University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
“NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD.”

THE sick boy whispered the words a great many
times to himself, as with his face to the wall,
where neither his mother nor Susan could see it,
he thought of what Rose had read, and wondered if it
were true. He was not afraid to die. He had been very
near death once before, and had not shrunk from meeting
it as death. It was only the dying from home he
had dreaded so much, asking to live till he could see his
mother again, and the grass growing by the cottage
door, and the violets by the well. And God had taken
him at his word. He had lived to see his mother, to feel
the touch of her rough hands upon his hair; to hear her
voice, always kind to him, calling him her “Iky boy;”
to see the green grass by the door, and the violets by
the well. But this, alas! did not suffice. He wanted to
live longer,—live to be a man, like Eli and John; live to
do good; live to take care of his mother; live to hear the
notes of victory borne on the northern breeze, as the
Federal Flag floated again over land and sea. All this
was worth living for, and Isaac was young to die,—only
nineteen, and looking three years younger. It was very
hard, and the dark eyelashes closed tightly to keep back
the tears as the white lips tried to pray, “Thy will be
done.” That was what they meant to utter, but there
came instead the first words of the prayer the Saviour
taught, “Our Father!” that was all; but the very name
of father brought a deep peace into Isaac's heart.

God was his father, and he had nothing to fear; living
or dying, it would be well with the boy who would not

tell a lie even for promotion. And so, while the mother,
whose heart ached and throbbed with this new fear, and
still found time to feel a thrill of pride in Lieutenant Eli,
moved softly around the room, preparing the dainty supper
for her child, Isaac slept peacefully, nor woke until
the delicate repast was ready, and waiting for him on
the little table by the bed. There was spiced chocolate
to-night, and nice cream toast, with grape jelly, and a
bit of cold baked chicken, and the highly-seasoned cucumber
pickles Isaac had craved so much since his return,
and which the physician said were good for him.
And the best china cup was brought out, and the silver
spoons marked with the widow's maiden name, and a
white napkin was on the tray; and Isaac, who enjoyed
such things, knew why it was all done that particular
night, just as the widow knew why, at bed-time, he asked
Susan to read from Revelation, vii. 16, “They shall hunger
no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun
light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in
the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead
them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

He was thinking of his heavenly home, while the
mother was thinking of the time when he, who Jimmie
Carleton had said “was not long for earth,” would be
gone, and she could no longer do for him the little offices
which gave her so much comfort. Since the dreadful
days when she knew her boy was in prison, the widow
had not felt so keen a pang as that which stirred her
heart-strings now, when alone in her room she dropped
in her quick, defiant way into the high-backed chair, and
sitting stiff and straight, tried to face the future.
It could not be that Isaac had only come home to die,—
God would not deal thus harshly with her. He had

spared Eli and John, He had promoted them both,
and He would not take Isaac from her. The boy was
getting better, he was mending every day, or, at least,
she had thought so, until Rose Mather came with her
message of evil. Why could not Rose have stayed at
home? Why need she come there and leave such a
sting behind? The widow was growing very hard and
wicked toward poor little thoughtless Rose, and her
heart lay like a stone in her bosom, as for an hour or
more she sat in her high-backed chair, thinking of the
boy whose low breathings she could hear from the next
room. He was sleeping, she thought, and she would steal
softly to his side and see if it was written on his face
that his days were numbered. But Isaac was not asleep,
and he knew the moment his mother bent over him, and
turning toward her, he whispered,

“I know why you are up so late, mother; and what
you are here for. You are thinking of what Mrs. Carleton
said, and wondering if it is true. I guess 'tis, mother,
for I don't get any stronger, and my cough hurts me
so. But I'm not a bit afraid to die now, with you beside
me up to the very last minute. In Richmond it was different:
and I prayed so hard that God would let me
come back, if only to drink from the well and then die
on the grass beside it. He did let me come, and now
we mustn't say anything if He does not let me stay but a
little bit of a while. I've been thinking it over since
Mrs. Mather went away, and at first it seemed hard that
Eli and John should both have such good luck, and only
`Stub,' be the one to suffer.”

He said this last playfully, using his old nickname of
“Stub,” because he saw by the dim light burning on the
table the bitter look of anguish upon his mother's face, and
he would fain remove it. At the mention of the name

which her more stalwart sons had given to her baby, the
widow's chin quivered, and her rough hand smoothed
the thin light hair, but she did not speak, and Isaac
went on:

“Then, too, I want to live till the war is over. I want
to hear the joyful shouts, and see the bonfires they will
kindle in the streets. There's a big box in the barn. I
hid it there the morning I went away, and I said when
the peace comes we can burn that box, and mother will
look out from the window, and the church bells will ring,
and there'll be such rejoicings. Now I 'most know I shan't
be here to see it. But, mother, you'll burn the box,—you
and Susan, with Eli and John,—and you'll think of me,
who did what I could to bring the peace.”

There was a choking sound like the swallowing of a
great sob, and that was all the answer the widow made;
only her hands moved faster through the threads of light
brown hair, and her rigid form sat up straighter, more
rigid than ever. She was suffering the fiercest pangs she
would ever know, for she was giving Isaac up. She was
coming to the knowledge that he was really going from
her,—that Jimmie Carleton was right, and Isaac was not
long for this world. When at last her mind reached that
point, the tension of nerve gave way for a little, and her
hot tears poured over the white face she kissed so tenderly.

The moon was looking in at the low west window ere
the widow went back to her own bed, and Isaac, nestling
down among his pillows, fell away to sleep, dreaming of
the bonfire in the street, when the hidden box was burned,
and dreaming, too, of that other world which lies so
near this that he could almost see the loving hands
stretched out to welcome him.

After that night the widow's mouth shut together

more firmly than ever, and the frown between her eyes
was more marked and decided, while her manner to all save
Isaac and Annie Graham was sharper, and crisper than
before. When Eli's letter came telling of his promotion
and lauding Jimmie Carleton, whose generous act was a
by-word in the company, her face relaxed a little, and she
said to Annie Graham: “The Lord is good to my two
oldest boys, but if he'd give me Isaac I wouldn't care
for all the titles in Christendom.”

As the warm weather came on, Isaac did not get up any
more to sit by the open door, but lay all day on his bed,
sometimes sleeping, sometimes thinking, and sometimes
listening while Annie read to him from the Bible. Isaac
was very fond of Annie. She had been George Graham's
wife, and he evinced so much desire to have her
constantly with him that at last she stayed altogether
with Mrs. Simms, only going occasionally to the Mather
Mansion, where they missed her so much. Rose was
nothing without her, and had at first opposed her going
to the Widow Simms.

“If help was needed,” she said, “she would hire some
one, for Annie must not tire herself out just as she was
beginning to grow plump and beautiful again.”

But when Isaac said to her: “Please let Mrs. Graham
come; it will not be long she'll have to stay, and she is so
full of hope and faith that it makes me more willing to
die and to go away alone across the Jordan,” she withdrew
her opposition, and Annie was free to go and come
as she liked. It suited Annie to get away from the Mather
Mansion just then, for she could not help feeling
that there was a purpose in Mrs. Carleton's questioning
her of her early history, and she hailed any excuse which
removed her from the scrutiny with which since that
conversation touching her early home and maiden name

Mrs. Carleton had evidently regarded her. Jimmie had
written to her once, inclosing the unsealed note in a letter
to Rose, and Annie's cheeks had been all ablaze as she
read it, for she knew the mother's eyes were fastened
upon her. It was nothing but a simple acknowledgment
of some article Annie had made and sent to him in a box
filled for all three of the soldiers, Will Mather, Tom and
Jimmie. There was also mention made of Annie's kindly
message, to the intent that she did think he was right
in giving the office to Eli, and a wish expressed that she
would write to him.

Tom, too, had sent thanks to Annie Graham for the
needle-book made for him, but he did not write to her,
though every letter had in it more or less of “Mrs Graham,”
and Mrs. Carleton, while saying to herself: “Both
my boys have fallen under the spell,” felt her pride
gradually giving way and her heart growing warmer toward
the woman whom she missed so much during the
weeks spent at Isaac's bedside.

They were not many, for when the dry days of August
came on, and the grass withered by the door, and the
flowers drooped for want of rain, and the sun rose each
morning redder, hotter, than on the previous day, the
sick boy began to fail rapidly, and one night, just as
the wind was beginning to blow from the west, where
a bank of dark clouds was lying, he whispered to Annie:

“Call mother and Susan, for I know I am going now.”

The widow was in the back yard, putting out the barrels
and tubs to catch the rain if it came, for the well

and the cistern were nearly dry, just as her dim eyes
were, when a few minutes after she bent over her boy,
and saw the change coming so rapidly. She could not
weep, and Susan's sobs annoyed her. “'Twas like them
Ruggleses to go into hysterics and make a fuss,” she
thought, with a kind of bitter scorn for her daughter-in-law,
who loved Isaac as a brother, and wept that he was
leaving them. Perhaps the dying boy detected the feeling,
for he said, feebly:

“Go out, Susan and Mrs. Graham both. I want to
be alone with mother a minute.” Then when they were
alone, he said: “I am dying, mother, and I know you
won't be angry at what I say. I want you to be kind to
Susan, and pet her some and love her for John's sake.
She is a good girl, and Mr. Carleton's good too, the one
they call Jimmie, I mean. Don't say harsh things of him
because he was once a rebel. Don't speak against him to
Mrs. Graham. Maybe she will like him sometime, and if
so, help her, mother, instead of hindering it.”

Jimmie Carleton, on his lone picket-watch that night
on the banks of the Potomac, and thinking, alas! more
of a black-robed figure, with braids of pale-brown hair,
than of a lurking foe, little dreamed of the good word
spoken for him by the dying boy, whose eyes turned
lovingly to Annie when she came back to him, and held
his clammy hand.

“It is not dark; it is not hard; I am not afraid, for
the Saviour is with me,” he kept repeating, and then he
sent messages to his absent brothers,—to Captain Tom
Carleton, who had been so kind to him in prison, and to
Jimmie, too, and all the boys who had been with him in
battle; and then, just as the wind began to roar down
the chimney, and the refreshing rain to beat against the
windows, Isaac's spirit went out into the great unknown

expanse beyond this life, and only the pale, emaciated
body was left in the humble room, where the lone women
stood looking upon the boyish face, which seemed so
young in death.

The widow uttered no sound when she knew he was
dead, and it was her hand which drew the covering decently
about him, and then picked up from the floor a
loose feather, which had dropped from the worn pillow.

Susan must speak to their next-door neighbors, she
said, and ask them to care for the body. Then, when
the men came in, she remembered an open window in
the back chamber where the rain must be driving in,
and stole up there on the pretence of shutting it; but she
did not return till the men were gone, and Isaac was lying
on the calico-covered lounge with a look of perfect
peace upon his face, and the damp night air blowing
softly across his light hair.

Kneeling at his side, and laying her hard cheek against
the icy face of her last-born, the mother gave vent to her
grief in her own peculiar way. There were no tears, or
sobs; but loving, tender, cooing words whispered over
the boy, as if he had been a living baby, instead of a soldier
dead. And yet the fact that it was a soldier, lying
there before her, was never lost sight of, and the bitter
part of the woman's nature was stirred to its very depths
as she remembered what had brought her boy to this.
It was the war. And fierce were the mental denunciations
against those who had stirred up the strife, while
with the bitterness came pitying thoughts of the poor
boys who died in the lonely hospitals, or on the battle-fields;
and with her cheek still resting against the pale,
clammy one, and her fingers threading the light hair, the
widow vowed that all she was, and all she had, should
henceforth be given to the war. She would work for the

soldiers, give to the soldiers, deny herself food and raiment
for the soldiers; aye, even die for them, if need be;
and whispering the vow into her dead boy's ear, she left
him there alone, just as the early summer dawn was breaking.
And when, next morning, her friends came in to
see her, they found her sitting by the body, and working
upon the shirt she had a few days before taken from the
Aid Society to make for some poor wretch.

She should not wear mourning, she said. She had
other uses for her money; and so the leghorn of many
years' date, with the old faded green veil, followed Isaac
Simms to the grave, and the widow's face was still and
stony as if cut from solid marble.

They made him a great funeral, too, though not so
great as George Graham's had been; for Isaac was not
the second, nor the third, nor the fourth soldier buried
in Rockland's churchyard. But he was Isaac Simms,—
“Little Ike,”—“Stub,”—whom everybody liked; and so
the firemen came out to do him honor, and the Rockland
Guards, and the company of young lads who were beginning
to drill, and the boys from the Academy, and
Rose Mather was chief directress, and her carriage carried
the widow, and Susan, and Annie, and herself up to
the newly-made grave, where they left the boy who once
had sawed wood for the little lady now paying him such
honor.

The war was a great leveler of rank, bringing together
in one common cause the high and the low, the rich and
the poor, and in no one was this more strikingly seen
than in the case of Rose Mather, who, utterly forgetful of
the days when, as Rose Carleton, of Boston, she would
scarcely have deigned to notice such as the Widow
Simms, now sought in so many ways to comfort the
stricken woman, going every day to her humble home,

and once coaxing her to spend a day at the Mather
mansion, together with Susan, whom Rose secretly
thought a little insipid and dull. Susan's husband was
alive, and in the full flush of prosperity; so Susan did
not need sympathy, but the widow did, and Rose got
her up to the “Great House,” as the widow called it,
and ordered a most elaborate dinner, with soups and
fish, and roasts and salads, prepared with oil, which
turned the widow's stomach, and ices and chocolate, and
Charlotte-russe, and nuts and fruit, and coffee served in
cups the size of an acorn, the widow thought, as very red
in the face and perspiring at every pore, she went
through the dreadful dinner which lasted nearly three
hours, and left her at its conclusion, “weak as water,
and sweatin' like rain,” as she whispered to Annie, who
took the tired woman for a few moments into her own
room, and listened patiently to her comments upon the
grand dinner which had so nearly been the death of her.

Susan, on the contrary, enjoyed it. It was her first
glimpse of life among the very wealthy, and while her
mother-in-law was wondering “how Annie could stand
such doin's every day, and especially that 'bominable
soup, and still wus salut,” Susan was thinking how she
should like to live in just such style, and wondering if,
when John came home with his wages all saved, she
could not set up housekeeping somewhat on the Mather
order. At least she would have those little coffees after
dinner; though she doubted John's willingness to sit
quietly until the coffee was reached.

It was a long day to the widow, and the happiest part
of it was the going home by the cemetery, where she
stopped at Isaac's grave, and bending over the turf,
murmured her tender words of love and sorrow for the
boy who slept beneath. There was a plan forming in

the widow's mind, and it came out at last to Annie, who
was visiting her one day.

The hospitals were full to overflowing, and the cry all
along the lines was for more help to care for the sick
and dying, and the widow was going as nurse, either in
the hospital or in the field. She should prefer the latter,
she said, “for only folks with pluck could stand it
there.”

And Annie encouraged her to go, and even talked of
going too, but the first suggestion of the plan brought
such a storm of opposition from Rose, that for a little
time longer Annie yielded, resolving, however, that ere
long she would break away and take her place where
she felt that she could do more good than she was doing
in Rockland.