Pocket Island

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"You ought to have lived where I came from," observed Pullen, looking
curiously at his comrade; "for about twenty miles from my home is an
island known as 'The Pocket,' that is fairly swarming with ghosts."

"Tell me about it," said Manson, suddenly interested.

"Well, it is a long yarn," replied Pullen, "but, from your make-up, the
island is just such a spot as you would enjoy visiting. As I told you
the other night, I was born and brought up on an island off the coast of
Maine, and when I was quite a lad I first heard about this island, and
that no one ever went there because it was haunted. I wasn't old enough
to understand what being haunted meant, but later on I did. They used to
tell about it being a hiding-place for smugglers before I was born, and
that a murder had been committed there and that some one in a fishing
boat had seen a man fully ten feet tall, standing on a cliff on it, one
night. Dad, who was a sea captain, used to laugh at all this, and yet
almost everybody believed there was some mystery connected with it.
Another thing, I guess, helped give it a bad name was the fact that a
ship was wrecked on it once, and no one discovered it until long after,
and then they found four or five skeletons among the rocks. Another
queer thing about this island that is really a fact is, that any time,
day or night, you can hear a strange, bellowing sound like that of a mad
bull, coming from somewhere on it. When there is a storm you can hear it
for miles away. The sound can't be located anywhere, and yet you can
hear it all the time. If you are one side, it seems to come from the
other, and go around to that side and it is back where you came from.
Inside the island is a circular pocket or walled-in harbor, like the
crater of a volcano, that is entered through a narrow passage between
two cliffs. Altogether it's a curious place, but as for ghosts--well,
I've been there many a time and never saw one yet. But then, I do not
believe in spooks, and perhaps that accounts for it. It's like the
believers in spiritualism, that can readily see their dead ancestors'
faces peering out of a cabinet, and all that sort of bosh, but I never
could. I'll bet," with a laugh, "that you could go to Pocket Island and
see ghosts by the dozen."

"I would like to go there," replied Manson quietly, "and if we ever get
home alive, I will."

"Come and make a visit, and I'll take you there," said Pullen; "that is"
(soberly) "if I ever go home."

The story-telling ceased while the two friends, each thinking of the
same thing, gravely watched the slowly fading fire.

"Come," said Pullen at last, "quit thinking about what may happen, and
tell me another ghost story. It's your turn now."

But Manson was silent, for the story-telling mood had fled, and his
thoughts were far away.

"Where are you now?" continued Pullen, studying his comrade's face.
"With some girl, I'll bet; am I right?"

"Yes," answered Manson slowly, "I was with some one just then, and
thinking of a fool promise I exacted from her before I left, and all
this ghost-story telling has made me realize what an injury I may have
done her by exacting that promise."

"Tell me," said Pullen, "I can sympathize with you, for I, too, have a
girl I left behind me."

"Well," came the answer slowly, "this girl has too much good sense to
believe in ghosts, and yet, you can't ever tell who does or does not
believe in them. The foolish part of it is that I took her to a lonely
spot away in the woods one day, before I left, and asked her to promise
me that in case I never came back she would visit this spot alone once a
year, on that same day, and if I was in spirit I would appear to her, or
at least if there was any such thing as spirit life, I would be there,
too. She is one of those 'true blue' girls would keep such a promise as
long as she lived, I think; and now you understand what a fool promise
it was."

"I can't dispute you," answered Pullen, and then they separated.

CHAPTER XV.

MYSTERIES.

"Do you know, Frank," said Manson, a week later, as once more the two
lounged beside their camp fire, "that I have the hardest kind of a task
to keep myself from believing in omens, and especially the 'three
warnings' business? Now, to illustrate, we lost a man out of our company
two nights ago, and he was shot within ten feet of where you and I stood
the night we were shot at. His name was Bishop, and an old schoolmate of
mine. I was on the morning guard-mount detail, and was the first one to
see him as we were going along the picket line. He had been shot in the
head, and most likely never knew what hit him. To make the fate of
Bishop more impressive his going on for night duty instead of myself had
been decided by chance."

"Well, what of it?" said Pullen. "It was his bad luck and not yours that
time, wasn't it? That fact ought to drive away your presentiments
instead of increasing them, my boy."

"Perhaps, and yet it doesn't," replied Manson. "It keeps crowding me
into the belief that I am booked for the same fate in the near future,
and, do all I can, I can't put that idea away."

"Nonsense," put in Pullen, "that is all bosh, and in the same list with
the Friday business, and seeing the moon over your left shoulder, and
all that string of superstition that has come down to us, or rather, up
to us from the Dark Ages, when mankind believed in no end of hobgoblin
things."

"Say, Frank, don't you believe in luck?" interposed Manson. "Don't you
believe there is such a thing as good or ill luck in this world, and
that one or the other follows us most of the time all through life?"

"Yes, to a certain extent I do," answered Frank. "But I've noticed that
good luck comes oftenest to those who put forth the greatest effort, and
ill luck is quite apt to chase those who are seemingly born tired."

Manson was silent, for the wholesome optimism of his friend went far to
dispel his grewsome imaginings.

"How does a mystery you can't understand affect you, Frank?" he said at
last.

"Oh, as for that, if I can't find some solution for it easily I put it
away and think of some other matter. Life is too short to waste in
trying to solve all we can't understand. And speaking of mysteries,"
continued Frank, "you ought to have been born and brought up where I
was, on an island off the coast of Maine. There is more mystery to the
square mile down that way, I believe, than anywhere else in the world,
unless it be Egypt. There is a little village called Pemaquid, where
they fence it in and charge an admission. I know of a dozen places where
there are old Indian villages; old fort sites; old burial-places that
fairly bristle with mystery! If you go anywhere near them the natives
will ask you to go and look at this spot, or that, and act as if they
expected you to take off your hat while they tell all about it in an
awed whisper. Oh, we have mystery to burn down in Maine! Maine would
just suit you, Manson! There isn't an island on the coast, a lake or
mountain in the interior that hasn't got a fairy tale, or some legend
connected with it. You remember what I told you about Pocket Island the
other night? Well, that is a fair sample. And speaking of fairy tales,
there is a curious one current down our way about a Jew and an Indian
who were known to be smugglers and came and went in a mysterious way.
They sailed a small sloop called the Sea Fox, and, according to the
stories, this Jew was one of the most adroit villains ever born with a
hooked nose. Where he hailed from the devil only knew, and he never
told, and when after he had mystified everybody for two years, smuggled
liquor by the boatload all the time without getting caught once, he
mysteriously disappeared, and left the entire coast guessing. According
to the stories, and there are hundreds told about him, he was the
smoothest Sheeney that ever swore by Moses. Dozens of constables were on
the watch for him; his sloop was searched many times; every one believed
he was smuggling liquor all the time and yet no one ever caught him. All
this happened when I was a boy, and yet to-day no one sees a small
tops'l sloop gliding into some uninhabited cove that they don't say
'There goes the Sea Fox.'"

"And did no story ever crop out regarding what became of him, or where
he went to?" inquired Manson.

"Not a word or whisper; that is where the mystery lies, and, as I said,
it is one more added to the large stock we already have."

"I would love to spend a month down your way, Frank," said Manson, after
a pause.

"And why not?" replied Pullen. "I've a good boat, plenty of time, and
when we get out of this scrape I would be more than glad to have you
visit me. I will take you all around among the islands and show you all
the mysteries, even Pocket Island, and who knows but we may run across
the Sea Fox? Promise me to come, will you?"

"Yes, if ever I get back alive I will," answered Manson.

It was not long after this pleasant chat that there occurred another
episode in Manson's war experience that had a peculiar effect upon his
imagination, and one that perhaps will illustrate the pathos of war as
well as any.

"We do not pause to think what we are about to do when we are marched
into battle," he said to his friend Frank the day after it happened; "we
are under orders to kill if we can, and the smell of smoke, the roar of
guns, and the awful horror of it all deadens every sense except the
brutal one to shed blood. But to deliberately shoot an enemy, even
though you know he is only waiting to shoot you, is another matter. I
had to do it yesterday morning, however, and how miserable I have been
ever since, no one can imagine. As you know, the Rebs have been shooting
pickets off and on, for two weeks, and orders have been issued to shoot
at sight and ask no questions. I had been on the line all night and was
so dead tired and worn out with the nervous strain that I was ready to
lie down in the mud even, and go to sleep, when just at daylight I saw a
man crawling on all fours across an open space maybe twenty rods away,
and across a ravine.

"It was a little lighter up where he was and I knew he couldn't see me.
I lay low behind a rock and watched him, and as it grew lighter saw he
wore gray, and I knew he was an enemy. For ten minutes he never moved,
and I lay there with a bead on him trying to decide what to do. I knew
he was there to kill, and that my duty was to shoot, and yet I
hesitated. We shoot in battle not really knowing whether we kill or not,
but to deliberately pull trigger knowing it means sending a human soul
into eternity is an awful thing to do. His own action decided the
matter, for, as I saw him lift himself a little and then raise his gun
to the shoulder, I fired. Then I saw him spring to his feet, whirl
around, clasp his hands to his breast and slowly sink forward half out
of sight. I put a fresh cartridge in, and then never took my eyes off
that gray heap until the relief guard came along. He was not quite dead
when we went to him, for the ball had gone through his lungs, and he was
fighting hard for breath. He was a beardless boy, not over eighteen, and
as he gasped, the blood gushed out of his mouth. We saw him try to
speak, but could not, and then he looked at us three; first one and then
another. It must be he saw more pity in my face than in the others, for
the poor boy suddenly reached out his hand toward me, and as I took it
he drew me down to try and whisper to me. It was of no use; I could not
catch the sound.

"I wiped the blood away from his lips and then rolled my blouse up for a
pillow and laid his head on it. I could see a mute look of gratitude in
his eyes, like those of a dying dog, and, mingling with that, the awful
fear of death. It was all over in a few moments, and at the last he drew
my hand to his lips and kissed it. The other two boys turned away, and I
was glad, for the tears were chasing each other down my face. The one
bit of consolation I had was, the poor boy did not know I shot him. When
it was all over, we left him, and later we three went up there and
buried him beside the rock where he died. I saw his face hovering over
me all last night, and it will haunt me as long as I live."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE GRASP OF DEATH.

When the fierce heat of E Company's second summer in an almost tropical
climate was fast depleting their ranks, Manson wrote to Liddy:

"Disease among us is more dangerous than rebel bullets. When I was a boy
I used to feel that the long, hot hours in hay fields, or the bitter
cold ones in the snow-buried woods, were severe hardships, but now I
thank God for them! If I survive the exposure here it will be because of
the splendid health and strength that came to me from those days on the
farm. Sometimes when the miserable food I have to eat, or the vile water
I must drink, is at its worst, I think of what mother used to cook, and
how sweet the water in dear old Ragged Brook used to taste on a hot
summer day, and you cannot imagine what I would give for a chance to
thrust my face into that cool stream, where it was leaping over a mossy
ledge, and drink my fill.

"I have passed through some ghastly and sickening experiences, too
horrible to relate to you, and at times I am so depressed that I lose
all hope, and then again I feel that I shall pull through all right. One
thing I want you to do, and that is, forget the foolish promise I
exacted from you that day on Blue Hill. Some things have occurred that
have convinced me it was doing you a cruel injustice to ask such a
promise."

It was the last letter Liddy ever received from her soldier boy, and
when she read it it filled her with a new and uncanny dread.

During those first two years of service, E Company made heroic history.
They took part in eleven hard-fought battles, besides many skirmishes,
and not a man flinched or shirked a duty! They were all hardy sons of
old New England, who, like their forefathers of '76, fought for home and
liberty; for freedom and love of country. Such, and such only, are true
heroes!

Of the battles in which they took part, now famous in history,
Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Tracy City, Resaca, Peach Creek and
Atlanta were the most severe, though many others were as sanguinary.
Their losses in all these engagements were sixteen officers, killed or
wounded in battle, and twenty-three privates, or total of thirty-nine.
In addition, eight were taken prisoners, most of whom died in rebel
prison pens; and thirty-six others died of disease or were disabled by
it. Out of the one hundred hardy men who left Southton, only nineteen
returned unharmed at the close of the war!--a record for brave service
that was not surpassed, and one that should weave a laurel wreath around
every name!

Manson had passed through eight battles unharmed and dread disease had
failed to touch his splendid strength; but at the battle of Peach Creek,
and under a blazing July sun he fell. His regiment had been ordered to
charge a hill, from the top of which a perfect storm of rebel bullets
were pouring upon them, and with hands gripping his gun and teeth
fiercely set, he with the rest faced the almost certain death as they
charged up the hill! When half way up, and just as he had leaped a low
stone wall, two red-hot irons seemed to pierce him, and with a bullet
through one leg, and a shattered arm he went down, and leaving him
there, the storm of battle swept on!

Conscious still, and believing his end had come, he yet remembered that
wall, and faint and bleeding he crawled back to it. He could hear the
roar of guns, and the groans of dying men about him, and in that awful
moment, with death near, one thought alone came, and that was to
shelter himself between the rocks, so that mad horses and frenzied men
might not trample upon his face. He could see near by a rock close to
the wall, and like some wild animal that had received its death wound,
yet crawls into a thicket to die, so he crept into this shelter and lay
there moaning.

Hour after hour passed in agony, while his life blood ebbed away. He
could not stop it; he did not try. Since death was near and he felt that
it must come, the sooner it was over the better. Men and horses swept by
and heeded him not! The fierce sun beat upon him, but no one came to
succor! His tongue grew parched and a terrible thirst tortured him; but
there was no water. Only the hard stones upon which his head was
pillowed, the dry earth that drank his blood, and the merciless sun
blazing above. He could hear the dying men about him groaning and
cursing God in their agony, and the roar of cannon that made the earth
tremble beneath him.

Then the sounds of conflict and carnage passed away, and left only the
moans of the wounded near him to echo his own. At last night came and
threw her dark mantle over that scene of death and despair, and later
the moon rose and shed her pale light upon it. Those soft beams of
silvery white were angels of mercy, for they carried that dying boy's
heart away to the hills of old New England, and to where a rippling
brook danced like silver coin beneath them, and a fair girl's face and
tender blue eyes smiled upon him. Then the picture faded and he knew no
more.

CHAPTER XVII.

THOSE WHO WAIT.

There is nothing in life much harder to bear than suspense. To know the
worst, whatever that may be, is far preferable to the long agony of
doubt; hoping for the best, yet fearing the worst. Even a hardened
criminal has been known to admit that the two or three hours of waiting
for the verdict was far worse than the march to the gallows. If this be
so, what must it be to the tender, loving hearts of good and true women
whose husbands, sweethearts, brothers and sons are facing the dangers of
war, and who (God pity them) have to endure this dread suspense for
weeks and months when no tidings reach them?

When the train bearing Liddy's soldier boy from sight had rolled away
she clung to her father's arm in mute despair. Pride sustained her until
they had left the town behind, and were driving across the wide plains
toward her home, and then the tears came. The memory of many pleasant
moonlit drives along the same road when her lover was with her came
back, and with it the realization that it was all ended, perhaps
forever, and that the best she could look forward to was three years of
weary waiting. Before her, miles away, rose the Blue Hills, distinct in
the clear air, and as she looked at them, back came the memory of one
day a month before--a day replete with joy and sorrow, when he had paid
her the greatest and sweetest compliment a man can pay a woman. She
could recall the very tones of his voice and she could almost feel the
touch of his arms when he had held her close for one brief moment. In
silence she rode along for a time, trying to control herself, and then
turning to her father she said:

"Father, there is something I must tell you, and I ask your forgiveness
for not doing so before." And then, in her odd, winsome way, resting her
cheek against his shoulder and holding her left hand before his face for
a moment, she continued: "Can you guess?"

"No, my child," he answered, quickly, wishing to cheer her, "I could not
possibly guess. The ways of my little girl are so deep and dark, how
could I?" and then continuing in a more cheerful tone: "Don't cry any
more, Liddy. Some one is coming back from the war by and by, and some
one else will want a lot of new dresses for a wedding, and expects to be
happy, and I hope she will be."

Then a little hand began stroking his arm and a still damp face was
being rubbed against his shoulder, and presently a soft voice whispered:
"Father, you have always been too good to me. You never said a word and
you knew it all along, I guess!" which rather incoherent speech may be
excused under the circumstances.

The few weeks that followed were not as gloomy to Liddy as later ones.
Her home duties outside of school hours had always been numerous, and
now she found them a relief. Letters also came frequently from the
absent one, and she felt that he was not yet in danger--that was a grain
of consolation. But when he wrote that they were to start for the front
the next day, her heart grew heavy again and from that time on the dread
suspense was never lifted. She wrote him frequently and tried to make
her letters brave and cheerful. All the simple details of her home life
were faithfully portrayed, and it became a habit to write him a page
every night. She called it a little chat, but it might better have been
called an evening prayer, for into those tender words were woven every
sweet wish and hopeful petition of a loving woman's heart. After the
battle of Chancellorsville a cloud seemed resting upon Southton, and
Liddy felt that the weary waiting was becoming more oppressive than
ever. It had been her father's custom to drive "over town," as it was
called, once a day to obtain the news, and she had always met him on his
return, even before he entered the house, to more quickly learn the
worst. She began to dread even this, lest he should bring the tidings
she feared most.

Then came the call for needed supplies to be used in the care of the
wounded, and gladly Liddy joined with other good ladies in picking lint,
preparing bandages, and the like, and contributing many articles for the
use and comfort of the soldiers. In this noble work she came to realize
how many other hearts besides her own carried a burden, and to feel a
kinship of sorrow with them. Her engagement to Manson seemed to be
generally known and the common burden soon obliterated her first girlish
reticence concerning it.

"I feel that I am growing old very fast," she wrote him, "and that I am
a girl no longer. Just think, it is only ten months since I felt angry
when some of the girls told me they heard I was engaged to you, and now
I don't care who knows it."

For the next three months there were no battles that he was engaged in,
and yet the suspense was the same. Then when the new year came another
burden was added, for her mother grew worse, and it seemed to Liddy as
if the shadows were thick about her. An event that occurred in the early
spring, and two months after the battle of Tracy City, made a deep
impression on her. Captain Upson, promoted from first lieutenant of
Company E, was wounded at that battle, and dying later, was brought to
Southton for burial. He was universally respected and almost the entire
townsfolk gathered at the church to pay their tribute. Hundreds failed
to gain admission, and it was said to have been the largest funeral ever
known in the town. Liddy had never seen a military funeral and the
ceremonies were sadly impressive. The long service at the church; the
touching words of the minister uttered over the flag-draped coffin, upon
which rested a sword; the sad procession to the cemetery, headed by
muffled drum and melancholy fife mingling their sounds with the tolling
bell, and then the arched arms of soldiers, beneath which the body was
borne; the short prayer; the three volleys; and last of all, lively
music on the return. This feature impressed her as the saddest of all,
for it seemed to say: "Now, we will forget the dead as soon as
possible," which in truth was what it meant in military custom.

It is needless to say as she returned with her father to their now
saddened home, a possible event of similar import in which she must be a
broken-hearted mourner entered her mind. During the next month came
another and far worse blow. Her mother, long an invalid, contracted a
severe cold and, in spite of all possible effort to save her, in three
short days passed away. To even faintly express the anguish of that now
bereaved husband and motherless girl is impossible and shall not be
attempted.

When the funeral was over and they once more sat by the fire in the
sitting-room, as was customary each evening, their pleasant home seemed
utterly desolate, and the tall clock in the hall ticked with far deeper
solemnity. Liddy in fact was, as she felt herself to be, walking
"through the valley and shadow of death." To add to her utter
wretchedness, if that were possible, she had received no letter from
Manson for three weeks, and there were no rifts of sunshine in her
horizon. She wrote him a long account of her loss and all the misery of
mind she was experiencing and then, as she had no address to mail it to,
held the letter in waiting, and finally tore it up. "It will only give
him pain to know it," she thought, "and he has enough to bear." When she
next heard from him she realized more than ever how many lonely and
homesick hours he had to endure, and was glad she had kept her sorrow to
herself.

A few weeks later her father, thinking to make the house more cheerful,
proposed that her Aunt Mary--a widowed sister of his--should come and
live with them.

"No, father," said Liddy, after the matter had been discussed, "I would
rather be alone and take care of you myself." Then she added, with a
little quiver in her voice: "You are the only one I've got to love now
and perhaps the only one I shall ever have."

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