The long way

by Mary Imlay Taylor

The colonel took off his hat and buried his face in it. Let no man say that in that hour the rough old soldier and the profane doctor did not pray.

John lay a long while between life and death. Then one beautiful morning he opened his eyes on a new world, where a fresh breeze was blowing and the sun shone. He lay still and weak on his bed and watched a little lizard crawl in the sun at the tent door. His head felt quite light but his heart was filled with peace, for he had been dreaming a great deal and Rachel had spoken to him, not once but many times; he remembered her voice quite well.

He was amazed when the surgeon came in and sat down beside him. The old man looked ill and worn as he felt John's pulse. Then John remembered.

"I meant to have gone down to-day to see the boy from Maryland," he said. "I'll go—"

"The boy's well," said the doctor, "he's been well a month."

John tried to sit up in bed and failed. "What do you mean?" he gasped. "Have I been ill?"

"Six weeks; you're promoted to be a captain of the Tenth, and you're ordered home two weeks from to-day."

It was then that John fainted. In his own mind he had done only his plain duty. He had such a simple conception of life that he perplexed other people; they imagined him to be always trying to compass great ends, while in reality he only saw his work and did it. Simplicity is sometimes more perplexing than diplomacy and John had achieved perfect simplicity; he had done a hard duty well because he had no idea how to leave it undone, and he did not know that it was uncommon to do it in his way, or that he had done it uncommonly well. He was surprised that the men had so suddenly adopted him and he was a little shy under their enthusiasm. The boy from Maryland followed him around like a dog and wept when John took ship on the government transport with his tall, thin person fairly bulging with farewell letters and remembrances that he was carrying to the kindred of the dead soldiers. It was this multiplicity of commissions, this new and deadly popularity, that had kept John from writing that one important letter, Rachel's letter. But, if he did not write it, he thought it out a dozen times, for she was never long absent from his mind. All the way across the Pacific it may be said that Rachel traveled with him; she fairly walked the waves, and when he stood, as he often stood, on the deck and looked seaward with steadfast eyes, he was thinking of Rachel.

He had known her nearly all his life and he had loved her long before Rachel had even dimly perceived it. But John was deliberate; not even a great love could reverse the fixed habits of a lifetime, and he waited for the full time to come before he opened his heart, not knowing that opportunity had come like a thief in the night and stolen away again, thwarted and lost forever. He continued to look ahead with steadfast, blue eyes and that habit—as strong as his deliberation—the habit of determination. All that he had ever won in his life he had won by a quiet, determined perseverance. It was said of him in the regiment that Charter's perseverance was more deadly than a brickbat, and John's perseverance had the effect of a moral brickbat; it was a projectile that hit opposition fairly in the bull's-eye and crushed its way through it. He had worked his way steadily upward without favoritism,—no one had rolled logs for him; he had the qualities that win recognition in the teeth of circumstance, and he had outgrown his comrades, as he had outgrown himself; at thirty-three he was still growing, still pursuing his moral development. It was this quality that had lifted him above his fellows, and that had stretched him on a sick-bed for weeks in the islands. Sometimes our victories seem defeats because they are robbed of the fruits, and John's greatest victory had been won in the cholera camp; he had grown steadily during those weeks of service; the regiment adored him, but he had lost touch with the world, and it is not always safe to put aside an important letter.

By this it will be seen that, having been ill six weeks, and coming home on a transport, beset by many duties, John had heard nothing, and had missed many home papers and even one newsy letter from his cousin Pamela Van Citters. He was coming home to Rachel Leven; he had decided, after much deliberation, that it was better to speak than to write, for he was by no means sure of Rachel's love, though he was overwhelmingly sure of her kindness. It would be sweet to see Rachel; there was something in her strength, her tranquility, her sanity, that appealed to John's heart. He felt their community of spirit; she was clever and charming and all that, and yet he understood her and she understood him. He landed in San Francisco with a feeling of joy that he stood once more on the same continent, that the sea was no longer between them. But it was characteristic of Charter that he proceeded to attend to the various commissions that he had received from the dead soldiers out in Luzon. He traveled miles out of his way to carry a letter and a lock of hair to a bereaved old mother, and he took back a ring and a sword to a young widow. He did a dozen painful and tedious things before he set his face toward Washington, where he had to report to the War Department and where he hoped to find Rachel.