10 A Southern Home

“I knew that you ought not to come, but I knew that you would come, and right glad am I to see you,” said my grandmother.

She stood in the doorway, a woman of sixty-five, just a little above the medium height, her iron-gray hair—it was not white until years afterward—arranged in little corkscrew curls on her temples, her gray eyes still clear, and the full brow above them almost as smooth as the forehead of a young woman. She was as straight as an Indian chief, and I can remember that when I first came to live with her she was, to my childish mind, the personification of strength and self-reliance. People told me that she was a far sterner character than my mother, who died when I was at the age of seven, but when she sent for me, we two being all that were left of the family, they said also, as I learned afterward, that I had fallen into safe hands.

My grandmother when the lone little boy arrived kissed me on the forehead, then looking into my eyes fixedly for a moment, said:

“Ah, yes; it is the same look.”

Then she went abruptly into the next room, leaving me wondering and frightened. But she returned in a few moments, brisk, sharp, and snappy.

“William Penn!” she cried, “why do you leave the child to starve?”

And William Penn Johnson, the man of all work, my grandmother’s right hand, came in to rescue me from the pangs of starvation, although it was she who had been guilty, if there was any guilt at all.

“Don’t give up to her too easy,” said William Penn, when he had taken me to the kitchen, where a kindly maid supplied me plentifully with bread and butter. “She’s a terrible woman with those who are afraid of her. She thinks they have no spirit, and she hates people who have no spirit. You needn’t cross her, but just you be foxy; let her talk and think she’s getting her way, while you have yours, and then you’ll lead a quiet life, which is the only kind that’s worth living.”

This was blunt advice to give to a young man of seven years, but even then I was wise enough to receive it with a grain of allowance, and to profit by the good that it really contained. Thus I prospered under a stern and kindly rule, sharing in youthful spirit in the feud that my grandmother conducted with her neighbour, Mrs. Maynard, a quarrel which had become necessary to her personal satisfaction; and all went well until Mrs. Maynard’s orphan niece arrived from the North.

“A New England child, a Yankee!” said my grandmother in horror. “Perhaps her parents were abolitionists. Yet I might have expected that Ellen Maynard would bring her here. It is like the woman to defy the best opinion of the community. Henry, you must never go near that house again.”

She laid this injunction upon me with the greatest earnestness and weight, but my curiosity was aroused so deeply that I was ready to risk the sin of disobedience. I had never seen a Yankee, though I had heard strange tales of them, and so I slipped away from our house, and a half hour later was peeping through the palings of the fence that surrounded Mrs. Maynard’s lawn. I saw a little girl three or four years younger than myself, a child with blue eyes and black hair, and of most wonderful complexion. She was a stranger to me, but I beckoned to her, and she came obediently.

“Little girl,” I said, “there is a terrible Yankee here. My grandmother told me so, and I want to see the Yankee. I never saw one in my life.”

She looked into my eyes with those blue eyes of hers, laughed, and said:

“I’m the terrible Yankee.”

And yet, in spite of all my early education and acquired prejudices, I was forced to admit that she did not look terrible. I conceded in truth that she was a very pretty little girl, and might become a good comrade. I unlearned then much of my previous knowledge, nor did I know until I was a man how great my awakening had been.

My grandmother and Mrs. Maynard fought against our youthful friendship. The former’s feelings of a lifetime against Yankees could not be swept away in an hour, and, moreover, she did not wish her only grandson to be the playmate of Ellen Maynard’s niece. But youthful perseverance triumphed. When Madam Arlington, my grandmother, saw the pretty face and modest ways of the little maid, she relented gradually. “Ah, well,” she said, “she could not help the misfortune of her birth in New England, and perhaps she came away before she was old enough to be corrupted. The poor child is to be pitied, not blamed.”

After this Elinor steadily made progress in the stern old woman’s heart. I was in a fair way myself to become spoiled. I hunted often in the old library for stories on the long lonesome days when I had no one with whom to play, and I gathered a strange assortment of bookish knowledge, much to my grandmother’s pride, as I soon discovered. The minister, always a man of distinction and honour in our State, was at our dinner table, and unwisely made an excursion into ancient history, quoting a date and quoting it wrong, as I knew, since it was one of those miscellaneous and chance facts that I had gathered in my bookish excursions. I corrected him promptly, and in a loud voice, somewhat to his confusion, and more to that of my grandmother. When the dinner was over and the minister had gone I received severe attentions with a willow switch, which I endured without a tear, and after my grandmother had dismissed me William Penn informed me confidentially that she had boasted of my learning to the whole household, and asserted that her grandson was to become a scholar. I know she cherished an ambition that I should some day write a book, and that she would be the first to read it.

I risked my favour again, a year or two after this, when she found me reading old histories.

“Put them down, Henry,” she said sternly. “Those histories are written by Yankees, and of course are lies. You ought to read histories written by Southern men.”

“But, grandmother,” I protested, “the Southern men don’t write books.”

“That is true,” she replied with a sigh; “and so the world will never know the truth about the South, but will always believe that the Yankees have done everything.”

I think that her ambition for me then took definite shape. The book that I was to write was to be a great history, setting forth the grand and glorious deeds of the South, and describing its surpassing virtues. Perhaps I never understood how deep her grief was when a few years later I began to express opinions differing in many important respects from hers.

“It’s those books,” she said. “I ought to have burned them; or it’s that Yankee girl. I should never have let her come into my house. They say there’s no fool like an old fool, and I say so too, unless it’s a young one.”

I feared for a time that she might speak rudely to Elinor, but I ought to have known better. My grandmother never forgot that she was a gentlewoman.

When I was a man grown and the gulf began to open between North and South I told her, thinking it was best to leave no illusions, that if war came I should take the side of the North. She stared fixedly at the wall, her face quite gray, and at length said:

“I have long known it. God’s will be done!”

She scarcely spoke for the next two days, but on the morning of the third she said, with some return of her old cheerfulness:

“I never dreamed that the North could be right in any particular, but surely it can not be wholly wrong, for I hear that Ellen Maynard is claiming to be the best Southerner of us all.”

Her cheerfulness continued to increase, and by and bye she was her old, strong, reliant self, and William Penn, who had enjoyed a period of rest and peace unknown to him for years before, was roused again to a life of activity.

“William Penn,” I asked, “if the war comes, as it surely will, shall you go to it?”

“Henry,” said truthful William, looking at me in amazement, “I have served Madam Arlington faithfully for thirty years, and I think that I have done my share.”

It had been fifteen years since I first came into my grandmother’s house, but when she met me now she looked only a little older and grayer, and as erect and strong as ever. Just as on that earlier day, she kissed me on the forehead, looked into my eyes, and said: “It is the same look; they are Mary’s eyes.” Then that old scene suggested by the same emotions reproduced itself. Again she went into the next room, leaving me alone, and when she came back, she called loudly:

“William Penn, shall the boy starve, when he has come perhaps at the risk of his life to see us? Why do you leave him here alone?”

And William Penn came forth, also a little older and a little grayer, but with no loss of strength, and was ready to see that all the house contained was at my service. Then my grandmother told me the tale of her narrow world, interspersing the narrative with brief and crisp commentaries after her fashion.

“Ellen Maynard is at her home,” she said, “saying little and taking no part in the disputes that agitate the neighbourhood. She must mean mischief. Elinor is there. The girl has been to see me once only, and she looked pale and troubled. There is a stranger too—a man of distinguished appearance and great manners, they say—who is often at the house, and he is in high favour with Ellen Maynard. His name is Varian, and nobody knows where he comes from, but it is certain that he is to have a high command in the Southern army. I wonder what it means? Ellen Maynard is an ambitious woman and full of intrigue. I always knew that she could never be trusted. Elinor, however, is different. I don’t understand how there can be such a contrast between two people of the same blood. All this does not mean any good for you, Henry. Why do you get on the wrong side? Why don’t you go with those who are sure to win?”

Madam Arlington never for a moment doubted the complete triumph of the South, and I had no heart to argue with her this important point. She had not been in all her life twenty miles from the house in which she was born, but she took the keenest interest in current affairs, accepting without qualification the old fable that one Southerner could whip five Yankees. She was full of news, or rather gossip, of the great army that was gathering to the southward.

“And it is to be commanded by Albert Sidney Johnston, one of our Kentuckians—a great general, as every one admits.” This she said triumphantly, and then she added regretfully: “You ought to be on his staff, Henry. He is sure to be a victor. I know that there is always room for doubt, but I am sure that in this instance I am right.”

I went to Elinor’s home the next day. She came to meet me, showing unexpected warmth, and gave me both of her hands.

“I am glad to see you, Henry,” she said; “but why did you come?”

Then I noticed that she was pale and undeniably anxious, as Madam Arlington had said.

“Why should I not come?” I asked.

“It is dangerous for you here,” she replied.

“At your house?”

“Not here alone, but at Madam Arlington’s house too, or at any other in this country.”

However, I was not afraid. Yet it was pleasant to feel that she was alarmed for me. It was true that our country was much divided, but most of those who were going from it to the war had been my friends all my life, and I did not believe that they would betray me. I asked after Varian, telling her I had heard of his presence.

“Yes, he has been here more than once,” she replied, “and he is somewhere in this county now with Mr. Blanchard, raising troops. Mr. Varian is a gentleman, and none need fear treachery from him; that is, I think not, but I do not trust Mr. Blanchard.”

Elinor seemed anxious for me to leave at once, and urged me to return northward. But my pride was aroused. I would not flee in such haste. Many who thought as I were in the vicinity. This was debatable ground, and having come, I should feel like a coward if I fled between the first two suns. I returned an evasive answer, although it warmed my heart so much to see her apprehension on my account that I wished her to ask me again. But she was silent, her look of anxiety remaining.

I sent my compliments to Mrs. Maynard. She did not choose to see me. Then I bade farewell to Elinor.

“You are going northward very soon, Henry,” she said; “I know that you must, and we may not see each other again in a long time, or it may be never. I pray God that he will watch over you.”

She spoke with such deep feeling that I took her hand and kissed it after the fashion of an earlier time, and as I turned away I saw that her eyes were full of tears. I looked back when I had gone a little distance, and she was standing in the doorway gazing after me. She waved her hand and I waved mine. Then I rode rapidly away, looking back no more.

It was clear to me from her words that she did not wish me to come again, and I respected her wish. Why she was so anxious for me to leave the country at once I did not understand; but on the next day, while I was passing through the woods only a mile from Madam Arlington’s house, some one shot at me. The bullet whizzed most unpleasantly near my head; when I rushed to the spot whence the report of the weapon had come, no one was there. I would have called it an accident, the careless shot of some stray hunter, had it not been for the quick disappearance of the man. I was disturbed greatly. It is not pleasant to feel that an assassin is pursuing one. Varian and I were antagonists, and my first thought was of him; then I believed it impossible that he should commit or abet such a deed, and my mind turned to Blanchard. I distrusted the man, and yet I could not discern a motive. I continued my walk, and presently met William Penn Johnson.

“Did you hear a rifle shot, William Penn?” I asked.

“I did,” he replied, “and I immediately walked at a brisk pace in the other direction. I thank God every day that I am not a brave man, for being as I am I feel that I shall live a long and useful life, war or no war.”

So saying he went contentedly about his work, and I returned to the house. It was, in truth, time that I should go, but I did not like to be driven away. I was at that age when one cares a great deal for the appearance of bravery. I said nothing about the adventure to Madam Arlington, knowing how she would be grieved and alarmed, and I still lingered, receiving on the fourth day thereafter my reward, in the shape of a second bullet, fired at me apparently at a distance of about fifty yards from behind a rail fence, the man again escaping through woods without my being able to get so much as a glimpse of him. This bullet was the nearest of all to success, passing through my clothing and grazing my shoulder. I was glad that the marksmanship of my unknown enemy was as evil as his intent. Two fair shots at me and never a hit! Yet I shivered. Could one expect always to escape such attempts? How was I to fight a hidden enemy?

When I went home to dinner I noticed Madam Arlington’s keen eyes upon me. Unfortunately I had forgotten that nothing ever escaped her notice.

“Henry,” she said sternly, “isn’t that a hole in the shoulder of your coat?”

“Yes, grandmother,” I said dutifully; “I tore it on a splinter in the barn, and I had since forgotten about it. I fear that I am becoming a sloven in spite of all your teaching and discipline.”

“Henry,” she continued, with increasing sternness, “come here at once!”

I rose, and standing before her, said, with great respect:

“Yes, grandmother.”

She examined the rent in my coat slowly and critically.

“Henry,” she said, “do you mean to tell me that when your coat strikes a splinter it tears a neat round hole like that? And it is through the waistcoat, too! Are you to begin telling me falsehoods after fifteen years under this roof?”

I flushed guiltily.

“Grandmother,” I said, “I was hunting rabbits, and when I leaned my gun against a fence the trigger caught on a rail, and bang! it went. It was careless, I know, as the bullet grazed my shoulder.”

She looked at me doubtfully.

“Humph!” she said. “Then you are too young for me to let you go out with a gun. Finish your dinner.”

I obeyed orders with some embarrassment, and she said nothing more. I sat that evening with her, and the weather being rather warm we left open one of the windows of the room. Madam Arlington was near the lamp, busy with some fine stitching. Usually she talked a great deal, as hers was a full mind and it liked expression, but this evening she was silent. Yet I could see that her thoughts were busy, although not with her work. It occurred to me suddenly as I sat there looking at her that she must have been very beautiful in her youth. All others who knew her may have observed this long ago, but I believe we seldom pause to think whether our mothers or grandmothers are or were beautiful or ugly. Her features were regular, her hair was still glossy, and there was a complexion that once must have been brilliant. Her chief characteristic now was strength. Perhaps it had not always been so. I felt then how deep is the misfortune of women left alone.

Madam Arlington suddenly laid down her stitching and turned her eyes to the open window.

“There is some one coming, Henry,” she said; “a rider who comes fast!”

“I hear nothing, grandmother,” I replied.

“I am nearest the window,” she said, “and I hear distinctly the beat of horses’ feet. It means you. Henry, why did you stay so long? And yet I am to blame, for I should have made you go.”

She rose and the stitching fell unheeded to the floor. Her face expressed the deepest alarm. I sought to reassure her, feeling that her fears were caused solely by her apprehensions for me.

“Come to the window,” she said, “and you can hear.”

I obeyed, and then the tramp of a horse ridden rapidly reached me.

“They intend to arrest you,” cried Madam Arlington. “Run, Henry! There is time yet to escape from the back of the house. No, there is only one coming, and I would not have a grandson of mine flee from a single man!”

The spirit of the pioneers who dared all the dangers of the great forests flamed up in her eyes, and she stood by the window, motionless and waiting.

The tread grew louder, a horse and rider shot into the moonlight, stopped in front of the house, and, to our unutterable surprise, Elinor Maynard leaped down, ran to the door, and beat upon it heavily with the butt of her riding whip.

I rushed to the door and opened it. Elinor stood there, the whip still raised in her hand, her face flushed with excitement.

“You must go at once, Henry!” she cried. “They are coming for you!”

I saw then that she had ridden to warn me of some danger, and I felt a warm and grateful glow.

“But,” I said, “you can not stand here. Come inside.”

“Bless my soul!” cried Madam Arlington. “It’s Elinor Maynard! Why, child, what errand has brought you?”

Then she seized Elinor by the arm and fairly dragged her into the house, while Elinor was crying to me to go at once, for my life. Troops were coming to seize me; they were even then on the way.

“But I am not yet in the Northern service,” I said; “and even if I were, they could do nothing more than hold me as a prisoner.”

“You do not know who commands them,” she said. “It is Captain Blanchard, and there are others with him who bear you malice. I tell you that your life is not safe! You must go immediately, Henry!”

“And you have come to warn me?” I said.

“Why should I not?” she replied.

I was gratified and embarrassed too. I spoke of her own danger; she said there was none for her, and again she entreated me to go at once.

“I know of no one who wishes my life,” I said, and as I said it I remembered the shots that had been fired at me. But if any danger really threatened I could not slip away in the dark and leave unprotected Madam Arlington and the woman who had come to save me. I uttered my objection, and my grandmother spoke with decision.

“Elinor is right,” she said. “She would not have come here in the dark without reason for coming, and you must go. No protests! I will take care of her to-night, and carry her back safely in the morning. William Penn, the horses at once! You must ride with Henry as far as the river!”

It was Madam Arlington, ready, resourceful, and commanding, who now spoke. I knew that she was right. Moreover, Elinor begged me with her eyes to go, and who could resist such pleadings? William Penn had come forth obedient to the call for his services, and while I made my hasty preparations for flight he saddled and bridled two horses. In the border country between the warring sections there were thousands of us on either side who fled in like haste by moonlight or no light at all, before that long war was over.

“William Penn,” I asked, “are you not afraid to go with me, you who profess to be such a coward?”

“We are running from the enemy, not toward him,” he replied calmly; “and that’s the best way to keep out of danger.”

I took Elinor’s hand in mine and told her good-bye.

“Elinor,” I said, “I do not go to stay. I shall come again.”

“I shall pray for your safety,” she said, with a sad little smile.

Then my grandmother kissed me again on the forehead after her custom. There was not a tear in her eye.

“I could wish that you had chosen the other side, Henry,” she said; “but it is better to be an honourable man and be right on the wrong side than wrong on the right side. Bear that in mind. This is not new to me; your grandfather, my husband, then for a year only, fought at New Orleans, but he came back safely, as I have faith that you, too, shall come.”

My heart was too full for me to say more to either; waving my hand at both I galloped away into the darkness with William Penn.

We rode for a while in silence, save the beat of our horses’ feet. The night was dark and William Penn’s face seemed ghostly beside me. I liked little this flight from the home of my childhood, leaving behind me, and unprotected, those whom I held most dear; but war has less to do than anything else I know of with human affections, and it was no time to mourn.

“We did not leave too soon,” said William Penn ten minutes after our start. “I hear them behind us.”

We stopped a moment, and bending our heads listened. The tread of a troop of horse came to my ears.

“They’ve been to the house, and not finding me guessed that I would take the southern road, which was correct,” I said.

“It is easy enough to turn aside in the woods and hide from them,” replied William Penn.

“And perhaps be taken on the morrow,” I said. “No, I shall keep straight on, and do you, William Penn, who are a man of peace, ride into the forest there and you can be safely at home again before morning.”

“Oh, no,” replied William Penn; “I should be frightened alone there in the darkness among the trees. If I have to run, I’d rather run in company.”

I thanked him with a pressure of the hand, and saying nothing more we increased the speed of our horses. The gallop of the men behind us grew louder. Elinor had told us that Blanchard was in command of the expedition to our house, and I felt no doubt that this was his troop. She had informed us, too, that others were with him who meant me great harm.

“They are coming fast,” said William Penn.

“You chose the best horses, did you not?” I asked.

“Trust me for that much,” he replied.

We paused for a moment on the crest of a hillock, where the road stretched in a straight line behind us for a quarter of a mile. The cavalrymen were now near enough to see us there in the moonlight, and we heard their distant shout.

“It’s four miles from here to the river, is it not, William Penn?” I asked.

“Four miles and one rod over, by the survey.”

“And the river is in flood from the spring rains?”

“Yes, and there’s no bridge.”

“Then that’s our safety line. Come! our horses are fresh, and we will show those men what it is to ride a real race.”

We started at a gallop, and again we heard the distant halloo of the troopers behind us. Our horses swung forward at a steady gait, and the forest on either side of us slid past.

“They can do better than this. I trained them myself,” said William Penn, flicking the mane of his horse with his free right hand.

“I have no doubt of it,” I replied, “but a waiting race is most often a winning one.”

On we sped, the dark forest racing by, and our horses’ feet drumming on the road. Our pursuers drew a little nearer. They raised their triumphant shout again, and their rifles began to crack. But I knew the bullets would fall short.

“William Penn,” I said, “we may be under fire soon. Gallop into the woods there and you will be safe. It is not you whom they want.”

“If I get wounded,” he replied, turning his patient face toward me, “I want to be with a comrade who will hear my groans and tie up my wounds. None of this hero’s business of dying in silence and alone for me.”

His horse never swerved from the side of mine.

“They are still gaining,” he said presently. “I hear their hoof beats now distinctly. Oughtn’t we to hurry?”

“But our horses are by far the fresher; let us wait a little.”

The exhilaration of the wild gallop entered my blood. I felt the swing of the horse under me, regular and true, as if his muscles were made of steel, and I felt no fear.

“William Penn,” I said, “there are worse things than this.”

“There may be, but I don’t want to meet ’em.”

“Think what a glorious ride!”

“I don’t care for glory.”

Our pursuers drew a little nearer. More shots were fired, and we heard the whine of one bullet as it sped over our heads.

“Lord forgive me, but what was that?” cried William Penn.

“A hint.”

“A hint for what?”

“A hint to go a little faster.”

We eased our grasp on the bridle reins and our horses shot forward. The hoof beats behind us became fainter.

“That’s what I call really glorious, the dying of that sound,” said William Penn. “But we can do better than this. I trained ’em myself. Come, Henry, let ’em show you how well they can do.”

“Be patient, William Penn; there is yet time.”

“One can be too patient, Henry. We can widen the gap between us and those men if we wish, and O Henry! how thankful I am for that gap!”

We continued for another mile at the same pace, and then William Penn made a new appeal to me to show how good the horses were. I saw that his pride was really aroused, and I gave the word. Urged on by our voices they leaped forward, and our pursuers sank back in the moonlight.

“Did I not tell you?” cried William Penn exultantly.

“You told the exact truth.”

We presently saw ahead of us the silver line of the river; and then as we galloped on, the silver changed to the yellow surface of a flood running bank full.

“They will not follow us across the river—and now good-bye, William Penn,” I said. “You have been a good and faithful comrade. No one could have been truer.”

“I shall cross the river, too,” he said. “If they won’t follow you to the other side, they won’t follow me either, and I’ve been pursued enough to-night.”

We urged our horses into the flood and, swimming with strong and steady stroke, they soon reached the further shore. Our pursuers, as we had expected, stopped at the river, which all but those most confident of their horses might well hesitate to cross. Moreover, they saw that the chase had become useless.

William Penn and I stopped at last.

“Now, William Penn,” I said, “you have gone far enough.”

“If I were not so much afraid of bullets I think I would continue with you to the war,” he said, looking at me inquiringly.

“William Penn,” I replied, “nobody can find fault with your particular brand of cowardice, but you are too old to become a soldier, and, besides, you must go back and take care of Madam Arlington.”

“And of Miss Elinor, if need be?” he said, still looking at me inquiringly.

“Yes,” I replied, meeting his gaze firmly.

“Then perhaps I can be of more use at home than if I became a soldier?”

“Undoubtedly!”

Tears stood in the eyes of this faithful old friend as he shook my hand once, twice, thrice, and then turned to go. He rode away with bowed head. When he had gone a rod, he called back:

“Henry!”

“Yes, William Penn.”

“Remember that it’s no part of a soldier’s duty to get in the way of the bullets unless he has to.”

“I shall remember.”

“Good-bye!”

“Good-bye!”

Then he was gone, and I rode on alone.

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