The Cameron pride; or, purified by suffering

by Mary Jane Holmes

They would miss her at the farm-house now more than they did when she first went away, for she made the sunshine of their home, filling Helen’s place when she was in New York, and when she came back proving to her a stay and comforter. Indeed, but for Katy’s presence Helen often felt that she could not endure the sickening suspense and doubt which hung so darkly over her husband’s fate.

“He is alive; he will come back,” Katy always said, and from her perfect faith Helen, too, caught a glimpse of hope.

Could they have forgotten Mark they would have been very happy at the farm-house now, for with the budding spring and blossoming summer Katy’s spirits had returned, and her old musical laugh rang through the house just as it used to do in the happy days of girlhood, while the same silvery voice which led the choir in the brick church, and sang with the little children their Sunday hymns, often broke forth into snatches of songs, which made even the robins listen, as they built their nests in the trees.

If Katy thought of Morris, she never spoke of him when she could help it. It was a morbid fancy to which she clung, that duty to Wilford’s memory required her to avoid the man who had so innocently come between them; and when she heard he was coming home she felt more pain than pleasure, though for an instant the blood throbbed through her veins as she thought of Morris at Linwood, just as he used to be.

The day of his return was balmy and beautiful, and at an early hour Helen went over to Linwood to see that everything was in order for his arrival, while Katy followed at a later hour, wondering if Wilford would object if he knew she was going to welcome Morris, who might misconstrue her motives if she stayed away.

There was very little for her to do, Helen and Mrs. Hull having done all that was necessary, but she went from room to room, lingering longest in Morris’s own apartment, where she made some alterations in the arrangement of the furniture, putting one chair a little more to the right, and pushing a stand or table to the left, just as her artistic eye dictated. By some oversight no flowers had been put in there, but Katy gathered a bouquet and left it on the mantel, just where she remembered to have seen flowers when Morris was at home.

“He will be tired,” she said. “He will lie down after dinner,” and she laid a few sweet English violets upon his pillow, thinking their perfume might be grateful to him after the pent-up air of the hospital and cars. “He will think Helen put them there, or Mrs. Hull,” she thought, as she stole softly out and shut the door behind her, glancing next at the clock, and feeling a little impatient that a whole hour must elapse before they could expect him.

Poor Morris! he did not dream how anxiously he was waited for at home, nor of the crowd assembled at the depot to welcome back the loved physician, whose name they had so often heard coupled with praise as a true hero, even though his post was not in the front of the battle. Thousands had been cared for by him, their gaping wounds dressed skillfully, their aching heads soothed tenderly, and their last moments made happier by the words he spoke to them of the world to which they were going, where there is no more war or shedding of man’s blood. In the churchyard at Silverton there were three soldiers’ graves, whose pale occupants had died with Dr. Grant’s hand held tightly in theirs, as if afraid that he would leave them before the dark river was crossed, while in more than one Silverton home there was a wasted soldier, who never tired of telling Dr. Morris’s praise and dwelling on his goodness. But Dr. Morris was not thinking of this as, faint and sick, with the green shade before his eyes, he leaned against the pile of shawls his companion had placed for his back, and wondered if they were almost there.

“I smell the pond lilies; we must be near Silverton,” he said, and a sigh escaped him as he thought of coming home and not being able to see it or the woods and fields around it. “Thy will be done,” he had said many times since the fear first crept into his heart that for him the light had faded.

But now, when home was almost reached, and he began to breathe the air from the New England hills and the perfume of the New England lilies, the flesh rebelled again, and he cried out within himself, “Oh, I cannot be blind! God will not deal thus by me!” while keen as the cut of a sharpened knife was the pang with which he thought of Katy, and wondered would she care if he were blind.