"Wall, you see, lady, my two boys they was all I had, and they jined the regiment, and I couldn't live without 'em; and I was hale and strong, and so I made bold for to jine, too. There was one place left in the regiment then—the bugler's place, in Company B—and I pled so hard, the cap'n he said I might try. And, lady, the plaguy thing used to seem to shut right up when I wanted to make it blow, and the men used to laugh at me, right out afore my boys. And Abner and John Henry they felt kind o' cheap, and they kept sayin' to me, 'Father,' they says, 'it makes us feel kind o' bad to hear you tryin' so hard and not learnin'; don't you think you'd better give it up?' And says I, 'No, boys,' says I, 'while there's breath in my body, I won't give it up till I've conquered that crittur.' And, lady, when the cap'n see me tryin' so hard and allus comin' to grief, what does he do but he takes hold himself, and he learns all them signals, and he teaches on 'em to me. And so I went to the war with my boys, and I nursed John Henry through a fever, and I kept Abner from fallin' into bad company; and, lady, if I could have saved the cap'n's life by givin' my skin inch by inch, I'd have done it; but I couldn't. So I just held his head against this old heart, and let him breathe his life away. And I laid him down on the sod as tender as if I'd been his mother."
"May God reward you! Did he suffer much?"
Tears, such as she had longed for, were pouring from her eyes.
"No, lady; he was gone before the surgeons came on to the field. He lay quite still, without a moan or sigh; and, now and then, he'd say a word to me. I was wounded, too, just below the knee. I dropped down about six feet off from him; and when the retreat came, and I saw as how I was left behind with the cap'n, didn't I praise the Lord!"
"What did he say to you?"
Abel took a little packet from his breast, and laid it in Sybil's hand. "He says to me, 'Abel,' says he, 'when you can get a furlough honorable,' says he—'for you mustn't go when the country needs you bad—you take this locket' (a-unhookin' it from his neck) 'to Miss Sybil Vaughan—her that lives in the stone farmhouse above our old camp at Holly Farm—and you tell her as how the poor thing tried to save my life; and she'll see it by the great dent in the gold made by a bullet. And you tell her as how she's to open it herself, and see what I put there. And you tell her '—I'm a Methodist, lady, but I'll tell you word for word what he said."
"Yes, word for word."
"'You tell her,' says he, 'how I pray that Christ and his Blessed Mother may be her comfort as they are mine; and tell her as how I've never let a thought enter my mind, since we parted, that she wouldn't have approved. And tell her,' says he, a-raisin' himself half-way up from the ground, 'you tell her I love her fond and true, and that we shall meet in heaven when she's done the work on earth she is so fit to do. And tell her to comfort my mother. Poor mother!' And then he put his arm round my neck, and kind o' stroked my cheek, and he says, soft and low, a few words, and all I heard was, 'Receive my soul,' and then I kissed him, and laid him down on the turf, and his face was like as I think it will be in heaven at the great day. And now I'm goin' to leave you, lady, 'cos I know as how you want to be alone. And, with your leave, I'll come again, and tell you how we loved him, and how we cried like babies round the ambulance that brought him to the camp; and how there was scarce anything left to send home to his mother, 'cos he used to give his things away to the sick boys—blankets, and money, and shirts, and all."
Then Abel took Sybil's delicate hand reverently on his broad, brown palm, and kissed it.
"Lady," he said, "you're the only thing ever I see that was fit to mate with him."