Peggy O'Neal

by Alfred Henry Lewis

Yet it half shames my years, these drops of feeling. And for all that, I well recall how Dale and Overton and Houston and Blair—no meek souls, these!—were as much commoved when claimed of thoughts of General Jackson;—such, for his friends, were the soft and softening spells and powers of the man! The wet eyes of these, stern and rock-hewn, may save me from the stain of doting weakness. But I loiter—I lose time when there is none to lose—a wandering delay is the crime common of old age.

Our journey to Washington was disputed by applause at every foot; the double banks of the Cumberland and the Ohio appeared to have become alike the rendezvous of South and West and North. Bands brayed and “committees” came aboard; a dozen times was the boat tied up and the General borne ashore as on a wave to greet and be greeted of roaring thousands who hailed him their Messiah of politics and one come for their redemption. From the first our progress was hedged and canopied of the never-ceasing shout, “Hurrah! for Jackson!” Night and day it was in our ears, and our very sleep gave way and fled before it.

To say that through this I held no alarms for the General would be but an idle picture of my feelings. Verily! I more than once found my heart in my mouth lest the gusty multitude that struggled and fought to touch his hand should kill him for mere kindness.

And yet he would thrive and be fat upon it, if such word by any padding of hyperbole may be made to fit his slim meagerness. His gray eye would light, his lean cheek show a color, his milky bristle of hair turn more stiffly, jauntily spinous with each of these encounters. When I would remonstrate and cite his sick weakness to forbid, he would shake his head and smile—his closest journey to a laugh. Then he would say:

“Major, you don't know me! These shoutings are as medicine in wine. These people love me; I take strength from their hands; their applause is my food and I live and grow heavy by it.”

And so this boisterousness of endorsement went on; and the General reveled while I sat sour with terror lest from it he sicken and die, stricken by the very evidences of his popularity. He was right and I was wrong; he came from this general joy, which with every hour arose and laid actual hands upon him, as one remade.

Some pages back I pitched upon the fourteenth as a day much in my mind, and the fourth since we came upon the capital. I begin narration properly with that day, regarding what has gone before as preliminary and given for a clearer knowledge of that which is to follow as it unfolds.

There were matters to take place upon the fourteenth which served to fix it in my memory. The first was a mishap to the General himself.

For the rain and the mist and the mire, we that day found ourselves much confined to the Indian Queen. This might be called no hardship of loneliness since, despite the mud, all the world would pull on its boots to visit us. The General, whose dyspepsia was dominant, had eaten only a little rice. This he took at short intervals; yet such dwarf spoonfuls were they, that in the end the aggregate was smallish, and he found himself weakly languid as a reward.

The General had been to a casual reception below to meet official folk—they were building hopes for themselves of what should follow inauguration, still eighteen days away—and being done with them, and uneasy with the weariness of their call, was returning to his room. At the stair's head he stumbled; as he fell he griped his side and gave a smothered sob of pain.