Читать книгу Gettysburg (Elsie Singmaster) (Literary Thoughts Edition) - Elsie Singmaster - Страница 5

From the kitchen to the front door, back to the kitchen, out to the little stone-fenced yard behind the house, where her children played in their quiet fashion, Mary Bowman went uneasily. She was a bright-eyed, slender person, with an intense, abounding joy in life. In her red plaid gingham dress, with its full starched skirt, she looked not much older than her ten-year-old boy.

Presently, admonishing herself sternly, she went back to her work. She sat down in a low chair by the kitchen table, and laid upon her knee a strip of thick muslin. Upon that she placed a piece of linen, which she began to scrape with a sharp knife. Gradually a soft pile of little, downy masses gathered in her lap. After a while, as though this process were too slow, or as though she could no longer endure her bent position, she selected another piece of linen and began to pull it to pieces, adding the raveled threads to the pile of lint. Suddenly, she slipped her hands under the soft mass, and lifted it to the table. Forgetting the knife, which fell with a clatter, she rose and went to the kitchen door.

"Children," she said, "remember you are not to go away."

The oldest boy answered obediently. Mounted upon a broomstick, he impersonated General Early, who, a few days before, had visited the town and had made requisition upon it; and little Katy and the four-year-old boy represented General Early's ragged Confederates.

Their mother's bright eyes darkened as she watched them. Those raiding Confederates had been so terrible to look upon, so ragged, so worn, so starving. Their eyes had been like black holes in their brown faces; they had had the figures of youth and the decrepitude of age. A straggler from their ranks had told her that the Southern men of strength and maturity were gone, that there remained in his village in Georgia only little boys and old, old men. The Union soldiers who had come yesterday, marching in the Emmittsburg road, through the town and out to the Theological Seminary, were different; travel-worn as they were, they had seemed, in comparison, like new recruits.

Suddenly Mary Bowman clasped her hands. Thank God, they would not fight here! Once more frightened Gettysburg had anticipated a battle, once more its alarm had proved ridiculous. Early had gone days ago to York, the Union soldiers were marching toward Chambersburg. Thank God, John Bowman, her husband, was not a regular soldier, but a fifer in the brigade band. Members of the band, poor Mary thought, were safe, danger would not come nigh them. Besides, he was far away with Hooker's idle forces. No failure to give battle made Mary indignant, no reproaches of an inert general fell from her lips. She was passionately grateful that they did not fight.

It was only on dismal, rainy days, or when she woke at night and looked at her little children lying in their beds, that the vague, strange possibility of her husband's death occurred to her. Then she assured herself with conviction that God would not let him die. They were so happy, and they were just beginning to prosper. They had paid the last upon their little house before he went to war; now they meant to save money and to educate their children. By fall the war would be over, then John would come back and resume his school-teaching, and everything would be as it had been.

She went through the kitchen again and out to the front door, and looked down the street with its scattering houses. Opposite lived good-natured, strong-armed Hannah Casey; in the next house, a dozen rods away, the Deemer family. The Deemers had had great trouble, the father was at war and the two little children were ill with typhoid fever. In a little while she would go down and help. It was still early; perhaps the children and their tired nurses slept.

Beyond, the houses were set closer together, the Wilson house first, where a baby was watched for now each day, and next to it the McAtee house, where Grandma McAtee was dying. In that neighborhood, and a little farther on past the new court-house in the square, which Gettysburg called "The Diamond," men were moving about, some mounted, some on foot. Their presence did not disturb Mary, since Early had gone in one direction and the Union soldiers were going in the other. Probably the Union soldiers had come to town to buy food before they started on their march. She did not even think uneasily of the sick and dying; she said to herself that if the soldiers had wished to fight here, the good men of the village, the judge, the doctor, and the ministers would have gone forth to meet them and with accounts of the invalids would have persuaded them to stay away!

Over the tops of the houses, Mary could see the cupola of the Seminary lifting its graceful dome and slender pillars against the blue sky. She and her husband had always planned that one of their boys should go to the Seminary and learn to be a preacher; she remembered their hope now. Far beyond Seminary Ridge, the foothills of the Blue Ridge lay clear and purple in the morning sunshine. The sun, already high in the sky, was behind her; it stood over the tall, thick pines of the little cemetery where her kin lay, and where she herself would lie with her husband beside her. Except for that dim spot, the whole lovely landscape was unshadowed.

Suddenly she put out her hand to the pillar of the porch and called her neighbor:—

"Hannah!"

The door of the opposite house opened, and Hannah Casey's burly figure crossed the street. She had been working in her carefully tended garden and her face was crimson. Hannah Casey anticipated no battle.

"Good morning to you," she called. "What is it you want?"

"Come here," bade Mary Bowman.

The Irishwoman climbed the three steps to the little porch.

"What is it?" she asked again. "What is it you see?"

"Look!—Out there at the Seminary! You can see the soldiers moving about, like black specks under the trees!"

Hannah squinted a pair of near-sighted eyes in the direction of the Seminary.

"I'll take your word for it," she said.

With a sudden motion Mary Bowman lifted her hand to her lips.

"Early wouldn't come back!" she whispered. "He would never come back!"

Hannah Casey laughed a bubbling laugh.

"Come back? Those rag-a-bones? It 'ud go hard with them if they did. The Unionists wouldn't jump before 'em like the rabbits here. But I didn't jump! The Bateses fled once more for their lives, it's the seventeenth time they've saved their valuable commodities from the foe. Down the street they flew, their tin dishes and their precious chiny rattling in their wagon. 'Oh, my kind sir!' says Lillian to the raggedy man you fed,—'oh, my kind sir, I surrender!' 'You're right you do,' says he. 'We're goin' to eat you up!'—'Lady,' says that same snip to me, 'you'd better leave your home.' 'Worm!' says I back to him, 'you leave my home!' And you fed him, you soft-heart!"

"He ate like an animal," said Mary; "as though he had had nothing for days."

"And all the cave-dwellers was talkin' about divin' for their cellars. I wasn't goin' into no cellar. Here I stay, aboveground, till they lay me out for good."

Mary Bowman laughed suddenly, hysterically. She had laughed thus far through all the sorrows war had brought,—poverty, separation, anxiety. She might still laugh; there was no danger; Early had gone in one direction, the Union soldiers in the other.

"Did you see him dive into the apple-butter, Hannah Casey? His face was smeared with it. He couldn't wait till the biscuits were out of the oven. He—" She stopped and listened, frowning. She looked out once more toward the ridge with its moving spots, then down at the town with its larger spots, then back at the pines, standing straight and tall in the July sunshine. She could see the white tombstones beneath the trees.

"Listen!" she cried.

"To what?" demanded Hannah Casey.

For a few seconds the women stood silently. There were still the same faint, distant sounds, but they were not much louder, not much more numerous than could be heard in the village on any summer morning. A heart which dreaded ominous sound might have been set at rest by the peace and stillness.

Hannah Casey spoke irritably. "What do you hear?"

"Nothing," answered Mary Bowman. "But I thought I heard men marching. I believe it's my heart beating! I thought I heard them in the night. Could you sleep?"

"Like a log!" said Hannah Casey. "Sleep? Why, of course, I could sleep! Ain't our boys yonder? Ain't the Rebs shakin' in their shoes? No, they ain't. They ain't got no shoes. Ain't the Bateses, them barometers of war, still in their castle, ain't—"

"I slept the first part of the night," interrupted Mary Bowman. "Then it seemed to me I heard men marching. I thought perhaps they were coming through the town from the hill, and I looked out, but there was nothing stirring. It was the brightest night I ever saw. I—"

Again Hannah Casey laughed her mighty laugh. There were nearer sounds now, the rattle of a cart behind them, the gallop of hoofs before. Again the Bateses were coming, a family of eight crowded into a little springless wagon with what household effects they could collect. Hannah Casey waved her apron at them and went out to the edge of the street.

"Run!" she yelled. "Skedaddle! Murder! Help! Police!"

Neither her jeers nor Mary Bowman's laugh could make the Bateses turn their heads. Mrs. Bates held in her short arms a feather bed, her children tried to get under it as chicks creep under the wings of a mother hen. Down in front of the Deemer house they stopped suddenly. A Union soldier had halted them, then let them pass. He rode his horse up on the pavement and pounded with his sword at the Deemer door.

"He might terrify the children to death!" cried Mary Bowman, starting forward.

But already the soldier was riding toward her.

"There is sickness there!" she shouted to his unheeding ears; "you oughtn't to pound like that!"

"You women will have to stay in your cellars," he answered. "A battle is to be fought here."

"A BATTLE IS TO BE FOUGHT HERE."

"Here?" said Mary Bowman stupidly.

"Get out!" said Hannah Casey. "There ain't nobody here to fight with!"

The soldier rode his horse to Hannah Casey's door, and began to pound with his sword.

"I live there!" screamed Hannah. "You dare to bang that door!"

Mary Bowman crossed the street and looked up at him as he sat on his great horse.

"Oh, sir, do you mean that they will fight here?"

"I do."

"In Gettysburg?" Hannah Casey could scarcely speak for rage.

"In Gettysburg."

"Where there are women and children?" screamed Hannah. "And gardens planted? I'd like to see them in my garden, I—"

"Get into your cellars," commanded the soldier. "You'll be safe there."

"Sir!" Mary Bowman went still a little closer. The crisis in the Deemer house was not yet passed, even at the best it was doubtful whether Agnes Wilson could survive the hour of her trial, and Grandma McAtee was dying. "Sir!" said Mary Bowman, earnestly, ignorant of the sublime ridiculousness of her reminder, "there are women and children here whom it might kill."

The man laughed a short laugh.

"Oh, my God!" He leaned a little from his saddle. "Listen to me, sister! I have lost my father and two brothers in this war. Get into your cellars."

With that he rode down the street.

"He's a liar," cried Hannah Casey. She started to run after him. "Go out to Peterson's field to do your fighting," she shouted furiously. "Nothing will grow there! Go out there!"

Then she stopped, panting.

The soldier took time to turn and grin and wave his hand.

"He's a liar," declared Hannah Casey once more. "Early's went. There ain't nothing to fight with."

Still scolding, she joined Mary Bowman on her porch. Mary Bowman stood looking through the house at her children, playing in the little field. They still played quietly; it seemed to her that they had never ceased to miss their father.

Then Mary Bowman looked down the street. In the Diamond the movement was more rapid, the crowd was thicker. Women had come out to the doorsteps, men were hurrying about. It seemed to Mary that she heard Mrs. Deemer scream. Suddenly there was a clatter of hoofs; a dozen soldiers, riding from the town, halted and began to question her. Their horses were covered with foam; they had come at a wild gallop from Seminary Ridge.

"This is the road to Baltimore?"

"Yes."

"Straight ahead?"

"Yes."

Gauntleted hands lifted the dusty reins.

"You'd better protect yourself! There is going to be a battle."

"Here?" asked Mary Bowman again stupidly.

"Right here."

Hannah Casey thrust herself between them.

"Who are you goin' to fight with, say?"

The soldiers grinned at her. They were already riding away.

"With the Turks," answered one over his shoulder.

Another was kinder, or more cruel.

"Sister!" he explained, "it is likely that two hundred thousand men will be engaged on this spot. The whole Army of Northern Virginia is advancing from the north, the whole Army of the Potomac is advancing from the south, you—"

The soldier did not finish. His galloping comrades had left him, he hastened to join them. After him floated another accusation of lying from the lips of Hannah Casey. Hannah was irritated because the Bateses were right.

"Hannah!" said Mary Bowman thickly. "I told you how I dreamed I heard them marching. It was as though they came in every road, Hannah, from Baltimore and Taneytown and Harrisburg and York. The roads were full of them, they were shoulder against shoulder, and their faces were like death!"

Hannah Casey grew ghastly white. Superstition did what common sense and word of man could not do.

"So you did!" she whispered; "so you did!"

Mary Bowman clasped her hands and looked about her, down the street, out toward the Seminary, back at the grim trees. The little sounds had died away; there was now a mighty stillness.

"He said the whole Army of the Potomac," she repeated. "John is in the Army of the Potomac."

"That is what he said," answered the Irishwoman.

"What will the Deemers do?" cried Mary Bowman. "And the Wilsons?"

"God knows!" said Hannah Casey.

Suddenly Mary Bowman lifted her hands above her head.

"Look!" she screamed.

"What?" cried Hannah Casey. "What is it?"

Mary Bowman went backwards toward the door, her eyes still fixed on the distant ridge, as though they could not be torn away. It was nine o'clock; a shrill little clock in the house struck the hour.

"Children!" called Mary Bowman. "Come! See!"

The children dropped the little sticks with which they played and ran to her.

"What is it?" whined Hannah Casey.

Mary Bowman lifted the little boy to her shoulder. A strange, unaccountable excitement possessed her, she hardly knew what she was doing. She wondered what a battle would be like. She did not think of wounds, or of blood or of groans, but of great sounds, of martial music, of streaming flags carried aloft. She sometimes dreamed that her husband, though he had so unimportant a place, might perform some great deed of valor, might snatch the colors from a wounded bearer, and lead his regiment to victory upon the field of battle. And now, besides, this moment, he was marching home! She never thought that he might die, that he might be lost, swallowed up in the yawning mouth of some great battle-trench; she never dreamed that she would never see him again, would hunt for him among thousands of dead bodies, would have her eyes filled with sights intolerable, with wretchedness unspeakable, would be tortured by a thousand agonies which she could not assuage, torn by a thousand griefs beside her own. She could not foresee that all the dear woods and fields which she loved, where she had played as a child, where she had picnicked as a girl, where she had walked with her lover as a young woman, would become, from Round Top to the Seminary, from the Seminary to Culp's Hill, a great shambles, then a great charnel-house. She lifted the little boy to her shoulder and held him aloft.

"See, darling!" she cried. "See the bright things sparkling on the hill!"

"What are they?" begged Hannah Casey, trying desperately to see.

"They are bayonets and swords!"

She put the little boy down on the floor, and looked at him. Hannah Casey had clutched her arm.

"Hark!" said Hannah Casey.

Far out toward the shining cupola of the Seminary there was a sharp little sound, then another, and another.

"What is it?" shrieked Hannah Casey. "Oh, what is it?"

"What is it!" mocked Mary Bowman. "It is—"

A single, thundering, echoing blast took the words from Mary Bowman's lips.

Stupidly, she and Hannah Casey looked at one another.