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GIRLS OF ’64

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

New YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS

ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited

LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA

MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

TORONTO

Three short raps upon the window pane.

GIRLS OF ’64

BY

EMILIE BENSON KNIPE

AND

ALDEN ARTHUR KNIPE

Authors of “A Maid of ’76,” “Polly

Trotter, Patriot,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY

EMILIE BENSON KNIPE

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1918

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1918

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped. Published, October, 1918

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[Three short raps upon the window pane]

[A flag of truce, honored alike by the Confederacy and the Union]

[Young Stanchfield struggled to sit up]

[“Dorothea met a Union officer in Coulter Woods”]

GIRLS OF ’64

CHAPTER I

NEWS FROM THE NORTH

Corinne twisted and turned before the mirror over the console table, flicked a speck of powder from her sacque and stood back to regard herself appreciatively. She felt her toilette to be extremely distinguished when war deprivations were taken into account.

“I’m ready,” she drawled, addressing her cousin. “If we-all don’t want to be late we might as well start. It’s ’most train-time.”

Harriot settled back in her chair and began to rock furiously.

“I don’t think I’ll go to the dêpot to-day,” she said finally.

Corinne looked at her indignantly.

“What did you let me take all the trouble to powder my nose for then?” she demanded. “You know ma won’t let me go alone in that crowd, and there’s sure to be some news.”

“Oh, bother the news!” Harriot murmured under her breath, unconsciously turning her head to look in the direction of the kitchen.

“Harriot May!” cried Corinne disapprovingly, “you speak as if you didn’t care about the victories of our great Confederacy.”

“But they aren’t always victories,” Harriot returned bluntly. “That’s the trouble. We’re just as apt to hear that the hateful Yankees have beaten us again and—and besides, I’d rather stay here, anyhow.” Once more she turned an eye toward the cooking-quarters and sniffed.

“You’re not thinking of eating again?” Corinne demanded.

“Yes, I am,” Harriot answered blandly. “Aunt Decent’s going to make corn meal poundcake and if we hang ’round the kitchen she’ll bake us each a little patty-pan.”

“You’re such a child,” Corinne said, with the patronizing smile fifteen bestows upon twelve; but if she expected Harriot to resent her grown-up airs she must have been disappointed. The “child” suddenly jumped to her feet as a faint odor of baking drifted into the room.

“Come on, Corinne!” she insisted, “Aunt Decent is taking the first pan out of the oven now. Besides, I’ll coax her to give us some cush to feed Saretta’s baby. She’s sure to be there after clabber.”

Corinne followed, still protesting; but cakes were not so plentiful in the South during this, the second year of the war, that even a girl who preferred to think herself very much of a young lady could afford to scorn them.

“Well, the train’s always late anyway,” she murmured indulgently, as if in excuse for letting her cousin have her own way.

Led by Harriot the two went toward the kitchen by a circuitous route as if they had just happened to pass by. Outside the door was a group of colored mothers and orphan-tenders, awaiting the special rations which were doled out to little babies, and among them was Saretta with Aunt Decent’s newest grandchild in her arms. Harriot, wise in the management of the dusky autocrat, said nothing of patty-pans until she had stuffed the baby. Then she broached the subject tentatively.

“Land sakes, but you is the eatin’est child!” Aunt Decent exclaimed heartily, and that was sufficient assurance that there would be a special portion of the coveted poundcake for the two girls.

“I wish I had gone over to the Polks. Cousin Sally would have walked to the dêpot with me,” Corinne hinted with conscious cunning. Harriot, who had no other cousins in Georgia, was decidedly jealous of Corinne’s many relatives.

“I’ll go to the dêpot with you now,” Harriot said good-naturedly. “Not that I care anything about your old train,” she added, as they started off.

“Its arrival is the only thing that ever happens in this stupid little town,” Corinne snapped.

“Maybe,” Harriot agreed, “but how any one can enjoy seeing a crowd of ladies in black silk Talmas covered with dust, is more than I can understand.”

“There are the wounded officers,” Corinne suggested, a trifle self-consciously.

“Yes, all trying to look interesting,” Harriot answered, with more than a trace of scorn in her tone.

Corinne regarded her askance for a moment.

“What in the world has come over you to-day?” she asked. “That’s no way to speak of our heroes. If you weren’t my very own cousin—”

“Well, I am,” Harriot interrupted, “and I’m just as much for the South as any one.”

“More so than some, I hope,” Corinne interrupted in her turn.

Harriot stopped short in her tracks.

“If you say a word about mother being a Submissionist, I’ll never speak to you again,” she threatened seriously.

“I wasn’t going to mention Aunt Parthenia,” Corinne asserted, but the younger girl shook her head as if she were not so sure of this.

“Just because mother didn’t think we should have seceded doesn’t make her a traitor to the South,” she continued earnestly. “Besides, April is rebel enough for a whole family.”

The girls walked on again in silence. They had touched upon a delicate subject, and Corinne, with unusual good sense, held her tongue until they reached the railroad shed where the expected train was just coming to a stop.

A large crowd had already gathered to hear the latest news of the outside world. Because the mails were seriously interrupted and few newspapers were published in the South, the people of the towns and villages were almost wholly dependent upon the information to be picked up from travelers; so, for miles about the little town of Washington, Georgia, the inhabitants of the district drove or rode in to meet the daily train.

This particular afternoon there was an unusually large crowd clustered around the wheezy engine with its string of shabby coaches.

“More wounded,” Harriot whispered, nodding toward a number of flat cars attached to the end of the train.

“I don’t think so,” Corinne answered, a little excitedly. “They’re filled with ladies and gentlemen, and there’s something going on. Lets get closer.”

They elbowed their way through the press until they came within earshot of a Confederate officer, who was speaking to the assemblage. His arm was in a sling and over his shoulders he had a faded blanket shawl which, with his threadbare gray uniform, gave him a most dilapidated appearance. But his audience, well used to the sight of ragged soldiers, listened with marked attention to his words.

“It has as much force as a soap-bubble,” the officer was saying as the girls came within sound of his voice. “Just suppose Abe Lincoln took it into his head that it was wrong to keep birds in cages. And then suppose he issued a proclamation to France ordering her to open all her cage doors and let out the birds. Does anybody think France would pay any attention to it? Of course not! They would insist, first of all, that the birds would starve if they were let out. Secondly, they would say it was none of Lincoln’s business and, lastly, they would know, just as we know, that the birds don’t want their freedom.”

“What has Abe Lincoln to do with French birds?” Harriot whispered.

“Hush!” Corinne admonished her, straining her ears to catch the next words.

“Well, my friends,” the officer went on, “that’s the way it is with this Emancipation Proclamation. You know, and I know, that our servants don’t want to be free. They wouldn’t know what to do with freedom if they had it—and it’s none of Abe Lincoln’s business anyway! What authority has he over our great Confederacy? Not that much!” and he snapped his fingers with a fine gesture of indifference. “No more than he has over France. For two years he has been trying to beat us and now, ladies and gentlemen, he’s getting desperate. This proclamation is his last move to scare us. He knows at last that Cotton is King. And, let me tell you, the Knights of the Golden Circle are not idle. The North is about ready to give up. This proclamation doesn’t amount—”

The train gave a jerk and, starting off, put an end to his oratory. The crowd cheered as the passenger cars moved slowly away to carry the news to the next stopping-place along the line.

But there was a lack of heartiness in the shouts of applause, and a rather silent group of people hurried toward their homes. Men looked at each other with sober faces and shook their heads somewhat doubtfully.

“I’m going straight back to ma,” said Corinne, as the two girls turned to retrace their steps.

“But the patty-pans!” Harriot exclaimed. “They’ll be done by the time we get home.”

“Save mine till to-morrow,” Corinne answered. “Ma’s sure to want to talk to Aunt Parthenia in the morning, and I’ll come over with her.”

The Stewarts and the Mays lived at opposite ends of the town so that the girls separated immediately. Harriot, thinking of corn meal poundcake, hurried to the cook-house. Perhaps because she feared to be tempted, she put Corinne’s portion out of sight at once, then munching her own share, went in search of her mother.

She had not been at all impressed by the harangue she had heard at the station. That sort of speech-making was no new thing to her, and she had failed wholly to grasp the significance of what the Confederate officer had said. Nevertheless she knew that her mother would be interested in any news arriving by the train and was ready enough to report what she had heard.

The town house of the May family was a spacious building. On one side of a wide hall were the parlors. On the other were the breakfast and state dining-rooms. Back of these were various offices for the administration of the estates. At each end of the dining-room, looms for homespun had been set up; for the many slaves, both in town and on the plantations, had to be clothed as well as fed. It was here that Mrs. May spent the greater portion of her days at this time of year. The spinning-wheels humming made an accompaniment to the clang of the battens; and several old colored women, wearing gay bandanas, bent their heads over a basket of cotton which had just been brought in. Aunt Decent’s daughter Isabel was busily carding and near the great fire-place Jim’s Jimmy was standing. It was his business to keep the fire going, and the heat made the child so drowsy that he was not allowed to sit down, for fear he would fall sound asleep and tumble into the flames.

As Harriot entered the room, Mrs. May stepped back and forth following her thread before the loom, with a slow grace that brought to mind pictures of stately minuets that might have been danced in years past upon the very floor over which she moved so lightly.

“You’re just in time, my dear,” she called, catching sight of Harriot. “I need some one to reel thread into hanks for me.”

Harriot set to work willingly.

“I’ve just come back from the dêpot,” she began, once the task was well started. “There were a lot of people there to-day.”

“What news did you hear?” asked Mrs. May.

“Oh, nothing much,” Harriot replied. “There was an officer made a speech about birds in cages and freedom and France. He was wounded in the arm, but people didn’t seem to care about what he said. At least they didn’t cheer nearly as much as I’ve heard sometimes.”

“Was it about the fighting?” Mrs. May’s tone was anxious, for she had both a husband and a son in the Confederate army.

“No,” drawled Harriot, “it wasn’t interesting. It was all about old Abe Lincoln and a Proclam—”

“Harriot,” Mrs. May interrupted abruptly, “suppose you run upstairs to April and see if you can’t help her with her hair. She’s to take supper at Pettigrew’s.”

“But mother,” Harriot began, surprised at this unusual request.

“Run along, honey,” her mother insisted. “And send Merry down to me.”

Somewhat puzzled, Harriot left the busy room and ran to the floor above, entering her sister’s chamber without ceremony to find April standing, slight, fair and very beautiful, while her brown maid, Merry, laced her stays. Her wonderful blond hair had already been woven into an intricate crown, and, at sight of it, Harriot flopped into a chair.

“Mother wants Merry,” she announced. “Don’t ask me why, ’cause I don’t know.”

April regarded her young sister for a moment without speaking.

“Mother said I was to help with your hair. I knew you wouldn’t let me touch your precious yellow wig,” Harriot went on. “But it wasn’t a bit of use my telling her that. I suppose I might just as well go down again.”

“If mother sent you up here, you’d better stay,” April remarked knowingly. “Merry can go as soon as I’m laced.”

“All right,” agreed the good-natured Harriot, “though I don’t see why—. Mammy says you’ll have a red nose ‘sho’ as you’he bohn’ if you wear your things so tight.”

“And she says you won’t have ‘a toof in yoh haid’ if you eat so much poundcake,” April retorted with a laugh. “You can go down to Old Miss, Merry,” she added to the maid.

But the door had hardly closed upon Merry when April turned a serious face to her sister.

“What were you blabbing that made mother send you up here?” she demanded.

Harriot was genuinely surprised and injured.

“Not one earthly thing,” she declared stoutly. “Corinne and I went to the dêpot to hear the news and I had just begun to tell mother about it. I didn’t say a thing in the world.”

“What is the news?” April inquired anxiously. “Has Rosecrans—”

“I tell you I didn’t hear a thing about the war,” Harriot insisted, much aggrieved. “If I had, it isn’t a crime to mention it, is it? Besides, I’d only begun when mother sent me up to you. There was a man talking about Abe Lincoln and a proclamation, letting the birds free or something. I didn’t understand much of it.”

“What have Abe Lincoln’s proclamation to do with us?” said April sharply, more to herself than to her sister.

At that moment Mrs. May came into the room, closing the door carefully behind her.

“I have no doubt the proclamation is the promised emancipation of the slaves, honey,” she suggested quietly, having overheard April’s question. “I didn’t wish it mentioned before the women downstairs. There is no use unsettling the quarters yet. But they’ll learn of it fast enough; for, from now on, the negroes are free.”

“Mother!” exclaimed April passionately, “how can you say such things? What does the South care for Lincoln’s proclamation? And as for the slaves—they’ll do as they’re bid. They know they can’t escape the hounds just because a miserable Yankee says they’re free.”

Mrs. May looked at her beautiful daughter in silence for a moment, shaking her head gently. When she spoke it was with a note of sadness in her voice.

“It hurts me to hear you talk like that, my child, even though I know you don’t mean it. You are no more capable of sending the hounds after one of our people than I am.”

“Oh, well, our servants will never leave us,” April replied with deep conviction. “What difference does this proclamation make to us? Mr. Davis is the President of our country, not Abe Lincoln.”

“I’m afraid you don’t understand, dear,” Mrs. May replied patiently. “As I see it, this proclamation gives the Confederacy its death-blow. England, which has been seizing slave ships and fighting slavery for many years, cannot side with the South in this war when slavery is made the open issue. Without her aid what shall we do? You know how short we are already of necessities. If England refuses to supply us, how can we go on?”

“Oh, but, mother, we must beat them,” April cried. “We shall find a way.”

“Honey,” Mrs. May went on earnestly, “I want to prepare you for what is coming. Remember how rapidly our resources are dwindling and—”

“Our soldiers are the bravest in the world,” April broke in vehemently. “The Yankees can never beat them!”

“That may be true,” her mother admitted, “but they cannot fight without powder for their guns. Think of the shifts we are already put to. Your father has just written me to have the smoke-house floor dug up and boiled for the salt that may be obtained. There is talk of sacrificing the tobacco crop to get the niter in it. Wool is so precious that it is against the law to kill a sheep—and look!” she went on, holding out her slender hands stained with dyes. “In order to barely clothe our people I must work as I never expected to in my life. Of that I do not complain, but do you not see that this cannot go on indefinitely? For a year or two we may manage to exist; but the end is certain. I want you to realize it, my child.”

April trembled for a moment and then with a brave toss of her head she lifted her eyes to her mother’s.

“I’m going to a party and I shan’t cry,” she insisted, struggling with the emotions that threatened to bring hot tears. “We’re obliged to win! We just must! I’ll wear Georgia jeans—I’ll starve for the cause. I would die for it, mother, if it would help us to win!”

It was not sheer bravado that had brought forth this explosion. April was quite sincere in what she said. The cause of the South was right and holy in her eyes and she was ready to meet, with cheerfulness, any sacrifice that might be demanded of her. To doubt for a moment a successful issue of the struggle seemed to her like a confession of disloyalty.

This her mother well understood, but she also had a fuller realization of the issues at stake and the resources of the contending forces.

“My darling April,” she said gently, “I don’t want to spoil your party but it is better that you should learn from me what this proclamation means to the South. You will surely hear more of it tonight, but now it will not come to you as a bitter surprise. Let us drop the matter for the present and I’ll help you into this,” she continued, picking up from the bed a skirt of ruffled pink tarleton. “Harry, light more candles. We’ll be extravagant for once and take a good look at sister in all her finery. It may be the last to run the blockade.”

Harriot sprang to her feet to light an improvised candle which consisted of a corncob wrapped with a twisted wick dipped in resin and wax. As there were no matches to be had she was forced to kindle it from the small fire burning on the hearth.

But, as she stooped, April shook her head decidedly.

“No, Harry, don’t,” she cried, crossing the room hurriedly. “Just set the logs blazing and you shall see me by fire-light and so save our candles. I’m beginning to realize what is the matter with us-all of the South. We’re ready enough with fine words or big brave deeds, but we neglect the little things and so waste our resources. From now on, I mean to make the small sacrifices that are needed. If we all do that, we shall be able to endure to the end and win!”

April was barely seventeen, but she spoke with a fresh spirit of resolution and sincerity, and there was a thoughtfulness in her beautiful face that gave it a look of dawning maturity.

“And I’ll do my share, too!” Harriot exclaimed, carried away by her sister’s enthusiasm. “I can do it, if April can. Hereafter I’ll not eat so much poundcake—and I’ll see that Corinne doesn’t, either.”

Mrs. May smiled a little sadly, wishing, perhaps, that this willingness to accept privations had been born of faith in another and better cause.

CHAPTER II

A STRANGE GUEST

The year 1863, which was ushered in by the Emancipation Proclamation, was one of steadily waning fortune for the Confederate Cause. Even temporary successes in Virginia or elsewhere could hardly blind the South to such blows as the loss of Vicksburg and the Union victory of Gettysburg. Hope flared up after Chickamauga, but 1864 opened with no better prospect than had 1863, and resources dwindled steadily. Food became so scarce that many were actually near the starvation point. In the State of Georgia, however, which, as yet, the war had touched but lightly, there was comparative plenty, and the people of little Washington, though they were forced to give up many seeming necessities, lived in tolerable comfort.

Thus Mrs. May’s predictions apparently were far from fulfillment, and April’s conviction of the ultimate victory of the South was strengthened. Moreover, Georgia crops were counted upon to feed the army, and this kept men at home in legitimate employment and the life of the community took on a semblance of what it was in normal times. Officers on recruiting service or attached to the military prisons at Andersonville and Millen, were to be seen everywhere; so that there was no lack of escorts for ladies, who never stirred out of their native towns without a gentleman in attendance.

There was a continual round of parties and balls which, though they lacked the lavishness of former occasions, were gay and lively in spite of conditions that might well have depressed a less sanguine people.

And, as was natural, there was no hint upon the part of the soldiers that victory for the Southern arms was in the slightest degree doubtful. The gallant captains and lieutenants who, with the courtly grace of their time, bowed low over the dainty hands of their fair partners in the dance, never failed to promise success with so sincere a conviction that those who listened thereafter turned a deaf ear to all suggestions of possible defeat.

That the Yankees had won battles was not denied; but it served only to increase the bitterness in the hearts of most Confederates, and there was a good deal of talk at this time of seizing property belonging to those who were suspected of sympathizing with the North, of whom there were more than a few in the State. But this came to nothing. There were, indeed, some among the far-seeing Southerners who were not above placing a portion of their crops in the hands of these Union men, thinking thus to save a little from the inevitable wreck.

On the whole, however, April’s firm faith in the triumph of her cause appeared to be justified. As month after month passed, the memory of her mother’s warning grew less impressive. Moreover, the proclamation freeing the slaves had had no effect whatever upon the negroes owned by Colonel May, for they were well and kindly treated. Throughout the country generally there was more or less restlessness to be noted among the colored population, but those of them who ran away fled from indifferent or cruel masters, and the better class of Southerners showed little sympathy for such owners.

Moreover Mrs. May was one of the Kentucky Harriots who had always opposed secession. She had even heard herself referred to, in whispers to be sure, as “Henry May’s Yankee wife.” And in her own family she had never concealed a certain understanding of the North and had deplored the action of those hot-heads and politicians who had precipitated the conflict. But her husband was the colonel of a Georgia regiment, and her son, a lieutenant, and it never occurred to her to oppose their decision once it was taken.

Between April and her mother there was a very deep and true bond of affection; but, when Mrs. May strove to soften her daughter’s bitterness toward the Union, the girl could not forget the fact that Kentucky was largely loyal to the North, and discounted her mother’s opinion as being tinged with Yankee sentiments which a true Georgian could not accept. Thus, while there was no breach in their love for each other, the elder woman realized that circumstances made it impossible for her to ease the blow she believed must some day shatter April’s hopes. And the girl, seeing nothing of the increasing misery outside her own prosperous circle, and hearing only the most optimistic predictions from the scores of young officers who danced attendance upon her whenever the opportunity afforded, grew increasingly confident and was more than ever ready to testify to her loyalty by a resentment toward anything that savored of sympathy for her enemies. Yet out of this well-nigh fanatical spirit unhappiness was bound to come. Already April hid a secret sorrow which sometimes brought tears to wet her pillow ere she went to sleep.

The passing of a year changed Harriot but little. She was still a most practical and unsentimental young person who looked upon the procuring of food for herself as the first duty of a growing girl. It was with no surprise, therefore, that Mortality, another of Aunt Decent’s granddaughters, found her, one warm day in the early part of 1864, discreetly screened behind some shrubbery, munching persimmon dates.

“Oh, here yoh is!” exclaimed Mortality, flopping down on the grass beside the rustic chair on which Harriot sat. “Ah was a-thinkin’ yoh might know who-all ’tis what’s comin’ in. More refugee-ers, I ’spects.”

“Oh, goodness!” cried Harriot, standing up suddenly and peering through the bushes at a rather dilapidated ambulance drawn by two very thin mules which was slowly nearing the house. “If any more people come here I’ll have to sleep in a trundle bed in April’s room.”

Harriot’s wail was not without justice. Already the May house was overflowing with less fortunate individuals who had been driven out of their own homes or who were breaking their journeys about the country. The rich planters of the South boasted of their hospitality, and now that war had brought privations to less fortunate friends they felt an added obligation to share all they possessed. Every household that could afford it, sheltered some “refugees,” as those were called who had been forced to forsake their own homes.

But this new arrival at the May establishment hardly appeared to be one of these. As Harriot watched, she saw a young girl maneuver her wide hoops through the narrow door of the ancient vehicle and proceed gravely about the business of superintending the disposal of her luggage upon the broad piazza. Then, having paid the driver, the newcomer sat down upon one of her brass-studded boxes with a sigh of relief.

“’Clare to goodness,” chuckled Mortality, “that fancy miss ac’s lack she’d done come to stay. An she don’t appear to have no folks neither.”

“She must have come to the wrong house,” Harriot whispered. She had watched the proceedings of the stranger with increasing interest. There were no congenial girls of her own age living near, and her cousin Corinne was too grown-up to have any fun with these days. Harriot would have been glad to find a playmate; but she shook her head, being certain that this calm young stranger had made a mistake. No such guest was expected, that she knew.

“Mother and April are away, so I reckon I’d better tell her,” she went on half to herself, and, stepping out briskly from behind the shrubbery, she hurried toward the house, followed by Mortality.

“This is Mr. Henry May’s house,” Harriot began at once. “Colonel Henry May, you know. He’s my father, but of course he’s with the army.” She paused a moment, but no answer being forthcoming she continued rather breathlessly: “Mrs. Gordon May’s place is over on the Abbeville road. Perhaps they are the ones you’re looking for—or maybe the Beaumont Mays, though they’re no kin to us and are living in Augusta now.”

Again she paused, but the only response was a widening of the girl’s smile, and Harriot grew slightly embarrassed; but she noted the well-made and rather fashionable clothes of this silent stranger and her regret continued to deepen.

“It’s a pity that man drove off so fast,” she went on, feeling that some one must talk. “Our horses have mostly been pressed, and I don’t know what I’ll find to send you away in, ’specially as mother and April are at the Ladies’ Aid meeting, sewing for the soldiers. But of course I’m ’bliged to find something.”

“’Deed, Miss Harry, ’tain’t no use talkin’,” Mortality half whispered. “Don’t you-all see she’s one of ’em dumbies?”

At this the strange girl laughed outright, a bright, cheerful laugh that set Harriot to smiling too.

“Really I’m not dumb,” the visitor said with a chuckle. “I’ve just been wondering what happened to all my letters. I wrote weeks ago that I was coming.”

“Oh, you did?” Harriot replied vaguely. “Well, of course, now-a-days letters never go where you expect them to.”

The other nodded calmly, and Harriot regarded her with increasing admiration. She was so cool and self-possessed.

“At any rate, I’m here now!” the girl on the trunk remarked philosophically. “It’s too late to help that, isn’t it? But, if I’m in the way, I can go back to New York, can’t I? Though it’ll probably be no end of trouble.”

“To New York!” Harriot exclaimed incredulously. “Did you run the blockade?”

“No,” the other answered rather regretfully. “I wanted to—it would be a fine adventure, wouldn’t it?—but I wasn’t allowed. Papa wished me to travel by land, so they sent me down under a flag of truce. This is your mother coming in, isn’t it?”

A carriage was rolling briskly into the drive and in another moment it drew up at the block near the porch. As Mrs. May descended the stranger slipped down from the trunk and went to meet her.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Parthenia,” she said precisely. “I fancy I should have waited for an invitation from you, shouldn’t I? But father had to leave so unexpectedly—and even though we had had no answer to our letters he said it would be best for me to come, as he had information that you were still here. If you don’t want me, I suppose I can arrange for another flag of truce to go back under, can’t I?”

There was just the shadow of a break in the gentle voice as the strange girl said this; and the crisp pronunciation with its broad “a,” so different from the slow Southern drawl, held a certain appeal that went straight to Mrs. May’s heart.

“My dear child, of course you must stay,” she said, taking the young girl in her motherly arms. “You are most welcome but—but, honey, who are you?”

CHAPTER III

A GLIMPSE OF MR. LINCOLN

At Mrs. May’s question the strange girl drew back from the motherly embrace and glanced up at the older woman almost reproachfully. “I should think you would know who I am when I called you ‘Aunt Parthenia,’” she said.

“My dear,” Mrs. May hastened to reply, “half of Alabama and nearly all of Georgia call me ‘Aunt Parthenia.’ Between the Mays and the Harriots I have so many connections that I can’t remember them all. Especially those I’ve never seen.”

The girl’s face brightened immediately.

“I am Dorothea Drummond,” she announced, and with the words the mystery was ended. Once more she was folded in Mrs. May’s arms with a warmth that left no doubt of the affection that prompted it.

“Susie’s baby!” Mrs. May exclaimed. “My little sister’s baby! Girls! Girls!” she cried excitedly to her two daughters, “this is your own cousin from England.”

“I’m mighty glad you did come to the right place after all!” Harriot burst out, taking her cousin’s hand and shaking it vigorously.

“Even though you thought I was a ‘dumby’?” Dorothea laughed back, with a twinkle in her eye.

“I never did think so,” Harriot protested, and then turned to Mortality, who was gaping curiously. “Itty, you run to Aunt Decent right off and tell her my cousin, Miss Dorothea, is here, and is as hungry as she can be. We’ll be out presently. Run now. You are hungry, of course,” she went on, addressing Dorothea, as Mortality scampered away. “You’re ’bliged to be, after coming all the way from England.”

By this time April had dismissed the carriage and joined them.

“We are very glad to see you, Dorothea,” she said, leaning down and kissing the girl warmly. Her welcome was sincere, for not only was she attracted by Dorothea’s appearance, but the fact that this new cousin had come from England, where the South still counted upon sympathy for their cause, was an additional reason for cordiality. “I thought you were about my age,” she added with an inviting smile.

“I am past fifteen,” Dorothea replied.

“Then you’re my cousin most!” Harriot insisted. “I’m not fourteen yet, but you’re nearer my age than you are April’s.”

“You’re just a baby, Harry,” April teased.

“Oh, it’s horrid to be the youngest!” her sister protested. “Your family never want you to grow up.”

“I think it’s rather worse to be both the youngest and the oldest,” Dorothea put in, laughing. “Then you’re expected to be both grown-up and a baby, too.”

“All the same you’re mostly my age,” Harriot maintained stoutly, and, as if to seal their friendship, she, too, kissed Dorothea enthusiastically.

“But that doesn’t make her any more your cousin than she is mine,” April contended. “You needn’t think, Harry, that you are going to have Dorothea all to yourself.”

It was said so sweetly that the newcomer, looking up into the face of the radiant girl before her, felt a warm throb in her heart. She was no longer a stranger. Her experiences in New York and Washington had not served to break through the reserve that she came, one day, to recognize as the British side of her character; but her welcome here had none of the English formality to which she was accustomed. This Southern greeting, with its frank cordiality, stirred within her a response hitherto unknown. She was a little puzzled at the dawning of a new day in her outlook upon life.

“You girls will have to share a cousin, but she is all my niece,” Mrs. May laughed. “Come in, my dear,” she went on, putting an arm about Dorothea. “You will find that we are without many things to make you as comfortable as we should like; but we are not the least, tiny bit less glad to see you on that account.”

She led the way into the breakfast room where a substantial “refreshment” was being prepared for this latest guest. And here, after she had eaten a little, Dorothea told of her experiences in Washington before she started South.

“I really did come from England to visit you, Aunt Parthenia,” she said. “You know you wrote many times that you would be glad to see me.”

“Of course!” Mrs. May nodded.

“Well,” the girl went on, “father had to come over on diplomatic business, and I begged him to bring me because I wanted to know my relations in America. When we sailed every one thought that the war would be ended by the time we arrived; but it wasn’t, so I stayed with father in Washington. I wrote you as soon as we landed, saying I was coming; and father had the letter sent through the lines. But, of course, I was not very much surprised at not hearing from you; though it never occurred to me that you might not have received my letter. Then, quite suddenly, just when we were nicely settled, father was ordered to South America.”

“And was he ’bliged to go?” demanded Harriot, munching the remains of a pecan praline garnered from Dorothea’s lunch.

“Oh, of course,” her cousin answered. “That is the way it always is in the Diplomatic Service. You can’t ever tell where you may be sent the next day. There was a ship leaving almost immediately, and father only had an hour or two to get ready if he was to reach New York in time to sail. He was for starting me back to England with Fräulein—”

“Who was she?” asked April.

“My governess and companion,” Dorothea replied with a laugh. “I wonder where she is now, poor Fräulein? Well, I teased father to let me try to come here if I could safely, and he said I might. Then he took the train, and a few days afterward I started South.”

“But, my dear,” Mrs. May exclaimed, “there must have been something more than that. How could you travel without an escort?”

“Besides, the Yankees would never let you through their lines,” April put in bitterly. “Did you run the blockade?”

“I thought for a little while I should have to, if I was to come at all,” Dorothea continued. “You see, just before he left, father wrote a letter to the Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, asking that I be permitted to go through the Union lines on my way here. So the next day I went to see Mr. Stanton. It was a long time before I was let into his office; but at last I was, and he sat at a large desk with father’s letter, which I had sent in to him, in his hand. He looked at me pretty sharply.

“‘Well, young lady,’ he began at once. ‘You might have spared yourself this trip. I have issued the last pass through our lines.’

“He said it as if he were rather pleased to have a chance to growl at me. You see the English are not popular in Washington—”

“That is to their everlasting credit,” April broke in warmly. “They are all friends of the Confederacy.”

“That is what Mr. Stanton was thinking,” Dorothea went on, nodding her head wisely. “Father had warned me that there might be trouble. The Secretary, of course, didn’t want to offend the English if he could help it, and I didn’t mean to be put off so easily.

“‘Surely you could let me have a pass, sir, couldn’t you?’ I pleaded.

“‘I could—but I won’t,’ he answered gruffly.

“‘My father thought you might take his position somewhat into consideration,’ I suggested meekly.

“‘Then he should have written to Seward!’ the Secretary of War snapped out angrily. ‘I am not one of those who think it would do any good to our cause to favor the English.’

“‘But the Drummonds are Scots, sir,’ I reminded him, at which he threw up his head like a restive horse.

“‘It is the same thing,’ he cried.

“‘Ye’ll nae find a Scotsman agreein’ wi’ ye in that, Mr. Secretary,’ I retorted, for you know we are not English and it annoys us to have people think we are.

“Before he could reply we were both surprised to hear a low chuckle of amusement and I turned to meet the gaze of a tall, lanky man, whom, of course, I recognized at once.”

“Abe Lincoln!” ejaculated Harriot scornfully, and Dorothea eyed her younger cousin with a momentary look of surprise.

“You’d never think of calling him that if once you’d seen him,” she went on slowly. “I don’t know quite how to describe him—”

“They say he’s the ugliest man in America,” April interrupted with a laugh of derision.

“Oh, but he isn’t ugly!” Dorothea protested earnestly. “Truly he isn’t. He’s not like any other man I ever saw. I looked up into his face, and it was so sad that my heart just ached and I felt that I wanted to comfort him, only—only there wasn’t any way I could do it, was there? And he was tired, too, dreadfully tired. You could tell from the droop of his body—and his eyes. But all that I noticed later. When I turned round first, he was smiling and watching me with so pleasant a look that I wasn’t at all afraid or embarrassed, as one would have expected.

“‘Well, little girl,’ he said, just as father might have said it, ‘I think you scored on the Secretary of War that time; though indeed we all make the same mistake in this country. But what is it all about?’

“He put his hand on my shoulder and we stood together before Mr. Stanton, who scowled up at us for all the world like an angry schoolmaster at two naughty pupils.

“‘The young lady is the daughter of Mr. Drummond of the British Embassy,’ the Secretary grudgingly explained. ‘She wishes to go to Georgia, and I have just told her that it is impossible.’

“‘Hum!’ murmured Mr. Lincoln, looking down at me with a twinkle in his eye though his face was quite sober. ‘So you think she is too dangerous a person to receive a pass through our lines, Mr. Secretary?’

“‘I intend to issue no more passes, Mr. President,’ Mr. Stanton said bluntly.

“Again Mr. Lincoln looked down at me, drawing a long face.

“‘You know he’s quite right,’ he murmured, half to himself. ‘The pass privilege has been greatly abused, no doubt of that, and when the Secretary of War puts his foot down there’s no moving him. I suppose we’ll have to go over to the Secretary of State and see what he can do for us.’

“Mr. Stanton snorted.

“‘Mr. President!’ he exploded, ‘is our cause to be jeopardized by the weakness of a man who can’t say “No”?’

“‘Is our cause so weak that it will be put in jeopardy by letting a little girl pass through our lines?’ Mr. Lincoln answered patiently.

“I don’t know what Mr. Stanton might have said to that, for before he could speak a man in uniform came hurrying in with a dispatch in his hand which he laid on the desk. The messenger himself seemed excited and much pleased, as if he bore good news. The Secretary glanced at it and then jumped to his feet with an exclamation of delight.

“‘This is better than we could possibly have expected, Mr. President!’ he cried, handing the paper to Mr. Lincoln. I do not know what it was all about, but it was plainly something which was favorable to the North, and I watched Mr. Lincoln as he took the message, only to see an expression of deep sadness come over his face. Whatever he read on the yellow slip in his hand brought no gladness to his heart. He stood there, forgetting all about us, and gazed out of the window with the look of one who had learned of a great sorrow.

“Mr. Stanton watched him for a moment and seemed to grow irritated at his lack of enthusiasm.

“‘Are you displeased with the news, Mr. President?’ he asked irritably.

“‘My grief is for all those who suffer,’ was the quiet answer and Mr. Lincoln handed back the message to the Secretary who sat down at his desk again.

“Then the President turned to me once more and, noting that Mr. Stanton was busying himself with other matters, he led me into an alcove beside a wide window and asked me all about myself; who I was, why I wanted to go South and if I was interested in the war? And I told him the truth, which was that I hadn’t thought very much about it.”

“And then I suppose he asked you if you’d read ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ and gave you a copy,” April cut in sarcastically.

Dorothea gave a funny little chuckle.

“Not exactly, but he did wish to know if I’d read it and what I thought of it. And I said I thought it very long, at which he seemed highly amused and agreed with me heartily. After that, for some time, he looked out of the window evidently thinking deeply, all the while jingling some keys or coins in his pocket, but at length he spoke again.

“‘My dear,’ he said, gently, ‘you tell me you are going South on a visit to a little country village. Perhaps, down there, you may escape this war. Maybe before you return it will be all over; but remember that the South is a part of my country as dear to me as is the North. I have ready a Proclamation of Amnesty for the whole South, from Mr. Davis down to the humblest citizen, which shall be published the moment they lay down their arms.’”

“The South will not have to beg Mr. Lincoln for mercy!” cried April. “But he seems to have made a Yankee of you, Cousin Dorothea,” she added, a little suspiciously.

“Oh, no,” Dorothea answered quickly. “I’ve always been for the South, you know. ’Most everybody in England is, but I do admire Mr. Lincoln. I can’t help that. He’s queer, and his clothes don’t fit him, and—and—Oh, I can’t explain what I feel—but, when you talk to him, you know in your heart that he is a great man.”

She spoke so earnestly and seriously that for a moment her hearers were impressed and there was silence around the table.

“I want to hear about your coming through the lines,” Harriot broke out at last. “It must have been great fun.”

“I think that had better wait till Dorothea is settled down,” Mrs. May said, rising to her feet. “Come with me, my dear, and I’ll show you to your room.”

CHAPTER IV

UNPACKING TRUNKS

“It’s a charming room, Aunt Parthenia!” Dorothea exclaimed, glancing out of the window overlooking the box-edged beds of the flower garden, but noting particularly the cheerful blaze on the hearth. “I shall love it here so much that I shan’t ever want to go away again.”

Mrs. May turned from straightening the curtains at the front where the windows opened on the gallery roof.

“That’s very prettily said, my dear,” she returned. “We shouldn’t like anything better than to have you stay always in your American home.”

There was a suspicion of tears in Dorothea’s eyes as she looked up at her aunt and then, impulsively, she put her arms about the elder woman with a convulsive hug.

“I really have never had a home,” she murmured, half to herself; and Mrs. May, understanding what was in the girl’s heart, patted her shoulder lovingly.

“April is next door to you and I’m just across the hall,” Harriot explained a moment later.

“Where she can look down upon the cook-house, and see just what’s going on,” April said, banteringly.

“Indeed I can,” Harriot admitted unblushingly. “I always know what Aunt Decent is baking by the smells coming in at the windows. You’ll find that my room has decided advantages, Dorothea.”

While they were waiting for the trunks to be brought up Dorothea, yielding to Harriot’s insistent demands for the story of her adventures on the way from Washington, told briefly what had happened.

“It wasn’t very much,” she began. “Everything was made very easy for me, and all the people I met were so pleasant and kind, that it seemed as if I was finding friends wherever I went. All the Americans are like that, aren’t they? It’s different in England. Of course, as I might have expected though I didn’t, Fräulein lost all her courage and refused to go. You might have thought she would have to fight. She talked of both armies as if they wouldn’t have anything to do but kill us. But I wasn’t to be put off. There was a Mrs. Warren and her two children who were going through the lines at the same time, and she looked after me till we reached Charlotte. There I was handed over to a Miss Pettigrew who brought me here. So you see,” Dorothea ended, “it wasn’t much of an adventure after all.”

“Oh, but you haven’t told us about the soldiers, or the flag of truce or—or lots of things you must have seen,” Harriot suggested.

“There isn’t really much to tell,” Dorothea returned; but in her answer there was a hint of reluctance to talk of the matter. “We crossed a river called the Rappahannock in boats with a white flag flying, ‘under the special protection of the two great American armies,’ they said. There was a rope stretched on the Southern side and a Confederate officer met us, lifting the barrier to let us through. All the officers on each side were very polite and friendly to each other, exchanging newspapers and inquiring for mutual friends; but before we knew it everything was all over. After that, we were driven over awful roads to call on one of your commanding officers to deliver our passes and thanks for our special truce, as is customary. Oh, here are my boxes and I want to unpack them.”

Seeming glad of a diversion which allowed a change of subject, Dorothea ended her recital abruptly and turned to where two colored boys were unstrapping her luggage. Mrs. May watched her for a moment and unconsciously shook her head as if a little puzzled. April, her eyes upon the floor, sat immovable, as if her thoughts were very far away.

“I wonder why she doesn’t want to talk about the soldiers?” Harriot asked herself. All three had noted something of a lack of frankness that had set them wondering.

But trunks fresh from outside the blockade had a strong attraction for April and Harriot. Mrs. May, too, did not attempt to conceal her curiosity. However she had many household duties that called for immediate attention.

“I’m just as anxious to see your pretty things as the girls,” she said, as she rose to leave the room; “but I am obliged to wait till later. I’ll send Merry up.”

At once there was a protest.

“We don’t need her!” Harriot exclaimed.

“Let us help Dorothea, mother,” April proposed, a little excited in anticipation of a look at foreign finery.

“Very well,” Mrs. May agreed and went away regretfully. She, too, was anxious to see if the fashions had changed greatly during the years when the war had cut them off almost wholly from the rest of the world.

Left to themselves the three girls contemplated the fine array of boxes and trunks, which seemed to hold an excessive amount of apparel for one young lady.

“Gracious me!” exclaimed Harriot. “It’s good those two big wardrobes are in this room. You must have a dress for every day in the month.”

“Wait and you’ll see what I have,” Dorothea laughed knowingly. “There are lots of things besides clothes. I had to be very careful about my packing.”

“Why?” demanded the practical Harriot.

“Because the Union army wanted to be sure I wasn’t carrying anything down here that would be useful,” Dorothea explained. “They examine everything, of course. I suspected it would be like the customs house business in Europe, so I prepared.”

“And did they dare to search through everything?” demanded April indignantly.

“No, not everything,” Dorothea answered with a significant emphasis on the last word. “The man who was detailed to look over my luggage was awfully nice. He asked me at once if I had anything in my boxes that would give ‘aid or comfort to the enemy’ and I said, ‘No, sir! because I don’t call an aunt or a cousin an enemy, do you?’ He laughed and remarked he’d heard of those ‘as was enemies and those as wasn’t’; but when I told him I came from England, he looked at all my traps, shook his head and let them go through without much bother. As a matter of fact he fastened bands of white muslin on them with dabs of red sealing-wax to show they were ‘passed packages’—and you know I was just a little disappointed.”

“But why?” demanded Harriot. “If he let them through without mussing everything, I should think you would have been glad.”

“Oh! but I’d packed them so carefully,” Dorothea answered with a knowing smile. “Come, let’s have a look—but you’ll be careful, won’t you?”

All three set to work but they had not gone far when Dorothea had to repeat her warning.

“Look out for that. Cousin April,” she said, as the older girl took a tightly rolled silk parasol out of the trunk.

“It’s mighty pretty,” April remarked, looking at it curiously, “but not very perishable. I don’t see why I need be ’specially careful of it.”

“Open it over the bed,” Dorothea advised, and, when her suggestion was followed, a shower of pills fell out.

“Oh!” cried April and Harriot in one breath. “You hid contraband in it. What are these, Dorothea?”

“Opium pills!” was the answer. “I read in the papers that the poor Southern soldiers had little to stop the pain of their wounds, so I brought as much as I could. It isn’t very easy to get in Washington, though I sent to a lot of chemists’ shops so I wouldn’t be suspected.”

“That’s fine!” exclaimed April. “We’ve had an awful time about opium. Last year it rained just at the wrong time and our rows of poppies had very few flowers on them. We have been very short of it since.”

“And it’s a dreadfully sticky task to get the opium,” Harriot explained, twisting up her face. “We have to pick the poppy heads when they’re ripe and pierce them with a coarse needle. Then we have to catch the gum in a cup and let it dry. We’re hoping to get a lot this summer.”

Meanwhile, as they talked, the unpacking went on, and presently April held up a beautiful French doll of huge proportions.

“Is this for little Harriot?” she asked, with a teasing grin at her younger sister who had never, even in her younger days, had any taste for dolls.

“That’s one of the things I was most disappointed about,” Dorothea answered. “I just longed for the examining officer to find that, and I had made up my mind to tell him it was for my little Cousin Harriot; but he never noticed it.”

“It’s very pretty,” Harriot remarked coldly, “but I’m a trifle too old for dolls.”

“Not for this one,” Dorothea cried. “It’s stuffed with ground coffee and quinine pills.”

“Then I’d be glad to have it,” Harriot shouted, ready to laugh at herself. “Give it to me, April.”

“No, no!” her sister replied, retreating across the room. “Dorothea didn’t say she brought it for you. She said she was going to say that. However, you can have the pills, if you want them. They’re fine and bitter, worse than any dog-wood berry ones you ever tasted.”

“I’ll have some of the coffee, too,” Harriot insisted. “Oh, just imagine a cup of real coffee! I believe I’ve forgotten what it tastes like. But, Dorothea, how did you ever think of such a thing as stuffing a doll with coffee?”

“It wasn’t my own idea at all,” Dorothea confessed. “Some years ago, when father and I were traveling on the Continent, we saw a woman who tried the same trick in one of the custom houses. I can still remember my horror when the officer who was examining her luggage picked up a perfectly beautiful doll, all dressed in flowered silk, and deliberately snapped off its head, in spite of the fact that she told him it was for her brother’s little girl who was ill. But I was more astonished when the man drew out yards and yards of the finest lace which was concealed in the doll’s body. That’s what gave me the idea.”

“Such are the advantages of travel,” said April quizzically.

“It must be great fun to go everywhere,” Harriot put in half enviously. “Nobody I know ever went any farther than New Orleans or the White Sulphur. I’ve only been to the plantation and back, and that wasn’t even out of Georgia. I certainly should like to travel in Europe, wouldn’t you, April?”