The Project Gutenberg eBook of What Happened To Me, by Lasalle Corbell Pickett.

AUTHOR OF
Pickett and His Men; Literary Hearthstones of Dixie;
Bugles of Gettysburg; Heart of a Soldier;
Across My Path; "In de Miz" Series;
Folk Lore Stories, ETC.

Dedicated to
Selma Lewisohn

In my garden a lily grew, blossoming in snowy purity, fragrant sweetness and stately grace. It held the summer in its golden heart and the love of the angels crowned its radiant petals. It bade me "good-morning" and the dawn was bright with promise. It waved a caress to me in the soft winds of the Junetide noon and the day was filled with light and love. It shone in mystic silver through the moonlight and my night was aglow with dreams.

Thus a Lily-Soul blooms in the garden of my life to make it glad with the glory and fragrance of her blossoming. Many hearts are happy because of the flowers of Love and Hope and Faith which she has planted. Many a life which in its early dawn held little promise of good has grown into usefulness and beauty in the brightness that the Lily-Soul has given of her own loveliness to light the dim pathway.

In cloudy days the whiteness of the Lily-Soul has shone like a star through my darkness and the sunlight in her golden heart has illumined the black veil of sorrow.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

I "OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE"

There are some events with which we have become so familiar by report that we can scarcely believe they did not happen within our own recollection. Thus it is with my advent into earthly existence.

Not long before the time at which I was expected to arrive in this vale of thorns and flowers my father's only brother was seriously ill. It became necessary for my father to accompany him to Philadelphia to consult an eminent surgeon.

For months it had been definitely settled that I was to be a boy, for all was grist that came to my father's mill. No shadow of a doubt of my manhood clouded the family mind. My health had been drunk at the clubs and in the homes, and especially at the neighborhood functions, the fox hunts, and the name of Thomas La Salle had already been given me. "L'homme propose et Dieu surprend," and so did I, for, most[Pg 2] unexpectedly, I made my arrival in the middle of the night, the middle of the week, the middle of the month, almost the middle of the year, near the middle of the century, and in the middle of a hail-storm. Confident that I was a boy, the family had all hoped that I would be considerate enough to postpone my coming at least until my father's return, but with perverse discourtesy and want of filial regard, I would not wait. Of course, there was no one ready to receive me.

I have borne the blame for this untimely début, but it was really the fault of the barn which, in the early part of the evening, had caught fire and been burned to the ground. The excitement had passed and the sleep of exhaustion that follows disrupting events had settled over all when again there was confusion; this time owing to my inconsiderate haste to present myself. The keys to the stable door could not be found. There was no time to hunt for them, so the hinges were pried off and Fannie Kemble, the fleetest and safest horse in the stable, was hurriedly called from her dreams. My young uncle, afterwards a gallant Confederate officer, Colonel J. J. Phillips, was routed out and, barefoot and mounted upon the horse without saddle or bridle, rode post haste for our family physician, treasuring the grievance to reproach me[Pg 3] with in after years when I would give evidence of a too impetuous disposition. In my eagerness to fly to the ills I knew not of, I would not await the arrival of the medical man and, spurning his assistance, defying them all, made my "ingress into life, naked and bare."

"Why didn't you wait for me, you impertinent little rascal?" inquired the Doctor. "What's your hurry? You are too enterprising for so young a lad."

"Lordy, Lordy, Marse Doctor," interposed my mammy tragically, "he ain't no boy-chile. It's a po' li'l gal-chile."

"A girl? Why! Damn him!" exclaimed the Doctor in astonishment and dismay. Thus my first greeting upon arriving on the earth was one of profanely expressed disapproval.

A wail of woe indescribable went up from all around. My poor, disappointed, heart-broken mother turned her face to the wall.

"Come 'long to yo' mammy, honey. She ain't gwine to 'sert you ef you is a gal-chile, po' l'il lamb! You can't he'p yo' calamity no mo' dan we-all kin. Mammy knows hit's terrible. En yo' pa, he gwine cuss eb'y last nigger on de plantation 'bout hit. I wonder what dey gwine name you, for Tommy ain't no gal's name. Dey can't call you atter none er yo' gran'pas now, nuther. I suttinly is sorry, but dar ain't nuttin'[Pg 4] so bad dat hit couldn't be wusser, en you mouter been twins—gal twins! Po' li'l thing! Den I know you'd hyer ole Bringer bark." (Ole Bringer was the "ha'nt dog.") "Lordy! Lordy! I wonder who gwine tell yo' pa. I reckon de Doctor better bre'k hit to him, kase de preacher is gone souf to cure his th'oat. Dar, dar, honey, mammy's most th'oo. She gwine drap some warm catnip tea down yo' th'oat now. Dar, dar, go sleepityby!"

Thus early in my career my mammy comforted me, as the old mammies always comforted us "white chilluns."

Several days later my father returned and hurried to my mother. After blessing and kissing her he said proudly:

In those days the nearest telegraph station was a long distance from our plantation home and there had been no opportunity of informing my father of the misfortune that had befallen the family.

Mammy Charity, who had been eaves-dropping, was almost knocked over as my father suddenly opened the door upon her and excitedly cried:

"I dunno, Marse Dae, how de po' boy happened to be a gal. I 'clare it wuz none of we-all's doin's, but I reckon de reason she's cross-eyed is her bein' born lak she was in de middle of de week a lookin' bofe ways for Sunday."

Thus was I blessed by physician, mother and father. In a few weeks the eyes uncrossed of themselves, but they are still looking both ways for Sunday—which never comes.

Three weeks later, when my grandmother made her second visit to me, her first grandchild, finding that I had developed into a very colic-y, and consequently, fretful child, a disturber of sleep and peace, she offered to take me back home with her, a proposition which[Pg 6] was eagerly accepted. The "settin'-aig-basket" was sent for and I was comfortably and cosily placed in it and put into the foot of her rockaway. Pery, the driver, was cautioned to be "keerful of de ruts en de jolts; not to go to sleep nor to step 'pon dat chile, en don't you drap her out; ef you do she'll ha'nt you as long as you lib."

It was a beautiful day in June. The air was laden with perfume and song. Not that I knew it at the time—cuddled up in my "settin'-aig-basket"—but I have credible information on the subject, furnished later, with all the rest of the details of that most important, though unconscious, period of my earthly career. Every little while my grandmother would peep into the basket to see that all was well. Everybody we met stopped to ask after the "new-born baby" and, being informed of its presence in the "settin'-aig-basket," requested to make its acquaintance sans ceremonie, Pery taking advantage of the introduction to hop out of the rockaway and gather great green honeysuckles and honeysuckle blossoms, which he put into the basket until it looked as if filled with honeysuckles and their blooms, that being the best tribute he could offer to the little new "missis."

At Sandy Bottom, the dismal grave of many a trusting heart, where the frog croaks his[Pg 7] never-ceasing croon, Uncle Frenigike came out from "Free-nigger-town" to borrow "a chew of terbacker" and beg a "ninepence to buy de ole man a plug." Recognizing the "settin'-aig-basket" he said:

"Lordy, Mistis, can't you give de ole man a settin' of dem aigs. We-all's ole domernicker is jest gwine to settin'."

Being informed of the contents of the basket, he asked to be allowed to see "de li'l gal baby."

"Lord, Lord! Jes' look at dem li'l fis'es," he exclaimed. "Dey's bofe shet up jest as tight ez wax. Dat chile sho' gwine to be one stingy white woman when she grows up ef you-all don't scrouge dem dar li'l fis'es open en put sumpn 'twixt 'em."

Suiting the action to the word, he worked his own black forefinger within my little soft baby clasp, then suddenly but gently withdrawing it asked:

"Ain't she got nare rabbit foot, Mistis? She ain't! De-Lord-sakes-alive! Po' li'l misfortunate thing—agwine on fo' weeks ole en ain't never had a rabbit's foot! Well, she shan't be widout one no longer. No, dat she shan't. She shall have a rabbit's foot dis ve'y minute. Yas'm, I got a fresh one in my snake-skin bag I kilt wid my two-time (double-barrel) gun last Chuesday jest 'fo' sundown en jest ez hit[Pg 8] wuz gwine lipperty-clip, lipperty-clip, 'cross de briahs over Liza-Malindy's grave. Liza-Malindy, you know, was my fifth wife. I wish hit had been runnin' 'cross one er de men-folkses' graves en dat I had kilt hit of a Friday night 'stead of a Chuesday. Den co'se, dar'd a been a heap mo' luck in hit. But hit's de best I kin do now for de po' li'l thing en hit's a heap better dan havin' no rabbit's foots at all."

Running his hand down into his breeches pocket he pulled out his rattlesnake-skin bag, filled with charms against "hoodoos en cunjers," and selected from the gruesomeness a blood-stained rabbit's foot and, lifting my little clenched fingers one by one, he closed them around it. Thus, perhaps, he saved me from that most loathsome fault, "stinginess," and insured for me, even though the talisman was of a "Chuesday's" killing, sprinting over a woman's instead of a man's briar-grown home, at least a minimum amount of good luck.

But for the superstitious and fascinating tales, silken-woven by the tongue of fancy, and the awesome shadows cast by authenticated tragedies, Sandy Bottom, where I met my sable godfather, Frenigike, and received my first security against ill luck, would have been nothing but an insignificant little valley in the [Pg 9]wildwood, crossed by a quiet looking stream. In its dread death-bed, by the side of priests and Indians, fair-haired maidens and dark-eyed savages, sleep the wife and children and servants of an English nobleman. The infant child, because of its appealing helplessness, alone was saved, while the great strong horses and the coach with its freight of human lives, gold and silver and jewels, were swallowed by the treacherous quicksand.

This tragedy occurred in the year 1799, when Sir Henry Clinton formed the plan of humbling the pride and destroying the resources of Virginia. He sent a powerful fleet to Hampton Roads and landed a force under General Mathews to advance and perfect this project. General Mathews took possession of Norfolk and Portsmouth and the surrounding country, burning Suffolk and committing depredations everywhere. The family of an English nobleman, frightened by the devastation, fled for safety to a point on the Nansemond where a part of the English fleet was lying in waiting. Passing Sandy Bottom the driver stopped to water his horses. He was urging them farther up stream where the water was deeper and clearer, when a runaway negro named Isaac sprang from the bank, shrieking out a warning of the terrible quicksand. His warning being[Pg 10] disregarded, he snatched the sleeping baby from the nurse's arms, saying:

"Dis po' li'l chile can't he'p itse'f en I gwine to sabe it anyhow fum bein' gulched down dat quicksandy debil's th'oat, ef de yuthers won't be sabed."

Before the last echo had followed the negro's words—before the frightened child could catch breath for another shriek—carriage, horses, driver, footmen, maids, children and mistress were all sucked in by the dark water. A few bubbles here and there were the only sign of its treachery. The horrified riders had followed so close that the dash of their horses' feet splashed the water simultaneously on the screaming child and over the swirling waves which marked the fatal spot of its mother's doom.

As a reward for his warning and for saving the life of the child, Isaac, the negro, was given his liberty and a home—the first of his race ever set free in Virginia—and was thereafter impressively distinguished by the (to those of his own color) opprobrious epithet of "Free-Negro-Isaac." This name was soon jargoned into Frenigike, and afterward, through culture and prosperity, into Freeling, the present family name of the descendants of Frenigike. The old place near Sandy Bottom is still called Free-Nigger-Town.

Past this spot of gruesome history I was borne in the unconsciousness of infancy through the little village of Chuckatuck and beyond until the carriage drew up at my grandmother's door and Uncle Charles, her foreman, came out with the little negroes running after him to welcome us.

II THE FIRST PRAYER

Still cuddled among the honeysuckles in the basket I was carefully lifted from the carriage.

"Please, Marm, Mistis, lemme carry de settin'-aig-basket in to Mammy Dilsey," pleaded Pery, the driver, who had taken great pride in giving me my first ride and covering me over with his cherished honeysuckle blossoms.

"Mammy's gwine to be so s'prised she'll want to knock me down. En I's gwine to look solemn en mousterious en hand her de basket en say, ''Tain't no use er yo' settin' dese yer aigs, Mammy Dilsey, for dey's already done en hatched out!' I know now jes' what she's gwine answer back. She gwine say, 'Don't you come hyer wid none o' yo' projickin', you pizen-fryin'-size-limb-er-Satan, you. Ef you does I'll smack you slab-sided into de middle of next winter!' Den I gwine say, 'Well, look for yo'se'f, Mammy Dilsey.'"

My grandmother, who not only liked to humor her servants but enjoyed the anticipated surprise he was going to give Mammy Dilsey, granted Pery's request and I was carried in and put upon Mammy's bed and the rehearsed conversation followed. Mammy Dilsey would have been more vigorous in her denunciation of that "fryin'-size" with his "lyin' en projickin'" if her eyes had not at that moment rested on my grandmother, to whom she appealed to "help her to save dat lyin'-limb-of-a-nigger fum perditionment."

"Look for yourself, Mammy Dilsey, before condemning Pery to perdition," suggested my grandmother.

Mammy looked and seeing only my leafy and blossoming cover, ejaculated scornfully:

In lifting my honeysuckle blanket she pulled out my sugar rag. This loss combined with the cessation of the soothing motion of the rockaway caused me to make my presence and my grievances known by wail after wail, verifying Pery's truthfulness as to something having hatched out.

"Land sakes!" cried Mammy Dilsey. "Fo' God!—Fo' God! Well, you-all sho' ought to be ridic'lous at yo'se'fs—a humblementin' a po'[Pg 14] li'l he'pless baby en insecatin' her lak dis! Did you-all have no pillows nor no laps to fotch de po' li'l lamb home 'pon widout puttin' her in a settin'-aig-basket? How you-all know dat some misforchunement ain't gwine to come 'count er projickin' wid her lak dat? De chile mout crow, or she mout cackle, or she mout take her arms for wings en flop 'em, or she mout peck, or eat wu'ms, or walk wid her toes stuck in'ards. She eben mout have fedders. De Lord's ways is mousterious. He don't do nuttin' out of de reg'lar Hisse'f, en you-all is done sumpn not only out of de reg'lar but onnatural, a puttin' a baby in a settin'-aig-basket. De po' li'l thing cries, too, lak 'twas starved to deaf. I s'pose Miss Lizzie didn't have no milk en maybe dat was de reason you fotch it long back wid you so dat Sis Sereny could nuss her; her twinzes bein' most de same age."

At this moment the door opened and Aunt Serena, who had already been notified of her coming duties, appeared, carrying on each arm a baby as black as the ace of spades. Without a word she laid both the babies down on Mammy Dilsey's bed and, taking me in her loving, motherly arms, set my table, and I, half starved, ravenously showed my appreciation and enjoyed my first meal at the expense of my little[Pg 15] foster sisters, who had just been awakened by my screams.

The news of my strange arrival had spread and the whole plantation assembled to see their "young missis," crowding around in reverential admiration, while I went off into a peaceful sleep, smiling anon in that sleep, as the warm-hearted loyal negroes, from the oldest to the youngest, leaned over to look at and bless me, "old missus'es" first grandchild.

"Lord! Lord! Is dat we-alls li'l missis?" asked Uncle Charles, taking off his hat, pulling his forelock and scraping his foot as reverentially to me as if I had been a little princess. "Is dat Miss Lizzie's chile? Niggers, you-all hyer dat? Take off your hats en bow en cutchy, ebby last one er you, for dis is yo' Miss Lizzie's chile en mistisses' gran'chile, de young missis dat de Lord is done en sont down to earth for us to take a intrus' in, to work for, en to teach manners to, en to send to school. Come along now, let us all kneel down en 'semble ourse'fs in praher en concentrate our li'l missis to de bressed Lord; all 'cept'n' Sis Sereny; she's holdin' de li'l missis, so she kin set.

"Oh, Lord, de Father of de fatherless, dat letteth not a sparrow fall to de groun' widout Dy knowledge en counts de very hairs upon dar heads; disremember dis Dy he'pless chile,[Pg 16] who has been fotch to us dis day th'oo trials en triberlations in a settin'-aig-basket. I beseech De, oh Lord, to watch over her, clothe her in raiment en vestures en feed her on manna en lead her li'l foots into de straight en narrer paths to de glory of Dy righteousness. Harken up her voice to sing Dy praises en lift up her han's to do Dy wu'k en keep her in Dy holy keepin'. Oh, Lord, bress dis our li'l baby for de sake of Dy own en Miss Mary's li'l baby, li'l Marse Jesus, amen."

"Git up fum off yo' knees now, niggers, en go 'long en tend to yo' business. You-all got dem dar cows to git up en milk, en de hogs is to be fed, en de hawsses to be curried, en you, Sis Sereny, you better wrop de baby up now en carry her along to de Gre't House, en Sis Dilsey, you better look after things. Ole-Granny-Aggie, you better git to bed."

The cradle was brought down from the garret and emptied of its loyal little toys. It had belonged to the twin-brother of the uncle who took the midnight ride to help me across the dark waters. While it was being arranged for my occupancy a cry of dismay went up from Ole-Granny-Aggie, who had disobeyed Uncle Charles and followed me in.

"Don't put dat chile in dat cradle! What you thinkin' 'bout? Marse Jasper's twin done[Pg 17] en die in dat cradle, en all de rabbits' foots in de worl' ain't gwine charm away de ha'nts en keep off de ebil eye ef you puts her in dat cradle to sleep. Put dem dar li'l toys all back ag'in en tek de cradle back to de garret en pull outn de trunnel bed. De cat's been a tryin' to steal hit for hern, en cats does p'int de way. You sho' is tryin' to see how much triberlation en bad luck you kin fotch down 'pon dis chile's haid, fotchin' her home of a Friday in de small of de moon in a settin'-aig-basket, mekin' her drink her first drink fum a stranger's cup in a stranger's house wid undrinkin' strangers a lookin' on while she unbeknown to it all is a drinkin'. I's glad I flung de dish-water on de dog—a howlin' jest as Uncle Charles was a prayin', en you-all know what a howlin' dog means."

The superstitions were heeded, the little toys were all lovingly replaced in the cradle and returned to the garret and I was put to sleep in the little trundle bed where my grandfather and great-grandfather and mother and uncles and aunts had slept when the cradle and crib had grown too small and they were not yet old enough for a tester-bed.

Aunt Serena was moved from the "quarters" and ensconced in one of the garret rooms of the "Gre't House." She was provided with a [Pg 18]supply of new clothing, which delighted her, and was placed upon a special diet, which she resented, preferring her bacon and greens, "pot-liquor" and "corn-meal-dumplin's" to the daintier food prescribed.

Her little twins, my foster sisters, Mary-Frances and Arabella, were placed in the care of the "orphan tenders," Mammy Dilsey and Ole-Granny-Aggie, the latter claiming to be more than a hundred years old. A cow was set aside for the especial use of the twins, who soon learned that the tinkle of the cow-bells meant for them a banquet of rich warm milk.

For awhile they were brought up twice a day to the "Gre't House" to see "dar Mammy" and sometimes were permitted to partake of the crumbs that fell from the "rich baby's table," which crumbs they soon disdainfully refused, showing their preference for the libations of "Spotty Sookey," that being the name of their barnyard cow.

III CHURCH VISITORS

My grandmother's old colonial home, Holiday's Point, so-called because of the many holidays that my grandfather had been accustomed to give his servants, was on the Nansemond River, in Nansemond County.

The county came into existence in 1639, being first called Upper Norfolk. Its name was soon changed to Nansemum, spelled by Captain John Smith "Nansemond." The Dismal Swamp extends along its edge. Its county-seat is Suffolk, the burning of which I, as a child, have often heard described by Ole-Granny-Aggie, an eye-witness, while we would listen with bated breath, hair on end and nerves aquiver.

"No, chillun," she would say, "jedgment day ain't agwine to be no mo' tur'ble to 'sperience dan de burnin' of we-all's county-town by dem furrin Britishers was, en de niggers en de white folks ain't agwine to be no skeerder den, needer."

Then she would describe in her picturesque lingo the firing of the barrels of tar, pitch and turpentine which had been brought from the Dismal Swamp and placed upon the wharf awaiting shipping. The flames carried by a strong wind caught the grass of the dry marshes and spread to the town and the surrounding country and, as Granny-Aggie said, "de ma'shes en de river for miles looked and soun' lak one gre't blazin'-kindle-lighted sheet er steadified thunder and lightnin'—de magazines a 'splodin'—de timbers a cracklin'—de barrels of tar, pitch en turkentine a bustin' en splungin' out dar fire—de sparks a flyin' en a lippin' lak de whole fundament had busted wide open en all de stars in de Heabens was a drappin' out, en ev'ybody runnin' lipperty-clip lak dey thunk de Debil was a movin' de Bad Place down to Nansemon'."

Thus my infancy was surrounded by historic tales and the more ancient traditions that had descended from father to son through generations of dusky retainers.

I was the idol of my dear grandmother and her household and many friends. My playmates were the children of the surrounding plantations—the old homes inherited from colonial days. I had never known any other way of living and experienced a shock of [Pg 21]surprise on learning that a little new acquaintance did not reside in the home of her ancestors. I asked my grandmother if that little girl was respectable.

"Because her pa and ma rent their home. She told me so herself. She can't be respectable."

My grandmother explained to me that though it was pleasant and desirable to live in the house of our fathers, the absence of that comfort did not necessarily place a person "beyond the pale." But I felt at that time that it was grandmother's charity that caused her to set forth that view, for I thought that people who did not live in their own houses could not be respectable.

Two members of my grandmother's household were "nominated" as "church visitors," Mrs. Mary Hutchins, who was deaf, and whose husband, a sea captain, had been lost in a wreck, and Miss Sophia Wilson who, through a vicious parrot, had lost her sight on the eve of her marriage and had, in consequence, been deserted by her fiancé.

There were poorhouses in those days but no homes for aged women and the members of the church took care of their homeless co-workers. As Mrs. Hutchins and Miss Sophia[Pg 22] belonged to the old Glebe Church, they were invited as honored guests by fellow-members. Some years earlier the Episcopal Church had become almost extinct in Virginia and the membership was still very small, so that the visits were correspondingly extended. As my grandmother's home was especially pleasant the guests prolonged their stay indefinitely, suddenly falling too ill to be moved if there was any suggestion of their going elsewhere.

Mrs. Hutchins, or "Miss Mary," as we called her, could not hear, but she read the movements of the lips, a circumstance of which Miss Sophia would perversely take advantage by turning away as she spoke, whereupon her friend would thus reproach her:

"Turn your head this way, Sophia Wilson! You don't want me to hear what you are talking about. Begrudging me a little news and I interested in everything, and the Lord knows I haven't a bit of curiosity."

"How do you know what the Lord knows, Mary Hutchins? If you knew half what He knows you wouldn't make so many mistakes. No curiosity, indeed! You're chock full of it. You'd bore a gimlet hole through the earth to see what was on the other side."

"You wouldn't know what was on the other side if there was a tunnel through and somebody[Pg 23] shouting it with a fog-horn, and you're so stingy you wouldn't tell me if you did know. Not that it makes any difference; you're not likely to known anything on any side of the earth."

"Humph," was the indignant retort, "if I don't know things why should you be so anxious to see me talk so you could find them out."

"Miss Mary" was saved from the embarrassment of a reply by the timely arrival of my grandmother, who could always apply oil to the waters when they were especially troubled.

A part of my youthful education consisted of the thrilling stories related to me by the captain's faithful relict, whose memory cherished the tales of "moving 'scapes by land and sea" told her in early days by the sailor. Thus I met the man-eaters of the South Seas, shuddered at the gruesome trophies that adorned the persons and huts of the head-hunters of Borneo, beheld the sea-serpent in the rippling waves of the river that flowed below the edge of my grandmother's lawn, and heard many a story of storm and wreck in which the departed sea-captain had performed wonders of skill and bravery.

"Well, Mary Hutchins!" exclaimed Miss Sophia in stern disapproval when I would be lost in rapt attention to these thrilling tales. "What do you mean by putting such notions[Pg 24] into that innocent child's head? What do you suppose she will come to when she grows up? A lunatic asylum? Come out of one yourself most likely or you wouldn't get such crazy ideas. Just fancy people wearing other people's heads and hanging them on the wall when they can pick up beautiful shell necklaces right off their own beach and can get wax flowers to put around their houses that look natural and won't ever fade! And as for sea-serpents, you know there never were any."

"Now, Sophia Wilson," Mrs. Hutchins would answer, "the Bible tells us that there are more things in heaven and earth than philosophy ever dreamt of, and we know it's true, and if philosophy can't even dream of the things in heaven and earth, how in the name of common sense are you going to know what's in the waters under the earth? And doesn't it stand to reason that those who go down into the great deep know more about what's in the sea-waves than you do who would be afraid of the wave of a clothes-line on a wash-day?"

In romantic moments Mrs. Hutchins would tell me of the green-haired, flame-eyed, melodious-voiced mermaids that lie in wait to lure unwary seamen to destruction on the rocks, from which danger her sailor had been delivered by the memory of her. Unfortunately, Miss[Pg 25] Sophia chanced to be present at one of these sentimental reminiscences.

"You never did have green hair, Mary Hutchins, not even at your prettiest, and that wouldn't be much, and as for flaming eyes, you couldn't scorch a potato, not if your dinner depended on it, and if you ever did sing it must have been worse than a flock of jaybirds. Talk about that old Greek who moved trees when he played! I should think your singing would be enough to make all the woodpiles in Virginia run away. The more you educate that child, Mary Hutchins, the less she knows. The Lord gave her more learning to begin with than she'll ever get from you, and if you go on telling her such trash she'll forget all she ever did know. I heard you yesterday telling her about the ghosts of the children of Israel that keep on crossing the Red Sea. Now I want you to know, Mary Hutchins, that when those Jews crossed the Red Sea once they were on the other side for good and they don't go on walking through that water as if the Lord had nothing to do but take care of them every time they chose to go wading. There is such a thing as trusting the Lord once too often, and the folks that know Him as well as the children of Israel did aren't going to take risks like that on Him. First thing you know you'll have that child [Pg 26]seeing ghosts, and you know well enough that people who see ghosts aren't ever likely to see anything that's worth looking at."

I was often troubled in my mind between a confidence in "Miss Mary," which I wished to preserve unshaken, and the force of Miss Sophia's arguments.

The germ of pathos latent in my undeveloped mind was fostered by the story of Miss Sophia's lost vision, which ran thus:

She was visiting at the home of a friend who owned a parrot of unusual brightness of mind and independence of character. Its mistress had a little wooden whistle like those you may recall having seen rural schoolboys whittle out and use for the production of music somewhat shrill in tone but well adapted to please the taste of the juvenile artist. The lady would whistle to the bird, which would answer her in tones that obviously fell short of its ambition. The mistress had a whistle like her own made for the parrot who, marvelous to relate, acquired a high degree of skill in its use and was proud of the achievement.

Once when Miss Sophia's fiancé called she wished to entertain him with a display of the bird's accomplishments. Putting her friend's whistle to her lips she approached the cage. The parrot, apparently angry with the usurper[Pg 27] for daring to assume the character of its mistress, darted its beak through the wires and plucked out one of the interloper's eyes. From overwork or sympathy the other eye lost its sight. The lover's affection failed before the test of a blind sweetheart and he found a more fortunate lady.

This story was told me as a lesson in refraining from meddling with the possessions of other people. In combination with "Meddlesome Matty" in my school reader it led me to extreme care in avoiding too great familiarity with things that did not belong to me.

I was fascinated not only by the tragic story but by the click-clack of Miss Sophia's teeth falling out of place as she told it to me. She had purchased them by the sacrifice of her collection of gold dollars, the gifts of friends through many years. The extravagance and vanity of this purchase furnished another subject of dispute with "Miss Mary," who was a thrifty soul and pious as well.

"Sophia Wilson," she said, "if the Lord had intended you to have teeth all your life wouldn't He have given you a set that would have lasted to your dying day?"

"If He wanted me to go without teeth because the ones He made turned out badly, why[Pg 28] do you suppose He put people into the world that were smart enough to make new ones? Just answer me that!"

I found relief from the depression produced by the tragic reminiscences confided to me by going out into the sunlight on the grass-carpeted lawn and walking under the pink and white canopy of the blossoming althea bushes, or Rose of Sharon, as the flowering plant was sometimes called. The negroes had named the althea the "toothbrush tree" because they broke twigs from it and chewed the ends of the tough fiber into brushes softer than the finest hair brush and used them for cleaning their teeth. "Miss Rose Sharon she first started it," they said. "She was a fairy and lived in the tree and the pink and white blossoms are the smile of her pretty face." I thought the fairy magic in the "tooth-brush tree" was what kept the teeth of the negroes so dazzlingly white, and we children always made our toothbrushes of the same material, hoping to achieve a like result.

On the plantation were some "Story Trees," or "Ghost Trees," as the negroes called them. On their trunks were patches of white and gray moss, like fragments of thin veils. Each of the splotches bore a warning or a legend brought[Pg 29] by the spirits and written there. The trees were centuries old and held the ancient Bible stories recorded before the alphabet was invented, when the art of reading was among the undiscovered things, and not even the earliest picture-writing had been evolved. It was only the most important messages that the Lord would permit to be confided to the old trees. Some of the spirit records had broken lines and the servants said that the angel's wing was broken as he brought the message down. There was a deep and fearsome scar on one of the "ghost trees" which indicated a tragedy, past or to come, and I used to gaze upon it with awesome wonder, trying to read its dread meaning.

A few years later a great tragedy came and the blackness of it shrouded our whole nation, but whether that was what the old tree prophecy meant I know not.

IV MY SOLDIER

Everyone has a point of beginning—a period back of which life, to present consciousness, was not. For me this point stands out vividly in memory.

I was staying with my grandmother, for since she took me home in the "settin'-aig-basket," she had lovingly asserted her claim. My time was divided between the two homes, hers and my father's. My tall handsome father and my beautiful little mother sat on the front veranda, my brother Thomas playing near them on the grass. It was in cherry time and I saw "Uncle Charles" coming up the slope carrying a forked stick on which hung a great cluster of black-heart cherries edged with bright red ones that he had gathered for them to take home.

Suddenly my attention was diverted from the cherries to a horse pounding down the lane and stopping at the gate, where a barefoot boy tumbled off. He had ridden bareback, with[Pg 31] plow-hames for a bridle, as if the horse had been hastily taken from the field.

The rockaway was drawn to the door by old Starlight, my grandmother took her seat within, and I watched Pery driving off, following them with my eyes to the end of the lane, where they were lost to view in the highway.

Poor Mrs. Pitt left four children to be apportioned among the members of her church, little Sara falling to my grandmother's care. The next morning my old mammy broke this news to me, ending with:

"Well, I sposin' it's all right, but de li'l gal don't b'long to de quality, en how de Pitts come to membership in de silk-stockin' Chu'ch is beyonst me."

My mammy's idea of the Episcopal Church dated from the days when its members were noted for ornamentation in dress, and to her it was always "de silk-stockin' Chu'ch." The lack of silken qualifications did not lessen her determination to do her duty by the little girl who, in her opinion, was so frail that she was doomed to an early death. In her desire to fulfill her obligations mammy exhorted me to "ack lak a sister-in-law to her, as you can't ack lak a sho' 'nough bloodified sister." She [Pg 32]expressed her opinion that it was not for nothing that she had been dreaming about snakes and about wasps building their nests in the beehives and made gloomy predictions of "haunts" and spirits that would prowl around and creep through the keyholes because of this unfortunate child. Warned by my wondering eyes that she was trespassing on forbidden ground, she stopped short, saying:

"G'long, honey, and play wid yo' new French chany set. I done talk to myself 'twel I got a mis'ry in my haid."

The privilege of playing with my dear little set of imported china was granted only when I had been particularly good or some one else particularly indiscreet.

That evening little "Sary Lizbef" came. She was a shy, frail, bow-legged child, with sandy hair, pale blue eyes, and warts on her fingers. I took possession of her, wanting to give her everything I had, happy in my self-abnegation, having a tender feeling for her because of her lack of the vigor possessed by the other children I knew and because there gloomed over me mammy's assertion, "She's 'bleeged to die, anyhow."

One morning Aunt Serena came in to make known to my grandmother her suspicions that the little girl had whooping cough, adding the[Pg 33] warning: "So you hyer me, ole Missus, you better stop she and li'l Missus mingulatin' wid one anudder." The diagnosis proving correct, my grandmother stopped our "mingulatin'" by taking me to Old Point Comfort to visit her friend, Mrs. Boykin, a sister of Mr. John Y. Mason. At first I was troubled about my only girl playmate; white girl, I mean, for Mary Frances and Arabella, my little colored foster sisters, had been my maids and playmates all my life and I was strongly attached to them, like a princess dispensing laws and giving them their parts to play in the drama of child-life. Only a Southern child can understand these relations and the sentiments born of them.

The charms of Old Point soon dispelled my grief and I was happy, being a favorite not only with the children but with the older guests, who found me useful in amusing the little ones, to whom I taught the fancy steps I had learned from my dancing-master and the original songs and dances of the negroes on the plantation. Alas! in due course of time I developed whooping cough and was thrust into the gulf of social ostracism. Instead of the accustomed hearty welcome, I was greeted with, "Run away, little girl, my little children cannot play with you now." I was a sensitive child, and this sudden change was like a January freeze in [Pg 34]midsummer, but I soon discovered that my mammy's advice, "Ef you kyan't be happy den be happy as you kin be," strictly followed, insured contentment in the long run. She pointed out the advantage of being sociable with myself, in that I should have no interference from others, but warned me to be careful not to play too long at one game or I would surely have "one of dem tur'ble low-sperited spells yo' gramma calls 'on yo' ear,'" the latter phrase being mammy's version of "ennui."

Before I had reached this danger-point fate brought me a companion who more than filled the vacancy left by the defection of my former playmates. I had seen a solitary officer on the sands, reading, or looking at the ships as they came and went, or watching the waves as they dashed to sudden death against the shore. He figured in my imagination as the "Good Prince" in the fairy stories my grandmother told me.

He did not look as tall as the men of my family, but he carried himself so erectly and walked with such soldierly dignity that I was sure that any "Good Prince" might have envied him his stately appearance. I noted that his hair, which hung in shining waves almost to his shoulders, was the same color as my own and I pulled one of my curls around to look at it and make sure of the accuracy of the comparison. Even at that[Pg 35] early age I had a liking for dainty hands and feet and I noticed his small feet as he paced the sands and the delicate hand that was raised to his cap in salute to an officer who passed. The grace of his hands was well set off by the cambric ruffles that edged his sleeves. My childish eyes took in the neatness and perfect fit of his attire which set off his distinguished form. I thought him quite the handsomest soldier I had ever seen, and was surprised one day to hear somebody say that he had fought in the Mexican war. It seemed impossible to me. How could anyone so immaculate and so beautiful to look upon have really fought and killed people? I had never been near enough to see his eyes, but imagined that they must be brilliant stars like those to which I said good-night just before I cuddled down to invite sweet dreams.

My attention would probably not have been drawn so particularly to my soldier, for I had already begun to call him my soldier, had he been surrounded by dancing, chattering companions and formed a part of the gay life of Old Point Comfort. I should have observed him only as a brilliant feature of the cruel world that had chosen to condemn me to exile. But in his solitude I felt that we were comrades in sad experience. I knew of only one calamity[Pg 36] that could so set apart a human being from his fellow creatures as to bar him from association with his kind. The symptoms were unmistakable and I at once recognized the melancholy officer as a co-victim of whooping cough and gave him the tender pity of one who knew all about his misfortune.

One morning I was skipping along, chattering as usual, inquiring about the little girl whose spiteful tongue had been pulled out by a springbok, asking if the bluejay really did carry tales to the devil, and other queries pertinent to my stage of development, when my grandmother stopped to speak to a friend. I rambled on until I came to a spreading umbrella under which my soldier lay on the sands reading. He was so absorbed in his book that he did not see me till I crawled under the umbrella and looked into his face with, I suppose, all the sympathy that I felt and asked him anxiously if he had the whooping cough, telling him of my mammy's infallible remedy for that malady and assuring him of her willingness to apply it to his case. Then he looked at me, courteously raising his cap and smiling, and I saw that his eyes were gray, shot with changeful lights, twinkling blue with mirthfulness as he gave me a polite good morning. This recalled me to a realization of the demands of good society and[Pg 37] I got up and curtsied, wishing him "Good morning" and inquiring concerning his health. He arose and with knightly grace returned my greeting, pointing to a seat for me on the sand, and resumed his own place. Returning to the query with which I had opened the interview he asked why I had taken him for a victim of so juvenile an ailment. I feelingly related my own experience and dwelt upon the oppressive isolation of one so afflicted and said that as he did not associate with other officers nor dance with young ladies and had to swim and read all by himself, as I did, I thought it must be because he was suffering from the same misfortune as that which had deprived me of social pleasures.

He looked at me with a shade of sadness in his face and then I saw that his eyes could be very dark, like the sky sometimes at night when the moon had gone to bed and the stars were only little shimmery specks of light in the darkness piled velvety soft. He told me that he did not have the whooping cough but he had something worse, a broken heart, and he did not like to make others sad with his sorrow.

I had never seen a broken heart, but had some acquaintance with articles that had come to grief in the kitchen and had been restored to pristine wholeness by clever manipulation. I[Pg 38] comforted him with the assurance that broken hearts did not signify anything of importance; my mammy could mend them with glue and boil them in milk so you couldn't even see the cracks in them, as she had done with my grandmother's sugar bowl. "How did you break your heart?" I inquired sympathetically. He replied that God broke it when He took from him his loved ones and left him so lonely. In return for his confidence I promised to comfort him for his losses and to be his little girl now and his wife just as soon as I was grown up to be a lady.

He took a ring from his guard-chain and put it on my finger and gave me a tiny gold heart inscribed with "Sally," which had been the name of one of his loved ones, and I crept out from under the umbrella pledged to Lieutenant George E. Pickett of the United States Army. Then and to the end he was my soldier, and always when we were alone I called him "Soldier." I still have the ring and heart, and am indebted for this reminiscence to the little red memorandum book which he gave me years after, when he was General George E. Pickett, of the Confederate Army.

"Come again, little fairy," he said as I was leaving him to the uninterrupted perusal of his book. Just then my grandmother came up, with[Pg 39] apologies for my intrusion upon a stranger, and the explanation that my nurse had been sent to the Fort with a note for Lieutenant Pickett, the son of one of her old friends, asking the pleasure of his company to dinner. My new-found friend introduced himself as the officer in question, expressing his pleasure in the meeting and assuring her that my visit had been a charming episode in a monotonous waste of loneliness. I explained:

"I am his little girl now already and am going to be his wife as soon as I am grown up to be a lady."

From that time loneliness was at an end for me. My soldier had no fear of contagion, assuring me when I asked him if he was too big to have whooping cough that it was a privilege of youth and diminutiveness. We built pine bark yachts and sailboats and steamers and sailed them on the lakes we made by damming up the waves that dashed highest on the shore. The waves of our lakes washed the coasts of every country on the map and our stately ships brought back to us rich cargoes from all the countries of the world. We built forts and garrisoned them with men as brave as those who fell with Leonidas in the great battle of which my soldier told me as we worked.[Pg 40] Upon the sea-wall he placed a flag that fluttered defiance to the enemy-ocean as the waves dashed up to our embattled ramparts and rolled back defeated. It was my first introduction to the Star-Spangled Banner and the red and white stripes and star-gemmed sky impressed me as very beautiful. In those days the Stars and Stripes were rarely seen in the Southern States and the flag of Virginia was the only emblem of sovereignty that I had known. My soldier told me the story of the battle-born flag and the eagle that perched upon it amid the smoke of the conflict, the thunder of guns and the lightning of swords.

When I was wearied with the toil incident to our extensive commercial operations and the labors and anxieties of battle we sat upon the sand and he sang to me, playing the accompaniments on his guitar. When I hear those old songs to-day they come to me with the far faint odor of the breezes that swept across the ocean in that long gone time and I hear again the golden notes of that melodious voice mingled with the soft music floating out from the touch of his fingers.

Three years later I saw my soldier again. He had just received his commission as captain and was recruiting his company at Fortress Monroe before sailing for the unknown[Pg 41] West. The first real sorrow came to me when I watched the St. Louis, the United States transport, go out to sea with my soldier on board. From her prow floated a flag like that which had waved over the fort we built on the sands in that time when life had lost all its troubles and the sunshine of the heart filled earth and sea and sky with radiance. I felt then as I had not before realized that this was my soldier's flag to which his life was given and to my view the stars in it shone with a new glory.

The St. Louis was bound for Puget Sound where was the new station, Fort Bellingham, which I thought must be farther than the end of the world. Not one ship of our whole great fleet in the olden days had sailed for Puget Sound.

V A KEEPSAKE FOR THE ANGELS

When we went home Uncle Charles came to the wharf to meet us. He was dressed in the clothes left to him by my grandfather's will and, dangling from his watch-chain, glaring at us in bold relief against his black velvet vest, a set of artificial teeth grinned in ghastly manner from their gold settings. In those days artificial teeth were not common, and when Mr. Durkee, a dentist from Connecticut, came into our neighborhood and hung out his sign, all of a certain class who could raise money enough had their teeth taken out and replaced by false ones.

That year when my grandmother asked Uncle Charles what he would like for a Christmas present he chose "a p'ar of dem sto' teef," explaining that his were "moughty nigh wo' out, chawin' 'backer en a gnashin' de mules of a week days en de sinners of a Sundays."

My grandmother reasoned with him on the[Pg 43] folly of making the exchange but he had set his heart upon it and she, with her habit of spoiling her servants by indulging them, permitted him to be measured and fitted for his "sto' teef," of which he was so proud that he wore them more for ornament than use, displaying them at all special functions.

As Uncle Charles drove us home he had many confidences to make to my grandmother. The most important was about little Sara Elizabeth.

"Dem blin' en deef chu'ch visitors of we-alls—I don' mean no disrespect to dar reflictions—but dey's spilin' dat li'l Sara 'Lizbef. You knows, dey 'lowed dat gal to play on de spinet of a Sunday mornin's?—En dance chunes, at dat? En dat ain't all; dey 'sputes so wif deyse'fs over her dat it's scan'lous, en dar ain't no gittin' along wid 'em."

Little Sara, the bone of contention between the two, as Uncle Charles said, proved in a fair way to be spoiled. On my return she looked upon me as an intruder, but when she was made to feel that her rights were not to be infringed upon she welcomed me into the old companionship. I took great comfort in her, but often (though I kept the secret in my heart) the unguarded words of my mammy, "dat chile bleeged fer ter die anyhow," occurred to me and made[Pg 44] me sorry and afraid, yet I knew not why, for I had no idea of death.

One night I was awakened by the sound of voices and, peeping from under the covers, saw the bald head of our old family physician, Dr. Finney, and the anxious face of my grandmother, who was holding the big brass nursery candlestick. I caught the word "croup." Then their voices were lowered to a whisper as they looked toward my bed. They went out and closed the door and I lay awake a long time thinking, wondering who or what was "croup."

Next morning I awakened long after my usual hour and was told that I must be very quiet for my grandmother had a headache. While my mammy was dressing me she sighed and looked mysteriously wise, and between the fastening of my buttons and the curling of my hair repeated over and over again, "Lord a massy on us! We're here to-day but gone to-morrow!"

As I was tiptoeing down the hall my grandmother called me. She was sitting in her wrapper before a corn-cob fire. Taking me upon her lap and rocking me she tenderly stroked my hair. Mammy, shaking her head, leaned against the mantel and moaned and groaned. I turned away and looked into the crackling fire till presently the beautiful [Pg 45]pictures in the burning coals made me break the solemn silence, and I said:

"Look, grandmother! See! A ship of coals loaded with falling stars and Jack-er-my-lanterns—Oh, and see! There is a city of gold! See that old castle tumbling down. See the silver cloud going so fast to the city and white flowers and sunshine all falling down and——"

"I knowed dat chile was gwine to be pestered seein' sperits, but, Mistis, dar p'intedly ain't no occasion of yo 'couragin' her in it lak you is," objected my mammy, throwing on an armful of fresh cobs and destroying my golden glory pictures.

"Now, go along, darling, and eat your breakfast," said my grandmother, "and then you may tell Ole-Granny-Aggie that she may let you go into the weaving room and give you the old cards and some of the waste wool to card, and if you are very good she may let you run the shuttle awhile. Tell her she need not 'toker' off her stent to-day, but just take care of you."

I stopped for a minute and looking up at her said, "And little Sara, too, please, marm?" She shook her head and shivered; then mammy took me away.

It was always enchanting to watch [Pg 46]Ole-Granny-Aggie weave, but to be allowed to sit at the loom and slide the shuttle through with my own hands was a special rapture. Yet this day I did not enjoy it, for I felt that something unusual had happened and associated it with my little friend.

The next morning mammy got out my new silk reins and hitched up Mary Frances and Arabella, my "match of blacks," for me to drive, and as we returned after a long race I saw an old gentleman with bent back carrying a beautiful white box into the house.

"A little jewel casket, my darling, to hold a keepsake that I am going to send to the angels. There, there; run along now and play."

I went into the garden where our own little bed of white violets was in full bloom, and suddenly remembering with a pang that my little Sara had wanted to gather them all and that I would let her have only what I saw fit she should have, I said, "She shall have every one now," and gathering my apron almost full I ran into the house.

The door of the room which had been closed to me for two days had been accidentally left ajar and, hearing my grandmother's voice, I ran in.

She and poor Miss Sophia and "Miss Mary" and several of the neighbors and servants were standing around that little white casket resting on a table in the center of the room.

My grandmother lifted me up and there, sweetly sleeping, was my little Sara Elizabeth. I whispered my wish to put the violets into her lap so that she could see them the first thing when she awakened and know that I was sorry and had brought her both our shares. My grandmother held me while I gently, and with no word, lest I should awaken her, put my violets into her arms so as to "s'prise her when she waked." Then I whispered to my grandmother as she carried me away, "Do angels want little children for keepsakes?"

VI AFRICAN ROYALTY

One of the enchantments of my childhood was the old cabin in the vale at the entrance to the grounds of the mansion house at Holiday's Point, where the gate-keeper, Uncle Bosun Keeling, and his wife, Aunt Charity, lived. I used to run down the cypress-bordered path to the old lodge to hear him tell "dem Bible-tales" and to see Aunt Charity's shining black face surmounted by her flaming red "haid-hankcher," a combination artistic and beautiful. She would take me on her lap and tell the old legends that had come down through generations of dusky story-tellers.

"Yas, honey," she would say, telling me one of the five versions of the origin of her race, "we was all niggers once. Dar wa'n't no white folks at all, 'twel one day de Lord was tekin' a interview of His wu'ks to see ef dey was good, when He tuk notus dat we-all didn't 'preciate what He'd done for us, so He mekt up His[Pg 49] mind to come down to de earf en test our lub en gratichude en faif in His holy word en 'vide de sheeps fum de goats. He put on His patum leather boots en beaver hat en tuck His gold-headed cane en come 'long down de golden stairs en th'oo de golden gate, down de golden lane to whar de road forked to come to de ye'th.

"'Twas de springtime of de yeah en de whole face of de ye'th was a bloomin' en a buddin'. De paschers was all green en bescattered wid buttercups en clover blossoms en de cattles on a t'ousan' plains was a grazin' on 'em. De birds was all a singin' chunes, de roses a buddin' en de violets en Johnny-quils en hyercinfs a bloomin', de trees was all white-washed en kivered wid leaves, de grape-wines was a perfumin' up de air, en de orchards was pink en white en green all over. De hens was all a cacklin', en de chickens en ducks en goslin's all a hatchin'. All de ole sheeps had li'l lambs en some of 'em had two, en all de cows was givin' three gallons to de pail.

"De Lord was s'prized hisse'f at de glorification of His handywu'k. He bowed His haid in humble somilichude, en was jest gwine to pray, when He heard sump'n go kerchunk-kerchunk. He drapped His eyes en, lo! dar was a mud-tuckle mekin' for a pond of muddy water. He looked at de tuckle en He looked at de pond.[Pg 50] Den He tuk some yeast powders en flung 'em in de pond. Dat 'sturbed de waters, en dey riz en bubbled, riz en bubbled, 'twel dey was as cl'ar as cryslum. Den He blessed de pond en named it de Pool of 'Thesda.

"He went 'long den to de co'tehouse, for 'twuz co'te day en He knowed dem niggers was gwine to be dar ef dey could git dar. En dey was, sho' 'nough. 'Co'se de niggers didn' know de Lord was dar, en ef dey had He was inwisible en dey couldn't see 'Im nohow. But de Lord could see dem, dough, en dey was behavin' scan'lous. Some of 'em was magestricks en constubles en auctioneers; some was swiggin' cider en drams en 'simmon beer. Some was racin' hosses en fightin' chickens or playin' games or whittlin' sticks or swoppin' knives or eatin' hoss-cakes en watermillions. Some was 'sputin' en quarlin' en foughtin' en some was sittin' on dar ham-bones gossickin' 'bout one nuther.

"De Lord's heart suttin'ly was troubled. He spuk out in a loud woice en tole 'em to go to de Pool of 'Thesda en bave darse'fs. Now dem niggers knowed ebby inch of dat groun' en dey knowed dar wan't no Pool of 'Thesda dar; but dem dat lubbed en serbed de Lord en feared His holy name didn' queschify 'bout de pool. Dey went as fars' as dey could en baved darse'fs[Pg 51] en dey come out jest as white as ef dey had been libin' in town all dar libes en wearin' sun-bonnets. Dar lub en faif had washed away dar brack skins en mekt 'em white as de blood of de lamb.

"When dey went back to de co'tehouse de yuthers wanted to git obedient den, too, so dey tuck off en run to de pon'. De supples' en de swif'es dey got dar firs' en come out mos' as white as dat firs' passel, sep'n dar eyes en dar hyar en dar eye-brows stayed brack.

"De Chinesers en Injuns en Italyuns en yuther furriners dey sticked dar haids in firs' en unkinked dar hyar, en dey come out 'twix' a brindle en a brown. But dem dar lazy niggers dat didn' lub de Lord stayed at de co'tehouse drinkin' drams en projickin' en cussin' en cyarin' on 'twel 'twas jamby sundown, den dey jest amble darse'fs, sa'nterin' 'long lak dey had de whole day befo' 'em—a singin' chunes en a chawin' terbacker en smokin' dar pipes, en when dey reached de pon' dar wan' no pon' dar. It had all dried up.

"Dey suttinly was one s'prized passel of niggers, for dey'd allus called demse'fs de rambunkshunners en dey couldn't b'lieve dar eyes. Ebby now en den dey come 'cross a li'l moisch place yer en a li'l moisch place dar en dey'd run en pat it wid de palms of dar han's en[Pg 52] de soles of dar foots, en dat's all de white dar is 'bout a nigger fum dat day to dis—jest de palms of dar han's en de soles of dar foots."

When Aunt Charity would tell these old legends Uncle Bosun would sit spell bound as if it were the first time he had ever heard them and when she would finish he would shake his head with pride and say:

"My ole woman she sho' kin talk lak a readin' book, en she ain't one er dem kin' dat licks de 'lasses offn yo' bread en den calls you nigger. Needer do she bek de bread en give you de crus', nor eat de meat en give you de hus'. She gives you de white meat ebby time. En she never follows de jay-bird's trade, needer, a carryin' news, en dress—she allus dresses sincerely."

He was a very pious old man, cherishing extreme reverence for the works of God, with small respect for the innovations of man. When Doctor Durkee, the "tooth doctor," appeared in the neighborhood Uncle Bosun's rigid principles arose in opposition. He looked with both scorn and fear upon the glistening teeth that were the pride of Uncle Charles's heart—and plead with him "not to 'courage dat ole doctor in de imitation of de Lord's handy wu'ks, fer he was a back-slider en a robber, en den ag'in don't de Lord say, 'Dou shalt not mek[Pg 53] any graven image or lakness of anyt'ing dat is in de heaven above or dat is in de earf beneaf or dat is in de water under de earf,' en dat means yo' teef jest de same as ef de good Lord had specified teef en said, 'Charles 'Rastus Thessalonians, yo' teef is a graven image,' en ain't yo' teef under de earf beneaf?"

This frivolous reasoning was contemptuously set aside by the logical mind of Uncle Bosun, and later when Dr. Durkee committed various thefts and took his departure in undignified haste, my father asked the gate-keeper how he knew that the doctor was a rascal.

"Lor, Marse Dae," he said, "I lives so close to de things dat God made in de woods en on de water dat I kin scent de bad fum de good ev'y time."

Uncle Bosun claimed royal blood, having descended from Uncle Jack, the son of a king, who was brought over from Africa in the last slaveship that deposited its cargo at Old Osborne on the James River. We loved to hear him tell of his royal ancestor.

"Yes, chillun," he would say, "yo' Uncle Jack, my ancestor, was hired out to de oldes' college in de United States, William en Mary, named atter Marse William en Miss Mary from[Pg 54] London who give 'em de groun' to build de college on, en de town what 'twas built in was de capital in dem days en was de oldes' corporal town in ole Virginny. De firs' newspaper, too, was printed dar. Yo' Uncle Jack had charge of all de books at de college en dey says ev'y time he'd dus' de books dat Marse Robert Dinsmore give to de college he'd stop en read de adbertisement writ on 'em, 'Ubi Libertas Ibi Patria,' en say to hisse'f, 'I wonder why on earf Marse Robert Dinsmore want to separate dat po' couple for, when he was rich en could a bought Libi en Pat bofe hisse'f 'stead a orderin' de yuther man to buy Libi en sayin' he was gwine to buy Pat.'"

Uncle Bosun told us how the preachers of all denominations, though they were half-starved in those days, had joined together and bought Uncle Jack from his owners and given him his freedom. He was not only good but brave and always spoke his mind without fear, telling the negroes when they would shout at revival meetings that it was scandalous for them to make so much fuss about such a calm and serious thing as religion, that they put him in mind of the little brooks after a rain, soon full, then noisy, roaring and rushing, then just as soon empty again. He asked them to try to be more dignified with their religion and more like the[Pg 55] great, broad, deep river, for he said he had noticed that the more ignorant folks were, the more shallow their religion was, and the more noise they made over it, just like the dry and no account leaves, he said, that always make more noise when the wind blows through them than the green ones do.

A rich man, Mr. Haxall, owner of Haxall's mills—the mills that made the only flour in the United States in those days that could be carried across the ocean without spoiling—had, like many gentlemen of that time, a habit of profanity. One day when he was swearing Uncle Jack asked if he wouldn't please, being a rich and mighty man, set an example to the world and quit swearing. Mr. Haxall replied:

"Jack, old man, what for? I'm very well satisfied with myself as I am. I don't know what more I want than I have. In fact, as far as I can see, Jack, I'm just as well off as any of you Christians."

"Jest so, Marser, jest so wid de horgs," said Uncle Jack. "You know, suh, I's often stood en watched 'em rootin' 'mongst de leaves in de woods en findin' as many acorns as dey could pos'bly eat en stuff en I ain't never yet seed one of dem horgs look up to de tree fum whar de acorns drapped."

Mr. Haxall, leaning on his cane, walked up and down the floor and then stopped in front of Uncle Jack and said:

"Well, old man, what you say is all true and after this I am going to look up to the tree."

VII OUR FIRST CURRENCY

Among my childish recollections is an intricate combination of great-grandfathers, white mulberries, gold dollars, a lone eye, guinea eggs, pipes, and bloody massacres, all centering around a visit from my own great-grandfather, Dr. John Phillips, and his friend, Judge John Y. Mason.

"Somebody's comin' down de lane en it's ole Marser, kase I knows him by his high-top gig en his star-face critter," called out a little colored boy, George Washington Cæsar Napoleon Bonaparte, whose keen eyes had caught sight of an approaching gig. "Dar's anudder gemman alongside of him en anudder li'l boy settin' in de foots of de gig."

By the time the visitors were at the gate, heralded by the barking dogs and the little colored children calling "H-y-e-r comes ole Marser, h-y-e-r comes ole Marser!" the whole family had assembled on the veranda to welcome the guests.

The first to alight was a graceful, courtly old man with the bearing of a soldier—my great-grandfather. The artificial eye which had taken the place of one of those provided by Nature was a badge of heroism, reminiscent of the war of 1812. After affectionate greetings from children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, servants and dogs, he held out his hands to his companion and assisted him to alight.

From my great-grandfather's point of view, Judge Mason may have been youthful, but from mine he was of great age, less venerable than his friend and companion only because he lacked the distinguishing title of patriarchal relationship, and looked out upon the world, like ordinary people, through two eyes.

"And this," he said, jumping the little boy out, "is my still younger friend, Ned Drewry, whose family you know."

Then began the unpacking of the gig-box, which we eagerly watched. I remember being especially interested in a bucket of white mulberries and a basket of guinea eggs.

Later, as a reward for reciting "Little Drops of Water," I received a shiny gold dollar, one of the first minted.

When I hear the lament of to-day, that there[Pg 59] is no money in poetry, I recall my early lesson to the contrary. My first effort having been so successful I gave "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" as a voluntary, in the mercenary hope that the twinkles, like the drops, might be transmuted into gold. After curtseying to my great-grandfather my thanks for the dollar I ran across the room and, looking inquiringly at Judge Mason, asked:

"Are you anybody's great-grandfather? No, 'course you couldn't be, 'cause you've got two eyes."

As my own great-grandfather was the only relation of that rank whom I had ever seen, it had been borne in upon my mind that a single eye was the distinguishing characteristic of great-grandfathers.

Judge Mason's manner of smoking next attracted my attention. I had never seen a pipe used except by the negroes on the plantation.

"Did you run off and play with the little colored children and not mind your black mammy and learn bad habits when you were a little boy is the reason you smoke pipes now?"

"No," he replied. "I never learned any bad habits from the negroes. They have very few bad habits. All the bad habits I have ever learned were from white people."

"My child, when great-grandfathers were little babies this—" taking out his tobacco-bag and filling his pipe from it—"was the only real money in this country and was of greater value than the kind which you now hold in your little hand."

Then he went on to tell me in words that a child could understand that money debts were not even recoverable. Tobacco debts only were valid, and to sell bad tobacco or pay a debt with it was a crime, precisely as it is now to sell or pay counterfeit money. Tobacco was the currency, and an excess was as injurious as an over-issue of bank paper, depreciating on the market and causing everything to rise in price. Great care was taken to burn bad tobacco, and it was as important to the uniformity of the currency in those days as is now the exclusion of counterfeits. All the viewings, censorships, inspections and regulations of the amount of tobacco to be cultivated by each planter, the quality to be gathered from each plant, the rules prescribed, were as important as the laws of the mint are now.

"'Tisn't cloth-cloth. Is it tobacco-cloth?" I asked. "Did people have tobacco-cloth as well as tobacco-money in those days?"

"No; this is rattlesnake skin. The snake was killed by Charles Lewis, who lived a long time ago in my county, Augusta. The Indians caught him, tied his hands behind him and made him walk two hundred miles. As they were going along a high precipice he broke the cords and jumped down. The Indians followed and he escaped by springing over a fallen tree, landing among the tall weeds. His pursuers did not see him fall and they jumped over both the tree and the man and ran on as fast as they could. Lying there he heard the hissing of a snake and opening his eyes saw a large rattlesnake almost touching him. It moved its rattles and twice they rested upon his ear and neck. He was so numbed with fright that he could not move, luckily for him, for if he had moved a muscle or breathed the snake would have bitten him. Its eyes glared into his and it seemed to think he was dead, and so wriggled away. He picked up a stone and hit it upon the head, killing it, and carried home the rattles and skin and this bag was made from a piece of that skin."

The mother of this Charles Lewis was the beautiful daughter of the Laird of Loch Lyn, and to his father, John Lewis, was accredited the introduction of red clover. The white or wild clover was of indigenous growth and[Pg 62] abounded in great plenty, but the red clover was not known until the blood of the red man, shed by the Lewises and their followers, suddenly dyed the trefoil to its sanguinary hue. The Indians fully believed this legend and superstitiously held the red clover sacred. The superstition spread among the settlers and for a long time the milk of a cow that had eaten the blood-stained blossom was believed to be tainted with blood.

Little Ned Drewry, the third occupant of the gig, with a boy's natural indifference to poetic effusion, had slipped away during my "twinkle little star" and was playing "paterroller" with the colored children and the bloodhounds, and my elders began to talk of the man for whom he was named, a victim of the Nat Turner insurrection. I was not usually permitted to hear such gruesome stories, but if they thought of me at all they must have supposed that I was too young to understand or too sleepy to notice. So they told some of the painful incidents connected with the startling episode of 1832, while I leaned back in my chair and drooped my little head. Judge Mason's sister, Mrs. Boykin, my grandmother's friend at Old Point Comfort, had come near being killed in the insurrection. She was saved by her maid, who hid her in a woodpile till the danger was over.

Thus the simple-hearted, modest, unassuming old man sat with his long fig-stem Powhatan clay pipe in his mouth, smoking and talking and making history for a little child who never forgot the stories he told. Judge Mason was given all the honors of his State—ten years a Member of the Virginia Assembly, six years her Representative in Congress, a Judge of the United States Court for Virginia, Secretary of the Navy under President Tyler, Attorney-General and Secretary of the Navy under President Polk, Minister to France in the Pierce administration, one of the three who drew up the Ostend Manifesto—all these he was to the world.

To me he has always remained the gentle-mannered man with sweet face and soft voice who told the old-time stories in my plantation home while all, from the master to the humblest servant and the smallest child, listened with eager attention and delighted hearts. Two years before the opening of the war between the States my grandmother's heart was saddened by the news from Paris of the death of this old friend.

VIII YULETIDE

It was Christmas Eve at Holiday's Point and, in accordance with the custom of generations, the children and grandchildren were gathered in an unbroken circle around the old hearthstone.

In my grandfather's day the neighbors called the old home Holiday's Point because of the numerous holidays given to the servants. The community held that if my grandfather had framed the almanac he would have put into it twice as many days as did the Arabs and Romans, that he might have more holidays to bestow upon his slaves.

The old-fashioned house on the Nansemond River, between Suffolk to the right and Norfolk to the left, was built of brick imported from England. In shape like an L, the four rooms on the first floor were divided by a passage fifteen feet wide; dining-room and library on one side, parlor and chamber on the other. Four[Pg 65] large open fireplaces gave warmth and cheerfulness to the corridor. On the first floor of the L was the nursery and above it the children's room, the name of which was never changed because, in relation to the household, its occupants remained children to the end of the chapter, however the years might age them in the view of the outside world.

The house fronted the river, which was concealed by a heavy growth of trees until the door was reached through long lanes of cypress lined with rows of cedar, when a full view of the water for miles was presented. Hidden in the woods was one of the stables, in which old Starlight had her home near enough to the cabin to answer "Ung' Bosun's" whistle.

My mother, as usual, had permitted me to come to Holiday's Point the day before Christmas, the lighting of the Yule Log being one of my greatest joys. Away back in the early dawn of my infantile mind lurked a hazy memory of the time when my little hand had held the candle that lit the old log at the back of the great fireplace. That privilege was no longer mine. Other children had since entered the family circle, and the youngest child on the plantation, whether white or black, was the one always selected to touch off the Yule Log.

Another delightful sensation preliminary to[Pg 66] Christmas day at Holiday's Point was the sight of "Uncle Charles" driving up from the river waving a paper above the load of Christmas things and warning us that it contained instructions from Santa Claus that all the contents of the cart should be put away in the storehouse until he should come on Christmas eve, and if anyone should touch any of the boxes or ask questions about what was inside of them all the good things would turn to ashes and sawdust and there would be nothing left when Christmas came, adding, "'Member what Santa Claus did to Miss Cinderelly when she didn't mind him, stayin' out late at night."

Though the awesome paper was only a bill of lading, which Uncle Charles knew very well, believing him we shrank before it in terror. I watched the unloading curiously, and the colored children, huddled together on the quarter-kitchen doorsteps, pulled down each other's heads and whispered mysteriously as the boxes and barrels were taken out and their contents announced. There was the hogshead of New Orleans molasses, with its thick layer of sugar at the bottom, the long peaked loaves of white sugar under their thin blue "fool's-caps," the cases of raisins, dates, figs and tamarinds, barrels of nuts, oranges and crackers, boxes of cheese and, slyly pushed behind them, hampers[Pg 67] mysteriously marked "sundries," which we at once associated with the coming visit of Santa Claus himself.

When the rays of the sun were long in the west the cheerful note of the Yule Log was heard. The great hickory log, which had lain on its forked branch support through months of golden sunshine and mellowing rain, was carried in on the shoulder of the strongest negro on the plantation, followed by a rollicking troop of Christmas revelers, white and black, and next year's log was put on the Yule Log fork, which was never left empty.

The Yule Log was laid at the back of the great fireplace and in front of it were piled cobs, chips and kindling wood, known to the plantation servants as "light 'ood," a contraction for "light wood," which was the heart of the pine. It was lit with a wax candle made in the home kitchen by Aunt Dilsey, a candle in which I felt a proprietary interest, having watched with fascinated eyes the process of its manufacture. Aunt Dilsey had let me draw one of the doubled and twisted cotton strands through a tube in the tin mould to form the wick, and I felt like a conquering hero when the end of the string emerged from the point of the tube. There were six of these tubes in Aunt Dilsey's mould, and when they were all[Pg 68] provided with wicks she allowed me to thrust through the loops at the top of the mould the little sticks which rested on the frames and held the strands in place. Then she tied the wicks very tightly at the ends. I watched the melted white wax poured into the tubes, feeling as if I were assisting at a magic incantation. The time of greatest excitement was when, after the carefully built structure had stood all night in a cool place to harden, Aunt Dilsey would cut off the knots at the bottom of the tube, take hold of the cross-sticks and pull till six long, beautiful white waxen cylinders would come out, each with a tuft of soft white cotton at the end. Every time I saw them emerge from their cells a separate and distinct miracle seemed to have been wrought. I have yet a pair of these moulds.

One of the candles was lighted and placed in the hand of my little brother, the youngest of the family group. My father guided the tiny hand until the flame formed a cross around which the tongues of fire leaped and caught the log, embracing it lovingly, climbing upward and turning blue and crimson and golden and white and then mingling in a glorified web of color. Myriads of sparkles shot up the old chimney, like Christmas prayers flying heavenward. The crackling of the wood and the fluttering of the[Pg 69] flames joined in a Christmas carol for all the world.

Not the smallest fragment of the log must be left over after the twelve-day feast. It had lain seasoning in the sunshine and the starshine, in the rain and in the wind, in the frost and in the dew, in winter cold and summer heat, that it might be well prepared to give itself wholly to the sacrifice. Had a remnant remained in the ashes, disaster would have marked the year until the next Yule Log had removed the ban by entirely disappearing. Virginia had not received, with the traditional heritage, the Old World custom of preserving a fragment of one Yule Log to serve as a lighting torch for the next and to ward off evil demons until Christmas came again. The servants were to have holiday while there was a scrap of it left.

The ashes of the Yule Log were carefully saved apart from the others, as they were of peculiar sacredness. Lye made from them was of magic efficacy in the manufacture of soap, bringing it to a much-desired degree of hardness and excellence. The negroes used the lye to kill evil spirits and free themselves from the sins they had committed during the year.

Old Santa Claus's rack, the "chimbly rack," made of black walnut and handsomely decorated, with nails driven into it on which the [Pg 70]stockings were to be hung, was brought in by Uncle Charles and placed above the marble mantelpiece. Over each nail was printed the name of the one for whom it was intended. Aunt Serena brought in the basket of stockings that she had knit of the finest spun cotton or wool and hung them on the nails, singing her Christmas incantation, "Christmas comes but once't a yeah, En ebby las' niggah has his sheah." The loved ones who had gone before were remembered and stockings for them were hung upon the rack. Their gifts were of money to be used in providing Christmas cheer for the unfortunate, the bereaved and the lonely. Thus was the memory of those who had passed beyond kept in grateful hearts.

From the wall above the portrait of my grandfather Underwood, with long hair and velvet-flowered vest and rolls of cravat, looked seriously down. I had never seen him, but my grandmother said that "he believed in God, woman and blood; was proud but not haughty, hospitable, generous, firm and unchangeable in his opinions, quiet and commanding, affectionate, courting responsibilities instead of shirking them."

For weeks all had been busy with preparations. The wood had been cut and piled, the corn gathered, the pigs killed, the mince-meat[Pg 71] and souse and fruit cake prepared, the sausage chopped and the hominy beaten, the winter clothes all spun, woven and made. We sat by the fire with rest, peace and wonder in our hearts, cracking nuts and roasting apples, the old silver punch-bowl of apple-toddy steaming on the table, while we listened to stories of olden times and of times that never were. My uncle in his cadet uniform, home for the holidays on furlough from the Virginia Military Institute, told us fascinating tales of soldier-boy life, sending delicious thrills of joy and terror through every nerve.

Presently my black mammy took me in her motherly arms and carried me along the hall through the middle of the house, flanked by doors opening into the living rooms, up the wide stairway into another long corridor bounded by the same number of doors leading into bedrooms all in their Christmas dress of arbor-vitæ, holly and mistletoe. In each of the fireplaces were wood and kindling to be lit when the guests should arrive on the morrow. Into the prettiest and smallest room she carried me and put me into my little eider-downy trundle bed.

The next morning I was awakened by the music of the Christmas horns and the popping of firecrackers. When I had been dressed I was taken to the dining-room, where my [Pg 72]grandmother stood by a table whereon was a large bowl of egg-nog from which, with a silver ladle, she was filling glasses for us all, for even the babies in old Virginia were given a taste of egg-nog on Christmas morning.

After breakfast my grandmother went to service and would return with guests who were to come to us after the Christmas sermon in the lavishly decorated village church.

Soon the first carriage rolled into the yard, the coachman proudly flourishing the whip, which he used merely as an insignia of his office. "Dar dey come! Dar dey come! Dar dey come!" We all ran out to welcome the visitors. The carriage doors were opened, the steps folded up on the inside were let down, and the servants called out "Christmus gif', Marse, Christmus gif', Missus," all holding out their hands and clamoring as my uncle emerged from the coach, "I cotch him firs'! I cotch him firs'! I cotch Miss firs', didn' I, Marse?" each claiming the reward, regardless of actual priority in time.

My uncle was immaculate in frock coat and trousers of black broadcloth, new boots, snowy linen front trimmed profusely with ruffles, high collar and stock and shining silk hat. He turned with courtly grace and helped Auntie from the carriage.

Auntie was the wonder of my childhood. I fancied that if I should be very good and learn my lessons perfectly and avoid giving trouble to my elders, and say my prayers and read my Bible at the rate of one chapter every day and five on Sunday maybe the Lord would let me grow up as proper and as smart, but never as religious, as Auntie. In the meantime I liked to stand in remote corners unobserved and imagine that I was forming myself upon her. Her speckless, wrinkleless, swishing new black brocaded silk frock looked as if it had been moulded around her. Her crinoline stood out in a perfectly balanced symmetrical balloon of unapproachable beauty. Her oval face held just the right proportion of pink and white and her mouth was bowed at the temperance curve. Her sharp gray eyes looked into the center of things. She was a strict Methodist, a fierce Whig, an uncompromising moralist.

A little boy was handed out and then a screaming bundle which turned out to be a baby girl.

The carriage was laden with boxes and packages of Christmas gifts—a present for each servant and other articles to be put with our Christmas stockings still hanging on the rack.

From the next carriage my father and mother[Pg 74] alighted—my father, always my ideal, tall, stately, erect as an Indian, seemed to me more than usually handsome as he lifted me up to a level with his classic face. His holiday attire, snowy ruffles, rigid stock, black broadcloth and, above all, the flowers of his brocaded vest, were to me an inexhaustible source of delight. My beautiful mother's coal-black hair, without wave or crinkle, was carried plainly from her face and wound in a plaited coil. She was very fair and her cheeks looked as if they had stolen two of the pink roses from the garden of May. Her eyes were like sparkling sapphires. Her black moire-antique dress had wide bishop sleeves, and she wore a white crêpe shawl that, falling back, revealed the square of fine embroidered white thread cambric around her neck, crossing in front to form a V.

When all the family carriages had come a stranger might have wondered if grandmother's house could hold the many who claimed her Yuletide hospitality. We knew that her home was measured by her heart.

My father, the oldest son-in-law, was the first to take down his Christmas stocking from Santa's rack. He was always sure of a knife, a black stock and a silk bandanna, whatever else old Santa might have left for him. His last year's knife was then given to the foreman.[Pg 75] We who could not reach so high were held up to take down our stockings.

The plantation servants never failed to offer their tributes of affection to the Master and his family and to receive gifts from them. Among their numerous presents were always a plug of tobacco, a pipe and a bandanna handkerchief for each. All the servants who had been working away from home came back at Christmas and added their gifts to those "w'at Marse Santa had done fotch down de chimbly." Many of my grandmother's servants had been away from the home plantation, being allowed to choose their places of service and to return if they did not find them satisfactory.

Dinner was the great event that followed. Every leaf had been put into the old mahogany table, and another table added at each end. A turkey which had been penned up for weeks to fatten and become tender, stuffed with pecan nuts, lay in delicious brownness on a china platter. Opposite was a roast pig with an orange in its mouth, "kase pigs kin have apples every day, but come Christmus 'course even pigs must have sump'n extra," my mammy explained. On one side of the table was a huge dish of fried oysters, on the other an old Smithfield ham, baked as it could be only by one born to the art. Sweet and sour pickles and [Pg 76]preserves, for which Aunt Dilsey was famous, were scattered about among all the vegetables known to a Virginia plantation. On a side table were a saddle of mutton, a round of beef and a bowl of chicken salad. On another table was the dessert—sillibub, tipsy-cake, charlotte-russe, mince-pies, plain cake and fruit cake, to be followed by the plum pudding, flaming with magic fires which must be left to burn out of themselves, lest some of the glow they held in their fiery hearts should fail to be diffused throughout our lives in the coming year. The sideboard glistened with decanters and glasses and great bowls of apple-toddy and egg-nog.

All the good things left were sent to supplement the feast of the servants which they had spent days in preparing. It was spread in the wide old weaving-room, the loom being hidden by decorations of holly and mistletoe. We went in to see their table with its beautiful ornamentations, loaded with goodies, 'possum and sweet potatoes at each end. The 'possums had been caught early and fed in a lavishly hospitable manner, that they might wax fat and juicy for the feast.

After dinner papa and the uncles, followed by the boy friends and cousins, went out to the office in the yard a short distance from the mansion house and soon such mirthful peals [Pg 77]issued therefrom that curiosity called us all out and the house was deserted while we sat listening to such stories and jokes as we shall never enjoy again. Then they talked of fox hunts, of the prancing gray and the good old red that had carried them to victory, the music of the horns, the baying of the hounds, the laughing girls, all eager for the brush. Crouched by my grandmother's side, I heard about last year's crops, the condition of the roads, the neighborhood news, the latest styles in collars and stocks, politics, bits of history and appreciations of literature.

At night "Fiddling Jim" was called in, and in the room where the Yule-fire burned there was a dance, opening with the minuet and winding up with the Virginia reel. In all the dances my grandmother joined with a lightness and grace that would have done honor to sixteen. Youth no more than age served as a bar to pleasure, and I danced the Highland fling and other fancy dances.

Then the sandman came by and mammy took me up to my little trundle bed. Half lost between waking and sleeping, I heard the crunching of the snow beneath the tread of horses and the roll of wheels and knew that some of the guests who lived near were returning to their homes. Melodies, dance-songs and the shuffling[Pg 78] and pattering of feet, mingled with the thrum of the banjo, bones and fiddle, floated from the negro quarters.

Soon old mammy and her turban, the black faces, the hand-fed lamb, the goats and dogs, the coons and the rabbits, the peacocks' gorgeous big-eyed tails, and long-whiskered Santa Claus, my grandmother, my mothers lovely eyes and the Blessed Babe in the manger, all got mixed up in a tangle of shadows and came sliding between the peeping, twinkling stars on a moonbeam into the room and danced around my trundle bed.

With my tender little heart full of child love and unwavering faith, my wee soul borne on the higher sentiments of adoration, faith and spiritual sympathy, my Christmas dolly clasped close in my arms, my lips wreathed in mysterious smiles, I laughed and—a-n-d—a-n—Christmas was over.

IX GREENBRIER WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS

Only twice had I seen my Soldier since with tearful eyes I watched the United States transport, St. Louis, bear him away to join in the frontier warfare, and later to play his important part in holding San Juan and other Pacific Islands against the British. Occasionally letters came from that far-off sunset shore in answer to my little printed notes before I had learned to write well.

The last time I had seen him was at the Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs, where, though still a child, I held that he was pledged to me and resented his attentions to the belles nearer his own age. Amused and pleased by this, he humored me by devoting most of his mornings to joining in my games and assisting me in sketching, and by dancing in the evening with no one but me until the children's bed-time came, when the ballroom was reluctantly given up to the grown people. One Baltimore beauty[Pg 80] took my Soldier to task for his bad taste in dancing with a child, thereby cancelling the little friendship which had existed between them.

White Sulphur Springs, situated in a valley surrounded by hills and mountains, was the most celebrated watering-place in Virginia. It was known to the Indians as the most important lick of the deer and elk. Its medicinal qualities first became known in 1772, when an Indian maiden, suffering from a disease which baffled the skill of the "medicine men," was healed by its waters. It is a beautiful and enchanting spot, the valley opening half a mile in breadth, winding in graceful undulations from east to west beyond the line of vision. The fountain issues from the foot of a gentle slope which ends in the low interval of a beautiful river. The ground ascends from the spring eastward, spreading into a lawn covering fifty acres. Over the fountain was a stately Doric dome, supported by twelve large pillars and surmounted by a statue of Hygeia looking toward the rising sun. A short distance from the spring were the hotel, dining-hall and ballroom. The rest of the ground was occupied by cottages, some of brick, some of wood, and a few of logs, whitewashed. The cabins were all painted white.

The winding roads, leading away into an [Pg 81]enchanted world of greenery, were veritable Cupid's paths, opening sometimes into the springtime vales of gay flirtation, sometimes into the warm, deep dells of love. Many were the belles and beaux who met their fate amid the leaf-walled environment of Greenbrier and more matches were made there than in heaven.

My Soldier's furlough soon came to a close and he left, by chance, the day we did. I shall never forget the ride on the top of the old stagecoach, the wonderful red and gold foliage, the birds that sang in the autumn trees, the good dinner at the hotel, the stories told me by my Soldier, who knew everything, I thought. Of the name Greenbrier he said:

"Old Colonel John Lewis, whose grandson you danced with this summer, named this river in 1751 because of its thick growth of green-briers in which his son, Andrew, was once entangled. It had been owned by the French. In 1749 a hunter, wandering through the woods, came to the river-bank and observed that the water ran in a direction opposite from the usual course and reported it, exciting the curiosity of two New Englanders, Jacob Martin and Stephen Sewall. They took up land there, living together in a little cabin until one day they quarreled and separated. One made his home in a hollow tree, the other keeping the cabin in[Pg 82] which they had formerly dwelt in peace with the world, themselves and each other. They agreed never to say anything to each other but 'Good morning, Mr. Martin,' 'Good morning, Mr. Sewall,' confining themselves to this limited conversation for the remainder of their years."

My Soldier told me of the Indian wars after peace had been confirmed between England and France, the Dunmore wars, the massacre at Muddy Creek where, under the guise of friendship, the Indians had descended upon the settlers and destroyed their village, the attack of two hundred Indians upon Donnally Fort, and the bravery of the old negro, Dick Pointer, whose freedom was purchased by the State of Virginia in reward for his services. In his helpless old age an unsuccessful effort was made to secure a pension for him. Comparing his fate with that of alleged soldiers of later years who volunteered to do guard duty around their homes for three days, receiving pensions for their courageous efforts, one might wish that he had lived in a later period and served a more appreciative government.

From White Sulphur I returned to my father's home, brightened now by three brothers and two sisters, all of whom had seen so little of "Sister" that they knew nothing of her [Pg 83]shortcomings and thought she was the greatest thing in the world.

Then lessons began in earnest and stern duties came to interrupt childish diversions. When the course laid out for me at home was completed, my father decided to take me to Lynchburg Seminary. It was a serious epoch for me, as I was to go among strangers for the first time, so the farewells were solemn.

As a parting present, "Uncle Charles" brought me a nest of guinea eggs, a box of sweet gum which he had been collecting for months, a string of chinquapins and some dried haws, saying as he gave them to me:

"Honey, don't fergit de ole man en bring him sump'n, en remember you's born but you ain't dead yit."

Others of the servants came with blessings and farewell gifts. Mary-Frances, who always received more presents than her twin sister and was noted for her stinginess, bade me a pathetic good-bye, assuring me that she was "gwine to be good en 'vide her light'ood and things wid Arabella." As I had disapproved of her selfish refusal to share her "light'ood" with her sister she thought this promise of generosity would be the best gift she could bestow upon me as a parting keepsake.

After tender farewells from mother, sisters,[Pg 84] and brothers I started off with my father on what seemed to me a long, long journey.

At Richmond a man in uniform boarded the train. I looked at him with admiration as he came down the aisle. He was tall and walked erectly with graceful carriage and a commanding air not dependent upon his military dress. He stopped and spoke to my father, who arose, greeted him cordially and, turning back the seat, invited him to join us. He accepted and my father introduced "Colonel Robert E. Lee." The Colonel shook hands with me in a gentle way and began to barter for one of my long curls. In my diffidence I did not close with any of his offers, though I would have given every curl on my head for the asking, for even then, to my romantic vision, Colonel Lee was a hero.

He said that he had just returned from Harper's Ferry, where there had been great excitement. John Brown had descended upon the town and taken possession of the United States Arsenal. Colonel Lee, home on furlough from the West, had been sent with the marines from the Washington barracks and four companies of troops from Fortress Monroe to dispossess them and restore quiet to the little town in the Virginia hills. It was not alone Harper's Ferry that had been terrorized; the entire state had been thrown into a turmoil of excitement.

To a child whose infancy had shuddered at the story of the Nat Turner insurrection of 1832, the John Brown raid in 1859 was a subject of horrible fascination, and I listened intently as Colonel Lee talked of this strange old fanatic and his followers.

"What do you think would be the effect upon the negro, Mr. Corbell," Colonel Lee asked my father, "if we should be compelled to hang John Brown?"

My father replied, "Well, I've thought of that, too, Colonel, and I asked my foreman, who is a representative of his race, if he did not think we ought to hang old John Brown." He looked at me earnestly for a while then, shaking his head slowly, said, "I knows, Marse Dae, dat po' Marse John done en bruk de law, killin' all dem mens; but den, Marse Dae, even ef po' Marse John did bre'k de law, don't you think, suh, dat hangin' him would be a li'l abrupt?"

Colonel Lee laughed and replied, "I think that just about expresses the sentiment not only of the colored people but of many others." They agreed that John Brown was an honest, earnest, courageous old man and that his friends ought to put him where he would be cared for.

My eyes were turned steadily toward Colonel Lee with a large measure of that admiration he won from observers older and more [Pg 86]experienced than I. Yet I could not have told what manner of man he was, except that he was impressive in appearance and that he drew people toward him with a subtle attraction which was indescribable as well as irresistible.

The story of John Brown was graphically told and heard with absorbed attention, but it is not likely that the Virginia planter with all his knowledge of history and character, nor the great soldier with his military training, recognized signs of the impending storm any more than did the wide-eyed child lost in breathless wonderment over the thrilling episode.

X THE BREAKING OF THE STORM

I was a student at Lynchburg Seminary when the storm that had begun to lower at Harper's Ferry broke in full force. To a few prescient minds I think it brought no shock of surprise. Some had watched the little cloud on the horizon till it had overspread the zenith. But most of us, old as well as young, had felt secure "in the land where we lay dreaming."

Virginia held longest by the Union, the bonds of which had clasped the States together until the Old Dominion had forgotten that political ties are not eternal. Since the brave Thirteen had banded together to fight for liberty, Virginia had clung with unswerving tenacity to the central idea that had kept the States together through many severe tests of loyalty. Forged in the fires of the Revolution, the chain that bound her to the Union of States had grown stronger with the years and with the blood of many battles. The Mother of Presidents and[Pg 88] of patriotic Statesmen, her devotion to the welfare of the nation was of unusual depth and ardor. Politicians sought to drag her allegiance from the flag whose stars lit the path of her great sons, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and the many who had worthily represented her in the work of building up the nation, but the people stood firmly by their historic and hereditary faith. There was but one thing that could shake her fidelity. When she was called upon for aid in a contest against her sister States loyalty to the nation gave way to loyalty to the South and home and kindred, and Virginia joined the Confederacy.

To some the bells which rang out the tidings of the rising of the new star in the Southern flag were joy-bells of victory; to many they tolled the death-knell of a long, proud era. But the new banner floated gloriously to the breeze, huzzas rang out triumphantly and all was glowing to the vision of hope.

The fires of patriotism burned hotly in the heart of youth and there were Stars and Bars enough in Lynchburg Seminary to light a world of new-born nations to victory and set up invincible barriers to the universe. Some weeks later when the news of the battle of Manassas came surging along the line, we felt that events had justified our enthusiasm. In imagination[Pg 89] we beheld our flag floating over a great new country that should rival the nations of the world in beauty and glory.

We saw then only the bonfires of joy and heard only the pæans of victory, but a few days later, when my friend, Major John W. Daniel, was brought to his home in Lynchburg with a wound received in that battle which we had celebrated with such triumphant delight, I began to feel that war meant something more than the thrill of martial music and the shouts of victory. Major Daniel had been my friend from childhood, strong, handsome and gallant, and when I saw him in suffering helplessness I felt for the first time something of the power of war to strike down life with all its hopes and dreams and ambitions. He was soon able to return to the field, doing brave service for the cause until he was so badly wounded in the battle of the Wilderness that he was forced to retire. Even more gratefully does Virginia cherish the courageous work he has since done in the United States Senate, and lovingly does she hold him in her heart now that his brave and beautiful life has passed into the great Memorial Hall of her proudest history. Through all the years he has been a loyal friend to me and mine.

The passing of the ordinance of secession was the signal for the return of the martial sons of[Pg 90] Virginia. Every Federal post gave them up to us, from Arlington, where Colonel Robert E. Lee laid down his allegiance to the old flag, to the Pacific, where my Soldier had upheld the integrity of his country against hostile Indians and foreign foes.

In July, 1861, Captain Pickett resigned from the United States Army, made a perilous journey from San Juan, passing by sea around to New York, going thence to Canada and then southward, barely escaping arrest three times. From the window of a railway car along a Kentucky road is seen an old home where he spent a night in his long journey. Government officers called there in search of him, but he was protected by a ruse of his host and rode on the next morning, reaching Richmond September 13, 1861. He at once enlisted as a private, being immediately afterward commissioned as Captain and a few days later promoted to a Colonelcy. His military life from Richmond to Appomattox belongs to the history of the nation.

By this time everyday life in Virginia had become invested with difficulties even for those who might have been regarded as outside the sphere of war. Not only the soldiers in the field had obstacles to encounter; they loomed in the pathway of the school-girl.

My home being within the Federal lines, I spent a part of my vacations with friends in Richmond. There I used to see General Robert E. Lee riding along the street in the graceful way that years before had brought people to their windows to see "the handsomest man in the United States Army" ride down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The eyes of Richmond followed him with equal admiration in these war days and I used to recall my first meeting with him when the war was a dim prophecy. In a short time he was sent away to Western Virginia, where he fought a valiant but losing battle against mountains, rain, starvation, and Southern editors who were gifted with a military genius never known to the leaders of armies.

"I see that we have made a great mistake," the General lamented. "We ought to have put the editors in the field and set the Generals to managing the newspapers."

The streets of Richmond knew him no more until he returned in the late autumn with no new laurels on his brow but with a strength of soul that could abide the appointed time.

In our study halls we had fancied that we knew something of war. We had cheered our flag, trembled for our soldiers at the front even while we prophetically gloried in their future[Pg 92] triumph, and celebrated with great enthusiasm the battle of Manassas. We had made sacrifices for our country, every girl of us having entrusted her jewelry to the principal of the school to be sold for the benefit of our cause. She had accepted the trust, saying that we might redeem our possessions if we wished. Only one piece was ever reclaimed, a ring given to one of the girls by her lover. When he was killed in battle she took back the ring, paying in money for her treasure. Now I was to learn something of what war meant.

XI THE "VIRGINIA"

On a morning that was like ideal May, the 8th of March, 1862, I sat on my horse by the river bank at Blinkhorn, opposite Newport News. My uncle, Colonel J. J. Phillips, was stationed there, and I had come to the camp and was one of the hundreds gathered on the bank of the Nansemond River at that point, all eyes turned with eager interest toward Hampton Roads, where lay our new battleship, the Virginia.

Like a phœnix, she had arisen from the wreck of the old frigate Merrimac. Grim, solemn, weird, builded low upon the water, she was not boat nor ram nor submarine, nor anything else hitherto known to the waves. Newly clad in her robe of iron, she was a veiled mystery, a forlorn hope, a theory, an armed engine, a steam battery protected by armor, an experiment destined to change the course of naval warfare. Being the first ship built in the Old[Pg 94] Dominion, she was named for her State, Virginia. Commanded by Captain Buchanan and manned by a crew composed largely of landsmen who had volunteered from the Army, she had waited in Hampton Roads for the dawning of her day.

Through my field-glass I watched the Virginia gliding like a great white bird hovering between the pulsing, scintillant blue of the heavens above and the waters beneath. Accompanied by the gunboats Raleigh and Beaufort, she passed along amid the cheers of the enthusiastic onlookers thronging both banks and of the troops at the batteries around the harbor. An awesome feeling took possession of me, holding me silent until the enthusiasm of the crowd thrilled me and I waved my handkerchief in messages of Godspeed to the brave new craft.

Slowly she rounded Craney Island, lying like a blue-gray cloud over the water, her batteries turned toward the Norfolk shore. The troops waved their caps and sent up lusty cheers for the strange craft that looked, as some one afterward said, "like a huge terrapin with a large round chimney about the middle of its back." Having passed the island, she turned into the south channel and slowly moved on toward Newport News until, coming within firing range of[Pg 95] the United States frigates Congress and Cumberland, she was greeted with broadsides from both. A flash of fire, pale against the white day, a puff of smoke, widening, drifting, wreathing around the mouth of the gun and floating off into space, a deep roar of thunder showed us that our Virginia was bearing well her brave old name.

The enthusiasm which had greeted her appearance was as nothing compared with the excitement that thrilled us now. Yells of encouragement and defiance rent the air. Handkerchiefs fluttered; hats were thrown aloft. Some of the men danced; others turned somersaults of enthusiasm. One soldier rushed to Colonel Phillips shouting, "Say, Colonel, say; can't we do something? Can't we help? For God's sake, let us do something to help them!"

Fortunately there was no bridge from the shore to the scene of action. Otherwise every man, woman and child among that seething crowd might have rushed into the fight, to the embarrassment of the plucky little Virginia. We could do our part only by going into paroxysms of patriotism, in which we all excelled.

The Virginia went on up the channel, turned and, coming back, ran full against the Cumberland, penetrating her side with the sharp prow of the Confederate ironclad. The frigate[Pg 96] reeled, shuddered, and began slowly to settle, her guns roaring from her deck. The Congress came to her assistance, but the shots which rained from the two frigates fell harmlessly from the slanting sides of the Virginia.

With fascinated eyes I watched the Cumberland tossing upon the waves, gradually sinking, firing another volley as her bow went down, then disappearing under the water, the flag that floated from her masthead still fluttering above the sea.

For days we had seen that frigate with her mate, the Congress, threatening us, a blot upon our waters, a monster, a thing of evil, waiting for the moment of fate. But it was pitiful to watch her go down, and I think every heart there felt a pride in that pennant waving defiantly above the water, even while we cheered our victorious Virginia. She went on, turned and came back to attack the Congress which, in trying to escape, ran aground. She was soon ablaze, banners of flame flapping out from her rigging. In an hour her flag fell.

We were told afterward that in one of the ships which we could dimly descry in the distance, an old man waited for the battle and for tidings of his son, commander of the Congress. When they told him that the flag was down he said sadly, "Then Joe is dead!" He knew by[Pg 97] that signal that his son "Joe," Captain Joseph B. Smith, had fallen.

The Raleigh and Beaufort drew up beside the flaming Congress, under a heavy fire from the Federal batteries on the Newport News shore which not only did execution upon the crews of the Confederate gunboats, but proved fatal to some of the prisoners from the burning frigate. The Virginia's launch rowed toward the Congress and was struck by a volley from the Federal battery.

Beyond the Congress the Minnesota lay aground. Before the surrender of the Congress the Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson and Teazer, the James River squadron, passed the Federal batteries, the Patrick Henry was struck through the boiler and was towed out of action by the Thomas Jefferson, returning after repairs and running up close to the grounded Minnesota, being light and able to come nearer than the heavier ironclad. Till night fell we watched the gunboats raining shot upon the Minnesota, the Virginia, from her greater distance, occasionally firing ponderously upon the grounded frigate. When darkness prevented correct aim the Virginia and her sturdy little assistants retired, slowly moving to Sewell's Point. We returned to our homes, awed by the grandeur of the scene, sorrowful for the lost[Pg 98] lives, but triumphant in the victory won by our brave little craft.

Those who watched through the hours of darkness beheld a brilliant fire-scene displayed against the velvety night. Steadily the Congress had flamed upward, paling the stars in its red glow. At midnight banners of flame, showers of stars, fiery serpents writhing upward in sinuous pathways through the dense columns of smoke, marked the end.

That night a new-comer arrived and next morning was lying behind the grounded Minnesota—a queer object, afterward described as "a tin can on a shingle." It was Erickson's little Monitor, commanded by Captain Worden and manned by a volunteer crew, for no one was ordered for service on the odd little craft with its revolving turret. The position was risky and no officer wanted to reflect later that he had sent men to death on a wild experiment.

Those who could get a clear view of the stranger thought that she was a raft sent to save the crew of the Minnesota, but she steamed up toward the Virginia with a war-like expression which left no doubt as to her real character. From tidings sent from New York we had expected the new invention down in our waters, but our imagination had not wound itself[Pg 99] around anything so funny looking and we did not recognize her until she revealed herself.

I was early at my post, eager to see the end of the fray. My uncle had his boat ready to put out to the scene of action.

He stepped into the boat and pulled off without looking behind and did not see that I followed and took a seat in the boat, with sketch-book and pencil, prepared to take battle views at first hand. Perhaps an artist of to-day might regard my sketch-book with some degree of scorn, constructed as it was of wall paper, turned plain side out, cut into leaves of convenient size, and bound together, the handiwork of my ingenious grandmother. It was the best the Confederacy could afford just then and perhaps it served the purpose as well as a more artistic outfit might have done. I shall never forget the look of horrified amazement that overspread my uncle's face as he chanced to look backward.

The absurdity of the situation flashed upon him and his shout of laughter rang over the water. We were too far out to admit of [Pg 100]turning back to put me ashore and there was nothing he could do but endure my company.

"You needn't think I am going to try to keep you out of danger, you disobedient, incorrigible little minx," he said indignantly. "It would serve you right if you were shot."

I was not thinking of danger. It was my first chance at a sea-fight and I was not going to miss it.

Thus I watched the first battle of iron-clad warships. Apparently recognizing the fact that they had in a moment become useless lumber, the old-time wooden structures drew aside and observed the novel contest. The two little giants were almost touching and broadside after broadside poured into each other. My uncle was absorbed in watching the scene.

Then relenting, he gave me the field-glass. "Well, here; look! Be careful or you will lose your balance and fall overboard, though I reckon it would be a good thing if you did. Teach you better than to put yourself where you have no business."

His sense of humor, as usual, saved the situation, and he laughed again. I think there was[Pg 101] never a time since I routed him out at midnight to take a neck-breaking ride in a hail-storm that I was not an amusing, as well as a terrifying conundrum to my unfortunate uncle. He good-naturedly shared his glass with disobedient little me and I watched the contest.

The storm that rained upon the Virginia was of solid shot and shell, while it had been impossible to provide the Confederate ram with anything but shell. The armor of the Monitor was thicker than that of her antagonist but the inclination of the sides of the Virginia, causing the shot to glance harmlessly, offset that advantage. The Virginia suddenly ran aground and the Monitor was quick to avail herself of the mishap, but before we were certain of the peril of our champion she was off and making an effort to run down the Monitor. The bow of the Virginia was directly against her antagonist and we saw the Federal ship careen dangerously. When they separated a shell from our ironclad struck the pilot-house of the Monitor. We afterward learned that her commander, Lieutenant Worden, was disabled.

The Minnesota was helpless and as the Virginia turned toward her we expected that she would be sunk. But, probably to the delight of those on board the frigate as well as to the infinite dismay of us who looked on, our little[Pg 102] steamer went on her way toward Sewell's Point and then to the Navy Yard. Our disappointment was very great and as we were rowing home my uncle said reflectively:

It was the first time I had ever heard him admit the possibility that Providence could be on the wrong side of anything.

We heard later that, so certain seemed the destruction of the Minnesota, her captain was making preparations to fire and abandon her when, to his surprise, the Merrimac, or Virginia, as we renamed her, turned homeward.

Our captain afterward explained that he thought his last shot had disabled the Monitor and he dared not stay any longer in those waters because the Virginia had so heavy a draught that it was impossible for her to cross the bar after ebb-tide.

XII RICHMOND AFTER SEVEN PINES

In the Battle of Seven Pines, May 31 and June 1, 1862, Pickett's Brigade played a most important and gallant part, an account of which may be seen in General Joseph E. Johnston's report and in General Pickett's own report as given in "Pickett and His Men."

While the battle yet raged darkness came on to force a truce. General Johnston ordered his troops to sleep on their lines to be ready for the morning. Shortly after seven he was slightly wounded by a musket shot. A little later he remarked to one of his Colonels who dodged a shell:

"There is no use in dodging like that, Colonel. When you hear the things they have passed."

At that moment a shell exploded, striking him in the breast. He fell unconscious into the arms of Drewry L. Armistead, one of his couriers. On regaining consciousness he missed his sword and pistols, and said:

"My father wore that sword in the Revolutionary War and I would not lose it for ten thousand dollars. The pistols Colonel Colt, the inventor, gave me."

Both sword and pistols were recovered and General Johnston, the natural magnet for bullets, an officer of the highest soldierly qualities, of military skill and sagacity equalled by few and surpassed by none, was carried off the field severely wounded. General Robert E. Lee was appointed to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, to become the idol of his people and one of the greatest military leaders of the world; greater than will ever be known, because of the restrictions laid upon his power. Though he was the General in command he was under the direction of the War Department, which exercised its authority to the utmost. Perhaps our Confederacy might have been longer lived if Lee had adopted the policy of Stonewall Jackson who, when ordered to recall General Loring from Romney, obeyed like a soldier and promptly sent in his resignation like a mere human.

If I could bring before you the picture of the Richmond I saw after the battle of Seven Pines you would say that it was the most powerful peace argument ever penned. But no words could give you the faintest shadow of the [Pg 105]Richmond of those days of anguish. Could Dante have looked upon our Capital in that opening June he would have needed no Virgil to unlock for him the gates of Inferno, no Beatrice to lead him through the midnight corridors of a lost world to the torture chamber of condemned souls. He would have turned his gaze upon our streets, dipped his pen in his heart's blood and written, and mankind would have shuddered through all the ages to come.

Richmond was shaking with the thunders of the battle and the death-sounds thrilled through our agonized souls. The blood of the field was running in rivers of red through the hearts of her people. For days the dead-wagons and ambulances wended their tragic way from the battlefield to the Capital City and every turn of their crunching wheels rolled over our crushed and bleeding hearts. The wretched loads of wounded were emptied before the doors of the improvised hospitals until they overflowed with maimed humanity and all hearts and hands were full of grief for the dead and work for the wounded.

There was not a home in the city that held not some ghastly offering from the battlefield. Every possible space was converted into a temporary hospital and all was done that unwearied nursing and gentle care could effect, for[Pg 106] the roughest in the ranks as tenderly as for those who wore the stars. Women, girls, and children stood before the doors with wine and food for the wounded as they passed. It was not unusual to see half a dozen funeral processions at the same time on their way to the City of the Dead.

The Capitol square was filled with officers, privates and citizens, seeking information of the battle. From all the Southland poured in letters from friends and relatives, with the sacred charge to care for their loved ones. From all quarters of the Confederacy wives followed their husbands, mothers their sons.

"Come, Lassie, here is a telegram from Mrs. B——," said my hostess. "Come, dear, and go with me to the train to meet her. How I dread it, poor, dear lady!"

There was a sublime faith in the motherly face that met us in the station—a faith that lifted up our hearts to the heights of Divinity. There was no question, no fear, in the serene, loving eyes. "I've come to see my boy; he was with General Johnston," she said.

We drove back through a mourning Richmond, a strange, foreign Richmond that the mother did not know. From the doors of the houses hung streamers of black. Ambulances[Pg 107] filled with wounded passed us, their torturing road marked by the trail of blood that oozed, drop by drop, from human veins.

Wagons filled with dead rolled by, the stiffened bodies piled one upon another in ghastly heaps, the rigid feet projecting from the ends of the vehicles. It was the most appalling sight that ever greeted human eyes, but it was the only way to save our fallen soldiers from the desecration of birds of prey. All the vehicles of every description were utilized, the less severely wounded walking, their wounds bound in bloody rags. They formed a long procession, nearly five thousand, young boys, middle-aged and old men, from privates to high officers, passing on to the homes of Richmond where they would find tender care. From some of the open windows came shrieks of pain from those whose courage had been overcome by mortal agony. Down the streets new regiments were marching to the front to fill, in time, other dead-wagons and ambulances.

Sometimes the Richmond of those days comes back to me now and I shudder anew with terror.

Reaching the beautiful home of our friend and hostess, we hurried our beloved charge, this sweet mother of a soldier, through corridors where closed doors guarded scenes which could be but dimly imagined. Up the stairway and[Pg 108] along the hall to a small room she followed our friend, who sent me down to order up a waiter of refreshments. On my return she came out to meet me.

"She does not know, Lassie; ah, who will tell her? Heaven help her! Heaven help her!"

Later I saw her go with firm step, erect form, and faith-redeemed face, and stop silently as if in prayer at a closed door. Some one had told her. The door opened and she passed through. Then it gently shut, leaving her alone with her dead.

XIII MY WOUNDED SOLDIER

For months "On to Richmond" had been the war-cry of the Federals, and the battle of Gaines's Mill, June 27, 1862, was the turning point of the seven days' battles around our Capital. No event of the memorable campaign which had followed that slogan was more important in its results than this desperate conflict.

McClellan in his retreat had burned and destroyed everything that could be carried away until he reached Watts's Farm, known also by the names of Gaines's Mill and Cold Harbor, and there was fought the greatest battle of the war, up to that time. The great stage painter, Nature, had never arranged a more picturesque scene for a battle than that which was set for Gaines's Mill, one of the most awful contests of the war. It was an undulating plain gracefully rising into gentle swells, crowned by a dense growth of trees. It terminated in a tall[Pg 110] cliff, a great rounded mass of rock which had been hurled from its native bed so many centuries ago as to be now covered with a large forest. Directly in front of the cliff, separated by a deep gorge, was a low level field partly covered by a heavy crop of oats which, together with a natural growth of broom-sedge, afforded concealment to McClellan's sharpshooters and lines of skirmishers. The cliff was defended by three tiers of field artillery and a heavy infantry support.

Pickett's Brigade formed in line of battle under the brow of the hill, and my Soldier, leading and cheering on his men in ascending the cliff, was shot from his horse. His shoulder was pierced by a minie ball and his medical director wanted to take him off the field, saying the ball must be removed at once.

"My men need me," replied my Soldier. "Take the bullet out here and fix me up quick, doctor, I must go back—see, they need me."

The surgeon extracted the ball and my Soldier continued to give orders until, weak from pain and loss of blood, he was carried from the field. For some weeks he was on furlough at his home in Richmond and in July I was permitted to make my first call. Here I met for the second time Jefferson Davis, now President of the Confederacy. I had just taken my seat[Pg 111] by my wounded Soldier when the President was announced and, to my inexpressible vexation, I saw the precious minutes slip away while he occupied my chair and I sat in a corner with Mrs. Burwell, my Soldier's only sister.

In spite of my green glasses I could not help forming a mental picture of the man who had been chosen as our political head. He was tall and extremely slender, but of indescribable dignity and grace. He was a type of the Old South, cultivated, refined, a brilliant conversationist. His eyes were clear and of a blue-gray color. He had a high forehead, straight nose, thin, compressed lips, pointed chin, prominent cheek bones, and deep lines around his mouth. His face was thin, features long and sharp, expression intense. There was no pomp in his movements, neither was there anything uncertain. His walk was wonderful; just what a President's walk ought to be but seldom is. When he rode, the beautiful unaffected harmony and grace of every motion were fascinating.

He pressed my Soldier's left hand, laying it gently down on the arm of the chair to avoid jarring him.

The President shook his head, and entered upon a brief account of the fighting after the battle of Gaines's Mill, praising my Soldier's brother, Major Charles Pickett, who had been wounded at Frazier's Farm, carrying the flag on foot after his horse had been shot from under him. I saw the President's eyes flash as he said:

"I am too much of a soldier to keep out of it in this way, I want to be in the fray. I would much have preferred fighting in the field to warring in the council chamber. I had gone out to consult with the Generals when the artillery duel between Jackson and Franklin began. I barely missed being accidentally shot and was carried off by force."

On my next visit to my Soldier I met Stonewall Jackson, whom I had seen once in my childhood when I went with my grandmother to visit my uncle, Colonel J. J. Phillips, who was under him as a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute and was afterward associated with him as a professor in the same institution. Later I had heard my Soldier talk of him as the man of the war; the greatest military character developed in that fiery time. Even thus early the world began to know him for what he was.[Pg 113] He came to see my Soldier and asked after his welfare.

General Jackson talked of Gaines's Mill and said that General Whiting, of his command, had lost his way and, not knowing where to find his commander, had reported to General Longstreet, who put his brigade a little in the rear of Pickett's men, so that the two brigades together made the assault which broke the enemy's lines. My Soldier, who always deplored the loss of life, expressed his sorrow over the death of certain gallant officers and so many soldiers. Stonewall replied, "General Pickett, we are fighting to save the country, not the army. I fight to win, no matter how many are killed."

While they were talking mint juleps were brought in, which Jackson declined, saying, "I never touch strong drink. I like it too well to fool with it, and no man's strength is strong enough to enable him to touch the stuff with impunity."

"'Scuse me, Marse Gen'ul Jackson, but dese yer drams ain't got no impunities in 'em, suh. Nor, suh. Braxton done en mek 'em out'n we-all's ve'y best old London Dock brandy out'n one o' we-all's cobweb bottles."

Though my Soldier's wound was serious and[Pg 114] he was suffering intensely, General Jackson did not express sympathy. He only deplored his absence from his command in time of need. My Soldier said afterward, "I believe that General Jackson classes all who are weak or starving as lacking in patriotism, and maybe he thinks I am unpatriotic to have been wounded."

Perhaps no one but Stonewall Jackson could have lived up to the stern Puritanism which made him so indifferent to external things—always more rigidly uncompromising for himself than for others. The same sturdy determination which had led the untrained boy years before to seek and obtain an appointment to West Point in the face of a multitude of discouragements was shown in Stonewall's famous requisition, "Send me twenty thousand men and no orders." The spirit which held Lieutenant Jackson to his guns in Mexico after all his men had been killed or driven away, and had won for him two promotions in one day, was the same spirit in which, having received an order that upset his well-matured plans, he promptly obeyed and as promptly sent in his resignation. The South had then learned his worth and her protest led him to withdraw his resignation, but he was never again hampered by instructions from the War Department.

It was said in the army that General Jackson[Pg 115] was afraid of nothing but his own soldiers. Their expressions of devotion alarmed him. Riding his chestnut sorrel, his tall, powerful form bent forward, his long, solemn face, with high cheek bones half lost in heavy reddish-brown beard, his gray eyes cast downward, when he unexpectedly came upon his men the first cheer would cause him to straighten back, hold his shoulders erect, doff the old fatigue cap that concealed his receding forehead, spur up his horse and dash off at full speed, followed by ringing shouts until he was lost to view.

Soon after this meeting with our "Stonewall" I returned to school, and in October my Soldier reported for duty, his empty sleeve dangling, for it was two months before he was able to draw it over his wounded arm.

Sheltered by academic walls, absorbed in our budding ambitions, we were yet shaken by the thunders of Antietam and thrilled with triumphant, though awesome, joy by the lightnings of Fredericksburg that seemed to flash a fiery road to the goal of our dreams.

Then came Chancellorsville with its thrill of triumph, followed by the knowledge of the immeasurable cost of the victory.

In the Executive Mansion I helped Lizzie Letcher, the daughter of the Governor, and Miss Missouri Godwin, now the widow of General[Pg 116] Ordway, pin tuberoses tied with crêpe on the lapels of those who with sad hearts followed their honored leader for the last time. At the grave each soldier took off his flower and laid it on the sacred mound.

The question asked in '61, "Who is this T. J. Jackson?" had been answered from many a battlefield. When the shot that struck him down sent its mournful message around the world the fullest response to that query came from the mourning hearts of friend and foe alike. Beyond the sea he was recorded as "one who took to a soldier's grave the love of the whole world and the name of Stonewall Jackson."

General Garnett was one of those who had been hurt by the severity of the hero's military discipline. My Soldier had charge of General Jackson's funeral and Garnett came to him and asked permission to take part. Of all who followed the great soldier to his grave there was no mourner more sincere. All antagonisms were drowned in the flood of veneration which surged around his name and fame.

XIV THE RED FOX

In my next vacation, as my father could not come to Lynchburg for several days to take me home, he wrote that my mother suggested that I accept an invitation from a classmate in Lovingston, Virginia. Four others of our class were invited and we were having an old-time Virginia house-party, where friends and neighbors vied with our hosts in giving us pleasure, when a telegram came from my father saying that his old friend, Dr. Seon, a celebrated minister who had just romantically made his escape from prison in his daughter's clothes, would pass through Lynchburg the following day and would escort me home. Though sorry to make a break in our house-party I was glad to go, as it furthered the plan of my Soldier, which I had feared would go astray, to meet me in Petersburg where I was to stop over for a few days on my way home. On the train the doctor said:

"Lassie, I found, to my delight, the son of an old friend in the forward coach, whom I would like to present to you if I may. I have just told him I was traveling with a little lady-girl, or a little girl-lady, who was making me forget age and wars and troubles—just a ripple of sunshine, but a wee bit of a rascal withal. Shan't tell you what else I said, nor half the things he told me in reply about matching you against a certain young lady of his acquaintance, which young lady, I am inclined to think, is more than an 'acquaintance,' so I give you fair warning not to fall in love with him."

I replied that I should be delighted to meet his friend but needed no warning, as I had an acquaintance, too, who was more than an 'acquaintance,' and whom I would match against the entire universe.

I was handing the remainder of our luncheon out of the window to a half-clad, hungry looking soldier when the doctor returned with his friend and said:

"Miss Corbell, allow me to present to you the son of my old friend, of Henrico County, Virginia, General Pickett."

My heart jumped into my throat with delight and surprise and in breathless jerks I cried out—"Oh, my Soldier, my Soldier."

"I had no idea whom I was to have the honor[Pg 119] of meeting," said my Soldier. "This, doctor, is the acquaintance of whom I spoke."

"Ah-ha!" said the doctor, "ah-ha!" He offered my Soldier his seat beside me, and the rest of the journey was a beautiful, beautiful, soulful dream. My Soldier stopped off at Richmond, and I went on to Petersburg, where I was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Duncan.

My friends in Petersburg had announced my coming, and a number of engagements had been made for me. The first was a large party at the Johnsons' and the next at the Raglands'. I did not know whether my Soldier would approve of my going without him and I neither wished to go nor approved of it myself, so I begged to be allowed to await his arrival the next day and make my first appearance with him. On seeing his look of loving appreciation I was very thankful to have made the decision. The party at the Raglands' was one of the largest and most brilliant ever given in Petersburg, and that evening our engagement was announced.

Two days later I was to start for my father's home but was amazed, especially as my Soldier was in command, to find that I could not get a permit. He was positive in his refusal and would make no exception in my favor. However, he consented to date for me a permit a week in advance. At the end of the week I said[Pg 120] good-bye to him at the station and for the first time was wounded by him, almost heart-broken, because he did not seem as sorry at parting from me as I thought he ought to be. Besides, there was a peculiar quizzical twinkle in his eye that puzzled me and occupied my thoughts all the way down to Ivor Station, where my uncle, Doctor Phillips, met me. Though fretting because the parting had seemed of so little moment to my Soldier and wishing that I had not been sorry either, that is, not so sorry as I was, the drive from the station proved most pleasant and brought us to my uncle's near noon. That evening as I was about to retire, a little after eight (they go to bed early in the country), we heard horses galloping down the lane.

"Listen to the clanking of the swords," said my uncle. "Those are certainly soldiers and I did not know there were any within miles of us."

I listened, heard the horses turned over to the orderly, heard footsteps on the gravel, then on the porch, and in answer to my uncle's greeting I recognized with unutterable joy the voice of my own Soldier and that of one of his staff. They were asking for me, had been welcomed, and the candle was lighting them into the parlor. The dread mystery of my Soldier's cheerfulness at parting from me was explained. He had come through on the same day with a part[Pg 121] of his division and they were then in camp on the Blackwater a few miles distant.

When the division crossed the Blackwater and marched on to Suffolk I went to the home of my aunt, Mrs. Eley, at Barber's Cross Roads, a distance of about ten miles from Suffolk. Here when all was quiet along the lines my Soldier would ride in from his headquarters almost every night between the hours of sunset and sunrise to see me—a ride of about thirty miles. While these short visits were glimpses of heaven to me, they resulted sadly for my aunt, whose house, in consequence, was burned by the Federals.

At the earnest solicitation of my Soldier, who feared my remaining within the enemy's lines, I went to an old friend in Richmond, Mrs. Shields, the wife of Colonel Shields. When on this visit I first met General "Jeb" Stuart, the "Red Fox" of the Confederacy, thus named because of the blonde glory of his coloring and the swiftness of his movements, as well as his wiliness in evading pursuit. He was said to be one of the handsomest men in the South, and perhaps it was true, but I was at that time too much absorbed in the contemplation of the, to me, handsomest man in the world to have discriminating eyes for the beauty of anyone else.

Among those of our officers most noted for personal attractions was General Longstreet, who was thought to resemble "Jeb" in appearance. A story is told of an ardent admirer of the "Red Fox" who, meeting the "old War Horse," General Longstreet, said, "General Stuart, I just met a man who told me of mistaking you for General Longstreet, but I don't see how he could. Longstreet is not half as handsome as you are." General Longstreet gravely replied, "Yes, I am sometimes taken for Longstreet."

As we danced at a ball at "Yellow Tavern" General Stuart teasingly commiserated my Soldier on his bad luck in belonging to the infantry.

"I am sorry for Pickett, poor fellow! He has to walk. Upon my word, he ought to be in the cavalry. He deserves it. What a pity! And you, Miss Lassie—why should you throw yourself away on the infantry? You ought to marry a cavalryman."

I tried to defend myself and set forth the greater advantages of the infantry service.

"Pickett is lucky," he replied, "in having such a champion. I am in love with him myself and agree with you perfectly, for Pickett can do anything. When I see him dance I think he ought to be a dancing-master. When I see him ride I think he ought to be a cavalry leader.[Pg 123] When he whistles I think he ought to be a bird. When he sings it seems that he ought to be an opera star. When I see him lead a charge I feel that he ought to spend his life on the battlefield. Yes, Pickett can do anything and do it well. As for poor me—all I can do is to make love."

Inexperienced as I was, I knew that the "Red Fox" could do everything that was brave and fine and great. As for making love—there was only one who knew his power in that art—the lovely woman who possessed all his gallant heart and has worthily borne his great name through years of wearing toil and lonely sorrow.

In the battle or on the road a song or a laugh was always on his lips and the hearts of his men leaped up to meet his gayety as well as his fearlessness.

To few men is it given to go through a great war untouched by any ball except the fatal one. Such was the gift that Mars bestowed upon his brilliant follower and in less than a year from that festive night at this same Yellow Tavern the blood-red seal was set upon a youth that was immortal.

XV THE SMUGGLED BRIDE

Notwithstanding war and war's alarms, when I should be launched into the world with a diploma in my hand and the blessings of my Alma Mater on my head my Soldier was to marry me. Cupid does not readily give way to Mars, and in our Southern country a lull between bugle calls was likely to be filled with the music of wedding bells. But Mars was in the ascendant for the time, and when I was graduated the Army of Northern Virginia was marching to an undetermined battlefield in Pennsylvania.

Then came Gettysburg, and the wave of triumph set rolling at Fredericksburg and mounting higher at Chancellorsville surged anew, for the first news that came to us was of a great victory. So we rode on the flood-tide of fancied success and fell with the ebb.

Soon after the battle my Soldier returned to recruit his division. On Sunday we walked[Pg 125] down Broad Street to the Monumental Episcopal Church. It was the first time we had gone to church together and he was telling me that this church was called the Monumental because it was built upon the site of the old Richmond theater, burned in 1811. My Soldier's grandmother was a victim of the fire, as were the Governor of Virginia and more than sixty of Richmond's best known citizens. The fire and the long funeral procession had been described to him by those who held in memory the mournful cortège darkening the streets of the beautiful city as Death had clouded the lives of the thousands who followed their loved ones for the last time on earth.

As we went down Broad Street Hill we saw a little Hebrew child standing first on one foot and then on the other, crying. He had rubbed his dirty hands on his tear-stained face until it was covered with muddy streaks.

"My shoes is a hurtin' an' pinchin' me so. They feels like I was a walkin' on red-hot corncobs. Oh-oh-oh! Mister, I can't walk; I can't get anywhere at all."

Kneeling, my Soldier unlaced and took off the shoes, rubbed the little feet, tied the shoes together, handed them to the boy, and with his[Pg 126] own clean handkerchief wiped away the tears. Lifting the child in his arms he carried him home, some three blocks farther on. We went our way and as I walked beside my Soldier in his gray uniform cloaked with the glory and the gloom of the world's greatest battle, I felt prouder of the simple sweet nature offering sympathy and aid to "one of the least of these" than of all the valor of the soldier on the field.

Only a few days before he had ridden from Gettysburg to Richmond, cheer after cheer following him along the way. Men, women and children were at the roadside to welcome him and hang garlands on his horse. He had been the central figure in a scene so supreme that it needed not victory to crown it with glory. Yet not the flowers of love nor the echo of the cannon's thunder, the grave duties nor the heavy sorrows that were laid upon him, could so fill his heart as to leave no room for the cry of suffering from an unknown child.

In September of that year my Soldier married me. He had confided in General Longstreet and asked for a furlough. The Corps Commander replied that they were not granting furloughs. "But," he said, with that twinkle in his eye so well remembered by all who knew General Lee's "old War Horse," "I might detail you for special duty and you could stop off[Pg 127] and be married." So my Soldier was detailed for "special duty."

Unfortunately, the Federals south of the line were at that time worshipping exclusively at the shrine of Mars. For them Cupid was absolutely dethroned. So much opposed were they to our marriage and so insistent in their efforts to induce my Soldier to pay them a prolonged visit instead of wasting his time in wedding frivolities that it became necessary for me to cross the lines. This I did with the assistance of my uncle, Doctor John T. Phillips, who took my father and me under his protection, smuggled us across, my father driving a load of fodder in which my trunks were concealed. My mother could not leave my little baby brother, now Dr. Edwin F. Corbell, an eminent and beloved physician of North Carolina, to go with me, so I was accompanied by one of her friends as chaperon. I quaked inwardly when we met some Federal cavalrymen but kept up a brave front and, recognizing Dr. Phillips, the riders allowed his permit to cover the party and we passed on our way.

At Waverley Station we were met by my uncle, Colonel J. J. Phillips, and his wife, and by my Soldier's brother and aunt and uncle, Miss Olivia and Mr. Andrew Johnston. With them we went on to Petersburg and on [Pg 128]September 15, 1863, in St. Paul's Church, the marriage took place. We left for Richmond amid the salute of guns, hearty cheers, the chimes of bells and the music of bands and bugles.

As by that time the food supply of the South was reduced to narrow limits, salt being procured by digging up and boiling the earth from under the smokehouses, browned sweet potatoes cut into bits and toasted serving for coffee, and lumps of sugar being sold at high prices for the hospital fund, it might be thought that our prospect of finding a banquet awaiting us in Richmond was not brilliant. But friends and relations of my Soldier had exerted themselves to do him honor, and the result was such as had not been seen in Virginia for many a day. It was sora season and so generous was the supply that the feast was afterward known as the "wedding sora-supper." The birds had been killed at night with paddles, for the South was not wasting her small store of ammunition on sora with so many more important targets in sight. The birds, killed at Curl's Neck on the James River, and thousands of beaten biscuit, gallons of terrapin stew, and turkeys boned and made into salad by the neighbors and the old plantation servants under the supervision of Mr. and Mrs. Sims, the overseer and his wife at[Pg 129] Turkey Island, my Soldier's old colonial home, were sent us as bridal presents. Mrs. Robert E. Lee's gift was a fruit-cake, the making of which she had superintended, and Bishop Dudley's mother sent us a black fruit-cake that had been put away for her own golden wedding.

The only men in civilian evening dress were Mr. Davis and his Cabinet and a few ministers and very old men, for even then we were "robbing the cradle and the grave" to recruit the Army, and the women were sacrificing everything to help. Through kindness of friends in Norfolk a handsome bridal dress, imported for me by Mrs. Boykin, had been smuggled across the line. It was so unusual that after Mrs. Davis had greeted me she looked in astonishment at my costume and said:

On the other side of the room was the editor of the Richmond Examiner, who had been mercilessly assailing the administration. Mrs. Davis called her husband's attention to him but Mr. Davis said:

"Let us not look that way, my dear. We have[Pg 130] come to-night to see beautiful things and think pleasant thoughts."

"What a time you must have had plucking them," said Mr. Davis when he saw the sora.

"A part of the gift was the preparation of them, even to the last shade of brownness."

My memory of Mr. Davis that evening lingers with special significance because it was the last time that I ever saw real happiness in his earnest face. He was just a free, gallant gentleman that night. As he said, he had come to enjoy. Clouds, public and private, were gathering, and soon enough there was no longer the possibility of forgetting. I saw him often afterward in sadness, but never again with the light of joy on his face.

Perhaps there was never anywhere else so varied a collection of curios for the adornment of the person as I had assembled for a trousseau. I had gowns remodeled from court robes more than a century old, relics of grandmothers and great-grandmothers; frocks of home-woven material, striped with vegetable dyes gathered from the woods, and trimmed with a passementerie made of various kinds of seeds, such as canteloupe, laces knit from fine-spun flax, [Pg 131]tatting and crocheted trimmings, and buttons carved from peach-stones.

One of my bonnets was made of the lacy lining that grows on the inside of a gourd, called my dish-cloth bonnet because the soft fabric was used also for the less ornamental kitchen purpose. In the absence of the more widely known varieties of millinery I used the silky milkweed balls for white roses and made bunches of grapes from picked cotton covered with fleek-skin and tinted. A bonnet of gray straw, plaited and dyed by the servants, poke-shaped and with pink roses inside the brim, was especially becoming. My bridal present from my pastor's wife was a very wide collar of tatting and embroidery.

The wedding robe left nothing to be desired, for it was of white satin and exquisite shimmering lace, made at a center of fashion. In passing I may remark that the possession of a real wedding dress, new and stylish, was a distinction that carried with it a sense of obligation to the community at large, and my bridal gown graced a number of weddings after my own. It was last worn by one of the most beautiful girls of the Confederacy who, a few days later, exchanged its snowy folds for the sables of widowhood when the bridegroom was brought home dead from the battlefield. Thus tragically[Pg 132] shadowed the dress around which clustered so many happy memories, so many tender sentiments, and so many sorrowful recollections, was laid away with reverent hands, never again to glimmer with soft sheen through the misty folds of the bridal veil.

XVI BUTLER BOTTLED UP

My Soldier was at this time assigned to the Department of North Carolina, with headquarters at Petersburg, Virginia, commanding all that part of Virginia between James River on the north and Cape Fear River on the south, reaching eastward to the Federal lines around Suffolk and westward to the Black Water and Chowan, including all the troops in that region.

After our bridal visits to kinspeople we returned to Petersburg where we found that our friends, in spite of the restrictions of war, had arranged beautiful rooms for us, decorating them luxuriantly with flowers and fitting them up handsomely.

Among the many who helped to make my life happy in Petersburg was Major Charles Pickett, the General's Assistant Adjutant General (the "Little Major," as he was affectionately called by the soldiers). When my Soldier [Pg 134]introduced him to me as his "little brother" he immediately became my "little brother," too, and thus he was in my life and my heart through all the years that he remained on earth. He walked slightly lame from a wound received at Frazier's Farm. So anxious was he to get into the fight that he disobeyed orders to report for staff duty in Richmond and went into the battle instead. When he was shot he begged his comrades not to carry him off the field but to leave him his flag that he might die under its folds. But he lived through what was known among the men as "the battle the little Major fought down at Frazier's Farm," and thus I came into possession of "my little brother." Soon afterward he married Miss Elizabeth Smith of Washington, and brought us a dear sister who was my companion in the rare sunshine and the many storms of war.

All this region was historic and held thrilling memories of the battles of bygone days. As we rode over the ground we talked of the old-time conflicts and my Soldier said that he would have been glad to be in all wars that were for a just cause. I had been taught that the Mexican war was without such justification, and asked his opinion.

"At West Point," he replied, "some of us were reprimanded for expressing a doubt of its[Pg 135] justice. I was one of them. After we were in we had to fight it out and as it must be done I wanted to do my share."

It was while my Soldier was stationed at Petersburg that the expedition to North Carolina was projected, involving Newbern and Plymouth. The military history of the movement is given in "Pickett and His Men," but there are certain personal features of the expedition which have been recorded in my memory, for I would not be left behind when the journey to the old North State was made. I went as far as the house of a friend on the Newbern road.

The night was bleak and frigid; we were nearing our stopping place. My Soldier, always solicitous for his men, was discussing with his staff the discomfort to which they would be subjected and the impossibility of alleviating their suffering.

"Poor fellows!" he said. "They will be almost frozen and no wood, and General Lee will not allow us to burn even a single rail. There will be the devil to pay and I powerless to help."

Observing that I had awakened and heard his last remark he turned reprovingly to Captain Bright, saying:

Whatever relation my Soldier might bear to his staff officers, I was always "Sister."

"Don't you think I know your voice, my dear, from Captain Bright's?" I inquired.

"No, little one, you could not possibly know my voice in connection with such words, and you could not think that I would use such language as Bright uses."

"Sister," said Captain Bright, "before the General was married he would not allow any of us to swear at all. He said he would do the swearing for the whole division. Now that he is married we have not only to do all our own swearing but his, too."

Had it not been for the versatile imagination of Colonel Floweree, the Ananias of the Seventh Virginia Regiment, my Soldier and I would probably have fared badly. The hotel was impossible and the community was of Union sentiment. In our connection with the Southern Army we could expect no toleration. In this dilemma Colonel Floweree undertook to grapple with the situation. He learned that the most beautiful and luxurious home in the village was owned by an old Baptist, a power in the church and in the community, who was known to be not unwilling to make an occasional sacrifice of [Pg 137]political opinions to religious fraternity. Colonel Floweree called upon the good brother and, with an intonation that he could have learned nowhere but from the pious and hardshell Baptists of that region and period, said:

"My dear Brother, I know what a good Baptist you are and how ready you are to help all your brethren in the Lord. I have my good General, Brother Pickett, out here with his dear pious wife, Sister Pickett, both good Baptists, and I beg you to extend to them the hospitality of your home and entertain them as best you can for the sake of brotherly love."

"If I do," said the old man hesitatingly, "the Yankees may burn my house; but I must take the chances, I cannot let my brethren suffer. Yes, let the good brother and sister come in and share what I have."

We were received with fraternal hospitality, our host shaking hands with us solemnly, saying, "How do you do, Brother Pickett? How are you, Sister Pickett?" in a voice that invested us with the sanctity of the church.

I was interested to observe that our host had but one eye, his wife was cross-eyed, and their daughter was cock-eyed. These optical phenomena were afterward scientifically explained by our Baptist brother.

"I was engaged to a cross-eyed girl," he said,[Pg 138] "and my people objected to the marriage. I was about to give it up when one day I was cutting wood and the end of the stick flew up and hit me in the eye and put it out. It was the judgment of the Lord and I repented and married my cross-eyed girl. Then when our girl was born the hand of the accusing angel touched her and she was cock-eyed to keep me in mind of my sin."

Petersburg, the gate to Richmond, was the weakest point of the Confederacy, and my Soldier had explained its position to the authorities in Richmond and asked that provision for its defense should be made. His warning disregarded, he wrote a confidential letter on the subject to General Lee, who sent an officer to Richmond, urging immediate action. Still nothing was done and when, on the 5th of May, Butler with thirty thousand troops moved upon the town, which was defended by only six hundred men (two hundred of whom were ineffective), the government and the country were as much surprised as if they had never heard of the danger.

Though my Soldier had been ordered a few days before to report to the Army of Northern Virginia, he could not leave Petersburg to destruction. In defiance of orders he remained in the beleaguered city. The day after the [Pg 139]attack a part of the South Carolina brigade came in and, being placed at Walthall Junction, about six miles from Petersburg, drove back Butler's advance column. Wise's Virginia brigade arrived on the seventh and was sent toward City Point. Then three brigades of Pickett's division began coming in as fast as the crippled express could bring them, and we had eleven pieces of artillery.

We women carried the dispatches, cooked the food and took it to the men at the guns. At train time we would go to the station and send up cheer after cheer of welcome, hoping to blind the Federals to the fact that the cars, returning from their short trip to the country, brought in only the half-starved railroad men. The roar of cannon and the shrieks of shot and shell filled our ears day and night. During the entire week, until Petersburg was safe and General Grant had sent his famous telegram to Mr. Lincoln, "Pickett has bottled up Butler at Petersburg," my Soldier scarcely slept, and I saw him only when I carried to him on the lines a dispatch or his bread and soup and coffee. This telegram so angered Butler that he came up the James River, out of the line of battle, at great expense to the United States Government, and sacked and burned my Soldier's beautiful ancestral home.

The city council of Petersburg voted a resolution of thanks to my Soldier for his brave defense of the city. The people wished to express their gratitude by a gift to me. It was impossible to buy a service of silver, so each brought a fork, a salt-spoon, a pitcher, as the case might be, until more than a thousand pieces were given to me. One woman, having no silver because she had been compelled to sell her household service, brought a pretty gilt-bordered cup. The gifts of affection were of far greater value to me than the most elegant and costly new set of silver could have been and were carefully cherished until, in the fire which marked the surrender of Richmond, they, with all my bridal presents and everything of value, were burned in the warehouse in Richmond where they had been placed for safe-keeping.

One morning in May in the early dawn we rode out of the city of sweet memories and days of terror, pausing to look back at the far-off Church of Saint Paul, new-lit by the rising sun, where we had plighted our troth.

XVII ON THE LINES

Our next station was on the "Bermuda Hundred" lines near the heart of the storm, but there were rifts of sunshine to break the gloom.

A tent was our first home and later a log cabin. Major Charles Pickett's log cabin near our own had two rooms, a degree of splendor to which no one else attained.

We had friends—such friends as war binds together with links that can never be broken. The wives of many of the officers were there. The few new books we had were exchanged until they were read through and through and almost learned by heart. If one of us fortunately came into possession of a month-old paper it went the rounds and was more eagerly perused than are the morning journals now, just off the press with the news of the hour fresh and hot. We visited, walked, talked, rode and danced half the night away lest[Pg 142] it should be over-long and bring darksome dreams. How could we live on the rim of a volcano if we could not dance around its crater?

At the Howlett House not all our evenings were given over to pleasure. The Federals had a theory that business should come first, and would thrust their views upon us at inopportune times, frequently arousing us from slumber. These nocturnal attacks were veritable scenes from the Inferno displayed against the black curtain of night—swords flashing through the darkness, guns thundering across the silence that had brooded over the earth, weapons clashing, the roar of orders sweeping over the field—all the demoniac sounds of battle crashing through a blackness that enshrouded our world. He who has looked upon such a scene needs no fiend of darkness to roll back for him the heavy curtain that hides the world of demons. Even the bravest of the brave doubted their courage in a night attack.

After one of these encounters when the wounded were brought in I saw my Soldier stop beside two of them, one a Federal and the other a Confederate. Pointing to the northern soldier he said:

Then he gave his handkerchief to serve as a[Pg 143] tourniquet to stop the bleeding of the Federal soldier's wound.

It was at the Bermuda Hundred line that I first saw General Grant. My Soldier and I were riding along looking at the Federal gunboats and monitors not more than a few hundred yards from our headquarters when I saw a puff of smoke drifting, scattering, a mere shadow as it floated higher and was lost against the blue sky.

"Dangerously beautiful. It is from a shell. The enemy are firing over there. Come, dear; whip up your horse and let me get you out of this as soon as I can."

"No, indeed," I said. "I'm not a bit afraid, and if I were do you think I would let Pickett's men see me run?"

"Come, dear, please! You are in danger, useless danger, and that is not bravery."

The soldiers did not seem to agree with him, for Corse's Brigade sent up cheer after cheer as we passed. Captain Smith, just then riding across the field, stopped to speak to us.

"The Federals are testing some guns, I think, for the entertainment of visitors," he explained, "and are not firing at us. They are over there to the right of that oak." He handed us his[Pg 144] field glass. "Mrs. Grant is standing between those two short, stout men. The one at the left with a cigar in his mouth is Grant. The shorter, stouter one on the right is Ingalls, Grant's Quartermaster-General."

"Yes, that's Rufus. See him laugh, the old rascal!" said my Soldier, a glint of the old-time affection shining in his eyes and vibrating in his voice. He, Grant and Ingalls were old friends, having been comrades in Mexico and the West. "But come, let's ride on."

"Yes," said Captain Smith, "it is not safe here. I would take Mrs. Pickett away. Turn to the left there into that clump of trees."

"Permit me, please, Mrs. Pickett, to add my entreaties to those of the General. It really is not safe here."

"Not for the world," exclaimed my Soldier. "They are not shooting at us. Mrs. Grant is so kind-hearted that she would not approve of their shooting in this direction if she thought it would interrupt our morning ride. Besides, she is exceedingly cross-eyed and does not know directions."

The Captain saluted my Soldier, lifted his[Pg 145] hat to me, suggestively pointed to the grove on our left and rode away. I watched him, admiring his fine horsemanship. Beginning to feel remorseful for my obstinate resistance to his appeal I was about to turn off to the safe path when one of the aimless cannon balls swept across the field and I saw the Captain's horse careering madly along bearing a headless body. Impulsively I sprang from my horse and ran and picked up the poor head, and I solemnly believe that the dying eyes looked their thanks as the last glimmering of life flickered out. Those pathetically grateful eyes have looked at me many times through the mists of vanished years and with them has come the booming of the guns that threw black bars across the sunshine of that far away morning.

The memory of General Grant often came to me afterward associated with that awful sight following my first view of him across the water where he stood peacefully smoking on the slope. The fact that he remembered the old friendship with my Soldier was impressed upon me many times after my view of him through field glasses.

Among the friends whom I often met at this station was General Robert E. Lee. It has been said that our Commanding General never[Pg 146] knew or cared what he ate, and it is true that he did not, in comparison with the welfare of his soldiers. Once when he and his staff lunched with us I gave them one of our famous Brunswick stews, made of chicken, a slice of pork, corn, tomatoes and Lima beans, with bay-leaf and onion seasoning, and cooked slowly. It was particularly good this day, as I had received a gift of some smuggled salt and could afford to use it lavishly, and General Lee said the stew was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. I had just made some walnut pickles of which I was very proud. He praised them and told me that in his house he had them many years old and that the "older they became the better they were."

"But, you know," he said, "I never eat anything good without thinking of the soldiers and their privations."

One evening in Richmond my Soldier and I were invited to spend the evening with Senator and Mrs. Clement C. Clay, and while there General Lee called. We had ice cream made of buttermilk and sweetened with sorghum, and lemonade made with lemons from the conservatory of our hostess. She remarked that she had been saving those lemons for the soldiers in the hospital but that she had more which she would give to them. "If you will be sure not[Pg 147] to forget the soldiers," said General Lee, "I will enjoy this lemonade."

The General called me "Sweet Nansemond" because I came from Nansemond County, as did the famous sweet potatoes which the hucksters hawked about the streets, calling out, "Nansemonds! Sweet Nansemonds!" and I rather resented this vegetable suggestion, not liking to be associated with potatoes even in the mind of General Lee.

Though sympathetic and warm-hearted, our General had a natural dignity of manner which, though inspiring confidence, interposed a veil of reserve between him and even his warmest admirers. Years after the war one of my friends who had been an officer in the Army of Northern Virginia, first under General Joe Johnston and then under General Lee, said to me:

"Lee was a great soldier and a good man but I never wanted to put my arms around his neck and kiss him as I wanted to do with Joe Johnston."

One evening when General Lee, General[Pg 148] Beauregard, my Soldier and his Brigade Commanders were studying war-maps in our cabin and confidentially discussing the freeing of the slaves and the enlisting of them as soldiers, General Lee finished by saying:

"Well, gentlemen, we must hope for the best. If we should give up there are many who would feel that we had sold the South—many of our Southern States would think so, for even they have no idea that we have come to the last of our resources and no realization of how starving and poor we are, and, alas, gentlemen, too much of the best blood of the land is being spilled, too many homes being despoiled and made desolate, too many mothers with broken hearts."

Solemnly they shook hands and General Lee and his companions galloped off, my Soldier and I standing in the doorway listening.

"So they do, little one," answered my Soldier. "Strange—strange I had not thought of that before."

We turned to the map on the floor and rolled up the ways to go and prayed for a miracle to bring success.

XVIII THE AMENITIES

We were near the Federal lines and the men on the opposing sides enjoyed friendly chats with each other, swapped jokes, bartered tobacco for coffee and exchanged newspapers.

The Federals kept their cattle in a stockade in the rear of their camp. Early one morning they were surprised to see Confederate soldiers running along the line in a manner suggestive of a drove of highly excited cows.

"What's the matter with you, Johnnies, over there?" came the query across the lines. "Are you all crazy?"

The only answer was a vociferous and long-drawn out chorus of "Moo-o-o! Moo-o-o! Moo-o-o!"

Disgusted with the pertinaceous lunacy of their foes the blue-coats gave up the conundrum. A little while later the problem was solved. In the night General J. E. B. Stuart with some[Pg 150] of his men had circled the camp and driven off all the Federal cattle, and the "Moo!" of the Confederates was a graphic announcement to the victims of their loss. For a time the "Johnnies" fared sumptuously on steak and roast while the "Yanks" were compelled to forage till they could lay in a new supply of live stock.

The red flag of the politicians never wholly divided the hearts of the soldiers into hostile camps. Not only did the West Pointers retain the comradeship of the old Army days, but the enlisted men shared the friendly sentiment.

In the summer of '63 the Confederate and Federal soldiers doing duty on opposite banks of the Black Water River in Virginia were wont to divert themselves by trading with each other. They had built for their traffic a miniature fleet of rudely but ingeniously carved boats. One of these little vessels would be taken up stream, the current of which was seldom strong, and with rudder fixed it would go down the river with its cargo of sugar and coffee wrapped in the latest newspaper and stored in the scooped deck, and would be grappled and hauled in by the sentry on the opposite side. Back the same trusty little carrier dove would come, laden with plugs of tobacco, wrapped likewise in the latest paper on that side. Cheers and shouts from[Pg 151] both lines would greet each cargo as it touched the shore.

One morning a short time after the battle of Gettysburg the Confederates anxiously awaited the return of their little craft. It came and was enthusiastically received, but to their surprise, no answering shout went up from the opposite shore on the landing of the boat. The cargo, much to their disappointment, was wrapped in brown paper.

"Well, we have whipped them Yanks again as sure as guns," they argued sympathetically in explanation of the silence and the brown paper. The vessel was sent back and on the paper in which the cargo was wrapped were these words:

"We-all are so sorry for you-all Yanks, but we won't crow loud, so send along the paper."

"'Twas sech darned infernal hard luck in the papers for you Rebs we was 'feared they'd sink the coffee."

In the old Army my Soldier had a dear comrade, at this time a General in the Army of the Potomac. His brother had the misfortune to be captured and put into Libby prison and, in memory of the old friendship, my Soldier secured his release and took him as a guest into[Pg 152] our home, the old Pickett mansion in Richmond. In an unaccountable moment of indiscretion he wrote a letter in which he said that the Confederacy was on its last legs, stating that he was in a home of wealth, where there was a house full of servants, and in the morning the basket was sent to market packed full of money and brought back only half full of provisions. This letter fell into the hands of Judge Ould, Commissioner of exchange of prisoners, who immediately reported it and the offending writer was returned to prison. My Soldier's sympathy was not cooled by this unhappy incident, and later he secured permission for me to go to the prison at will and take whatever I could of our scanty store that would be a help or comfort to him—beaten biscuit, eggs, milk or fruit. However unpromising the outlook might be I always managed to find something for him. Every week when I would take him clean linen the other prisoners would cut dice for that which he left off. Of more value than anything else was the gourd of soft soap which I carried to him, for we had no salt to make hard soap. I think he cared more for the human interest that I brought from outdoor life, the glint of sunshine, however dark my own heart might be.

It was thus that I saw the inside of Libby[Pg 153] prison. Let no man who did not see Libby prison in the last days of the Confederacy imagine for a moment that he is able to conceive of any fraction of its infernal horror. It is easy to understand that, in a country where the soldiers were starving in the field and families were starving at home, a prison would not be a comfortable place of abode, but it would have to be seen to be in the least appreciated. When I look back through memory at that scene of indescribable wretchedness, unutterable gloom and despair, I can almost envy those whose fancy falls so far short of the reality.

It had been many months since the authorities of the North had set a rigid bar against the exchange of prisoners, involving the reinforcement of the Confederate Army. It was impossible for the South to replace her captured men, while the Federal Army could be easily kept in full force by new recruits. Mr. Davis had vainly pleaded for exchange on the field. He had sent two Federal prisoners to Washington to represent our condition and the impossibility of feeding prisoners in addition to trying to keep our own soldiers from starvation. The stern necessities of war had prevailed against him. The prisoners themselves had given assent to the sad fate that was to be theirs. They had offered their lives for their country. What[Pg 154] mattered it whether the supreme sacrifice was accepted in the swift glory of the battle flash or in the long dreary darkness of a hopeless imprisonment.

In my visits to the prison I met and knew other unfortunate ones and am thankful that I was able to minister to some of them. Among my son's and my own best friends in after years were some whom I first met in that awful, woeful place.

Dining with Mr. and Mrs. Beverly Tucker at a hotel in Washington years after the war, I saw a strange gentleman at a table near, gazing so earnestly at me that I said to my host, "Is that gentleman some one whom I should know and speak to?" Mr. Tucker looked up, half inclined to be offended. The stranger rose and came to our table.

"Excuse me," he said, bowing to my host and hostess. Turning to me, his voice trembling, he said, "Forgive this intrusion but I couldn't help it. I want to ask you, please, if you ever gave buttermilk and soft soap, fresh figs, a clean shirt, a world of sunshine and a lot of other things to a poor, wounded, weary, homesick boy in Libby prison? Aren't you the lady? You are; don't you remember me?"

"Yes," I said, "I remember; of course, I remember. You are the poor wounded boy the prisoners used to call Little Willie Sourmilk, Little Kentuck, Baby Blue, etc."

"Yes; that's me, and, oh, I am so glad that I have found you at last. Do you know that I have prayed to God every night that I might, and, lady, you never will know what a benediction your visits were to old Libby, and me—oh, you saved my life; I never can forget that first day. It was in June. The roses were in bloom, and such roses! A great bunch was lying on the top of your basket. I was stretched out on the table near the barred window trying to think of old Kentucky and forget my wounds when I heard a voice say, 'Little fellow, would you like to have a beaten biscuit and a glass of buttermilk?' 'Would I? Oh, God, would I?' I said. When you went away you left half the roses on my pillow, and how I watched for your visits after that. I never knew your name, never knew how to find you. To us prisoners you were the Rose Lady."

His tears had washed off the kiss on my hand and I was back again, looking into the wild, harrowing, despairing faces in the dismal tobacco-warehouse prison, all regardless of my host and hostess and the surrounding guests.

"Well, I'll be dogged, Jane," said Mr. Tucker[Pg 156] to his dear little wife. "What do you think of this? I always did believe every word of those Ali Baba and Forty Thieves and Magic Lantern tales and this proves them, for they are not a bit stranger than this sour buttermilk story."

The stranger was Colonel William H. Lowdermilk, of Anglim's Bookstore. When later I lost all my worldly goods and was appointed to a desk in the Pension Office, Colonel Lowdermilk, then of the firm of Lowdermilk & Company, Book-Dealers, wrote to the Commissioner of Pensions a strong letter of commendation, in which he told in warmest terms of my care of himself and other Union soldiers in Libby prison, and asked that every courtesy and consideration be shown to me for all time and in every possible way, in sacred memory of the boys in Libby. Throughout his life afterward he was a devoted, loyal friend to me and mine.

I still have the photograph of him taken in his Federal uniform before he was captured.

XIX THE CLOSING DAYS

The close of the stormy career of the Confederacy was marked in blood by the battle of Five Forks. The end was at hand.

The Army had subsisted on corn for many days. As my Soldier was riding to Sailor's Creek a woman ran out of a house by the roadside and handed him a luncheon wrapped in paper. Passing on, he saw a man lying behind a log; a deserter, he supposed. What did it matter! The poor fellows had fought long enough and hard enough to earn the right to go home. He spoke to the man, who looked up, revealing a boyish face. He was thin and pale, scarcely more than a child.

"No, General, I am starving, sir," he replied. "I could not keep up any longer and lay down here to die. I couldn't help it, Marse George."

"Here, take this," said my Soldier. "Eat it, and when you are rested and have slept go back home."

"No, Marse George," he answered, "if I get strength to go on I'll follow you and Marse Robert to the last."

He did follow to the last, being killed a few days later at Sailor's Creek, where the parting salute was fired over the grave of the Confederacy.

Many months before the farewell shot, when some one applied to President Lincoln for a pass to go into Richmond, he gravely replied:

"I don't know about that; I have given passes to about two hundred and fifty thousand men during the last two years to go to Richmond, and not one of them has got there yet."

Some of those passes had been used and their bearer had arrived at last, having made the slowest time on record since the first camel bore the pioneer traveler over an Oriental desert. The queen city of the South had fallen.[Pg 159] The story of the great nation that had hovered upon the horizon of our visions had been written out to its last sorrowful word.

On the morning of Sunday, April 2, in the holy calm of St. Paul's Church, we had assembled to ask the great Father of Heaven and earth to guard our loved ones and give victory to the cause so dear to us. Suddenly the glorious sunlight was dimmed by the heavy cloud of disappointment, and the peace of God was broken by the deep-voiced bells tolling the death-knell of our hopes.

There was mad haste to flee from the doomed city. President Davis and his Cabinet officers were in the church, and to them the news first came. They hurried to the State House to secure the Confederate archives and retreat with them to some place of safety.

Fear and dread fell over us all. We were cut off from our friends and communication with them was impossible. Our soldiers might have fallen into the hands of the enemy—we knew not. They might have poured out their life-blood on the battlefield—we knew not. In our helpless deserted condition all the world seemed to have been struck with sudden darkness.

The records having been secured, an order was issued to General Ewell to destroy the[Pg 160] public buildings. The one thing which could intensify the horrors of our position—fire—was added to our calamities. General J. C. Breckenridge, our Secretary of War, with a wider humanity and a deeper sense of the rights of our people, tried in vain to have this order countermanded, knowing that its execution could in no way injure or impede the victorious army, while it would result in the ruin of many of our own people. The order was carried out with even greater scope than was intended.

The Shockoe warehouse was the first fired, it being regarded as a public building because it contained certain stores belonging to France and England. A breeze springing up suddenly from the south fanned the slowly flickering flames into a blaze and they mounted upward until they enwrapped the whole great building. On the wings of the wind they were carried to the next building and the next, until when the noon hour struck all the city between Seventh and Fifteenth Streets and Main Street and the river was a heap of ashes.

The flames leaped from house to house in mad revel. They stretched out burning arms on all sides and embraced in deadly clasp the stately mansions which had stood in lofty grandeur from the olden days of colonial pride. Soon they became towering masses of fire, fluttering[Pg 161] immense flame-banners against the wind, and fell sending up myriads of fiery points into the air, sparkling like blazing stars against the dark curtain that shut out the sky.

A stormy sea of smoke surged over the town—here a billow of blackness of suffocating density—there a brilliant cloud, shot through with crimson arrows. The wind swept on and the ocean of smoke and flame rolled before it in surges of destruction over the once fair and beautiful city of Richmond.

The terrified cries of women and children arose in agony above the roaring of the flames, the crashing of falling buildings, and the trampling of countless feet.

Piles of furniture and wares lay in the streets as if the city had struck one great moving day, when everything was taken into the highways and left there to be trampled to pieces and buried in the mud.

Government stores were thrown out to be destroyed, and a mob gathered around to catch the liquors as they ran in fiery rivers down the streets. Soon intoxication was added to the confusion and uproar which reigned over all. The officers of the law, terror-stricken before the reckless crowd, fled for their lives. The firemen dared not make any effort to subdue the flames, fearing an attack from the [Pg 162]soldiers who had executed the order to burn the buildings.

Through the night the fire raged, the sea of darkness rolled over the town, the crowds of men, women and children went about the streets laden with what plunder they could rescue from the flames. The drunken rabble shattered the plate-glass windows of the stores and wrecked everything upon which they could seize. The populace had become a frenzied mob, and the kingdom of Satan seemed to have been transferred to the streets of Richmond.

The fire revealed many things which I should like never to have seen and, having seen, would fain forget.

The most revolting revelation was the amount of provisions, shoes and clothing which had been accumulated by the speculators who hovered like vultures over the scene of death and desolation. Taking advantage of their possession of money and lack of both patriotism and humanity, they had, by an early corner in the market and by successful blockade running, bought up all the available supplies with an eye to future gain, while our soldiers and women and children were absolutely in rags, barefoot and starving. Not even war, with its horrors and helplessness, can divert such harpies from their accustomed methods of accumulating[Pg 163] wealth at the expense of those who have spent their lives in less self-seeking ways.

About nine o'clock Monday morning a series of terrific explosions startled our ears, inured as they were to every variety of painful sounds. Every window in our house was shattered and the old plate-glass mirrors built into the walls were broken. We felt as if called upon to undergo a bombardment, in addition to our other misfortunes, but it was soon ascertained that the explosions were from the Government arsenal and laboratory, now caught by the flames. Fort Darling and the rams were blown up.

Every bank was destroyed, the flour-mills had caught fire, the War Department was in ruins, the offices of the Enquirer and Dispatch had been reduced to ashes, the County Court-House, the American Hotel, and most of the finest stores of the city were ruined. The Presbyterian Church had escaped. The flames had passed by Libby Prison, as if even fire realized that it could not add to the horrors of the gloomy place.

While the flames were raging the colored troops of General Weitzel, who had been stationed on the north side of the James a few miles from Richmond, entered the city. As I saw their black faces shining through the gloom of the smoke-shrouded town I could not help[Pg 164] thinking that they added the one feature needed, if any there were, to complete the demoniacal character of the scene. They were the first colored troops I had ever seen, and the weird effect produced by their black faces in that infernal environment was indelibly impressed upon my mind.

General Weitzel sent Major E. E. Graves, of his staff, and Major A. H. Stevens, of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, at the head of a hundred mounted men, to reconnoiter the Richmond roads and works. At the fortifications beyond the junction of the Osborne turnpike and New Market road they were met by a flag of truce waved from a dilapidated, old-fashioned carriage drawn by a pair of skeleton-like horses. The truce party consisted of the Mayor of Richmond, Colonel Mayo; Judge Meredith, of the Supreme Court; Mr. James Lyons, one of our most eminent lawyers, and a fourth, whom I do not now recall.

The carriage was probably in the early part of the century what might have been called, if the modern classic style of phraseology had prevailed at that time, a "tony rig." At the period of which I write it had made so many journeys over the famous Virginia roads that it had become a sepulchral wreck of its former self.

There may have been a time when the reminiscences of animals that dragged out from the burning Capital the ruins of the stately chariot were a span of gay and gallant steeds, arching their necks in graceful pride, champing their bits in scorn of the idea that harness made by man could trammel their lofty spirits, pawing the earth in disdain of its commonplace coarseness. If so, the lapse of years and an extended term of Confederate fare had reduced those noble coursers to shambling memories.

What of it? The chariot of state might be the wreck of former grandeur, the horses might be the dimmest of recollections, but was not Mr. Lyons still Mr. Lyons—in all circumstances, the most dignified member of Old Dominion aristocracy? The Mayor turned over the keys of the city and in recognition of the pre-eminence of Mr. Lyons, deputed to him the performance of further ceremonies. With cold and stately formality Mr. Lyons "had the honor" to introduce his companions and to present a paper on which was inscribed:

Major Stevens courteously accepted the surrender on behalf of his Commanding General,[Pg 166] to whom the document was transmitted, and proceeded to reduce the newly acquired property to possession by fighting the flames which disputed ownership with him.

Having utilized to good effect what little remnant of the fire department he could find, Major Stevens ordered the Stars and Stripes to be raised over the Capitol. Two soldiers of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, one from Company E and one from Company H, mounted to the summit of the Capitol, and in a few moments, for the first time in more than four years, the National Flag fluttered unmolested in the breezes of the South. The stars of the Union were saluted, while our "warrior's Banner took its flight to meet the warrior's soul."

That flag which almost a century before had risen from the clouds of war, like a star gleaming out through the darkness of a stormy night, with its design accredited to both Washington and John Adams, was raised over Virginia by Massachusetts, in place of the one whose kinship and likeness to the old banner had never been entirely destroyed.

In March, 1861, the Confederate Congress adopted the Stars and Bars—three horizontal bars of equal width, the middle one white, the others red, with a blue union of nine stars in a circle. This was so like the National Flag as[Pg 167] to cause confusion. In 1863 this flag was replaced by a banner with a white field, having the battle-flag (a red field charged with a blue saltier on which were thirteen stars) for a union. It was feared that this might be mistaken for a flag of truce, and was changed by covering the outer half of the field with a vertical red bar. This was finally adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America.

Richmond will testify that the soldiers of Massachusetts were worthy of the honor of first raising the United States flag over the Capitol of the Confederacy, and will also bear witness to the unvarying courtesy of Major Stevens and the fidelity with which he kept his trust.

The day after the fire there was a rap at our door. The servants had all run away. The city was full of northern troops, and my environment had not taught me to love them. With my baby on my arm I answered the knock, opened the door and looked up at a tall, gaunt, sad-faced man in ill fitting clothes, who asked with the accent of the North:

"I know that, ma'am, I know where George Pickett is," he answered, "but I just wanted to[Pg 168] see the place. Down in old Quincy, Illinois, where I used to hear George Pickett whistle the songs of Virginia in his bird-like notes, I have heard him describe his home till in spirit I have been here many a time. I have smelled the multi-flora roses and the Lady Bankshire roses and the golden cluster roses and those great cabbage roses. I have seen the borders of hyacinths in the springtime and the lilies-of-the-valley blooming in the chimney corner, the beds of violets, the rows of beehives and the lily-beds that the bees knew were theirs, had been planted just for them. I have stood under the arbor and gathered those strange green looking grapes that are like the Virginia aristocracy, growing each one on its own individual stem. I think he called them scuppernongs. I have sat on that back porch and listened to the music as his sister Virginia, of whom he was so proud, sang in that glorious voice he told me about, and I have swung in this old swing here while the moon and I watched and waited for the old cat to die. So I wanted to see the place."

The baby reached out his arms and Mr. Lincoln took him, a look of tenderness almost divine glorifying that sad face. I have never seen that expression on any other face. My little one opened his mouth and insisted upon giving his father's friend a dewy baby kiss. As he handed my baby back to me Mr. Lincoln shook his long hand at him and said:

"Tell your father, the rascal, that I could almost forgive him anything for the sake of those bright eyes and that baby kiss."

The tones of his deep voice touched all the chords of life to music, and I marveled no more at my Soldier's love for him even through all the bitterness of the years. He turned and went down the steps and out of my life forever, but in my memory that wonderful voice, those intensely human eyes, that strong, sad, tender face have a perpetual abiding place. He seemed to have a cast in his eye that reminded me of the glass eye of Mr. Davis, but as no one has ever mentioned it in describing him it may be that his likeness to Jefferson Davis made me think so, yet I always see that look in his pictures.

Among my treasured possessions are some old letters, written by Mr. Lincoln when [Pg 170]practicing law in Springfield, to George Pickett, then a cadet at West Point, where he was placed at the request of Mr. Lincoln. The homely and humorous philosophy of these letters, the honesty which breathes through them, the cheerful outlook upon life, and the ready sympathy of the experienced professional man with the boy just on the threshold of life, looking down the vista of the future to the flashing of swords and the thunder of guns, all bring him before me as a friend.

I look beyond the description he once gave of himself, "Height, six feet, four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes."

A free-hand sketch like that is easy, but my memory fills the outlines with the subtle beauty of soul, the sunny view of life, the deep, tender sympathy that made up a face of infinite charm which puzzled all artists but revealed itself to the intuitions of a child, causing the babe to raise its little arms to be taken up and its lips to be kissed.

The ways of Abraham Lincoln and George Pickett were widely separated for a time, but were never so far apart that the old love had not full sway. I marveled over it once, but after my own picture of the man was filled[Pg 171] out I wondered no more. I think no one who knew and loved Lincoln could be estranged from him, whatever tides of political hostility might roll between.

One afternoon, as we were reading "Les Miserables" upon the veranda, our attention was distracted by a number of soldiers below who were discussing the Emancipation Proclamation and saying all manner of discrediting things about Mr. Lincoln, censuring him as ignorant and despotic, and bringing other unfounded accusations against him. After they were gone my Soldier walked up and down the veranda, whistling "When other friends are 'round thee." Presently, coming back, sitting beside me and taking hold of my hand, he said:

"Years ago there was a very lonesome, dispirited, disappointed, heart-broken boy away off in Quincy, Illinois. He had received letters, not in envelopes as they come now, for that was a long time ago when the letter made its own envelope; paper was scarcer then than now, and one had to be careful in opening the letter. It was fastened with sealing wax and in breaking the wax it often happened that a word was broken off. He had opened three of those letters and found that four of his cousins had been appointed to West Point, three from Virginia and one from Kentucky, and he was compelled[Pg 172] to study law, a subject which he did not like, but which his family did and had chosen for him. His uncle with whom he was studying had no sympathy with his ambition to be a soldier and his disappointment in not being of the fortunate number.

"That night when this lonesome boy was leaning on the gate still brooding over his disappointment but obediently trying to memorize the Rule in Shelley's Case a tall man, for whom he was waiting, came up the street and asked, 'What is the matter? Holes in your pocket and your marbles and knife all dropped out?' 'Yes,' said the boy, 'I have lost my knife and my marbles and there are big holes in my pockets.' 'Well,' replied the man, 'you must have strong pockets like mine. I have marbles and a knife but my pockets are so strong now that they do not make holes in them, as they used to do. Come, sit down on the grass and let's have a game of mumble-de-peg.' The man played so badly on purpose that it was he who had to mumble the peg, but his playmate insisted that he should mumble it. 'No, you have been mumbling the peg all day, my boy. I want to keep you from mumbling pegs.'

"The next morning the boy was awakened by a handful of gravel thrown against the window. He looked out and saw his friend with[Pg 173] saddle-bags in his hand. 'Going up the road a piece,' he called out. It took the man a long time to go up the road and the boy waited for him week after week to come down the road. After a long time there came instead a letter from which the following is an extract:

"Inclosed in this letter was one from Mr. John G. Stuart, Representative in Congress of the Third Illinois District, together with an appointment to West Point."

"That man is the one we have just heard maligned; the man to whom I, your Soldier, owes his profession, the one to whom he is indebted for the garlands that were hung around his horse all along the road as he came from Gettysburg, the one whose honesty and courage enabled your Soldier to defy the British fleet at San Juan, and to whom he owes the gratitude of the people of Petersburg who say that he saved their town—that man was Abraham Lincoln."

Months afterward, when the awful news of Lincoln's death came to us, my Soldier exclaimed:

"My God! My God! The South has lost her best friend and protector in this, her direst hour of need!"

XX SUSPENSE

My Soldier left me in Richmond when he went away to fight the last battles of the war, telling me to stay until he returned or sent for me. "Now, remember, I shall surely come back," he said. So, like Casabianca, I waited, and not even "the flames that lit the battle's wreck" should frighten me away.

General Breckenridge, our Secretary of War, had, in his thoughtfulness, offered me an opportunity of leaving the Confederate Capital, but remembering that my Soldier had left me there I obediently determined to remain until he came or sent for me. Thanking the Secretary I said:

The days were filled with fear and anguish unspeakable. The clock struck only midnight hours for me.

Rumors of the death of my Soldier were[Pg 176] credited (I saw by the look on everybody's face, though no word was said), and I would not ask a question nor let anybody speak to me of him lest an effort be made to prepare me for the sad tidings. The last letter I had received from him was dated the 30th of March, at Hatcher's Run, the extreme right of the Confederate line, most of the letter being written in Chinook, that I only might understand. It contained the following paragraph:

He wrote in full faith of a short separation, saying that all would be well, that he would surely return, imploring me not to listen to or credit any rumors to the contrary, and urging me in an added line to be brave and of good[Pg 177] cheer—to keep up a "skookum tum-tum." (Chinook for "brave heart," always his last words to me in parting). This letter was brought to me by Jaccheri, a daring, fearless Italian in my Soldier's employ as headquarters postmaster. He was sagacious and loyal, perfectly devoted to the General and his cause, and was trusted with letters of the strictest confidence and greatest importance all through the war.

As I said before, our people were on the verge of starvation. For weeks before we left camp the army had been living on rations of corn and beans, with "seasonings" of meat. The game had been trapped and killed throughout the whole country, and my breakfast that morning had consisted of a few beans cooked in water, no salt, for salt had long been a luxury in the Confederacy. All the old smokehouses had been moved, that the earth might be dug up and pulled down to recover the salt which in the many years it had absorbed.

John Theophelas, my dear little brother, nine years old, was a great comfort to me in these days of trial. He had just brought my beans and was lovingly coaxing me to eat them when Jaccheri came, and a plate was filled for him. After Jaccheri had finished his meager breakfast, seasoned with his adventures on the road, swimming the river at one place carrying his[Pg 178] clothes in a bundle on his head, he said he must go. I added a few lines to my diary, which I always kept for my Soldier, and gave it to our faithful letter-carrier to take back to him.

"Ina da days to come," said Jaccheri in his soft Italian voice "ina all lands, no matter, mucha people, mucha gloly, nadie money, no matter, you find Jaccheri here—and here—" first putting his hand over his heart and then drawing from his boot and gracefully brandishing a shining blade. "Gooda-bye."

At the door he turned back, untied his cravat, and wiggled out five pieces of money, three gold dollars and two ninepences. He walked over on tiptoe to where the baby was sleeping, crossed himself and, kneeling by the cradle, slipped into baby's little closed hand two of the gold dollars and around his neck a much worn and soiled scapula.

"Da mon—Confed—noa mucha good, noa now mucha accountable—you mighta want some; want her vely bad before you nota get her. Gooda-bye, some moa."

Dear, faithful old Jaccheri, he would take no refusal, so I let baby keep the money. I was kneeling by the cradle crying and praying for my Soldier and thanking God that he had so good a friend as this poor camp postman, when the door opened softly and Jaccheri looked in.

I was reading aloud lovingly and reverently the torn words on the ragged red-flannel scapula which Jaccheri had given to baby: "Cease, the heart of Jesus is with you," when the baby opened his sweet eyes and crowed over the little fortune which had come to him in his dreams, the first gold he had ever seen. Just then my little brother, who had gone downstairs with Jaccheri, came rushing back, his eyes wide open, all excitement, exclaiming:

"Sister! Sister! There's a Yankee down-stairs! Come to see you, but don't you go; hide, hide, sister! I'll stand by the door and he daresent pass by me. Quick, sister, hide! He said that he was one of brother George's friends, but I believe he has killed brother George, and now wants to kill you!"

In the light of the present day the terror of the child seems almost exaggerated, but in those days southern nurses kept children docile by warning them that the Yankees would get them if they did not behave, and the whole environment of childhood intensified the fear thus instilled.

"Oh, no, no, my child," I said reassuringly, trying to soothe and calm him. "No, no; don't be such a little coward, dear. If he is one of[Pg 180] your brother George's friends he is mine, too, and he would not hurt me. I am not in the least afraid, and I will go down at once and see him."

"Please don't go, sister, you might be killed and I promised brother George to take care of you."

"That's a sweet boy; take care of the baby," I said and, kissing them both, closed the door behind me.

As I entered the parlor a tall, thin gentleman with the sweetest of smiles and the kindest of voices, dressed in the uniform of a United States surgeon, arose and said as he bowed, holding his hat against his breast, thus avoiding offering me his hand:

"My name is George Suckley, madam. I am one of George Pickett's friends, although, as soldiers, we have been enemies in the field for more than three years. That, however, does not interfere with us when we are not on duty. I have heard that you southern women are very bitter, and I did not know how you, his wife—you are Pickett's wife, are you not, madam?—would take a visit from me, but I came, nevertheless. Knowing and loving George Pickett as I do, I knew he would appreciate my motive in coming."

"Your name is a very familiar one, Dr. [Pg 181]Suckley," I said. "I have often heard the General speak of you, and recall many stories of your adventures—your love for bugs and beetles, for all natural history, in fact." I wished him to know that I remembered him and had not mistaken him for another, and also that I had reason to wonder at seeing him in his present position. "He spoke of your having been with him at Fort Bellingham Bay, and knowing how you felt when he left the old army, he wondered at your remaining and going to the front."

"I am a surgeon in Grant's army," said Dr. Suckley, proudly, ignoring and, by his manner, almost resenting my reference to his former sympathy with the South. "I love Pickett, and came, as he would have come had our positions been reversed, to see his wife and offer her my services."

I thanked this kind-hearted gentleman and distinguished officer, but was too bitter to accept the smallest courtesy at his hands, even in my husband's name and offered for love's sake—so bitter that suffering was preferable to such obligation. He bowed and was going, when I said:

"The war is over, madam. You have my[Pg 182] address, if you should change your mind and will show me how I can serve you."

He bowed and left. He, too, had heard that my Soldier had been killed, and believed it, and I hated him worse because of his belief.

On the evening of the 3d of April I was walking the floor. Baby was asleep and my little brother was trotting behind me, when I heard from the street:

It seemed very strange to me that in the streets of Richmond, his old home, the Capital of the Confederacy, the death of Pickett and the capture of his whole division should be heralded as a "grand victory." How great a change had come in so short a time! Even the newsboys had apparently gone over to the enemy.

"'Tisn't so, sister, 'tisn't so! Don't you believe him!" said my little brother, catching my dress and shaking it. Then running to the window in his excitement, he called out:

"Hush, sir; hush! hush this minute, hallooing your big stories out loud and scaring everybody to death. I'd like to stick those five forks through your old black gizzard, for you haven't got any heart, I know. Ain't you ashamed of yourself, you good-for-nothing old scalawag, you! There ain't a word of truth in brother[Pg 183] George being killed, and you know it, you old thing! I'll go down and smash his mouth for him and kick him to death for scaring you so, my poor sister, 'deed I would; but it isn't so, my sister. You trust in the Lord. I know brother George is not killed, for he said he wouldn't get killed."

"No, it is not so. You are right, my darling. Your brother George is not killed," I said. "Yes, he will come back! he will come back! He said he would, and he will."

Thus I spoke and believed, for my Soldier had never broken a promise. The days came and the days went and the sun rose each morning with an auroral glow of hope in its golden heart. When twilight drifted out from the forest shadows, the sun went down in a sea of crimson fire that burned out my dream of happiness. Then night fell and the world and my heart were wrapped in darkness.

XXI "WHOA, LUCY"

One morning I had mechanically dressed baby George and had taken him to the window to hear the spring sounds and breathe the spring balm and catch the sunshine's dripping gold wreathing the top of the quivering blossoms of the magnolia and tulip-trees.

It was the time when the orchestra of the year is in perfect accord, when all the world is vocal, when the birds sing of love, the buds and blossoms of joy, the grains and grasses of hope and faith, and when each rustle of wind makes a chime of vital resonance.

Through the quiver and curl of leaves and perfume of flowers and soft undertone of dawn-winds came the words, "Whoa, Lucy; whoa, little girl!"

Oh, those tones, those words, that voice thrilled my heart so that I wonder it did not burst from very gladness! Such joy, such gratitude as flooded my soul only the Giver of[Pg 185] all good can know! All the privation and starvation and blood-stains of the past four years, all the woes and trials, griefs and fears, of those last dreadful days were swept away by those blessed, precious-words, "Whoa, Lucy!" spoken in my husband's tender tones to his horse.

I could not wait to go down stairs in the regular way; it was too slow. So I slid down the bannisters with my baby in my arms and ran out upon the porch just as my Soldier came around the rosebushes that Mr. Lincoln had described, and which had just budded out. Baby and I were both in my Soldier's arms almost before Lucy had been given into the hands of the hostler. I do not know how to describe the peace, the bliss of that moment—it is too deep and too sacred to be translated into words. I think that it is akin to the feeling that will come to me in the hereafter, when I have gone through all these dark days of privation and of starvation of heart and soul here, victorious, and at last am safe within the golden gates and, waiting, and listening, shall hear again the voice that said, "Whoa, Lucy!" here, bidding me welcome there as I welcomed him after the perilous waiting.

All through the war Lucy had brought my Soldier to me. Spirited and beautiful, she had[Pg 186] many times carried him twenty miles in an evening to see me, sometimes through dangers greater than battle. Lucy was not his war-horse. She was the little thoroughbred chestnut mare my Soldier always rode when he came to see me. His "peace-saddle," his "love-pony," he called her. Bob, the General's valet, would say, "Dat hoss Lucy she Marse George's co'tin' filly; and you dares'nt projick wid dat hoss, needer, kase Marse George is mos' as 'especkful to her as ef she was sho' 'miff real lady folks." The horse my Soldier used in battle he called "Old Black," a steady, sure-footed, strong, fearless animal that, though obedient to his slightest touch or command, allowed no one else, on peril of death, to mount her.

We had no plans for the future. Our home on the James had been burned at the command of Butler, so we decided to go to my father's plantation on the Chuckatuck, in Nansemond County, Virginia, a difficult thing to do, for the railroads had been torn up and no boats were running. The little town of Chuckatuck was about thirty miles from Norfolk, diagonally opposite Newport News, and after the evacuation of Norfolk by the Southern Army all that part of the country was neutral ground, being occupied one day by Federal troops and another by Confederate. Lying thus between the two[Pg 187] lines, a constant warfare was carried on by the scouts of both armies, making it a dangerous region for travel. I had not been home since my marriage and we knew that the loving welcome which awaited us there had but increased in warmth for the long absence. Nature's great larder, the Chuckatuck Creek, ran but a stone's throw from the back door, supplying with but little labor terrapin, fish, oysters and crabs in abundance.

On the afternoon of the second day after my Soldier's return, while we were trying to plan a way to go, my little brother Johnny came running in, saying:

"Sister, I saw riding by the door just now that same Yankee who came here to see you the other day, and who said he was brother George's friend. He knew me and asked how you were, and how's the baby."

"Oh, I forgot; I must let you know all about it," I said, and told my Soldier of the visitor who had called before he came back. When I had finished his gray eyes filled with tears and looking at the card he said tenderly:

I stooped and took my Soldier's head in both my hands, and raising it up gazed searchingly into his earnest, loving eyes to see how he could[Pg 188] possibly speak so affectionately of a Yankee.

"You, too, have that same kind of 'off-duty' feeling that this Yankee doctor spoke of having," I said with surprise, and rather disrespectfully for me, I am afraid.

"I must find the dear old fellow," my Soldier said, graciously overlooking my smallness of spirit. Excusing himself and taking leave of baby and me, he went out at once. In a little while he returned, saying:

"It is very fortunate for us, little one, that I went out when I did. Suckley goes down the river to-morrow to Norfolk in the surgeon-general's steamer, and he has kindly invited us to go with him, dear old big-hearted bug-catcher! Come, let us lose no time. Let us hurry and get our little traps together and be ready. We will not say anything about our plans to anyone till to-morrow morning, when we can announce our intentions and say our good-byes simultaneously."

Not only had this Yankee officer, in his "off-duty" feeling for my Soldier, kindly volunteered to transport us to our home, but to carry our trunks and horses, in fact, all we had, which, alas! was very, very little. Most of our worldly possessions—all of our bridal presents, linen, library, pictures, silver, furniture, harp, piano, china, everything except a few clothes—had[Pg 189] been stored at Kent, Payne & Company's, and had been burned in the awful fire the night of the evacuation of Richmond.

The General's staff had, one by one, come in during the day from field and camp, and all breakfasted with us for the last time next morning in the old Pickett home. I observed that each wore a blue strip tied like a sash about the waist. It was the old headquarters flag, they explained, the flag of Virginia, saved from surrender and torn into strips by my Soldier to be kept in remembrance. By our door was a rose-bush full of white bloom called, because of its hardihood and early blossoming, the Frost-Rose. It had been planted by my Soldier's mother. He broke off some of the buds, put one in my hair and one in the button-hole of each of his officers. Then for the first time tears came, and the men who had been closer than brothers for four long years clasped hands in silence and parted.

The second social parting was sad, too, for they had taken me, "the child wife," into their lives twenty months before and they all loved me and called me "Sister." Their pride in each other and in their command, the perils that together they had endured, the varied experiences of good times and bad, had bound them together in links stronger than steel.

In spite of the partings, the loss of our cause, our disappointment and poverty, there was a sweet, restful, peaceful feeling of thankfulness in my heart and gratitude because the war was over, my husband had been spared and belonged now only to me; we were going home together, free from intrusion, to live our own lives.

XXII GEORGE JUNIOR'S FIRST GREENBACK

The next morning Dr. Suckley called in his headquarters ambulance to take us to the steamer. Just at the close of breakfast we had announced our intention of going. There was to be a sudden breaking up and severing of old associations. The staff were all en route to their respective homes except the adjutant-general, Major Charles Pickett. He and Mrs. Dr. Burwell, the only brother and sister of my Soldier, were to remain with their families for a time in the old Pickett home.

We said our sad good-bye in the great fruit and flower garden at the rear of the house, and passing all alone through the large parlors and wide halls, crept quietly out and softly closed the door behind us. The only evidence of life in the dear old house as we looked back was Dr. Burwell's big dog which, having escaped from the backyard, howled mournfully within the gates. The blinds and window-shades had[Pg 192] not been opened or raised since the Federal forces had occupied the city.

As we boarded the steamer that morning I realized for the first time that our cause was lost. In all the days of our beautiful married life cheer after cheer had always greeted us wherever we had gone—salute from soldier or sailor, whether on or off duty. This morning these honors were replaced by stares of surprise, of mingled curiosity and hate. Dr. Suckley recognized this feeling at once, and, with a quizzical smile at my caged-tigress expression of rage, put his arm in that of my Soldier, and with a haughty glance at the men, walked boldly on board. I was shown into the surgeon-general's stateroom, in which there were many evidences of thoughtful care for my comfort. We were soon under way.

My Soldier and Dr. Suckley called each other by their given names and laughed and talked as cordially as if they had loved the same dear cause and fought for it side by side. At the table they drank to each other's health and to the friends and memories of olden times. A stranger could not have told which of the two soldiers had furled his banner.

They chatted of Texas, and the great annexation strife which had changed the political complexion of the nation away back in what[Pg 193] seemed to my youthful view a remote antiquity. They talked of Mexico, and my General recalled reminiscences of the battles in which he had fought in that wonderful tropical country. They discussed the wild, free, fresh, novel life of the far-off Pacific Coast, the wealth of the gold-mines of California, its luscious and abundant fruits, and the friends they had known there. They told stories of the great Northwest, that was like a mythologic region to me, of the Chinook Indians, and of the San Juan Island and the English officers who had occupied the island conjointly with my Soldier. I found myself wondering if it had been a dream, and there had been no internecine strife.

Just before reaching City Point, which is a few hours' distance from Richmond, Dr. Suckley came up and told me that we were to stop for General Ingalls, Grant's Quartermaster-General, who wished to come on board to pay his respects, beseeching me, in his sweet gracious way, to be more cordial with him than I had been with another of my Soldier's old friends.

He turned for sympathy to my husband, who looked imploringly at him and at me. Presently my Soldier drew me to one side and whispered:

"Suckley voiced my wishes, my little wife, and I want you to meet my old friend just as [Pg 194]cordially as you can. Put your little hand in his and forget everything except that he is one of your husband's oldest and dearest friends."

I promised with all my heart what he asked, and really intended to keep my word. I loved to do everything he bade me. I liked him to make things hard for me sometimes, that I might show him how sincere and loving my obedience was. But when General Ingalls came on board, was given a salute and received, as became his rank, with the honors the absence of which I had marked when my own General came, I slipped my hand out of my Soldier's and ran back to my stateroom as fast as I could.

There I burst out crying and shook our baby, waking him, and told him how his dear father had been treated—that he had not had any honors paid him at all, and that a dreadful old bad Yankee General had come on board and taken them all, and that when he grew up and was a big man he must fight and fight and fight, and never surrender, and never forgive the Yankees; no, not even if his poor, dethroned father asked him to do so. I told him how his father had asked me to shake hands with this Yankee General, because he was his friend, and that I was going to do it because his father wanted me to; that I tried and could not and that he never must, either—never, never!

I did not know there was a witness to all my bitterness till I heard a smothered chuckle and, looking up, saw my Soldier and his friend, General Rufus Ingalls, standing over me. With a twinkle in his eye, and in a voice full of suppressed laughter, General Ingalls said, as he patted me on the head:

"I don't blame you one bit, little woman—not a damn bit. I should feel just as terrible about it as you do if I were in your place. It's all different with Pickett and me, you see. We don't mind. Why, do you know, child, we have slept under the same blanket, fought under the same flag, eaten out of the same mess-pan, dodged the same bullets, scalped the same Indians, made love to the same girls—aye, Pickett, it won't do, by Jove, to tell her all we have done together—no, no—come, shake hands. I am dreadful sorry we have had this terrible kick-up in the family, and all this row and bloodshed, but we are all Americans, damn it, anyhow, and your fellows have been mighty plucky to hold out as they have. Come, that's a good child; shake hands. May I kiss her, Pickett? No—damn it, I shan't ask you. There, there! Here is a basket of trash I had the orderly rake together. I don't know what it all is, but I told the man to do the best he could. Here, Mr. George junior—with your bright eyes and your[Pg 196] won't-cry mouth—here is a green chip for a pair of red shoes."

General Ingalls put into our baby's hands his first greenback, and it was the only money we had, too—every cent. Baby and I said good-bye, and he and my Soldier went out on deck. While I was peeping into the basket "Mr. George junior" tore the note in two. I caught the pieces and stuck my bonnet-pin through them till I could paste them together. One of the officers brought me some glue, and I cut a hundred-dollar Confederate note in two to mend it with. Poor Confederate money!

[A]Representing nothing in God's earth now,

And naught in the waters below it;

As the pledge of a nation that passed away,

Keep it, dear friend, and show it.

Show it to those who will lend an ear

To a tale this trifle will tell—

Of Liberty born of a patriot's dream,

Of a storm-cradled nation that fell.

Too poor to possess the precious ores,

And too much of a stranger to borrow,

We issued to-day our promise to pay,

And hoped to redeem on the morrow.

[Pg 197]The days rolled on, and weeks became years,

But our coffers were empty still;

Coin was so scarce that the treasury quaked

When a dollar would drop in the till.

But the faith that was in us was strong, indeed,

Though our poverty well we discerned;

And this little check represents the pay

That our suffering veterans earned.

They knew it had hardly a value in gold,

Yet as gold our soldiers received it;

It gazed in our eyes with a promise to pay,

And every true soldier believed it.

But our boys thought little of price or pay,

Or of bills that were overdue—

We knew if it brought us our bread to-day

'Twas the best our poor country could do.

Keep it! It tells all our history over,

From the birth of our dream till its last;

Modest, and born of the angel Hope,

Like our visions of glory, it passed.

Baby's first greenback was put to dry, and then I turned my attention to the big covered basket the sailor had brought in. What an Aladdin treat it was! Raisins—the first I had seen in years and years—coffee, real "sho'-'nuff" coffee—sugar, crushed sugar—how nice! (we had had nothing but sorghum-juice sugar and sweet-potato coffee for so long)—rice and prunes, Jamaica rum, candy and a box of dried[Pg 198] figs—nothing ever had tasted so delicious as all these good things—and, well—the Yankee General who gave them all to me—the tones of his voice made more peace than his words. Eating the figs, I repeated the words to baby, saying:

"Never mind, baby, about hating this Yankee. He said your father and he had trailed after the same Indians and smoked their venison at the same camp-fire and had drunk from the same flask. He said you looked like your father, and he said you were a beautiful boy. So you need not mind about hating just this one. He said geography and politics had forced your father and him to opposite courses and it took four years to settle for their hot-headedness and ambitions. You must never be a politician, and—you may love this one Yankee a tiny bit, and may suck a piece of his beautiful candy."

Dr. Suckley not only took us to Norfolk, which was the end of his route, but he took us up the Nansemond River, thirty miles, and up Chuckatuck Creek, to my father's wharf. No one was expecting us. They thought, of course, it was the "Yankees come again," and had all run off and hidden, except my father who came down to catch the boat-line and welcome the travelers, whoever they might be. Oh, the joyful welcome of my great big-hearted father!

Soldiers and sailors, one and all, came and[Pg 199] shook hands with us. Baby and my little brother, Johnny, had made friends of them all for us. Baby knew no difference between those who wore the blue and those who wore the gray, and some of them had little ones at home. We said good-bye, with many a regret, to our kind friend and benefactor, Dr. Suckley, and to the sailors and officers, and this time cheer after cheer went up for my noble hero Soldier, as the little steamer hauled in the lines and puffed away, and more names were added to the list of Yankees for baby not to hate.

XXIII "SKOOKUM TUM-TUM"

My Soldier did not like to fight his battles over. He said that the memories they revived were too sacred and sorrowful for utterance. The faces of the dead and dying soldiers on the field of battle were never forgotten. The sorrow of widows and orphans shadowed all the glory for him. In the presence of memory he was silent. The deepest sorrow, like the greatest joy, is dumb.

"We are both too worn and weary now for aught else but to rest and comfort each other," he said. "We will lock out of our lives everything but its joys. From adversity, defeat and mourning shall spring calmness for the past, strength for the present, courage for the future. Now that, in obedience to the command of General Lee, I have finished and sent off the report of the last fight of the old division, the closing days of our dear lost cause, we will put up the pen for awhile and lay aside our war[Pg 201] thoughts. We will rest and plan for peace and after a time we will take up the pen again and write down our memories for our children and perhaps for the children of the old division. We will build us a nest over the ashes of our grand old home on the James and plant a new grove in the place of the sturdy old oaks cut down."

My Soldier possessed the greatest capacity for happiness and such dauntless courage and self-control that, to all appearance, he could as cheerfully and buoyantly steer his way over the angry, menacing, tumultuous surges of life as over the waves that glide in tranquil smoothness and sparkle in the sunlight of a calm, clear sky.

This sweet rest which we had planned for ourselves, however, was of but short duration. We had been at my father's home only a few days when a private messenger brought letters of warning from some of my Soldier's old army friends. Two officers high in authority, solicitous for his welfare, advised that in the existing uncertain, incendiary, seditious condition of things he should absent himself for awhile until calm reflection should take the place of wild impulse and time bring healing on its wings and make peace secure. Knowing his fearlessness and stubbornness, General Ingalls and General Tom Pitcher came in person to voice[Pg 202] their apprehensions, lest my Soldier might not heed the warning.

Butler, who had not yet recovered from the "bottling-up" experience, had instigated a movement to have my Soldier indicted for treason, based on the assertion that he had joined the Confederacy before his resignation from the United States Army had been accepted by the War Department. He was at that time on the Pacific coast where information of the secession of Virginia had been received many weeks after the ordinance was passed and many more weeks must elapse before a message could be delivered to the Department in Washington and a reply returned.

The nation had gone mad with grief and rage. The waves of passion rose mountain-high and from the awful storm the angels of justice, mercy and peace took flight. All that was bad in the hearts of men arose to the surface; all that was good sank to the depths. The first person that could be seized was regarded as the proper victim to the national fury. The weakest and most defenseless was made the target of popular wrath because rage could thereby most quickly spend itself in vengeance. Mrs. Surratt was imprisoned, and the whole country was in a state of frenzy and on the verge of revolution.

Strictest secrecy was enjoined upon us. Only my father and mother were taken into our confidence. Lucy was bridled, saddled and brought to the door. I walked with my Soldier, he holding the bridle, to the upper gate. It was ten o'clock; the moon was shining brightly and all was quiet and still.

My Soldier's plan for me was that I should go next day to Norfolk, take the steamer to Baltimore and visit his aunt, whose husband, Colonel Symington, had been in the old army, and who had not left it to join the Southern Confederacy, though his sons had fought on that side, one of them having been detailed on duty at my Soldier's headquarters.

"My aunt will welcome you," he said, "and you will remain with her until a telegram shall come to you saying, 'Edwards is better.'" (Edwards was my Soldier's middle name.)

That telegram would mean that he was safe and that I was to join him, starting on the next train. I was to telegraph to "Edwards" from Albany, on my way to him, sending my message to the place at which his telegram had been dated. If his telegram should say, "There is still danger of contagion," I was not to start, but remain with his aunt until another message should come.

"Cheer up, the shadows will scatter soon.[Pg 204] Already bright visions and happy day-dreams flit through my brain and thrill my heart; so keep up a 'skookum tum-tum,' little one, and take care of yourself. Watch for the telegram, 'Edwards is better,' for it will surely come."

I smiled up at him as he repeated the familiar old saying, learned from an old Chinook warrior on the Pacific. In the darkest days he would lift my face upward, look down with his kind eyes and gentle smile and say, "Keep up a skookum tum-tum, dear one." All through my life have the sweet old words come back to me when the sun has been hidden by the darkest clouds.

I heard the footsteps of the horse keeping time to my Soldier's whistle, "Believe me if all those endearing young charms," away in the distance long after he was out of sight. I remembered a trick of my childhood which had been taught me by a half-Indian, half-negress and, putting my ear to the ground, I listened to the steps until the last echo was lost. Later I learned that the faithful Lucy bore her master safely to the station and when the train carried him away lay down and died, as if she felt that, having done all she could, life held for her no more duties or pleasures.

The night-wind sighed with me as I walked back, repeating, "Keep up a skookum tum-tum."[Pg 205] My pathway lay parallel with the Chuckatuck Creek, a stone's throw to the left. The tide was high and still coming in. The surging of the waves seemed to call out to me, "Skookum tum-tum! Skookum tum-tum!" I could not be all desolate when the most beautiful forces of nature, echoing his words, called to me, "Keep up a brave heart—brave heart!"

My precious old father had waited to have us say good-bye alone and was now coming forward to meet me. Our baby awakened just as we reached home and I confided to him the secret of the telegram and told him his dear father said that it would surely come and he always said what was true.

The stars were burning brightly in the midnight sky to light the traveler on his way as he went afar off. Could there be light on the pathway that led him from me? Had his face been turned southward, with his eyes fixed joyfully upon the loved home where he would be welcomed when the journey was over, what radiant glory would have flooded the way.

Far up in the zenith I could see "our star" gleaming brilliantly, seeming to reach out fingers of light to touch me in loving caress. It was a pure white star that sent down a veil of silvery radiance. Near it was a red star, gleaming and beautiful, but I did not love it. It[Pg 206] seemed to glow with the baleful fires of war. My great, loving, tender, white star was like a symbol of peace looking down with serenest benediction.

"Our star," he had said as we stood together only one little evening before—how long it seemed!—and gazed upward to find what comfort we might in its soft glow. "Wherever we may be we will look aloft into the night sky where it shines with steady light, and feel that our thoughts and hearts are together."

There were no steamers and no railroads from my home to Norfolk, but my father secured a pungy—a little oyster-boat—and the following day we—baby and I—started off.

A storm came up just as we left Chuckatuck Creek and we were delayed in arriving at Norfolk. We had hoped to be there some hours before the departure of the Baltimore steamer, but reached the wharf as the plank was about to be taken in, so that my father barely had time to say good-bye to me and put me on board.

XXIV CARPET-BAG, BASKET AND BABY

Alone, except for baby George, for the first time in all my seventeen years! Perhaps no timid little waif thrown out upon the deep sea of life ever felt more utterly desolate.

I stepped on board the Baltimore steamer and was piloted into the saloon by a porter whose manner showed that he was perfectly cognizant of my ignorance and inexperience. In the midst of my loneliness and the consciousness of my awkwardness and my real sorrows, sympathy for myself revived my old-time compassion for poor David Copperfield, whom Steerforth's servant had caused to feel so "young and green."

So little did I know of traveling and the modes and manners of travelers, that I sent for the captain of the steamer to buy my ticket and arrange for my stateroom and supper.

I had been warned on leaving my home that the slightest imprudence or careless word from[Pg 208] me might cause my arrest, and that if it were known who I was it was more than possible that I might be held as hostage for my husband. After consideration it had been decided that I should travel under my maiden name. My train of thought was interrupted by the ringing of a bell and a loud voice shouting:

"Passengers will please walk into the custom-house office and show their passports!"

The laws were so strict that no one could leave any city in the South without a passport from the military authorities. My grandmother had given me her "oath of allegiance," which everybody in those dread days immediately after the surrender of the army was compelled to take in order to purchase medicine, food or clothing of any kind, or for the transaction of any business whatever. It was a rare occurrence that a man was found who would take this iron-clad oath for, no matter how great the exigency might be, he was branded as a traitor if he yielded. So the women, who were most bitter, too, in their feelings, were obliged to make a sacrifice of their convictions and principles, and take this oath in order to alleviate the suffering of their loved ones. Illness in the family and the urgent necessity for quinine and salt left my unselfish little grandmother no alternative, and she found a kind of safety in the[Pg 209] oath. It had brought her relief and she wanted that I should have it with me as a "mascot" or safeguard.

With carpet-bag, basket and baby I started into the custom-house office and explained to the officer in charge:

"I am very sorry, sir, that I have no passport. The steamer was about to sail as I reached Norfolk. I came from a little village thirty miles beyond where passports are not given. I have an oath of allegiance, if that will answer in its place."

"No; never mind. It is all right; only register your name. I remember you did come on board just as the whistle blew; but was there not another passenger who came on with you—a gentleman?"

"Yes, sir," I replied. "It was my precious father, and he went back home in the little sailboat."

There must have been something to excite suspicion in the way I wrote my name or in my manner. I boldly wrote out my given name and then, as I began to write my last name, I looked all around me, confused, and changed the letter "P" to "C," writing "Corbell." Then I began to erase "Corbell" and write "Phillips," the name in my oath of allegiance. While there was[Pg 210] nothing very false in what I did, I felt guilty and was frightened, for I had been brought up to be strictly truthful.

I had not been long in the saloon when baby became restless and fretful. I was impatiently awaiting the coming of the captain, for whom I had sent, when a man appeared. He had short curly hair, deep, heavy eyebrows, eyes sunken and close together as if they had to be focused by his big, hooked nose to enable them to see. He was chewing alternately one end of his crinkly moustache and one side of his thick red lip and was making a sucking noise with his tongue as he said:

"I want you to be kind enough to get my ticket and stateroom, please," I replied. "My father had only time to put me on board and could not make any arrangements."

"Oh, no; never. I have been nowhere outside of Virginia and North Carolina. Most of my traveling before my marriage was in going to[Pg 211] and from Lynchburg, where I was at school.

"Once I rode on horseback to the Peaks of Otter, which are among the highest mountains of the South. You can't imagine how glorious it was to be up there so far away from the earth. When I first looked down from their lofty heights the sky and the earth seemed to be touching, and presently the rain began to pour. I could see the glimmering, glittering drops, but could not hear them fall. I was above the clouds and the rain, up in the sunshine and stillness, the only audible sound being a strange flapping of wings as the hawks and buzzards flew by. Suddenly the rain ceased, the haze vanished and I saw below the rugged mountains the level country that looked like a vast ocean in the distance.

"The words of John Randolph echoed in my heart with this infinite mystery of nature. He with only a servant spent the night on those mighty rocks and in the morning as he was watching the glory of the sunrise he pointed upward with his long slender hand and, having no one else to whom to express his thought, charged his servant never from that time to believe anyone who said there was no God.

"'No, sah, Marse John; no sah,' said the awe-stricken servant. 'I ain't gwine to, sah. I ain't gwine to let none of Marse Thomas [Pg 212]Didymuses' temptatious bedoutin' tricks cotch no holt of my understands of de Lord.'

"You have relatives in Baltimore?" said the gentleman, abruptly interrupting me; otherwise, feeling that geography and history were safe subjects, I should have rattled on till I had told him all I knew.

"I came from a little country village about thirty miles from Norfolk—Chuckatuck, in Nansemond County."

As I was about to launch another tide of historic information upon him he again interrupted me.

"I saw your father as he was leaving the steamer. I was attracted to him because he made an appeal to all Masons, asking of them protection and care for his child and grandchild. He was thus making himself known to any of us, his brothers, who might be aboard when he disappeared at the turn of the boat. So you can safely confide in me, and I will help you in any way possible."

"Thank you," I replied. "I know my dear, dear papa is a Mason, and that he was anxious about me, but there is nothing to confide[Pg 213]—nothing. I want only a stateroom and my tickets and some milk for the baby. I do not wish for any supper myself; I am too lonesome to eat. It is wicked to feel blue and downhearted, with baby and all the kind friends to watch over me, as you say; and then God is always near."

A fear came into my heart that I was talking too much. I did not want him to know anything concerning my husband, whose rank it was especially important to keep secret. I encouraged myself with the reflection that the end justified the means, even though a slight deviation from the truth might be involved, and said:

"You could not have heard of him, and he was not of sufficient rank to have made an impression upon you if you had."

Then he talked of how much the Southerners had lost and how much they had to forgive; how easy it was to bear victory and how hard[Pg 214] to endure defeat, saying that if he had been born in the South he would have been a rebel, and that his sympathies even now were with the Southern people. A sudden suspicion came to me and I said:

"I wish there had never been any rebels at all; not even the first rebel, George Washington; and now, sir, please, I do not want to talk about the war. I am very weary and sleepy and would like to retire. If you please, sir, will you get me my stateroom and ticket? I am so tired—so very tired."

Baby was lying asleep on my lap, hypnotized by the chandeliers. The man looked down on him for a moment and then said, "Of course, I will get them for you," and was going, when an ex-Confederate officer, one of my Soldier's old comrades and friends, came up and, cordially extending his hand, greeted me:

"How do you do, Mrs. Pickett? Where is the General? What are you doing here, and where are you going?"

He himself was returning to his home in the far South, but had been called back to Baltimore on business.

"Thank you, General," I replied. "My husband has gone to farming and I am on my way to visit his aunt, whom I have never seen. He is to come to us after a little while; could not[Pg 215] leave conveniently just now. He is very well, I thank you."

"I am so glad to have met you," he returned. "Will see you later on," and was hobbling away on his crutches. He saw by my manner that he had said something to embarrass me and left with a pained look. He was still dressed in his old Confederate gray, from which the brass buttons had all been cut, in obedience to the order from the custom-house office, and replaced by plain steel. For several moments not a word was spoken. Then I looked up and said:

"I thought you said your name was Corbell," he of the hooked nose rejoined as he held my money shaking in his hand. "I thought you said your husband's rank was not sufficient to have made an impression; that in all probability I had never heard of him."

Oh, that smacking sound of jaw and tongue, and that beak of a nose, and those little black eyes which grew into Siamese twins as they glared at me like the eyes of a snake!

"Did I say that?" I asked and, with a face all honesty and truth, I looked straight into those eyes and told, without blushing, without a tremor in my voice, the first deliberate falsehood I had ever told:

"Did I say so? Well, my friends think that[Pg 216] my mind has been unbalanced by the way the war has ended and they are sending me from home to new scenes and associations to divert me, with the hope of making me well and strong again. Corbell was my maiden name, but I do not know how I happened to say that my husband's rank was low, for I was so proud of it; I could not have been thinking. Will you please be so good as to get my ticket? I am so tired I don't know what I am saying."

He went away, and the stateroom keys were brought to me by a waitress who unlocked the door for me, and I went in, too frightened now to think of supper, too frightened to sleep, and wondering if, in my imprudence, I had hurt my husband and what would happen if I had.

All night long the noise of the wheel was to me the sound of the executioner's axe. All night long it rose and fell through seas of blood—the heart's blood of valiant men, of devoted women, of innocent little children. Near morning I fell asleep and dreamed that it was I who had destroyed all the world of people whose life-blood surged around me with a maddening roar, and that I was destined to an eternity of remorse.

When I awoke the boat had landed. Dressing hurriedly I went to the door and found that it was locked on the outside. As the [Pg 217]chambermaid did not answer my repeated call, I beckoned to a sailor passing my window and asked him to tell her that I was locked in and wished that she would come and let me out. When she came she told me that she was not permitted to open the door. I asked if we were not at Baltimore and an officer who was with the maid answered that we were, but that I was to be detained until the authorities should come and either release or imprison me, as I was supposed to be a suspicious character.

On a slip of paper I wrote—"A Master Mason's wife and daughter in distress demands in their name that you will come to her," and gave it to the chambermaid, asking her to take it to the captain. As she hesitated the officer said, "You might as well."

She went and while I was trying to hush the baby a voice as kind and gentle as the benevolent face into which I looked, said:

"No, sir," I replied, "I sent for the captain of the boat, but I am glad you came; you seem so kind and may help me in my trouble."

"You are not the gentleman who represented himself as the captain of the boat last night,[Pg 218] sir, and bought for me my ticket. He was short and dark——"

The gentleman interrupted me, saying that the pseudo captain was a Federal detective who had advised that I be detained on the steamer until his return with the authorities and warrant.

"Your father did make that sign and placed you in our care. Come, I am captain of this steamer, and a captain is king in his own boat. Where did you say you wish to go! Stand aside," he said to the officer in charge.

Giving me his arm, he placed me and baby, carpet-bag and basket, in a carriage and the driver was told to go to 97 Brenton Street.

After driving some time, the Irishman impatiently told me there was no street by that name and I would have to get out, but not until I had paid him for the time he had been hunting for 97 Brenton Street.

I did not know enough to go to a drug store and consult a directory. I was at my wits' end, if I had ever had any wits.

"Drive me back to the captain of the boat, please," I said. "I don't know what else to do."

When I went on board the captain was not yet gone, which was an unusual thing. He had waited to see the officers before leaving. I answered the smile that came into his face, in spite of his kind heart, by handing him the letter of my aunt who wrote a hand that was not only peculiar but illegible.

"Read, captain, and see if this is not Brenton Street, the place to which my aunt has written me I must come."

"'Go to 97 Brenton Street, where my niece, Mrs. C——, will bring you to my house,'" he read. "It might be anything else as well as Brenton," he said. "It looks like Brenton, but I have lived here all my life and have never heard of such a street. I will get my directory and look. No; but it may be Preston; let's look; but there are no C——s living there. You might try this house, at any rate, 97 Preston Street, and if you do not find your friends, come to the number on this card, where my wife and I will be happy to have you as our guest, you and the little lost bird, till you can write to your friends and find out where they want you to come."

Off again I started and arrived at 97 Preston Street. I wrote on my card and sent it in:

In a moment there were two or three faces at the windows, and in another moment as many voices at the carriage door asking, "Is this George Pickett's wife and child?" and I was thankful to be once more where they knew George Pickett's wife and child.

Besides the lovely people whose home it was, there was with them, on her way to visit her mother, Mrs. General Boggs, one of the most charming women I ever met. She had just returned from the South. Her husband was in the Confederate Army. The next day we both went out to the home of her mother, my Soldier's aunt, Mrs. Symington.

XXV "EDWARDS IS BETTER"

The week I spent in Hartford County, Maryland, reminded me of my childhood, when I used to play that I was a "Princess" or a "Beggar," or "Morgiana of the Forty Thieves," or "The White Cat," or whatever character it would please me to select to play, for my heart and soul were separated from my body. I was not what I pretended to be. My body went to parties and receptions and dinners, and received people and drove and paid calls, while my soul waited with intense longing for the telegram, "Edwards is better."

One day I had been out to dine and, coming home, found awaiting me the message for which eyes and heart had been looking through a time that seemed almost eternal.

That night I took the train for New York, starting out all alone again, baby and I. I was tired and sleepy, but there was such joy in my heart as I thought of soon seeing my Soldier[Pg 222] that I did not think of my discomforts. I repeated the telegram, "Edwards is better, Edwards is better," over and over again. I sang it as a lullaby, putting baby to sleep to the measure of the happy words, "Edwards is better." Only for us was that sweet refrain. When he slept I leaned back and closed my eyes and saw a world of beauty and bloom as the glad words went dancing through my heart. Was there ever so sweet a slumber-song since babies were invented to awaken the deepest melody of mother-hearts! I went to sleep with my little one in my arms. I had not money enough to get a berth—just barely enough to buy my ticket and pay my expenses through to Montreal, Canada, at which point the telegram was dated.

When I awakened later I found that a home-spun shawl had been placed under my head. I never thought about who had been so kind, nor why the shawl was there. All my life long everyone had been thoughtful of me; things had been done for me, courtesies had been extended to me, and I had learned to accept kindnesses as only what I had a right to expect from the human race. Murmuring softly the comforting words, "Edwards is better," I turned my face over and went to sleep again on the shawl and did not awaken until my baby became restless.

We took the steamer up the Hudson from New York to Albany. My poor little baby was not well and I censured myself for having allowed him to catch cold on the train while I was sleeping. He was teething, and was very fretful. He had been used to his nurse, his black mammy, and missed her customary care and attention and was tired of me, preferring anybody else. Some philanthropic ladies on board the steamer seemed very much concerned, and at a loss to understand why he was so unhappy with me, not knowing that he was accustomed to a circle of admiring friends to whom he might appeal in turn.

"Nurse, why do you not take the child to its mother?" one would say, and a look of incredulity would follow my assertion that I was its mother. "Then, why don't you quiet the child, if you are, and find out what is the matter with it?" and so on.

I was indignant and my manner must have made them think there was something wrong with me and the child, for they followed me about, asking intrusive questions and making offensive remarks. I was walking the deck, trying to quiet him, all tired and worn out as I was, when a gentleman came up to me. On his shoulder I recognized the shawl that had been put under my head on the cars the night before. He said:

"Madam, excuse me, but I do not think you have had any dinner, and you must be worn out with hunger and fatigue from fasting and carrying the baby. Won't you let me hold him while you go down and eat something?"

Even though he carried the shawl which bespoke my faith, I was afraid to trust him with so precious a treasure, and would rather have starved than have permitted my baby to go out of my sight.

"Thank you, very much, but I could not think of troubling you," I said. "No—oh, no."

I was hungry, and was glad for the open way he had found for me, and said, "Yes," handing him twenty-five cents. It was all I could afford to pay for dinner, but as I looked at the tray when it was brought to me, I thought, "How cheap things must be in New York," for there were soup and fish—a kind of yellow fish I had never seen before, salmon, I afterward learned it was—stewed with green peas, a bird, asparagus, potatoes, ice-cream, a cup of coffee and a glass of sherry.

Upon his insisting that it would be restful to the baby, I let him hold little George while I ate my dinner. I had not known how hungry I was, nor how much I was in need of [Pg 225]nourishment. Baby immediately became quiet in his arms. Whether it was due to the change or not, I do not know, but in a little while he was fast asleep. I covered him up with the shawl to which the gentleman pointed, finished eating my delicious dinner, taking my time and enjoying it, while he read his book and held my baby. When the servant came and took away the tray, I arose and, thanking the stranger for his kindness, said:

"If you would rather," he said, "yes, but I think he will be more comfortable with me for awhile. Then, too, you might waken him if you moved him. Let me hold him while you rest. Here is a sweet little book, if you would like to read it. I think, however, it would be better for you to rest; to sleep, if you could. You look really fagged out."

The book he gave me was a child's book—it may have been "Fern Leaves." I can't remember the name, but pasted in the book was a letter written in a child's irregular hand:

For my dear darly popsy who is gon to fite the war fum his little darly dorter little mary

Dear popsy don kill the por yangees and don let the yangees kill you my poor popsy little mary

Dear popsy com back soon to me an mama an[Pg 226] grandad thats all. I says your prayers popsy evry day fum little mary

I rested, but thought of little Mary as I watched my own baby who was sleeping so sweetly in this childless stranger's arms—till presently the waves brought back to me the days of my childhood—the story of the sailor with his stolen mill, grinding out salt, forever and forever, and the lost talisman lost still—back to my grandmother's knee, listening with wonder-eyes to "Why the sea is salt," the while my soul chanted to music those all-healing, blissful words, "Edwards is better," gaining strength for the o'erhanging trial I least dreamed of—and the shadows rose to make place for one darker still.

XXVI ONE WOMAN REDEEMED THEM ALL

On the train from Albany my attention was attracted by a man in close conversation with the conductor. I was evidently the subject of discussion, for they would look carefully over the paper they held and then at me as if comparing me with something therein described. Had I been a hardened criminal they would probably not have taken the risk of thus warning me of the fact that I was under suspicion. As my appearance would seem to indicate that, if a law-breaker, I was a mere tyro in crime, they supposed they could safely take notes of me. I was absolutely sure that they were talking of me and trembled with a presentiment of coming evil. I tried to turn my face to the window but my eyes were fascinated. A thousand preposterous fears passed in review before my mind, though the real one never suggested itself. I endeavored to dispel them each in turn, arguing that the scrutiny of the men[Pg 228] foreboded nothing, because I seemed an object of curiosity to everybody and, recalling my appearance, I do not wonder.

My dress was different from that of those around me, though I was unconscious of any defect in my apparel, being garmented in my very best, the traveling gown in which I had been married, and which had been bought and made under great difficulties and kept afterward with scrupulous care. So I was perfectly well satisfied with myself.

I wore a long, loose-fitting black silk mantilla with three ruffles at the bottom, while those around me were dressed in tight-fitting, short cloth jackets. My gray straw bonnet, sewed into poke shape by our fashionable village milliner, extended far over the face, its wreath of pink moss-rosebuds inside tangled in with my dark brown hair. It was trimmed on the outside with several clusters and bunches of hand-made grapes of a lighter shade of gray. My collar was about five inches wide and pinned in front with a cameo breastpin. The prevailing collar worn by the world around me was linen, very narrow, only an edge showing, and small jaunty hats, worn back on the head, were the style.

The conductor seemed to be arguing with the strange man as I caught his eye. Just then my baby sprang forward and snatched a newspaper[Pg 229] that an old gentleman in front of me was reading, and shrieked when it was loosened from his grasp, the old gentleman looking daggers in answer to my apology. After this diversion I found that the two men were gone, for which I thanked Heaven.

I had just settled back, a little unnerved and weak, when from behind me came a touch on my shoulder and, turning around, I saw the strange man and the conductor. The former said, "I have a warrant for your arrest, Madam," and forthwith served it upon me.

There on the cars, all alone, miles away from home and friends, two dollars and ten cents all my little store, I was arrested for—stealing! Stealing my own child! I could not read the warrant as it trembled in my hands—I had never before seen or heard of one. Baby thought it was a compromise for the old gentleman's paper, and it was with difficulty rescued from his little clenched hands, after being torn in the struggle.

"This baby! This baby, sir? It is mine—mine—it is named after its father—it is mine and I can prove it by everybody in the world, and——"

"Well, well," said the conductor kindly, his[Pg 230] voice trembling, "that's all he wants, lady. You will be detained, probably, only till the next train."

"But I must go on," I said, "for my husband is looking for me and I could not bear to stay away another minute longer than the time at which he expects me. Please, everybody, help me."

My fright had attracted attention, and some stared, some were too refined even to look toward me; others merely glanced over their glasses or looked up from their books and went on reading. Some kept their faces carefully turned toward the landscape; a few, just as heartless and more vulgar, gathered around me in open-mouthed curiosity.

One woman's good heart, thank God, redeemed them all. She came forward, her tender blue eyes moist with sympathy, her black crêpe veil thrown back from her lovely face and her waving hair with the silver threads all too soon among the gold, and said in a voice so sweet that it might have come from the hearts of the lilies-of-the-valley that she wore bunched at her swan-white throat:

Simultaneously with her, the gentleman of the home-spun shawl came from I don't know where[Pg 231] and asked, too, to see the paper and both got off the train with me.

I was so weak that I could not hold my baby, for all at once there came over me the sense of my utter helplessness to prove that my child was my own. There was no one to whom I could telegraph without revealing my identity and the purpose of my journey. A telegram to my friends at home would alarm them and might betray me. A message to my Soldier would jeopardize his safety, for he would surely come to me at once.

"Look, look!" I said to the magistrate and officers when they read aloud the suspicions and accusation of the philanthropic ladies who were with me on board the Albany steamer and who, in their zeal to secure a right and correct a wrong, ignorant of the cause of my child's discomfort and unhappiness with me and the reasons for my rather suspicious reticence, had caused my arrest.

Thus do the pure and holy ever keep guard over the sins of the world and throw the cable-cord of justice around the unregenerate to drag them perforce into the path of rectitude. May they reap the reward to which their virtues entitle them.

"Look at his eyes and look at mine," I exclaimed, holding his little face up against my[Pg 232] own. "Can't you all see that it is my child?"

"That may be, but give us the name of some one to whom we may telegraph—some tangible proof. If he is your own there must be some one who knows you and can testify in your behalf."

"No, no," I said, "there is no one. I have nobody to help me, and if God does not show you all some way and your own hearts do not convince you I don't know what I shall do."

My poor little, half-starved, in-litigation baby refused to be comforted. The kind gentleman with the shawl could amuse him no longer. He had dashed from him the keys and pushed the watch from his ear and demanded impatiently the right of sustenance. The dear, good woman beside me, with the smile of the redeemed and a look of relief lighting up her face, touched mine, whispering in my ear while I held the baby's hands to prevent him in his impatience from tearing apart my mantle and untying my bonnet-strings:

She stood up, leaning on her cane, for she was slightly lame, and said in a voice clear and sweet:

"Gentlemen, I have a witness"—my heart [Pg 233]almost stood still—"here, in the child who cannot speak. It is not always a proof of motherhood, but with the circumstantial evidence and the youth of this mother, this beyond peradventure is proof convincing. The child is still nourished from her own body," and she opened my mantle.

I, who had never nursed my baby in the presence of even my most intimate friends, bared my bosom before all those strange men and women and nursed him as proof that I was his mother, while tears of gratitude to the sweet friend and to God flowed down my cheeks and dropped onto baby's face as he wonderingly looked up, trying to gather up the tears with his little dimpled fingers and thankfully enjoying the proof. The men turned aside and tears flowed down more than one rugged face. The kind stranger with the shawl lifted his eyes heavenward as if in thanksgiving, and then turned them earthward and breathed a bitter curse, deep and heartfelt. Perhaps the recording angel jotted down the curse on the credit side of the ledger with as great alacrity as he registered there the prayer of thanks.

I trust that the philanthropic ladies, when the facts were placed before them, were as surely convinced as all these people were that I had not stolen my child. I hope they were[Pg 234] pleased by this indication that some degree of innocence existed in the world, outside of their own virtuous hearts, but—I don't know.

"Take thy fledgling, poor mother dove, under thy trembling wings, back to its nest and the father bird's care. I shall go a few miles further where I stop to see my baby," said my new friend. "This little boy who brought me back to life is older than yours. He is the child of my only son, whose young life ebbed out on the battlefield of Gettysburg, and whose sweet spirit has joined that of his noble father, my husband, which in his first battle was freed. This baby blesses our lives—the young mother's and the old mother's."

The cars were crowded with soldiers returning home, disbanded soldiers, soldiers on furlough, and released prisoners, with pale, cadaverous, unshaven faces and long, unkempt hair. One from Andersonville, more ragged and emaciated than the others, was selling his pictures and describing the horrors of his prison life and, as he told of his sufferings and torture amid groans of sympathy, maledictions and curses were hurled against my people. Once his long, bony arm and hand seemed to be stretched menacingly toward me as he drew the picture of "the martyred Lincoln, whose blood cries out for vengeance. We follow his hearse;[Pg 235] let us swear hatred to these people against whom he warred and, as the cannon beats the hours with solemn progression, renew with each note unappeasable hatred."

I crouched back in my seat, almost holding my breath as I pressed my baby to my wildly throbbing heart. The train stopped and the sweet new friend touched my brow with her lips, leaving the kiss and a prayer, put the lilies into my hand and was gone. The cars moved on and there was a great void in my heart as I thought of my God-given friend, so lately found, so swiftly lost.

All this was half a century ago, but one of the lilies yet lies in my prayer-book, glorifying with the halo of a precious memory the page on which it rests.

A man, not a soldier I think, for brave soldiers are magnanimous and generous always, stood up in a seat opposite mine and said:

"When I think of the horrors of Libby and Andersonville and look at these poor sufferers I not only want to invoke the vengeance of a just God but I want to take a hand in it myself. Quarter should be shown to none; every man, woman and child of this accursed Southern race should be bound to their own slaves for a specified length of time, that they, too, might know the curse of serfdom. Their lands should be[Pg 236] confiscated and given to those whom they have so long and so cruelly wronged."

As he in detail related the story of the scanty allowance of the prisoners, the filth and darkness of their cells, I longed to stand and plead for my people, and tell how they, too, were without soap, food or clothes; that we had no medicines, even, except what were smuggled through the lines, and that our own poor soldiers were barefooted and starving, and that all the suffering of prisoners on both sides could have been avoided by carrying out the terms proposed by the Confederate Government. If I had only dared to raise the veil and reveal the truth perhaps sympathy might have tempered their bitterness, the flame of divine kinship smouldering in their veins, hidden as in a tomb, might have miraged over the gulf of wrongs a bridge of holier feelings.

Yet the memory of the woman whose son had been killed on the field of Gettysburg and whose lily, now browned and withered with the years, I cherish with such tender care, softened the words that were like blows to my ear and heart. Thus the power of one pure heart radiating its love upon the world as an odorous flower diffuses fragrance on the surrounding atmosphere, uplifts the sorrowing spirit and strengthens it to withstand the rude assaults of a vindictive world.

XXVII A FAMILIAR FACE

I had no stateroom in the Lake Champlain steamer, and my little sick baby and its poor tired mother were very thankful when, after the long, dreary night, they welcomed the dawn of day which counted them many miles nearer to their Mecca.

I have forgotten the name of the place from which we took the train for Montreal after leaving the steamer, but I remember a fact of more consequence concerning it—that it was the wrong place.

On reaching the Canada side the passengers were summoned to the custom-house office to have their baggage examined, and I, with my carpet-bag, basket and baby, followed my fellow travelers. When my turn came I handed the officer my keys and checks, which, after a glance, he gave back to me, saying with haste and indifference, as if it might have been the most trivial of matters:

"Your luggage has been left on the States side. Your checks were not exchanged."

Taking the wrong train at the wrong point put me into Montreal later than I was expected, but I religiously followed instructions to remain on the train which stopped over at Montreal, until I should be claimed, like a general delivery letter.

Every passenger had left the coach, and baby and I were alone. I was waiting and watching breathlessly for my claimant, when my hungry eyes caught sight of three gentlemen coming straight toward me. It was with but a languid interest that I regarded them, for I had preconceived convictions as to the appearance of the one who should assert proprietary rights over me, and none of these newcomers seemed at first glance adapted to respond to those convictions. The face of one seemed rather familiar, but I was not sure, so I drew my little baby closer to me and looked the other way. I felt them coming, and felt them stop by my side.

There were tears in the eyes of the gentleman whose face had seemed familiar, and the next minute baby and I were in his great strong arms, and his tender voice was reproachfully asking:

I was looking for my Soldier as I had been used to seeing him—dressed in the dear old Confederate uniform, and with his hair long and curling. The beautiful hair had been trimmed, and while he was not subject to the limitations of Samson in the matter of personal strength, a critical observer might have detected variations in personal beauty. An English civilian suit of rough brown cloth had replaced the old Confederate gray.

The two gentlemen with him were Mr. Corse, a banker, a brother of one of my Soldier's brigadiers, and Mr. Symington, of Baltimore, a refugee. I noticed that these gentlemen called my Soldier "Mr. Edwards" and me "Mrs. Edwards," which made me feel somewhat strange and unnatural. I may have reflected that I was in a foreign country, and very far north of our old home, and perhaps even people's names were affected by political and climatic conditions.

I had expected my Soldier to take us to a quiet little room in some unpretentious boarding-house, but was too tired to express my surprise when we were driven in a handsome carriage to a palatial home, with beautiful grounds, fountain and flowers. A big English butler with side-whiskers opened the large carved doors,[Pg 240] and a pretty girl in a cap took baby from my arms.

After that I remember only being tired—so tired—so very tired. When I had rested enough to think again, I was on a sofa dressed in a pretty, soft, silken robe, and I heard a kind voice saying:

Glancing up, I saw a benevolent-looking old gentleman and a pair of spectacles. I closed my eyes and heard the gentleman with the familiar face say such beautiful things, and his voice and touch thrilled my heart so that I kept my eyes shut and never wanted to open them again; and presently the pretty girl with the cap on came in with baby in her arms, dressed in a beautiful robe.

"Ze petite enfant—very much no hungry now—he eat très pap—he sleep—he wash—he dress—he eat très much. He no hungry; he eat some more très much again. He smile; he now no very much hungry again some more."

Was I in the land of fairies, and was the gentleman with the familiar face the prince of fairies, as he was the prince of lovers? Our baby's outstretched arms and cry for me as he recognized me dispelled any such delusion, but I was too tired to hold out my hands to him.[Pg 241] I soon felt his little face, however, nestling close against my own, and felt, too, the touch of yet another face, and heard the same voice which had made my heart thrill with bliss whisper again more things like unto those other things it had whispered, but I was too tired and too happy to speak, and my blessings seemed too sacred to open my eyes upon, so I kept them closed. When the old English physician came in the next day he said:

"Ah, ha! Ah, ha! The lady is most well. Keep on feeding her and sleeping her. She is half-starved, poor lady, and half-dazed, too, by sleeplessness. Ah, ha! Ah, ha! Poor lady! That will do—feed her and sleep her; feed her and sleep her. Ah, ha! Ah, ha! that's all."

When the old doctor was gone I remember listening for the tread of the sentinel outside—confusing the "ah, ha! ah, ha!" with the tramp, tramp, tramp—and as I asked, the question brought back the memory that the war was over, the guns were stacked, the camp was broken, and my Soldier of the sweet face was all my very own. I looked around inquiringly and up into the familiar face for answer, and he, my Soldier, a General no longer, explained our pleasant surroundings. His old friends, Mr. and Mrs. James Hutton, he said, had been suddenly summoned to England, and had prayed[Pg 242] him, as a great favor to them, to be their guest until their return, as otherwise the delay to make the necessary arrangements for their going would prevent their catching the first steamer. Thus we had a beautiful home in which to rest, to grow well and strong, to forget all that could be forgotten of the past, and to enjoy the present.

While in Canada we received letters telling us of the troubles that had come upon our people after the close of the war, but the saddest news was of the suffering of Mr. Davis for whole generations of national mistakes. Captain Bright, who had served on my Soldier's staff, wrote that, through his kinsman, the surgeon in charge of Fortress Monroe, he had been permitted to see Mr. Davis.

He arrived at the Fortress on the morning that the fetters had been removed from the ankles of the feeble old man by order of the physician, because they endangered the life of one so ill and weak, and was told by the surgeon that the only way for him to see Mr. Davis was to accompany the surgeon on his rounds, when he could see all the patients, the ex-President among the rest.

The captain followed the surgeon until he came to the imprisoned chief. The face of Mr. Davis was turned from the door and the visitor[Pg 243] stood for a moment silently observing the great change in the man whom he had last seen as the President of the Confederacy. Then he stepped forward and laid his hand on the arm of Mr. Davis.

The hand of the prisoner closed warmly over the one lying upon his arm. "He looked into my face as if a miracle had been performed," wrote Captain Bright.

"My own! One of my own again!" said Mr. Davis, in that musical voice that held a note of heart-break always after the fall of the Confederacy—a cadence which deepened and saddened his melodious tones until they were merged into the perfect symphony of the greater life.

In his loneliness he had so yearned for some one who had belonged to him—some one who had taken part with him in that short-lived, tragic dream-nation for which the South had given her blood and treasure—that his heart leaped up to meet the sympathy of the tender, reverent voice.

The surgeon came up to make his morning examination. At sight of him the light in the[Pg 244] sad face died away and the look of helpless suffering returned. Having finished his work the surgeon said:

"And is this all?" asked Mr. Davis, as his visitor passed on and again reverently touched his arm.

"I would have given my whole fortune," wrote the captain, who had just succeeded to an inheritance of considerable value, "to have stayed there in his place and let him go free."

"There is not one of us in all the South, not a soldier of us, who would not gladly take his place and save him from humiliation and suffering," said my Soldier, looking up from the letter.

Captain Bright pleaded with his kinsman to let him make another visit and stay long enough to speak some word of cheer to his heartbroken chief.

"I do not think that I can," said the surgeon. "The risk to us all would be too great."

"I do not see any risk," was the reply. "The whole place is double-guarded. Neither that poor old feeble man nor I could possibly get away."

As the surgeon really wished to serve his kinsman, not only in return for past favors but to be gracious as a host, after reflection he said:

"To-morrow when I make my rounds I will try to arrange to leave you there till I return."

The next day the captain went into the cell and the surgeon, closing the door, turned to the sentinel and said:

"Guard that door well and see that it is not opened until I come back. That man in there is my relation, but we must not trust him too far."

Having thus secured for the caller an uninterrupted interview with Mr. Davis, the surgeon continued on his way.

"Mr. Davis, I have only a few moments before the doctor finishes his round. Can I do anything for you?—anything? Tell me, quick."

"No; there is nothing, my young friend—nothing; but I thank you for the wish."

"Write on the backs of these cheques any messages or letters you may want to send and I will see that they reach their destination."

"I have risked my life before and now would risk my soul for you. But there is no danger, Mr. President."

Mr. Davis wrote messages on three of the cheques, one to Senator Wall, of New Jersey, one to a friend in Pennsylvania, a third to another friend whose name I have forgotten.

"You can write to Mrs. Davis that you have seen me. Take my love to all my friends. I leave them in God's care. This means to me more than all the doctor's medicine—this one glimpse of one who says, 'Mr. President'—who comes to me and recognizes all that I have tried to do for my people."

Just as the cheque-book was returned to its place the surgeon came in, looking at him suspiciously. Seeing nothing, and knowing that there was no pen, ink or paper in the room, he went out, followed by the visitor.

Early next day Captain Bright left for Williamsburg. When he and the surgeon were on the wharf some soldiers came forward.

After consultation with the officers the embarrassment was relieved by the countermanding of the order and Captain Bright departed with the precious messages in his pocket.

"The feeling of fear," he wrote, "came to me for the first time in all my life; not for myself but for that beloved old man who is dear now to us all."

Mr. Davis had not lived through those terrible four years without making enemies. Who in such a position could? But when he was made to suffer for the mistakes of the whole nation, every Southern heart went out in love to him, regardless of past antagonisms. All personal animosities, all political differences were forgotten, and the people were united in a loving sympathy with the toil-worn, feeble, sorrowful old man, as they never could have been by any gifts or favors which he might have heaped upon them had he won not only the object for which he had given his life, but the gold and jewels of a kingdom.

A generation later, when the people of the South met in Richmond to dedicate a monument to Jefferson Davis, they did not hold first in their hearts the memory of the statesman, the orator, the gracious gentleman, the President of the Confederacy. Above all the pictures that came thronging before them, as they recalled the life history of the man in whose honor they had met, was that scene in the gloomy cell and that bowed and feeble old man with the wounds of the irons upon him, in whose sad eyes the light of love shone as he reached out to greet a messenger of his own people and said brokenly: "My own! One of my own!"

XXVIII VISITORS, SHILLING A DOZEN—OUR LEFT-HANDERS

The first week in June the French maid came to our room with a telegram for Mr. Edwards, announcing that Mr. and Mrs. Hutton would sail for home the following week.

We began to hunt for a place to live, beginning with the hotels and larger boarding-houses, and ending with the smaller ones. After a week of varied, and some very funny, experiences, we decided at last upon one house, principally because of its attractive court overlooked by pleasant verandas.

"With its glistening fountain and pretty shrubbery and flowers, how nice for our baby," I said. "How cool and refreshing are the sound of the water and the glimpse of green."

So, for baby's sake, the selection was made and our rooms engaged. Our landlady was a very dark brunette, and prided herself upon being a French Canadian, but——

"That man of mine," she sorrowfully said, "is a soggy Englishman, and you would hardly believe it possible he could be the father of our two beautiful daughters. Both of them are going to do well, but they don't take after their pa. The oldest is engaged to be married to a Stateser with nine businesses!"

By the "nine businesses" and "Stateser" I gathered from her explanation, which she volunteered in answer to my puzzled look, that the fortunate son-in-law-to-be was a Yankee living in a small town in the State of Vermont, and owning a little country store where woolen and cotton goods, silks and flannels, pottery, queen's-ware, hardware, groceries, grain, and so forth, were sold, the precursor of the department store. In her admiration of him, after each alleged "business" she affixed the, to her, high-sounding title of "merchant."

"She has a sweet voice, but she don't take after her pa," she said, "and the young preacher student in the next room to the right of the one you have chosen is very much taken with her, and it looks like I'd get both girls off my hands before long."

She said she could not give me the use of the parlors when the girls wanted them.

"The Stateser comes a long ways, you know, and has to have it all to himself when he is here."

She generously suggested that if none "of them" were using the parlor at the time when my "company came," she would let me entertain my visitors in it at the rate of a "shilling a dozen," which arrangement I considered a very good one for me, as I did not expect to have more than a shilling's worth of visitors in six months.

Our meals were to be served in our own room, except on Sundays, when we would dine in the public dining-room and do our own "waiting," like the others. We did not exactly understand what that meant, but one day's experience proved it to be anything but comfortable. The dinner had all been cooked on Saturday and was cut up and piled on the table in the center of the room, and we served ourselves. I could not help thinking of the time when my Soldier had been served by butlers and waiters, each anxious to be the first to anticipate his wishes, and all feeling amply rewarded for every effort by a pleasant word or an appreciative smile. I wondered how any one of those obsequious attendants would feel to see us now.

The following menu was about the average dinner (with the exception, of course, that on[Pg 251] week-days it was warm): Corned beef, mutton pie, potato salad, pickled snap-beans, gooseberry tarts and milk. Our breakfast was always cold; the first one was cold bread, preserves, a baked partridge (which is the same as our pheasant), and delicious coffee and butter.

Our rooms had one discomfort: we were awakened every morning by the young lady, who made love to the bird of her preacher beau while she arranged his room.

"Dear 'ittle birdie!—birdie dot a Dod?—birdie dot a soul?—'ittle birdie sings praises to Doddie?"

A sound as of the door opening, a rustling and a confused "Oh, dear!" and then "Good morning" was followed by the invariable excuse for not having finished tidying up the room and cage before he came, "because birdie and I are such friends—ain't we, birdie?—and time slips so quickly—don't it, birdie?"

I would know she was being forgiven, though I could hear only the sounds of his deep, low tones between the chirping to—birdie, of course. Neither my husband nor I meant to listen to these chirpings to—birdie, of course, and I always put my fingers in his ears at the sound of them.

After our breakfast was over and baby had been made comfortable, I usually sent him out[Pg 252] for his walk with Annie McCarthy, his new nurse, who was delighted at having him all to herself.

"Shure, and I'll not be having the interfarence of so many others whose rasponsability I don't be a-wanting; for the bairn, God save him, was afther being that kissed, his dinner wouldn' agray with him at all, at all. There was the cook and John's wife and John and the coachman and that ugly French Lizette (sorra a bit am I to be rid of her, the vain prig) would be all afther kissing him until he'd be that sick his milk would curdle in him, and for the loife of me I couldn't be kaping the clothes clane on him with all their crumpling and handling; and it's glad that I am entirely, the saints save us, having him to mesilf, the blissed child!"

The rooms were comfortable, and we found the long veranda, where we spent our evenings and most of our mornings, not only a very pleasant change, but a source of amusement as well. My curiosity was greatly excited concerning our neighbors on the left. I was uncertain how many there were of them, though I put them down in my mind as not less than half a dozen.

The first morning these "Left-handers," as I called them, were as silent as the grave till about noon, when, all at once, without any premonitory noises, they began a most animated[Pg 253] conversation, interspersed with laughter, mirthful and scornful. The tones of their voices would change from anger to reproach and then to grief, so that at one time I was so full of sympathy with the poor man who was being driven out into the cold world that it was all I could do to refrain from going in and pleading for him; but while I was hesitating the trouble ceased. I supposed he was gone and all was over with him, and involuntarily offered up a prayer—the only help I could give.

Imagine, if you can, my surprise when the next morning at a little later hour I heard a repetition of the same painful scene. The poor man had returned, I reasoned. Taking them all together, I thought they certainly were a most peculiar family, and I determined to enlist my husband's interest when he returned. Something had prevented my telling him the day before. That evening as we were sitting on the veranda I carried my resolution into effect and, though he listened with his usual sweet patience, my description of the disturbance, to my surprise, excited in him more mirth than sympathy.

Just as I had finished telling my story, our baby was brought in to be enjoyed and put to sleep. "The little pig went to market," "the mouse ran up the clock," "the cock-horse" was[Pg 254] ridden "to Banbury Cross," and after innumerable "Hobble-de-gees," baby was ready, and so were we, for his "Bye Baby Bunting."

When his sweet little "ah-ah-ah" accompanying ours grew fainter and fainter, we began to sing in the Chinook jargon the Lord's Prayer, which my husband had taught the Indians on the Pacific coast, and which we always sang at the last to make baby's sleep sound. At the words, "Kloshe mika tumtum kopa illahie, kahkwa kopa saghalie" (Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven), from through the open door of the room to our left a voice clear and sweet joined in the same jargon with ours to "Our Father," and as the last invocation was chanted, "Mahsh siah kopa nesika konaway massachie—Kloshe kahkwa" (Send away from us all evil—Amen), a handsome stranger stepped out and, with outstretched hand, said to my Soldier, with great cordiality, "Klahowya sikhs, potlatch lemah" (How do you do, friend; give me your good hand). Then followed a conversation between them about the Pacific coast, Fort Vancouver, San Juan Island, Puget Sound, the Snohomish tribe and their many mutual friends of the Salmon Illehe.

All the while I was wondering what could have become of the other family—if they had gone—and yet now and then I caught a tone in[Pg 255] our visitor's voice as he talked to my Soldier, that sounded very similar to the tones of the man in trouble belonging to them, though I did not see how it would be possible for any one to drive, or wish to drive, him out of one's home. When, after awhile, I came in for the compliments of the season, my astonishment knew no bounds when I learned that he had been the sole occupant of that room since Sunday night.

The clock in the court struck seven. Rising hastily, and with many apologies, this strange-family man wrote something on his card, and handing it to my husband, said, "I am playing at the theater here to-night—come and see me," and was gone.

To this kind stranger, William Florence, I was indebted for my first taste of the pleasures of the theater. Almost every evening he joined us on the veranda, shared our play with baby, cheered and entertained the General, and kindly took us afterward to see the play. Yet, during the whole of his stay—four days—he never once, in the most remote way, intruded himself upon our confidence; and though he knew there was some mystery, in his innate delicacy he made no allusion to it.

On Saturday evening, when his engagement was over and he came to say good-bye, after lingering over the pleasant evenings we had[Pg 256] passed together, and putting great stress upon the benefit they had been to him, he stopped abruptly, saying:

"Confound it all! Forgive me, if I put my foot in it—but here is something to buy a rattle for the youngster. I swear I absolutely have no use for it. In fact, I never had so much money at one time before in my whole life, and it belongs by rights to the young rascal; for, if it had not been for the 'cat's in the fiddle,' the 'cow jumping over the moon,' 'getting the poor dog a bone,' and 'Our Father who art in heaven,' I should have spent every red cent of it on the fellows. Please—I insist," he said, as my husband refused. "I know you have had more money than you seem to be bothered with now; take this."

Though we were both very much touched by the kind generosity of this stranger in a strange land, my Soldier was firm in his refusal.

"Well, good-bye and good luck to you," he said. "You are as obstinate as an 'allegory on the banks of the Nile.' Here it goes," putting the fifty dollars back into his pocket, and turning to me, with a tone I so well remembered, he wished me happiness.

"Good-bye," I said; "may 'Our Father' who art in heaven and his little ones of whom he says 'suffer to come unto me,' keep your heart[Pg 257] thoughtful for others, and gentle and kind all through this life. Believe in soul and be very sure of God."

In all the years that came afterward the friendship formed then between my husband and our first "Left-hander" was never broken—and to me it was a legacy.

The following week I noticed his rooms were taken by a lady and gentleman whose actions were very strange. I saw there were two of them this time. The second evening, as I was putting baby, who was unusually restless and fretful and would not be amused or comforted, to sleep, the queer lady, with a "Banquo-is-buried-and-can-not-come-out-of-his-grave" tone and manner, came in and said, "The child—is't ill, or doth it need the rod withal!" Whether the child needed "the rod withal?" or Mrs. Winslow's soothing syrup, he stopped crying at once and, while she talked on, he never took his startled eyes from her face till he wearily closed them, hypnotized to sleep.

"Hast thou a nurse—one that thou call'st trustworthy?" she asked, after I had put the baby in his little bed.

"It is well" she said, "and if thou dost not fear to leave the watch with her, wilt thou and[Pg 258] thy husband come as our guests to see our Hamlet as we have conceived him to be?"

It was the first of Shakespeare's plays I had ever seen, and my blood ran cold as I breathlessly watched the portrayal of it by these, the most celebrated actors of their day (Charles Kean and his wife, Ellen Tree), with talents so versatile that I cried over the tragedy as if my heart would break, and laughed with equal heartiness over "Toodles," the farce which followed.

At the close of the play the actress brought her husband into the box and introduced him. Unlike her, he did all his acting on the stage; she stabbed her potatoes and said, "What! no b-e-a-n-s?"

We accepted their kind invitation to share their carriage back to the house, and enjoyed, too, some of the delicious supper prepared for them. It was their last year on the stage, and I never saw them again, though I treasure their little keepsake, given me in exchange for one not half so pretty, and gratefully remember the pleasure they put into our lives during the days they were our "Left-handers."

Among others, there came in time that king of comedians, noble in mind as he was perfect in art, Joe Jefferson. This pleasant acquaintance did not end with our Canadian experience.[Pg 259] The next time we saw Joe Jefferson he gave a performance in Richmond and turned over the whole proceeds to a war-ruined Confederate who had assisted him in early days, all in such a quiet manner as to fulfill the spirit of the Scriptural injunction regarding the right and left hands. The kindness which was shown by the wealthy tobacconist—the seeming favorite of fortune—to the poor lad in the beginning of that career the distinction of which, even then, could be foretold, was thus gracefully repaid a thousand times by the successful actor.

Our landlady made a tour of inspection of all the rooms every Friday, but to us she made her visits longer each time, showing a growing interest in our affairs. She could not solve the mystery of our having come from such a palatial home to her boarding-house. Then, too, one of my "shilling visitors" happening to be the Governor-General and another an English officer, they were also a cause of wonder. She was so insistent in this unbounded curiosity that we were compelled to seek a larger house where we should be more lost to sight, especially as just at this time two prominent Southern gentlemen, Mr. Beverly Tucker and Mr. Beverly Saunders, had been gagged and taken through the lines, though their release was immediately demanded by the English government.

Much to my husband's relief, I volunteered to assume the disagreeable task of notifying her, which notice she seemed intuitively to have anticipated and determined to thwart by telling of her troubles, all of which she laid at her husband's door.

"He is got so high-minded now," she said, "he refuses to blacken all the boots at night—leaves the top floor ones till morning. Wants to set upstairs with me and the girls, instead of staying down in the kitchen, looking for chaws and to be handy; expects us to hunt tins to shine and mend, and nails to drive; won't eat the boarders' leavings; reads the Stateser's newspaper that he sends to his girl; sets on it when he hears us coming; took money from Stateser, too, and was that sly he was going to spend it on himself, and I giving him all he needs."

Taking advantage of her pause for sympathy, I edged in my notice. She immediately put all the blame of our going on "that Johnson," and, though I assured her that he had nothing whatever to do with it, wailed:

"You can't fool us, you can't fool us—he drives every boarder out of the house."

Our next rooms opened on the Champs de Mars, the attractions of which in part made up for the loss of the veranda, but not for that of our "Left-handers," who had made oases in our lives.

XXIX BORN WITH EMERALDS—NEMO NOCETUR

"Come, look at the soldiers," I said, as I saw a shadow in the General's smile and heard a sigh when the music, almost under our very windows, signaled the hour for dress-parade.

The shadowy ghost of despair vanished with my entreaties, as we stood at the window and watched the soldiers, keeping time with them to step and tune outwardly, while hiding the muffled sound within, each playing we were enjoying it, without one marring thought of the crumpled-browed past, trying to fool each other till we really fooled ourselves. It was with thankfulness that I saw my Soldier watch with unfeigned interest the maneuvers of the troops day after day, and pleasantly welcome reveille and tattoo. Our baby learned to march almost before he walked.

While we were enjoying our congenial surroundings and each other, spite of poverty,[Pg 262] fears for the future, and grief for the past, my husband became very ill. In the crisis of his illness, when he required all my attention, our baby was seized with croup. The kind old Englishman, recommended by my good friends, was very attentive, but failed to inspire me with my wonted faith. The chief reason, I think, must have been that he was not called "Doctor," but "Mister." For two weeks he came once, and sometimes twice a day, going first to see and bring me news of the baby, who had been kindly taken by our friends to their home to be cared for. I was a source of unending amusement, an unsolvable mystery to the English doctor, though we were very good friends.

During all this long illness I never once stopped to consider the cost of anything, whether it were food, medicines or delicacies of any kind, if prescribed or suggested, but purchased regardless of expense. When the danger was past, and our board bill was sent up, I counted over our little store and found there was not enough left to meet it.

My husband was still too ill to be annoyed or troubled about anything, and with the bill hidden away in my pocket, I was making a plan of battle and maneuvering how I could fight my way out of the intrenchments, when he noticed[Pg 263] that I was looking pale, and suggested that I go out for a little fresh air.

Eagerly taking advantage of the excuse thus offered, I put on my bonnet and went down to the office and took from my box in the safe an old-fashioned set of emeralds and, asking the proprietor to direct me to the most reliable jeweler and to send some one to sit with my husband until my return, went out.

I had had very little experience in buying of merchants, and none whatever in selling to them, but I feigned great wisdom and dignity as I told the young man who stepped forward to wait upon me that my business was with the head of the firm. He took me back to an inner office, where an old man with grizzly-gray hair and a very moist countenance was looking intently, through something which very much resembled a napkin-ring screwed into his right eye, at some jewels lying on a tray before him. He wore his teeth on the outside of his mouth, and his upper lip was so drawn, in the intensity of his look, as to be almost hidden under his over-reaching nose. His face, too, was wrinkled up into a thousand gullies in his concentration upon his work.

"We don't hemploy young women 'ere," he said, looking up and frowning as he suddenly became aware of my presence.

"I came," I explained, taking out my emeralds and handing them to him, "to ask you if you would not, please, sir, kindly buy some of these stones from me, or, at least, advance me some money on them."

"This is not a pawnbroker's shop, heither, mum," he replied, as he carefully examined the jewels, and then, suddenly popping the napkin-ring out of his eye, turned both of the piercing little gray twinklers upon me and said:

Either from my appearance, or for some other cause, he became suddenly suspicious, and not only would not purchase them of me, but refused to let me have them till I could prove my right to them. I was too young and inexperienced to be anything but furious, and the bitter, scalding tears that anger sometimes unlocks to relieve poor woman's outraged feelings, were still falling fast when I reached the hotel with the clerk whom the jeweler had sent back with me that I might prove by the proprietor my ownership of the jewels with which I was born.

He, in his sympathy, shared my anger and, after expressing his sincere regret that I should[Pg 265] have been subjected to such an indignity, advised, as he snatched the case from the clerk with a withering look of scorn translated into more emphatic language, that I should look carefully over them to be sure that neither this hireling nor his master had abstracted any of the stones, for his experience had been that suspicion was born of guilt.

As he again locked up my emeralds in his safe he kindly asked how much money I needed and begged that in the future I would permit him to advance for me if I should need any, and furthermore, "as to the board and expenses here," he said, "Mr. Edwards and I will arrange all that when he is well—entirely well." My friends would have been glad to advance me the money but I did not wish to trouble them.

Through the goodness of God and the skill of my kind physician, my loved ones were spared to me, and one day, some time after they were well, as I was reading the paper to my husband, I chanced across an advertisement for a teacher of Latin in Miss McIntosh's school. The professor was going abroad and wanted some one to take his place during his absence. The chuckle of delight which I involuntarily gave as I read it, provoked from my Soldier the remark that I was keeping something very good all to myself. I slyly determined that this little[Pg 266] suspicion should be verified and that I would make an application at once for the position; then, if I should fail, I alone would suffer from the disappointment. So, just as soon as I could arrange it, I donned my best clothes, assumed a most dignified mien, went to the number advertised and asked for the professor.

I was shown into the primmest of parlors—the kind of room one feels so utterly alone in, without even the suspicion of a spirit around to keep your own spirit company. Each piece of furniture was placed with mathematical precision, and all was ghost-proof. The proprietress, who came in response to my call, seemed put up in much the same order. She was tall and angular, and her grizzly-red hair was arranged in three large puffs (like fortifications, I thought) on each side of her long, thin face, high cheek-bones, Roman nose, and eyes crowded up together under gold-rimmed spectacles. As she held my card in her hand and looked at me with a narrow-gauge gaze, piercing my inmost thoughts, and with that discouraging "Well!-what-can-I-do-for-you?" expression, I felt all my courage going. My necessities aroused me from my cowardice, and I said as bravely as I could:

"I have had the good fortune to read your advertisement, madam, in the paper this [Pg 267]morning, and have come in answer to it. May I see the professor?"

"I am perfectly aware of that," I answered, "and came in response, to offer the professor my services as a teacher."

A most quizzical expression bunched up the corners of her mouth and wiggled across her little colorless eyes as she said:

Looking over her spectacles again, as if for a verification of her first impression of me, she left the room.

"The professor requested me to ask if you would be so good as to come up into the recitation room."

I saw as soon as I had entered that a description of me had preceded my coming, and not a very flattering one, either, I judged, from the faces of the professor and the pupils.

The class consisted of fourteen young ladies, all of them apparently older than I was. The professor finished the sentence he was translating on the board, rubbed it out, wiped his hands on the cloth, replaced it, came forward and was[Pg 268] duly presented by Miss McIntosh, who remained in the room. He had a pleasant, round, smooth face, a bald head and large gray eyes, was short and stout, with a sympathetic, cultured voice and manner.

"Miss McIntosh tells me you came in reply to my advertisement. I have been forced to advertise in order to save time, as my going abroad is unexpected and brooks no delay."

"I am very glad you had no option but to advertise, else it might not have been my good fortune to know of, and respond to, your wants, sir."

The expression on Miss McIntosh's face, the nudging and suppressed titter among the pupils which this answer brought forth was not calculated to lessen my embarrassment.

"Oh, no, sir," said I, with astonishment at his ignorance, and then recollecting myself just as I was about to inform him that Lynchburg was the fifth town in population in Virginia, was on[Pg 269] the south bank of the James River, one hundred and sixteen miles from the capital of the State, and within view of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Peaks of Otter, I stopped short, embarrassed by my imprudence. The professor, taking no notice of my confusion, went on to say:

"And so you were graduated there? My class here has just finished Cæsar. Do you remember how Cæsar commences?"

He gave me several sentences to translate; then an ode from Horace and some selections from Catullus and Tibullus. By this time the pupils were silent, and Miss McIntosh's expression was changed.

He then asked me to write and parse a sentence, which I did, saying sotto voce as he took the chalk from me:

"Please translate and parse this," said he, without noticing my aside, and he wrote in Latin, "The late President of the United States said 'nobody is hurt——'"

Before he wrote any further, instead of translating, I looked up at him and said:

Quickly he cleared the board, put down the cloth, wiped his hands, turned his face to me and offering his hand, said, not to my surprise, because I had faith in prayer, but rather to that of Miss McIntosh and the young ladies:

We went down to the parlor, and I gave him the names of the only friends I had in Montreal of whom he could make inquiries regarding me. The next day I gave my first lesson to the class. I became very fond of them all and, after my embarrassment of the first few days, got along very well with them.

My Soldier was curious to know where I went every day, but, knowing it gave me great pleasure to be thus mysterious, humored me and asked no questions.

My first month's salary was spent in part payment on an overcoat for him, and only Our Father and the angels know what joy filled my heart, that with the work of my hands I could give him comfort. Then my secret was out.

I was sorry when the cold weather came. The snows not only put an end to the military reviews, but covered up the beautiful green. There were very few diversions for us, but I was just as happy as it was possible for me to be. Indeed, those were the very happiest days[Pg 271] of my whole life and I was almost sorry when General Rufus Ingalls wrote to my Soldier, inclosing a kind personal letter from General Grant, together with the following official assurance of his safety:

General Grant also wrote that it had not been at all necessary for us to go away in the first place, and that the terms of his cartel should have been respected, even though it had necessitated another declaration of war.

We stopped in New York en route to Virginia, expecting to remain there only three or four days, but we found that our board had been[Pg 272] paid in advance for two weeks, that a carriage had been put at our service for that length of time, and that in our box was a pack of wine-cards marked "Paid." To this day I do not know how many people's guests we were, for a great many of my Soldier's old army friends were there at the time, and they all vied with each other in making us happy.

XXX TURKEY ISLAND

As soon as we could make our plans we returned to our ruined home on Turkey Island by the James River, where we built a small cottage in the place of the colonial mansion which had been burned by Butler.

The ancestral trees had all been cut, even the monuments in the family cemetery had been broken, but it was home and we loved it. The river and the woods and our own garden supplied our table. We planted vines to wind lovingly around the melancholy stumps of the old oaks and elms which had fallen victims of the vandalism of war. In our own flowers my Soldier found the perfumes that he loved. He gathered geranium leaves to keep around him, scattered rose-petals through his bureau drawers, and put fragrant blossoms into bags and laid them in the folds of his clothing. In war-time a friend going North asked him, "What shall I bring you!"

Turkey Island, called by the Federal soldiers Turkey Bend, is in Henrico County, which is one of the original shares into which Virginia was divided in 1634. Historic Richmond, the State capital, a town established in the reign of George II, on land belonging to Colonel Byrd, is its county-seat. Brandon, the home of the Harrisons; Shirley, the home of the Carters; and Westover, the home of the Byrds, where Arnold landed on the 4th of January, 1781, and proceeded on his march toward Richmond, are neighboring plantations. Malvern Hill, where one of our internecine battles was fought, adjoins Turkey Island.

Not far distant is the famous Dutch Gap Canal, the useful legacy which Butler left to the State of Virginia, and which, in the advantages it gave the commonwealth, to some extent atoned to my Soldier for the destruction of the Pickett home.

Diverting his troops for a time from wanton spoliation, Butler set them to digging a canal at Dutch Gap to connect the James and Appomattox, thereby shortening by seven miles the road to Richmond, and placing the State traffic under a permanent obligation to his memory. To protect his men while they worked he [Pg 275]stationed his prisoners in the trench beside them, in order that the Confederates might not yield to the otherwise irresistible temptation to fire upon them.

Butler may not have been gifted with that fascinating suavity of demeanor which renders a man an ever-sparkling ornament to society, but from a practical business point of view he was not wholly destitute of commendable qualities. His Dutch Gap Canal is not only a lasting monument to his progressive spirit, but a benefit to commerce and an interesting feature which has attracted visitors from many nations.

Out on a point of the plantation, back from the river in a clump of trees—the beginning of the big woods—is still standing a most interesting monument. The top of it was broken off by Butler's troops in a search for hidden treasure. It was erected by William and Mary Randolph in 1771. The following is a copy of the inscription on one of its sides:

My first visit to this monument is one of the sweetest memories of my Turkey Island life.[Pg 276] I had gone with my husband to hunt rabbits and birds—a hunt more for the meat than the sport in those poverty-stricken days when our larders were greatly dependent upon the water and the woods.

The day was fine and the dew was yet glistening as we came suddenly and without warning within touch of the gray broken monument shut in and surrounded by the great forest trees. In silence and solemn awe, in the strange light and sudden coolness beneath the shadows my hero-soldier stacked his gun and, raising his hat, gently and silently reached for my hand. I slipped it into his and drew close to him. Birds were singing in the distance.

"God's choir," he said, and in his beautiful voice sang his favorite hymn, "Guide me, oh, thou great Jehovah." Then he taught me these lines:

"No," he said. "There are many older, but the oldest one in the United States, I believe, is one erected to a poor fellow who died on what was to be your birthday in the centuries to come. It is on the banks of Neabsco Creek in Fairfax County. Once when I was on furlough Snelling and I came across it and copied the epitaph. The poor fellow was a companion of John Smith. The inscription on the monument simply said:

These rambles over the fields and woods, through the clover and sweetbrier, keeping step and chattering with my Soldier where he, as a boy, had often tramped with his father, are among the blessedest of my blessed memories. My Soldier's classic taste and perfect harmony and simple, pure heart made him a true lover of nature and the trees and the plants, the stones, the sod, the ground, the waters, the sky, and all living animals were his kin.

Though my warrior was a lion in battle, he was gentle, amiable, good-humored, affectionate[Pg 278] and hospitable in his home. The same exuberant and hopeful spirit which cheered and encouraged his soldiers in the field was felt in his home life. All the world is witness to his patriotism and unselfishness, as he offered his life for the success of the cause in which he had faith. He was never disheartened by the most complicated difficulties. Unspoiled by fame, just and loyal, he deserved the love he received, for he was worshipped by his family, idolized by his soldiers, honored by all parties and all nations—my brave warrior, as simple as a child, as high-minded as he upon whom the word-magician said, "Every god did seem to set his seal, to give the world assurance of a man."

Soon after the surrender the Khedive of Egypt offered my Soldier the position of General in his army, which he declined. After he had refused a second invitation the Khedive cabled to Mr. Mott asking if there was any way of inducing General Pickett to accept the commission. My Soldier replied:

He tried to turn his sword into a plowshare, but he was not expert with plowshares and, worse, he constantly received applications for employment from old comrades no more skilled than he. All were made welcome, though they[Pg 279] might not be able to distinguish a rake from a rail fence or know whether potatoes grew on trees or trellised vines. They would get up when they felt like it, linger over breakfast, go out to the fields, and if the sun was too hot or the wind too cold they would come back to sit on the veranda or around the fire till dinner was ready. Then they would linger at table telling war stories until it was unanimously decided to be too late for any more work that day. There were Generals, Colonels, Majors, Captains, Lieutenants, privates, all of one rank now, and he who desired a graphic history of the four years' war needed only to listen to the conversation of the agricultural army at Turkey Island. The inevitable soon came. Resources were exhausted and proprietor and guests were forced to seek other fields.

One of our friends was a veteran who had lost an eye in the Mexican war and had served in the Confederate Army. All that was left of his magnificence was his pride, which had grown strong and rugged on misfortune. It was difficult to do anything for him. He would never admit his needs and any reference thereto was likely to give offense. He had visited us for a time and when urged to stay had resolutely declined. My Soldier was very anxious to help him, but fearful of wounding him. Walking[Pg 280] down with him to take the steamer to Richmond my Soldier, unobserved, took a ten-dollar gold piece from his pocket and dropped it in the road, hoping that the old Major would find it. But the veteran walked by without seeing it. So his friend was compelled to find it himself. Three times the ruse was played and at last the Major saw the coin and, picking it up, offered it to his companion. "No, it belongs to you," said the General. "You must have dropped it," urged the Major. "I?" was the query. "How could I have a gold piece? The Yankees are about the only people who have been down in this country with gold, and now that you have found it, it belongs to you." After a long discussion the Major was induced to accept the law that "finders is owners," and he put the gold in his pocket.

When a number of his Virginians wished to make my Soldier Governor he said that he never again would hold any office, but he would be glad to have the valor of his soldiers at Gettysburg recognized and he and the men would like to see his old Brigadier, Kemper, elected Governor. General Kemper was the only one of Pickett's Brigadiers who came out of the battle of Gettysburg, and he was maimed for life. He was elected Governor, and, as he was a bachelor, my Soldier and I often assisted at his receptions.

At a dinner given by the Governor to George Augustus Sala, the English correspondent, Mr. Sala asked:

"General Pickett, whom do you regard as the hero of the battle of Gettysburg, on the northern side?"

"Mr. Sala," was the reply, "the hero of Gettysburg on both the northern and southern side was the private soldier."

I had often heard him say that not the Generals but the men in the ranks fought the battles.

"At a dinner in Canada, given to General Magruder's niece, who had married an English officer, the conversation turned upon the battle of Gettysburg and my Soldier was asked by the Governor-General and General Magruder if he would tell them, now that the war was over, whom he considered responsible for the loss of the battle; who was to blame. With a twinkle in his eye he replied:

"'Well, Governor-General and General Magruder, I think the Yankees had a little something to do with it.'"

Among the visitors at our home at Turkey Island was Mr. R. M. T. Hunter. I well remember his grave but genial face, beardless, marked with deep lines wrought by years of[Pg 282] study and care. Those who do not recall him may look at the pictured face of former Senator John W. Daniel, of Virginia, and gain an idea of his appearance. His long hair, almost touching his shoulders, gave him an air that would seem quaint to one accustomed to the closely cropped heads of the present day. His extensive acquaintance with public life, formed in the Congress of the United States and that of the Confederacy, had secured for him an inexhaustible fund of anecdote which his ready wit displayed to good effect, and his vein of humor made him always a welcome companion. His ability to deal with weighty subjects is indicated by the remark of Senator Wigfall, "I don't know what we Southern men would do without Hunter; he is the only one among us who knows anything about finance." As a child his gravity and fondness for books led his old mammy to say, "Li'l Marse Robert gwine ter be a gre't man; he's so lonesome in his ways."

Mr. Hunter knew men, and was the first to discover the genius of Stonewall Jackson. In a letter written to my Soldier near the beginning of the war he congratulated the South on the possession of so great a military man as General Jackson. He was one of those whom Mr. Lincoln wished to see in Richmond after[Pg 283] the surrender, expressing confidence in his honesty and his influence with the Southern people, a meeting which was prevented by the absence of Mr. Hunter from Richmond at the time, and for which there was no later opportunity because of the tragic end of the President's great life.

Some of the Northern officers who had seen little, if any, of Southern plantation life, visited us and were deeply interested in the characteristic features of our domestic circle. They found much amusement in the original repartee of the negroes, liking to ask them questions and discuss with them subjects of everyday life. General Ingalls saw an old negro coming in with a large number of terrapin.

"What a lot of terrapin and what immense ones, Uncle Tom! How much do you get for them, and where do you sell them?"

"Yas, suh; dey is 'mense 'case dey's fresh water tarepin; salt water ones is littler. I gits ober en above a couple er ninepences apiece fer 'em, en I sells 'em up in Richmon' ter Mr. Montero, de gambler gemman. You mus' 'scuse me, Marsa, fer answerin' you in retail."

"Why, Uncle Tom, you could get over a dollar apiece for these terrapin in New York," General Ingalls replied.

"Yas, suh, Marsa; I spec' dat's so. En, suh, ef I had dat pail er water in hell I could git a million er dollars fer it."

The visitors were also amused by the division of the plantation property, as explained by the servants.

"Whose horse is that?" asked General Tom Pitcher of one of the boys "mindin' de cows."

"Dat hawss? W'y, Marsa, hawsses allers b'longs ter de men-folks, so cou'se dat hawss b'longs ter Marse George."

"Dey's jest only mules en dey don' hab no owners. Dey don' b'long ter nobody 'specially, en don' nobody want 'em 'specially cep'n fer ter wu'k. Dey's dif'unt fum udder prop'ty; dey ain' one t'ing ner de udder."

Looking up General Pitcher saw a flock of wild ducks flying across the river in delightful irresponsibility.

"Dey's dey own ducks," he asserted emphatically. "Lawd, Marsa, whar you been all yo' life not ter know dat wile ducks is dey own ducks?"

Going down the river one day with my Soldier, his brother Charlie, and their sister, in a boat rowed by the overseer, I had what I thought an interesting illustration of the tenacity of childish habits of thought. Mr. Sims had been overseer on the Pickett plantation in the childhood of the two sons of the family, who used to follow him around and absorb knowledge from what they looked upon as fathomless depths of intellect and experience. They were catching terrapin and my Soldier looked at the catch in the bottom of the boat.

"Mr. Sims, why is it that these terrapin are of such different markings?" he asked with a recurrence of the old-time attitude of mental dependence. "They come from the same water, are grown in the same conditions, and seem in every way alike except that the color markings are different. There is a reason; what is it?"

"Yas, George," said the old man, "of course there is a reason for it, it's jest this way with them tarepins; I've allers noticed they are different. I've been catchin' tarepins off an' on[Pg 286] all my life an' I've allers seen 'em that way. Some's streaked an' some's criss-crossed an' some's plain an' some has diamon's on 'em an' that's jest the reason. They's jest made that way."

"I see now," said my Soldier in all seriousness and good faith. "I suppose that is the reason. I have often wondered about it and this is the first time I ever understood it."

After all the years and the wars and the foreign travel and the changes he had unconsciously gone back to the blind confidence of childhood.

Adjoining Turkey Island was the plantation of Colonel William Allen (Buck Allen), Curl's Neck. General Schofield and some other officers of the United States Army, among them Colonel Day, drove down from Richmond, visiting old battlefields and shooting ducks and partridges, and were guests at Curl's Neck. At the invitation of my Soldier they came to our home. Colonel Day had never before seen my Soldier and he afterward thus expressed his feeling upon first meeting the warrior whom he had hitherto known only by reputation:

"Imagine my surprise when, instead of the dashing, rollicking fire-eater whom I expected to see in the hero of the greatest charge in modern history, I touched glasses of apple-toddy[Pg 287] with the gentle George Pickett. I was impressed above all with his quiet demeanor, his warm-hearted hospitality and gentleness. I stood in speechless wonder, trying to reconcile the man before me with my preconceived idea of the great warrior. It might all be summed up in the explanation that 'the bravest are the tenderest.'"

XXXI AT THE WHITE HOUSE

Not long after General Grant became President he sent an order to my Soldier and Mrs. Grant extended an invitation to me and our little ones to visit them at the White House. The Southern train, usually late, was on time for once, and we came out of the station just as the President's carriage appeared.

"Hello, Pickett!" he called out. "Up to your old war tricks, coming in ahead of the train!"

The President referred to an incident of the war; my Soldier, wishing to go from Hanover Junction to Richmond, applied to General Lee for a pass. At that time the cars were so crowded that travel by rail was not permitted except on official business or by special permission. General Lee, just boarding the train from Richmond on military duty, referred him to the Adjutant-General. As there was not time to visit the Adjutant and be in Richmond[Pg 289] at the desired hour, my Soldier mounted his horse, Lucy, and rode into the city, waiting at the station to salute General Lee as he stepped from the train.

My first view of Washington was from the President's carriage, though it could scarcely be called a view of the city, as the carriage contained all my world and my attention was more particularly centered therein.

We were received with warm hospitality by Mrs. Grant, who proved to be a charming hostess, and all went well until night came, when I was so afraid my baby would cry that I could hardly sleep. The next day when my Soldier spoke of my uneasiness the President, putting his hat on the boy's head and his stick between his legs, said:

"There, ride your horse and tell them you'll cry as much as you please; that you own this house."

One evening when we were reminiscing I told Mrs. Grant of the first time I had seen her, and my Soldier, who loved to tease me, repeated, much to my dismay, my belligerent remarks on that occasion and the argument he had used to curb my hostile demonstrations.

"And do you know, Pickett," the President replied, relieving my embarrassment, "that once we were foolish enough to think seriously[Pg 290] of having an operation performed on her dear eyes? We had consulted the best surgeons and had been assured that it was a very simple thing and not at all dangerous, so we decided to have it done. As the time grew near I got to worrying over it, and the more I thought of it the more I did not want my wife's eyes changed even the least little bit from what they had always been. Arrangements had been made; the hour for the operation was almost at hand. We were alone. I stood watching her collecting the last little odds and ends and stealing my pictures and the children's and putting them into her handbag under her shawl. Everything was ready and we started from the room. My hand was on the knob of the door, when I stopped and said:

"'My dear, I am very selfish and ought not to say this; but I don't want your eyes changed. They look just as they did the first time I ever saw them—the same eyes I looked into when I fell in love with you—the same that looked up into mine and told me that my love was returned. I have seen that expression in them through all the years and I don't want it to be lost. You might look better to other people, but to me you are prettier as you are. So, if you don't mind, please let's keep your dear eyes just as they always have been.'

"'Why, it was only for your sake that I was even thinking of having anything done, and if you feel in that way about it I—I——'

"Well, Pickett, I was glad and she was glad. I untied the bonnet-strings, threw the bonnet onto the floor, I think, and took her by the hand and we turned and walked back into the room as light-hearted as a pair of children on their first picnic."

"Untied the bonnet-strings!" exclaimed Mrs. Grant. "You just pulled them into a hard knot, then broke them and threw the bonnet onto the floor."

He reached over and patted her hand, and the President of the United States gazed upon the same eyes that had looked their love into those of the young captain in the years agone and had become more precious to him with the passing of time.

Mrs. Grant's morning receptions in the blue room, in which she was assisted by the President, were very popular, chiefly because of her unfailing good nature, which had the effect of putting others in a good humor with themselves and the world. It may be that you have met people whose apparently permanent condition of mind led you to think that they were averse to being put into a good humor and would [Pg 292]prefer to avoid the society of those who could effect such a revolution. That is a delusion. There is no one who does not like to be in a good temper or fails to experience a pleasant glow in the society of those who can produce that novel condition.

The weakness of Mrs. Grant's eyes compelled her to carry on her correspondence with the aid of a secretary, one of the soldiers usually being sent to her aid when she desired clerical assistance. It was before the day of the White House "social secretary," writing to the first Lady of the Land not being at that time so popular a diversion as it has since become.

The charities and generous deeds of Mrs. Grant were so quietly effected that the world never knew of the good she accomplished. A friend who was very close to her said that her work ought to be made known to the public after she was gone, that it might live in memory without wounding her modesty.

A home-like atmosphere pervaded the White House, due to the President's habit of keeping his official existence and his home life separate and to the determination of Mrs. Grant to provide him with a place where official duties might fall from his brain and pleasure and content fill his heart. Here he was "Ulys" to "Mrs. G.," as he called his heart-companion of many years.[Pg 293] Here he listened to the confidences of his children, happy that they brought to him even their inmost thoughts. At that time Fred was a cadet at West Point and the younger children were attending Washington schools.

Colonel Dent did his part toward keeping the White House cheerful with the original of that smile which has since been utilized for commercial purposes. General Babcock could more easily have passed for a politician than a soldier. General Porter's funereal face covered a fountain of wit that was constantly bubbling up, to the surprise and delight of those who had been deceived by the preternatural gravity of his expression. The President was criticized by his opponents for keeping officers about the White House, but when their martial phase was so slightly in evidence I could not see why anyone should object.

Though General Grant was the soul of geniality with his intimate friends, to the public generally his reticence had made him known as "The Sphynx," or "the Great Unspeakable." If one chanced to appeal to "the Sphynx" on a subject in which he was interested he became as fluent as the most loquacious of men. When he was Commander of the United States Army a gentleman who called upon him with a letter of introduction from a friend of both, tried him[Pg 294] upon two apparently interesting subjects without leading anywhere. As the visitor was about to retire in despair it occurred to him to mention a fine horse owned by their friend. The "Great Unspeakable" immediately became a fountain of eloquence and an animated conversation followed, to the delight equally of the General and his caller.

The President told me in a gleeful way the story of his first purchase of a horse. Speaking of his early dislike of military life and his horror of war:

"I did not want to be a soldier. When my father came home from town one day and surprised me with the information that I had received an appointment to West Point I said, 'I am not going.' He looked at me and replied, 'I think you are.' Then I thought so, too. I don't know what else I could have been. I should probably not have succeeded in trade. My first purchase was made when I was seven. A neighbor had a horse which he was willing to sell for twenty-five dollars. My longing for that horse was so great that my father, though knowing the price was too high, told me that I might offer twenty dollars for it, and if the neighbor would not take that I could offer twenty-two and if that did not suffice I might pay the twenty-five. So I went to the man and told him[Pg 295] what my father had said. It would not be difficult to solve the problem of the cost of that horse. The boys got wind of the story and you can imagine that for awhile life was not worth much to me.

"It may be that I lost money on that horse, but the first dollar I ever earned was on a mule; a circus mule. The ringmaster offered a dollar to anyone who should succeed in riding the mule once around the ring. My mind was made up to win that dollar. I promptly mounted the animal and was as promptly deposited upon the sawdust. Asking if I might have another trial I was told that I might have as many as I wanted. This time I mounted with my face toward the mule's tail, which so disconcerted him that he ambled peacefully around the ring and I got the dollar."

At West Point Cadet Grant took the highest leap recorded in the history of the Academy. One who witnessed the feat described the scene,—the clean-cut, blue-eyed young man who at the call of the riding-master dashed out from the ranks on a powerfully built chestnut sorrel horse and rode to the end of the hall. Turning he galloped down the center toward a bar placed higher than the head of a tall man standing. Within a short distance of the bar the horse paused and gathering all his strength for the[Pg 296] mighty effort vaulted over. Forty years later Grant remembered the steed that had served him so well and said, "York was a wonderful horse." After the war, learning that his old riding-master was poor and helpless, General Grant sent him a cheque.

The old soldier never claimed to have distinguished himself in scholarship at West Point, but he must have made an impression of strength upon those around him, for one of his classmates, James A. Hardie, said, "If a great emergency arises in this country during our lifetime Sam Grant will be the man to meet it."

He had the simplicity characteristic of all really great minds, and the directness of a soldier, going straight to his aim; he never either overshot or undershot the mark. He spent a part of every day walking unattended along the streets enjoying exercise and open air unhampered by guards, and his daily rides were also usually solitary, for in his racing buggy behind his magnificent trotter, leaning over the dashboard to encourage his horse by a friendly word, there was scarcely anything in Washington that could have kept him in view. Only once was he passed in a race. His friend and clerk, Lieutenant Culver C. Sniffen, now a General on the retired list, owned a fine horse and the President challenged him to a race. The Lieutenant[Pg 297] declined, not wishing either to beat the President or be beaten by him. The President, with the true sporting instinct, persisted until the Lieutenant, fired with like emulation, yielded and rode to win. He did win and the President was very fond of telling the story of the only time he had ever lost a race.

General Grant had one sad memory connected with a horse, dating back to the time when he was a young officer in Mexico. He rode a beautiful fierce untamable animal that in years past had killed a number of would-be riders. A Mexican officer who was a skilled and daring horseman had an ambition to mount the horse. Lieutenant Grant, fearing for the safety of his Mexican friend, would not consent to his riding so dangerous a beast. The Mexican would not let himself be dissuaded and the Lieutenant, fearing that the friend might think that he did not want him to ride his horse, ceased his opposition. The Mexican mounted and was thrown and killed.

Occasionally when it could not be avoided the President would curb his wild spirit sufficiently to take a leisurely drive in Mrs. Grant's easy carriage behind the tall and dignified black coachman, Hawkins, attended by the almost equally imposing footman, Jerry. Usually this stately equipage was left to the unshared[Pg 298] enjoyment of Mrs. Grant and her guests. A number of pleasant drives I took with my hostess, sometimes into the country around Washington, and sometimes to the Soldiers' Home where the veterans bivouacked peacefully until they should be mustered out of the earthly army. The long rows of white wooden slabs with black lettered names upon them brought back vividly memories so new that they lay near the surface of my heart.

It may be that to one familiar with the Washington of to-day the views of the city at that time would have been marred by primitive architectural features, but Nature had so far done her best in the beginning that one might well accept the opinion of Humboldt who, after visiting all the cities of the known world, said that for a site the entire globe does not hold its equal. The youthful surveyor, long before he became the "Father of his Country," wrought well in fancy when gazing across the Potomac he viewed the fair prospect with prophetic eye and foresaw a stately capitol of a great nation rising from one of its green hills. So well had the capital city weathered the storm that had almost wrecked the Ship of State that one who had known it in war days might have found it beautiful in comparison.

Inside the White House the deft fingers of[Pg 299] Martha Johnson Patterson had wrought miracles of adornment out of the web of her imagination, aided by a few simple materials which in less skillful hands would have been ineffective. Within its walls life went on to the time kept by Madison's clock that had ticked away all the decades since the "Father of the Constitution" held guardianship over that complicated child of many variegated phases.

General Grant, as head of the United States Army, regarded his staff as his military family and chose its members according to his desire. As President he took a similar view of his Cabinet, looking upon it as his civic family, and did not cast a favorable eye upon recommendations made by politicians who wished to draw upon him for the payment of their campaign debts. Having no such debts of his own, being tied to no party and bound by no pledges, he felt free to select his associates as he thought best, thereby incurring the ill-will of party leaders who held their positions by heavy mortgages to office-seekers. I suppose soldiers have an instinctive aversion to politicians, not only because they make war but because they insist upon managing it throughout its whole existence. Thus Grant sought his advisers in non-political fields.

The President was severely criticized for his[Pg 300] appointment of Mr. A. T. Stewart as Secretary of the Treasury, in contradiction to the "nine statutes" which Mr. Conkling afterward found to bar the way, but the wise statesmen of the Senate confirmed the appointment with eager promptness, and it could scarcely be demanded that a soldier with more opportunity of knowing the regulations of battlefields than the statutes that govern political administration should be better informed as to civic laws than those who have devoted a large part of their lives to the study and framing of such laws. Failing this appointment Governor Boutwell, a good friend of the President, was made Secretary of the Treasury, and it was as one of the most trusted advisers in the Cabinet that I met him.

The sympathies of President Grant were deep and broad and sometimes presented humorous phases. At a Cabinet meeting one day he brought up the case of a lawyer whom he thought of appointing Chief Justice of one of the territories, expressing pity for him because he had lost a leg in battle. After an extended silence the Attorney-General, Judge Rockwood Hoar, quietly remarked, "Mr. President, it seems to me that mere absence of legs is not a sufficient qualification for judicial office." The other members looked apprehensive, but the[Pg 301] President laughed and said that he would think of it further. The result of more mature reflection was that some one else was appointed, presumably with the normal equipment of legs and a fair endowment of unquestionable judicial merit.

Attorney-General Rockwood Hoar was never averse to expressing his sentiments in rugged English, but his somewhat burry aspect and speech covered a good healthy heart filled with sympathetic impulses. His wit was a shining blade that cut more deeply than he intended, sometimes to his regret, but his eloquence on the finer phases of life was a radiance of sunlight. The true depth of his nature was shown in his kindness to all who needed him.

The most impressive member of the Cabinet was, quite appropriately, the head of the State Department, Secretary Hamilton Fish. Six feet tall, of distinguished bearing, with strong face surmounted by dark curling hair, intense eyes that seemed to look through the object of their gaze, graceful and cultivated manner, he was a noted figure in any assemblage. His tact and statesmanship kept the country off the diplomatic reefs on which it might have been wrecked by a guiding hand less firm. President Grant said, "History will write that we have had two great Secretaries of State, [Pg 302]Governor Marcy and Governor Fish." Mr. Fish was always immaculately dressed, a distinctive mark of his attire being a diamond breastpin, which he always wore in his shirt. He succeeded the six-weeks' term of Mr. Elihu B. Washburne, who was transferred to Paris and, as Minister during the stormy period of the Franco-Prussian War, gained the admiration and confidence not only of his own country but of Europe as well for his wise and patriotic service.

The President and my Soldier often talked of the war, discussing it from their opposite view-points. Never once did General Grant refer to us as "rebels." He always mentioned us as, "You fellows on the other side."

General Grant was deeply interested in the battle of Gettysburg, of which he knew only by report. One day at the close of dinner he asked my Soldier to explain certain movements in the final charge. To make the inquiry plainer he drew some lines on the table-cloth with the handle of a spoon. My Soldier took the spoon from the President's hand and drew upon the cloth a diagram, briefly explaining as he went along:

"Here is Seminary Ridge; there Cemetery Ridge. Here is Round Top. This is Meade's left; here, Meade's right. There are the [Pg 303]Confederate troops in the woods; here, Gettysburg. There is the Fifth Corps. Here are the batteries, and there, Hall's Brigade. Here are Cushing and Webb. Here is Clark's Brigade; there, a rail fence. Here is the Third Brigade."

Lining off a space at one corner to enlarge the vital point of the charge, he continued:

"Here is the turning point of the third day. There, the stone wall we crossed. There is Webb. Here is the Confederate assault. There is where Armistead got over; here, where he fell." Drawing his hand quickly across the corner beyond he added, "There is hell!"

"Bring me a blue pencil," said the President to a servant. When it was brought he carefully marked over the lines in the soft-laid cloth and carried it into the smoking-room.

The tenderest memory I have of President Grant, because it is the one closest to my heart, is of him and my Soldier as they stood facing each other in the President's office just before the close of our visit. I can see them now looking earnestly into each other's eyes, one of General Grant's hands on the shoulder of his old comrade and friend.

Grant, always faithful to his friends, was urging upon my Soldier, whom the war had impoverished, the marshalship of the State of Virginia, which he was gratefully but firmly [Pg 304]declining. Later, when the devotion of the President to his old friends and his confidence in them had given his enemies an opportunity to criticize with undue severity his habit of making appointments for friendship rather than politics, I appreciated still more the generosity and wisdom of my Soldier's refusal. Knowing the demands upon the President, knowing that acceptance of the appointment, sorely as he needed it, would create for the administration a host of enemies, he said:

I shall never forget the gratitude in my Soldier's tear-dimmed eyes as he turned them upon the President, showing his appreciation of the friendship and sacrifice, nor General Grant's look in return, nor what those old soldiers did—never, as silently shaking hands and walking off in different directions they gazed out of separate windows, and I stole away.

XXXII UNCLE TOM

One evening just after the New York steamer had blown her three whistles in honor of my Soldier, as the river steamers always did in passing our wharf, and had gone around the bend, we saw Uncle Tom, the faithful old negro fisherman, coming up the hill with a bag over his stooping shoulders and talking to himself more excitedly than usual.

"Good evening, Uncle Tom," I said, stepping off the porch to greet him. "What have you in your bag for me?"

"Tarepins—dat's what I got fer you, but I got a piece of my mind fer Marse George, en ez dis piece of mind mought not agree wid your temperation I reckon you better g'long in de house en sing some of dem song chunes while I's mekin' a present of de piece of mind to Marse George."

As my curiosity was greater than my fear[Pg 306] of mental indigestion, I stayed to share with my Soldier the "piece of mind."

Uncle Tom proceeded to unfold his story to the effect that a carpet-bagger who had come to Bermuda Hundred was inciting the colored people against my Soldier and planning with them to visit us in force. He said that he was a brother of one of the same class of human wreckage who had visited our community some time before, selling to the negroes ointment that was advertised to turn them into white people. My Soldier had reported the enterprising merchant and, with Mr. "Buck" Allen and Colonel John Selden, had taken to Richmond some boxes of the ointment and some of the negroes to whom the ointment had been sold, and the "carpet-bagger" had been put in jail. His brother was now inflaming the credulous colored people with the idea that my Soldier had caused the disappointment of their ambitious aspirations.

The man who thus excited Uncle Tom's indignation and apprehension had lain in the river with his vessel for weeks, sending out his emissaries to tell the poor credulous colored people that the United States government had authorized him to promise that to every colored man who would bring him a good bridle and saddle, thereby showing his fitness for the possession, should be given a mule to fit the saddle[Pg 307] and bridle, and that he would receive and receipt for the same every night between the hours of midnight and daybreak. So successful was this impostor that he had almost made up his load before he was caught, and there was hardly a bridle and saddle left in all the surrounding country.

While my Soldier had confidence in Uncle Tom, he did not much believe that the negroes would dare make an attack upon him. He insisted, though, that I should not run any risk, but should take our babies and go to Richmond for a few days. Finding that no persuasion could induce me to leave him, he consented that we might wait together, fearing, yet not believing, that they would come.

The third night after Uncle Tom's warning, when we had begun to hope that he had after all been misinformed, we heard a rapping at the door and then a low growl.

"That's Rufus, rapping on the door with his tail," said my Soldier. "He hears something and is warning us. Listen!"

He opened the door and the dog entered, trembling and with great tears of fear in his loyal eyes. We listened but heard nothing. My Soldier came in and shut the door.

"Lay the baby down," he said, "and take this, but keep it out of sight," handing me a pistol.

His loaded gun was resting on a bracket just above the door. Rufus stood pointing, his nose nearly touching the panel of the door. My heart seemed almost bursting from my throat and sounded in my ear like the beating of a drum. The baby smiled and dreamed aloud. While we listened tensely there came the sound of footsteps, the rolling of loose dirt and brickbats.

"Listen! They are coming around the back way and across the ruins of the old house. I hear a number of steps, but they are uncertain steps. Don't be afraid, dear; be your own plucky little self."

"I am not the least afraid," I answered, my teeth chattering and my hands trembling, "not the least, Soldier."

Rufus turned his head and looked at me as if he had heard a stranger's voice, and then, wagging his tail to reassure me, returned to a dead point. The sounds became louder and the surging wave rolled nearer.

One who has never beheld a raging sea of black faces filled with excitement and fury, wild, ignorant, brutal, some distorted with intoxication, cannot form the faintest idea of the awful sight. They threatened vengeance against my Soldier, saying that, not satisfied with fighting against their liberties, he was now trying to[Pg 309] keep away those who would befriend them. They were led by a renegade white man who, when they reached a point where possible danger lay, retired from leadership and withdrew to a protected spot in the rear.

My Soldier stepped out on the porch and confronted the mob, who were yelling, cursing, and brandishing pistols, knives, and all manner of weapons. Looking at them for a few seconds he said:

"Boys, what does all this mean? What is all this trouble about? You don't know what you are doing. That cowardly dog there, sneaking and crouching down behind you to save his own worthless carcass, is not your friend. For a few handfuls of money he will lead you to steal, lie and kill. All he wants is what he can make out of you. Don't trust him, boys. These miserable Yankee scalawags haven't any love for you. They never owned any negroes. We who owned you are your friends. We have been brought up together and understand each other."

"Dat's so, niggers; dat's so," cried Uncle Tom, who had come up with the mob as if he were one of them in spirit. "You better listen to Marse George. He sho' is tellin' you de trufe, niggers—de gorspel trufe."

"Stand back! Stand back!" cried my Soldier,[Pg 310] suddenly starting forth and waving both hands. "Stand back, I say!"

The negroes fell back on both sides and my Soldier went down between them to where the white renegade was cowering behind his poor, ignorant, impulsive black dupes, and, seizing him by the collar, shook him with all his force. The collar broke and the man fell to the ground. My Soldier jumped on top of him and called, "Bring me that rope!" pointing to the clothes-line stretched across the road. "Come, boys, let's tie the scoundrel!"

After they had securely bound him the General ordered some of them to pick him up and carry him to the smokehouse and lock him in, which they did with great satisfaction, their mercurial natures having now veered completely to the side of my Soldier.

"Now, boys," said he, "get into your boats and go back home, and be thankful that the bad man locked up there in the haunted smokehouse with the rats and ghosts has not made you all commit a crime, too, for which you would be sent to jail."

The reference to the spectral inhabitants of the smokehouse was, for the colored people, a sufficient bar to their possible change of sentiment and return to the rescue of their former leader. They believed implicitly in the [Pg 311]uncanny reputation of that house and, to their view, the ghost of old Grundy, who had hanged himself from its rafters and who, as the story goes, when the flames were devouring the old colonial home within a stone's throw of it, came out shaking his fist at them, thus saving the smokehouse from the fire, was more formidable than the armies of the whole world. The next morning the sheriff took the prisoner to Richmond, where he was jailed and promptly brought to trial. He was found guilty of inciting a riot and was sent out of the country.

Uncle Tom was an old servitor of the Pickett family. He had been at Turkey Island when the mansion was burned and had contrived to save a few relics from the ruins. Among them was a medallion which had been presented to my Soldier's grandfather by La Fayette. It was set in gold, framed in blue velvet, and hung in the library under La Fayette's picture. As one of Butler's men was carrying it to the steamer the medallion fell out, and Uncle Tom picked it up and had saved it all these years. In his own logical way he explained the selection of the one to whom it should be given.

"I done studied 'bout dis 'heritance a heap, en I says to myse'f, 'Well, I gwine to give dis 'heritance to Miss Sally, kase she Marse George's wife en Marse George he is de oldest chile.' Den[Pg 312] I says, 'No, dat ain't ret; I gwine to give it to Miss Lizzy, kase she Marse Charlie's wife en Marse Charlie is de youngest chile.' Den I says, 'No, I gwine let de wifes 'cide fer darse'fs which gwine to have de 'heritance, en I gwine to give it to de one dat treats de ole man de best.'

"So de Sunday atter dey moved down I goes 'roun' to Miss Lizzy's house en she axes me 'Howdy?' en axes me how Aunt Lindy, my ole 'oman, sagashuates. Den she say, 'Uncle Tom, won't you hab a toddy?' En I say, 'Yas'm, Miss Lizzy, thanky, ma'm; ole nigger allus raidy for a toddy.' Den she mek me a gre't big nice toddy en fetches it out to me herse'f. Den she say, 'Uncle Tom, don't you want sump'n to eat?' I say, 'Yas'm, de ole man allus hongry.' Den she fetches me out a pilin' plate of vitals. Den I say, 'Dat's Miss Lizzy's 'heritance, sho'!'

"De nex' Sunday I goes ter Miss Sally's house, en she axes me 'Howdy?' too, jest as 'spec'ful as ef I wuz de king, en den she axes me how my ole 'oman is, too, en I tells her. Den she say, 'Uncle Tom, don't you want a dram?' 'Yas'm,' I says, 'Miss Sally, de ole man allus wants a dram.' Den she say, 'Well, g'long back dar to de sideboa'd en he'p yo'se'f. Dar's de canter of ole apple jack en ole London dock; you jest go he'p yo'se'f, Uncle Tom.' Den when I comes 'long back she say, 'Uncle Tom, did you he'p yo'se'f[Pg 313] plent'ful?' I say, 'Yas'm, de ole man allus does dat.' Den she say, 'Ain't you hongry?' I say, 'Yas'm, de ole man's allus hongry.' Den she say, 'Well, Uncle Tom, you must 'scuse me, but I fergot to ax you 'bout bein' hongry, so g'long back to de dinin' room en he'p yo'se'f; dar's plenty er col' ham en fried chicken en pickle oyschers en 'zerbs en t'ings. I's waitin' for de hunters to come in 'fo' I puts 'em away, so g'long back en he'p yo'se'f.' 'Name of God,' I say, 'Marse George's wife's gwine to git dis hyer 'heritance, atter all.' Yas, dat 'heritance is Miss Sally's, sho'."

From the rim of gold around this "'heritance," as Uncle Tom called it, my Soldier had made two pairs of beautifully carved bracelets, one for his brother's wife and one for his sister. The miniature was made into a pin for me, which I still have and wear, not only for its quaint prettiness and because it is almost the only relic of all those old household treasures, but in memory as well of Uncle Tom and of La Fayette's appreciation of the hospitality of old Turkey Island.

XXXIII "GOD'S 'TISEMENT"

Upon leaving Canada we had expected to lose Annie, our faithful nurse, but she interrupted our objections to taking her with:

"Howly Fathers! an' sure an' phwat's to become of me widout the baby an' leastwise, phwat's as bad an' worse, phwat's to become of the baby widout me?"

We explained that wages were much higher in the States and that we could not afford to take her. She begged to be allowed to come at any sacrifice of her own interests, so we finally consented, resolving that she should lose nothing by her loyalty.

Annie enjoyed the journey and the visit to New York, but at Norfolk the hundreds of negro stevedores who met the New York steamers frightened her nearly to death. The few colored people whom she had seen in Montreal and looked upon as martyrs and saints were of a[Pg 315] very different class from these. When I tried to reassure her she said angrily:

"Oh, the mother of ye that ye are, sure—being afther planning to have one of these black, howling, writhing craythurs nursing of the boy, the dirty, twisting bastes! It's meself that's afther the temptin' of Providence to be a risking of me own grown-up life among such haythens, a singin' words widout any meanin', the saints save us!"

In my father's home there had been only colored servants, and my father and brothers, the most courtly of men, could not bear to see Annie standing in their presence while they remained seated. She was not only being spoiled by their numerous courtesies and gallantries, but was embarrassed by them, feeling herself a servant equally with the colored maids.

Our second child, little Corbell, was three years old when Annie left us to marry a well-to-do farmer, a young man who, in his rural simplicity, recognized no superior. I was sorry to part from her, particularly on account of Corbell's strong aversion to colored people. After innumerable failures to fill her place a kinswoman, noted for judgment and care in the selection of her servants, sent me her own nurse until I could secure one that would please[Pg 316] me. The nurse remained three days, when Corbell took the situation into his own hands and thus explained it in his prayers:

"Our Father who art in Heaven, please send me a white nurse because nobody else can, and because when black hands touch me my soul crawls all around inside and I get icicles and creepy things all down my back, and, oh, dear Lord, our Father who art in Heaven, I'd rather have no supper than have their black hands cut it up for me, and I'd rather be dirty as the pigs than have them wash me, and I'd rather not go out doors and see the birds and flowers and other children and things play and pick the buttercups that the policeman don't care if we pick because they grow wild, than have their big black-white eyes watching me. So, our Father who art in Heaven, please send me a white nurse quick, for Christ's sake. Amen!"

"Don't you know, my darling," I said, "that all the Southern children have colored nurses. Your mamma had one and loved her almost like a mother. God made the colored people."

He thought that the black God must be very wicked and prayed that the dusky deity might die "and let the white God make all the people."

At that time the only servants in Virginia[Pg 317] were colored. Finding that the child could not become accustomed to "black hands" and that his health was endangered by his efforts to overcome a weakness that seemed congenital, we advertised for a white nurse but with no success. Hearing us talk about advertising, Corbell asked God to put in a "'tisement" for a white nurse for him. He prayed for everything he wanted and asked the Lord to do things for him that his father and mother could not do, at the same time begging the Father in Heaven not to let us know that he had appealed to a higher power, lest our feelings be hurt.

We were staying at the Ballard and Exchange Hotel in Richmond. One morning as we were going out for our daily ride a beautiful woman dressed in deep mourning was standing in the hall. With a startled expression she held out her hands and my little Corbell ran into her arms, exclaiming:

"Oh, you are the dear, good God's 'tisement and you have come to be my nurse and take my 'Carthy's place. See, our mother, see! Black hands won't ever, ever make creeps in me any more, now that our Father who art in Heaven has sent the 'tisement to me."

The stranger clasped the child to her heart, kissing his golden curls and sweet brown eyes while her tears fell.

"Pardon this uncontrolled emotion, madam," she said, "and excuse me, please, for taking such a liberty with your child. I have just passed through a great sorrow and am very nervous."

I led her to our rooms where she sat with my little darling in her arms, gazing into his face lovingly and moaning, "My little angel! Oh, my little angel!" He took out his tiny handkerchief and wiped her eyes and kissing her said:

"Don't cry, 'Tisement, don't cry. Come and ride with our mother and my little brother and me and you can hold me in your lap; come, 'Tisement, come."

Corbell explained that, hearing us talking about advertising for a nurse and seeing how we had failed, he had sent an advertisement to God himself, asking for just the kind he wanted, "and," he added, "I knew you were God's 'tisement as soon as I saw you."

When we returned she told me her sad story, the tragic story of a beautiful, fair, proud woman with the one black drop in her veins. All her loved ones were gone, her beautiful boy the last to leave her, and she longed for little hands to soothe away her pain. She stayed with us and her new-found charge saw only the[Pg 319] pure white face, the delicate soft hands that touched him lovingly, and knew nothing of the dark link that held her in bondage to the past.

She was a devoted nurse, helpful and diplomatic with both children, but it was on Corbell that she showered all her pent up love. He was very fond of music and was always ready to greet the dawn with a smile and a song. Early one morning when George first opened his eyes after a night in the better world of dreams, he heard Corbell's flute-like tones in the strains of "Where, oh, where are the Hebrew Children?" The necessity of taking up the tangled threads anew filled his little heart with dismay, and with a sense of having been wronged he called out:

"Our mother, please come and make Corbell stop singing 'Where are the Hebrew Children?' I don't know where the Hebrew Children are and I don't want to know."

Mary, the faithful answer to God's "'tisement," volunteered to find the Hebrew Children and amid her suggestions of possible places in which they might be concealed, peace was restored.

Corbell was one of the most gifted of children. Not only could he sing, but he was quite an artist with the scissors, and at a very early age could cut out the most astonishing representations of birds and animals. One day after[Pg 320] an illness I thought he had been cutting long enough and suggested to him to put up the scissors lest he become nervous and tired. Click-click went the scissors. "Wait till I get the meat part of the mule's mane right," he said. Several times I made the same suggestion, receiving the same reply, and click-click-click went the scissors. Then forgetting myself I raised my voice and commandingly called, "Put those scissors down, sir, this minute!"

Bang went the scissors across the other side of the room and with eyes flashing with indignation he cried out:

"Madam! Do you think that Aunt Mary Christ would have spoken to her little boy Jesus like that?"

"No, my darling," I said, ashamed of myself, "and I will never, never again speak in that way to you." And I never did.

It was probably the first time that the Blessed Virgin had ever been spoken of as "Aunt Mary Christ," but the claim of relationship was not surprising, as put forth by a little Virginia boy, since in the Old Dominion elderly ladies or those who were regarded with special reverence were always addressed as "Aunt."

Our nearest neighbors in the hotel were Colonel and Mrs. Parsons. The Colonel had belonged to the Federal Army and after the war[Pg 321] had brought his family to Richmond to live. His children had some toy soldiers with which they and my two little boys would fight great battles, the Confederates and Federals being permitted to win alternately.

"Hurrah, boys," he said. "I am glad I came to-day. I like to see the Confederates win."

"Ah, my little man," replied Mr. Davis in his pathetic voice, "your father and I have seen the Federals win."

Corbell was always interested in his father's fighting in Mexico. Of course Mr. Davis far outranked my Soldier in that war, but when Corbell asked, "Were you in papa's Company, Mr. Davis, or was he in yours?" rather than hold any precedence over his father in the boy's thought, Mr. Davis replied:

"If I remember correctly, we were both in each other's Company, I think, my son."

"Our mama," said Corbell, after Mr. Davis had gone, "what has Mr. Davis got in his throat that makes his talk sound so music-y?"

The summers we passed at the Old Greenbrier White Sulphur and the Salt Sulphur Springs, the hotels in both places being kept[Pg 322] by brothers who had served in my Soldier's Division.

One season we occupied a cottage with Mr. Peabody, the great philanthropist. It was his last visit to his native land, the summer before he died. He had gone to the Springs in the vain hope of restored health. Looking for my little Corbell one day I found him in the rooms of Mr. Peabody who, with weak and trembling hands, was signing some cheques. Corbell was sitting on his knee, watching his work.

"I know what makes your hand tremble," he was saying. "Our mother told me; she says it's because of all the good things it has done for God's people."

"I'd rather have trembly hands if they would help me to do good to all the people like yours," replied Corbell.

In the last summer of General Lee's life he was at the "Old White" taking the waters. Corbell had been ordered to drink them, too, and emphatically objected.

"I have to; they make me," responded [Pg 323]Corbell sadly. "You are a man and they can't make you."

"They call him a great man, our mama, and, oh, he likes things that don't smell good."

"No, sir," replied Corbell. "That's the house that George built and this is the house that Corbell built. Jack didn't build any houses down this way."

"Don't you know the story?" asked General Lee. "'This is the house that Jack built. This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.'"

"Yes, sir," returned Corbell, "but it makes me feel weazley to keep on saying the 'Jack built' part."

In passing out of the dining-room one evening General Lee stopped at our table by the door. We were cracking nuts, which reminded him of the story I had told about the young man who asked for "the nut-busters." He said to Corbell:

"Your little hands are not strong enough to[Pg 324] use these 'nut-busters.' Let me crack your nuts for you."

"No, thank you, General," replied the child. "Our mama says that we may eat all we can crack and that the squirrels don't have anybody to crack their nuts; if they did they'd eat too many, too. 'Course she don't want to hurt our hands, but she is afraid if somebody cracks nuts for us we'll eat too many and be sick."

The General said if that was the case he would not offer to crack any more nuts for little children.

I have a tender memory of a call from General Lee once when my little Corbell was very ill at the Ballard and Exchange. One morning Uncle Wash, the old colored porter, tiptoed in with a card.

"It's Marse Genul Lee, Missus," he whispered. "He come ter ax atter de li'le man, en he say he moughty sorry to hyer boutn his being so bad off. He's ret out hyer at de do'."

"I have come to renew my acquaintance, George, with our little man here," he said, [Pg 325]calling my Soldier by his name, which I had never before heard him do.

He was President at that time of Washington College, now the Washington-Lee University, at Lexington, and this was the last time he was ever in Richmond.

General Lee's fondness for children made him always a great favorite with them, and he and our little Corbell discussed the Old White, its nasty smelling sulphur-water, and the many friends they had made there. Holding up his little thin hand, Corbell said:

"See, General, how wobbly my hand is. It's a heap tremblier than Mr. Peabody's was. I can write my name now, but I can't write it to do good with and to give things, as Mr. Peabody did; I wish I could. My, wouldn't I make it fly?"

"Your dear little hand does more good than it could possibly do by writing your name on paper," replied General Lee. "It is a hand of love and that is better than anything else in the world. I saw Dr. Minnegerode and he told me how sick you had been and how patient and sweet you were and how hard you were trying to get well."

"Dr. Minnegerode wasn't a soldier like you and our papa, was he?" asked our little darling, shaking his head and changing the subject.

"Yes," replied General Lee, "but he did not fight with a sword. He is a preacher, a Bible teacher, and fights with the spirit."

"General, Dr. Minnegerode always says his prayers with me and asks the Lord to bless me and make me well," said Corbell.

"May I say my prayers with you, too, my boy, and ask the Lord to make us both well and bless us?"

"No, I am neither now, my little man," replied the General; "just a poor, sick, helpless child like you, asking for health."

XXXIV CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN

After the failure of the military system of agriculture developed at Turkey Island my Soldier became the general agent for the South of a life insurance company. His office was in Richmond, where his boyhood had been spent and where we had many pleasant friends and old associations.

Though living a life of deep earnestness, my Soldier was fond of a story or a jest. He used to tell some of Lincoln's jokes and anecdotes which, in his youthful days in Illinois, he had heard from the lips of that famous story-teller, so that when I afterward saw the stories of the great War President in print I remembered many of them as old friends. Mr. Lincoln was much interested in the plantation legends told by the Virginia boy and they exchanged stories, to the delight of both.

My Soldier especially liked a joke if it was upon me. On leaving home for a business trip[Pg 328] he once asked me how much money I should need before his return. After a labored calculation I mentioned a sum which he, knowing me, promptly doubled. He had been gone only a day when I suddenly recalled an obligation that had escaped my memory, and telegraphed him. By next mail came a cheque, carefully made out, payable to "Mrs. Oliver Twist." As I must have the money it was necessary for me to indorse it as it was made out. To tease me he kept the cheque to dangle before my eyes on the slightest provocation, and I have it now.

He always made companions of our boys and joked and played with them as if he were the same age as they. One morning when our little George was about ten years old he took him to the office several blocks from home, sending him back with a note, telling him to go directly home and not to get into any trouble on the way. Then he followed him, watching his progress. I still have the note in which were recorded the little fellow's meanderings, of which this is a copy:

"Saw a man posting bills; stopped to watch him. Went on a short distance; saw two dogs fighting. Stopped to see which beat; sicked them on again. Farther along saw something interesting in a drug-store window; stood and[Pg 329] looked. Started on and came to some boys playing marbles; stopped and took a hand in the game; lost all his own marbles, paid up like a man, walked on, whistling. Came to a man shoveling coal; helped him, and pocketed some small pieces. Met a man he knew; stopped and talked to him, asked the time. Played in a pile of sand with a stick. Had a fight with Wirt Robinson; licked each other. Found a boy who had lost a penny down a crack; helped him to get it out. Saw a kitten escaping from a cellar window; chased it back. Met a boy on stilts; made him get down and let him walk on them. Saw an old woman coming out of the doorway with a bucket of water on her head; jumped at her, frightening her, making her head lose its balance, spilling the water all over her. Turned his pockets inside out and gave the old woman all his week's allowance, as compensation for the wetting he had caused. Reached the gate; stopped to play with the latch. Went in. Time in reaching home, one hour and twenty-five minutes."

The report was sent by a messenger, who delivered it to me before little George came into the house, so that, to his great surprise, I was able to tell him all that he had been doing. When I showed him the record he said:

"I knew dear father was a great man and[Pg 330] knew most everything, but I didn't know he had God's eyes and could see everything."

"I KNOW DEAR FATHER WAS A GREAT MAN AND KNEW
MOST EVERYTHING, BUT I DIDN'T KNOW HE
HAD GOD'S EYES AND COULD
SEE EVERYTHING"

To my query whether he had done anything else by the way which his dear father had not seen, he replied:

"Yes; I threw Branch Barksdale's hat over the fence, and I wouldn't have been home yet if he hadn't chased me."

Charlotte Cushman was with me at the time and I had an amusing illustration of the way in which she unconsciously threw herself into a situation.

"Poor little man! Poor little man!" she said in her deep sympathetic voice, as she observed the bewilderment of the child, expressed in every line of his tense little body, his puckered features and bent fingers. "His little brain is all puckered up, too. He can't understand how this thing should have come to him. Poor little man! It is wicked to mystify him so—bless his little heart!"

In her sympathy she had assumed the pose of the bewildered child, and her face and hands were "puckered up," as she had described his brain.

This was Miss Cushman's last visit to Richmond, when she came as a reader, having left the dramatic stage. When I first knew her she was at the height of her wonderful career as[Pg 331] an actress. I met her at the house of a friend, and she often visited me when in Richmond. She became very fond of our children and they were fascinated by her. My little Corbell asked her:

"Ah," she replied, "there is the trouble. I do 'be it,' my child. There is where strength and vitality go—in just being it."

Corbell was anxious to see her play, but she would not let him see her as Meg Merrilies.

"No Meg Merrilies must ever come into the life of a child like that," she said. "Of all the people I have ever known, he would be the most deeply impressed by Meg Merrilies."

"I wasn't brought up thinking it any wrong to shoot birds or any wrong to eat birds, and all the good people I know shoot them and eat them. But things that have such pretty feathers and such pretty talk in their throats must have souls, and so I don't know for sure about shooting them and eating them, not for really, truly sure, you know."

"I think you are right, my child, about the birds having souls, and I believe horses and dogs have souls, too. You know, dear, I believe[Pg 332] in reincarnation. We eat the body of the bird, the feathers we put in our cap, and the soul is the voice that must sing in another bird."

After that Corbell did not feel so bad about the shooting of the birds. "The soul goes out and another bird catches it and sings."

Charlotte Cushman told me how her idea of Meg Merrilies had come to her. On the evening of the day that she had been unexpectedly called upon to play the character she was standing in the wing awaiting her cue, book in hand, when she heard one of the gypsies say, "Meg—why, she is no longer what she was; she doats." In a flash there came to her the conception of the character in which she was to make her greatest success.

I never saw her Lady Macbeth on the stage, but retain a vivid impression of the awesome personation when she showed me in my own room how she had played the sleep-walking scene upon her first appearance in drama when she was nineteen. I still see her tragic face with the dawning horror creeping over it as she looked at the stain on her hand. With the sudden impulse of a frightened woman, she hurriedly took up a fold of her dress to rub it off. The futility of the effort flashing upon her, she removed her clutch from her dress and a deeper terror gloomed into her face. She[Pg 333] caught up her long hanging hair and tried to rub away the stain. With her great awe-compelling eyes fixed upon her hand she uttered the words, "Out, damned spot!" in a tone of anguished despair that thrilled me with terror. She did not act Lady Macbeth; she was Lady Macbeth in all her pride, all her ambition, all her determination, all her despair. She said that she did not like to play the character because it exhausted her. It is easy to understand that a woman of cold and unscrupulous ambition would drain the life of one so gentle and sweet-natured as Charlotte Cushman.

In this engagement she did not play Nancy Sikes, but she gave us her characterization of the part because my Soldier wanted to see it. Lawrence Barrett described it accurately when he said: "It sounded as if she spoke through blood." She was one of the few to whom a set stage with scenery and music and costumes and an audience are not necessary in the production of artistic effects. A private room, or a grassy plot under a tree, or an open space in the sunshine, was all the stage she required, one soul that understood her was audience enough, and when she threw herself into the character she represented no one would have known whether she wore the garb of a beggar or a queen.

"Oh," she said, "that was worth losing your name for," referring to the fact that in Canada the General and I were known by our middle name of Edwards. "The very fact that she could not keep from acting when off the stage made her interesting. Did you ever see her wipe her nose?"

I never had, so, to illustrate Ellen Tree's manner of performing that ceremony, Miss Cushman slowly and mysteriously drew her handkerchief from her pocket. As she did so her eyes opened wide and glared ominously, as if some scene of tragic import were looming up in the middle distance. Her form was tense and rigid, all her muscles drawn taut as if for a fatal spring. The handkerchief was lifted and applied to each nostril, while the face was stern and uncompromising as might have been that of the noble Roman sentencing his son to death for breaking the law. The handkerchief was returned to her pocket in the same dramatic manner.

"The blood of all the Cæsars was on that handkerchief when it was put away," Charlotte said. "Ellen Tree could not help acting; it was her nature."

Ellen Tree's everyday tragedy was sometimes productive of startling results. Going into Price's dry-goods store in Richmond she asked in her most dramatic voice:

"N-n-no, no, dear Madam," stammered the gallant but startled Virginian, "I—I'm sorry."

One of the clerks came to his assistance with the information that the lady meant calicoes, at the same time taking down some pieces from the shelf. The customer examined them with tragic significance and looked up with eyes filled with fathomless depths of emotion, inquiring in a voice of intense power, dwelling with dramatic force upon each word:

Charlotte Cushman's manner was the opposite of that of Ellen Tree. She was a perfect child of Nature, and one meeting her would have supposed that she was a gentle, quiet home-keeper with no thought except to please her own.

"I think his paintings are as marvelous as his acting, and the colors in his voice blend as perfectly as those in his paintings. He really must have had a dog named Schneider when he was playing Rip Van Winkle, and if you had told him differently he would not have believed you. He could fool himself into thinking that whatever he acted was a fact, and his audience readily took the same view."

Once when Charlotte Cushman was with us Judge Moncure, then an old man, came in and, meeting his wife, greeted her with great chivalry, bending and kissing her hand. Judge Joynes, of Petersburg, asked, "How old is Mrs. Moncure, Judge?" Judge Moncure replied, "She was sixteen when I married her, Judge, and to me she has been that age ever since."

The little incident reminded Charlotte of the Brownings, whom she had known in Florence, and of the beautiful compliments that Robert Browning used to pay his wife. She spoke of his indignation when Mrs. Browning's poetry was compared with his own in a manner unfavorable to her. He really felt that she was superior to himself and had no patience with people who could not appreciate her greater merit.

Miss Cushman told me that of all the parts she had ever played she most enjoyed Romeo, which she used to play to her sister's Juliet.

She was fond of dialects, saying, "Everything is more fascinating than plain English." In Ireland she talked the brogue with the peasants so well that she might have passed for one of them. She was equally at home with Scotch, German and Italian dialects, and when in the North had been noted for recitations in negro speech, which she thought the most beautiful[Pg 337] of all. But on coming to Richmond she found that she did not know anything about the lingo of the darkies. Being anxious to learn it, she used to talk with old Wash and Julia, two historical characters at the Ballard and Exchange Hotel, repeating their expressions over and over. Later she would try to say them, finding that she was no more expert than in the beginning. Thus she learned that to know plantation talk one must be born to it; it cannot be acquired.

She was at that time victim to a painful and wasting disease. Seeing her suffering one day from the treatment for the malady, I said:

"Yes, my dear," she replied gently, "I shall play to-night, and, it may be, all the better for the pain."

Watching her wonderful performance that evening I thought it might be that pain is the gateway to the highest realm of art.

The last time I saw Charlotte Cushman was in Philadelphia. A great sorrow had shrouded me from the sunlight, and she tried to shelter me in the warmth of her own heart.

"You ought to have been an actress," she said, "and then you would have regained happiness by simulating it."

Another of our friends from the mimic world[Pg 338] was Joe Jefferson, whom we saw now for the first time since meeting him in Canada. On coming to Richmond he found that his old friend, Mr. Caskie, who had helped him to a foothold upon life, had lost his fortune by the war, and was in even greater need than the unknown boy had formerly been. The famous comedian was not one to forget a kindness. "Let's give him a benefit," he said to my Soldier. It was characteristic of Joe Jefferson that he never said "I will do" thus and so. He said "Let's do it," as if the success of the project depended upon the one to whom he was talking rather than on his own ability. The benefit was given and the man of ruined fortunes had reason to be glad that in the days of the full larder he had "cast his bread upon the waters."

XXXV EASTER FLOWERS

The old Ballard and Exchange Hotel in Richmond, Virginia, celebrated for having entertained more distinguished visitors than any other hostelry in this country, consisted of two houses on opposite sides of the street, connected by one of the most picturesque bridges, where the guests found a pleasant meeting place as they passed from one building to the other.

Colonel Carrington, the proprietor, was a courtly, gallant and hospitable old Virginia gentleman, a peer of peers, yielding to no superiority of position, as was evidenced in his reception of the Prince of Wales on his visit to Richmond. After cordially shaking hands with the royal visitor he slapped him on the back and said:

"Make yourself at home, Prince, make yourself at home, sir. I extend to you my heartiest welcome, sir. Old Wash will look after you[Pg 340] and if I can be of any service, Prince, just call on me."

I never heard whether the Prince returned the Colonel's slap but I know that he accepted the cordiality in the same spirit in which it was offered. He visited the Colonel's stables and discussed the pedigree of his fine thoroughbred, drove with him behind his fastest trotter, and so liked the old Virginia mint juleps which he drank with his host, that he asked for and received the recipe for making them and took it back with him to the motherland, with some mint roots to plant in his palace garden.

The Colonel was our life-long friend and devoted to our children who, while they returned his affection, stood in awe of him from the time that he gave them a graphic illustration, by pulling his wig awry and turning his eyelids wrong side out, of what had happened to "peeping, prying, inquisitive Jerry."

On our return from Salt Sulphur Springs the summer our little Corbell was in his eighth year, as we drove up to the Exchange Hotel the dear old Colonel came out to the carriage and said:

"Your rooms are all ready, General. We received your telegram and prepared for your coming, but we have two cases of measles here, so I have arranged to have you taken care of at the Monumental Hotel till the danger is over."

We thought it best not to run any risk, and went to the Monumental. The rooms were large and comfortable. Dr. and Mrs. Barksdale were the first to greet us. They, too, with several others of our friends who had little children, had been obliged to leave the Exchange for the same reason.

Our precautions proved in vain, for my sister, a young lady just entering society, who was staying with us, was stricken with the disease, and my schoolboy brother and my two children caught the contagion. At the end of three months, however, all were well except our beautiful, gifted, wonderful boy, our little Corbell, always a delicate child, who now became weaker day by day.

There was never anything like the goodness of the people of Richmond in those trying months. Relatives, friends and strangers came daily with toys, books, good things, carriages, as long as we could take our darling to ride, for his beautiful angel face, his wonderful mind and his glorious voice had won a place in every heart.

While Corbell was ill Mr. Davis called on us for the last time, as he was never again in Richmond. When he came in I drew up a chair for him, but he said:

When Corbell's lunch was brought in he asked that luncheon be brought for Mr. Davis, to which Mr. Davis added his voice.

"You, if you please," Mr. Davis replied, "for I should like to hear your grace."

adding, "and never mind, Jesus, about Mr. Davis being here for he would like to have you."

I do not think that the child took his eyes from Mr. Davis's face, except to say grace, during the whole time the visitor was there. Oh, but that face was so awfully, so pathetically changed! Every expression, the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes, all betokened a broken heart. Only the harmony of motion and the melody of tone remained.

On Good Friday night, seven months afterward, in sorrowful tones one and then another of my friends as they left me for the night whispered resignation to the will of God. Our Corbell was dying. All through the long weary night my Soldier, Mary and I breathlessly[Pg 343] watched and listened beside him. As we were moving softly about the room he said:

"I'm not asleep, our mama. 'Tisement thought I was dreaming 'cause I was laughing, but I wasn't. I was laughing about the funny thoughts I had when I was young. I just couldn't make my eyes open wide and when she caught me laughing I could see the first time I found out that God was ahead. It was that time in the bathroom when I wanted you to turn on the snow and 'Tisement said you couldn't do it, and couldn't any of you do it; neither our mama nor our papa nor Thomas could turn on the snow. You said you could all of you turn on the water. Well, I couldn't see why you couldn't just as well turn on the snow as the water. Then all of a sudden the thought came into my head that God was ahead of you all and that only He could turn on the flaky, flying, zig-zag snow, and I began wondering what more He could do that nobody else, not even our mama and our papa, could do. Do you remember how Thomas laughed at me the next day when I told him about it? How funny I was when I was young, wasn't I? I reckon all the little children are just as funny, though, and all of them think there isn't anything in the world that their father and mother can't do. I know I thought so until that very [Pg 344]morning and then I knew that God was ahead even of them. Once I asked our papa which was the oldest, he or God, and oh, my, but I was so hurt and disappointed when he said God was the oldest."

Little streaks of light were just beginning to scramble in through the slatted blinds. My Soldier smiling, stooped and kissed our darling's little wasted hands and said, "Yes, my boy; God is ahead," and then he walked over to the double windows and opened wide the blinds so that all the dawn-colors might stream in untrammeled and light the room, that our little one could see the eastern sky and watch for the sun he loved so well. The sky became a deeper red and moving across it was a black specky cloud.

"What are those dark specks, Soldier; are they crows?" I asked as I walked through the window onto the veranda to take a better look at the long queer line and to breathe in the morning air.

"No, little one," replied my Soldier, "they are wild geese; the cold weather is all gone."

"Then summer has come, our papa," said the child. "I was watching those little moving black flakes, too, when our mama asked you what they were."

"Some unfortunate fellow has been overcome and is in the hands of the police," explained my Soldier.

The sacredness of our watch, the loneliness of the hour and the hollow silence of the deserted streets made the harsh voices seem more discordant. I looked over the rail.

"Oh, what a pitiable sight!" I exclaimed. "The poor man looks like a gentleman, too, refined and distinguished looking. Poor fellow! He seems so angry and—so sick. Please, my darling, go to his rescue. Who knows but perhaps somewhere there are belonging to him little ones like ours?"

"Yes, please go, our papa, please, sir," echoed the pleading tones from the bed, "go and bring him in. He may have little ones of our kind and maybe he has a little one of our mama's kind, too, waiting for him somewhere."

My Soldier went out just as the round red rim of the sun burst into sight out of the east. There was a greater joy than a smile on his face when he came back. He had brought the stranger in and registered him in the hotel as our guest. Our lives frequently came in touch with this stranger's in the years that followed, and he told me that often and again when he was attacked by that same terrible, almost incurable, malady, the memory of the spirit of the[Pg 346] child in the dawn of Good Friday had saved him.

A year later, when my Soldier went home and little Corbell was placed beside him, the children of this man came to me and said, "We are sorry Corbell is taken away, for we have been putting flowers on his grave every day, as our papa told us. But we can just as well put them here and on the General's grave, too."

The long Saturday passed and Easter Sunday came over the hills in the whiteness of its lilies and with melodious chimes rang out the blessed tidings that a Saviour had risen to bring Heaven to the world. But the golden light brought no dawn of hope to the hearts of those who watched sorrowfully over the little life that was drifting out upon that sea of glorious music into the Heaven of which it gave glad promise. Lulled to rest while the children sang their Easter carols, our boy went to join his brother angels. Through the open window the voices were sounding "Christ is risen" as he turned his head and laid his face against mine and reached out his little hand to my Soldier and Mary. I felt his spirit flutter and go. With a shivering sigh for me his soul slipped through the gate that Christ had risen to unlock.

During his long illness thoughtful friends from everywhere had been untiring in kindness.[Pg 347] All their gifts he had willed to the poor children. His books he had left to his little brother, his ring to Mary, his "Confederate Orphan" fund to his father and me, saying, "Next quarter you will both be Confederate Orphans, for I shall be with the soldiers in the Lord's Army—maybe I'll be His little drummer boy, so I want you both to have that money."

His "Uncle Bev," as he called Judge Beverly Tucker, had given him a little enameled democratic rooster and on the Saturday evening before the Easter dawn he asked his father to give the rooster to the "poor handsome man who had come in the early morning when the sun was biggest and reddest and Good Friday was getting out of the way for Easter."

Weeks before he had selected his pall-bearers from among his little playfellows and had asked them all to wear white. To Dr. Minnegerode he said:

"Please, sir, Doctor, don't make the boys or any of my friends or relations cry but, please, sir, tell them something pretty, as you do at Sunday-school sometimes, and make them as happy as you can and have them all sing bright songs; and I want everybody to bring me red and blue and yellow and pink flowers, as well as white ones, and when you all get through and start back home I want the boys and girls to[Pg 348] carry all the flowers with them because the flowers would be so lonesome out there that they'd fade and die. Birds don't care for flowers and children do." He often asked me, "Don't you think flowers can feel?"

The Easter blossoms were still fresh and fragrant in St. Paul's Church when fourteen of Corbell's little boy friends all in white, singing their Easter anthem, carried the little white casket that held the flower just budding into blossom in our Father's garden, across the street and up the aisle, followed by all the children of the Sunday-school and the many sympathizing friends.

We left him under the shade of the young green leaves, among the blooming flowers of the early spring, where the music of the waters of the winding stream as it rippled over the pebbles could be heard mingling with the sweet song of the birds.

The morning that he went to sleep George had come in with a waiter of white cape jasmine from General and Mrs. Maury, who had taken him to their home during these last days of his little brother's perfect life. In his loving haste to bring them to his brother some of the delicate white blossoms had fallen and been crushed. Corbell looked down at the hurt leaves, then up into George's eyes, saying, "Little brother, be[Pg 349] gentle with the flowers; they die so soon." These, almost his last words, my Soldier had engraved on one side of the gold dollar, the "Confederate Orphan" money which he had willed to us, and wore it always on his watch-chain. After he went to our boy I wore it and always have tried to obey its voice and "be gentle with the flowers, they die so soon."

My Soldier longed to take me away at once from the scenes where so much suffering had come to me and the next morning I summoned all my strength for the trial awaiting me. I went to Mary's room and found her dressed, with the exception of her gloves, ready to go out. Her trunks, marked and strapped, were being taken down-stairs. Upon the bed were my dress and wrap, bonnet and veil and gloves of mourning, all laid out by her careful hand.

"Come," she said, "let me help you off with your wrapper. You have not much time; I was just coming for you. You are to leave on the ten-thirty train. George has gone with his father while he makes the final arrangements. I have said good-bye to them."

"Good-bye? Mary!" I said. "Good-bye? What do you mean? You would never leave me now when I need you so?"

"Weeks ago, my lady, when I saw that our little darling could not live I made all my arrangements to take the veil. God has again taken from me all I had on earth. When you, too, like me, are bereft of everything come to me."

For one minute we were clasped in each other's arms; her cold lips pressed mine for the first time. No word was spoken—she was gone—I was alone. I looked about me, dazed, confused. There was my hand satchel packed, a book and a letter, Mary's writing, on the bureau. Mechanically I picked them up, shuddering as I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Was that pale, pinched face shrouded in crêpe mine?

"Dear Mother, where are you?" George's little arms were clasping my knees. "Dear Father sent me to take care of you till he comes back. He says he will be up in a minute for you and I must help you to get ready."

Always before our precious boy had called me "Our Mama" and his father "Our Papa," as he had been taught by his father. I sat down, taking him in my lap.

"Dear Mother, you've got me and Dear Father; don't cry—please, Dear Mother. I saw Mammy-Mary again but she shook her head at us and pointed up here to you and so Dear Father wouldn't stop her. Oh, she looked most as dead as you do, Dear Mother."

"I don't know," he replied, "but the words 'Dear Mother' just came to me and choked up in my throat and so I said them out."

From the walls of a convent in France for many years came at Easter time a message of love, a book, an embroidered flower, a letter or a prayer. Then, when all had been taken from me and I needed her most, only silence came, and I knew that she, too, had passed beyond.

XXXVI HIS LAST BATTLE

In the early summer of 1875, as we were on the eve of going to Green Brier White Sulphur Springs for the rest that my Soldier so much needed after a winter of hard work, a telegram came from the Insurance Company he represented notifying him that an important matter in their Norfolk Agency had arisen, requiring his immediate personal attention.

"Little one," he said to me, "you must go on to the Springs with our boy and I will join you just as soon as this business is settled."

"Go without you? Not for the whole world!" I replied. "No, indeed, my Soldier. I am going with you. Why, I would not leave you even if you were perfectly well. I am going with you."

He, with his usual unselfishness, urged my going to the Springs, pleading that he was not at all seriously ill and would be all right in a day or two.

"But think, little one, think," he replied. "You are packed and ready to start, your rooms are engaged and your tickets bought. Now, don't be a foolish little wife. Go on to the White where it is cool and pleasant—please, now, my Lily, please, dear. This business may not detain me over a day or two. Be good and go, and please me by escaping the heat and mosquitoes."

"I want to be foolish," I replied, "and I don't want to be good, nor stay in a cool and pleasant place when you are where it is uncomfortable and sweltering; I want to be scorched with heat and bitten by mosquitoes, so I am going with you if it is not longer than a minute."

I went. The day following our arrival in Norfolk my Soldier returned to the hotel suffering with a chill. The duties had proved more complicated than were anticipated and his illness had been aggravated by hard work in the intense heat. Feeling better the next morning, he insisted upon going out again, but within the hour came back with another chill.

Thus began the long battle with death, in which no impatient word escaped his lips. With the endurance born to the brave, trained in long marches and agonizing campaigns and steeled[Pg 354] in the fires of battle, his soul rose triumphant above the shocks of physical torture. When intense pain forced a moan from his lips he would look up pathetically and apologize, saying:

"You must not mind my moaning, little one. I'm afraid husband is getting into bad habits; forgive him."

So solicitous was he for me that often he would not acknowledge that suffering had caused an expression of pain, but would say, "Oh, it was nothing." With serene face he met the agony, fighting a braver battle than had ever been waged upon a field of war. Oh, those dark, dark days when hope failed and faith waned! If there was one ray of light in their gloom as I look back through the long weary years, it was in the loving thoughtfulness and sympathy of his people, the people of our beloved land everywhere.

Especially do I recall, among the legion of those who came to serve, my cousin, William Jasper Phillips, a mere boy in years but a man in mind and spirit, who with willing hand and heart, with gentle words and loyal, loving eyes, came to watch with me through the dark hours—holding my hands with a child's loving fervor and a man's strong sympathy.

Long years afterward, when I stood by the[Pg 355] open grave of this cousin and looked upon the many mourners whom special trains had brought from all parts of the country to do him honor and show their love, my thoughts went back to that dread time and I wondered not that a host of friends were saddened by his passing.

In vain were all our prayers—in vain our loving care. The time soon came when I knew that my Soldier's warfare was almost ended.

Father Jansen, who had come from Richmond to see him, asked, "Do you want to see me alone?" With his hand on the Father's knee, he replied:

"You know, Father, I never was a solitary bird. I was never alone except sometimes in the twilight or in the woods and then I had the spirit of my mother and my little girl with me."

"Ah, no; how could I be? I think God does not want me to be reconciled to leaving my wife and little boy alone in the world. He only wants me to obey with the courage of a soldier who receives an order that must be carried out because he is a soldier."

The Father was silent for a time as if going back in memory to an hour long past. Then he said:

"The first time I remember seeing you and having a talk with you was on Shockoe Hill. Standing there alone, your little boy gathering flowers some distance away, you seemed completely lost in the view before you. You held a bunch of wild flowers in your hand and were singing, 'As I view now those scenes so charming,' I listened and when you had finished the song you began to whistle. I asked you what tune you whistled and you said, 'I was thinking of Forsyth and of the boys and of the old fellow who came into the camp at San Antonio and acted out "Bennie Havens, O," and we all gave him money to go on his way and I sang that song that night, and it came back to me, and I wondered what had become of the boys. The next morning at breakfast a young fellow named May came in and said, "Boys, here is your money and it is worth it. I was Bennie Havens, O." I was wondering where May was.'"

On the last day when the physicians wanted to give my Soldier an anodyne, he said:

"No, I would rather suffer and know. You say there is no help for me; that I've got to cross the river. Well, I want to go over in my right mind—to know when I'm going; and I want to see how to steer my little craft as it pulls out from the shore and look into the dear faces of my loved ones till I breathe my last[Pg 357] good night. Now, please, Doctor, excuse me, but won't you all go and leave me alone with my wife? You have tried to save me for her and I thank you. Now, all that you can do for me is to say good night."

Just as they were going my uncle, Colonel Phillips, and his wife came in with our little boy, who was staying with them.

"Well, Colonel," said my Soldier, "the enemy is too strong for me again, you see, and, Colonel—my ammunition is all out. I am glad you have both come. Thank you, and now good night, my dear friend; you are the last old comrade to whom I shall give an order—watch over my wife and child."

"Crawl up here by 'Dear Father,' my baby," and laying his hand on our boy's head he closed his eyes and there was silence in the room. Presently he spoke:

"This is the month that God sent you to us, my boy, and this is the month, I am afraid, that God is going to call me away from you. You must take my place at the side of your Dear Mother, begin at once to be the little husband to her, the little man for her, and I will watch over you and help you to perform all these offices."

"Offices. You are old enough to know offices and officers. You must begin to learn words, because words are things and their meanings have much to do with our lives."

"Klosch nonnitsh, look out, means you must not tell anybody; it is a secret. Tum-tum, heart. Klosch mika tum-tum, my heart speaks to yours."

"I am trying to make him understand the value of words and feel their meaning as indicated in their sound."

He gave George some money and told him to treat his little friends, saying that he had found that it brought him much more pleasure to give than to receive, and that one of the expressions of the eyes that he liked more than anything else was gratitude and love.

"I have seen gratitude and love in a dog's eyes almost as strong as in a human being's."

"Cats have secret eyes. They are eyes of mystery; eyes that defy you to read them. They are wonderfully beautiful, and there is a jewel that looks like them and is called cat's-eye.

"They told Dear Father that he must not write and he is a good soldier, but he is going to risk a court-martial and write. Now, run along and spend your money and have a good time and remember when even you are having a good time that it is at nobody's expense."

"What are you going to do to be court-martialed about!" asked the boy, returning to the risk that his father was to take.

"Well, I am going to have pencil and paper if I can get them. I would rather have pen and ink if I could."

He went out and returned with paper, a bottle of ink, a pen and a sponge. He said he tried to get some shot because he had seen it down-stairs to wipe pens on, but he did not see how it could wipe pens, for he took one and tried to wipe a pen and couldn't do it.

"Now, this is a love-letter and I don't want you to read it because you would be jealous. It is to an old sweetheart," said my Soldier, and the old twinkle came into his eyes.

On that last day he wrote a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Haxtun, dear friends at whose home I had visited in happy days. Mr. Haxtun was[Pg 360] both Vice-President and Secretary of the Life Insurance Company which my Soldier represented.

"The marching days are over and when the train comes in and the call is 'All aboard' and I shall have started on the last journey, I want you to come and take my precious wife to your home and keep her just as long as you can have her and as she can stay. She loves music, she loves the beautiful sky, she loves the flowers, the ocean, and she loves you both. Lying here thinking about it, I feel that if she went to her own people they would remind her all the time of her grief, because it will be a grief to her, and it would be the same way if she went to mine. With you there is nothing that will make the sorrow keener."

"My darling boy, your Dear Mother gave you my name, George Edwards Pickett. I know you will take care of it, and now I give you my[Pg 361] place, too, and my darling wife, your Dear Mother. You understand, my son?"

The little head of his namesake son nestled closer to his own, the little arms crept about his neck and the child sobbed out, "Yes, sir, Dear Father."

"Bless your heart, my baby, bless your heart. Come now and kiss 'Dear Father,' good night."

"Poor little man! Poor little loving heart! He does not know what death is, even though he saw his little brother go out of this earth-life; and you, my darling wife, must not let him know its meaning now. You must—you have got to take my place and be 'Dear Mother' and 'Dear Father,' too, to our boy."

The moon was rising, filling the night with radiance and casting mystic shadows on the earth.

Again there was silence. The Doctor came and gave him something and I have always thought there was an anodyne in it.

"How beautiful the moonlight looks and how peaceful! You will remember sometimes, my darling wife, how often in the years that are no more, I have sung to you under its silvery sheen, but my guitar is unstrung and the strings[Pg 362] in my voice are all broken and I can't sing to you to-night, and I want to—oh, how I want to sing just one song for, as I hold you close and feel your touch, I seem to hear again the chimes ringing out on our wedding day—our blessed marriage song, 'Believe me, if all these endearing young charms,' and I hear the choir chanting it soft and low in the distance as the minister is saying, 'Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder,' and the bands playing the same song as they passed our carriage on the way to the station. I feel the hand of my wife creep into mine, and as the last faint sound of the last band dies away I feel our hand-clasp tighten and hear my own voice singing for my darling, 'Believe me, if all these endearing young charms,' and feel the thrill of our great love."

"Oh, my Lily—my little one—my precious wife! Pass over the dark days as bravely as you can till our boy is safe and then come to husband."

"If I had been at home in our little room within the sight and the sound of the waters below us and the old packet-boat coming by, the[Pg 363] birds singing and my own redbird that always came and the mocking-birds, I think husband would have been a long time with you and the little boy. Maybe it is best. I think they must have given me an anæsthetic, though I asked them not to, for I feel as if floating dizzily. Now, little one, let's go to sleep."

My Soldier went to sleep with my hand in his. One and then another of the watchers would look in and as I waved my hand would quietly steal away. He just breathed hard and then seemed to be gently sleeping.

Six hours later one of the Sisters of Charity came in and unclasped the precious hand which I knew was holding mine for the last time. Two hours earlier I had felt the sigh that freed his great spirit and made of me (Oh, the woe of that word!) a widow.

Darkness came. Through it some of the scenes that passed made pictures on my mind which come back to me now in the dim watches of memory. I recall the memorials and resolutions of sorrow that came from military associations, from Boards of Trade, from the many organizations that had known my Soldier through the years. From all over the country they came to tell of the deep appreciation and honor in which he was held.

I remember the long procession of mourners that followed him through the streets of Richmond to the beautiful resting place of Hollywood, the longest funeral procession, they told me, that had ever been known in Richmond. His staff officers, couriers and headquarters guard met again to follow him as loyally as when he led them into the whirlwind of battle.

His old soldiers who had leaped at the flashing of his sword and dashed with him against the gates of death, and who were now scattered through far distant States, had rallied to the call of the unblown bugle and the unvoiced command of their beloved leader to march behind him for the last time. Those who had followed other leaders came to do honor to the memory of the great soldier who had fought for the cause dear to them all.

A few years later another procession marched down the streets of Richmond to the sacred ground of Hollywood to attend the dedication of Gettysburg Monument, erected to the memory of my Soldier and his brave men—the first Confederate Monument. Again Southern veterans assembled in honor of their leader and of their gallant comrades. Loyal to them and the past, they came from many States, faithful as in the days of fire and storm, bringing their treasure of memories to lay on that sacred shrine.

William Florence and Joe Jefferson placed their laurel wreaths on the grave of their friend.

From Pennsylvania came ex-Governor Curtin, the war Governor, and two Union Generals. The Philadelphia Brigade, that stood on Cemetery Hill and received the shock of that great charge which will live in history while our country stands, marched in a body to pay tribute to the great Southern soldier whose heart was filled with kindness, leaving no room for enmity. Officers of the old Army of the Forties and Fifties, who had loved my Soldier in those far-gone days, three of them members of that memorable class of 1846, were there, with the golden flames of old camp-fires yet burning upon the altar of the heart.

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CHAPTER		PAGE
I.	"Out of the Everywhere"	1
II.	The First Prayer	12
III.	Church Visitors	19
IV.	My Soldier	30
V.	A Keepsake for the Angels	42
VI.	African Royalty	48
VII.	Our First Currency	57
VIII.	Yuletide	64
IX.	Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs	79
X.	The Breaking of the Storm	87
XI.	The "Virginia"	93
XII.	Richmond After Seven Pines	103
XIII.	My Wounded Soldier	109
XIV.	The Red Fox	117
XV.	The Smuggled Bride	124
XVI.	Bottler, Bottler Up	133
XVII.	On the Lines	141
XVIII.	The Amenities	149
XIX.	The Closing Days	157
XX.	Suspense	175
XXI.	"Whoa, Lucy"	184
XXII.	George Junior's First Greenback	191
XXIII.	"Skookum Tum-Tum"	200
XXIV.	Carpet-Bag, Basket and Baby	207
XXV.	Edwards is Better	221
[Pg vi]XXVI.	One Woman Redeemed Them All	227
XXVII.	A Familiar Face	237
XXVIII.	Visitors, Shilling a Dozen—Our Left-Handers	248
XXIX.	Born with Emeralds—Nemo Nocetur	261
XXX.	Turkey Island	273
XXXI.	At the White House	288
XXXII.	Uncle Tom	305
XXXIII.	"God's 'tisement"	314
XXXIV.	Charlotte Cushman	327
XXXV.	Easter Flowers	339
XXXVI.	His Last Battle	352

Portrait of Author	Frontispiece
	FACING PAGE
Abraham Lincoln	168
Ulysses S. Grant	288
"I know dear Father was a great man and knew most everything, but I didn't know he had God's eyes and could see everything"	330
"Little Brother, be gentle with the flowers; they die so soon"	348
"All Quiet Along the Potomac"	355
The Angel of Peace	363