"ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC"
In vain were all our prayers—in vain our loving care. The time soon came when I knew that my Soldier's warfare was almost ended.
Father Jansen, who had come from Richmond to see him, asked, "Do you want to see me alone?" With his hand on the Father's knee, he replied:
"You know, Father, I never was a solitary bird. I was never alone except sometimes in the twilight or in the woods and then I had the spirit of my mother and my little girl with me."
"I know you are reconciled to death," said the priest.
"Ah, no; how could I be? I think God does not want me to be reconciled to leaving my wife and little boy alone in the world. He only wants me to obey with the courage of a soldier who receives an order that must be carried out because he is a soldier."
The Father was silent for a time as if going back in memory to an hour long past. Then he said:
"The first time I remember seeing you and having a talk with you was on Shockoe Hill. Standing there alone, your little boy gathering flowers some distance away, you seemed completely lost in the view before you. You held a bunch of wild flowers in your hand and were singing, 'As I view now those scenes so charming,' I listened and when you had finished the song you began to whistle. I asked you what tune you whistled and you said, 'I was thinking of Forsyth and of the boys and of the old fellow who came into the camp at San Antonio and acted out "Bennie Havens, O," and we all gave him money to go on his way and I sang that song that night, and it came back to me, and I wondered what had become of the boys. The next morning at breakfast a young fellow named May came in and said, "Boys, here is your money and it is worth it. I was Bennie Havens, O." I was wondering where May was.'"