doin' some piece o' work and thinkin' about nothin' but that work, and the sun'll be shinin' out doors and everything pretty and peaceful, and all at once you'll look up and notice that it's gittin' dark, and you'll hear a little thunder away off yonder in the hills, and before you're ready for it, why the storm's broke and the rain's beatin' in at the windows and doors and the wind's blowin' through the house and carryin' everything before it. Well, that's the way the war come. You've seen the seal o' this State, haven't you, child?—two men standin' together holdin' each other's hands, and the motto around 'em: 'United we stand; divided we fall.' Well, that's jest the way it was in Kentucky before the war come and sp'iled it all. Kentuckians stood together and loved each other, and nobody ever thought they could be divided. But all of a sudden a change come over everybody. Folks that'd been friendly all their lives stopped speakin' to each other; if two neighbors come together and stopped to talk, there'd be high words between 'em, and they'd both be mad when they parted. Out in our neighborhood, instead o' talkin' about the weather and the crops and folks'health and the sermon they'd heard Sunday and the weddin's that were goin' to be, why, it was nothin' but slavery and secession and union and States' rights, and it looked like there was a two-edged sword in every house.
"Father was mighty fond o' readin'. He took two or three papers, and every Sunday mornin' and on their way back home from town the neighbors'd drop in and hear the news; and any time you'd pass his house you'd see a porch full o' men listenin' to Father readin' a speech that somebody'd made in Congress or in the legislature, and Mother, she'd leave her work and come to the door every now and then and listen and, maybe, put in a word.
"I ricollect hearin' Father talk about Crittenden's big speech, the one made in Congress when he was tryin' to head off the war. Father thought pretty near as much of Crittenden as he did of Clay. There never was a speech o' Crittenden's that he didn't read, and he'd say, 'I'd rather handle words like that man does than to be the King of England; and,' says he, 'it's all jest like he says; Kentucky will stand by the Union and die by the Union.' Says he, 'She couldn't do otherwise without goin' back on her own word, andthat word's cyarved in stone too. There it is,' says he, 'on the block o' marble that we sent to help build the monument at Washington:
"'The first state to enter the union will be the last to leave it.'
"Says he, 'We can't go back on that word.'
"And then he turns around to Mother and says he, 'Deborah, what do you think about it?' I can see Mother now. She'd been fryin' some meat, and she turned around with the fork in her hand and looked at Father a minute before she answered him, and says she, 'What's the use in askin' me what I think? I'm nothin' but a woman, and what a woman thinks is of mighty little importance.' Says she, 'You men have got this thing in your own hands, and us women, we'll have to put up with whatever comes.'
"I'll never forgit the day Father come from town with the speech that Crittenden made at Lexin'ton right after Fort Sumter'd been taken. It was April, and jest such a day as this, the flowers all comin' up and the sky blue and the bees hummin' around the water maples, and it didn't look as if there could be such a thing as a war comin'. I was at Mother's that day helpin' her take a quilt out o' the frame. Fathercome in, and old Uncle Haley Pearson, my great-uncle, with him, and they set down on the porch and Father read the speech out loud, stoppin' every now and then to explain somethin' to Uncle Haley, and when he got through Uncle Haley says: 'Well, as near as I can make it out, Crittenden wants us to stand still betwixt the North and the South and try to make 'em keep the peace; and if we can't do that, we're to get on the fence and stay there and watch the fight.' And Father says, 'Yes, that appears to be about the meanin' o' what I've been readin'.' Says he, 'Maybe I don't rightly understand it all, there's so many big words in it, but that's about what I make out of it.'
"Uncle Haley was leanin' over with both hands on his cane, and he shook his head right slow and says he, 'It appears to me that Crittenden ain't as well acquainted with Kentuckians as he might be, and him a Kentuckian and a Senator too.' Says he, 'There ain't a man, or a woman or a child or a yeller dog in Kentucky but what's on one side or the other, and you might as well put two game roosters in the same pen and tell 'em not to fight as to start up a war betwixt the North and the South and tell Kentucky to keep out of it.'
"And Uncle Haley was right about it. The legislature met the very next month and they said jest what Crittenden said, that Kentucky mustn't take sides. But when it come to the p'int o' goin' to the war or stayin' at home and lookin' on, out o' every hundred Kentucky men old enough to go to the war ninety of 'em went on one side or the other. That's the way Kentucky stays out of a fight, honey. I've heard Father say that the war cost Kentucky thirty thousand lives. But that's jest the soldiers; and if you go to countin' the lives that was lost in any war you can't stop with the soldiers. There's my mother; she never saw a battle-field, but the war killed her the same as it did my two brothers."
Here Aunt Jane removed her glasses and leaned back in her chair. By these signs I knew there was to be a digression in the course of the story.
"I wish I could make you see jest what kind of a woman Mother was," she said thoughtfully. "Every generation's different appearin' from the one that comes before it and the one that comes after it. I'm my mother's own child. Folks used to say I had Mother's eyes and Mother's hair, but I'm a mighty different woman from Mother. And my daughters are jest asdifferent from me, and as for my granddaughters, why, you wouldn't know they was any kin to me. I'm a plain old woman and my granddaughters are fine ladies. My grandmother, you know, was the old pioneer stock, and Mother was her oldest child, and she was somethin' like the pioneer women herself. I ricollect when I was at that meetin' of clubs in Lexin'ton, the time I went to see Henrietta, one lady got up and said that a woman ought to be somethin' besides a mother. I reckon that's right for this day and generation, but if you'll go back to my mother's day and my grandmother's day, you'll find that if a woman was a mother then, she didn't have time to be anything else. Bringin' a family o' children into the world and takin' care of 'em, cookin' for 'em, sewin' for 'em and spinnin' and weavin' the cloth for their clothes—that's the way Mother did. She was jest a mother, but that was enough. You know that Bible text, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend.' I always think o' that text when I think o' the old-time mothers; they had to give up their lives for their children.
"Mother's name was Deborah, and I always thought that name suited her. She was taller and stronger thanthe common run o' women, and Father used to laugh and say he believed she was half sister o' the Deborah in the Bible, the one that judged Israel, and that was 'A mother in Israel.' Father always looked up to Mother and asked her advice about things, and, as for us children, Mother's word was our law. She ruled us and judged us like the Deborah in the Bible, but I can look back now and see that there never was any love greater than my mother's love for her children. Of course a mother, if she's the right kind of a mother, will love all her children jest because they're hers. But then, over and above that sort o' love, she'll love each one on account o' somethin' that it is or somethin' that it does, and that way every child has a different sort o' love, and maybe one child'll have a little bit more love than the rest. We always accused Mother of bein' partial to my two brothers, Jonathan and David, and Mother never denied it. She'd laugh and say, 'Well, what if I am? The rest of you ain't mistreated, are you?' And when I ricollect how brother David and brother Jonathan looked and what kind o' men they were, I can't blame Mother for bein' a little prouder and a little fonder o' them than she was o' the rest of us. Mother always called 'em her twins,because there was jest a little over a year betwixt 'em and mighty little difference in their size. David was the oldest, and Mother named him for her father; and when Jonathan was born she said, 'Now, I've got a Jonathan for my David. And,' says she, 'Maybe they'll be good boys and love each other like David and Jonathan did.' You ricollect what the Bible says: 'The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David; and Jonathan loved him as his own soul,' and when Jonathan was killed you ricollect how David said, 'Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of woman.'
"And sure enough, child, that's the way it was with my two brothers. Their souls appeared to be knit together, and they loved each other with a love 'passin' the love of woman.'
"The rest of us children used to fall out now and then, like children will, even when they love each other, but David and Jonathan—why, there never was a cross word or hard feelin' between 'em, and it was the prettiest sight in the world to see them two boys walkin' together holdin' each other's hands and laughin' and talkin' like sweethearts. I ricollect once they was sittin' on a bench readin' out o' the same book, and Motherlooked at 'em awhile, and says she to Father, 'Do you reckon there's anything in this world that can ever come betwixt David and Jonathan?' And Father he laughed, and says he, 'Yes, there's one thing that can come betwixt any two men God ever made.' And Mother says, 'What is it?' And Father laughed again—he always liked to tease Mother—and says he, 'Why, a woman, of course.' Says he, 'Jest let them two boys fall in love with the same woman and that'll put a stop to all this David and Jonathan business.'
"But it wasn't a woman that come between my brothers, it was the war. It was a long time before the family found out that David and Jonathan didn't think alike about States' rights; and when we did find out, we paid mighty little attention to it, for we thought they'd come to an agreement about this jest as they had about every other question that'd ever come up between 'em. But when the President made his first call for soldiers, David and Jonathan both went to Mother and asked her consent to enlist. They was of age and might 'a' done as they pleased. But as long as one of us children stayed under Father's roof, we never took a step of any importance that we didn't first ask Mother's consent.
"Well, Mother looked at 'em awhile, standin' before her so tall and strong and handsome, and she says, 'My sons, you'll never have my consent to goin' in the army.' And David and Jonathan looked at each other, and then David spoke. 'Well, Mother,' says he, 'if you won't give your consent, we'll have to go without it.' And Mother says, 'You boys never disobeyed me in your lives, are you goin' to disobey me at this late day?' And David says, 'No, Mother, we're goin' to obey you,' says he. 'You've told us from our youth up that we must listen to the voice of conscience and do whatever we thought was right,—I think one way about this matter and Jonathan thinks the other, but we're both listenin' to the voice of conscience and doin' what we think is right jest as you taught us to do.'
"Well, of course, Mother couldn't answer that, and so the word went out that David and Jonathan was goin' to enlist, and all the married brothers and sisters gethered at the old home place to say farewell to 'em.
"Maybe you know, child, how you feel the mornin' after there's been a death in the house. It hardly seems worth while to do any thing, for your heart's in the coffin in the dark room, but you go on and cookand put the house in order and try to eat the same as if nothin' had happened. And that's the way we all felt the mornin' my brothers went to the war. Mother wouldn't let anybody help her cook breakfast. Says she, 'It's the last thing I can do for my boys, and I don't want any help.' So she cooked the breakfast and waited on the boys and watched 'em while they eat, the same as she'd been doin' all their lives. And when the meal was over, Father was at the gate with the wagon to take 'em to town to catch the mornin' train to Louisville, and from there Jonathan had to go to Camp Joe Holt over in Indiana—that's where the Federals had their recruitin' place—and David, he was to go to Camp Boone in Tennessee. All of us went out to the gate to say farewell, and there wasn't a tear dropped nor a useless word said. If one had cried we'd all 'a' cried. But we saw that Mother was holdin' her tears back, so we all did the same. And we stood and looked till the wagon was out o' sight, and then everybody went back to the house feelin' as if we'd jest come back from a buryin'. Well, from that day on, all we lived for was to hear the news from the battles and find out which side beat. Some o' the neighbors was on the side o' the North and some onthe side o' the South, and one could rejoice to-day and another one to-morrow, and one was prayin' for Lee and the other for Grant, but Mother she'd say, 'It's all one! It's all one! There's no rejoicin' for me no matter which side wins, and the only prayer I can pray is "Lord! Lord! put an end to this war and give me back my boys."' People used to come over and talk to Mother and try to make her see things different. Uncle Haley says to her once, says he, 'Deborah, can't you think o' your country? There's a great question to be settled. Nobody knows which is the strongest, the government up yonder at Washin'ton, or the government down yonder in South Carolina and right here in Kentucky. It's a big question,' says he, 'and it's been botherin' this country ever since it's been a country, and this war's goin' to settle it one way or the other for good and all, and no matter which side a man's fightin' on, he's doin' his part in the settlement.' Says he, 'You've got a son on each side, and you ought to feel proud and glad that you're doin' so much for your country.' And Mother's eyes'd flash and she'd say, 'Country! You men never told me I had a country till you got up this war and took my sons away from me. I'm nothin' but a poor old woman that's spent herlife raisin' up a family, and what's a country to me unless I've got my sons?'"
The mother-heart! It beats to the same measure, be it Garibaldi's time in Italy or war-time in Kentucky.
And when Italy's made, for what end is it doneIf we have not a son?. . . . . . . .When you have your country from mountain to sea,When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head.(And I have my dead.)
And when Italy's made, for what end is it doneIf we have not a son?. . . . . . . .When you have your country from mountain to sea,When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head.(And I have my dead.)
"If David and Jonathan had been on the same side," continued Aunt Jane, "it would 'a' been easier for Mother; but she used to say it was like havin' her heart torn in two, and one half of it was with David and the other half with Jonathan, and she worried herself nearly crazy over the fear that one of her boys might kill the other. And the fightin' kept on, the battles longer and harder all the time,—Manassas and Fort Donaldson and Pea Ridge and Mill Spring, and there was hardly a time when it wasn't Kentuckian against Kentuckian, and at last come the battle o' Shiloh."
On that fatal word Aunt Jane's voice broke. Sheturned away from me and covered her face with her apron, and there was a long pause. The rains of more than forty springs had cleansed the earth from the taint of blood; grass and flowers and grain were growing over the old battle-field; but, like the wand of a wizard, the rusty bayonet had waved out of sight and out of mind the decades of peace, and her tears flowed for a grief too deep to be healed by the flight of mortal years.
Presently, with trembling hands she began arranging the boxes and bundles on the shelves. There were no unfinished tasks in Aunt Jane's life; the closet must be cleaned, and a story once begun must be told to the end. She steadied her voice and went on.
DAVID! JONATHAN! MY BOYS! WHERE ARE YOU?"'DAVID! JONATHAN! MY BOYS! WHERE ARE YOU?'"Page 257.ToList
"'DAVID! JONATHAN! MY BOYS! WHERE ARE YOU?'"Page 257.ToList
"You know, honey," she said, "the battle o' Shiloh lasted two days and the evenin' of the first day a curious thing happened. Mother was stayin' with me, for Father was with the home gyards, and in them days the women had to huddle up together and protect each other the best they could. I was in the kitchen cookin' supper, and Mother was in the front room sittin' in her old rockin' chair by the winder lookin' out at the pretty sky, when the sun had about gonedown. I could hear her rockin' and the old chair creakin'. Pretty soon it got so dark I couldn't see what I was doin', and I lit a candle, and jest as I was settin' it on the shelf above the table, I heard Mother give a cry and go runnin' to the front door. I picked up the candle and went out to see what was the matter, but as I opened the door o' the front room a gust o' wind blew out the candle, and I run out in the dark, and there was Mother standin' in the door leanin' forward as if she was lookin' and listenin', and before I could git to her she rushed out on the porch and around the house callin' 'David! Jonathan! My boys! Where are you?'
"I thought certain Mother had lost her mind, and I went after her and caught her by the arm, and, says I, 'Mother, what on earth's the matter? Come back in the house; you're gittin' your feet all wet with the dew.' And she jerked away from me and went on clear around the house lookin' in every dark place under the trees and the vines and callin' her boys. And when she got to the front door again, she stopped and said to me, 'Jane, didn't you hear the foot-steps?' And I says, 'What foot-steps, Mother' and she says, 'Why, Jonathan and David's, of course.' Says she,'I heard 'em comin' up the front walk jest like I've heard 'em a hundred times before, comin' in from the field at night.' And she started around the house again, and says she, 'May be they're hidin' out somewhere tryin' to surprise me.'
"Well, it was the longest time before I could persuade Mother to come in, and all the evenin' she talked about the footsteps and how plain they sounded, and every now and then she'd go to the door and look and listen and call their names.
"God only knows what she heard, but the next day we got news of the fightin' at Shiloh, and David was there with General Johnston, and Jonathan, he was with Grant."
She turned away, and again there was a long silence. To me who listened the war was but a story on a printed page, but to her who told the tale, it was a chapter of life written in tears and blood, and better for Aunt Jane if the old bayonet had lain forever in the soil of the far field. But again she took up the story.
"I've heard folks say, child, that the funeral's the saddest thing about a death; but it's a sadder thing to have a death without a funeral.
"You ricollect me tellin' you about that picture I saw at Henrietta's, 'The Angelus?' Well, there was another picture I'll never forgit as long as I live. It was a picture of Rizpah. I reckon you know who Rizpah was; you ought to know, any how."
Aunt Jane looked inquiringly at me and paused for a reply. Rizpah? Rizpah? Yes, somewhere I had heard that stately name, but where? Was it in Greece or Rome or France or Italy? Juliet I knew, and Octavia and Iphigenia and Aspasia—
Had Rizpah any kinship to these? Aunt Jane's eyes were searching my face.
"Honey," she said gravely, "you might jest as well own up that you don't know who Rizpah was. That comes o' parents not makin' their children read the Scriptures. When I was a child we had to read our Bibles every Sunday evenin' till pretty near sundown. I can't say we enjoyed it much, but when we grew up we didn't have to blush for shame when anybody asked us a Bible question. Now, you take my Bible yonder on the table, and find the second book of Samuel. I can't be expected to ricollect exactly the chapter or the verse, but you look around in that book till you see Rizpah's name and then read what it says."
I made a hasty search for the passage and presently found it:
"But the King took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite; and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.
"And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night."
"There!" said Aunt Jane, "that's Rizpah. Now try to remember that story, child. You couldn't help rememberin' it if you'd ever seen the picture. It was an awful thing to look at, but somehow if you looked at it once you couldn't help goin' back to it again. There was the sky and the light breakin' through the clouds. I never could tell whether it was right aftersundown or jest before sunrise—and the dead bodies hangin' from the limbs o' the trees, stiff and straight, and Rizpah fightin' off the vultures with a club, her long black hair streamin' down her back and her eyes blazin' like coals of fire. The minute I looked at that picture, I says to myself, 'That's Mother.' Many a night she'd dream of seein' the bodies of her sons lyin' on the battle-field and the birds pickin' the flesh from their bones, and she'd wake up cryin' and wring her hands and say, 'If I could only know that their bodies was buried safe in the ground, I could stand it better.' But we never did know, and—it's a curious thing, honey—when you don't see the dead buried you never can be right sure that they ain't alive yet somewhere or other on this earth.
"The footsteps never come again, but all her life Mother listened for 'em, and I hope and trust that when she got to the other side, the first thing she heard was the steps of her boys comin' towards her jest like they used to come before the war parted 'em."
She dried her eyes once more on the gingham apron and tried to smile at me in her usual way, but the smile would not come.
"This ain't the right kind of a story to tell you, honey, on a pretty spring day," she said brokenly, "and I never set out to tell it. But that old bayonet got me started, and before I knew it I was right back in war times livin' it all over. And while I'm about it, there's one more story I'm goin' to tell you, whether you want to hear it or not. It's about Elizabeth Taylor. I reckon I've told you Sally Ann's experience, haven't I? And if you ricollect that, you'll know who Elizabeth Taylor was.
"Elizabeth felt different from Mother about the war. She was strong for States' rights, and when Harrison, the only son she had, went into the army, he went with her blessin' and consent, and he made a mighty brave soldier, too. I ricollect the day 'Lizabeth come over to tell us about Harrison bein' promoted at the battle o' Port Gibson. You've heard o' the battle o' Port Gibson, haven't you, honey? That was another time when they fought all day long. I've heard Harrison say the first gun was fired before daylight, and when they give up and begun fallin' back, it was gittin' on towards dusk. Harrison said his officers went down one by one, first the captain and then the lieutenants, and when the last one fell, he up and took charge o' thingshimself jest like he'd seen the captain do; and when they found they had to give up the fight, Harrison somehow or other managed to carry away two cannons out o' the six they'd been workin' that day, and with these two he kind o' kept the Yankees off while the men fell back, and if it hadn't been for that they'd 'a' been cut all to pieces. Harrison was nothin' but a striplin', not out of his teens, but he went into that battle a sergeant and he come out of it a captain. 'Lizabeth was the proudest, gladdest woman you ever saw; says she, 'I've had a hard life, but this pays me for all my troubles.'
"But what I set out to tell you was somethin' 'Lizabeth herself did, not what Harrison did. It was along towards the close of the war, the summer of '64. One evenin' in July a squad o' Yankee soldiers come gallopin' along the pike about dark, and camped over in the fields back of 'Lizabeth's house. 'Lizabeth said she went up in the garret and looked out o' the window, and she could see 'em lightin' their camp-fires and feedin' their horses and cookin' supper. There wasn't a soul on the place with her except old Aunt Dicey and Uncle Jake. 'Lizabeth's brother was a slave owner, and when Harrison went to the war he sentAunt Dicey and her husband over to 'Lizabeth's to watch over her and keep her company.
"Well, that night 'Lizabeth said she didn't feel much like sleepin', not knowin' but what the soldiers might come at any minute to search the house or maybe set it on fire. But she said her prayers and was almost fallin' off to sleep when she happened to think of some powder that Harrison had hid over in that field. Harrison was mighty fond of huntin', and always kept a big supply o' powder on hand, and the day before he went to the war he carried the can over to that field and hid it in a holler tree. 'For,' says he, 'I don't propose to be furnishin' ammunition to the Yankees.' 'Lizabeth said her heart stopped beatin' when she thought o' that powder and the fires all around, and the ground covered with dry grass and leaves. And she thought, 'Suppose the grass and leaves should catch a fire and the fire spread to the tree,' and she got up and put on her clothes and went to the garret again and looked out o' the window, and she could see a fire right near where she thought the old holler tree was standin', and her conscience says to her, 'If anybody's killed by that powder blowin' up whose fault will it be?' She said she knew sheought to go and git the powder, but the very thought o' that made her shake from head to foot. And she went back to bed and tried to sleep, but when she shut her eyes all she could see was a fire spreadin' amongst the leaves and grass and creepin' up to an old holler tree, and she thought how every one o' them soldiers lyin' there asleep had a mother and maybe a wife and a sister that was prayin' for 'em. And all at once somethin' said to her, 'Suppose it was your boy in this sort o' danger; wouldn't you thank any woman that'd go to his help?' And then she saw in a minute that there wasn't but one thing for her to do: she must go and take that powder out o' the holler tree and put it out o' the reach o' fire. So she threw an old shawl over her head and went out to the cabin and called Uncle Jake, and asked him to go with her across the field betwixt the house and the place where the soldiers had their camp. The old man was no manner o' protection, for he was so crippled up with rheumatism that he had mighty little use of his feet and hands, but 'Lizabeth said she felt a little bit safer havin' some human bein' along with her crossin' that big field.
"The moon was about in its third quarter thatnight, and 'Lizabeth said if the sentries had been awake they could 'a' seen her and Uncle Jake creepin' through the high weeds in the field. And every now and then she'd stop and listen, and then go on a little piece and stop and listen again, and that way they got to the far corner of the field, and Uncle Jake he crouched down behind a big oak stump, and she crawled under the bars o' the fence, and there was the fires all burnin' low, but givin' enough light along with the moon to keep her from stumblin' over the soldiers lyin' asleep on the ground. She said she gethered her skyirts around her and picked her way to the holler tree and pulled the powder out and put it in the skyirt of her dress and started back. She said she was so skeered she never stopped to see whether there really was any danger of fire spreadin' to the tree and settin' off the powder. She had jest one thought in her mind, and that was to git the powder and go back home.
"Did you ever dream, child, of tryin' to go somewhere and your feet feelin' as if they had weights on 'em and you couldn't move 'em? Well, 'Lizabeth said that was the way she felt when she started back to the fence with that powder. It was mighty heavyand weighted her down, so that she had to walk slow, and she could hear the soldiers breathin', and once one of 'em said somethin' in his sleep, and she come pretty near faintin' from fright. Every step seemed like a mile, and she thought she never would git back to the fence. But God watched over her, and she got out o' the camp and back to the house safe and sound. She said when she stepped up on her back porch she felt like a weight as heavy as the powder had been taken off her conscience, and she went up stairs and kneeled down and thanked God for givin' her courage to do the right thing, and then she went to bed and slept as peaceful as a child.
"Now, you may think, child, that 'Lizabeth put on her bonnet and come over and told me this the day after it happened; but she didn't. 'Lizabeth never was any hand to talk about herself, and it was an accident that anybody ever heard what she'd done. I happened to be at her house one day, maybe six months or so after the war was over, and Harrison was searchin' around in the closet, pullin' things out like I've been doin' to-day, and he come across the powder. He looked at it a minute, and says he, 'Why, here's that powder I hid in the old holler tree; I'd cleanforgot it. How did it get here, Mother?' And 'Lizabeth says, 'Why, son, I went and got it the night the Yankees camped over in the woods at the back o' the house.' Harrison looked at her like he thought she was talkin' out of her head, and says he, 'What did you say, Mother?' And 'Lizabeth went on to tell him jest what I've told you, as unconcerned as if she was tellin' about walkin' from the front door to the front gate. And when she got through, Harrison drew a long breath, and says he, 'Mother, I'm proud of you! That's braver than anything I ever did. They made me a captain, but you ought to be a general.' And 'Lizabeth, she colored up, and says she, 'Why, son, any woman that had the heart of a mother in her would 'a' done jest what I did. It's nothin' to make any fuss over.'
"I ain't overly fond o' tellin' stories about war times, child," concluded Aunt Jane, "but I like to tell this, for it's somethin' that ought to be ricollected. Harrison showed me a big book once, The Ricords of the Rebellion, and his name as big as life on one o' the pages, tellin' how he was promoted twice in one day; but 'Lizabeth outlived her husband and all her children, and you won't find so much as a stone tomark her grave, and in a little while nobody'll ever know that such a woman as 'Lizabeth Taylor ever lived; yet, it's jest as Harrison said; what she did was braver than anything he did. And it's my belief that Harrison never would 'a' been the soldier he was if he hadn't had his mother's conscience. It was 'Lizabeth's conscience that made her stand up in church and own up to usin' our Mite Society money, and made her leave her bed that night and risk her life for the lives o' them soldier boys, and it was her conscience in her son that kept him at his post on the field o' battle when everybody else was runnin' off; and that's why 'Lizabeth's name ought to be ricollected along with Harrison's."
"Poor human nature," we sometimes say, forgetting that through every character runs a vein of gold. Now and then kindly chance rends the base earth that covers it and shows us a hero or a heroine. But revealed or unrevealed, all human nature is rich in the possibility of greatness.
Here and there we build a monument; but if for every deed of noble daring some memorial were raised, earth's monuments would be as the stars of heaven or the sands of the sea; the names of the lowly and thegreat would stand side by side; and the name of the mother by the name of the son. For the valor of man is a mighty stream that all may see as it rolls through the ages, changing the face of the world, but ofttimes its source is a spring of courage rising silently from the secret depths of an unknown woman's heart.
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