Pocket Island

C >> Charles Clark Munn >> Pocket Island

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Liddy was essentially a home-loving girl and cared but little for
company. A few friends, and good ones, might be considered as the text
of her life, and even at school it had been the same. Her home duties
and her father's needs were a sufficient kingdom, and over it she was a
gracious queen. For the first three months after her mother's death she
and her father lived a life of nearly silent sadness. Almost daily he
visited the town, dreading far worse than Liddy ever knew lest he must
return with sad tidings. He knew what was ever in her heart, and as her
life-happiness was dear to him, he wasted no time in discussing war news
with his friends in the village. When June came Liddy felt that a change
in the morose current of their lives must be made, and in her peculiar
way set about to carry out her idea. She knew his fiftieth birthday came
during that month, and when the day arrived she said to him:

"Come home early to-night, father, I have a great, big favor to ask of
you." All that afternoon she worked at her little plot, and when tea
time came and he entered the house a surprise awaited him. The
dining-table had been moved into the sitting-room, set with the best
china, and in the center was a vase of flowers. Draped from the hanging
lamp above it, and extending to each corner were ropes of ground pine,
and around his plate was a double row of full-blown roses. It was a
pretty sight, and when he looked at it he smiled and said: "Expecting
company, Liddy?"

"Yes, you," was her answer; "and I've made a shortcake, and I picked
the strawberries myself."

When he was seated in his accustomed chair he looked at the array of
roses, and in a surprised voice remarked: "Why didn't you put some
around your own plate, Liddy?"

"Because it's not my birthday," came the answer; "count them, father."

The thoughtful tribute touched him, and a look of sadness crept in his
face. "I had forgotten how old I was," he said.

Liddy made no reply until she had poured his tea, and then she said, in
her earnest way: "Now, father, I don't want you to think of that any
more, or anything else that is past and gone. Please think how hard I
worked all the afternoon to fix the table and how much I want to make
you happy."

When it came time to retire, he said: "You haven't told me yet what that
big favor is, Liddy!"

For answer she went to him and taking his face in her hands, she kissed
him on either cheek and whispered: "Wait till to-morrow!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

A FEW BRIGHT DAYS.

The next evening after supper Liddy showed unusual cheerfulness. She had
that day received three letters from the absent one, though of different
dates, and all contained assuring words. Then she had a little plan of
loving intent mapped out in her mind and was eager to carry it out. Her
father noticed her unusual mood and said: "It seems good to see you
smile once more, Liddy."

"I am trying hard to feel happy," she answered, "and harder still to
make you feel so as well." And then, drawing her chair close to him, she
sat down and rested her face against his shoulder. It was one of her odd
ways, and it must be now stated that when this winsome girl most
earnestly desired to reach her father's heart, she always stroked his
shoulder with her face.

"Well," he said, recognizing her method, "I know you have something on
your mind; so tell me what it is right away!"

She made no immediate reply, but softly stroked him for a moment and
then replied: "Yes, I do want something; I want a clock!" and then,
straightening herself up, she continued earnestly: "I want a lot of
things; I want a pretty clock to put on the mantel, and I want you to
put the tall one up into the attic, for it gives me the blues; and say,
father"---- and here again her face went to his shoulder, "I want a
piano!"

"Is that all?" he answered, a droll smile creeping into his face.

"No," she said, "that isn't all; but it's all I dare ask for now."

"Better tell me the rest," he replied, stroking the head that still
rested against his arm. "You haven't surprised me yet."

And then there was a very pretty scene, for the next instant that
blue-eyed heart-breaker was sitting in her father's lap, with both arms
around his neck.

"Do you mean it, father?" she whispered. "Can I have a piano?"

"Why, of course," he answered softly, "if you want one."

In a week the old cottage organ that had felt the touch of Liddy's
childish fingers learning the scale, was keeping company with the tall
clock in the attic, and in its place stood a piano. In the sitting-room
a new clock that chimed the hours and halves ticked on the mantel. These
were not all the changes, for when so much was won our heart-breaker
renewed her assault by her usual method, and pretty portieres took the
place of doors between parlor, hall and sitting-room, and delicate lace
curtains draped the windows. Then Liddy surveyed her home with
satisfaction and asked her father how he liked it.

"It makes a great change in the rooms," he replied, "and they seem more
cheerful."

"Do you notice that it also makes the carpets look worn and shabby?"
said Liddy; "and the parlor furniture a little old-fashioned?"

Mr. Camp sat down in one of the parlor chairs and looked around. For a
few moments he surveyed the room in silence and then said: "Liddy, did
you ever hear the story of the brass fire-dogs? I don't think you have,
so I will tell it. There was once a good woman who persuaded her husband
to buy a pair of brass fire-dogs for the parlor, to take the place of
the old iron ones. When the new ones were in place she polished them
very brightly and asked him to look into the room. 'Don't you think,'
she said, 'they make the carpet look old and worn?' They certainly did,
so he bought a new carpet. That in turn made the furniture seem shabby,
so he was persuaded to renew that. By this time the curtains were not in
harmony, and had to be changed. When it was all done he remarked: 'Wife,
you said the fire-dogs would only cost me four dollars, but they have
really cost me two hundred.'"

"But we had the brass fire-dogs already," said Liddy laughing, "so the
story doesn't hit me." Then, going to him and putting one arm around his
neck and stroking his face with the other hand, she continued: "The
trouble is, father, you have got me instead of new fire-dogs; are you
sorry?"

"You must judge for yourself," was his answer. "Is there anything else
you wish?"

"Yes, there are two other things I want," was her reply, still stroking
him; "I want to see you look happier, and feel happier, and I want some
one to come back safe from the war."

Life is at best but a succession of moods that, like a pendulum, ever
vibrate between mirth and sadness. Circumstances will almost invariably
force the vibrations to greater extremes, but just as surely will its
opposite mood return. Though clouds darken to-day, the sun will shine
to-morrow; and if sorrow comes, joy will follow; while ever above the
rippled shores of laughter floats the mist of tears.

In some respects Liddy was a peculiar girl. While loving those near her
with almost pathetic tenderness and constantly striving to show it, she
shrank like a scared child from any public exhibition of that feeling.
She had another peculiarity that might be called a whim--she loved to
try experiments upon her own feelings to see what effect they would
have. It was this that had been the real cause of her desire to attend
the military funeral that had taken place in Southton a few months
previous. Since her mother's death Liddy had remained at home nearly all
the time. She seldom went to the village, because to do so awakened
unpleasant memories. To drive past the now vacant academy or near the
depot was to awaken unhappy thought and force her into a sad mood. The
seclusion of her home seemed more in harmony with her feelings. She had
but few intimate friends, and even those jarred upon her now, and her
father was the best, and the only one she cared to be with. One day in
mid-summer, she surprised him with a strange request.

"Father," she said, "I want to go fishing. I don't mean to tramp
through the brush along a brook, but I want you to take me to some
pretty pond where there are trees all around, and where I can sit in a
boat on the shady side and fish. We will take a basket of lunch and have
a nice time. If we cannot catch fish we can pick pond lilies. Will you
go?"

As there was nothing that loving father would not do for his only child,
it is needless to say that the trip was made.

When Liddy began to catch fish, and he noticed how excited she became,
he said, with quiet humor: "Which would you rather do, Liddy, put your
fish in the boat or hang them up in the trees? Tut, tut!" he continued,
as he saw a deep shadow creep over her face, "you will have Charlie to
bait your hook next summer, never fear!"

That night she wrote to her soldier boy: "I coaxed father to take me
fishing to-day. I wanted to see if it wouldn't bring me nearer to you or
you to me. I came home in a sad mood, however, though I learned one
thing, and that is wherein lies the fascination of fishing. It's the
constant expectation of getting a bite that takes your mind away from
all else."

With the autumn evenings came the time for open fires, and Liddy had
hard work to keep her spirits up. There were so many tender
associations lurking in the firelight, and so much that brought back the
past and gone hours of happiness that it was painful instead of
cheerful. Thanksgiving time and the holidays were days of sadness
instead of joy. The long eighteen months of constant dread and suspense
had worn upon her nerves and was slowly changing her from a
light-hearted, happy girl to a saddened, waiting woman. The winter
slowly dragged its weary length, and one evening, about a year from the
time she had attended the military funeral, she broke down entirely. She
had tried piano practice for a time and then reading, but neither
availed to occupy her thoughts or drive away the gloom. Finally she sat
down beside her father, who was reading, and said piteously:

"Father, please talk to me; tell me stories, scold me--anything! I am so
utterly wretched I am ready to cry!"

"My child," he answered tenderly, stroking the fair head that was
resting against his arm, "don't let your mind brood so much upon your
own troubles; try and think how many there are who have more to bear
than you have."

The delicate reproach, though not intended as such by him, was the last
straw, for the next instant her head was down in his lap and she was
sobbing like a child. When the little shower was over she raised her
face and whispered:

"Don't think it's all Charlie, father, or that I forget mother, or how
much you have to bear; for I do not. It's all combined, and the silent
room upstairs added to the dread, that is breaking my heart."

When the day that marked the anniversary of her parting from Manson
arrived she tried another experiment upon herself. The promise she had
made him that day seemed a sacred bond, and she resolved to go alone to
Blue Hill and see how it would affect her. The day was almost identical
to the one two years previous, and when, late in the afternoon, she
arrived at the top, the spot seemed unchanged. The trees were thick with
the same fresh foliage, the birds were there, and around the rock where
they had sat grew the same blue violets. Under a tree was the little
lattice table, just as they had left it. She sat down on the rock and
tried to live over the thoughts and feelings of that day. They all came
back, like so many spectres of a past and gone happiness, and as, one by
one, they filed by in thought, the utter silence and solitude of the
place seemed to increase. The only sound was the faint whisper of the
breeze in the hemlocks, and as she listened and looked into the shadow
beyond where the trees grew thicker, a strange feeling of fear began to
assail her heart and a new and horrible dread crept into her thoughts.
She had not heard from the absent one for two weeks--what if the dreaded
fate had already come and he was at this very moment near her in spirit?
And as all the horror of this thought forced itself upon her, she
suddenly rose to her feet, and almost running, left the spot.

When she arrived home and looked into her mirror she saw a strange
expression on her face and her lips were pale. "I could not go there
again," she said to herself; "I should go mad if I did."

During the next few weeks the dread seemed to grow upon her day by day.
She did not dare tell her father of her trip to Blue Hill, but he
noticed that she was getting thin and that her eyes were growing hollow.
Then came the news of the battle of Peach Creek and that Company E were
engaged in it; but no names of the killed or wounded, if any, reached
her, and no letter from Manson.

Each day her father drove to the village and he was always met at the
gate upon his return by a sad-faced girl whose blue eyes wore a look of
piteous appeal. He tried to comfort her all he could; but it did no
good. She could not talk; she could scarcely eat or sleep, but went
about her daily work as if in a trance. Occasionally in the evening she
would give way to tears, and for three weeks she existed in a state of
wretchedness no pen can describe. Then one evening her father handed her
a letter in a strange handwriting and turned his face away, for he knew
its contents.

"Tell me the worst, father," she almost screamed, "tell me quick; is he
alive?"

"Yes, my child," he answered sadly, "but we must go to him to-morrow. He
is in the hospital at Washington and very low."

CHAPTER XIX.

AMONG THE WOUNDED.

At nearly noon the day after the battle of Peach Creek the searchers for
wounded came upon Manson, still alive, but delirious. Of that ghastly
battlefield, or the long agony of that wounded boy, I hesitate to speak.
No pen can describe, either, and to even faintly portray them is but to
add gloom to a narrative already replete with it. The twenty-four hours
of his indescribable pain and torturing thirst were only broken by a few
hours of merciful delirium, when he was once more a boy and living his
simple, care-free life on the farm, or happy with Liddy. When found he
knew it not. When examined by a surgeon that stern man shook his head
and remarked: "Slim chance for you, poor devil--too much blood gone
already!"

For two weeks he was delirious most of the time, but his rugged
constitution saved him, and when he showed signs of gaining and could
be moved, he was taken to the hospital at Washington. Once there, he
began to fail again, for the long journey had been too much for him.

"He won't last long," said the doctor in charge to the nurse. "Better
ask him if there is any one he wishes to see."

When he made his rounds the next morning Manson was worse and again out
of his head. "He has been wandering in his mind all night," was the
nurse's report, "and he talks about fishing and catching things in
traps, and there is a girl mixed in it all. Case of sweetheart, I
guess."

That day the wounded boy rallied a little and began to think, and bit by
bit the sane hours of the past few weeks came back to him. How near to
the shores of eternal silence his bark had drifted, he little knew! The
long hours of agony on the battlefield since the moment he had
instinctively crawled behind a rock had been a delirium of despair
broken only by visions of vague and shadowy import that he could not
grasp. All that he thought was that death must soon end his misery, and
he hoped it might come soon. At times he had bitten and torn the sleeves
of his coat, soaked with blood from his shattered arm, or beaten his
head against the dry earth in his agony.

How long it had lasted he could not tell, and the last that he
remembered was looking at the moon, and then he seemed to be drifting
away and all pain ceased. Then all around him he could hear voices and
over his head a roof, and he felt as if awakened from some horrible
dream. With his well arm he felt of the other and found it was bound
with splints. The faces he could see were all strange, but the men wore
the familiar blue uniform and he knew they were not enemies. He was
carried to a freight-car and laid in it, where he took a long, jolting
ride that was all a torture, at the end of which he was taken in an open
wagon to a long, low building, and laid on one of many narrow cots which
were ranged in double rows. He could not raise his head or turn his
body. He could only rest utterly helpless and inert, and indifferent to
either life or death.

Of Liddy he thought many times, and of his mother and father as well,
and he wondered what they would say and how they would feel when the
tidings reached them. Then a kind-faced woman came and lifted his head
and held it while he took medicine or sipped broth, and then he was
wandering beside a brook again, or in green meadows. Later he could see
the white cots all about and the unceiled roof over his head and the
same motherly face, and he was asked who his friends were and whom he
would like to send for, and from that time on he began to hope.

Would the one human being on earth he cared most to see come so far, and
could she if she would? And would life still be left in him when she
reached his side; or would he have been carried out of the long, low
room, dead, as he had seen others carried? He wondered what she would
say or do when she came, and oh! if he could only know whether she was
coming! He could see the door at one corner of the room where she must
enter, and it was a little comfort to look at that. Then a resolution
and a feeling that he must live and be there when she came began to grow
upon him. He knew four days had passed since she had been sent for and
he could now count the hours, and from that time on his eyes were seldom
turned away from that door while he was awake. Did ever hours pass more
slowly than those? Could it be possible? I think not. He had no means of
knowing the time except to ask the nurse, and when night came he knew
that sleep might bridge a few hours more speedily.

Six days passed, and then in the gray light of the next morning he
opened his weary waiting eyes and saw bending over him the fair face
that for two long years, and all through his hopeless agony he had
longed for, and as he reached his hand to her in mute gratitude, unable
to speak, he felt it clasped, and the next instant she was on her knees
beside him and pressing a tear-wet face upon it, and he was listening to
the first prayer she ever uttered!

Gone now like a flash of light were all those weary months of
heart-hunger! Gone all the agony and despair of that day and night on
the battlefield! Gone all the hours of pain through which he counted the
moments one by one as he watched the door! No more was he lying upon a
narrow cot listening to the moans of the wounded as he saw the dead
carried out! Instead was he resting on a bed of violets and listening to
the heart throbs of thankfulness and supplication murmured by an angel!
And if ever a prayer reached the heavenly throne it was that one! When
it was finished, and her loving blue eyes were looking into his, he
whispered:

"Liddy, God bless you! Now I shall live."

Such is the power of love!

I feel that here and now I must beg the kind reader's pardon for
introducing so much that is painful and sad in the lives of these two,
fitted by birth and education for peace and simple home happiness. War
and all its horrors is not akin to them and was never meant to be.
Rather should their footsteps lead them where the bobolink sings as he
circles over a green meadow, and the blue water lilies stoop to kiss the
brook that ripples through it; or where the fields of grain bend and
billow in the summer breeze; or the old mill-wheel splashes, while the
white flowers in the pond above smile in the sunlight. If the patient
reader will but follow their lives a little further, only peace and
happiness and all the gentle voices of nature shall be their companions.

For a month, while cheered by the presence of her devoted father, Liddy
nursed that feeble spark of life back to health and strength as only a
tender and heroic woman could. All the dread aftermath of war that daily
assailed her every sense, did not make her falter, but through all those
scenes of misery and death she bravely stood by her post and her
love-imposed duty. How hard a task it was, no one unaccustomed to such
surroundings can even faintly realize, and it need not be dwelt upon.
When she had fulfilled the most God-like mission ever confided to
woman's hands--that of caring for the sick and dying--and when returning
strength made it possible to remove her charge, those three devoted ones
returned to the hills of old New England.

How fair the peaceful valley of Southton seemed once more, and how clear
and distinct the Blue Hills were outlined in the pure September air! The
trees were just gaining the annual glory of autumn color; but to Liddy
they brought no tinge of melancholy, for her heart was full of sweetest
joy. She had saved the one life dearest on earth to her, and now the
voices of nature were but sounds of heavenly music. And how dear to her
was her home once more, and all about it! The brook that rippled near
sounded like the low tinkle of sweet bells, and the maple by the gate
whispered once again the tender thoughts of the love that had first come
to her beneath them. She was like a child in her happiness, and every
thought and every impulse was touched by the mystic, magic wand of love.
Few ever know the supreme joy that came to her and none can except they
walk with bleeding hearts and weary feet through the valley of despair,
bearing the burden of a loved one's life.

The first evening she was alone with her father, she came as a child
would, to sit upon his knee, and putting her arms around his neck
whispered:

"Father, I never knew until now what it means to be happy, and how good
and kind you could be to me, and how little it is in my power to pay it
all back. I can only love and care for you as long as I live, or as long
as God spares your life."

And be it said, she kept her promise.

CHAPTER XX.

PLANS FOR HAPPINESS.

Appomattox and a glorious ending of the most sanguinary war in the
history of the nineteenth century had come, and with it a few changes in
Southton.

Only a part of that brave E Company that three years before marched so
proudly away to fight for the Union ever returned, and of those the
greater number bore the scars of war and disease. Very many sorrowing
women and children were scattered through the town, whose hearts were
sore with wounds that only time could heal, and the empty sleeve and the
vacant chair were sad reminders on all sides.

The Rev. Jotham still extended his time-worn orthodox arguments to a
wearisome length, usually concluding them with more or less varied and
vivid pictures of the doom in store for those who failed at once to
repent and believe; but strange to say the sinners who were moved by his
eloquence were few and far between. It was known that he was not in
sympathy with the great majority of the North, or the principles upon
which the war had been fought, but believed in the right of secession,
and that the North was wrong in its political position. Had he kept
these opinions to himself it would have been far wiser; but he made the
mistake of giving utterance to them at a Memorial Day service held in
his church, which expression was so obnoxious to the most of his
audience and such a direct reflection upon the brave men from the town
who had shed their blood for their country that one of the leading men
of Southton arose at the close of Rev. Jotham's remarks and there and
then rebuked him. The affair created quite a disturbance in public
feeling and was perhaps one of the indirect causes that eventually led
to a division of his church and to the formation of a separate society
in another part of the town.

A new principal had assumed charge of the academy, the trustees having
decided for several reasons that a change would be beneficial. Mr.
Webber, who had ruled there for several years, industriously circulated
a report that by reason of several very flattering offers to engage in
mercantile pursuits, as well as failing health, he had decided to
resign. As his voice, and the apparent desire to use it upon any and all
possible occasions, showed no cessation of energy, a few skeptical ones
were inclined to doubt that his health was seriously affected, and as it
was over a year before he accepted any of the flattering offers, they
believed he must have had hard work to find them. For the rest the town
resumed the old-time even tenor of its way, though there had been added
to its annals heroic history, and to its calendar one day of annual
mourning.

Aunt Sally Hart said that "Liddy Camp had showed mighty good grit and
that young Manson ought to feel purty proud of her," which expression
seemed to reflect the general sentiment.

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