Читать книгу A Lantern in her Hand - Bess Streeter Aldrich - Страница 9

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And then the presidential campaign of ’64 was on in full swing. Over in town there were parades and banners and torchlights and much bombastic oratory. General Sherman was close upon Atlanta and Grandpa Deal was close upon General Sherman. For he had been delegated by Governor Kirkwood to go to the first division of General Logan’s Fifteenth Army Corps to bring the vote of the Iowa contingent back to the state. Many weeks elapsed before his return. Atlanta fell. All communication to the north was severed, for General Sherman had started on his wearisome march to the sea. And with the tramping columns rode Grandpa Deal on a horse whose mane was as black as Grandpa Deal’s own bushy head. A veritable old man of the sea he looked upon his return, grotesque appearing, with the bag of ballots swung over his shoulder by a strap, a faded carpet-bag in his one hand,—in the bag the government’s pay to many of the Iowa boys.

Abbie was “boarding around,” and was at the Deal house for the week when Grandpa came. He told his experiences to the family in high glee, his ice-blue eyes twinkling behind the bushy brows. “I’d al’a’s throw the old bag down,” he would relate with silent chuckles, “ ’n’ give it a kick for extra measure, so’s nobody’d allow the’ was any value to it,—’n’ all the time the’ was two thousand four hundred and twenty-two dollars in its old insides.”

“Did you,” Abbie moistened dry red lips, “did you—happen to see Will?”

The chuckles died. Yes, he had seen Will, had in fact kept as close to Company B, 31st Iowa Regiment as he consistently could. He had tried to make Will ride the horse a few times when he was exhausted. He had sat around the campfire with him a few nights, when the boys sang and joked and told stories to keep up their spirits. “Was the awfulest dense pitch-pine smoke from them campfires ye’d ever see. Boys used to kinda apologize to me about ’em, bein’ as how I was a sort o’ guest on the march. But I’d al’a’s tell ’em black smoke didn’t interfere much with my complexion.”

In a few minutes he said soberly: “Will’s been caught stealin’.”

“Stealing?” A sharp pang of apprehension went through Abbie. She and Grandma Deal turned to each other in mutual fright.

“Yes, sir, ... stealin’.” Grandpa Deal’s forehead was puckered in agony.

“My boy stole?” Grandma’s little worried face took on an added anxiety.

“Twas at Savannah. Provisions was one ear of corn to the man. There was transports layin’ right out there in sight off the coast with food on for our boys. Couldn’t get in ’til fortifications fell. ’N’ then my boy ...” His voice shook in mock sorrow. “My boy went to the corral,” the eyes began to twinkle, “ ’n’ stole two ears of corn from some army mules ’n’ boiled the corn for supper.”

Grandma was provoked. “You ain’t got no call to be scarin’ me that way,” she sputtered. “You ain’t got no call to spend your life jokin’.”

“Oh, come, now, Ma. Better to laugh than to cry. Will maybe’ll be remorse-stricken all the days o’ his life,—to hear the brayin’ in his conscience of them poor, helpless, skinny, mouse-colored government mules.”

When Abbie was starting for school, Grandpa casually followed her out. “Had a good visit with Will.” He cocked one eye up at the well-sweep.

“Did you?”

“Yep. He wanted to know how all the Iowa folks was.”

“Did he?”

“Yep. More specifically, he wanted to know how all the Blackhawk folks was.”

“Did he?”

“Yep. Collectively, he wanted to know how all the folks in our community was.”

“Did he?”

“Yep. Individually, he wanted to know how you was.”

“Oh, ... did he?”

“Yep. He says to me,” ... Grandpa carelessly picked up a handful of snow and threw it at a rooster. “If I can rec’lect his words exact, they was, ‘How’s my Abbie-girl’?”

Abbie walked over the crusted snow in a maze of conflicting emotions,—behind the hard little stays of her waist a burning letter from Ed Matthews and plans for her future,—in her heart, the memory of Will Deal’s one kiss, more poignant than either.

A new minister and his wife came to the growing town that fall and made a round of calls among the country folk. They were Vermont people. The Reverend Ezra Whitman was dignified, pompous, a little pedantic. Mrs. Whitman was refined, soft-spoken, a graduate of a girls’ seminary. She took a great interest in Abbie, so that the young teacher began going into town to see her. She found that Mrs. Whitman was something of an artist. The little new frame house in which the couple lived held several oil paintings that seemed the acme of art to Abbie, and there was always an unfinished canvas on an easel. The paints fascinated the girl. She longed to get her hands on them. Something in her eyes must have flashed its unspoken message, for one day Mrs. Whitman asked her if she would like to try her hand with the brush. It thrilled her beyond words. Crudely enough, but with some intuitive knowledge, she did a little clump of trees on a piece of waste canvas.

“I’ll never be satisfied until I can do it well,” she said. From that time on, at Mrs. Whitman’s invitation, she began painting with her, riding over to town when she could, tramping the two and one-half miles through slush or mud when there was no other way to go.

“It’s your voice, though, that shows the greater promise,” Mrs. Whitman told her. “I wish I could help you with that, too. Mr. Whitman’s sister will know what to tell you when she comes. She teaches voice in my old seminary.”

And when the sister came, and heard Abbie, she was enthusiastic. “It’s good,” she told them all. “It’s more than good. It’s splendid. You can do really big things with it. You must try sometime to come East for lessons.”

But Abbie was too bashful to tell her that already she had an opportunity to go to New York to study. Her praise had its influence in Abbie’s decision. If her voice was really as good as Mrs. Whitman thought—— And so, on the day in April that Lee surrendered, Abbie Mackenzie surrendered, too. She wrote the letter to Ed Matthews that she would marry him. When she had sent it over to town to be mailed she went to her old grassy knoll in the clearing to sing. But she did not seem to sing well. Something seemed lacking. The melody sounded flat, unlovely, like a song from which the soul had fled.

In the weeks that followed, Abbie felt restless, nervous and a little sad. She told herself that it was on account of Lincoln’s assassination. And indeed, some of it was, for the whole settlement mourned. But not all of her mood was due to the President’s tragic death.

On a day in May, with the honey-locusts all in bloom, she stood at the door of the schoolhouse, and watched the train from the east shriek its way across Grandpa Deal’s newly planted corn-fields. She washed her blackboard, set her desk to rights, locked the schoolhouse, and started home. And, quite suddenly, she saw some one coming down the lane. Abbie stood still, her heart pounding tumultuously with the uncertainty of the figure’s identity. The world was a lovely painting of sunshine, blue skies, honey-locusts, bees on the blossoms,—a palpitating, throbbing world of spring.

Will Deal in his blue soldier’s suit was coming toward her. She could not take her eyes from his face. He was smiling, questioningly, a little quizzically, and with something that was infinitely more tender. He slipped the knapsack from his back and held out his arms. Swiftly, lightly, Abbie went to him.

“Oh, Will, don’t let me, ... don’t let me do it,” Abbie began sobbing a little wildly, almost hysterically. For two years Abbie Mackenzie had not shed a tear and now she was crying wildly in Will Deal’s arms. Will held her close, smoothed her hair back from her creamy-white forehead.

“Do what, Abbie-girl?” He was all gentleness, all desirous of understanding.

“Marry Ed Matthews.”

Will caught her fiercely, held her closer, kissed her red lips, laid his face to her cheek that was like Mayflower petals. And Abbie thought of ships that come home to the harbor.

“I should say I won’t. He could buy me in the draft ... but he can’t buy my Abbie.”

“I was afraid all the time, Will.”

Will held her close,—smoothed her red-brown hair.

“Afraid of what, Abbie-girl?”

“I don’t know. Just afraid.”

“You’re not afraid with me?”

“Not with you, Will. Why is that?”

“Because I love you and you love me.”

“Yes, that’s it ... and I’m not afraid.”

“Of life with me, Abbie-girl?”

“Not of anything, Will, with you.”

“And you’ll always love me?”

“Always, Will, ... in this life and the next.”

The afternoon sun rays lengthened across the fields. The honey-locusts dropped in the lane. The bees made noisy forages into the hearts of the blossoms. Will and Abbie lingered, all the melody of life a-tune, all the heaven that they desired, there in the lane under the honey-locusts.