Rose did not know the relationship existing between the widow and the boy who sawed her wood, but her better nature was touched always at the sight of distress, and for several minutes, she did not speak except to tell Mr. Wentworth how much Brother Tom had paid for the crimson scarf, one end of which he was twirling around his wrist. To Annie it seemed an enormous sum, and a little over-awed with her close proximity to one who could sport so expensive an article of dress, she involuntarily tried to move away, and avoid, if possible, being noticed by the brilliant belle. She might have spared herself the trouble, for Rose was too much absorbed with the group of admirers gathering around her to heed the shrinking figure at her side, and, after a time, as Widow Simms recovered her composure, she resumed her gay badinage, bringing in Will with every other breath, and showing how completely her heart was bound up in her husband, notwithstanding the evident satisfaction with which she received the flattering compliments of the gentlemen who, since her arrival at Rockland, had made it a point to admire and flirt with the little Boston belle, laughing loudly at speeches which, from one less piquant and attractive, would have been pronounced decidedly silly and meaningless.
Rose was not well posted with regard to the object of that meeting. She knew that Sumter or Charleston had been fired upon, she hardly could tell which, for she was far too sleepy when Will read the news to comprehend clearly what it was all about, and she had skipped every word which Brother Tom had written about it in his last letter, the one in which he enclosed five hundred dollars for the silver tea-set she saw in Rochester, and wanted so badly. Rose was an accomplished musician, a tolerable proficient in both French and German, and had skimmed nearly all the higher branches, but like many fashionably educated young ladies, her knowledge of geography comprised a confused medley of cities, towns and villages, scattered promiscuously over the face of the earth, but which was where she could not pretend to tell; and were it not that Brother Tom had spent three winters in Charleston, leaving at last his fair-haired wife sleeping there beneath the Southern sky, she would scarcely have known whether the waters of the Atlantic or of Baffin’s Bay, washed the shore of the Palmetto State. And still Rose was not a fool in the ordinary acceptation of the term. She knew as much or more than half the petted belles of modern society, and could say smart foolish things with so pretty an air of childishness, that even those of her own sex who were at first most prejudiced against her, confessed that she was certainly very captivating, and possessed the art of making everybody like her, even if she hadn’t common sense!
On this occasion she chatted on in her usual style, provoking from George Graham more than one good-humored smile at remarks which evinced so much ignorance of the matter then agitating the entire community.
“Will wouldn’t go to the war, of course,” she said, ‘supposing there were one, which she greatly doubted. Northern men, particularly those of Rockland, were so hateful toward the South. She didn’t believe Boston people were that way at all. At least, Brother Tom was not, and he knew; he had lived in Charleston, and described them as very nice folks. Indeed, she knew they were, herself, for she always met them at Newport, and liked them so much. She didn’t credit one word of what the papers said. She presumed Mr. Anderson provoked them. Tom knew him personally.
“You have another brother besides Tom—won’t he join the army?” asked Mr. Wentworth, a smile curling the corners of his mouth.
Rose sighed involuntarily, for on the subject of that other brother she was a little sore, and the mention of him always gave her pain. He was not like Brother Tom, the eldest, the pride of the Carleton family. He was Jimmie, handsome, rollicking, mischievous Jimmie, to those who loved him best, while to the Boston people, who knew him best, he was “that young scapegrace, Jim Carleton, destined for the gallows, or some other ignominious end,” a prediction which seemed likely to be verified at the time when he nearly broke a comrade’s head for calling him a liar, and so was expelled from college, covered with disgrace. Something of this was known to Mr. Wentworth, and he asked the question he did, just to see what Rose would say. But if he thought she would attempt to conceal anything pertaining to herself, or any one else, for that matter, he was mistaken. Rose was too truthful for anything like duplicity, and she frankly answered:
“We don’t know where Jimmie is. They turned him out of college, and then he ran away. It’s more than a year since we heard from him. He was in Southern Virginia, then. Mother thinks he’s dead, or he would surely write to some of us,” and a tear glittered in Rose’s eyes, as she thought of recreant Jimmie, sleeping elsewhere than in the family vault at beautiful Mt. Auburn. Rose could not, however, be unhappy long over what was a mere speculation, and after a few moments she resumed the subject of her husband’s volunteering.
“She knew he wouldn’t, even if he did vote for Lincoln. She was not one bit concerned, for no man who loved his wife as he ought, would want to go and leave her,” and the little lady stroked her luxuriant curls coquettishly, spreading out still wider her silken robe, which now completely covered the plain shilling calico of poor Annie, whose heart for a moment beat almost to bursting as she asked herself if it were true, that no man who loved his wife as he ought, would want to go and leave her. In a moment, however, she repelled the assertion as false, for George had given too many proofs of his devotion for her to doubt him now, even though he had expressed a desire to join the army. Then she wished she was at home, where she could not hear what Rose Mather said, and she was about proposing to George that they should leave, when Mr. Mather himself appeared, and she concluded to remain. He was a haughty-looking man, very fond of his little wife, on whose shoulder he laid his hand caressingly, as he asked “what she thought of war now?”
“I just think it is horrid!” and Rose’s fat hand stole up to meet her husband’s; “Mr. Wentworth tried to make me think you had volunteered, but I knew better. The idea of your going off with such frights! Why, Will, you can’t begin to guess what a queer-looking set they are. There was our milkman, and the boy who sawed our wood, and canal-drivers, and peddlers, and mechanics, and”——
Rose did not finish the sentence, for something in her husband’s expression stopped her. He had caught the quick uplifting of Annie Graham’s head,—had noted the indignant flashing of her blue eye, the kindling spot on her cheek, and glancing at George, he saw at once how Rose’s thoughtless words must have wounded her. He had seen the disgusted expression of Widow Simms, as she flounced out into the aisle, and knowing that the “boy who sawed his wood,” was her son, he felt sorry that his wife should have been so indiscreet. Still, he could not be angry at the sparkling little creature chatting so like a parrot, but he felt impelled to say: