“Don’t you remember me, or what is the matter?” said I, thoroughly puzzled.
“I never saw you before, ma’am, did I? Never to my knowledge.”
“Well done for you, Jackson!” and “That’s a good one, isn’t it?” burst from more than one of the men, with a hearty laugh.
He looked troubled and bewildered. I saw the whole thing at once. “Never mind, Jackson,” said I, “you have been very ill,—as ill as it was possible to be to recover, and you remember nothing of that time; I suppose it seems like a long dream.”
Such was precisely the case. Even the weeks when I had supposed him perfectly conscious, were all a blank; he had not the slightest recollection even of being brought in, and of nothing afterwards until the weeks during which I had been away.
My pale, attenuated boy, too, was changed into the round, ruddy young soldier, looking particularly well in his uniform. As is so frequently the case in typhoid fevers, he had gained flesh rapidly, as he recovered, and felt all the buoyancy and brightness of a thorough convalescence. I could not avoid comparing and contrasting the two cases. Both brought in with the same disease; in the same apparently hopeless state; the same surprise excited by the recovery of each; but here the parallel ceased. The one, scarcely more than a child,—a beardless boy, with smooth, polished brow, rising with all the vigor of youth from this terrible illness, and throwing off the disease as completely as though it had never touched him. The other, worn and scarred by life’s conflicts more than by time; his brow deeply furrowed more by excess than years; his hair prematurely whitened, rising, it is true, from the disease, but how?—without spirit, energy, or any sort of spring; wearily dragging one foot after the other; listlessly and languidly sitting hour after hour upon his bed, scarcely noticing or speaking to any one. His time of life would of necessity give a slower convalescence, but there was far more against him than this: a constitution broken and ruined, as we soon found, by bad habits, which he renewed as soon as permitted to go out, producing, of course, a relapse. Long before I knew this, I was conscious that I could never overcome my repugnance to the man; at first I attributed the feeling to the extreme dread of him I had felt at our first meeting, and which I could not forget; but I soon became convinced that there was a stronger reason. If inward purity writes itself upon the outward form, (and who can question that it does?) the converse is equally true. There is a sort of instinct, or rather—for that is too low a term—a sort of spiritual consciousness, which warns us when evil is near; that part of our being puts forth feelers, as it were, moral antennæ, which extend themselves in congenial soil, but recoil at the touch of corruption of any sort.
Ennis soon brought me a spelling-book, given him by one of the men, and claimed my promise to teach him to read. Most faithfully he studied, but just as we were priding ourselves upon our progress, and he was triumphantly mastering the mysteries of “It is he,” “I am in,” the order came, and by a strange chance, Jackson and he were to go on to Washington together, to rejoin their different regiments. This I exceedingly regretted, as I looked upon Jackson as very far from a desirable companion or example for a young boy like Ennis. This feeling was confirmed, when, on the morning of their departure, Jackson came to bid me goodbye, with unsteady step and bloodshot eye. I spoke as I felt, strongly and sternly, as I could not but feel towards one so lately raised from the very gate of death, and thus requiting the Love and Mercy which had spared him. I know not, and it matters not what I said, but when I spoke of the fearful responsibility which would rest upon his soul, should he lead that child committed to his care into sin, he looked surprised and startled, and promised me, in the most solemn manner, that he should come to no evil through him. It would have eased my heart of a heavy load, could I have relied more implicitly upon that promise; but, after all, such feelings are but a want of Faith; because the visible guard was the last that I should have chosen for him. I forgot that that young boy went forth attended by a bright, unseen Guard, to guide and protect him through every step of his way. And so we parted. Weeks have formed themselves into months, and months have formed themselves into a year, but I have never heard of them, or even seen their names, and cannot tell whether they are numbered among the living or the dead.
I can scarcely tell why it is, but there are no cases, in all the memories of hospital life, which stand out so clearly stereoscoped upon my brain, as the two of which I have just spoken.