“I know why you are up so late, mother; and what you are here for. You are thinking of what Mrs. Carleton said, and wondering if it is true. I guess ’tis, mother, for I don’t get any stronger, and my cough hurts me so. But I’m not a bit afraid to die now, with you beside me up to the very last minute. In Richmond it was different: and I prayed so hard that God would let me come back, if only to drink from the well and then die on the grass beside it. He did let me come, and now we mustn’t say anything if He does not let me stay but a little bit of a while. I’ve been thinking it over since Mrs. Mather went away, and at first it seemed hard that Eli and John should both have such good luck, and only ‘Stub,’ be the one to suffer.”
He said this last playfully, using his old nickname of “Stub,” because he saw by the dim light burning on the table the bitter look of anguish upon his mother’s face, and he would fain remove it. At the mention of the name which her more stalwart sons had given to her baby, the widow’s chin quivered, and her rough hand smoothed the thin light hair, but she did not speak, and Isaac went on:
“Then, too, I want to live till the war is over. I want to hear the joyful shouts, and see the bonfires they will kindle in the streets. There’s a big box in the barn. I hid it there the morning I went away, and I said when the peace comes we can burn that box, and mother will look out from the window, and the church bells will ring, and there’ll be such rejoicings. Now I ’most know I shan’t be here to see it. But, mother, you’ll burn the box,—you and Susan, with Eli and John,—and you’ll think of me, who did what I could to bring the peace.”
There was a choking sound like the swallowing of a great sob, and that was all the answer the widow made; only her hands moved faster through the threads of light brown hair, and her rigid form sat up straighter, more rigid than ever. She was suffering the fiercest pangs she would ever know, for she was giving Isaac up. She was coming to the knowledge that he was really going from her,—that Jimmie Carleton was right, and Isaac was not long for this world. When at last her mind reached that point, the tension of nerve gave way for a little, and her hot tears poured over the white face she kissed so tenderly.
The moon was looking in at the low west window ere the widow went back to her own bed, and Isaac, nestling down among his pillows, fell away to sleep, dreaming of the bonfire in the street, when the hidden box was burned, and dreaming, too, of that other world which lies so near this that he could almost see the loving hands stretched out to welcome him.
After that night the widow’s mouth shut together more firmly than ever, and the frown between her eyes was more marked and decided, while her manner to all save Isaac and Annie Graham was sharper, and crisper than before. When Eli’s letter came telling of his promotion and lauding Jimmie Carleton, whose generous act was a by-word in the company, her face relaxed a little, and she said to Annie Graham: “The Lord is good to my two oldest boys, but if he’d give me Isaac I wouldn’t care for all the titles in Christendom.”
As the warm weather came on, Isaac did not get up any more to sit by the open door, but lay all day on his bed, sometimes sleeping, sometimes thinking, and sometimes listening while Annie read to him from the Bible. Isaac was very fond of Annie. She had been George Graham’s wife, and he evinced so much desire to have her constantly with him that at last she stayed altogether with Mrs. Simms, only going occasionally to the Mather Mansion, where they missed her so much. Rose was nothing without her, and had at first opposed her going to the Widow Simms.
“If help was needed,” she said, “she would hire some one, for Annie must not tire herself out just as she was beginning to grow plump and beautiful again.”
But when Isaac said to her: “Please let Mrs. Graham come; it will not be long she’ll have to stay, and she is so full of hope and faith that it makes me more willing to die and to go away alone across the Jordan,” she withdrew her opposition, and Annie was free to go and come as she liked. It suited Annie to get away from the Mather Mansion just then, for she could not help feeling that there was a purpose in Mrs. Carleton’s questioning her of her early history, and she hailed any excuse which removed her from the scrutiny with which since that conversation touching her early home and maiden name Mrs. Carleton had evidently regarded her. Jimmie had written to her once, inclosing the unsealed note in a letter to Rose, and Annie’s cheeks had been all ablaze as she read it, for she knew the mother’s eyes were fastened upon her. It was nothing but a simple acknowledgment of some article Annie had made and sent to him in a box filled for all three of the soldiers, Will Mather, Tom and Jimmie. There was also mention made of Annie’s kindly message, to the intent that she did think he was right in giving the office to Eli, and a wish expressed that she would write to him.
“You don’t know how much good letters from home do such scamps as we privates are, or how we need something from the civilized world to keep us from turning heathens.”