A REMINISCENCE.
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HE night had fallen slowly and softly. The stars had stolen out, now dancing gaily in one corner of the heavens, and now a cluster of them marched forth in stately fashion. The air was quiet; even the leaves had quit whispering, the breeze had died away, and they nodded sleepily on their stems. Pretty Alice Whiting sat on the porch of the one-story, old style plantation house, and lazily wished the tea-table, whose disorder showed it had been attacked by hungry mouths, would vanish bodily. But it didn't, and she ruefully contemplated the prospect of clearing it up herself, with much chagrin, for such lovely nights, she declared, were not made to work in.
She had come to Memphis from the North with her husband and brother, who had “settled” in that hospitable city. Frank and Will had gone to the lodge, and she had been dreaming of her far Northern home. As she sat there her head rested against the vines which covered the porch, turning it into a perfect bower of beauty. Her dark brown hair waved and curled around a broad, full forehead; her features were far from regular, but the piquant nose and smiling mouth redeemed them, and gave a saucy charm which was more pleasing than set beauty. And as the moon rose in the sky, until her pale beams lit up the darkened porch, flooding every corner, she made as pretty a picture as one would wish to look upon. Something of this thought evidently passed through the mind of the man who had stolen noiselessly through the garden until he stood by her side, for he looked earnestly upon her as if loth to disturb her, and then longingly at the table, which had abundance, even after the appetites of the household had been appeased.
With a start she sprang to her feet. Her heart beat loud and rapid with fear, as she looked at the stranger. Visions of burglars, guerrillas and all the clan, flitted through her brain, and held her dumb, unable to utter a sound, from pure terror.
Certainly the man before her was not one to reassure her, for he was wild-eyed and dirty, and his ragged clothes had fallen away from his thin frame.
“Don't be afraid, ma'am,” he said, in a voice intended to be gentle and assuring; “all I ask is a bite to eat. I'd never hurt a woman.”
She drew a quick breath of relief.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Hungry? Look at me, ma'am. Do you see any signs of the gourmand about me?” pointing to his pinched face.
“I'll give you something to eat—for Eddie's dear sake,” she added, in a faint whisper.
Bringing clean dishes, she poured out a cup of coffee, and bade him sit down and help himself.
“Can I have a wash fust?” he asked.
“Yes, and welcome.” Bringing him a basin of clear cold water and a towel, she had the pleasure of seeing some of the tawny hue disappear, and he seated himself and began to eat most heartily.
It was just after the war, and the city was full of homeless men, who roamed its streets, unable to find work, and actually living on charity. Some of them had no home to go to, and others could not raise the means to take them there.
“Pears like we wus whipped bad,” he said, between the mouthfuls.
She nodded an affirmative.
“I 'lowed General Forrest would help me to get back to Georgy. There's whar I belong.”
“Did you ask him?” The General was a resident of Memphis at that time.
“I went to see him about it, and he couldn't do nothing—said he had no money,” which was a fact, no doubt.
“I tell you, them cussed Yanks fit well. They had good pluck, after all.”
“I think they proved that,” she said faintly, her terror returning, for she saw he thought her a Southerner as well as himself, and she had misty visions of being strangled, the silly girl. “Oh,” she thought, “will Frank never come?”
The man ate as if he had not seen food for many a day, and all the time his discourse was about the Yanks and what he'd like to do to' them. At last his hunger seemed satisfied, and rising, with his ragged, faded soldier cap in hand, he began to thank her profusely for her kindness. Something in her face arrested his attention, for he suddenly paused, and coming a step nearer to her, he said:
“I didn't like to beg, but I was nigh dead. If those Northern cusses hadn't beaten us into poverty, I'd have been home with my old mother now. I don't 'low they'd ever give a crust to a dog to keep life in his body!”
Her face flushed, and a sudden courage came to her. She answered, defiantly—
“Indeed, you do not do us justice. You do not know us.”
“Know you? Ain't you one of our people, ma'am?”
“I am one of those people you despise—a Yankee,” she answered, looking him steadily in the face.
“A Yankee? And you have fed me. Fed a man who has been abusing you right along, and you must hate him?”
“I do not hate you. Oh, no, I could not hate a single human being. You are one of God's children, and so am I.” The scowl of doubt and distrust fled from the man's troubled face. He towered above her, tall, gaunt, but powerfully built.
“But it seems strange you'd be so willing to help me out, when you knew that I was agin your kind. Why did you do it?”
“You were hungry, and asked me for food. I have a better reason than that, even. I am but a girl, but I had a little brother younger than I, the idol of our home, who went to war, as a bugler. He was so frail and boyish that they wouldn't enlist him as an able-bodied soldier, but he would go. He was wounded and taken prisoner in the Battle of the Wilderness, carried to Andersonville, where he died. I made a solemn promise to my own heart that never, while life lasted, would a human being ask me for food in vain, even though I took the food from my own lips to give him. I will keep my word. You are welcome to all I have given you. May you never want.” The man looked down at her, and in a choked voice said: “Ma'am, may I take you by the hand?”
She held out both hands toward him, and as he grasped them and reverently bent over them, a tear dropped on their whiteness, and he walked quickly away into the silence and darkness of the night.
