The officer shook his head, and Charlie went on:
“I didn’t want to fight to-day, because I knew it was Sunday, but I had to, or run away. Will God punish me for that, think? Will he turn me out of Heaven?”
“No, no, oh no!” and the North Carolinian’s tears dropped like rain upon the troubled face, upturned so anxiously to his. “God will never punish those who put their trust in Jesus.”
“I do, I do, I do!” and the trembling voice grew fainter, adding, after a pause: “You are a good man, I know. You have been to Sunday School, I guess, and you prayed this morning, didn’t you?”
The soldier answered, “Yes,” and the child continued:
“You are dying, too, I ’most know, for there’s blood all over us. We’ll go together, won’t we, you and I? Will there be war in Heaven, between the North and South?”
“No, Charlie. There is naught but peace in Heaven,” and again the white hands laved the feverish forehead, for the soldier would fain keep that little spirit till his could join it company, and speed away to the land where trouble is unknown.
But it could not be, for Charlie’s life was ebbing away; the last sand was dropping from the glass. Closer the fair curly head nestled to its strange pillow,—the bleeding bosom of a foe,—and the lips murmured incoherently of the elm-trees growing near the mountain home, and the mother watching daily for tidings of her boy. Then the train of thought was changed, and Charlie heard the bell, just as it pealed that morning from his own village spire. How grand the music was echoing through the Virginia woods, and the blue eyes closed, as with a whisper he asked:
“Don’t you hear the old bell at home, calling the folks to church? It has stopped now, and the children are singing before the organ, ‘Glory to God on high.’ I used to sing it with them. Do you know it, ‘Gloria in excelsis’?”
“Yes, yes!” the soldier eagerly replied, glad to find they were both of the same faith,—that little Yankee boy, born among the granite hills, and he a North Carolinian, born on Southern soil.