Rose Mather: A tale

by Mary Jane Holmes

There was no alternative save to rip the entire thing, and with glowing cheeks, Rose began the task of undoing what she had done, incidentally letting out, as she worked, that Will might have known better than to send her there,—she shouldn’t have come at all if he had not insisted, telling her people would call her a secessionist unless she did something to benefit the soldiers. She didn’t care what they called her; she knew she was a democrat, or used to be before she was married; but now that Will was a republican, she hardly knew what she was; any way, she was not a secessionist, and she wasn’t particularly interested in the war either; why should she be?—Will was not going, nor Brother Tom, nor any of her friends.

“But somebody’s friends are going,—somebody’s Will, somebody’s Tom; as dear to them as yours are to you,” came in a rebuking tone from a straight-forward, outspoken woman, who knew from sad experience that “somebody’s Tom was going.”

“Yes, I know,” said Rose, a shadow for an instant crossing her bright face, “and it’s dreadful, too. Will says everything will be so much higher, and it will be so dull at Saratoga and Newport next summer, without the Southern people. One might as well stay at home. The war might have been avoided, too, by a little mutual forbearance from both parties, until matters could be amicably adjusted, for Brother Tom said so in his letter last night, and a heap more which I can’t remember.”

Here Rose paused quite exhausted, with the effort she had made to repeat the opinion of Brother Tom. She had read all his last letter, fully indorsing as much of it as she understood, and after a little she went on:

“Wasn’t it horrid, though, their firing into the Massachusetts boys?—and they were from right ’round Boston, too. Tom saw them when they started. They were fine looking men, he says, and Will thinks I ought to be proud that I’m a Bay State girl, and so I am, but it isn’t as if my friends had gone. Tom is a democrat, I know, but it’s quite another kind that join the army.”

Widow Simms could keep silent no longer, and brandishing her polished shears by way of adding emphasis to what she said, she began:

“And s’posin’ ’tis folks as poor as poverty struck, haint they feelin’s, I’d like to know? Haint they got bodies and souls, and mothers, and wives, and sisters? And s’posin’ ’tis democrats,—more shame for t’other side that helped get up the muss. Where be they now, them chaps that wore the big black capes, and did so much toward puttin’ Lincoln in that chair? Why don’t they help to keep him settin’ there, and not stand back with their hands tucked in their trouses’ pockets? Both my boys, Eli and John, voted t’other ticket, and Isaac would, but he wasn’t twenty-one. They’ve all jined, and I won’t say I’m sorry, for if there’s anything I hate, it’s a sneak! It makes me so mad!” and the big shears again clicked savagely, as Widow Simms resumed her work, after having thus delivered her opinion of the black republicans, besides having, in her own words, given “that puckerin Miss Mathers a piece of her mind.”

Obtuse as Rose was on many points, she saw there was some homely truth in what the widow had said, but this did not impress her so much as the fact that she had evidently given offence, and she was about trying to extricate herself from the dilemma when George Graham appeared, ostensibly to bring some trivial message to the President of the Society, but really to see if his wife were there, and speak to her some kind word of encouragement. Rose recognized him as the young man she had seen at the war meeting, and the moment he left the hall, she broke out impetuously,

“Isn’t he handsome?—so tall, so broad-shouldered, and such a splendid mark for a bullet,—I most know he will be shot?”

“Hush-sh!” came warningly from several individuals, but came too late. The mischief was done. Ere Rose could collect her thoughts a group of frightened women had gathered around poor Annie, who had fainted.