Part 2
Tom is full of patriotism. I never can tell how deeply a sentiment enters his mind; but he is fretting terribly about going with me. How I wish he could! but his father very sensibly advises him to wait a year longer, till he is through at Harvard; and his mother is in great distress at the idea of his leaving her. The Professor is non-committal on the subject.
* * * * *
This morning entered Jane Ellen Bingley to the recruiting office, where I was receiving enlistments. Jane Ellen is limp in appearance, but energetic in character. Her bonnet was wine-colored velvet; her shawl draggled green, with a habit of falling off her shoulders as she talked; and her gown was calico. By the bonnet I recognized her. She is the chief attraction at one of the North Street dance-houses, and entertains an admiration for me of which I am utterly undeserving. I have so often declined in forcible language to dance with her, that I did not suppose she could feel pleasantly toward me; but she came forward and said:――
“Here’s my man!”
Her man was a stout fellow, rather stupid-looking, with a dyed mustache. Jane Ellen herself is really very pretty, and might possibly reform, if she was sent away from here. Reformation, when possible, is only possible through removal. So Jane Ellen having presented her man, I said briefly:――
“What of it?”
Thereupon Jane Ellen explained that her man wished to enlist, and that she wished him to come under me, as she knew I’d be a good captain to the poor boy. Sensible of the compliment, I suggested to Jane Ellen the propriety of marrying him first. In that way I explained to her he would send her his salary (I could not say wages, Jane Ellen being American); he would have some object for working his way up from the ranks; and he would have a home to think of, when away, wounded, sick, or expecting to die. All these things would benefit him greatly. I regret to say that Michael appeared more affected than Jane Ellen at the pictures I drew. Jane Ellen’s answer, which only came after considerable reflection, was, to say the least, peculiar.
“I never expected to live to be a married woman,” she remarked; “and it’s a queer home I’d be able to make for anybody. However, it may do Mike good; so I’ll do it. So, Mike, I’ll marry you right off, and endeavor to be a decent woman,――until you come back from the war again;” which last clause was prudently added.
* * * * *
Another quarrel with Tom; and this time the Professor admits that I am right. Tom begs me to write, and solicit his parents’ consent; and I won’t do it; so Tom sulks,――that is the only word,――and will not be appeased.
He even declares that I wish to get rid of him, when it will almost break my heart to go without him. If that boy only knew what he was to me, who am without father, mother, or family of my own, and with almost no friends, except the Professor! However, for the same reason that I have never yet visited him at his house, because I did not wish to have our attachment or my character analyzed or criticised by his parents, I will not say a word now. I believe it will do him good to go; for I know the thought of going has done me good.
The Professor has a plan, he says, and wishes me to be at home to-night, so that he can tell it to me.
* * * * *
The Professor has told me a great deal more than he has actually said. I know now why he cares so much for Tom; and I should like to see Tom’s mother. I wonder if a woman will ever change my life; and I wonder if I shall ever care for any woman as much as I do for Tom. The Professor says that Tom must go; that he is fretting himself sick now, and that it will develop his manliness of character. He thinks I am right in not interfering, however, and says that he is going to try what he can do. Dear old fellow! His face flushed, and he gave a curious sort of gulp, as he said:――
“She always respected me; and I think she would let Tom go, if I advised her to do so.”
“Then shall you write to her?” I asked.
“No, Ned,” he said; “I shall go and visit her, and start to-morrow. The first time in twenty years,――dear me, the first time in twenty years! How old I am getting to be!”
I knew what he meant; and I honored his pluck. I should sort of like to be in love myself; but I am half afraid to think about it. Oh, well! there will be plenty of time when the war is over. The Professor is to start to-morrow; and Tom is not to know about it.
* * * * *
My first lieutenant is a treasure. His name is Murphy; and he is a retired rough, by profession, but he has splendid stuff in him. Our acquaintance had a peculiar beginning. I was drilling a squad of men, and not succeeding very well in what I was about, when this giant loafed in, and began to make a disturbance. I looked at him, and saw that remonstrance would be in vain; so I knocked him down, seeing my opportunity to do so effectively. My men laughed. The giant raised himself in astonishment.
“You can’t do that again,” said he. Another laugh from the chorus.
“I know it,” said I. Still another laugh.
“I could just walk through you in two minutes,” he growled, with an oath.
“I believe you,” said I; “and I shall give you a chance to, if you don’t keep quiet.”
He kept quiet for a time. Then, while I was trying some manœuvre, he came up and said, quite politely:――
“Perhaps I can help you.”
“Thanks,” said I; “do you know anything about it?” Then Murphy informed me that he had been in several places where there had been fighting; and I saw he was far my superior in many respects. So, when I got him to enlist, and found that he was thoroughly interested, and that the men liked him with a feeling of fellowship that they will never have for me, I hope, I talked with the colonel about making him my first lieutenant; and it is now a _fait accompli_. Murphy’s delight and gratitude at receiving his commission knew no bounds; and several of his cousins enlisted immediately. He has now a sense of personal devotion to me that will help me greatly. Dear me, how old and mature and self-reliant I am growing! and, three weeks ago, I was such a baby! Murphy is the second largest and second strongest man of us all. The largest is a large-eyed, half-crazy clairvoyant, gentle as a dove, and strong as an ox. I found him weeping the other day; and, somewhat disgusted, as well as astonished, asked the cause. Result was, that he said he wept about me. I was not to die in battle, nor in sickness, but was to meet with a dishonorable death for a dishonorable action. Tom and Murphy were furious; but I couldn’t be before the two or three men who heard it; so I treated the affair as a good joke. The boys call this fellow Mooney; which name is appropriate certainly. Tom has been in two or three times to drill. He studies Hardee incessantly; practises by himself all that he can, and would form himself into a whole squad, and drill himself, if it were possible. He is even getting into the way of planning battles and movements, and is perfectly wild at each report in the newspapers. I never saw him in such a state before, over anything. His lessons must be suffering in consequence; and I don’t dare to think of the number of times he has cut prayers.
* * * * *
Hurrah! I wish pencil and paper could yell with joy; and then a fearful noise would issue from this note-book!
The Professor has sent me by telegraph the announcement that Tom is to go with me. It is brief; but I have read it with delight a dozen times:――
“ALL RIGHT! PLEASE SEND HIM HOME IMMEDIATELY!”
* * * * *
I know of nothing which has ever given me more pleasure than those seven words. Tom has gone off in the most remarkably vague state of mind; and I am going to see my colonel this evening, to find out whether his youth (though, as he is not quite two years younger than myself, perhaps I should say our youth) will unfit him for the position of second lieutenant. Any way, he’s going; and that’s enough to make me happy for the rest of the war. The only thing that troubles me is Mooney’s prediction, which keeps ringing in my ears. I am not to die in battle, nor by sickness, but to receive a dishonorable death for a dishonorable action. I don’t care for the death so much; but I do pray to God, that, while I am in my country’s holy service at least, I may not soil my soul. What a sentence! Well, I’m safe in knowing that no one but myself will ever see this note-book.
V.
CORRESPONDENCE.
1.
MY DEAR TOM:――This letter will reach you after you have been at home a day; and you must leave home as soon as you receive it, to join my company. Our colonel is splendid,――grim and grizzled, and the nerve of a steam-engine. I told him about you, and said I wanted you as second lieutenant. He asked how much you knew; and I said, “Little enough, but more than any other of my vagabonds,――God bless them!” Then I told him about your study of Hardee; and he laughed, but asked me anxiously what you thought of Hardee. I forget what I said; but I know your opinion satisfied him perfectly; for he said that your youth was your greatest disqualification. Then I said that the rough set of my company needed the influence of an acknowledged gentleman, as well as the fellow-feeling and sympathy which that rough Murphy gives them. He agreed to that. Then he spoke of the value, in any rank of life, of a university education;――he hasn’t been through Harvard, you see;――and I agree with him. Then, when he heard who was your father, and who was your mother, he smiled, and said he believed in blood. I agreed again with him, and expressed the opinion that no one could get along very well without it. Moreover, I said, that, if you did not come as an officer, the whole company would become insubordinate; for you always had your own way with me; and it would not do for a private to control his captain. He laughed; but you are sure of your position, if you come on at once. We are not a swell regiment, Tom; but my sword-belt and sash are stunning, for all that. You must begin work at once. And, Tom, you must feel an interest in Murphy. It will do him good; and, through him, the men. He dined with me to-day, and made an attempt to eat with his fork instead of his knife, which was tolerably successful. He is a little uneasy about meeting you, being sensible of a certain lack of polish in his manner; but with you as the positive pole, and I as the negative, we shall have him duly magnetized in time.
I have been out to Cambridge, to see about destroying our old room; but I could not do it. I sat down and cried like a towel, or a sponge; I couldn’t help it. The goody had profited by your absence to leave everything out of order; for which I thanked her in my soul. The pictures that I hated, and the pictures that you didn’t like, hung on the walls; your dressing-gown was in your chair; the globe in which our departed goldfish once resided was still swinging at the window; and everything seemed like a dream of the past to me. Well, I should have been a brute if I hadn’t felt a little touched.
O Tom! you’ve forgotten to return “Roderick Random” to the library; and Sibley will come down on you for a nice lot of fines, see if he don’t.
But I was going to tell you about our room. Bob Lennox, who is rooming outside, you know, wants to come in as tenant during our absence, so that we can have everything just as it always has been, when we come back by next class-day; by which time, I am quite sure, the war will be ended; so I agreed to his proposition, subject to your objection, of course.
I thought, since your educational advantages impressed the colonel, that a copy of the last rank-list might work in your favor; but I decided, finally, that it would require too much explanation. In the same way I was thinking of getting you a certificate of moral character from Dr. Peabody, but was not sure that he had forgotten you sufficiently.
If you wish to secure your position, you must be here by Friday night. My love to the Professor, and sincere regards to your father and mother.
In haste, but, as ever, your friend,
NED.
2.
MY DEAR OLD NED:――Your letter was just like you, cross old devil that you are! I’m coming, old horse; so write my name down on your parchment immediately. The Professor starts this noon, and says he will wait over a train for me in Endeston, where he wants to make a visit this afternoon; so that I shall start to-morrow morning, and meet him there. Mother says it’s because he has so much delicacy of feeling that he doesn’t want to see our parting; and, by Jove! Ned, it’s going to be hard. She doesn’t say much; but I know how she suffers; and it makes me almost feel as though I was wrong to go. I’ll bet I’ll have a handsomer sash than you will, after all. Mother wants me to give you the enclosed letter, which seems mysterious to me; still I obey. I am in a great hurry, so can’t write any more, but shall be with you on Friday.
Yours,
TOM.
3.
MY DEAR NED,――For though I have never yet had the pleasure of seeing you at our house, I still feel as though I knew you, Tom has said so much to me of you, and has shown so much more than he has said. I have felt very thankful that you were his friend; and now that this terrible and dreadful parting is to separate me from my only child, I am glad that you are to be with him. I know the cause that calls him, and I feel that it is better for him to go than to stay; but, though I say yes, I say it with an agony beyond your comprehension. I want your promise that you will not leave Tom during the time that your country may need you; that you will suffer nothing but death to separate you; that you will refuse promotion and honor, if it is to part you from him; that you will stay by his side in the progress of the battles that may come. It is through your influence that he goes; I must look to you for his safety. So make me this promise; and, in return, what can I give? what can I say? This only: that my house shall be your home; and that I shall feel as if I had two sons instead of one.
VI.
ONE YEAR AFTER.
“A great hot plain from sea to mountain spread; Through it a level river slowly drawn: He moved with a vast crowd, and at its head Streamed banners like the dawn.”
A bare room, the dead whiteness of whose plastered wall is only relieved by a coarsely colored print of the Virgin Mary in blue and scarlet, which hangs in a dingy gilt frame on the wall at the head of the bed. A crack in the glass has relieved the features of the Virgin of their ordinary expression of insipidity, but has substituted therefor a look of malevolence quite unpleasant to see. Fortunately for the man who lies, heavily sleeping, upon the pallet bed, this picture is not where his eyes can rest upon it. Beside the bed are two little stools, which constitute all the furniture of the room, and, indeed, all that it is well capable of containing; for so cramped and narrow are its dimensions, that it seems to be scarcely more than a closet with a window in it. Through the half-open door-way, however, can be seen long lines of beds, with the quiet figures of nurses and physicians passing back and forth through the ward.
Two people entered carefully and noiselessly through the open door-way,――one evidently an army physician; the other, in a captain’s uniform now, was Tom, bronzed and sunburnt, but the same careless, light-hearted boy as when he left Cambridge one year before. There was a look of anxiety on his face now, however, as he bent over the sleeping figure and asked:――
“How is he to-day, doctor?”
“Improving fast, captain,” was the reply. “His sleep is splendid,――just what I’ve been hoping for. If he wakes peacefully, and is conscious, he is likely to be all right again before long; and I shouldn’t wonder if he could rejoin his regiment in a week or ten days.”
“Thank Heaven!” said Tom.
“And his physique,” said the doctor. “This colonel of yours is a tough fellow, and a brave man; yet, if he should die to-morrow, I should simply put down his name, and never think of him again. My note-book is full of dead men’s names,――just a mention and nothing more. Oh! by the way, a gentleman called here for you yesterday afternoon, and said he would come again this morning. Here is his card.”
“Why,” cried Tom, “it is the Professor. See that he is shown up to me when he comes, won’t you?”
“Oh, certainly! I’ll attend to that,” said the doctor, and he rushed softly away.
Tom sat down by the side of the bed, and looked at his friend’s face. It had changed greatly, much more than his, since they left Cambridge. The forehead was marked now with heavy lines, and the full beard made it seem like the countenance of a man of forty. So old can even a boy grow in a year. Ned had trained himself, with great effort, to unquestioning obedience. His criticism had been only upon those to whom he gave his orders, and he had struggled not to form an opinion on those to whom his obedience was due; thus he had become an admirable officer. Tom sat there looking at Ned, and thinking, thinking, he could scarcely tell of what, until he felt a hand touch his shoulder. He turned and saw the Professor, and fairly hugged him in his delight.
“So I have found you at last, Tom,” said the Professor.
“Just think, sir,” said Tom; “it is a year now since I have seen you.”
“And the end seems as far off as ever,” said the Professor.
“Don’t say that,” said Tom, “because sometimes, you know, I have to try very hard not to think so myself.”
“Ah!” said the Professor, “you are still the same, I see, and I am the same; and Ned,――is this Ned?”
“Yes, poor fellow,” said Tom; “he has been sick for nearly ten days.”
“But how came you to be with him?” asked the Professor. “Why are you not with your regiment?”
“Sit down,” said Tom, “and I’ll tell you; but don’t speak too loud, on his account, you know!”
“Among the wonderful effects of the war,” said the Professor, in a didactic manner, “may be mentioned the fact that it has made Tom thoughtful and considerate. Well, go on!”
“That sounds just like you,” said Tom. “Well, the explanation is simply this: that I had a leave of absence for a fortnight given me, and just at its beginning Ned was taken sick.”
“So you remained here with him, and didn’t go home?” asked the Professor.
“Of course,” said Tom, simply. “I couldn’t leave him after all we had been through together.”
“What did your mother say?” asked the Professor. “Wasn’t she disappointed?”
“Yes, she was disappointed,” said Tom; “but she wrote and said that I was right. It was hard on Ned, and hard on me, and hard on her, especially as I haven’t been home for a year. You see, in my last leave of absence, there was some of the worst fighting that we have been in, and it would have seemed cowardly if I had gone then.”
“It is hard, Tom,” said the Professor; “but you have done nobly. But if I stay here with Ned now, can’t you run up North?”
“No,” said Tom; “it’s impossible. My leave of absence, you see, expires in two days, so that I shall have to give up going home at all for the present. I’m afraid now that Ned won’t be well enough to satisfy me when I start for the front. He’s been perfectly delirious, and yesterday the doctor said was the turning-point. If he only is conscious when he wakes from this sleep! Do you think he has changed?”
“Changed!” said the Professor; “he’s not the same boy,――he’s not a boy at all. What a developing agent this terrible war is!”
“And now you must tell me about Harvard,” said Tom.
“Wait a minute,” said the Professor. “I have one or two questions to ask you first. I want to hear about this new rebel general who is making such havoc with us.”
“Stonewall Jackson, you mean,” said Tom. “No one knows much about him; but Ned declares that he is, thus far, the most striking figure of the rebellion. Maliff, who says he knew him when he was in command at Fort Hamilton, before the war, showed us a picture of him, in which he looked simply prim and neat. The war has probably changed all that. I think we are all a little afraid of him, and hope to meet him in battle soon. Some of the men think he is a supernatural being.”
“The Hibernian element, I suppose,” said the Professor.
“Exactly,” said Tom.
“And now tell me some more about yourselves,” continued the Professor.
“Well, about ourselves,” said Tom, “there is little to say. I am a captain, as you see; and Ned is a lieutenant-colonel, and commands our regiment,――or what there is left of it now. We might both have been promoted before this; but we were bound to stick together, and so we have, in all sorts of places too.”
“I have heard,” said the Professor, “how you have saved Ned’s life.”
“Nonsense!” said Tom. “He has done just as much for me. We are together, and we fight and quarrel, just as we did at Harvard; and, when the war is over, Ned insists that we are to go back to Cambridge for a year longer, so as to get our degrees; a plan which I don’t altogether fancy.”
“I do,” said the Professor; “it will be delightful to me to have the opportunity of marking the misdemeanors of a colonel, and perhaps of even suspending a captain.”
“That sounds just like you, and like old times,” said Tom; “and now do please tell me all about Harvard.”
“Yes,” said Ned’s voice feebly, from the bed, “please let us hear the Harvard news.” And so the Professor began.
VII.
NED’S NOTE-BOOK.
Tom has gone, but the Professor is here still. I do not mean to stay long,――I shall rejoin my regiment in a day or two. In the mean time, I amuse myself, when the Professor is not here, by scribbling in my note-book and reading it over. Such a book as it is now! My own thoughts begin it; then, as we reach the battle-fields, I have not time to think, much less to put my thoughts in writing; then comes a record of deaths,――poor fellows, who wanted me to write to their homes. How curious that record is! Men whom I didn’t care for grew heroic to me in those first days,――when death was a novelty,――and I am minute in my descriptions of them. Then, as the deaths become more and more frequent, my descriptions grow shorter, and I give a line only, even to those whom I really loved. It is strange reading, this note-book of mine!
Here is an item which I find in my note-book: “Quarrelled with Tom!” How we have fought, to be sure! I don’t know what this quarrel was about, but I know how it ended. We didn’t speak for two days, and then came another attack from that restless creature, Stonewall Jackson. It was such a lovely day,――fresh and spring-like, but it soon grew hot and dusty. Every once in a while a bullet would whiz past; I could hear the rumble of the artillery, and I was terribly thirsty. I didn’t see Tom, but I knew he was near,――we always kept close together at such times;――still, if I had seen him, I wouldn’t have spoken to him. My horse had been shot from under me, and I had cut open the head of the man who did it; it seems strange, now that it is all over, that I could do such a thing. Suddenly I saw the barrel of a rifle pointed at me. The face of the man who was pointing it peered from behind a tree with a malicious grin. I felt that death was near, and the feeling was not pleasant. However, the situation had an element of absurdity in it, and that made me laugh a little. The man who was going to kill me laughed too. I heard a little click, a report, and his gun went up, and he went down. Tom had shot him.