University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.
THE DESERTER.

ANOTHER had taken George's place in Company
R, and both the Widow Simms and Susan
Simms shed tears of natural pride when they
read that John was the favored one, and bore the title of
Lieutenant. It more than half atoned for his long absence
to the young wife, who, greatly to her mother-in-law's
disgust, was made the happy possessor of a set of
furs bought with a part of the new lieutenant's increased
wages.

“Better lay by for a wet day; but easy come, easy
go. They will never be worth a cent. Tain't like them
Ruggleses to save, and to think of the silly critter's
comin' round in the storm just to show 'em, late on
Saturday night; I'm glad I wan't to hum,” was the
widow's muttered comment, as on the Sunday following
the receipt of the furs she pinned around her high,
square shoulders, the ten years' old blanket shawl, and
tying round her neck the faded tippet of even greater
age, started for church, determining not to notice or
speak to the extravagant Susan, if she appeared, as she
was sure to do, in her new finery.”

This was hardly the right kind of spirit for the widow

to take to church, but hers was a peculiar nature, and
the grace which would have sufficed to make Annie Graham
an angel, would hardly have kept her from boiling
over at the most trivial matter. This the widow felt,
and it made her more distrustful of herself, more careful
to keep down the first approaches of her besetting sin.
But the furs had seriously disturbed her, particularly as
they were said to have cost $35—“more than she had
spent on her mortal body in half-a-dozen years,” she
thought, as, with her well-worn Prayer Book in hand,
and a pair of Eli's darned, blue socks upon her feet to
keep them from the snow which had fallen the night before,
she walked rapidly on in the direction of St.
Luke's.

There was an unusual stir about the doors, a crowd
of eagerly talking people, and conspicuous among them
was Susan, looking so pretty in her neatly fitting collar,
and holding her little muff so gracefully that the widow
began to relent at once, and to feel a kind of pride that
“John's wife was as genteel lookin' as the next one, if
she did come of them shiftless Ruggleses,” but inasmuch
as it was Sunday, she shouldn't flatter Susan by speaking
of the furs; but the first chance she got on a week
day she'd tell her “she was glad she got 'em, if they
didn't make her vain; though I know they will,” she
added; “it's Ruggles natur' and she's standin' out there
now, just to show 'em to the folks in the street goin' to
the Methodis' meetin'.”

But the widow was mistaken, for Susan had scarcely a
thought of her furs, so absorbed was she in throwing
what little light she could upon a mystery which was
troubling the people and keeping them outside the door,
while they talked the matter over. It seemed that the
sexton, when, at about ten o'clock on the previous night,

he came to see that the fire kindled in the furnace at
sunset was safe, had stumbled over a human form lying
upon the pile of evergreens gathered for the Christmas
decorations, and placed for safe keeping in the cellar of
the church. There was a cry between surprise and terror,
and a muttered oath, and then the ragged, frightened
intruder sprang to his feet, and bounding up the
narrow stairway, fled through the open vestry door ere
the sexton had time to collect his scattered senses.

This was his story, corroborated by Susan Simms, who
said that when, at about seven o'clock the previous night,
she was passing the church, she saw a dark-looking object,
which she at first mistook for a woman, but as she
came nearer she saw it was the figure of a man who,
at the sound of her steps, dropped behind a pile of rubbish,
and thus disappeared from view,—that feeling
timid she did not return home that way, but took the
more circuitous route past her mother-in-law's, where she
stopped for a moment and repeated the circumstance to
the neighbor she found staying there.

“Then she didn't come half a mile out of the way just
to tell of her finery,” thought the widow, coming nearer
to Susan, and even smoothing the soft fur, which, half
an hour before, had so provoked her ire.

Various were the surmises as to who the man could
be, and why he had entered the lonesome cellar; and
the morning services had commenced ere the knot of
talkers and listeners at the door disbanded and took
their accustomed places in the church. Rose Mather
was there as usual, but she knelt in her handsome pew
alone, for Will had been gone from her two whole weeks,
and Annie was still too much of an invalid to venture
out. With others at the door she heard of the intruder,
and after asking a few questions she had passed into the

aisle, with a certain wise air about her, as if she knew
something which she should not tell! As one after another
came in, it might have been observed that she
turned often and curiously toward the door, glancing
occasionally at the spot where Mrs. Baker, now a regular
attendant, was in the habit of sitting. She was not there
to-day, a fact which no one observed save Rose and the
Widow Simms, the latter of whom only noticed it because
Annie, she knew, was deeply interested in the repentant
woman. “She's sick, most likely,” the widow thought,
while Rose, too, had her own opinion as to what kept
Harry's mother from church that Sunday morning.

Meantime the object of their solicitude sat crouching
over the fire of wet green wood she had succeeded
in coaxing into a blaze, now looking nervously
toward the half closed door of the small room her boys
used to occupy, and again congratulating herself that it
was Sunday, and consequently no one would be coming
there to pry into the secret she was guarding as carefully
as ever tigress guarded its threatened young. The
half frozen, famished wretch, fleeing from the shadow of
the church out into the wintry storm which had come
up since nightfall, had gone next to the tumble-down
shanty of a house which Mrs. Baker called her home.
It was late for a light to be there, for Mrs. Baker kept
early hours; but through the driving snow the wanderer,
as he turned the corner, caught a friendly gleam shining
out from the dingy windows, and waking in his breast
one great wild throb of joy, such as some lost mariner
feels when he spies in the distance the friendly bark and
knows there's help at hand.

It was a desolate, dreary home, but to the wanderer
hastening toward it, and glancing so timidly around as

if behind each rift of snow there were bristling bayonets
sent to stop his course, it seemed a splendid palace.
Could he gain that shelter he was safe. His mother
would shield him from the dreaded officers he fancied
were on his track, and so, the sick, fainting man kept on
until the old board fence was reached, where, leaning
against the gate, he stood a moment, and with his feverish
hand scooped up the grateful snow to cool his burning
forehead. The tallow candle was burning yet within
the cottage, but the fire was raked together on the hearth
and the stranger could see the glow of the red embers
and the broken shovel lain across the andiron.

“I wonder what she's doing up so late,” he whispered,
and moving cautiously up the walk to the uncurtained
window, he started suddenly at the novel sight which
met his view.

Years before, when he lived in New England, he remembered
that one day when playing in the garret he
had found in a chest of rubbish, a large, square book,
which Hal had said was their grandmother's Bible.
Afterward he had seen it standing against a broken light
of glass, to keep out the snow which sometimes beat in
upon himself and Hal, and that was the last he could remember
concerning that Bible or any other belonging to
his mother. How then was he astonished to see it lying
on the old round stand, the dim tallow candle casting a
flickering light upon the yellow leaves and upon the figure
of his mother bending over them, and loudly whispering
the words she was reading. It was not an entirely
new business to Mrs. Baker, the reading of the
Bible, for after the news of Harry's death she had hunted
up the long neglected volume which had given her aged
mother so much comfort. It might bring consolation to
her, she thought, and so with tearful eyes and aching

heart she had tried to read and understand the sacred
pages, pencil-marked, some of them, by a sainted mother's
hand, and fraught with so many memories of the
olden time when she was not the hard, wrinkled, desolate
creature people knew as Mrs. Baker. The way of life
was still dark and dim to that half heathenish woman,
but she was determinedly groping on, following the little
light she had, and each night found her bending over
the Bible ere she sought the humble bed standing there
in the dark corner, just where it stood that morning when
her two boys went away.

It was far more comfortable-looking now than then,
for there was a nice, warm blanket on it, while the outer
covering was clean and new. Rose Mather had kept her
promise given in the hour of the poor mother's bereavement,
and scattered about the room were numerous articles
which once did duty in the servants' apartments at
the Mather mansion. But the intruder did not notice
these; he was too much absorbed with the stooping
figure, whispering a part of the 14th chapter of John,
and occasionally wiping away a tear as she came to some
passage more beautiful than the others. There were
tears, too, in the eyes of the rough man outside, but he
forced them back, and pressing closer to the window,
watched the lone woman inside, as, sinking down upon
her knees, with the flickering candle shining on her
wrinkled face, she prayed first for herself and then for
him, the boy standing without the door, and listening,
while his heart beat so loudly that he almost feared she
would hear and know that he was there. But she paid
no heed, and the tremulous voice went on, asking that
God would follow and bless, and care for the Billy boy
far away, and bring him back to the mother who had
never been to him what she ought. The name Billy boy

touched a tender chord, and stretching out his hands
toward her, the man who bore that name sobbed out,

“Oh, mother, mother, I'm here, I'm here!”

There was a sudden pause, and turning her head the
startled woman listened.

Was it the wind moaning round her lonesome dwelling,
or was it poor dead Harry calling to her, as in her superstitious
imagination she sometimes believed he did
when she was praying for Billy, reproaching her that no
prayer had ever been said for him, the lost one? Again
the sobbing cry, and a rustling movement by the door.
It could not be the wind, for that only shook the loosened
timbers or screamed through some gaping crevice,
while this, whatever it might be, called:

“Mother, mother, come.”

Was it a warning from the other world,—a summons
to follow her first-born? Annie Graham had said there
were no such messa ges sent to us, and Annie was always
right; so the frightened woman listened again until the
rattling of the latch, and a feeble, timid knock told her
there was more than the winter wind or spirits of the
dead about her house that night. There was a human
being seeking to gain entrance, and tottering to the door
she asked who it was, and what they wanted there.

“Mother, mother, let me in. I'm your Billy boy, come
from the war.”

The words were hardly uttered ere the door was
opened wide, the frantic woman dragging rather than
leading in the worn-out man, who, staggering forward,
fell into her arms, sobbing piteously.

“I'm so sick and tired. I've been weeks on the road,
hiding everywhere; for, mother,—shut the door tight, so
nobody can hear,—I've run away; I've had enough of
war, and so I left one night. You know what they do

to deserters. They hang them, neck and heels. Oh,
mother, mother, don't let them find me, will you? I've
done my best in one dreadful battle. They musn't get
me now. Will they, think?” and Billy cast a searching
glance around the room to see that no officer was there
with power to take him back.

Would they get him from her? She'd like to see them
do it, she said, as she led the childish deserter to the
hearth, he leaning heavily upon her, and falling, rather
than sitting upon the chair she brought. Weary of a
soldier's life, and satisfied with one taste of battle, he
had stolen away one night when the rain and the darkness
sheltered him from observation. Greatly magnifying
the value put upon himself, as well as the chances
for detection, he had not dared to take the cars, lest at
every station there should be one of the police waiting
to secure him. So he had made the entire journey from
Washington on foot, travelling by night and resting by
day, sometimes in barns, but oftener in the woods,
where some friendly stump or leafless tree was his only
shelter. He had reached his home at last, but his haggard
face, his blood-shot eyes, his blistered feet and tattered
garments bore witness to his long, painful journey.

With streaming eyes the mother listened to the story,
then opening the bed of coals, she warmed and chafed
his half-frozen himbs, handling tenderly the poor, blistered
feet, from which the soles of the shoes had
dropped, leaving them exposed. But all in vain did she
prepare the cup of fragrant tea, sent her that afternoon
by Mrs. Mather. Billy could do little more than taste it.
He was too tired, he said; he should be better in the
morning, after he had slept. So with eager, trembling
hands his mother fixed the bed in the little room which
had not been used since he went away, bringing her own

pillows, and the nice rose blanket given by Mrs. Mather,
together with a strip of carpet which she spread upon
the floor so as to make it soft for Billy's wounded, bleeding
feet. How sick he was, and how he moaned in his
fitful sleep, now talking of Hal, now of being shot, and
again of the Bible on the stand, and the prayer he heard
his mother make.

Mrs. Baker was not accustomed to sickness, but she
knew this was no ordinary case, and she suggested sending
for the doctor; but Billy started up in such dismay,
telling her no one must know that he was there unless
she wanted him killed, that he succeeded in communicating
a part of his terror to her, and she spent the entire
Sunday by her child's bedside, doing what she could
to allay the raging fever increasing so fast, and keeping
watch to see that no one came near to drag her boy
away.

The next morning it became absolutely necessary for
her to leave him for a time, as she must procure the few
necessaries he needed, and taking advantage of the heavy
sleep into which he had fallen, she stole noiselessly out,
hoping to return ere he should wake. Scarcely, however,
had she left the lane and turned into Main Street,
when Rose came tripping to the gate, drawn thither by
a curiosity to see if her suspicions were correct. She
had learned from her husband of Bill's exit from Washington,
and for some days had been expecting to hear of
his arrival in town. That he had come she was certain,
and telling Annie where she was going, she had started
rather early for Mrs. Baker's. As her knock met with
no response she entered without further ceremony, and
passing on through the low dark kitchen came to the
door of the little room where Bill lay breathing heavily,
and muttering about camps, and guard-houses, and

deserters. The sight of suffering always awoke a chord
of sympathy in Rose Mather's bosom, and without a
thought of danger she bent close to the sick man, and
involuntarily laid her soft, cool hand upon his burning
forehead. The touch awoke him, but in the wild eyes
turned upon her there was no glance of recognition, or
look of fear. He evidently fancied himself back in
Washington, and asked the name of her regiment.

“Oh, I know,” he continued, still keeping his eyes
fixed upon her, “you're the chap I took, but you've fell
away mightily since then. Yankee fare don't set well on
your Rebel stomach, I guess,” and a wild, coarse laugh
rang through the room, making Rose shudder and draw
back, for she felt intuitively that Billy was mad.

She was not, however, afraid of him, and standing at
a little distance, she tried to reason with him, telling
him she was not a Rebel,—she was Mrs. Mather, come
to do him good.

Bill only laughed derisively. “Couldn't cheat him.
Guess he knew them eyes and them hands, white as cotton
wool. I'll bet I've got a ring that'll fit 'em,” he continued,
and reaching for his pantaloons, which he had
insisted should lie behind him on the bed, he took from
the pocket the costly diamond once worn by his Rebel
captive, and confisticated by him as con-tra-band. “Try it
on,” he said to Rose, who mechanically obeyed, wondering
why it should look so familiar to her.

It was too large for her slender fingers, and dropping
off, rolled upon the floor. Rose at once set herself to
finding the missing ring, and had just returned it to its
owner when Mrs. Baker came in, terribly alarmed at
finding Mrs. Mather there. Rose, however, quieted her
fears at once by telling her she had known for some
days past of Bill's desertion, and had kept it from every

one but Annie, because her husband thought it best.
She did not believe he would be followed, she said, for
Will wrote that he had become so reckless and discontented
that his absence was no loss to the army, but for
a while it might be well that his presence should not be
known in Rockland, as the people might be indignant at
a deserter, and perhaps in their excitement do him some
injury.

“He ought to have medical advice, though,” she
added, “for I think he's very sick.”

Mrs. Baker knew he was, and fear lest he should die
overcame every other feeling, making her consent that
Rose should call their family physician. It was nearly
noon ere he arrived, and in the meantime Rose had
reported the case to Annie, and then returning to Mrs.
Baker's, took her place by Billy, who called her “his
little Rebel,” and ordered her about as if he had been a
commanding officer, and she his subordinate. The
novelty of the thing was rather pleasing to Rose, and notwithstanding
that the physician pronounced the disease
typhus fever in its most violent form, she persisted in
staying, saying some one must help Mrs. Baker, and she
was not afraid.

So day after day found her in that comfortless dwelling,
while the frequent callers at the Mather mansion
wondered where she could be. It came out at last that
she was nursing William Baker, lying dangerously sick
of typhus fever in his mother's dilapidated home, and
then, as villagers will, the Rockland people wondered
and gossiped, and wondered again how the aristocratic
Rose Mather could sit hour after hour, in that poverty-stricken
cottage, ministering to the wants of despised
Bill Baker. Rose hardly knew, herself, and when questioned
upon the subject could only reply—

“I guess it's because he's a soldier, and I must do
something for the war. Will knows it. He says I'm
doing right, and Annie Graham, too.”

And so, with her heart kept brave by thinking that
Will and Annie approved her course, Rose went every
day to Mrs. Baker's, doing more by her cheerful presence
and the needful comforts she supplied to arrest the progress
of the disease and effect a favorable change, than
all the physicians in the county could have done. Bill
owed his life to her, and it was touching to witness his
childish gratitude when reason resumed her throne, and
he learned who it was he had sometimes called his “little
Rebel,” and again had fancied was some beautiful
angel sent to cure and comfort him. He had often seen
Mrs. Mather in the streets before he went away; but
never as closely as now, and for hours after his convalescence
he would lie looking into her face, which seemed
to puzzle him greatly. Occasionally, too, he would take
from his pocket a picture, which he evidently compared
with something about her person, then, with a sly wink,
which began to be very annoying, he would return it to
its hiding-place, and ask her sundry questions, which,
under ordinary circumstances, she would have resented
as being too familiar.

At last, one afternoon, as she was sitting by him, while
his mother did some errands in the village, he suddenly
surprised her by dropping upon her lap an elegant gold
watch, which Rose knew at a glance must have belonged
to some person of taste and wealth.

“What is it? Whose is it?” she asked, and Bill replied:

“'Twas his'n, the chap's I took, you know. He's down
to the old Capitol now, shet up. Didn't you never hear
of him?”

“You mean the young man you captured,” Rose replied.
“Tell me about him, please. Who was he, and
where was his home?”

“You tell,” Bill answered, with one of his peculiar
winks. “He gave it as John Brown; but a chap who
knowd him said 'twas somethin' else. He wan't a Rebel
neither—that is, it wan't his nater, for he came from
Yankee land.”

“A traitor, then,” Rose suggested, and Bill replied:

“You needn't guess agin; and you and I or'to be glad
that no such truck belongs to us.”

Rose colored scarlet, but made no response, for recreant
Jimmie flashed across her mind, and she shrank
from having even the vulgar Bill know how intimately
she was connected with a traitor. Bill watched her narrowly,
and thinking to himself,

“I'm on the right track, I'll bet,” he continued, “I
hain't no relations in the Confederate army, I know, and
I don't an atom b'lieve you have.”

No answer from Rose, except a heightened bloom upon
her cheek, and her inquisitor went on:

“Have you any friends there?”

Rose could not tell a lie, and after a moment's silence,
she stammered out:

“Please don't ask me. Oh, Jimmie, Jimmie, I wish I
knew where he was!” and the great tears trickled
through the snowy fingers clasped over her flushed face.

“I'll be darned if I aint cryin' too,” Bill said, wiping
his eyes with his shirt sleeve, “but bein' I'm in for it I
may as well see it through.”

“What might be your name before it was Miss
Marthers?”

“Carleton!” and Rose looked up quickly at Bill, who
continued:

“You came from Boston, I b'lieve?”

“Yes, from Boston,” and Rose leaned eagerly forward,
while Bill, with his favorite “Nuff said,” plunged his hand
into his pocket, and taking out the picture, passed it to
Rose.

Quick as thought the bright color faded from her cheek,
and with ashen, quivering lips, she whispered;

“It's I! It's mine, taken for Jimmie, just before he
went away! How came you by it? Oh tell me!” and in
the voice there was a tone of increasing anguish. “Tell
me, was it,—was it,—Jimmie, my brother, whom you took
prisoner and carried to Washington?”

“If James Carleton is your brother, I s'pose it was,”
Bill said; “and that's the very picter he stuck to like a
chestnut burr, begging for it like a dog, and offerin' everything
he had if I'd give it up.”

“Why didn't you, then?” and Rose's eye blazed with
anger, making Bill shrink before their indignant gaze.

“'Twas rotten mean in me, I know,” he said timidly,
“but they was con-tra-band according to law, and I felt
so savage at the pesky Rebels then. I didn't know
'twas you he teased so for, actually cryin' when I
wouldn't give it up. I'm sorry, I be, I swan, and I'll
give you every confounded contraband. You've got the
watch, and there's the ring, the spetacles, the tobarker
box, and the thingumbob for cigars, the sum total of his
traps, except a chaw or so of the weed that I couldn't
very well bring back,” and Bill's face wore a very satisfied
expression as he laid in Rose's lap every article belonging
to her brother.

She knew now who the prisoner was in whom she had
felt so strange an interest. It was Jimmie, and the mystery
concerning his fate was solved. He was a captive at
Washington, and her heart ached to its very core as she

thought of both her brothers languishing so many
weary months in prison. Very minutely she questioned
Bill, elicting from him little or nothing concerning
Jimmie's present condition. He only knew that he was
a captive still, that he was represented as maintaining
the utmost reserve, seldom speaking except to answer direct
questions, and that he seemed very unhappy.

“Poor boy, he wants to come home, I know,” and
Rose sobbed aloud, as she thought how desolate and
homesick he must be. “I can't stay any longer to-day,”
she said, as she heard Mrs. Baker at the door, and bidding
Bill good-bye, she hurried home, where, after a long
passionate flood of tears, wept in Annie's lap, she wrote
to her mother and husband both, telling them where
Jimmie was, and begging of the former to come at once
and go with her to Washington.