Chapter V: Part 5

"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 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 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:

I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially if you have got
a bad memory, is the _worst_ enemy a fellow can have. The fact is,
truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are.
Notwithstanding this copy-book preamble, my boy, I am inclined to
suggest a _little prudence_ on your part. You see I have a
congenital aversion to failure, and the sudden announcement to your
Uncle Andrew of the success of your "lamp-rubbing" might possibly
prevent your passing the severe _physical_ examination to which you
will be subjected in order to enter the Military Academy. I should
like to have a perfect soldier credited to dear old Illinois--no
broken bones, scalp wounds, etc. So I think perhaps it might be
wise to hand this letter from me in to your good uncle through his
room-window _after_ he has had a _comfortable dinner_, and watch
its effect from the top of the pigeon-house.

"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."

My Soldier was silent for a moment, then continued:

"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:

"I cannot go until the voice that bade me stay calls me."

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 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:

Heavy rains; roads and streams almost impassable. While General Lee
was holding a conference with his chiefs this morning a message
came from General Fitz Lee, stating that through a prisoner he had
learned that the Federal cavalry, fifteen thousand strong,
supported by heavy infantry, were at or near Dinwiddie Court-House.
This decided the General's plans, and he has placed General Fitz
Lee in command of the whole cavalry, Rosser's, W. H. F. Lee's and
his own, with orders to march upon Five Forks. I am to support with
my small force of artillery and infantry this movement and I take
command of the whole force.

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 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 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 know you cly and so I come back to say gooda-bye some moa, and God bless."

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 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. 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:

"Doctor, is there any news of the army?--ours, I mean."

"The war is over, madam. You have my 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:

"Grand victory at Five Forks! Pickett killed and his whole division captured."

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 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 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 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 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:

"Dear old Suckley--dear old fellow--so true!"

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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
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.

[Footnote A: These verses were written on the back of a Confederate note, and for a time were ascribed to John Esten Cooke and to Colonel Wythe Mumford; afterward attributed to Colonel Jonas.]

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 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 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 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 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. 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." 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 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."

I fell asleep, saying softly, "God's lights to guide him."

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 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 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."

The officer, laughing, said:

"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 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:

"Madam, you sent for the captain of the boat, I believe."

"Yes, sir."

"What do you wish?"

"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."

"Certainly; with pleasure. You stop in Baltimore long?"

"I don't know," I replied.

"You have been there before, I suppose?"

"Oh, no; never. I have been nowhere outside of Virginia and North Carolina. Most of my traveling before my marriage was in going to 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 Didymuses' temptatious bedoutin' tricks cotch no holt of my understands of de Lord.'

"Once, too, I----"

"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.

"Yes, sir," I replied. "I am going to visit them."

"Where were you from this morning?"

"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--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."

"Yes, that is true; but did you lose your husband in the war?"

"No, sir."

"He was in the war, though, was he not?"

"Yes, sir."

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."

"Where is he now?"

"In the country."

"And you are leaving him?"

"Yes, sir, but just for a little while."

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 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.