Rose Mather: A tale

CHAPTER III. THE DEPARTURE.-1

CHAPTER III.

THE DEPARTURE.

The 13th Regiment was ordered to Elmira, and the day had arrived for the departure of the volunteers. Bright was the sun, and cloudless the sky which shone on Rockland, that spring day; but cloudless sky nor warm spring sun could comfort the hearts about to part with their treasures, some forever, and some to meet again, but when, or where, or how, none could tell save Him who holds the secrets of the future.

There were mothers who had never felt a pang so keen or a pain so sore, as when with hearts too full of anguish for the dry, red eyes to weep, they watched their sons pass from the threshold of the door, and knew that when the golden sunlight, falling so brightly around them, was purple in the west, they would look in vain for that returning step, and listen in vain for tones which were the first, perhaps, to stir the deep fountains of maternal love. Fathers, too, were there, with heads bent down to hide the tears they deemed it weak to shed, as they gave the farewell blessing to their boy, praying that God might be over and around him, both when the deafening battle roar was sounding in his ear, and when in the stilly night he wrapped his blanket about him, and laid him down to rest, sometimes with the southern star shining upon him, and sometimes with the southern rain falling on his unsheltered head, for all these vicissitudes must come to a soldier on the field. Wives and sisters, too, there were, who shuddered as they thought how the dear ones to whom they said good-bye, would miss the comforts they were leaving, miss the downy pillow, the soft, warm bed made with loving hands, and the luxuries of home never prized one half so much as now, when they were to be exchanged for a life within the camp. And there were maidens, from whose cheeks the roses faded, as they gave the parting kiss, and promised to be faithful, even though the manly form the lover bore away should come back to them all maimed and crushed and crippled with the toil of war. Far better so than not to come at all. At least so Annie Graham thought, as, winding her arms around her husband’s neck, she whispered to him:

“If the body you bring back has my George’s heart within it, I shall love you just the same as I do now,” and with her fair head lying on his bosom, Annie wept piteously.

Not till then had she realized what it was to let him go. She had become somewhat accustomed to thinking of it,—accustomed to seeing him pass in and out, dressed in his stylish uniform, which made him look so handsome, and then she had hoped the regiment would not be ordered for a long, long time, never perhaps; but now that dream was over; the dreaded hour had come, and for a moment Annie felt herself too weak to meet it. Through the livelong night she had prayed, or if perchance sleep for a moment shut the swollen lids, the lips had moved in prayer that her husband might come back to her again, or failing to do so, that he might grasp, even at the eleventh hour, the Christian’s faith, and so go to the Christian’s home, where they would meet once more. She had given him her little Bible, all pencil-marked and worn with daily usage,—the one she read when first the spirit taught her the meaning of its great mysteries,—and George had promised he would read it every day,—had said that when he went to battle he would place it next his heart, a talisman to shield him from the bullets of the foe. And Annie, smiling through her tears, pointed him again to the only One who could stand between him and death, asking that when he was far away, he would remember what she said, and pray to the God she honored.

“It’s time, now, darling,” he said, at last, as he heard in the distance the beat of the drum.

But the clinging arms refused to leave his neck, and the quivering lips pressed so constantly to his, murmured:

“Wait a little minute more. ’Tis the last, you know.”

Again the drum-beat was heard mingled with the shrill notes of the fife; the soldiers were marching down the street, and he must go, but oh, who can tell of the love, the pain, the grief, the tears mingled with that parting,—or the agony it cost poor Annie to take her arms from off his neck, to feel him putting her away, to hear him going from the room, across the threshold, down the walk, through the gate, and know that he was gone.

As a child in peril instinctively turns to the mother who it knows has never failed to succor, so Annie turned to God, and with a moaning cry for help, sank on her knees just where George had left her. Burying her face in the lounge she prayed that He who heareth even the raven’s cry, would care for her husband, and bring him home again if that could be. So absorbed was she as not to hear the gate’s sharp click, nor the footstep coming up the walk. Impelled by something he could not resist, George had paused just by the garden fence, and yielding to the impulse which said he must see Annie’s face once more, he stole softly to the open door, and stood gazing at her as she knelt, her hands clasped together, and her face hidden from his view, as she prayed for him.

“Will the kind Father keep my George from peril if it can be, but if,—oh, God, how can I say it?—if he must die, teach him the road to Heaven.”

That was what she said, and George, listening to her, felt as if it were an angel’s presence in which he stood. He could not disturb her. She was in safer hands than his, and he would rather leave her thus,—would rather think of her when far away, just as he saw her last, kneeling in her desolation and praying for him.

“It will help to make me a better man,” he said, and brushing aside the great tears swimming in his eyes, he left his angel Annie, and went on his way to battle.

Just off from Rockland’s main street, and in a cottage more humble than that of George Graham, the sun shone on another parting,—on Widow Simms giving up her boys, and straining every nerve to look composed, and keep back the maternal love throbbing so madly at her heart. Rigid as if cut in stone were the lines upon her forehead and around her mouth, as she bustled about, doing everything exactly as it should be done, and coming often to where Isaac sat trying to look unconcerned and whistling “Dixie” as he pulled on the soft, warm pair of socks she had sat up nights to knit him. Eli and John had some too, snugly tucked away in their bundle, but Isaac’s were different. She had ravelled her own lamb’s wool stockings for the material composing his, for Isaac’s feet were tender; there were marks of chilblains on them; they would become sore and swollen from the weary march, and his mother would not be there with soothing lint and ointment made from the blue poke-berries. Great pains had the widow taken with her breakfast that morning, preparing each son’s favorite dish and bringing out the six china cups and damask cloth, part of her grandmother’s bridal dower. It was a very tempting table, and John and Eli tried to eat, exchanging meaning smiles when they saw their mother put in Isaac’s cup the biggest lump of sugar, and the largest share of cream. They did not care,—for they too loved the fair-haired, smooth-faced boy sipping the yellow coffee he could not drink for the mysterious bunches rising so fast in his throat. The breakfast was over now. Isaac was trying on his socks, while Eli and John, knowing their mother would rather be alone when she said good-bye to her baby, prepared to start, talking quite loud, and keeping up stout courage till the last moment came, when both the tall, six-foot young men put their arms around the widow’s neck, and faltered a faint “Good-bye, mother, good-bye.”

There were no tears in the mother’s eyes, nor in the sons’, but in the breast of each there was a whirlpool of raging waters, hurting far more than if they had been suffered to overflow in torrents. Eli was the first to go, for John lingered a moment. There was something he would say, something which made him blush and stammer.

“Mother,” he began, “I saw Susan last night. We went to Squire Harding’s together; and,—and,—well, ’taint no use opposing it now,—Susan and I are one; and if I shouldn’t come back, be good to her, for my sake. Susan’s a nice girl, mother,” and on the brown, bearded cheek, there was a tear, wrung out by thoughts of only last night’s bride, Susan Ruggles, whose family the widow did not like, and had set herself against.

There was no help now, and a sudden start was all the widow’s answer. She was not angry, John knew; and satisfied with this, he joined his brother in the yard, where he was cutting his name upon the beech tree. Thrice the widow called them back, failing each time to remember what she wanted to say. “It was something, sure,” and the hard hands worked nervously, twisting up the gingham apron into a roll, smoothing it out again and working at the strings, until Eli and John passed from the yard, and left her standing there, watching them as they walked down the road. They were a grand-looking couple, she thought, as she saw how well they kept step. They were to march together to the depot, she knew, and nobody in town could turn out a finer span, but who would go with Isaac?—“Stub,” his brothers called him. She hoped it might be Judge Warner’s son,—it would be such an honor; and that brought her back to the fact that Isaac was waiting for her inside; that the hardest part of all was yet to come, the bidding him good-bye. He was not in the chair where she had left him sitting, but was standing by the window, and raising often to his eyes his cotton handkerchief. He heard his mother come in, and turning toward her, said, with a sobbing laugh:

“I wish the plaguy thing was over.”

She thought he meant the war, and answered that “it would be in a few months, perhaps.”

“I don’t mean that, I mean the telling you good-bye. Mother, oh, mother!” and the warm-hearted boy clasped his mother to his bosom, crying like a child; “if I’ve ever been mean to you,” he said, his voice choked with tears—“if I’ve ever been mean to you, or done a hateful thing you’ll forget it when I’m gone? I never meant to be bad and the time I made that face, and called you an old fool, when I was a little boy, you don’t know how sorry I felt, nor how long I cried in the trundle-bed after you were asleep. You’ll forget it, won’t you, when I am gone, never to come back, maybe? Will you, mother, say?”

Would she? Could she remember aught against her youngest born, save that he had ever been to her the best, the dearest, most obedient child in the world? No, she could not, and so she told him, caressing his light brown hair and showering upon it the kisses which the compressed lips could no longer restrain. The fountain of love was broken, and the widow’s tears dropped like rain on the upturned face of her boy.

Suddenly there came to their ears the same drum-beat which had sounded so like a funeral knell to Annie Graham. Isaac must go, but not till one act more was done.

“Mother,” he whispered, half hesitatingly, “it will make me a better soldier if you say the Lord’s Prayer with me just as you used to do, with your hand upon my head. I’ll kneel down, if you like,” and the boy of eighteen, wearing a soldier’s dress, did kneel down, nor felt shame as the shaky hand rested once more on his bowed head, while his mother said with him the prayer learned years ago, kneeling as he knelt now.

Surely to the angels looking on there was charge given concerning that young boy,—charge to see that no murderous bullet came near him, even though they should fall round him thick and fast as summer hail. It would seem that some such thought as this intruded itself Upon the Widow Simms, for where the swelling pain had been there came a gentle peace. God would care for Isaac. He would send him home in safety, and so the bitterness of that parting was more than half taken away.