Doctor Hathern's daughters

by Mary Jane Holmes

“Yes,” Carl said, and leaning upon the stone he listened while Fan told the story in all its details as only she could tell it.

At its close Carl was down upon the grassy mound, crushing the flowers we had put there, and sobbing bitterly, “Paul, Paul,—it was Paul! I have found him at last dead, and I had hoped he might come back to me alive. Oh, Paul, I am so sorry for everything.”

We were all crying now, and surely over no soldier’s grave, north or south, east or west, was sadder moan ever made than over that of The Boy that summer afternoon years and years ago. Whatever of wrong there had been in Carl’s treatment of Paul it was atoned for, if tears can atone for a wrong done to the dead. I had never seen a man or boy cry as Carl cried, with his face upon the grass.

“Don’t,” Fan said at last. “Don’t you remember that he bade us tell you he liked you?”

“Yes, I know, and it’s that which hurts, and the knowing for sure that he is dead,” Carl answered, lifting up his head and wiping away his tears. “I have dreamed so often that he came back that I have almost made myself believe that he would, and I have planned so many things to do when he came. Strange, too, that he has been so often in my mind since I came here. You told me that your woods were often full of Federal troops, and many times at the picnic I was saying to myself, ‘Was Paul ever here? Did he see this waterfall, or sleep under that big tree near which they said camp fires were built?’ and now I am by his grave, and you cared for him when he died. Tell me more, if there is more to tell.”

There was not much, except to show the letter dictated by Charlie and written by The Boy. This, with the lock of hair and the knife and jews-harp Fan had purposely brought with her, meaning to tell the story to Carl just as she had told it. The writing was a scrawl, for the hand which wrote it was throbbing with pain, but Carl identified it as Paul’s by the capitals and the formation of some of the letters. The hair and jews-harp and knife he remembered perfectly, and cried again as he held them in his hand.

“If I had been beaten in his place, as I ought to have been he might not have run away, but I was a coward and a sneak,” he said referring to a theft of cake which had been charged to Paul and not denied because he wished to shield his cousin.

The memory of this seemed to hurt Carl the most, and he went over the incident again and again, ending always with the cry, “If I could only take it back.” Then he told us briefly what there was to tell of Paul, whose last name was also Haverleigh, as their fathers had been brothers. Both Paul’s parents had died when he was young, and he had been, in a way, adopted by his Aunt Martha, who was very fond of him until the birth of Carl, when there came a change.

“I suppose my being her own naturally made a difference,” Carl said, “and I know now there was a difference, although mother might not have intended any. I was a spoiled child, and Paul was a lively, wide-awake boy, who, with nothing bad about him, was constantly getting me and himself into scrapes, which mother, with her strict notions, thought awful. Sometimes we were sent to bed or set on hard chairs until they must have ached; I am sure we did. She never inflicted corporal punishment upon Paul but once, and that was about the cake which she thought he stole and lied about. So she thrashed him, and he was nearly as old as I am now. ‘Too big to be licked,’ he said, and ran away. Where he went at first I do not know, and shall never know now, but after the war broke out we traced him, or thought we did, to the army as a drummer boy. Then mother went to Europe for two years, leaving me at school. When she came home she did try to find him and was almost sure he was at Fredericksburg, and that is all. Does mother know?” he asked, and Fan replied, “I have told her the story just as I told it to you. She could draw her own conclusions.”

For a moment Carl was silent, and then he asked, “Did she give no sign that she understood?”