THE FAIR MESSENGER.
BY BENSON J. LOSSING.
On a warm, hazy day in January, 1849, I was at Orangeburg, South Carolina, eighty miles west of Charleston. My purpose was to visit the battle-ground of Eutaw Springs, on the right bank of the Santee River, forty miles distant. I hired a horse and gig for the journey. The steed was fleet, and the road was level and smooth most of the way. It lay through cultivated fields and dark pine forests, and across dry swamps wherein the Spanish moss hung like trailing banners from the live-oak and cypress trees.
At sunset I had travelled thirty miles. I lodged at the house of a planter not far from Vance's Ferry, on the Santee, where I passed the evening with an intelligent and venerable woman (Mrs. Buxton) eighty-four years of age. She was a maiden of seventeen when the armies of Greene and Rawdon made lively times in the region of the Upper Santee, Catawba, Saluda, and Broad rivers. She knew Marion, and Sumter, and Horry, and other less famous partisans, who were frequently at her father's home, on the verge of a swamp not far from the High Hills of Santee.
"We were Whigs," she said, "but the Tories were so thick and cruel around us, when Rawdon was at Camden, that father had to pretend he was a King's man to save his life and property. Oh, those were terrible times, when one was not sure on going to bed that the house would not be burned before morning."
"Did you witness any exciting scenes yourself?" I inquired.
"Yes, many. One in particular so stirred my young blood that I actually resolved to put on brother Ben's clothes, take our old fowling-piece, join the Swamp Fox, as the British called Marion, and fight for freedom to call my soul my own."
"What was the event?" I asked.
"You have read, maybe," said Mrs. Buxton, "how Lord Rawdon, after chasing General Greene far toward the Saluda, suddenly turned back, abandoned Fort Ninety-Six, and retreated toward Charleston. Well, Greene sent Harry Lee, with his light-horse, to get in front of Rawdon before he should reach the ferry on the Congaree at Granby. He was anxious to call Marion and Sumter to the same point to help Lee. Sumter was then encamped a dozen miles south of our home."
The venerable woman's dark brown eyes sparkled with emotion as she proceeded with the story. She said her cousin, on Greene's staff at the time, told her that when the General called for a volunteer messenger to carry a letter to Sumter, not one of the soldiers offered to undertake the perilous task, for the way was swarming with Tories. Greene was perplexed. Brave and pretty Emily Geiger, the young daughter of a German planter in Fairfield District, had just arrived at head-quarters with important information for the General. She rode a spirited horse with the ease and grace of a dragoon. Emily saw the hesitation of the soldiers, and Greene's anxiety. Earnestly but modestly she said to the General, "May I carry the letter?"
Greene was astonished. He was unwilling to expose her to the dangers which he knew awaited a messenger, for the Tories were vigilant.
"They won't hurt a young girl, I am sure; and I know the way," said Emily.
Greene's want was great, and he accepted the proffer of important service, but with many misgivings. Fearing Emily might lose the letter on the way, he informed her of its contents, that she might deliver the message orally. She mounted her fleet horse, and with the General's blessing, and cheered by the admiring officers, she rode off on a brisk gallop. She crossed the Wateree River at the Camden ferry, and pressed on toward the High Hills of Santee.
Emily was riding at a rapid pace through an open, dry swamp, at noonday, when one of three Tory scouts, who were on the watch, seized her bridle and bade her halt. With perfect composure and firm voice she demanded by what authority she was arrested. The young man was confounded by the appearance and manner of his prisoner. They had observed a woman riding in apparent haste from the direction of Greene's army toward the camp of Sumter, and suspected her errand. She proved to be a young maiden as fair as a lily, with mild blue eyes, and a profusion of brown hair. The young scout, smitten with her beauty and air of innocence, released his hold upon the bridle, when an older companion, made of sterner stuff, seized the reins, and led the horse to an unoccupied house on the edge of the swamp, and bade her dismount. The younger scout gallantly assisted her to alight, and she was taken into the house. With proper delicacy, the scouts sent for Mrs. Buxton's mother, living a mile distant, to search Emily's person.
"I went with mother," said Mrs. Buxton, "to see a woman prisoner. The door of the house was guarded by the younger scout, who was Peter Simons, son of a neighbor two miles away—and a right gallant young fellow he was. After the war he married my sister, and that youngster who took your horse when you alighted is their grand-child."
"Then you saw the young prisoner?" I said.
"Yes, and I helped mother search her. We were amazed when we saw, instead of a brazen-faced middle-aged woman, as we supposed a spy must be, a sweet young girl about my own age, looking as innocent as a pigeon. Our sympathies were with her, but mother performed her duty faithfully. We found nothing on her person or in her manner that would afford an excuse for a suspicion that she was a spy. She was released by the scouts, who offered her many apologies for detaining her. She had been too smart for them. While alone in the house, guarded by Peter Simons, she had eaten up Greene's letter, piece by piece. So secured from detection, she willingly submitted to our search, and told us frankly who she was.
"'My name is Geiger—Emily Geiger,' she said. 'My father is a planter near Winnsborough, in Fairfield, and I am on my way to visit friends below.'
"Wasn't she smart?" said the old lady. "She was going to 'visit friends below'—Sumter and his men; our friends likewise, for that matter. When the scouts dismissed her we took her to our house, gave her some refreshments, and urged her to stay with us until morning. But she could not be persuaded, saying the two armies were so near it might soon become impossible to reach her friends. Peter Simons had accompanied us home, and offered to escort Emily to her friends as a protector. She declined his offer, and rode away, bearing our silent blessings. We saw no more of her until some time after the war."
"Did she reach Sumter's camp in safety?" I inquired.
"Yes, and delivered Greene's message almost word for word as he had written it."
Sumter and Marion joined forces, and hurried to Friday's Ferry, at Granby. Rawdon, baffled, did not attempt to cross the Congaree, but fled before the pursuing Americans toward Orangeburg, on the Edisto.
"You say you saw no more of Emily Geiger until some time after the war," I remarked. "What was her fate?"
"A happy one. She had married a rich young planter on the Congaree named Thurwitz. They had been on a visit at her father's house in Fairfield, and went out of their way to visit the scene of her exploit in 1781. They crossed the Wateree at Camden, as she had done before, visited the house in which she had been searched, and drove to our home to thank my mother for her kindness on that occasion. They had with them their sweet little baby, a few months old. Peter Simons was then my sister's husband, and at our house Emily stood face to face with her jailer of an hour. She freely told her story, and owned that she was much startled when Peter seized her bridle, but controlled her feelings. She told us of her dinner on Greene's letter, and thought how silly the young scout was in leaving her alone in the house while he guarded the door on the outside. Peter wasn't much of a Tory, and we all rejoiced that a kind Providence had protected Emily from detection.
"The ways of God are mysterious," said the venerable matron, laying her hand on my knee. "Peter's son married Emily's daughter—the sweet little baby she brought to our house—and their son owns a plantation a few miles from here."
[HOW TOM JONES LOST HIS PROMOTION.]
BY MRS. FRANK McCARTHY.
Tom Jones began to wheeze and sneeze last spring, and pretty soon a cough set in that alarmed his mamma, and she was just making up her mind to send for the family physician, when Tom was seized one morning with a fit of coughing which ended in a prolonged, unmistakable whoop. No Indian on the war-path ever seemed better satisfied with a whoop than Mrs. Jones did with this one of Tom's.
"Why, Tommy's got the whooping-cough!" she exclaimed, joyfully, to her husband.
"Does a legacy usually come with it?" said Mr. Jones.
"Well, it's a comfort to know it isn't anything settling on his lungs," replied Mrs. Jones. "He's got to have whooping-cough some time, and it's a good time to have it now, when the warm weather is coming. Now we needn't wait for vacation to go to the country."
"You are in luck, Tom," said Mr. Jones. "You can take a long legal holiday, and need not play hookey any more."
"Catch me taking a holiday till the rest of the boys do, and you'll catch a weasel asleep: Joe Brown ain't going to get ahead of me," said Tom, whose father knew he never "played hookey."
"But, my son, you don't want to give away the whooping-cough? It's something nice to keep; you mustn't be too generous with it."
"There's nothing stingy about me," said Tom, who, in truth, was a whole-souled little fellow, always sharing what he had with his playmates. "If it's a good time to have it, why can't I go and give it to the whole class?"
"There's a prejudice against people being too generous," said Mr. Jones; and patting Tom's head, he went off to business.
Tom gathered up his books, but his mamma explained to him that he couldn't go to school with whooping-cough.
"How long does this thing last?" said Tom, impatiently.
"Oh, quite a while," said Mrs. Jones, cheerfully—"two or three months, perhaps."
"Two or three months," echoed Tom, with dismay. "Why, Joe Brown'll be away ahead of me by that time, and I sha'n't be promoted!"
"Well, never mind, dear," said his mamma; "it can't be helped, you know. You'll have to have it some time, and it's a good time to have it now."
Mrs. Jones began humming a tune, and went up stairs to pack her trunks, not dreaming of the tempest that raged in the bosom of her son Tom. He threw down his books, put both elbows on the table, and let his chin fall into his hands. It was all he could do to keep up with Joe Brown now. Joe was a sickly fellow, but he had great pluck and perseverance, and would do his examples with a handkerchief tied around his head—to keep it together, as he said. He lost many days by sickness, but always made it up by extra work, and the extra brains that he had stored away somewhere in that rickety noddle of his. Tom admired him and loved him. They had been neighbors, chums, and classmates as long as he could remember. Their wood sheds joined at the back of their yards, and every morning each climbed up to have a long talk with the other about the boy-business of the day. Tom admired and loved Joe, but he feared him too. Joe's delicate health and extra brains about struck a balance with Tom's rugged constitution and average intellect; but how about these extra months of whooping-cough? These would leave fearful odds on Joe's side. Tom could never catch up with him again—never! It was mean. It was hard. It was not to be borne. Why couldn't Joe get the pesky old whooping-cough too? But Tom thought of Joe's hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, and put that temptation away from him. He made up his mind he would caution Joe at once, and ran out to Bridget for a yellow rag that he had seen about the kitchen. Taking it out to the wood shed, he hoisted it upon a hastily improvised pulley.
"What's that?" said Joe, who had been waiting for Tom.
"I'm in quarantine," shouted Tom. "Don't breathe this way. You know that cough of mine? Well, it's whooping-cough!"
Joe darted back. "Gracious!" he said; "I wouldn't have it for anything. I couldn't go to school. I'd lose all chance of promotion."
"That's my case exactly," said Tom, bitterly.
"It's too bad, Tom," called Joe, keeping well out of breathing distance. "But I say, old fellow, you can study all the same, you know. You're a sturdy chap; it won't hinder you. It would knock me higher than a kite. I can't afford to lose any flesh and blood. I'm next door to a skeleton now."
Tom remembered that. He was glad then he had hoisted the quarantine flag.
Joe went on shouting: "I'll keep you posted in the lessons, Tom, so you won't fall behind. I'll stick to you like bees-wax. Eh, Tom, is that all right?"
"All right," called Tom.
The quarter bell rang. Joe and Tom parted for many a day. Tom went out to his grandfather's farm with his mother, and Joe went to school.
To an indifferent observer it would seem that there was no comparison between Tom's luck and Joe's. To have a grandfather was a good deal, in the first place; Joe hadn't any. He hadn't even a father. But to have a grandfather that owned a farm! Here was what you might call downright good fortune. Tom did enjoy it. His whooping-cough was of a light variety, and didn't disturb him much. But he was all the while thinking of the boys fighting away at those examples, and how much easier it was to puzzle them out in the class-room than out there in the haymow. There was so much to distract a fellow. If the boys at school made as much fuss over doing a sum as the hens did about laying an egg, they'd drive the teacher mad. Then the swallows went circling around the top of the barn until it made a body's head swim, and that young rascal of a colt gnawed the manger, and kicked and coaxed to go afield with Tom, and if ever there did happen to be a lull in the racket, something in that hay made a fellow so sleepy—must have been some poppies dried in that grass. And, worst of all, Joe Brown had turned traitor. He had been as good as his word at first, and had kept Tom posted right along; but for more than a month he hadn't sent him a line. It was so hard to plod along almost in the dark. His father helped him when he came out on Saturdays, and Tom didn't give up. He studied on out of spite; but it was harder work for a boy with a heart like Tom's to strive for spite than love. Tom felt that he might perhaps pass with the rest of the boys, and keep abreast with Joe Brown after all, but there wasn't much comfort in it.
His father took him back to the city the last week in June, and on the night of his arrival Tom went out to the wood shed to have it out with Joe. He made up his mind to tell him what he thought of him, and never speak to him again; but he felt very miserable over it, very miserable indeed.
Bridget was out there splitting wood, and called to Tom as he began to climb:
"You needn't rache up to see the boy beyant. He'll climb no more. He's lyin' in bed these three weeks, and they say he's wastin' away. That nasty 'hoopin'-cough wint bad wid the poor little craythur."
"Whooping-cough!" cried Tom. "Did Joe get it?"
"Av coorse he did, wid all the rest of the gossoons; but it wint wrong wid poor Joe's windpipe, bad luck to it, and ruined him intirely."
Tom ran out in the street. He felt so sorry, and so glad—so sorry Joe was sick, and so glad he was true. His heart leaped up to think he had found his friend again, and then sank because what Bridget said had given him a nameless fear. The very first boy Tom met told him the doctor said he didn't think Joe Brown would live to go to school again.
Tom ran in to his father, with so pale a face that it frightened Mr. Jones; but he was Tom's confidant, as well as his father, and soothed and comforted him.
"Come," he said, taking Tom by the hand, "let's go around and see Joe."
They found him in bed, and as white as the wall he was propped against. He held out his wasted hand to Tom. "You've come back in time for the examination," he said, with a little bitterness in his smile. "You've got all the odds now, Tom; go in and win. I told you this thing would cripple me. I'll never tackle an example again."
Tom grew almost as pale as Joe, and looked imploringly at his father. Big tears rolled out of Mrs. Brown's eyes.
"He's all I have in the world," whispered the poor widow to Mr. Jones.
"Well, please God, madam," said Mr. Jones, "Joe will be all right yet. With your permission we'll get him out in the country on Tom's grandfather's farm. What he wants is country air and rest, and to give up this wicked struggle for supremacy. There's a better victory, my boys, than that with a mathematical problem—to do the best you can, and bid godspeed to the one that can honestly do better. There are some things far better than a class promotion, and you'll find them out there on the farm: health, contentment—"
"And the jolliest colt you ever saw, Joe," broke in Tom, "and no end to dogs and pigeons."
Joe began to look so much brighter and better. "Wait till you go back and pass the examination, Tom," he said. "I've been awfully mean and envious of you; but I'd take as much pride in it now as you would."
"Wait till you're able to go with me," said Tom. "I've been mean and envious too; but we'll begin all over again, Joe, in grandpop's barn."
So the boys went back to the country together, and Tom lost his promotion; but when Joe was able to first set his foot in Tom's grandfather's barn, and see that colt, Tom was one of the happiest fellows in the world.
BASHFUL.
From a Photograph by Singhi ("Binghamton's Fotografer").
Oh, Charley would a sailor be,
And live for aye on the bright blue sea—
Yo ho!