Pocket Island: A Story of Country Life in New England

by Charles Clark Munn

"Father, there is something I must tell you, and I ask your forgiveness for not doing so before." And then, in her odd, winsome way, resting her cheek against his shoulder and holding her left hand before his face for a moment, she continued: "Can you guess?"

"No, my child," he answered, quickly, wishing to cheer her, "I could not possibly guess. The ways of my little girl are so deep and dark, how could I?" and then continuing in a more cheerful tone: "Don't cry any more, Liddy. Some one is coming back from the war by and by, and some one else will want a lot of new dresses for a wedding, and expects to be happy, and I hope she will be."

Then a little hand began stroking his arm and a still damp face was being rubbed against his shoulder, and presently a soft voice whispered: "Father, you have always been too good to me. You never said a word and you knew it all along, I guess!" which rather incoherent speech may be excused under the circumstances.

The few weeks that followed were not as gloomy to Liddy as later ones. Her home duties outside of school hours had always been numerous, and now she found them a relief. Letters also came frequently from the absent one, and she felt that he was not yet in danger—that was a grain of consolation. But when he wrote that they were to start for the front the next day, her heart grew heavy again and from that time on the dread suspense was never lifted. She wrote him frequently and tried to make her letters brave and cheerful. All the simple details of her home life were faithfully portrayed, and it became a habit to write him a page every night. She called it a little chat, but it might better have been called an evening prayer, for into those tender words were woven every sweet wish and hopeful petition of a loving woman's heart. After the battle of Chancellorsville a cloud seemed resting upon Southton, and Liddy felt that the weary waiting was becoming more oppressive than ever. It had been her father's custom to drive "over town," as it was called, once a day to obtain the news, and she had always met him on his return, even before he entered the house, to more quickly learn the worst. She began to dread even this, lest he should bring the tidings she feared most.

Then came the call for needed supplies to be used in the care of the wounded, and gladly Liddy joined with other good ladies in picking lint, preparing bandages, and the like, and contributing many articles for the use and comfort of the soldiers. In this noble work she came to realize how many other hearts besides her own carried a burden, and to feel a kinship of sorrow with them. Her engagement to Manson seemed to be generally known and the common burden soon obliterated her first girlish reticence concerning it.

"I feel that I am growing old very fast," she wrote him, "and that I am a girl no longer. Just think, it is only ten months since I felt angry when some of the girls told me they heard I was engaged to you, and now I don't care who knows it."

For the next three months there were no battles that he was engaged in, and yet the suspense was the same. Then when the new year came another burden was added, for her mother grew worse, and it seemed to Liddy as if the shadows were thick about her. An event that occurred in the early spring, and two months after the battle of Tracy City, made a deep impression on her. Captain Upson, promoted from first lieutenant of Company E, was wounded at that battle, and dying later, was brought to Southton for burial. He was universally respected and almost the entire townsfolk gathered at the church to pay their tribute. Hundreds failed to gain admission, and it was said to have been the largest funeral ever known in the town. Liddy had never seen a military funeral and the ceremonies were sadly impressive. The long service at the church; the touching words of the minister uttered over the flag-draped coffin, upon which rested a sword; the sad procession to the cemetery, headed by muffled drum and melancholy fife mingling their sounds with the tolling bell, and then the arched arms of soldiers, beneath which the body was borne; the short prayer; the three volleys; and last of all, lively music on the return. This feature impressed her as the saddest of all, for it seemed to say: "Now, we will forget the dead as soon as possible," which in truth was what it meant in military custom.

It is needless to say as she returned with her father to their now saddened home, a possible event of similar import in which she must be a broken-hearted mourner entered her mind. During the next month came another and far worse blow. Her mother, long an invalid, contracted a severe cold and, in spite of all possible effort to save her, in three short days passed away. To even faintly express the anguish of that now bereaved husband and motherless girl is impossible and shall not be attempted.

When the funeral was over and they once more sat by the fire in the sitting-room, as was customary each evening, their pleasant home seemed utterly desolate, and the tall clock in the hall ticked with far deeper solemnity. Liddy in fact was, as she felt herself to be, walking "through the valley and shadow of death." To add to her utter wretchedness, if that were possible, she had received no letter from Manson for three weeks, and there were no rifts of sunshine in her horizon. She wrote him a long account of her loss and all the misery of mind she was experiencing and then, as she had no address to mail it to, held the letter in waiting, and finally tore it up. "It will only give him pain to know it," she thought, "and he has enough to bear." When she next heard from him she realized more than ever how many lonely and homesick hours he had to endure, and was glad she had kept her sorrow to herself.

A few weeks later her father, thinking to make the house more cheerful, proposed that her Aunt Mary—a widowed sister of his—should come and live with them.