A Lincoln Conscript

by Homer Greene

[HE FACED HIS FELLOW TOWNSMEN.]

“My friends and neighbors, I do not deserve this. I never dreamed of a welcome home like this. I thought to come back quietly, alone, and slip as easily as I might into the old grooves, and I hoped that some day, possibly, you would forget. But the boys who marched with me, fought with me, suffered with me, not one of whom but has been braver, truer, more faithful, and more deserving than I,—the boys, I say, would not listen to it. So here I am, with them—and you. And now that I am here I want to say to you what I have had it in my heart to say to you, night and day, for nearly two years. I am, as you know, descended from the men and women of the South. When the war came on I sympathized with my brothers there. If I had been resident among them then, and had failed to rally to their cause, I would have been more than a poltroon. I could not see that the environment of a lifetime here should have led me into wiser counsels and better judgment. You know the story of my folly. But, like Saul of Tarsus, breathing out threatenings and slaughter, I came one day into the presence of an overmastering soul. I went out from that presence changed, and utterly subdued. I saw things in a new light and with a larger vision. Not that I loved my people of the South any less, but that I loved my country more. By the grace and mercy of Abraham Lincoln, and the goodness of God, I was permitted to fight in the ranks of my country’s soldiers, side by side with my son whom you have just seen and heard. I never commended this boy publicly before, and it is not probable that I ever shall again; but I will say to-day, that no knight of old ever sought the Holy Grail with more persistent courage and deeper devotion than he has sought his country’s welfare. As for me, I am what I am to-day, I have done what I have done, because of Abraham Lincoln. If you had seen him as I saw him, if you had heard him as I heard him, you would have loved him as I loved him—yet not so deeply. For my love was greater because he loved my people of the South. Doubt me if you will, discredit me if you must, but I speak what I believe and know when I say that the men and women of the South have never had a better friend, a truer guide, a wiser counselor, than they lost when the foul assassin’s bullet sent this gentle spirit to its home. I have done what I could. I have been the best soldier I knew how to be. Now I am back with you, to take up once more the old life, and to try to prove to you through all the days and nights that are to come, that your flag is my flag, that your country is my country, and that this home among the Pennsylvania hills was never quite so dear to me before as it is to-day. I thank you. I am grateful to you all. Your welcome has touched me so deeply—so deeply”—and then his voice went utterly to pieces, and with tears of joy streaming down his face, he left the stand.

The meeting did not last long after that. There were more numbers on the programme indeed. But when Rhett Bannister had finished, so many were talking, so many were cheering, so many were crying, that the chairman simply let the people have their own way and finish as they would.

It was a happy supper-party at the Bannister home that night; so like the suppers in the summer days of old, in the years before the war. After it was over, Bob went down by the path across the meadow, as he used to go, to see Seth Mills. The old man had failed much of late. Age was resting heavily upon him, and he was too feeble to go far from home.

And in the beautiful June twilight Rhett Bannister sat upon his porch and looked out upon the old familiar scene: the fields, the trees, the road, the clear and wonderful expanse of sky. But when his eyes wandered, for a moment, to the shop and the windmill tower crowned by the motionless blades of the big wheel, he turned them away. There were things which, on this night of nights, he did not care to bring back to memory. And, as he sat there, holding in his own the hand of the happiest, proudest woman that the stars looked down upon that summer night in all the old Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there came the well-remembered click of the front-gate latch, and, out of the darkness, hobbling slowly up the walk, came the bent figure of Seth Mills. Bannister leaped from the porch and hurried down the path to meet him. The old man stopped and looked him over in well-feigned dismay.

“Rhett Bannister,” he exclaimed, “you blamed ol’ copperhead! you skallywag deserter! you deep-dyed villyan! what ’a you wearin’ them blue soldier clothes fur?”

Then, as Bannister hesitated, in doubt as to how he should take this outburst, his visitor broke into a hearty laugh.

“Well, Rhett,” he said, “I forgive you. I forgive you. Where’s your hand? Where’s your two hands? I knowed what you’d do when the boy went. I told him so. God bless you, but I’m proud of you! I’m proud o’ both of you! Bob’s been down; splendid boy; said I mustn’t come up here; too fur to walk. I told him to mind his own business; that I was comin’ up to shake hands with Rhett Bannister ef it took a leg; ef it took both legs, by cracky!”