She gathered us into her kitchen while she swept a room for us and spread quilts upon the floor. Later in the evening an ambulance from Mrs. Hartsuff drove up. She had sent me a tin box of bread-and-butter sandwiches, some tea, an army cot, and army bedding.
The guard, a great, tall fellow, came to me for orders. I felt nervous at his presence and wished I had not brought him. I directed him to watch all night at the road side of the house, while I would sit up and keep watch in the opposite direction. The children soon slept upon the floor.
As the night wore on, I grew extremely anxious about the strange negroes. Aunt Jinny thought there were not more than fifty. They had filled every outhouse except the kitchen. Suppose they should overpower the guard and murder us all.
Everything was quiet. I had not the least disposition to sleep—thinking, thinking, of all the old woman had told me of the sacking of the house, of the digging of the cellar in search of treasure, of the torch that had twice been applied to the house, and twice withdrawn because some officer wanted the shaded dwelling for a temporary lodging. Presently I was startled by a shrill scream from the kitchen, a door opened suddenly and shut, and a voice cried, "Thank Gawd! Thank Gawd A'mighty." Then all was still.
Was this a signal? I held my breath and listened, then softly rose, closed the shutters and fastened them, crept to the door, and bolted it inside. I might defend my children till the guard could come.
Evidently he had not heard! He was probably sleeping the sleep of an untroubled conscience on the bench in the front porch. And with untroubled consciences my children were sleeping. It was so dark in the room I could not see their faces, but I could touch them, and push the wet locks from their brows, as they lay in the close and heated atmosphere.
I resumed my watch at the window, pressing my face close to the slats of the shutters. A pale half-moon hung low in the sky, turning its averted face from a suffering world. At a little distance I could see the freshly made soldier's grave which Alick had discovered and reported. A heavy rain had fallen in the first hours of the night, and a stiff arm and hand now protruded from the shallow grave. To-morrow I would reverently cover the appealing arm, be it clad in blue or in gray, and would mark the spot. Now, as I sat with my fascinated gaze upon it, I thought of the tens of thousands, of the hundreds of thousands, of upturned faces beneath the green sod of old Virginia. Strong in early manhood, brave, high-spirited men of genius, men whom their country had educated for her own defence in time of peril,—they had died because that country could devise in her wisdom no better means of settling a family quarrel than the wholesale slaughter of her sons by the sword. And now? "Not till the heavens be no more shall they awake nor be raised out of their sleep."
And then, as I sorrowed for their early death in loneliness and anguish, I remembered the white-robed souls beneath the altar of God,—the souls that had "come out of great tribulation,"—and because they had thus suffered "they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; ... and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."
And then, as the pale, distressful moon sank behind the trees, and the red dawn streamed up from the east, the angel of Hope, who had "spread her white wings and sped her away" for a little season, returned. And Hope held by the hand an angel stronger than she, who bore to me a message: "In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."
The sun was rising when I saw my good old friend emerge from her kitchen, and I opened the shutters to greet her. She had brought me a cup of delicious coffee, and was much distressed because I had not slept. Had I heard anything?