Rose Mather: A tale

by Mary Jane Holmes

The prospect of release was meat and drink for Isaac who rallied so fast that when the joyful news of an exchange did come, he was able, with Tom’s help, to walk across the floor of what had been his home so long.

Haggard, wasted, weary, and worn were those prisoners as they filed down the stairs and out into the streets, but with each moment which brought them nearer home, their spirits rose, and when at last they stood again on Federal soil and saw the Stars and Stripes waving in the morning breeze, long and deafening were the huzzas which rent the air as one after another gave vent to his great joy at finding himself free once more. Isaac, however, could neither shout, nor laugh, nor speak, and only the large eyes, brimming with tears, told of joy unutterable, but when arrived at Washington, his two stalwart brothers took him in their arms, hugging and crying over him as over one come back to them from the grave, his calmness all gave way, and laying his tired head on Eli’s bosom, while John held and caressed his wasted hands, he sobbed out the happiness too great to be expressed in words. To him a full discharge from service was readily accorded, while to Tom a furlough of several weeks was given, and after a few days at Washington both started northward to join the friends waiting so impatiently for their arrival.

CHAPTER XIX.
TOM’S RECEPTION.

The people of Rockland had become somewhat accustomed to the “Rebel lion,” as they had playfully called Jimmie Carleton, and the latter could now go quietly through the streets without attracting attentions which at first had been vastly disagreeable to the sensitive young man. Gradually, as he mingled more with the people, they had learned to like him, and were fast forgetting that he had ever joined the ranks of the foe and struck at his mother country. With the rabble who had met him at the depot on his first arrival at Rockland he was vastly popular, for forcing down his pride, he had been very conciliatory toward them, and they still adhered to their olden promise of making him their next police justice, provided he would consent to run.

With his usual impudence, Bill Baker continued to annoy the proud Bostonian with his good-humored familiarities, some of which Jimmie permitted, while others he quietly repulsed, for Bill’s constant allusions to the past were exceedingly disagreeable, and as far as possible he avoided his quondam associate, who, without the least suspicion that his manner was disgusting in the extreme, would hail him across the street, addressing him always as “Corp’ral,” and if strangers were in hearing, inviting him to “call ’round and see a fellar once in a while for old acquaintance sake.”

At the Mather mansion matters remained about the same as when Jimmie first came home. Mrs. Carleton was still there, waiting for her other son, and Rose, as usual, was ever on the alert, seeking ways and means by which the soldiers might be benefited, compelling Jimmie to be interested in all her plans, dragging him from place to place, sending him on errands; and once, when in a great hurry to get a box in readiness for the hospitals at Washington, actually coaxing him into helping tie a comfortable, which was put up in her back parlor, and which she “must send immediately, for some poor fellow was sure to need it.” “Jimmie could learn to tie as well as herself,” she said, when he pleaded his ignorance as an excuse for refusing his services. “She didn’t know how once, but Widow Simms and Annie had taught her a heap, and Annie would teach him, too. All he had to do was to put the big darning needle through twice, tie a weaver’s knot, cut it off, and the thing was done; besides that, ’twas a real pretty quilt, made from Annie’s calico dress, which she used to wear last summer and look so sweetly in. Annie was tying on one side and Jimmie must tie on the other; he needn’t be so lazy. He ought to do something for the war.”

By the time Rose had reached the last points in her argument, Jimmie had closed the book he was reading, and concluded that there might be duties required of him a great deal worse than tying a soldier’s comfortable with Annie to oversee! It was strange how much teaching he needed, and how often Annie was called to the rescue. The needle would stick so in the cotton, and he could not remember just how to tie that knot. So Annie, never dreaming that he knew how to tie the knot as well as she, would come to his aid, her hands sometimes touching his, and his black curls occasionally brushing her pale, brown braids as he bent over her to see how she did it so as to know himself next time! There was a world of mischief in Jimmie’s saucy eyes as he demurely apologized to Mrs. Graham for the trouble he was giving her, but Annie never once looked up, neither did the color deepen in the least upon her cheek, and when Jimmie, on purpose to draw her out, suggested that “he was more bother than help,” she answered that he “had better return to his reading, as she could get on quite as well alone.”

After this, Jimmie thought proper to learn a little faster, and soon outstripped his teacher, who rewarded him with no word of approval save a cool “Thank you,” when the comfortable was done and taken from the awkward frames. And this was a fair specimen of the nature of the intercourse existing between Jimmie and Annie. Secure now in the belief that she would never be recognized as the “Pequot of New London,” Annie regarded Jimmie as any ordinary stranger, in whom she had no particular interest, save that which her kind heart prompted her to feel for all mankind. She could not dislike him, and she always defended him from the aspersions of the widow, who could not quite conquer her repugnance to a Rebel, and who frequently gave vent to her ill will toward Jimmie, whom she thought so proud.

“Stuck-up critter!” she said, “struttin’ round as if he was good as anybody, and feelin’ above his betters. Of course he felt above her, and Susan, and Annie, she knew he did; and if she’s Annie she vummed if she’d stay there, and be looked at as Jim looked at her.”