Part 17

"Your dear little hand does more good than it could possibly do by writing your name on paper," replied General Lee. "It is a hand of love and that is better than anything else in the world. I saw Dr. Minnegerode and he told me how sick you had been and how patient and sweet you were and how hard you were trying to get well."

"Dr. Minnegerode wasn't a soldier like you and our papa, was he?" asked our little darling, shaking his head and changing the subject.

"Yes," replied General Lee, "but he did not fight with a sword. He is a preacher, a Bible teacher, and fights with the spirit."

"That's poetry, isn't it?" asked Corbell.

"Yes; that is poetry."

"General, Dr. Minnegerode always says his prayers with me and asks the Lord to bless me and make me well," said Corbell.

"May I say my prayers with you, too, my boy, and ask the Lord to make us both well and bless us?"

"Yes, General, but you are a soldier, not a preacher."

"No, I am neither now, my little man," replied the General; "just a poor, sick, helpless child like you, asking for health."

He knelt by the bedside and prayed the most beautiful prayer I ever heard.

It was the last time I saw General Lee.

XXXIV

CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN

After the failure of the military system of agriculture developed at Turkey Island my Soldier became the general agent for the South of a life insurance company. His office was in Richmond, where his boyhood had been spent and where we had many pleasant friends and old associations.

Though living a life of deep earnestness, my Soldier was fond of a story or a jest. He used to tell some of Lincoln's jokes and anecdotes which, in his youthful days in Illinois, he had heard from the lips of that famous story-teller, so that when I afterward saw the stories of the great War President in print I remembered many of them as old friends. Mr. Lincoln was much interested in the plantation legends told by the Virginia boy and they exchanged stories, to the delight of both.

My Soldier especially liked a joke if it was upon me. On leaving home for a business trip he once asked me how much money I should need before his return. After a labored calculation I mentioned a sum which he, knowing me, promptly doubled. He had been gone only a day when I suddenly recalled an obligation that had escaped my memory, and telegraphed him. By next mail came a cheque, carefully made out, payable to "Mrs. Oliver Twist." As I must have the money it was necessary for me to indorse it as it was made out. To tease me he kept the cheque to dangle before my eyes on the slightest provocation, and I have it now.

He always made companions of our boys and joked and played with them as if he were the same age as they. One morning when our little George was about ten years old he took him to the office several blocks from home, sending him back with a note, telling him to go directly home and not to get into any trouble on the way. Then he followed him, watching his progress. I still have the note in which were recorded the little fellow's meanderings, of which this is a copy:

"Saw a man posting bills; stopped to watch him. Went on a short distance; saw two dogs fighting. Stopped to see which beat; sicked them on again. Farther along saw something interesting in a drug-store window; stood and looked. Started on and came to some boys playing marbles; stopped and took a hand in the game; lost all his own marbles, paid up like a man, walked on, whistling. Came to a man shoveling coal; helped him, and pocketed some small pieces. Met a man he knew; stopped and talked to him, asked the time. Played in a pile of sand with a stick. Had a fight with Wirt Robinson; licked each other. Found a boy who had lost a penny down a crack; helped him to get it out. Saw a kitten escaping from a cellar window; chased it back. Met a boy on stilts; made him get down and let him walk on them. Saw an old woman coming out of the doorway with a bucket of water on her head; jumped at her, frightening her, making her head lose its balance, spilling the water all over her. Turned his pockets inside out and gave the old woman all his week's allowance, as compensation for the wetting he had caused. Reached the gate; stopped to play with the latch. Went in. Time in reaching home, one hour and twenty-five minutes."

The report was sent by a messenger, who delivered it to me before little George came into the house, so that, to his great surprise, I was able to tell him all that he had been doing. When I showed him the record he said:

"I knew dear father was a great man and knew most everything, but I didn't know he had God's eyes and could see everything."

To my query whether he had done anything else by the way which his dear father had not seen, he replied:

"Yes; I threw Branch Barksdale's hat over the fence, and I wouldn't have been home yet if he hadn't chased me."

Charlotte Cushman was with me at the time and I had an amusing illustration of the way in which she unconsciously threw herself into a situation.

"Poor little man! Poor little man!" she said in her deep sympathetic voice, as she observed the bewilderment of the child, expressed in every line of his tense little body, his puckered features and bent fingers. "His little brain is all puckered up, too. He can't understand how this thing should have come to him. Poor little man! It is wicked to mystify him so--bless his little heart!"

In her sympathy she had assumed the pose of the bewildered child, and her face and hands were "puckered up," as she had described his brain.

This was Miss Cushman's last visit to Richmond, when she came as a reader, having left the dramatic stage. When I first knew her she was at the height of her wonderful career as an actress. I met her at the house of a friend, and she often visited me when in Richmond. She became very fond of our children and they were fascinated by her. My little Corbell asked her:

"What is the use of acting? Why don't you be it--just be it?"

"Ah," she replied, "there is the trouble. I do 'be it,' my child. There is where strength and vitality go--in just being it."

Corbell was anxious to see her play, but she would not let him see her as Meg Merrilies.

"No Meg Merrilies must ever come into the life of a child like that," she said. "Of all the people I have ever known, he would be the most deeply impressed by Meg Merrilies."

A friend had sent in some birds for Corbell, and he said to Miss Cushman:

"I wasn't brought up thinking it any wrong to shoot birds or any wrong to eat birds, and all the good people I know shoot them and eat them. But things that have such pretty feathers and such pretty talk in their throats must have souls, and so I don't know for sure about shooting them and eating them, not for really, truly sure, you know."

"I think you are right, my child, about the birds having souls, and I believe horses and dogs have souls, too. You know, dear, I believe in reincarnation. We eat the body of the bird, the feathers we put in our cap, and the soul is the voice that must sing in another bird."

After that Corbell did not feel so bad about the shooting of the birds. "The soul goes out and another bird catches it and sings."

Charlotte Cushman told me how her idea of Meg Merrilies had come to her. On the evening of the day that she had been unexpectedly called upon to play the character she was standing in the wing awaiting her cue, book in hand, when she heard one of the gypsies say, "Meg--why, she is no longer what she was; she doats." In a flash there came to her the conception of the character in which she was to make her greatest success.

I never saw her Lady Macbeth on the stage, but retain a vivid impression of the awesome personation when she showed me in my own room how she had played the sleep-walking scene upon her first appearance in drama when she was nineteen. I still see her tragic face with the dawning horror creeping over it as she looked at the stain on her hand. With the sudden impulse of a frightened woman, she hurriedly took up a fold of her dress to rub it off. The futility of the effort flashing upon her, she removed her clutch from her dress and a deeper terror gloomed into her face. She caught up her long hanging hair and tried to rub away the stain. With her great awe-compelling eyes fixed upon her hand she uttered the words, "Out, damned spot!" in a tone of anguished despair that thrilled me with terror. She did not act Lady Macbeth; she _was_ Lady Macbeth in all her pride, all her ambition, all her determination, all her despair. She said that she did not like to play the character because it exhausted her. It is easy to understand that a woman of cold and unscrupulous ambition would drain the life of one so gentle and sweet-natured as Charlotte Cushman.

In this engagement she did not play Nancy Sikes, but she gave us her characterization of the part because my Soldier wanted to see it. Lawrence Barrett described it accurately when he said: "It sounded as if she spoke through blood." She was one of the few to whom a set stage with scenery and music and costumes and an audience are not necessary in the production of artistic effects. A private room, or a grassy plot under a tree, or an open space in the sunshine, was all the stage she required, one soul that understood her was audience enough, and when she threw herself into the character she represented no one would have known whether she wore the garb of a beggar or a queen.

I told her of having met Ellen Tree in Canada.

"Oh," she said, "that was worth losing your name for," referring to the fact that in Canada the General and I were known by our middle name of Edwards. "The very fact that she could not keep from acting when off the stage made her interesting. Did you ever see her wipe her nose?"

I never had, so, to illustrate Ellen Tree's manner of performing that ceremony, Miss Cushman slowly and mysteriously drew her handkerchief from her pocket. As she did so her eyes opened wide and glared ominously, as if some scene of tragic import were looming up in the middle distance. Her form was tense and rigid, all her muscles drawn taut as if for a fatal spring. The handkerchief was lifted and applied to each nostril, while the face was stern and uncompromising as might have been that of the noble Roman sentencing his son to death for breaking the law. The handkerchief was returned to her pocket in the same dramatic manner.

"The blood of all the Cæsars was on that handkerchief when it was put away," Charlotte said. "Ellen Tree could not help acting; it was her nature."

Ellen Tree's everyday tragedy was sometimes productive of startling results. Going into Price's dry-goods store in Richmond she asked in her most dramatic voice:

"Have _ye_ any prints?"

"N-n-no, no, dear Madam," stammered the gallant but startled Virginian, "I--I'm sorry."

One of the clerks came to his assistance with the information that the lady meant calicoes, at the same time taking down some pieces from the shelf. The customer examined them with tragic significance and looked up with eyes filled with fathomless depths of emotion, inquiring in a voice of intense power, dwelling with dramatic force upon each word:

"_Said ye they would wash?_"

"N-n-no, Ma'am," replied the terrified clerk, "I d-d-did not, Ma'am."

Charlotte Cushman's manner was the opposite of that of Ellen Tree. She was a perfect child of Nature, and one meeting her would have supposed that she was a gentle, quiet home-keeper with no thought except to please her own.

Speaking of Joe Jefferson she said:

"I think his paintings are as marvelous as his acting, and the colors in his voice blend as perfectly as those in his paintings. He really must have had a dog named Schneider when he was playing Rip Van Winkle, and if you had told him differently he would not have believed you. He could fool himself into thinking that whatever he acted was a fact, and his audience readily took the same view."

Once when Charlotte Cushman was with us Judge Moncure, then an old man, came in and, meeting his wife, greeted her with great chivalry, bending and kissing her hand. Judge Joynes, of Petersburg, asked, "How old is Mrs. Moncure, Judge?" Judge Moncure replied, "She was sixteen when I married her, Judge, and to me she has been that age ever since."

The little incident reminded Charlotte of the Brownings, whom she had known in Florence, and of the beautiful compliments that Robert Browning used to pay his wife. She spoke of his indignation when Mrs. Browning's poetry was compared with his own in a manner unfavorable to her. He really felt that she was superior to himself and had no patience with people who could not appreciate her greater merit.

Miss Cushman told me that of all the parts she had ever played she most enjoyed Romeo, which she used to play to her sister's Juliet.

She was fond of dialects, saying, "Everything is more fascinating than plain English." In Ireland she talked the brogue with the peasants so well that she might have passed for one of them. She was equally at home with Scotch, German and Italian dialects, and when in the North had been noted for recitations in negro speech, which she thought the most beautiful of all. But on coming to Richmond she found that she did not know anything about the lingo of the darkies. Being anxious to learn it, she used to talk with old Wash and Julia, two historical characters at the Ballard and Exchange Hotel, repeating their expressions over and over. Later she would try to say them, finding that she was no more expert than in the beginning. Thus she learned that to know plantation talk one must be born to it; it cannot be acquired.

She was at that time victim to a painful and wasting disease. Seeing her suffering one day from the treatment for the malady, I said:

"Oh, I am so sorry! You can't play to-night."

"Yes, my dear," she replied gently, "I shall play to-night, and, it may be, all the better for the pain."

Watching her wonderful performance that evening I thought it might be that pain is the gateway to the highest realm of art.

The last time I saw Charlotte Cushman was in Philadelphia. A great sorrow had shrouded me from the sunlight, and she tried to shelter me in the warmth of her own heart.

"You ought to have been an actress," she said, "and then you would have regained happiness by simulating it."

Another of our friends from the mimic world was Joe Jefferson, whom we saw now for the first time since meeting him in Canada. On coming to Richmond he found that his old friend, Mr. Caskie, who had helped him to a foothold upon life, had lost his fortune by the war, and was in even greater need than the unknown boy had formerly been. The famous comedian was not one to forget a kindness. "Let's give him a benefit," he said to my Soldier. It was characteristic of Joe Jefferson that he never said "I will do" thus and so. He said "Let's do it," as if the success of the project depended upon the one to whom he was talking rather than on his own ability. The benefit was given and the man of ruined fortunes had reason to be glad that in the days of the full larder he had "cast his bread upon the waters."

XXXV

EASTER FLOWERS

The old Ballard and Exchange Hotel in Richmond, Virginia, celebrated for having entertained more distinguished visitors than any other hostelry in this country, consisted of two houses on opposite sides of the street, connected by one of the most picturesque bridges, where the guests found a pleasant meeting place as they passed from one building to the other.

Colonel Carrington, the proprietor, was a courtly, gallant and hospitable old Virginia gentleman, a peer of peers, yielding to no superiority of position, as was evidenced in his reception of the Prince of Wales on his visit to Richmond. After cordially shaking hands with the royal visitor he slapped him on the back and said:

"Make yourself at home, Prince, make yourself at home, sir. I extend to you my heartiest welcome, sir. Old Wash will look after you and if I can be of any service, Prince, just call on me."

I never heard whether the Prince returned the Colonel's slap but I know that he accepted the cordiality in the same spirit in which it was offered. He visited the Colonel's stables and discussed the pedigree of his fine thoroughbred, drove with him behind his fastest trotter, and so liked the old Virginia mint juleps which he drank with his host, that he asked for and received the recipe for making them and took it back with him to the motherland, with some mint roots to plant in his palace garden.

The Colonel was our life-long friend and devoted to our children who, while they returned his affection, stood in awe of him from the time that he gave them a graphic illustration, by pulling his wig awry and turning his eyelids wrong side out, of what had happened to "peeping, prying, inquisitive Jerry."

On our return from Salt Sulphur Springs the summer our little Corbell was in his eighth year, as we drove up to the Exchange Hotel the dear old Colonel came out to the carriage and said:

"Your rooms are all ready, General. We received your telegram and prepared for your coming, but we have two cases of measles here, so I have arranged to have you taken care of at the Monumental Hotel till the danger is over."

We thought it best not to run any risk, and went to the Monumental. The rooms were large and comfortable. Dr. and Mrs. Barksdale were the first to greet us. They, too, with several others of our friends who had little children, had been obliged to leave the Exchange for the same reason.

Our precautions proved in vain, for my sister, a young lady just entering society, who was staying with us, was stricken with the disease, and my schoolboy brother and my two children caught the contagion. At the end of three months, however, all were well except our beautiful, gifted, wonderful boy, our little Corbell, always a delicate child, who now became weaker day by day.

There was never anything like the goodness of the people of Richmond in those trying months. Relatives, friends and strangers came daily with toys, books, good things, carriages, as long as we could take our darling to ride, for his beautiful angel face, his wonderful mind and his glorious voice had won a place in every heart.

While Corbell was ill Mr. Davis called on us for the last time, as he was never again in Richmond. When he came in I drew up a chair for him, but he said:

"May I not sit on the bed beside our sick boy?"

When Corbell's lunch was brought in he asked that luncheon be brought for Mr. Davis, to which Mr. Davis added his voice.

"Shall I say grace, Mr. Davis, or will you?" asked the child.

"You, if you please," Mr. Davis replied, "for I should like to hear your grace."

Closing his beautiful eyes Corbell said the grace his father had taught him:

"Dear Jesus, be our Guest to-day,"

adding, "and never mind, Jesus, about Mr. Davis being here for he would like to have you."

I do not think that the child took his eyes from Mr. Davis's face, except to say grace, during the whole time the visitor was there. Oh, but that face was so awfully, so pathetically changed! Every expression, the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes, all betokened a broken heart. Only the harmony of motion and the melody of tone remained.

On Good Friday night, seven months afterward, in sorrowful tones one and then another of my friends as they left me for the night whispered resignation to the will of God. Our Corbell was dying. All through the long weary night my Soldier, Mary and I breathlessly watched and listened beside him. As we were moving softly about the room he said:

"I'm not asleep, our mama. 'Tisement thought I was dreaming 'cause I was laughing, but I wasn't. I was laughing about the funny thoughts I had when I was young. I just couldn't make my eyes open wide and when she caught me laughing I could see the first time I found out that God was ahead. It was that time in the bathroom when I wanted you to turn on the snow and 'Tisement said you couldn't do it, and couldn't any of you do it; neither our mama nor our papa nor Thomas could turn on the snow. You said you could all of you turn on the water. Well, I couldn't see why you couldn't just as well turn on the snow as the water. Then all of a sudden the thought came into my head that God was ahead of you all and that only He could turn on the flaky, flying, zig-zag snow, and I began wondering what more He could do that nobody else, not even our mama and our papa, could do. Do you remember how Thomas laughed at me the next day when I told him about it? How funny I was when I was young, wasn't I? I reckon all the little children are just as funny, though, and all of them think there isn't anything in the world that their father and mother can't do. I know I thought so until that very morning and then I knew that God was ahead even of them. Once I asked our papa which was the oldest, he or God, and oh, my, but I was so hurt and disappointed when he said God was the oldest."

Little streaks of light were just beginning to scramble in through the slatted blinds. My Soldier smiling, stooped and kissed our darling's little wasted hands and said, "Yes, my boy; God is ahead," and then he walked over to the double windows and opened wide the blinds so that all the dawn-colors might stream in untrammeled and light the room, that our little one could see the eastern sky and watch for the sun he loved so well. The sky became a deeper red and moving across it was a black specky cloud.

"What are those dark specks, Soldier; are they crows?" I asked as I walked through the window onto the veranda to take a better look at the long queer line and to breathe in the morning air.

"No, little one," replied my Soldier, "they are wild geese; the cold weather is all gone."

"Then summer has come, our papa," said the child. "I was watching those little moving black flakes, too, when our mama asked you what they were."

A wrangling of voices from below grated upon our ears.

"Some unfortunate fellow has been overcome and is in the hands of the police," explained my Soldier.

The sacredness of our watch, the loneliness of the hour and the hollow silence of the deserted streets made the harsh voices seem more discordant. I looked over the rail.

"Oh, what a pitiable sight!" I exclaimed. "The poor man looks like a gentleman, too, refined and distinguished looking. Poor fellow! He seems so angry and--so sick. Please, my darling, go to his rescue. Who knows but perhaps somewhere there are belonging to him little ones like ours?"

"Yes, please go, our papa, please, sir," echoed the pleading tones from the bed, "go and bring him in. He may have little ones of _our_ kind and maybe he has a little one of _our mama's kind_, too, waiting for him somewhere."

My Soldier went out just as the round red rim of the sun burst into sight out of the east. There was a greater joy than a smile on his face when he came back. He had brought the stranger in and registered him in the hotel as our guest. Our lives frequently came in touch with this stranger's in the years that followed, and he told me that often and again when he was attacked by that same terrible, almost incurable, malady, the memory of the spirit of the child in the dawn of Good Friday had saved him.

A year later, when my Soldier went home and little Corbell was placed beside him, the children of this man came to me and said, "We are sorry Corbell is taken away, for we have been putting flowers on his grave every day, as our papa told us. But we can just as well put them here and on the General's grave, too."