Part 6

All Middleburgh knew next day how Nancy Pansy had saved Harry Hunter, and it was still talking about it, when it was one morning astonished by the news that old Dr. Hunter had been arrested in the night by the soldiers, who had come down from Washington, and had been carried off somewhere. There had not been such excitement since the Middleburgh Artillery had marched away to the war. The old doctor was sacred. Why, to carry him off, and stop his old buggy rattling about the streets, was, in Middleburgh’s eyes, like stopping the chariot of the sun, or turning the stars out of their courses. Why did they not arrest Nancy Pansy too? asked Middleburgh. Nancy Pansy cried all day, and many times after, whenever she thought about it. She went to Tom Adams’s camp and begged him to bring her old doctor back, and Tom Adams said as he had not had him arrested he could not tell what he could do, but he would do all he could. Then she wrote the old doctor a letter. However, all Middleburgh would not accept Tom Adams’s statement as Nancy Pansy did, and instead of holding him as a favorite, it used to speak of him as “That Tom Adams.” Every old woman in Middleburgh declared she was worse than she had been in ten years, and old Mrs. Hippin took to her crutch, which she had not used in twelve months, and told Nancy Pansy’s sister she would die in a week unless she could hear the old doctor’s buggy rattle again. But when the fever broke out in the little low houses down on the river, things began to look very serious. The surgeon from the camp went to see the patients, but they died, and more were taken ill. When a number of other cases occurred in the town itself, all of the most malignant type, the surgeon admitted that it was a form of fever with which he was not familiar. There had never been such an epidemic in Middleburgh before, and Middleburgh said that it was all due to the old doctor’s absence.

One day Nancy Pansy went to the camp, to ask about the old doctor, and saw a man sitting astride of a fence rail which was laid on two posts high up from the ground. He had a stone tied to each foot, and he was groaning. She looked up at him, and saw that it was the man who had broken her doll. She was about to run away, but he groaned so she thought he must be in great pain, and that always hurt her; so she went closer, and asked him what was the matter. She did not understand just what he said, but it was something about the weight on his feet; so she first tried to untie the strings which held the stones, and then, as there was a barrel standing by, she pushed at it until she got it up close under him, and told him to rest his feet on that, whilst she ran home and asked her mamma to lend her her scissors. In pushing the barrel she broke Harry’s head in pieces; but she was so busy she did not mind it then. Just as she got the barrel in place some one called her, and turning around she saw a sentinel; he told her to go away, and he kicked the barrel from under the man and let the stones drop down and jerk his ankles again. Nancy Pansy began to cry, and ran off up to Tom Adams’s tent and told him all about it, and how the poor man was groaning. Tom Adams tried to explain that this man had got drunk, and that he was a bad man, and was the same one who had broken her doll. It had no effect. “Oh, but it hurts him so bad!” said Nancy Pansy, and she cried until Tom Adams called a man and told him he might go and let O’Meara down, and tell him that the little girl had begged him off this time. Nancy Pansy, however, ran herself, and called to him that Tom Adams said he might get down. When he was on the ground, he walked up to her and said:

“May the Holy Virgin kape you! Griff O’Meara’ll never forgit you.”

A few days after that, Nancy Pansy complained of headache, and her mother kept her in the house. That evening her face was flushed, and she had a fever; so her mother put her to bed and sat by her. She went to sleep, but waked in the night, talking very fast. She had a burning fever, and was quite out of her head. Mrs. Seddon sent for the surgeon next morning, and he came and stayed some time. When he returned to camp he went to Tom Adams’s tent. He looked so grave as he came in that Adams asked quickly:

“Any fresh cases?”

“Not in camp.” He sat down.

“Where?”

“That little girl--Nancy Pansy.”

Tom Adams’s face turned whiter than it had ever turned in battle.

“Is she ill?”

“Desperately.”

Tom Adams sprang to his feet.

“How long--how long can she hold out?” he asked, in a broken voice.

“Twenty-four hours, perhaps,” said the surgeon.

Tom Adams put on his cap and left the tent. Five minutes later he was in the hall at the Judge’s. Just as he entered, Nancy Pansy’s sister came quickly out of a door. She had been crying.

“How is she? I have just this instant heard of it,” said Tom, with real grief in his voice.

She put her handkerchief to her eyes.

“So ill,” she sobbed.

“Can I see her?” asked Tom, gently.

“Yes; it won’t hurt her.”

When Tom Adams entered the room he was so shocked that he stopped still. Mrs. Seddon bent over the bed with her face pale and worn, and in the bed lay Nancy Pansy, so changed that Tom Adams never would have known her. She had fallen off so in that short time that he would not have recognized her. Her face was perfectly white, except two bright red spots on her cheeks. She was drawing short, quick breaths, and was talking all the time very fast. No one could understand just what she was saying, but a good deal of it was about Harry and the old doctor. Tom bent over her, but she did not know him; she just went on talking faster than ever.

“Nancy Pansy, don’t you know Tom Adams?” her mother asked her, in a soothing voice. She had never called the young man so before, and he felt that it gave him a place with Nancy Pansy; but the child did not know him; she said something about not having any Harry.

“She is growing weaker,” said her mother.

Tom Adams leaned over and kissed the child, and left the room.

As he came down the steps he met Griff O’Meara, who asked how the “little gurl” was, “bless her sowl!” When he told him, Griff turned away and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Tom Adams told him to stay there and act as guard, which Griff vowed he’d do if the “howl ribel army kem.”

Ten minutes later Tom galloped out of camp with a paper in his pocket signed by the surgeon. In an hour he had covered the twelve miles of mud which lay between Middleburgh and the nearest telegraph station, and was sending a message to General ----, his commander. At last an answer came. Tom Adams read it.

“Tell him it is a matter of life and death,” he said to the operator. “Tell him there is no one else who understands it and can check it, and tell him it must be done before the afternoon train leaves, or it will be too late. Here, I’ll write it out.” And he did so, putting all his eloquence into the despatch.

Late that night two men galloped through the mud and slush in the direction of Middleburgh. The younger one had a large box before him on his horse; the other was quite an old man. Picket after picket was passed with a word spoken by the younger man, and they galloped on. At last they stopped at the Judge’s gate, and sprang from their splashed and smoking horses.

As they hurried up the walk, the guard at the steps challenged them in a rich Irish brogue.

“It’s I, O’Meara. You here still? How is she?”

“’Most in the Holy Virgin’s arms,” said the Irishman.

“Is she alive?” asked both men.

“It’s a docther can tell that,” said the sentinel. “They thought her gone an hour ago. There’s several in there,” he said to his captain. “I didn’t let ’em in at firrst, but the young leddy said they wuz the frien’s of the little gurl, an’ I let ’em by a bit.”

A minute later the old man entered the sick-room, whilst Tom Adams stopped at the door outside. There was a general cry as he entered of, “Oh, doctor!”

And Mrs. Seddon called him: “Quick, quick, doctor! she’s dying!”

“She’s dead,” said one of the ladies who stood by.

The old doctor bent over the little still white form, and his countenance fell. She was not breathing. With one hand he picked up her little white arm and felt for the pulse; with the other he took a small case from his pocket. “Brandy,” he said. It was quickly handed him. He poured some into a little syringe, and stuck it into Nancy Pansy’s arm, by turns holding her wrist and feeling over her heart.

Presently he said, quietly, “She’s living,” and both Mrs. Seddon and Nancy Pansy’s sister said, “Thank God!”

All night long the old doctor worked over Nancy Pansy. Just before dawn he said to Mrs. Seddon: “What day is this?”

“Christmas morning,” said Mrs. Seddon.

“Well, madam, I hope God has answered your prayers, and given your babe back to you; I hope the crisis is passed. Have you hung up her stocking?”

“No,” said Nancy Pansy’s mother. “She was so--” She could not say anything more. Presently she added: “She was all the time talking about you and Harry.”

The old doctor rose and went out of the room. It was about dawn. He left the house, and went over to his own home. There, after some difficulty, he got in, and went to his office. His old secretary had been opened and papers taken out, but the old man did not seem to mind it. Pulling the secretary out from the wall, he touched a secret spring. It did not work at first, but after a while it moved, and he put his hand under it, and pulled out a secret drawer. In it were a number of small parcels carefully tied up with pieces of ribbon, which were now quite faded, and from one peeped a curl of soft brown hair, like that of a little girl. The old doctor laid his fingers softly on it, and his old face wore a gentle look. The largest bundle was wrapped in oil-silk. This he took out and carefully unwrapped. Inside was yet another wrapping of tissue paper. He put the bundle, with a sigh, into his overcoat pocket, and went slowly back to the Judge’s. Nancy Pansy was still sleeping quietly.

The old doctor asked for a stocking, and it was brought him. He took the bundle from his pocket, and, unwrapping it, held it up. It was a beautiful doll, with yellow hair done up with little tucking combs such as ladies used to wear, and with a lovely little old tiny-flowered silk dress.

“She is thirty years old, madam,” he said gently to Mrs. Seddon, as he slipped the doll into the stocking, and hung it on the bed-post. “I have kept her for thirty years, thinking I could never give it to any one; but last night I knew I loved Nancy Pansy enough to give it to her.” He leaned over and felt her pulse. “She is sleeping well,” he said.

Just then the door opened, and in tipped Tom Adams, followed by Griff O’Meara in his stocking feet, bearing a large baby-house fitted up like a perfect palace, with every room carpeted and furnished, and with a splendid doll sitting on a balcony.

“A Christmas gift to that blessed angel from the Baby Veterans, mem,” he said, as he set it down; and then taking from his bulging pocket a large red-cheeked doll in a green frock, he placed it in the door of the house, saying, with great pride: “An’ this from Griff O’Meara. Heaven bless her swate soul!”

Just then Nancy Pansy stirred and opened her eyes. Her mother bent over her, and she smiled faintly. Mrs. Seddon slipped down on her knees.

“Where’s my old doctor and my dolly?” she said; and then, presently, “Where’s Harry and Tom Adams?”

“JACK AND JAKE.”

I.

“Jack and Jake.” This is what they used to be called. Their names were always coupled together. Wherever you saw one, you were very apt to see the other--Jack, slender, with yellow hair, big gray eyes, and spirited look; and Jake, thick-set and brown, close to him, like his shadow, with his shining skin and white teeth. They were always in sight somewhere; it might be running about the yard or far down on the plantation, or it might be climbing trees to look into birds’ nests--which they were forbidden to trouble--or wading in the creek, riding in the carts or wagons about the fields, or following the furrow, waiting a chance to ride a plough-horse home.

Jake belonged to Jack. He had been given to him by his old master, Jack’s grandfather, when Jack was only a few years old, and from that time the two boys were rarely separated, except at night.

Jake was a little larger than Jack, as he was somewhat older, but Jack was the more active. Jake was dull; some people on the plantation said he did not have good sense; but they rarely ventured to say so twice to Jack. Jack said he had more sense than any man on the place. At least, he idolized Jack.

At times the people commented on the white boy being so much with the black; but Jack’s father said it was as natural for them to run together as for two calves--a black one and a white one--when they were turned out together; that he had played with Uncle Ralph, the butler, when they were boys, and had taught the latter as much badness as he had him.

So the two boys grew up together as “Jack and Jake,” forming a friendship which prevented either of them ever knowing that Jake was a slave, and brought them up as friends rather than as master and servant.

If there was any difference, the boys thought it was rather in favor of Jake; for Jack had to go to school, and sit for some hours every morning “saying lessons” to his aunt, and had to look out (sometimes) for his clothes, while Jake just lounged around outside the school-room door, and could do as he pleased, for he was sure to get Jack’s suit as soon as it had become too much worn for Jack.

The games they used to play were surprising. Jack always knew of some interesting thing they could “make ’tence” (that is, pretence) that they were doing. They could be fishers and trappers, of course; for there was the creek winding down the meadow, in and out among the heavy willows on its banks; and in the holes under the fences and by the shelving rocks, where the water was blue and deep, there were shining minnows, and even little perch; and they could be lost on rafts, for there was the pond, and with their trousers rolled up to their thighs they could get on planks and pole themselves about.

But the best fun of all was “Injins.” Goodness! how much fun there was in Injins! There were bows and arrows, and tomahawks, and wigwams, and fires in the woods, and painted faces, and creeping-ups, and scalpings, and stealing horses, and hot pursuits, and hidings, and captures, and bringing the horses back, and the full revenge and triumph that are dear to boys’ hearts. Injins was, of all plays, the best. There was a dear old wonderful fellow named Leatherstocking, who was the greatest “Injin”-hunter in the world. Jack knew all about him. He had a book with him in it, and he read it and told Jake; and so they played Injins whenever they wanted real fun. It was a beautiful place for Injins; the hills rolled, the creeks wound in and out among the willows, and ran through thickets into the little river, and the woods surrounded the plantation on all sides, and stretched across the river to the Mont Air place, so that the boys could cross over and play on the other side of the thick woods.

When the war came, Jack was almost a big boy. He thought he was quite one. He was ten years old, and grew old two years at a time. His father went off with the army, and left his mother at home to take care of the plantation and the children. That included Ancy and wee Martha; not Jack, of course. So far from leaving any one to take care of Jack, he left Jack to take care of his mother. The morning he went away he called Jack to him and had a talk with him. He told him he wanted him to mind his mother, and look out for her, to help her and save her trouble, to take care of her and comfort her, and defend her always like a man. Jack was standing right in front of him, and when the talk began he was fidgety, because he was in a great hurry to go to the stable and ride his father’s horse Warrior to the house; but his father had never talked to him so before, and as he proceeded, Jack became grave, and when his father took his hand, and, looking him quietly in the eyes, said, “Will you, my son?” he burst out crying, and flung his arms around his father’s neck, and said, “Yes, father, I will.”

He did not go out of the house any more then; he left the horse to be brought down by Uncle Henry, the carriage-driver, and he sat quietly by his father, and kept his eyes on him, getting him anything he wanted; and he waited on his mother; and when his father went away, he kissed him, and said all over again that he would do what he promised. And when his mother locked herself in her room afterward, Jack sat on the front porch alone, in his father’s chair, and waited. And when she came out on the porch, with her eyes red from weeping and her face worn, he did not say anything, but quietly went and got her a glass of water. His father’s talk had aged him.

For the first two years, the war did not make much difference to Jack personally. It made a difference to the country, and to the people, and to his mother, but not to Jack individually, though it made a marked difference in him. It made him older. His father’s words never were forgotten. They had sobered him and steadied him. He had seen a good deal of the war. The troop trains passed up the railroad, the soldiers cheering and shouting, filling the cars and crowding on top of them; the army, or parts of it, marched through the country by the county roads, camping in the woods and fields. Many soldiers stopped at Jack’s home, where open house was kept, and everything was gladly given to them. All the visitors now were soldiers. Jack rode the gentlemen’s horses to water, with Jake behind him, if there was but one (in which case the horse was apt to get several waterings), or galloping after him, if there were more. They were hard riders, and got many falls, for the young officers were usually well mounted, and their horses were wild. But a fall was no disgrace. Jack remembered that his father once said to him, when a colt had thrown him, “All bold riders get falls; only those do not who ride tame horses.”

All the visitors were in uniform; all the talk was of war; all thoughts were of the Confederacy. Every one was enthusiastic. No sacrifices were too great to be made. The corn-houses were emptied into the great, covered, blue army wagons; the pick of the horses and mules was given up. Provisions became scanty and the food plain; coffee and tea disappeared; clothes that were worn out were replaced by homespun. Jack dressed in the same sort of coarse, grayish stuff of which Jake’s clothes used to be made; and his boots were made by Uncle Dick at the quarters; but this did not trouble him. It was rather fun than otherwise. Boys like to rough it. He had come to care little for these things. He was getting manlier. His mother called him her protector; his father, when he came home, as he did once or twice a year, called him “a man,” and introduced him to his friends as “my son.”

His mother began to consult him, to rely on him, to call on him. He used to go about with her, or go for her wherever she had business, however far off it might be.

The war had been going on two years, when the enemy first reached Jack’s home. It was a great shock to Jack, for he had never doubted that the Confederates would keep them back. There had been a great battle some time before, and his father had been wounded and taken prisoner (at first he was reported killed). But for that, Jack said, the “Yankees” would never have got there. The Union troops did not trouble Jack personally; but they made a great deal of trouble about the place. They took all the horses and mules that were good for anything and put them in their wagons. This was a terrible blow to Jack. All his life he had been brought up with the horses; each one was his pet or his friend.

After that the war seemed to be much more about Jack’s home than it had been before. The place was in the possession first of one army and then of the other, and at last, one winter, the two armies lay not far apart, with Jack’s home just between them. “The Yankees” were the nearer. Their pickets were actually on the plantation, at the ford, and at the bridge over the little river into which the creek emptied, in the big woods. There they lay with their camps over behind the hills, a mile or two farther away. At night the glow of their camp-fires could be seen. Jack had a pretty aunt who used to stay with his mother, and many young officers used to come over from the Confederate side to see her. In such cases, they usually came at night, leaving their horses, for scouting parties used to come in on them occasionally and stir them up. Once or twice skirmishes took place in the fields beyond the creek.

One evening a party of young officers came in and took supper. They had some great plan. They were quite mysterious, and consulted with Jack’s mother, who was greatly interested in them. They appeared a little shy of talking before Jack; but when his mother said he had so much judgment that he could be trusted, they talked openly in his presence. They had a plan to go into the Federal camp that night and seize the commanding officer. They wanted to know all the paths. Jack could tell them. He was so proud. There was not a cow-path he did not know for two or three miles around, for he and Jake had hunted all over the country. He could tell them everything, and he did so with a swelling heart. They laid sheets of paper down on the dining-table, and he drew them plans of the roads and hills and big woods; showed where the river could be waded, and where the ravines were. He asked his mother to let him go along with them, but she thought it best for him not to go.

They set out at bedtime on foot, a half-dozen gay young fellows, laughing and boasting of what they would do, and Jack watched them enviously as their forms faded away in the night. They did not succeed in capturing the officer; but they captured a number of horses and a picket at the bridge, and came off triumphant, with only one or two of their number slightly wounded. Shortly afterwards they came over, and had a great time telling their experiences. They had used the map Jack made for them, and had got safely beyond the pickets and reached the camp. There, finding the sentries on guard, they turned back, and taking the road, marched down on the picket, as if they had come to relieve them. Coming from the camp in this way, they had got upon the picket, when, suddenly drawing their pistols and poking them up against the Yankees, they forced them to surrender, and disarmed them. Then taking two of them off separately, they compelled them to give the countersign. Having got this, they left the prisoners under guard of two of their number, and the rest went back to camp. With the countersign they passed the sentry, and went into the camp. Then they found that the commanding officer had gone off somewhere, and was not in camp that night, and there were so many men stirring about that they did not dare to wait. They determined, therefore, to capture some horses and return. They were looking over the lines of horses to take their pick when they were discovered. Each man had selected a horse, and was trying to get him, when the alarm was given, and they were fired on. They had only time to cut the halters when the camp began to pour out. Flinging themselves on the horses’ backs, they dashed out under a fusillade, firing right and left. They took to the road, but it had been picketed, and they had to dash through the men who held it under a fire poured into their faces. All had passed safely except one, whose horse had become unmanageable, and had run away, flying the track and taking to the fields.