Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction Page 7

  CHAPTER IV

  IN WHICH A LONG JUMP IS TAKEN

  It is not proposed to attempt any relation of that part of the livesof the people in this record which was covered by the four years ofwar. That period was too tremendous to be made a mere fragment of anyhistory. “After that the deluge.”

  What pen could properly tell the story of those four years; whatfittingly record the glory of that struggle, hopeless from thebeginning, yet ever appearing to pluck success from the very abyss ofimpossibility, and by the sheer power of unconquerable valor to reversethe laws of nature and create the consummation it desired, in the faceof insuperable force?

  It was a great formative force in every life that participated in it.It stamped itself on every face. The whole country emptied itself intoit. They went into it boys, and came out of it men—striplings, andcame out of it heroes. But the eye once fastened on that flaming firewould be blinded for any lesser light.

  It is what took place after the war rather than what occurred duringthe struggle that this chronicle is concerned with.

  If the part that the men played in the war must be passed over insilence as too large for this history, how much more impossible wouldit be to describe fitly the part that the women performed. It was aharder part to fill, yet they filled it to the brim, good measure,overflowing. It is no disparagement to the men to say that whatevercourage they displayed, it was less than that which the women showed.Wherever a Southern woman stood during those four years, there in hersmall person was a garrison of the South, impregnable.

  Year after year the mills of war ground steadily array after array, andcrushed province after province, and still the ranks filled and pouredwith intrepid daring into the abyss of destruction, to be ground liketheir predecessors to dust; until at the end there was nothing left togrind. Some day the historian, annalist or novelist, may arise to tellthe mighty story, but meantime this pen must pass it by as too great atheme, and deal with the times that come after.

  One or two incidents, however, must be mentioned to fill the break andexplain what came afterward.

  Colonel Gray, who had been early promoted, fell at the head of hisregiment on one of those great days which are the milestones of history.

  His body was brought home and buried in the old grave-yard at RedRock among generations of Grays, of whom, as old Mr. Langstaff, whohad been bodily haled back to his parish by his congregation, said tothe neighbors and servants about the grave, not one was a better or abraver man, or a truer gentleman. Colonel Gray’s burial marked one ofthe steps of the war in that retired neighborhood.

  When it was all over, and the neighbors had gone home, and the servantshad retired to their quarters, hushed to that vague quietude thatfollows the last putting away in the earth of those who have been nearto us, Jacquelin came out of the office where he had held that lastinterview with his father, and walked into his mother’s room. Hisshoulders were square and his figure erect. Mrs. Gray rose from herknees as he entered, and stood before him in her black dress, her facedeadly white; her eyes, full of fear, fastened on his face.

  “Mamma—.” He stopped as if that were all he had to say, and, perhaps,it was; for Mrs. Gray seated herself calmly.

  “Yes, my son.” The fine, sad eyes grew wistful. How like he was to hisfather!

  —“Because, you know, there ought to be one of us in the old company,mamma,” he said, quite as though he had spoken the other sentence.

  “Yes, my son, I know.” And the mother sighed, her heart breaking inspite of her resolve to be brave.

  “—And I am the only man of the name now—and I am fifteen and a wholehead taller than Andy Stamper.”

  “Yes, I know, my son.” She had noticed it that day, and had known thiswould come.

  “And he is one of the best soldiers in the army—_He_ said so. Andif—if anything happens, you have Rupert.” He went on arguing, asthough his mother had not agreed with him.

  “Yes, my son, I know.” And Mrs. Gray rose suddenly and flung herselfinto his arms and hugged him and clung to him, and wept on hisshoulder, as though he were his father.

  So the change comes: the boy in little trousers suddenly stands beforethe mother a man; the little girl who was in her pinafores yesterday,to-day has stepped into full-blown womanhood; and the children havegone; the old has passed; and the new is here.

  General Legaie offered to make a place on his staff for Jacquelin; butJacquelin declined it. He wished to go into the Red Rock troop, ofwhich Steve Allen was now Captain.

  “Because, mamma, all the men are in it, and Steve has refused amajority to stay with them, and there must be one of the Grays in theold company,” he said with a rise of his head.

  Doan, of course, expected to go with his master; but Mrs. Gray vetoedthis; she was afraid Doan might be killed: young men were so rash. Sheremembered that Doan was his mother’s only son. So, by a compromise,Old Waverley was sent. He had so much judgment, she said.

  The year after Jacquelin went away to the army the tide of war rollednearer to the old county, and the next year, that which had been deemedimpossible befell: it swept over it.

  When the invading army had passed, the county was scarcely recognizable.

  Jacquelin’s career in the army was only that of many others—indeed, ofmany thousands of others: he went in a boy, but a boy who could rideany horse, and all day and all night; sleep on stones or in mud; and iftold to go anywhere, would go as firmly and as surely among bayonets orbelching guns as if it were in a garden of roses.

  Being the youngest man in his company, he might naturally have been afavorite in any case; but when he was always ready to stand an extratour of guard-duty, or to do anything else for a comrade, it placedhis popularity beyond question. They used to call him “The baby;” butafter a sharp cavalry fight on a hill-top one afternoon they stoppedthis. Legaie’s brigade charged, and finding infantry entrenched, wereretiring amid smoke and dust and bullets, when Jacquelin, missingMorris Cary, who had been near him but a moment before, suddenly turnedand galloped back through the smoke. Two or three men shouted andstopped, and Steve suddenly dashed back after the boy, followed by AndyStamper and the whole company. There was a rally with the whole RedRock troop in the lead, Steve Allen, with little Andy Stamper closebehind, shouting and sabering like mad, which changed the fortune ofthe day.

  Poor Morris was found under his horse, past help; but they broughthis body out of the fray, and Jacquelin sent him home, with a letterwhich was harder to write than any charge he had ever made or was tomake—harder even than to tell Dr. Cary, who was at the field hospitaland who received the announcement with only a sudden tightening of themouth and whitening of the face. After that, Andy Stamper “allowed thatJacquelin’s cradle was big enough for him” (Andy), which it certainlywas, by linear measurement, at least.

  Blair’s letter to Jacquelin in reply was more to him than GeneralLegaie’s mention of his name in his report.

  Blair was growing up to be almost a woman now. Women, as well as men,age rapidly amid battles, and nearly every letter Jacquelin receivedfrom home contained something about her. “What a pretty girl Blairhas grown to be. You have no idea how we all lean on her,” his motherwrote. Or Miss Thomasia would say: “I wish you could have heard Blairsing in church last Sunday. Her voice has developed unspeakablesweetness. It reminded me of her grandmother, when I can first rememberher.”

  It was not a great while after this that Jacquelin himself went downone day, and had to be fought over, and though he fared better thanpoor Morris Cary, in that the bullet which brought him down onlysmashed his leg instead of finding his heart, it resulted in Stevegetting both himself and his horse shot, and Jacquelin being left inthe enemy’s hands, along with Andy Stamper, who had fought over him,like the game little bantam that he was, until a big Irish Sergeantknocked him in the head with a carbine-barrel and came near ending theline of the Stampers then and there. Happily, Andy came to after awhile, and was taken along with Jacquelin and sent to Point Looko
ut.

  Jacquelin and Andy stayed in prison a long time; Andy because he wasa hardy and untamed little warrior, of the kind which was drawn lastfor exchange; and Jacquelin partly because he was unable to travel onaccount of his wound and partly because he would not accept an exchangeto leave Andy.

  One day, however, Andy got a letter which seriously affected him. Ittold him that Delia Dove was said to be going to marry Mr. Still.Within a week little Andy, whose constitution had hitherto appeared ofiron, was in the hospital. The doctor told Jacquelin that he thoughthe was seriously ill, and might die.

  That night Jacquelin scribbled a line to Andy and persuaded a nurse,Miss Bush, a small woman with thin hair, a sharp nose and a complainingvoice, but gentle eyes and a kind heart, to get it to him. It ran:“Hold on for Delia’s sake. We’ll get exchanged before long.”

  “Who is Delia?” asked the nurse, looking at the paper doubtfully. Itwas against orders to carry notes.

  “His sweetheart.”

  The nurse took the note.

  In a week Andy was ready to be out of the hospital.

  The next morning Jacquelin and the doctor had a long talk, and lateron, Jacquelin and the nurse; and when the next draft for exchange came,the name of Jacquelin Gray was on it. But Andy Stamper’s was not. Sothe nurse told Jacquelin. Another note was written and conveyed by MissBush, and that evening, when the line of prisoners for exchange marchedout of the prison yard, Andy Stamper, with his old blanket pulledup around his face and a crutch under his arm, was in it. Jacquelinwas watching from a corner of the hospital window while the line wasinspected. Andy answered the questions all right—Private in Company A,—th Cavalry; captured at ——; wounded in leg; and just left hospital.As the last guard filed out behind the ragged line and the big gateswung to, Jacquelin hobbled back to his cot and lay with his face tothe wall. The nurse came by presently and stopping, looked down at him.

  “Now you’ve gone and ruined your chance for ever,” she said in thequerulous tone habitual with her.

  Jacquelin shut his eyes tightly, then opened them and without a wordgazed straight at the wall not a foot before him. Suddenly the womanbent close down over him and kissed him.

  “You are a dear boy.” The next instant she went back to her duty.

  An effort was made to get an exchange for Jacquelin, the principalagents being a nurse in the prison-hospital and a philanthropicalfriend of hers, a Mrs. Welch, through whom the nurse had secured herposition; but the answer was conclusive:

  “Jacquelin Gray has already been exchanged.”

  As for Andy, when he reached home he found the report about Miss DeliaDove to be at least premature. It was not only Mr. Washington Still,but Hiram as well, who was unpleasantly attentive to her, and MissDelia, after the first burst of genuine delight at Andy’s unexpectedappearance, proceeded to use the prerogative of her sex and wringher lover’s heart by pretending to be pleased by his new rival’sattentions. Andy, accordingly, did not stay long at home, but acceptingthe renewed proffer of a loan from Hiram Still to buy a horse, was soonback with the old company, sadly wasted by this time and only kept upby the new recruits, on whom Andy looked with disdain.

  When Wash Still was drafted from the dispensary department of thehospital service it was some consolation that he was at least banishedfrom dangerous proximity to Miss Delia, but it was hard to have toaccept him as a comrade, and Andy’s sunburned nose was always turned upwhen Wash was around.

  “Washy Still in place of Jacquelin Gray,” he sniffed; “a dinged little’pothecary-shop sweeper for a boy as didn’t mind bullets no mo’ thanflies. I bet he’s got pills in that pistol now! And he to be a-settin’up to Delia Dove!”

  However, a few months later Andy had his reward.

  So it happened, that when the end came, Andy was back with the oldcompany, and Jacquelin was still in prison.