24. CHAPTER XXIV.
RESULTS OF THE BATTLE.
THE streets of Rockland were full of excited people
when the news first reached the town of the
terrible battle which had left so many slain
upon the field, and desolated so many hearths both North
and South. Rose Mather was nearly frantic, for Will
she knew was in the battle, together with her two brothers,
and it was not probable that all three would escape
unharmed. Eagerly she grasped the paper to see who
was killed, wounded, or missing, but neither of the three
names was there, and she began to hope again, and
found time to comfort poor Susan Simms, whose husband
was also in the fight, and who had gone almost mad with
the fear lest he should be killed.
Two days passed, and then there came a telegram from
Tom, and Mrs. Carleton, who read it first, gave a low,
moaning cry, while Rose, who read it next, uttered a
piercing shriek, and fell sobbing into Annie's arms.
“Oh, Will!—oh, Will!—my husband!” was what she
said, while Mrs. Carleton uttered Jimmie's name, and
then Annie knew that harm had come to him, and placing
Rose upon the sofa, she took the paper from Mrs.
Carleton's hand, and read:
“Will was badly wounded,—lay on the field all night;—Jimmie
missing,—supposed to be a prisoner. I am well.
“Poor Jimmie!” Annie whispered, sadly, her heart
throbbing with pity for the young man who had gone
back in time to meet so sad a fate.
Never had so dark a day dawned upon Rose Mather
as that which followed the arrival of Tom's telegram, but
ere its close there came a message of hope to her. Will
had been taken to Washington, where he had providentially
fallen into the hands of Mrs. Simms, who sent the
joyful news that “no bones were broken, and he was
doing well.”
“Oh, Annie, God is so much better to me than I deserve;
I must love Him now, and I will, if He will only
send Jimmie back,” Rose said, while Annie's heart went
up in a prayer of thanksgiving for Mr. Mather's comparative
safety, and then went out after the poor prisoner,
whose destination was as yet unknown.
That night Rose started for Washington, and three
days after there came to Annie a soiled, queer-looking
missive, directed to “Miss Widder Anny Graam, At Miss
Martherses,” the name written at the top of the letter,
and the superscription spreading over so much surface,
that, had there been another word, it must, from necessity,
have been written on the other side of the letter.
It was from Bill Baker, and it read as follows:
“Army of Potomac, and about as licked out an army as you ever
seen. To all it may concern, and 'specially Miss Anny Graam. I
send you my regrets greetin', and hopin' this will find you enjoyin'
the same great blessin'. Burnside has made the thunderinest blunder,
and more'n a million of our boys is dead before Fredericksburgh.
Mr. Mathers was about riddled through, I guess, and the Corporal,
—wall, may as well take it easy,—I fit for him like a tiger, till they
nocked me endways, and I played dead to save my life. But the
Corporal's a goner,—took prisoner with an awful cut on his neck;
and now what I'm going to tell you is this: the night before the battle
I came upon him prayin' like a priest, kneelin' in an awful mud-puddle,
and what he said was somethin' about Heaven, and Anny,
whitch, beggin' your pardon, I think means you, and so I ast him in
case of bad luck, if I should write and tell you. I don't think he
could have ben in a vary sperritual frame of mind, for he told me to
mind my bisiness, but I don't lay it up agin him, and when them too
tall, lantern-jawed sons of Balam grabbed him as he was tryin' to
skedaddle with the blood a spirtin' from his neck, I pitched inter
'em, and give 'em hale columby for a spell, till they nocked me flat
and I made bleeve dead as I was tellin' you. Don't feel bad, Miss
Graam. Trust luck and keep your powder dry, and mabby he'll
come back sometime.
Yours to command,
“Bill Baker.”
“Tell the old woman I'm well, but pretty well tuckered out.”
“God soften the hearts of his captors. God keep him
in safety!” Annie whispered, and then, as Mrs. Carleton
came in, she passed the note to her, and tried to comfort
the poor mother, who, in Rose's absence, leaned on her
as on a daughter.
Annie seemed very near the sorrowing woman, who
wept bitterly for her poor boy, and in the first hours of
her sorrow she spoke out what was in her mind.
“I believe Jimmie loved you, Annie, and that makes
you very dear to me. We can mourn for him together,
and, Annie, you will pray for him night and day, that
God will bring him back to us.”
Annie could only reply by pressing the hand which
sought hers, for her heart was too full to speak.
Had Jimmie been dead she would scarcely have mourned
for him more deeply than she did now. The country
was already rife with rumors of the sufferings endured
by our prisoners, and death itself seemed almost preferable
to months and years of privations and pain in the
Southern prisons.
“Sent to Richmond, and probably from thence further
South, probably to Georgia.”
This was all the intelligence they could procure from
him, until spring, when there came news direct that he
was at Salisbury, and there for a time the curtain
dropped, leaving his face shrouded in darkness, while in
his Northern home tears were shed like rain, and prayers
went up to heaven from the quivering lips of a mother,
who was just learning to pray as she ought, and into
Annie Graham's heart there gradually crept a wish that
the poor, weary prisoner might know how much and
how kindly she thought of him, feeling at times half
sorry that she had not given him some little hope as a
solace for the weary hours of his prison life.
