What cared New England that her six stars were looking down upon the scene, in shameful “Union” with that blood-red flag?
* * * * *
The rapid removal of Alice, and the discomforts of her situation in the empty hut, brought on fever. In states of half wakefulness, she murmured continually, “I want my mother! I want to go home to my mother!”
“Yes, dear, you shall go home,” said Katie, tenderly smoothing back her straggling hair. “Who are you?” inquired the sufferer. “I am Katie. Don’t you know Katie?” The words seemed to waken no remembrance. She closed her eyes, and tears oozed slowly from them, as she murmured piteously, “I want to go home to my mother.”
In this state of half consciousness she lingered two or three days. It was a mild, bright morning, and the terraced hills looked beautiful in the golden light, when she woke from a deep slumber, with a natural expression in her eyes, and asked, “Where am I?” “You are in Kansas, dear,” replied Katie. A shadow passed quickly over the thin pale face, and she pressed her emaciated hand against her heart. Again the eyelids closed, and the tears oozed through, as she answered feebly, “Yes—I remember.”
All was still, still, in the wilderness. The human wolves were for the present glutted with their prey, and Lawrence lay silent in its ruins. Mr. Bradford was in prison, in danger of a traitor’s death. The inmates of the hut looked at each other mournfully, but no one spoke. Presently, the invalid made a restless movement, and Katie stooped over her, to moisten her parched lips. She opened her eyes, which now seemed illuminated with a preternatural, prophetic light; and, for the first time since her husband was murdered, she smiled. “Oh, Katie,” she said, “I have been with William, having such a happy time walking over the hills! From Mount Oread, he showed me the prairies all covered with farm-houses and fields of corn. Bells were ringing, and swarms of children pouring into the school houses. All round the horizon were church-spires, and beautiful houses, with windows glittering in the sunlight. When I told him it seemed just like dear New England, he smiled, and said, ‘This is Free Kansas!’ Then he pointed to a great University on the highest of the hills, and said, ‘Little Johnny is President, and the Blue Mound is called Free Mont.’”
“I hail the omen!” exclaimed Kate. The thin lips of Alice quivered tremulously. It was her last smile on earth.
I WANT TO GO HOME.
There once wandered with me a beautiful child,
With eyes like the antelope, lambent and mild;
And she looked at me long, with an earnest gaze,
As I watched the sun sink in a golden haze.
She knew not the thoughts that were floating away,
Through the closing gates of that radiant day;
But a something she read in my dreaming eyes,
Of the pale autumn leaves, and the sunset skies;