Chapter IV: Part 4

He walked slowly up the wide avenue, and presently sat down on a bench. He was tired to death, his head nodded, and soon he slept, regardless of blare of band and shouting of men and roll of carriage wheels. There was a song, and then a prayer, but Billy heard nothing until the great speech was almost over. Then he opened his eyes drowsily, and saw the throng gathered round the wistaria-covered rostrum, on which the President was standing. Billy sprang up. At least he would hear the speech. Nobody could cheat him out of that. He pushed his way through the crowd, which, seeing his white hair, opened easily enough. Then he stood trembling, all his misery rushing over him again at sight of the tall figure. He was to have sat beside him, to have talked with him! He rubbed a weak hand across his eyes. Suddenly he realized that the formal portion of the speech was over, the President was saying now a short farewell.

"I wish to congratulate the Commission which has made of this great field so worthy a memorial to those who died here. I wish to express my gratification to the citizens of this town for their share in the preservation of the field, and their extraordinary knowledge of the complicated tactics of the battle. Years ago my interest was aroused by hearing my father tell of a visit here, and of the vivid story of a guide—his name, I think, was William Gude. I—"

"'His name, I think,'" old Billy repeated dully. "'His name, I think, was William Gude.'"

It was a few seconds before the purport of it reached his brain. Then he raised both arms, unaware that the speech was ended and that the crowd had begun to cheer.

"Oh, Mr. President," he called, "my name is William Gude!" His head swam. They were turning away; they did not hear. "My name is William Gude," he said again pitifully.

The crowd, pressing toward Jakie Barsinger's carriage, into which the President was stepping, carried him with them. They looked about them questioningly; they could see Colonel Mott, who was at the President's side, beckoning to some one; who it was they could not tell. Then above the noise they heard him call.

"Billy Gude!" he shouted. "Billy—"

"It's me!" said Billy.

He stared, blinking, at Colonel Mott and at the President.

Colonel Mott laid his hand on Billy's shoulder. He had been trying to invent a suitable punishment for Jakie Barsinger. No more custom should come to him through the Commission.

"The President wants you to ride down to the station with him, Billy," he said. "He wants to know whether you remember his father."

As in a dream, Billy climbed into the carriage. The President sat on the rear seat now, and Billy was beside him.

"I remember him like yesterday," he declared. "I remember what he said an' how he looked, an'—" the words crowded upon each other as eagerly as the President's questions, and Billy forgot all save them—the cheering crowd, the wondering, envious eyes of his fellow citizens; he did not even remember that Jakie Barsinger was driving him, Billy Gude, and the President of the United States together. Once he caught a glimpse of Abbie's frightened face, and he waved his hand and the President lifted his hat.

"I wish I could have known about you earlier in the day," said the President, as he stepped down at the railroad station. Then he took Billy's hand in his. "It has been a great pleasure to talk to you."

The engine puffed near at hand, there were new cheers from throats already hoarse with cheering, and the great man was gone, the great day over. For an instant Billy watched the train, his hand uplifted with a thousand other hands in a last salute to the swift-vanishing figure in the observation-car. Then he turned, to meet the unwilling eyes of Jakie Barsinger, helpless to move his carriage in the great crowd. For an instant the recollection of his wrongs overwhelmed him.

"Jakie—" he began. Then he laughed. The crowd was listening, open-mouthed. For the moment, now that the President was gone, he, Billy Gude, was the great man. He stepped nimbly into the carriage. "Coachman," he commanded, "you can drive home."

IX

MARY BOWMAN

Outside the broad gateway which leads into the National Cemetery at Gettysburg and thence on into the great park, there stands a little house on whose porch there may be seen on summer evenings an old woman. The cemetery with its tall monuments lies a little back of her and to her left; before her is the village; beyond, on a little eminence, the buildings of the Theological Seminary; and still farther beyond the foothills of the Blue Ridge. The village is tree-shaded, the hills are set with fine oaks and hickories, the fields are green. It would be difficult to find in all the world an expanse more lovely. Those who have known it in their youth grow homesick for it; their eyes ache and their throats tighten as they remember it. At sunset it is bathed in purple light, its trees grow darker, its hills more shadowy, its hollows deeper and more mysterious. Then, lifted above the dark masses of the trees, one may see marble shafts and domes turn to liquid gold.

The little old woman, sitting with folded hands, is Mary Bowman, whose husband was lost on this field. The battle will soon be fifty years in the past, she has been for that long a widow. She has brought up three children, two sons and a daughter. One of her sons is a merchant, one is a clergyman, and her daughter is well and happily married. Her own life of activity is past; she is waited upon tenderly and loved dearly by her children and her grandchildren. She was born in this village, she has almost never been away. From here her husband went to war, here he is buried among thousands of unknown dead, here she nursed the wounded and dying, here she will be buried herself in the Evergreen cemetery, beyond the National cemetery.

She has seen beauty change to desolation, trees shattered, fields trampled, walls broken, all her dear, familiar world turned to chaos; she has seen desolation grow again to beauty. These hills and streams were always lovely, now a nation has determined to keep them forever in the same loveliness. Here was a rocky, wooded field, destined by its owner to cultivation; it has been decreed that its rough picturesqueness shall endure forever. Here is a lowly farmhouse; upon it no hand of change shall be laid while the nation continues. Preserved, consecrated, hallowed are the woods and lanes in which Mary Bowman walked with the lover of her youth.

Broad avenues lead across the fields, marking the lines where by thousands Northerners and Southerners were killed. Big Round Top, to which one used to journey by a difficult path, is now accessible; Union and Confederate soldiers, returning, find their way with ease to old positions; lads from West Point are brought to see, spread out before them as on a map, that Union fish-hook, five miles long, inclosing that slightly curved Confederate line.

Monuments are here by hundreds, names by thousands, cast in bronze, as endurable as they can be made by man. All that can be done in remembrance of those who fought here has been done, all possible effort to identify the unknown has been made. For fifty years their little trinkets have been preserved, their pocket Testaments, their photographs, their letters—letters addressed to "My precious son," "My dear brother," "My beloved husband." Seeing them to-day, you will find them marked by a number. This stained scapular, this little housewife with its rusty scissors, this unsigned letter, dated in '63, belonged to him who lies now in Grave Number 20 or Number 3500.

There is almost an excess of tenderness for these dead, yet mixed with it is a strange feeling of remoteness. We mourn them, praise them, laud them, but we cannot understand them. To this generation war is strange, its sacrifices are uncomprehended, incomprehensible. It is especially so in these latter years, since those who came once to this field come now no more. Once the heroes of the war were familiar figures upon these streets; Meade with his serious, bearded face, Slocum with his quick, glancing eyes, Hancock with his distinguished air, Howard with his empty sleeve. They have gone hence, and with them have marched two thirds of Gettysburg's two hundred thousand.

Mary Bowman has seen them all, has heard them speak. Sitting on her little porch, she has watched most of the great men of the United States go by, Presidents, cabinet officials, ambassadors, army officers, and also famous visitors from other lands who know little of the United States, but to whom Gettysburg is as a familiar country. She has watched also that great, rapidly shrinking army of private soldiers in faded blue coats, who make pilgrimages to see the fields and hills upon which they fought. She has tried to make herself realize that her husband, if he had lived, would be like these old men, maimed, feeble, decrepit, but the thought possesses no reality for her. He is still young, still erect, he still goes forth in the pride of life and strength.

Mary Bowman will not talk about the battle. To each of her children and each of her grandchildren, she has told once, as one who performs a sacred duty, its many-sided story. She has told each one of wounds and suffering, but she has not omitted tales of heroic death, of promotion on the field, of stubborn fight for glory. By others than her own she will not be questioned. A young officer, recounting the rigors of the march, has written, "Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit,"—"Perchance even these things it will be delightful to remember." To feel delight, remembering these things, Mary Bowman has never learned. Her neighbors who suffered with her, some just as cruelly, have recovered; their wounds have healed, as wounds do in the natural course of things. But Mary Bowman has remained mindful; she has been, for all these years, widowed indeed.

Her faithful friend and neighbor, Hannah Casey, is the great joy of visitors to the battle-field. She will talk incessantly, enthusiastically, with insane invention. The most morbid visitor will be satisfied with Hannah's wild account of a Valley of Death filled to the rim with dead bodies, of the trickling rivulet of Plum Creek swollen with blood to a roaring torrent. But Mary Bowman is different.

Her granddaughter, who lives with her, is curious about her emotions.

"Do you feel reconciled?" she will ask. "Do you feel reconciled to the sacrifice, grandmother? Do you think of the North and South as reunited, and are you glad you helped?"

Her grandmother answers with no words, but with a slow, tearful smile. She does not analyze her emotions. Perhaps it is too much to expect of one who has been a widow for fifty years, that she philosophize about it!

Sitting on her porch in the early morning, she remembers the first of July, fifty years ago.

"Madam!" cried the soldier who galloped to the door, "there is to be a battle in this town!"

"Here?" she had answered stupidly. "_Here?_"

Sitting there at noon, she hears the roaring blasts of artillery, she seems to see shells, as of old, curving like great ropes through the air, she remembers that somewhere on this field, struck by a missile such as that, her husband fell.

Sitting there in the moonlight, she remembers Early on his white horse, with muffled hoofs, riding spectralwise down the street among the sleeping soldiers.

"Up, boys!" he whispers, and is heard even in that heavy stupor. "Up, boys, up! We must get away!"

She hears also the pouring rain of July the fourth, falling upon her little house, upon that wide battle-field, upon her very heart. She sees, too, the deep, sad eyes of Abraham Lincoln, she hears his voice in the great sentences of his simple speech, she feels his message in her soul.

"Daughter!" he seems to say, "Daughter, be of good comfort!"

So, still, Mary Bowman sits waiting. She is a Christian, she has great hope; as her waiting has been long, so may the joy of her reunion be full.

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The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS

U . S . A

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Transcriber's note:

○ Chapter IV, fourth paragraph, the hyphen in out-standing was
retained. In this context, the dress should have been standing
out from her body. It was not an outstanding dress.

○ Chapters I, VI, the variable spelling of Emmittsburg / Emmitsburg
is as in the original text