Would she? Could she remember aught against her youngest born, save that he had ever been to her the best, the dearest, most obedient child in the world? No, she could not, and so she told him, caressing his light brown hair and showering upon it the kisses which the compressed lips could no longer restrain. The fountain of love was broken, and the widow’s tears dropped like rain on the upturned face of her boy.
Suddenly there came to their ears the same drum-beat which had sounded so like a funeral knell to Annie Graham. Isaac must go, but not till one act more was done.
“Mother,” he whispered, half hesitatingly, “it will make me a better soldier if you say the Lord’s Prayer with me just as you used to do, with your hand upon my head. I’ll kneel down, if you like,” and the boy of eighteen, wearing a soldier’s dress, did kneel down, nor felt shame as the shaky hand rested once more on his bowed head, while his mother said with him the prayer learned years ago, kneeling as he knelt now.
Surely to the angels looking on there was charge given concerning that young boy,—charge to see that no murderous bullet came near him, even though they should fall round him thick and fast as summer hail. It would seem that some such thought as this intruded itself Upon the Widow Simms, for where the swelling pain had been there came a gentle peace. God would care for Isaac. He would send him home in safety, and so the bitterness of that parting was more than half taken away.
Again the drum beat just as Annie heard it. Another pressure of the hand, another burning kiss, another “good-bye, mother, don’t fret too much about us,” and then the last of the widow’s boys was gone.
Turn we now to the shanty-like building down by the mill, where the mother of Harry and Bill rocked to and fro upon the unmade bed, and rent the air with her dismal howls, hoping thus to win at least one tender word from the two youths, voraciously devouring the breakfast she, like Widow Simms, had been at so much pains to prepare, watching even through her tears to see “if they wan’t going to leave her one atom of the steak she had spent her yesterday’s earnings to buy.”
No they didn’t. Harry took the last piece, growling angrily at Bill, who, kinder hearted than his brother, suggested that “Hal shouldn’t be a pig, but leave something for the old woman.”
“Leave it yourself,” was Harry’s gruff response, and turning to his mother, he told her “not to make a fool of herself, when she knew she was glad to be rid of them. At any rate, if she were not, the whole village were;” adding, by way of consolation, that “he should probably end his days in State Prison if he staid at home, and he had better be shot in a fair fight, as there was some credit in that.”
Around Harry Baker’s childhood there clustered no remembrance of prayers said at the mother’s knee, or of Bible stories told in the dusky twilight, and though reared in New England, within sight of the church spire, he had rarely been inside the house of God, and this it was which made the difference between that scene and the one transpiring in the house of Widow Simms. All the animal passions in Harry Baker’s case were brought to full perfection, unsubdued by any softer influence, and rising from the table, after having filled his stomach almost to bursting, he swaggered across the room, and opening his bundle began to comment upon the different articles, he having been too drunk to notice them when given to him on the previous night.
“What in thunder is this for?” he exclaimed, holding up the calico housewife, and letting buttons, scissors and thread drop upon the floor. “Plaguy pretty implements of war, these!” and he began to enumerate the articles. “Fine tooth comb, black as the ace of spades. Good enough idea that; hain’t used one since I can remember;” and he passed it through his shaggy hair, whose appearance fully verified the truth of his assertion. “Half a paper of pins. Why didn’t the stingy critters give us more? An old brass thimble, too. Here, mother, I’ll give you that to remember me by,” and he tossed it into her lap. The drawers then took his attention; the identical pair Rose Mather made, and though they were better than any he had ever worn, he laughed at them derisively. Trying them on he succeeded in making quite a long rip in one of the seams, for Rose’s stitches were none the shortest. Then, with a flourish, he kicked them off, uttering an oath as he felt a sharp scratch from the needle which Rose had broken, and failed to extricate. The woolen shirt came next, but any remarks he might have made upon that, were prevented by his catching sight of the little brown book which lay at the bottom of the bundle.