Part 7

Is it not that we have been--we are--a sinful people, pluming ourselves upon our powers, priding ourselves upon our prosperity, till we have come to look upon the fair beauty of this land, lavish in its loveliness, as a possession which is our right, and not as a loan, for the use and enjoyment of which we are bound to return the offering of grateful hearts?

Is it not that we have gone on in a suicidal career of extravagance, luxury, and dissipation, which has finally brought its own punishment upon us? Sorely did we need humbling, and sorely have we been humbled. Bitter has been our lesson, but bitterly was it needed. The thought will sometimes arise, would that the trial had come from foreign foe; would that friend had never lifted hand against friend, nor brother against brother! Had that grand rising, at the sound of Sumter’s wrong, which swelled throughout the North--had it, I say, but thrilled through our whole land with a mighty throb, till, with one heart and hand united, we had joined to defend that Flag, so treacherously assailed, where is the foe we should have feared to face--where the enemy, which, humanly speaking, we might not have conquered?

But so, the lesson had been lost. We had but gained further food for pride, further motives for self-glorification. The medicine would but have increased the disorder, the remedy added to the disease. We must acknowledge--we must recognize the Chastening Hand which is dealing with us. Where is the victory which has ever yet, as a people, sent us to our knees? Where the defeat which has ever yet been attributed to any but secondary causes? Want of reinforcements, want of supplies, want of suitable weather, want of skill in the commanding officers,--any and every want but the true one.

We send our men forth wanting the one weapon, which, springing from its scabbard, and flashing in the bright sunlight of Faith and Trust, must insure success. It is the Sword of Prayer.

“’Tis Prayer that moves the silver bowers afar; Gains wings, and through the ever-opened door, Swift as the image of the twinkling star, Shows its reflection in the Ocean’s floor; It moves the inmates of that Heavenly Shore, As, gently rippling o’er the leafy shade, Comes the soft, sighing gale, and passes o’er; E’en so in Heaven, each Prayer, in secret made, Ruffles a thousand Wings prepar’d for instant aid.”

I humbly beg pardon, dear C. You asked for some account of our Christmas festivities at the hospital, and I have been betrayed into what, I fear you will find, a tedious expression of my feelings upon the questions which have such an absorbing interest at the present time. Forgive me this once, and I will promise to spare you in future.

POOR JOSÉ!

“But these men have no feeling.”

The stormiest day of this stormy winter. Hail, rain, and snow seem to have formed a precious triumvirate to take possession of the day, “vi et armis,” and claim it for their own. I know not whether it is a certain perverseness of nature, or a desire to overcome difficulties, which leads me to prefer such blustering, battling days, to more serene ones; whatever may be the cause, the fact will account for my finding myself, on this particular morning, seated on the kitchen table, before the hospital fire, carrying on a _warm_ discussion with one of the men, on the merits of Ruskin, as I dried my dripping garments. A chance word led to a quotation by him from one of Ruskin’s works, and we immediately “opened fire” in more senses than one.

I found him a man of keen intelligence, self-made, of course, but a great reader, and quite familiar with a higher style of literature than we usually look for here. Doubtless, in his far-away home, grander halls have echoed to the praises of the great Art-teacher of the nineteenth century, made by more appreciative critics; but I very much question whether he has ever had more earnest, zealous, enthusiastic admirers than the two that day met, before that kitchen fire, on the shores of another continent.

As I walked through one of the wards, a little later, I said, in passing, “You are better to-day,” to a man who had been suffering from such a severe attack of erysipelas in his head, that his eyes had been closed for many days. The enormous swelling of his head, added to his long, matted beard and thick, tangled black hair, had given him a fierce, brigand sort of air, which was far from being dissipated by the appearance of a pair of large black eyes, opened to-day for the first time since I had seen him in the hospital.

“Better,” said he; “but oh, lady!--”

He turned his head away, shaking it sadly.

“What is your grief?” said I, sitting down beside him.

“My little ones, my little ones! Where are they? Five weeks, dear lady, have I lain here, and no word have I had from them.”

A long, and most sorrowful story followed, of which the main points are these: a Spaniard by birth, he had come to this country in search of employment, settled in Philadelphia, married, and for several years was prosperous and happy, till his wife fell into bad habits, wasted his earnings, and brought them to utter poverty and wretchedness. On one occasion he had gone to a neighboring town on business, and on his return found their comfortable home broken up, the house and furniture sold, and his wife and their three little ones in a poor hovel, in one of the worst parts of the city.

No one who did not hear him, can imagine the pathos with which he described his little girl’s illness, with all the fervor of his warm Spanish nature; his care of her; his walking the floor with her night after night, her little arm around his neck and her head upon his breast; “for you see, lady, it was worse than if she had had no mother.” His love for her seemed to amount to a passion; his boys, he said, were “nice little fellows,” Juan and Henriquez; but evidently his feeling for them was nothing in comparison with the idolatry lavished upon his little Rosita, as he called her, a child of four years old.

“I lie here at night,” said he, the large tears rolling down his cheeks, “and think if I could just once have that little hand in mine, that little head upon my breast, it would cure me faster than all this doctor’s stuff, far away faster.”

From what he told me, I gathered that he had enlisted in the war in despair; and during his absence his wife, for her outrageous conduct, had been considered insane, and taken to the insane department of the almshouse, where she then was, the children having been taken to board by a woman in the neighborhood of their house. He had been unable, as he had said, to hear anything about them, and feared they were ill, especially his darling Rosita.

“Lady, dear lady, could you, would you see about them for me?”

“Certainly,” said I; “if it is possible, I will go at once; but I must first know where they are.”

“You will?” he said, “You really will?” with an expression of wondering delight; and then, as though the very thought brought peace, remained perfectly still, apparently musing upon the idea.

“But,” said I, “you do not tell me where to find them.”

“No --, ---- Street.”

I started, and shook my head. “That is impossible; I could not go there.”

“Impossible!” he said, his voice amounting almost to a shriek. “Don’t say it! Go, dearest lady, go! Nothing could hurt you; God will protect you; oh! go. I would kneel to you if I could rise.”

“I do not want you to kneel to me; I would go at once, but it would not be right.”

“Not right! not right!” he said, with utter despair in his tone. “Oh! then what on earth can be right?” and covering his head in the bed-clothes, he groaned as though from the depths of his soul.

As this is no autobiography, it matters little by what train, either of reasoning or of cars, I reached the spot where I stood, an hour later; nor, for the same reason, shall I be more particular in my description of what followed, than is necessary for my narrative. Suffice it to say, a certain account of “St. Margaret’s court,” in the matchless poem of Aurora Leigh, was before me, stereoscoped into life, never again to be mere word-painting.

A little, low, blue frame building; the outer room, into which you step from the street, is apparently a small green grocer’s shop. Strings of suggestive-looking sausages hang in ropes from the top of the door and window; pieces of black-looking material, yclept bacon, by courtesy, are piled up among barrels of gnarly green apples, evidently not gathered from the gardens of the Hesperides; baskets of eggs--which I am very sure no tidy hen would ever confess to having laid--crowd the little, low, dirty counter, behind which stands the live stock of this interesting apartment. And certainly the object upon which my eyes first rested did not belie her “entourage.” It has been well said, that the soul makes a harmony for itself in its surroundings, and thus character is developed and declared. If so, how beautifully the unities were here preserved; for why should we not have the unities of dirt, as well as those of elegance? Doubtless that Celtic soul found as much enjoyment in seeing all around her in such perfect keeping with her own appearance, as Beau Brummel ever did in the appointments of his famed boudoir. I should almost have hesitated to ask a question of this curious production of nature,--something between a crone and a hag, with coarse Irish features, loose dress, hair hanging down, and apparently guiltless of any tending of either comb or brush since she had attained maturity, which was certainly not yesterday,--had she not herself opened the way.

“Get out of this, will you, _Jewann_, don’t you see the lady?” addressed to a dirty, commonplace-looking little urchin, of about nine years old, who sat tilting himself forward and back upon the edge of one of the aforesaid barrels, with infinite peril to life and limb. This rather remarkable name, with her felicitous rendering of it, seemed to me circumstantial evidence, and I gathered courage to ask, “Are you the person who takes care of José’s children? I have come to see them for him.”

“Yes, miss, walk in; we’ve but a poor place, as you see. Rosy, come speak to the lady.”

But it needed not the name; as soon as my eyes rested on the child in the corner, I was satisfied that this was her father’s darling; and who could wonder at his love! Rarely have I seen a more perfect specimen of “beauty unadorned”--the rarity of the jewel enhanced and thrown out by the coarseness of its setting. She lifted her eyes from the floor, on which she was playing, to stare at the unwonted visitor--large, liquid, Spanish eyes--with that expression of love and confidence in them which seldom outlives childhood. Those tangled black curls, her father’s pride, were almost hidden beneath a common, coarse, little worsted hood, in which she had stuck four or five chicken feathers, which gave her a sort of picturesque air; a large stain of the dirt in which she was living, rested on one cheek; but it seemed merely a shadow bringing out the bright tints beneath.

“Come here, Rosy, I say, and speak to the lady; she’s just seen your pappy.”

At that word she sprang up, and came wonderingly to my side, never taking those eyes from my face.

“Yes,” said I; “I have just come from him, and he wants so badly to see his little Rosita; what will she send him?”

In a moment her little arms were tightly clasped round my neck, as I bent down to speak to her, and those rosy lips were pressed to mine, in a warm, loving kiss.

Quite aware that this mute message, eloquent as it was, could scarcely be delivered with satisfaction to any of the parties concerned, I drew one of the feathers from her cap, and said, “Shall I tell him his little girl sent him this?”

A bright, beaming smile, was the only answer I could extract. The woman now began a piteous story of having to provide for them--no money, etc., etc.,--backed by her husband, who appeared, pipe in his mouth, from some back den, evidently hoping to extort funds; but when they discovered that I was in possession of all the facts, with regard to the support of the children, they seemed to find it useless to proceed; and finally agreeing to my request that one of them would take the children to see their father, I left the direction, visiting days, etc., with them.

Once more I stood by that bedside, which I had so lately left, with that deep groan ringing in my ears.

“Do you know what that is?” said I, holding up the feather.

No answer from the lips, but the eyes said, plainly, “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

I varied the question. “Do you know where that came from?”

He started, pierced me through with those keen black eyes, then said, seizing the hand in which I held it with a grasp which secured my remembering him for many days, “You didn’t?--you couldn’t?--it isn’t?”

“Yes,” said I; “I drew it from your little girl’s cap; she sent it to you with her love.”

His grasp relaxed; and, burying his face in the pillow, he sobbed aloud. I waited, thinking he would recover himself, but no word came; hard, heavy sobs, only increasing in violence, shook the bed, and I was frightened at the terrible emotion I had called forth. Deeming it best not to notice it, I began quietly to give him an account of my trip, dwelling on the least exciting parts of it, but all of no avail; apparently he did not even hear me, and I saw that he was getting entirely beyond his own control.

What was to be done? Here was indeed a dilemma. He was exciting the attention of the whole ward; it was within half an hour of inspection when the surgeon in charge goes his rounds through the wards,--what would he say? Was this the way that the ladies excited their patients? But beyond and above all, he was injuring himself; and with the tendency to inflammation in his head, I dreaded the effect of such strong excitement, and yet all I said seemed but to increase it. Suddenly it occurred to me that (something on the principle of “similia similibus curantur,” little as I usually admire the practice) perhaps by evoking another feeling equally powerful, I might calm him; and knowing that no one, be it man or woman, will ever submit quietly to blame without an attempt at self-justification, I changed my tactics at once, and said:

“How it is possible, that a father, who has one grain of love for his children, can permit them to remain one day, or hour, in such a den as that, is to me a marvel that I cannot comprehend.”

The rûse was a perfect success. Starting up in his bed, with flashing eyes, he said, with a vehemence which at another time would have frightened me:

“How cruel! I couldn’t help it, and you know I couldn’t; haven’t I told you how it breaks my heart, night and day, to think of them there, and I tied here and can’t get them away?”

This was all I wanted; he poured forth a volley of eager self-defence, and ere it was half over, my mind was quite relieved about him, and I had the satisfaction of seeing him in a short time quite composed, and anxiously seeking to know every particular of my visit. He would not be content without hearing over and over the most minute details, all the time stroking and patting the feather, as though it were indeed the little one it symbolized.

The following Sunday, as I passed through the ward to attend service, I saw the three children on the bed; the two boys seated at the foot, and the little Rosita lying on his breast, with that dimpled arm round his neck, as he had wished. He smiled as he saw me, and held up the feather. I never saw him again. I heard, the next time that I came to the hospital, that news had been brought him of his wife’s death at the almshouse; he had been allowed to go out on a pass, but had failed to return, and nothing further had been heard from him.

Poor José! We shall, in all probability, never meet again on earth; but I can never think of him without finding, in his history, the most powerful proof that “these men _have_ feeling.”

ROBINSON.

“War is an unmixed evil; look at it as you will, it is, it must be, an unmixed evil!”

This, in an indignant tone, from one, standing at my side, gazing at one of its saddest results.

“An evil, I grant,” said I; “unmixed I deny. War and its attendants have a grand side. Do not start, and look so reproachfully at me; were we standing on another spot, and were the circumstances different, I would tell you all I mean; but let it pass.”

We were in no mood for argument then, and the subject dropped; but it recurred frequently to my mind, and the more I have dwelt upon it, the more I am convinced (your pardon, dear speaker!) that such a statement is not, cannot be true. War has its compensations, its beautiful compensations; and I very much question, whether, if the statistics of the good deeds, the kind, warm, large-hearted actions, could be registered, as are those of crime, we should not find that those performed in times of war, greatly overbalance those in times of peace. Great crises call forth and compel great deeds.

Where is the battle-field since Sumter’s sad surprise, which cannot boast, not one, but many Sir Philip Sydney’s, with the earnest “Take it; thy need is greater than mine?” Magnanimity need no longer be confined to the field of Zütphen, and each child be taught the story as though it stood alone. Where the hospital where we may not see something of sublimity in the beautiful forgetfulness of self, the untiring devotion with which plain, poor men watch, night after night, by a dying comrade,--a stranger till those walls had made them brothers? Where the home, high or humble, which fails to show the brave-hearted wife, mother, daughter, or sister, giving for her country a life far dearer than her own, to danger and to death? Is there no moral grandeur, no moral heroism here? A sad soul, so struggling with, yet surmounting sorrow; so sending forth her sure support and stay, then turning calmly and quietly to take up her lonely cross and bear the burden of daily life, by virtue of such act reaches a spiritual elevation which times of peace could rarely, if ever, witness.

I see the laugh--I hear the cutting remark, “Such a _woman’s_ view!” but I know these things are true, for I have witnessed them; and, be it remembered, that ridicule is not reasoning, nor satire always sound sense. Never can I listen to this statement, that “War is an unmixed evil,” without longing to combat it; and added to that, but this very morning, the same belligerent desire was excited in my mind by reading an opinion, somewhat dogmatically asserted, that, “In these days, Apollo must give place to Mars.”

“Not so,” I answered then; “not so,” I answer now. Apollo never gathers in a heavier harvest--never stores stouter sheaves, than those mowed down by the chariot wheels of the God of War, as he dashes onward in his headlong career. Ask the world, since creation’s dawn, and she will tell you that Apollo clings to Mars; and if he ever “gives place,” it is only that he may follow on the fiery track of his great leader, sure of grander opportunities in the waxing and waning of one moon, than a life-time of peace could give.

And even granting (which I never will) that Apollo pauses in his course--that his lyre “lingers o’er its lays”--are not the daily deeds of our loved land, at this moment, prouder poems than this continent has ever yet produced? Where can we find such stirring strains, such ringing rhythm, such burning ballads, such lyric lays, such sublime sonnets, such ever-during epics, as these times of ours call forth? Is not each soldier a poet in his way? And shall his verse have the less power, for that it is set to martial music? Shall it touch our hearts the less? Rather, shall not every chord vibrate ten thousand times the more, for that the pages on which it is written are the fair fields of our own dear country; its pen, the sword; its ink, the heart’s blood of our brothers?

But I have wandered wide of my mark. I seated myself to note a simple story, of one of that ever-growing army who have nobly given their young lives to their country.

I have made allusion before to my whistling friend, Robinson, who was brought to the hospital at the same time with our poor Darlington, from the same regiment, and wounded in the same battle,--that of “Fair Oaks.” His left arm was terribly shattered, just below the shoulder, and injuring the shoulder-blade; and for a long time his case was a very critical one, requiring the most close and constant watching. He was entirely confined to his bed for many tedious weeks, and yet I know not why I should apply that term to the time so passed; for they were certainly never “tedious” to us, although we felt great anxiety for him, and we never had any proof that they were so to him. Patient and uncomplaining, the only sign he gave of suffering, save the contraction of his brow, was the constant effort to whistle away the pain, and his moans in his sleep. There was always something inexpressibly sad to me in these moans; it seemed as though the body were compensating itself, during sleep, for the powerful restraint imposed upon it during waking hours.

I have rarely seen greater unselfishness in any one. During his illness, it was all-important to keep up his strength, for as the wound began to heal, one abscess followed another, and kept him much prostrated; we therefore tried to tempt his appetite in every way; and often, when I have brought him some delicacy, he has pointed me to some one near him, with the words, “Please give it to him; he cares for such things more than I do.”

His love for his mother, and anxiety to spare her all unnecessary suffering on his account, was very beautiful, and attracted me to him from the first. His weakness was so great that he was utterly unable, for a long time, even to feed himself, and of course, could not write. When I offered to do so for him, he declined, saying, that she knew, through a friend, that he was here; and that the sight of a strange hand, with the conviction that it would bring that he was too ill to write for himself, would be worse for her than to wait for a little while.

One day, some time afterwards, I came to his bedside and found a paper lying there with a few unmeaning scratches, as I thought, upon it; he held them up to me.

“The best I could do.”

“What were you trying to do?” said I; “did you mean that for drawing?”

A look of intense disappointment passed over his face.

“I was afraid so,” said he; “then it would frighten her, as I thought. I meant it for my signature, and I’ve looked at it, and looked at it, and hoped it didn’t look as bad as I thought, at first; but if you ask what I’m trying to do, when you see it, the game’s up, and it’s no use.”

I assured him that such a signature would be far stronger proof of the real state of the case, than any letter I could send telling the facts, and giving the reasonable ground for hope which we now felt. But he still preferred to wait; and ere very long we found, by pinning the paper to the table, to keep it firm, he could execute a tolerably legible epistle. The weeks rolled on, and, by slow degrees, he regained his strength; his bright, hopeful disposition, even temper, and uniform cheerfulness, were great aids to his recovery; and we watched his improvement with great satisfaction, and at last had the pleasure of seeing him able to be up, and even out, for a short time.

He came to me, one morning, in our ladies’ room, saying, “Miss ----, would it be troubling you too much, to ask you to write to mother?”

“Brought to it, at last!” said I. “Why do you ask me now, Robinson, when you have refused so often before, and can write for yourself?”