The Burial of the Guns

by Thomas Nelson Page

“Well, do it, and you can even do it Christmas, if you get the right conductor. It’s well worth doing the first chance you get, for it’s almost the prettiest country in the world that you go through; there is nothing that I’ve ever seen lovelier than parts of the Cumberland and Shenandoah Valleys, and the New River Valley is just as pretty,—that background of blue beyond those rolling hills, and all,—you know, McPheeters?” McPheeters nodded, and he proceeded:

“I always go that way now when I go South. Well, I went South one winter just at Christmas, and I took that train by accident. I was going to New Orleans to spend Christmas, and had expected to have gotten off to be there several days beforehand, but an unlooked-for matter had turned up and prevented my getting away, and I had given up the idea of going, when I changed my mind: the fact is, I was in a row with a friend of mine there. I decided, on the spur of the moment, to go, anyhow, and thus got off on the afternoon train for Washington, intending to run my luck for getting a sleeper there. This was the day before Christmas-eve and I was due to arrive in New Orleans Christmas-day, some time. Well, when I got to Washington there was not a berth to be had for love or money, and I was in a pickle. I fumed and fussed; abused the railroad companies and got mad with the ticket agent, who seemed, I thought, to be very indifferent as to whether I went to New Orleans or not, and I had just decided to turn around and come back to New York, when the agent, who was making change for someone else, said: ‘I’m not positive, but I think there’s a train on such and such a road, and you may be able to get a berth on that. It leaves about this time, and if you hurry you may be able to catch it.’ He looked at his watch: ‘Yes, you’ve just about time to stand a chance; everything is late to-day, there are such crowds, and the snow and all.’ I thanked him, feeling like a dog over my ill-temper and rudeness to him, and decided to try. Anything was better than New York, Christmas-day. So I jumped into a carriage and told the driver to drive like the—the wind, and he did. When we arrived at the station the ticket agent could not tell me whether I could get a berth or not, the conductor had the diagram out at the train, but he thought there was not the slightest chance. I had gotten warmed up, however, by my friend’s civility at the other station, and I meant to go if there was any way to do it, so I grabbed up my bags and rushed out of the warm depot into the cold air again. I found the car and the conductor standing outside of it by the steps. The first thing that struck me was his appearance. Instead of being the dapper young naval-officerish-looking fellow I was accustomed to, he was a stout, elderly man, with bushy, gray hair and a heavy, grizzled mustache, who looked like an old field-marshal. He was surrounded by quite a number of people all crowding about him and asking him questions at once, some of whose questions he was answering slowly as he pored over his diagram, and others of which he seemed to be ignoring. Some were querulous, some good-natured, and all impatient, but he answered them all with imperturbable good humor. It was very cold, so I pushed my way into the crowd. As I did so I heard him say to someone: ‘You asked me if the lower berths were all taken, did you not?’ ‘Yes, five minutes ago!’ snapped the fellow, whom I had already heard swearing, on the edge of the circle. ‘Well, they are all taken, just as they were the first time I told you they were,’ he said, and opened a despatch given him by his porter, a tall, black, elderly negro with gray hair. I pushed my way in and asked him, in my most dulcet tone, if I could get an upper berth to New Orleans. I called him ‘Captain’, thinking him a pompous old fellow. He was just beginning to speak to someone else, but I caught him and he looked across the crowd and said ‘New Orleans!’ My heart sank at the tone, and he went on talking to some other man. ‘I told you that I would give you a lower berth, sir, I can give you one now, I have just got a message that the person who had “lower two” will not want it.’ ‘Hold on, then, I’ll take that lower,’ called the man who had spoken before, over the crowd, ‘I spoke for it first.’ ‘No you won’t,’ said the Captain, who went on writing. The man pushed his way in angrily, a big, self-assertive fellow; he was evidently smarting from his first repulse. ‘What’s that? I did, I say. I was here before that man got here, and asked you for a lower berth, and you said they were all taken.’ The Captain stopped and looked at him. ‘My dear sir, I know you did; but this gentleman has a lady along.’ But the fellow was angry. ‘I don’t care,’ he said, ‘I engaged the berth and I know my rights; I mean to have that lower berth, or I’ll see which is bigger, you or Mr. Pullman.’ Just then a lady, who had come out on the steps, spoke to the Captain about her seat in the car. He turned to her: ‘My dear madam, you are all right, just go in there and take your seat anywhere; when I come in I will fix everything. Go straight into that car and don’t come out in this cold air any more.’ The lady went back and the old fellow said, ‘Nick, go in there and seat that lady, if you have to turn every man out of his seat.’ Then, as the porter went in, he turned back to his irate friend. ‘Now, my dear sir, you don’t mean that: you’d be the first man to give up your berth; this gentleman has his sick wife with him and has been ordered to take her South immediately, and she’s going to have a lower berth if I turn every man in that car out, and if you were Mr. Pullman himself I’d tell you the same thing.’ The man fell back, baffled and humbled, and we all enjoyed it. Still, I was without a berth, so, with some misgiving, I began: ‘Captain?’ He turned to me. ‘Oh! you want to go to New Orleans?’ ‘Yes, to spend Christmas; any chance for me?’ He looked at his watch. ‘My dear young sir,’ he said, ‘go into the car and take a seat, and I’ll do the best I can with you.’ I went in, not at all sure that I should get a berth.

“This, of course, was only a part of what went on, but the crowd had gotten into a good humor and was joking, and I had fallen into the same spirit. The first person I looked for when I entered the car was, of course, the sick woman. I soon picked her out: a sweet, frail-looking lady, with that fatal, transparent hue of skin and fine complexion. She was all muffled up, although the car was very warm. Every seat was either occupied or piled high with bags. Well, the train started, and in a little while the Captain came in, and the way that old fellow straightened things out was a revelation. He took charge of the car and ran it as if he had been the Captain of a boat. At first some of the passengers were inclined to grumble, but in a little while they gave in. As for me, I had gotten an upper berth and felt satisfied. When I waked up next morning, however, we were only a hundred and fifty miles from Washington, and were standing still. The next day was Christmas, and every passenger on the train, except the sick lady and her husband, and the Captain, had an engagement for Christmas dinner somewhere a thousand miles away. There had been an accident on the road. The train which was coming north had jumped the track at a trestle and torn a part of it away. Two or three of the trainmen had been hurt. There was no chance of getting by for several hours more. It was a blue party that assembled in the dressing-room, and more than one cursed his luck. One man was talking of suing the company. I was feeling pretty gloomy myself, when the Captain came in. ‘Well, gentlemen, ‘Christmas-gift’; it’s a fine morning, you must go out and taste it,’ he said, in a cheery voice, which made me feel fresher and better at once, and which brought a response from every man in the dressing-room. Someone asked promptly how long we should be there. ‘I can’t tell you, sir, but some little time; several hours.’ There was a groan. ‘You’ll have time to go over the battle-field,’ said the Captain, still cheerily. ‘We are close to the field of one of the bitterest battles of the war.’ And then he proceeded to tell us about it briefly. He said, in answer to a question, that he had been in it. ‘On which side, Captain?’ asked someone. ‘Sir!’ with some surprise in his voice. ‘On which side?’ ‘On our side, sir, of course.’ We decided to go over the field, and after breakfast we did.

“The Captain walked with us over the ground and showed us the lines of attack and defence; pointed out where the heaviest fighting was done, and gave a graphic account of the whole campaign. It was the only battle-field I had ever been over, and I was so much interested that when I got home I read up the campaign, and that set me to reading up on the whole subject of the war. We walked back over the hills, and I never enjoyed a walk more. I felt as if I had got new strength from the cold air. The old fellow stopped at a little house on our way back, and went in whilst we waited. When he came out he had a little bouquet of geranium leaves and lemon verbena which he had got. I had noticed them in the window as we went by, and when I saw the way the sick lady looked when he gave them to her, I wished I had brought them instead of him. Some one intent on knowledge asked him how much he paid for them?

“He said, ‘Paid for them! Nothing.’

“‘Did you know them before?’ he asked.

“‘No, sir.’ That was all.

“A little while afterwards I saw him asleep in a seat, but when the train started he got up.

“The old Captain by this time owned the car. He was not only an official, he was a host, and he did the honors as if he were in his own house and we were his guests; all was done so quietly and unobtrusively, too; he pulled up a blind here, and drew one down there, just a few inches, ‘to give you a little more light on your book, sir’;—‘to shut out a little of the glare, madam—reading on the cars is a little more trying to the eyes than one is apt to fancy.’ He stopped to lean over and tell you that if you looked out of your window you would see what he thought one of the prettiest views in the world; or to mention the fact that on the right was one of the most celebrated old places in the State, a plantation which had once belonged to Colonel So-and-So, ‘one of the most remarkable men of his day, sir.’

“His porter, Nicholas, was his admirable second; not a porter at all, but a body-servant; as different from the ordinary Pullman-car porter as light from darkness. In fact, it turned out that he had been an old servant of the Captain’s. I happened to speak of him to the Captain, and he said: ‘Yes, sir, he’s a very good boy; I raised him, or rather, my father did; he comes of a good stock; plenty of sense and know their places. When I came on the road they gave me a mulatto fellow whom I couldn’t stand, one of these young, new, “free-issue” some call them, sir, I believe; I couldn’t stand him, I got rid of him.’ I asked him what was the trouble. ‘Oh! no trouble at all, sir; he just didn’t know his place, and I taught him. He could read and write a little—a negro is very apt to think, sir, that if he can write he is educated—he could write, and thought he was educated; he chewed a toothpick and thought he was a gentleman. I soon taught him better. He was impertinent, and I put him off the train. After that I told them that I must have my own servant if I was to remain with them, and I got Nick. He is an excellent boy (he was about fifty-five). The black is a capital servant, sir, when he has sense, far better than the mulatto.’