CHAPTER XII.—THE STORY OF AN UNSUSPECTED HERO
ROSE early and met my dear friends, and told them the news, and received their congratulations. Then I told of Pearl's illness, and at my mother's request took them with me to his room. We entered on tiptoes. He was stroking the ear of his old dog, who lay by his bedside. His “jacket” hung on a chair, turned wrong side out, within reach of his hand, the medals pinned to its lining.
“Happy New Year!” he exclaimed, cheerfully, as he took my hand. “I've got to tell ye the truth now. My name is Brown—Henry Machias Pearl Brown, full-jewelled and a yard wide. I confess and throw myself on your mercy. I've lied like the devil. Do you blame me?”
“It's the man and not the name that's important,” I said.
“It's a long story, but I'll make it short.” he went on. “When I was a boy my father moved west—settled in northern New York. There I fell in love with a lily of a girl—oh, she was wonderful! I couldn't make up my mind that I was good enough for her. The minister used to tell us that we were all a lot o' worms, an' we believed it, but I thought she was the one great exception. I recollect that old text:
“'... The stars are not pure in His sight; how much less man, that is a worm.'
“When I met an angel I naturally hesitated about offerin' her a worm. It didn't seem to me much of a compliment. Oh, I tell ye, we had to look out for the early birds! Ye see, the worm referred to was a caterpillar, and the minister didn't tell us about the butterfly. I tried every way to improve myself, but I waited too long. She married another an' a better man. I went away to the war, got my face all scrambled up by a piece o' shell, an' crawled into a lot o' bushes to die. I lay there an' kicked till my feet made a hole in the ground, but I didn't know what I was doin'. By-an'-by I felt suthin' pinchin' my hand. Seemed so 'twouldn't let me die; kep' a nippin' away till I raised my head. I could see a little out o' one eye, an' there was an' ol' settin' hen with her nest hid in the bushes, an' she was peckin' my hand. She gave me a cuff with her wings, an' told me t' git up an' go on 'bout my business, an' I did—crawled out on my hands an' knees, an' they found me an' patched me up. I felt all right, but I had this face on me. Come north, an' behaved 'bout as bad as I knew how. Got 'shamed o' my character as well as my face, so I dropped Brown, for that was the name o' my father, an' no better man ever lived. When I met you, Jake, I was nigh the end o' my rope. You made a man o' me. You was her boy—that's the reason.”
His voice broke, and he pressed my hand to his lips.
My mother came and stood beside me with streaming eyes, and said:
“Henry Brown, I am Anne Jones.”
“Anne Jones, come here,” he said.
He felt her wrinkled forehead and her white hair with his hand. He seemed to be vainly trying to see her face. He was like one looking far away. “Oh, I can see you!” he said. “Hair as yellow as a com-tassel, an' blue eyes an' cheeks as red as roses, an' feet like a fawn's. You are beautiful, an' I love you, Anne, I love you. I've wanted to tell you—these forty years.”
It may be that she loved him, also, for she never left his side until one June day, more than a month later, we saw for the last time this modest, gentle, unknown hero of war and peace.