Rose Mather: A tale

by Mary Jane Holmes

The next morning it became absolutely necessary for her to leave him for a time, as she must procure the few necessaries he needed, and taking advantage of the heavy sleep into which he had fallen, she stole noiselessly out, hoping to return ere he should wake. Scarcely, however, had she left the lane and turned into Main Street, when Rose came tripping to the gate, drawn thither by a curiosity to see if her suspicions were correct. She had learned from her husband of Bill’s exit from Washington, and for some days had been expecting to hear of his arrival in town. That he had come she was certain, and telling Annie where she was going, she had started rather early for Mrs. Baker’s. As her knock met with no response she entered without further ceremony, and passing on through the low dark kitchen came to the door of the little room where Bill lay breathing heavily, and muttering about camps, and guard-houses, and deserters. The sight of suffering always awoke a chord of sympathy in Rose Mather’s bosom, and without a thought of danger she bent close to the sick man, and involuntarily laid her soft, cool hand upon his burning forehead. The touch awoke him, but in the wild eyes turned upon her there was no glance of recognition, or look of fear. He evidently fancied himself back in Washington, and asked the name of her regiment.

“Oh, I know,” he continued, still keeping his eyes fixed upon her, “you’re the chap I took, but you’ve fell away mightily since then. Yankee fare don’t set well on your Rebel stomach, I guess,” and a wild, coarse laugh rang through the room, making Rose shudder and draw back, for she felt intuitively that Billy was mad.

She was not, however, afraid of him, and standing at a little distance, she tried to reason with him, telling him she was not a Rebel,—she was Mrs. Mather, come to do him good.

Bill only laughed derisively. “Couldn’t cheat him. Guess he knew them eyes and them hands, white as cotton wool. I’ll bet I’ve got a ring that’ll fit ’em,” he continued, and reaching for his pantaloons, which he had insisted should lie behind him on the bed, he took from the pocket the costly diamond once worn by his Rebel captive, and confisticated by him as con-tra-band. “Try it on,” he said to Rose, who mechanically obeyed, wondering why it should look so familiar to her.

It was too large for her slender fingers, and dropping off, rolled upon the floor. Rose at once set herself to finding the missing ring, and had just returned it to its owner when Mrs. Baker came in, terribly alarmed at finding Mrs. Mather there. Rose, however, quieted her fears at once by telling her she had known for some days past of Bill’s desertion, and had kept it from every one but Annie, because her husband thought it best. She did not believe he would be followed, she said, for Will wrote that he had become so reckless and discontented that his absence was no loss to the army, but for a while it might be well that his presence should not be known in Rockland, as the people might be indignant at a deserter, and perhaps in their excitement do him some injury.

“He ought to have medical advice, though,” she added, “for I think he’s very sick.”

Mrs. Baker knew he was, and fear lest he should die overcame every other feeling, making her consent that Rose should call their family physician. It was nearly noon ere he arrived, and in the meantime Rose had reported the case to Annie, and then returning to Mrs. Baker’s, took her place by Billy, who called her “his little Rebel,” and ordered her about as if he had been a commanding officer, and she his subordinate. The novelty of the thing was rather pleasing to Rose, and notwithstanding that the physician pronounced the disease typhus fever in its most violent form, she persisted in staying, saying some one must help Mrs. Baker, and she was not afraid.

So day after day found her in that comfortless dwelling, while the frequent callers at the Mather mansion wondered where she could be. It came out at last that she was nursing William Baker, lying dangerously sick of typhus fever in his mother’s dilapidated home, and then, as villagers will, the Rockland people wondered and gossiped, and wondered again how the aristocratic Rose Mather could sit hour after hour, in that poverty-stricken cottage, ministering to the wants of despised Bill Baker. Rose hardly knew, herself, and when questioned upon the subject could only reply—

“I guess it’s because he’s a soldier, and I must do something for the war. Will knows it. He says I’m doing right, and Annie Graham, too.”

And so, with her heart kept brave by thinking that Will and Annie approved her course, Rose went every day to Mrs. Baker’s, doing more by her cheerful presence and the needful comforts she supplied to arrest the progress of the disease and effect a favorable change, than all the physicians in the county could have done. Bill owed his life to her, and it was touching to witness his childish gratitude when reason resumed her throne, and he learned who it was he had sometimes called his “little Rebel,” and again had fancied was some beautiful angel sent to cure and comfort him. He had often seen Mrs. Mather in the streets before he went away; but never as closely as now, and for hours after his convalescence he would lie looking into her face, which seemed to puzzle him greatly. Occasionally, too, he would take from his pocket a picture, which he evidently compared with something about her person, then, with a sly wink, which began to be very annoying, he would return it to its hiding-place, and ask her sundry questions, which, under ordinary circumstances, she would have resented as being too familiar.