Rodman, however, merely
noticed that she bloomed, and not the room, and he said to him-
self that she would not bloom long if she continued to live in
such a moldy place.
noticed that she bloomed, and not the room, and he said to him-
self that she would not bloom long if she continued to live in
such a moldy place.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v27 - Wat to Zor
Fine fambly, de Wards, sah, befo' de war.
”
How long has he been in this state ? » asked the keeper.
“Ever sence one ob de las' battles, sah; but he's worse sence
we come yer, 'bout a mont back. ”
“Who owns the house? Is there no one to see to him ? has
he no friends ? »
«House b'long to Mars' Ward's uncle; fine place once, befo'
de war; he's dead now, and dah's nobuddy but Miss Bettina, an'
she's gone off somewhuz. Propah place, sah, fur Mars' Ward –
own uncle's house,” said the old slave, loyally striving to main-
tain the family dignity even then.
"Are there no better rooms no furniture ? »
Sartin; but — but Miss Bettina, she took de keys; she didn't
know we was comin'-
"You had better send for Miss Bettina, I think,” said the
keeper, starting homeward with his tray; washing his hands, as it
were, of any future responsibility in the affair.
The next day he worked in his garden, for clouds veiled the
sun, and exercise was possible; but nevertheless he could not
forget the white face on the old rug. “Pshaw! ” he said to
himself, haven't I seen tumble-down old houses and battered
human beings before this ? ”
>>
»
(
## p. 16176 (#522) ##########################################
16176
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
»
-
At evening came a violent thunder-storm, and the splendor of
the heavens was terrible. We have chained you, mighty spirit,”
thought the keeper as he watched the lightning: “and some time
we shall learn the laws of the winds and foretell the storms;
then prayers will no more be offered in churches to alter the
weather than they would be offered now to alter an eclipse. Yet
back of the lightning and the wind lies the power of the great
Creator, just the same. ”
But still into his musings crept, with shadowy persistence, the
white face on the rug.
“Nonsense! ” he exclaimed: “if white faces are going around
as ghosts, how about the fourteen thousand white faces that went
under the sod down yonder ? If they could arise and walk, the
whole State would be filled, and no more carpet-baggers needed. ”
So having balanced the one with the fourteen thousand, he went
to bed.
Daylight brought rain,-still, soft, gray rain; the next morn-
ing showed the same, and the third likewise; the nights keep-
ing up their part with low-down clouds and steady pattering on
the roof. "If there was a river here, we should have a flood,”
thought the keeper, drumming idly on his window-pane. Mem-
ory brought back the steep New England hillsides shedding their
rain into the brooks, which grew in a night to torrents, and
filled the rivers so that they overflowed their banks; then, sud-
denly, an old house in a sunken corner of a waste rose before
his eyes, and he seemed to see the rain dropping from a moldy
ceiling on the straw where a white face lay.
"Really, I have nothing else to do to-day, you know," he
remarked in an apologetic way to himself, as he and his umbrella
went along the old road; and he repeated the remark as he
entered the room where the man lay, just as he had fancied, on
the damp straw.
“The weather is unpleasant,” said the man. “Pomp, bring a
chair. ”
Pomp brought one, the only one, and the visitor sat down.
A fire smoldered on the hearth, and puffed out acrid smoke now
and then, as if the rain had clogged the soot in the long-neglected
chimney; from the streaked ceiling oozing drops fell with a dull
splash into little pools on the decayed floor; the door would not
close; the broken panes were stopped with rags, as if the old
servant had tried to keep out the damp; in the ashes a corn.
cake was baking.
## p. 16177 (#523) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16177
“I am afraid you have not been so well during these long
rainy days,” said the keeper, scanning the face on the straw.
"My old enemy, rheumatism,” answered the man: the first
sunshine will drive it away. ”
They talked awhile,- or rather the keeper talked, for the
other seemed hardly able to speak, as the waves of pain swept
over him; then the visitor went outside and called Pomp out. "Is
there any one to help him or not? ” he asked impatiently.
"Fine fambly, befo' de war," began Pomp.
“Never mind all that: is there any one to help him now
»
yes or no ? »
ness.
“No,” said the old black with a burst of despairing truthful.
“Miss Bettina, she's as poor as Mars' Ward, an’dere's
no one else. He's had noth’n but hard corn-cake for three days,
an' he can't swaller it no more. ”
The next morning saw Ward De Rosset lying on the white
pallet in the keeper's cottage, and old Pomp, marveling at the
cleanliness all around him, installed as nurse. A strange asylum
for a Confederate soldier, was it not ? But he knew nothing of
the change, which he would have fought with his last breath if
consciousness had remained; returning fever, however, had ab-
sorbed his senses, and then it was that the keeper and the slave
had borne him slowly across the waste, resting many times, but
accomplishing the journey at last.
That evening John Rodman, strolling to and fro in the dusky
twilight, paused alongside of the other Rodman. «I do not want
him here, and that is the plain truth,” he said, pursuing the
current of his thoughts. “He fills the house; he and Pomp
together disturb all my ways. He'll be ready to Aling a brick at
me too, when his senses come back; small thanks shall I have
for lying on the floor, giving up all my comforts, and what is
more, riding over the spirit of the place with a vengeance! ” He
threw himself down on the grass beside the mound, and lay look-
ing up toward the stars, which were coming out one by one in
the deep blue of the Southern night. “With a vengeance, did I
say? That is it exactly — the vengeance of kindness. The poor
fellow has suffered horribly in body and in estate, and now iron-
ical Fortune throws him in my way, as if saying, 'Let us
how far your selfishness will yield. This is not a question of
magnanimity; there is no magnanimity about it, for the war is
over, and you Northerners have gained every point for which you
see
XXVII-1012
## p. 16178 (#524) ##########################################
16178
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
-
fought. This is merely a question between man and man; it
would be the same if the sufferer was a poor Federal - one of the
carpet-baggers whom you despise so, for instance — or a pagan
Chinaman. ' And Fortune is right; don't you think so, Blank
Rodman? I put it to you, now, to one who has suffered the
extreme rigor of the other side — those prison-pens yonder. ”
Whereupon Blank Rodman answered that he had fought for
a great cause, and that he knew it, although a plain man and
not given to speech-making; he was not one of those who had
sat safely at home all through the war, and now belittled it and
made light of its issues. (Here a murmur came up from the
long line of the trenches, as though all the dead had cried out. )
But now the points for which he had fought being gained, and
strife ended, it was the plain duty of every man to encourage
peace. For his part he bore no malice: he was glad the poor
Confederate was up in the cottage, and he did not think any the
less of the keeper for bringing him there. He would like to add
that he thought more of him; but he was sorry to say that he
was well aware what an effort it was, and how almost grudgingly
the charity began.
If Blank Rodman did not say this, at least the keeper im.
agined that he did. «That is what he would have said,” he
thought. "I am glad you do not object,” he added, pretending
to himself that he had not noticed the rest of the remark.
“We do not object to the brave soldier who honestly fought
for his cause, even though he fought on the other side,” an-
swered Blank Rodman for the whole fourteen thousand.
never let a coward, a double-face, or a flippant-tongued idler walk
over our heads. It would make us rise in our graves! ”
And the keeper seemed to see a shadowy pageant sweep by:
gaunt soldiers with white faces, arming anew against the subtle
product of peace; men who said, “It was nothing! Behold, we
saw it with our eyes! ” — stay-at-home eyes.
The third day the fever abated, and Ward De Rosset noticed
his surroundings. Old Pomp acknowledged that he had been
moved, but veiled the locality: “To a frien's house, Mars' Ward. ”
“But I have no friends now, Pomp,” said the weak voice.
Pomp was very much amused at the absurdity of this. “No
frien's! Mars' Ward, no frien's ! » He was obliged to go out of
the room to hide his laughter. The sick man lay feebly think-
ing that the bed was cool and fresh, and the closed green blinds
»
((
>
« But
(
(
## p. 16179 (#525) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16179
pleasant; his thin fingers stroked the linen sheet, and his eyes
wandered from object to object. The only thing that broke the
rule of bare utility in the simple room was a square of white
drawing-paper on the wall, upon which was inscribed in orna-
mental text the following verse:
-
« Toujours femme varie,
Bien fou qui s'y fie;
Une femme souvent
N'est qu'une plume au vent. '
(
»
With the persistency of illness the eyes and mind of Ward De
Rosset went over and over this distich: he knew something of
French, but was unequal to the effort of translating; the rhymes
alone caught his vagrant fancy. “Toujours femme varie,” he
said to himself over and over again; and when the keeper en-
tered, he said it to him.
"Certainly,” answered the keeper; «bien fou qui s'y fie. '
How do you find yourself this morning ? ”
"I have not found myself at all, so far. Is this your house ? »
« Yes. ”
“Pomp told me I was in a friend's house," observed the sick
man vaguely.
“Well, it isn't an enemy's. Had any breakfast ? No? Better
not talk then.
He went to the detached shed which served for a kitchen,
upset all Pomp's clumsy arrangements, and ordered him outside;
then he set to work and prepared a delicate breakfast with his
best skill. The sick man eagerly eyed the tray as he entered.
“Better have your hands and face sponged off, I think,” said
Rodman; and then he propped him up skillfully, and left him to
his repast.
The grass needed mowing on the parade-ground; he
shouldered his scythe and started down the path, viciously kick-
ing the gravel aside as he walked. « Wasn't solitude your prin-
cipal idea, John Rodman, when you applied for this place ? ” he
demanded of himself. How much of it are you likely to have
“
with sick men, and sick men's servants, and so forth ? »
The “and so forth,” thrown in as a rhetorical climax, turned
into reality, and arrived bodily upon the scene - a climax indeed.
One afternoon, returning late to the cottage, he found a girl sit.
ting by the pallet - a girl young and dimpled and dewy; one of
the creamy roses of the South that, even in the bud, are richer
## p. 16180 (#526) ##########################################
16180
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
(
in color and luxuriance than any Northern flower. He saw her
through the door, and paused; distressed old Pomp met him and
beckoned him cautiously outside. «Miss Bettina,” he whispered
gutturally: “she's come back from somewhuz, an' she's awful
mad 'cause Mars' Ward's here. I tole her all 'bout 'em — de leaks
an' de rheumatiz an' de hard corn-cake; but she done gone scole
me; and Mars' Ward, he know now whar he is, an' he mad too. ”
"Is the girl a fool? ” said Rodman. He was just beginning
to rally a little. He stalked into the room and confronted her.
"I have the honor of addressing - »
“Miss Ward. "
“And I am John Rodman, keeper of the national cemetery. "
This she ignored entirely; it was as though he had said, "I
am John Jones the coachman. ” Coachmen were useful in their
way; but their names were unimportant.
The keeper sat down and looked at his new visitor. The lit-
tle creature fairly radiated scorn: her pretty head was thrown
back; her eyes, dark-brown, fringed with long dark lashes, hardly
deigned a glance: she spoke to him as though he was something
to be paid and dismissed like any other mechanic.
“We are indebted to you for some days' board, I believe, keeper
medicines, I presume, and general attendance. My cousin will
be removed to-day to our own residence; I wish to pay now what
he owes. ”
The keeper saw that her dress was old and faded; the small
black shawl had evidently been washed and many times mended;
the old-fashioned knitted purse she held in her hand was lank
with long famine.
“Very well,” he said: “if you choose to treat a kindness in
that way, I consider five dollars a day none too much for the
annoyance, expense, and trouble I have suffered.
Let me see:
five days — or is it six ? Yes. Thirty dollars, Miss Ward. ”
He looked at her steadily; she flushed. "The money will be
sent to you," she began haughtily; then, hesitatingly, "I must
ask a little time - »
"O Betty, Betty, you know you cannot pay it. Why try to
disguise But that does not excuse you for bringing me here,”
said the sick man, turning toward his host with an attempt to
speak fiercely, which ended in a faltering quaver.
All this time the old slave stood anxiously outside of the
door; in the pauses they could hear his feet shuffling as he
(
## p. 16181 (#527) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16181
.
>>
waited for the decision of his superiors. The keeper rose and
threw open the blinds of the window that looked out on the dis-
tant parade-ground. "Bringing you here," he repeated — "here;
that is my offense, is it ? There they lie, fourteen thousand
brave men and true. Could they come back to earth they would
be the first to pity and aid you, now that you are down. So
would it be with you if the case were reversed; for a soldier is
generous to a soldier.
It was not your own heart that spoke
then; it was the small venom of a woman, that here, as every-
where through the South, is playing its rancorous part.
The sick man gazed out through the window, seeing for the
first time the far-spreading ranks of the dead. He was very
weak, and the keeper's words had touched him; his eyes were
suffused with tears. But Miss Ward rose with a flashing glance.
She turned her back full upon the keeper and ignored his very
existence. "I will take you home immediately, Ward — this very
evening,” she said.
"A nice, comfortable place for a sick man,” commented the
keeper scornfully. "I am going out now, De Rosset, to prepare
your supper: you had better have one good meal before you go. ”
He disappeared; but as he went he heard the sick man say,
deprecatingly: "It isn't very comfortable over at the old house
now, indeed it isn't, Betty; I suffered — " and the girl's passionate
outburst in reply. Then he closed his door and set to work.
When he returned half an hour later, Ward was lying back
exhausted on the pillows, and his cousin sat leaning her head
upon her hand; she had been weeping, and she looked very deso-
late, he noticed, sitting there in what was to her an enemy's
country. Hunger is a strong master, however, especially when
allied to weakness; and the sick man ate with eagerness.
“I must go back," said the girl, rising. "A wagon will be
sent out for you, Ward; Pomp will help you. ”
But Ward had gained a little strength as well as obstinacy
with the nourishing food. "Not to-night,” he said.
“Yes, to-night. ”
“But I cannot go to-night; you are unreasonable, Bettina.
To-morrow will do as well, if go I must. ”
“If go you must! You do not want to go, then — to go to
our own home — and with me Her voice broke; she turned
toward the door.
The keeper stepped forward. (This is all nonsense, Miss
Ward,” he said, “and you know it.
,
Your cousin is in no state
(
## p. 16182 (#528) ##########################################
16182
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
»
to be moved. Wait a week or two, and he can go in safety.
But do not dare to offer me your money again; my kindness
was to the soldier, not to the man, and as such he can accept it.
Come out and see him as often as you please. I shall not in-
trude upon you. Pomp, take the lady home. ”
And the lady went.
Then began a remarkable existence for the four: a Confed-
erate soldier lying ill in the keeper's cottage of a national cem-
etery; a rampant little rebel coming out daily to a place which
was to her anathema-maranatha; a cynical, misanthropic keeper
sleeping on the floor and enduring every variety of discomfort
for a man he never saw before,- a man belonging to an idle,
arrogant class he detested; and an old black freedman allowing
himself to be taught the alphabet in order to gain permission
to wait on his master- - master no longer in law — with all the
devotion of his loving old heart. For the keeper had announced
to Pomp that he must learn his alphabet or go: after all these
years of theory, he, as a New-Englander, could not stand by and
see precious knowledge shut from the black man.
So he opened
it, and mighty dull work he found it.
Ward De Rosset did not rally as rapidly as they expected.
The white-haired doctor from the town rode out on horseback,
pacing slowly up the graveled roadway with a scowl on his brow,
casting, as he dismounted, a furtive glance down toward the
parade-ground. His horse and his coat were alike old and worn;
and his broad shoulders were bent with long service in the mis-
erably provided Confederate hospitals, where he had striven to
do his duty through every day and every night of those shad-
owed years. Cursing the incompetency in high places, cursing
the mismanagement of the entire medical department of the
Confederate army, cursing the recklessness and indifference which
left the men suffering for want of proper hospitals and hospital
stores, he yet went on resolutely doing his best with the poor
means in his control, until the last. Then he came home, he and
his old horse, and went the rounds again - he prescribing for
whooping-cough or measles, and Dobbin waiting outside; the only
difference was that fees were small and good meals scarce for
both, not only for the man but for the beast. The doctor sat
down and chatted awhile kindly with De Rosset, whose father
and uncle had been dear friends of his in the bright, prosperous
days; then he left a few harmless medicines and rose to go,–
his gaze resting a moment on Miss Ward, then on Pomp, as if he
## p. 16183 (#529) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16183
was
were hesitating. But he said nothing until on the walk outside
he met the keeper, and recognized a person to whom he could
tell the truth. « There is nothing to be done: he may recover,
he may not; it is a question of strength merely. He needs no
medicines; only nourishing food, rest, and careful tendance. ”
“He shall have them,” answered the keeper briefly. And then
the old gentleman mounted his horse and rode away,— his first
and last visit to a national cemetery.
National! » he said to himself-national! »
All talk of moving De Rosset ceased, but Miss Ward moved
into the old house. There was not much to move: herself, her
one trunk, and Marí, a black attendant, whose name probably
began life as Maria, since the accent still dwelt on the curtailed
last syllable. The keeper went there once, and once only; and
then
an errand for the sick man, whose fancies came
sometimes at inconvenient hours — when Pomp had gone to town,
for instance. On this occasion the keeper entered the mockery
of a gate and knocked at the front door, from which the bars
had been removed; the piazza still showed its decaying planks,
but quick-growing summer vines had been planted, and were now
encircling the old pillars and veiling all defects with their green-
ery. It was a woman's pathetic effort to cover up what can-
not be covered, — poverty. The blinds on one side were open,
and white curtains waved to and fro in the breeze; into this
room he was ushered by Marí. Matting lay on the floor, streaked
here and there ominously by the dampness from the near ground.
The furniture was of dark mahogany, handsome in its day: chairs;
a heavy pier-table with low-down glass, into which no one by
any possibility could look unless he had eyes in his ankles; a
sofa with a stiff round pillow of hair-cloth under each curved
end; and a mirror with a compartment framed off at the top,
containing a picture of shepherds and shepherdesses, and lambs
with blue ribbons around their necks, all enjoying themselves
in the most natural and lifelike manner. Flowers stood on the
high mantelpiece, but their fragrance could not overcome the
faint odor of the damp straw-matting. On a table were books:
a life of General Lee, and three or four shabby little volumes
printed at the South during the war,— waifs of prose and poetry
of that highly wrought, richly colored style which seems indige-
nous to Southern soil.
"Some way, the whole thing reminds me of a funeral,”
thought the keeper.
-
## p. 16184 (#530) ##########################################
16184
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
Miss Ward entered, and the room bloomed at once; at least
that is what a lover would have said.
Rodman, however, merely
noticed that she bloomed, and not the room, and he said to him-
self that she would not bloom long if she continued to live in
such a moldy place. Their conversation in these days was excess-
ively polite, shortened to the extreme minimum possible, and con-
ducted without the aid of the eyes, at least on one side. Rodman
had discovered that Miss Ward never looked at him, and so he
did not look at her,- that is, not often; he was human, how-
ever, and she was delightfully pretty. On this occasion they
exchanged exactly five sentences, and then he departed, but not
before his quick eyes had discovered that the rest of the house
was in even worse condition than this parlor; which, by the
way, Miss Ward considered quite a grand apartment: she had
been down near the coast, trying to teach school; and there the
desolation was far greater than here, both armies having passed
back and forward over the ground, foragers out, and the torch at
work more than once.
Will there ever come a change for the better ? ” thought the
keeper, as he walked homeward. «What an enormous stone has
got to be rolled up-hill! But at least, John Rodman, you need
not go to work at it; you are not called upon to lend your
shoulder. "
None the less, however, did he call out Pomp that very after-
noon and sternly teach him “E” and “F,” using the smooth
white sand for a blackboard, and a stick for chalk. Pomp's primer
was a government placard hanging on the wall of the office. It
read as follows:
IN THIS CEMETERY REPOSE THE REMAINS
OF
FOURTEEN THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE UNITED
STATES SOLDIERS
Tell me not in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream;
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul!
## p. 16185 (#531) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16185
»
« The only known instance of the government's condescend-
ing to poetry,” the keeper had thought, when he first read this
placard. It was placed there for the instruction and edification
of visitors; but no visitors coming, he took the liberty of using
it as a primer for Pomp. The large letters served the purpose
admirably, and Pomp learned the entire quotation; what he
thought of it has not transpired. Miss Ward came over daily
to see her cousin. At first she brought him soups and various
concoctions from her own kitchen,- the leaky cavern, once the
dining-room, where the soldier had taken refuge after his last
dismissal from hospital: but the keeper's soups were richer, and
free from the taint of smoke; his martial laws of neatness even
disorderly old Pomp dared not disobey, and the sick man soon
learned the difference. He thanked the girl, who came bringing
the dishes over carefully in her own dimpled hands, and then,
when she was gone, he sent them untasted away. By chance
Miss Ward learned this, and wept bitter tears over it; she con-
tinued to come, but her poor little soups and jellies she brought
no more.
One morning in May the keeper was working near the flag-
staff, when his eyes fell upon a procession coming down the road
which led from the town, and turning toward the cemetery. No
one ever came that way: what could it mean?
entered the gate, and showed itself to be negroes walking two
and two, -old uncles and aunties, young men and girls, and even
little children, all dressed in their best; a very poor best, some-
times gravely ludicrous imitations of “ole mars'or “ole miss',”
sometimes mere rags bravely patched together and adorned with
a strip of black calico or rosette of black ribbon; not one was
without a badge of mourning. All carried flowers, common blos-
soms from the little gardens behind the cabins that stretched
around the town on the outskirts,— the new forlorn cabins with
their chimneys of piled stones and ragged patches of corn; each
little darkey had his bouquet and marched solemnly along, rolling
his eyes around, but without even the beginning of a smile, while
the elders moved forward with gravity, the bubbling, irrepress-
ible gayety of the negro subdued by the new-born dignity of the
freedman.
« Memorial Day,” thought the keeper: "I had forgotten it. ”
“Will you do us de hono', sah, to take de head ob de pro-
cessio', sah ? " said the leader with a ceremonious bow. Now, the
It drew near,
((
## p. 16186 (#532) ##########################################
16186
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
keeper had not much sympathy with the strewing of flowers,
North or South: he had seen the beautiful ceremony more than
once turned into a political demonstration. Here, however, in
this small, isolated, interior town, there was nothing of that kind:
the whole population of white faces laid their roses and wept
true tears on the graves of their lost ones in the village church-
yard when the Southern Memorial Day came round; and just as
naturally the whole population of black faces went out to the
national cemetery with their flowers on the day when, through-
out the North, spring blossoms were laid on the graves of the
soldiers, from the little Maine village to the stretching ranks
of Arlington, from Greenwood to the far Western burial-places of
San Francisco. The keeper joined the procession and led the
way to the parade-ground. As they approached the trenches, the
leader began singing, and all joined. "Swing low, sweet chariot,”
sang the freedmen, and their hymn rose and fell with strange,
sweet harmony, - one of those wild, unwritten melodies which
the North heard with surprise and marveling when, after the
war, bands of singers came to their cities and sang the songs of
slavery, in order to gain for their children the coveted education.
«Swing low, sweet chariot,” sang the freedmen; and two by
two they passed along, strewing the graves with flowers till all
the green was dotted with color. It was a pathetic sight to see
some of the old men and women, ignorant field-hands, bent, dull-
eyed, and past the possibility of education even in its simplest
forms, carefully placing their poor flowers to the best advantage.
They knew dimly that the men who lay beneath those mounds
had done something wonderful for them and for their children;
and so they came bringing their blossoms, with little intelligence
but with much love.
The ceremony over, they retired. As he turned, the keeper
caught a glimpse of Miss Ward's face at the window.
« Hope we's not makin' too free, sah,” said the leader, as the
procession, with many a bow and scrape, took leave, “but we's
kep' de day now two years, sah, befo' you came, sah, and we's
teachin' de chil'en to keep it, sah. ”
The keeper returned to the cottage. “Not a white face,” he
said.
«Certainly not,” replied Miss Ward, crisply.
“I know some graves at the North, Miss Ward-graves of
Southern soldiers; and I know some Northern women who do not
(C
## p. 16187 (#533) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16187
scorn to lay a few flowers on the lonely mounds as they pass by
with their blossoms on our Memorial Day. ”
“ You are fortunate. They must be angels. We have no
angels here. "
“I am inclined to believe you are right,” said the keeper.
That night old Pomp, who had remained invisible in the
kitchen during the ceremony, stole away in the twilight and
came back with a few flowers. Rodman saw him going down
toward the parade-ground, and watched. The old man had but
a few blossoms: he arranged them hastily on the mounds with
many a furtive glance toward the house, and then stole back,
satisfied; he had performed his part.
Ward De Rosset lay on his pallet, apparently unchanged; he
seemed neither stronger nor weaker. He had grown childishly
dependent upon his host, and wearied for him, as the Scotch say;
but Rodman withstood his fancies, and gave him only the even-
ings, when Miss Bettina was not there. One afternoon, however,
it rained so violently that he was forced to seek shelter: he set
himself to work on the ledgers; he was on the ninth thousand
now. But the sick man heard his step in the outer room, and
called in his weak voice, “Rodman, Rodman. ” After a time he
went in, and it ended in his staying; for the patient was nervous
and irritable, and he pitied the nurse, who seemed able to please
him in nothing. De Rosset turned with a sigh of relief toward
the strong hands that lifted him readily, toward the composed
manner, toward the man's voice that seemed to bring a breeze
from outside into the close room; animated, cheered, he talked
volubly. The keeper listened, answered once in a while, and qui-
etly took the rest of the afternoon into his own hands.
Miss Ward yielded to the silent change, leaned back, and closed
her eyes. She looked exhausted and for the first time pallid;
the loosened dark hair curled in little rings about her temples,
and her lips were parted as though she was too tired to close
them — for hers were not the thin, straight lips that shut tight
naturally, like the straight line of a closed box. The sick man
talked on.
Come, Rodman,” he said after a while, “I have read that
lying verse of yours over at least ten thousand and fifty-nine
times; please tell me its history: I want to have something
definite to think of when I read it for the ten thousand and
sixtieth. ”
## p. 16188 (#534) ##########################################
16188
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
« Toujours femme varie,
Bien fou qui s'y fie;
Une femme souvent
N'est qu'une plume au vent,”
read the keeper slowly, with his execrable English accent. “Well,
I don't know that I have any objection to telling the story. I
am not sure but that it will do me good to hear it all over
myself in plain language again. ”
“Then it concerns yourself,” said De Rosset: “so much the
better. I hope it will be, as the children say, the truth, and
long. "
“It will be the truth, but not long. When the war broke out
I was twenty-eight years old, living with my mother on our farm
in New England. My father and two brothers had died and left
me the homestead; otherwise I should have broken away and
sought fortune farther westward, where the lands are better
and life is more free. But mother loved the house, the fields,
and every crooked tree. She was alone, and so I stayed with
her. In the centre of the village green stood the square white
meeting-house; and near by, the small cottage where the pastor
lived. The minister's daughter Mary was my promised wife.
Mary was a slender creature, with a profusion of pale flaxen
hair, large serious blue eyes, and small, delicate features; she was
timid almost to a fault; her voice was low and gentle. She was
not eighteen, and we were to wait a year. The war came, and
I volunteered, of course, and marched away. We wrote to each
other often: my letters were full of the camp and skirmishes;
hers told of the village, — how the widow Brown had fallen ill,
and how it was feared that Squire Stafford's boys were lapsing
into evil ways. Then came the day when my regiment marched
to the field of its slaughter, and soon after our shattered rem-
nant went home. Mary cried over me, and came out every day
to the farm-house with her bunches of violets; she read aloud
to me from her good little books, and I used to lie and watch
her profile bending over the page, with the light falling on her
flaxen hair low down against the small white throat. Then my
wound healed, and I went again, this time for three years; and
Mary's father blessed me, and said that when peace came he
would call me son, but not before, for these were no times for
marrying or giving in marriage.
a good man, a red-
hot abolitionist, and a roaring lion as regards temperance; but
He was
## p. 16189 (#535) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16189
nature had made him so small in body that no one was much
frightened when he roared. I said that I went for three years;
but eight years have passed, and I have never been back to the
village. First mother died. Then Mary turned false. I sold the
farm by letter, and lost the money three months afterward in an
unfortunate investment. My health failed. Like many another
Northern soldier, I remembered the healing climate of the South;
its soft airs came back to me when the snow lay deep on the
fields, and the sharp wind whistled around the poor tavern where
the moneyless, half-crippled volunteer sat coughing by the fire.
I applied for this place and obtained it. That is all. ”
“But it is not all,” said the sick man, raising himself on his
elbow; "you have not told half yet, nor anything at all about
the French verse. ”
« Oh — that ? There was a little Frenchman staying at the
hotel; he had formerly been a dancing-master, and was full of
dry, withered conceits, although he looked like a thin and bilious
old ape dressed as a man. He taught me, or tried to teach me,
various wise sayings; among them this one, which pleased my
fancy so much that I gave him twenty-five cents to write it out
in large text for me. ”
« « Toujours femme varie,) ) repeated De Rosset; but you
“
don't really think so, do you, Rodman ? »
«I do. But they cannot help it: it is their nature. - I beg
your pardon, Miss Ward. I was speaking as though you were
not here. ”
Miss Ward's eyelids barely acknowledged his existence; that
was all.
But some time after she remarked to her cousin that
it was only in New England that one found that pale flaxen
hair.
June was waning, when suddenly the summons came. Ward
De Rosset died. He was unconscious toward the last, and
death, in the guise of sleep, bore away his soul. They carried
him home to the old house; and from there the funeral started,
- a few family carriages, dingy and battered, following the
hearse, for death revived the old neighborhood feeling; that
honor at least they could pay,- the sonless mothers and the
widows who lived shut up in the old houses with everything
falling into ruin around them, brooding over the past. The
keeper watched the small procession as it passed his gate on
the way to the church-yard in the village. “There he goes, poor
>
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## p. 16190 (#536) ##########################################
16190
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
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C
»
>>
fellow, his sufferings over at last,” he said; and then he set the
cottage in order and began the old solitary life again.
He saw Miss Ward but once.
It was a breathless evening in August, when the moonlight
flooded the level country. He had started out to stroll across the
waste; but the mood changed, and climbing over the eastern wall
he had walked back to the flagstaff, and now lay at its foot gaz-
ing up into the infinite sky. A step sounded on the gravel walk;
he turned his face that way, and recognized Miss Ward. With
confident step she passed the dark cottage, and brushed his arm
with her robe as he lay unseen in the shadow. She went down
toward the parade-ground, and his eyes followed her. Softly out-
lined in the moonlight, she moved to and fro among the mounds,
pausing often, and once he thought she knelt. Then slowly she
returned, and he raised himself and waited; she saw him, started,
then paused.
“I thought you were away,” she said: “Pomp told me so. ”
« You set him to watch me ? »
“Yes. I wished to come here once, and I did not wish to
meet you. "
“Why did you wish to come ? »
« Because Ward was here — and because — because never
mind. It is enough that I wished to walk once among these
mounds. ”
"And pray there ? ”
« Well - and if I did! ” said the girl defiantly.
Rodman stood facing her, with his arms folded; his eyes
rested on her face; he said nothing.
"I am going away to-morrow," began Miss Ward again, as-
suming with an effort her old, pulseless manner. “I have sold
the place, and I shall never return, I think; I am going far away. ”
«Where? ”
« To Tennessee. ”
“That is not so very far,” said the keeper smiling.
“There I shall begin a new existence,” pursued the voice,
ignoring the comment.
“ You have scarcely begun the old: you are hardly more than
a child now. What are you going to do in Tennessee ? ”
Teach. ”
"Have you relatives there? ”
“No. ”
## p. 16191 (#537) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16191
"A miserable life - a hard, lonely, loveless life,” said Rodman.
"God help the woman who must be that dreary thing, a teacher
from necessity! »
Miss Ward turned swiftly, but the keeper kept by her side.
He saw the tears glittering on her eyelashes, and his voice soft-
ened. “Do not leave me in anger," he said; “I should not have
spoken so, although indeed it was the truth. Walk back with
me to the cottage, and take your last look at the room where
poor Ward died, and then I will go with you to your home. ”
“No: Pomp is waiting at the gate," said the girl, almost
inarticulately.
“Very well; to the gate then. ”
They went toward the cottage in silence; the keeper threw
open the door.
“Go in,” he said. “I will wait outside. ”
The girl entered and went into the inner room, throwing her.
self down upon her knees at the bedside. «O Ward, Ward ! »
she sobbed; "I am all alone in the world now, Ward — all
alone ! She buried her face in her hands, and gave way to a
passion of tears; and the keeper could not help but hear as he
waited outside. Then the desolate little creature rose and came
forth; putting on, as she did so, her poor armor of pride. The
keeper had not moved from the doorstep. Now he turned his
face. “Before you go-go away for ever from this place — will
you write your name in my register,” he said “the visitors'
register? The government had it prepared for the throngs who
would visit these graves; but with the exception of the blacks,
who cannot write, no one has come, and the register is empty.
Will you write your name? Yet do not write it unless you
can think gently of the men who lie there under the grass. I
believe you do think gently of them, else why have you come of
your own accord to stand by the side of their graves ? » As he
said this, he looked fixedly at her.
Miss Ward did not answer; but neither did she write.
“Very well,” said the keeper: "come away.
come away. You will not, I
see. ”
« I cannot! Shall I, Bettina Ward, set my name down in
black and white as a visitor to this cemetery, where lie fourteen
thousand of the soldiers who killed my father, my three broth-
ers, my cousins; who brought desolation upon all our house, and
ruin upon all our neighborhood, all our State, and all our coun-
try ? - for the South is our country, and not your North. Shall
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»
## p. 16192 (#538) ##########################################
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CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
a
I forget these things ? Never! Sooner let my right hand wither
by my side! I was but a child; yet I remember the tears of
my mother, and the grief of all around us. There was not a
house where there was not one dead. ”
“It is true," answered the keeper: "at the South, all went. ”
They walked down to the gate together in silence.
"Good-by,” said John, holding out his hand; you will give
me yours or not as you choose, but I will not have it as
favor. ”
She gave it.
“I hope that life will grow brighter to you as the years pass.
May God bless you! ”
He dropped her hand; she turned, and passed through the
gateway; then he sprang after her.
«Nothing can change you,” he said; “I know it, I have
known it all along: you are part of your country, part of the
time, part of the bitter hour through which she is passing.
Nothing can change you; if it could, you would not be what
you are, and I should not -
But you cannot change. Good-by,
Bettina, poor little child - good-by. Follow your path out into
the world. Yet do not think, dear, that I have not seen — have
not understood. ”
He bent and kissed her hand; then he was gone, and she went
on alone.
A week later the keeper strolled over toward the old house.
It was twilight; but the new
was still at work. He
was one of those sandy-haired, energetic Maine men, who, prob-
abiy on the principle of extremes, were often found through the
South, making new homes for themselves in the pleasant land.
"Pulling down the old house, are you? " said the keeper, lean-
ing idly on the gate, which was already flanked by a new fence.
« Yes,” replied the Maine man, pausing: “it was only an old
shell, just ready to tumble on our heads. You're the keeper over
yonder, ain't you ?
How long has he been in this state ? » asked the keeper.
“Ever sence one ob de las' battles, sah; but he's worse sence
we come yer, 'bout a mont back. ”
“Who owns the house? Is there no one to see to him ? has
he no friends ? »
«House b'long to Mars' Ward's uncle; fine place once, befo'
de war; he's dead now, and dah's nobuddy but Miss Bettina, an'
she's gone off somewhuz. Propah place, sah, fur Mars' Ward –
own uncle's house,” said the old slave, loyally striving to main-
tain the family dignity even then.
"Are there no better rooms no furniture ? »
Sartin; but — but Miss Bettina, she took de keys; she didn't
know we was comin'-
"You had better send for Miss Bettina, I think,” said the
keeper, starting homeward with his tray; washing his hands, as it
were, of any future responsibility in the affair.
The next day he worked in his garden, for clouds veiled the
sun, and exercise was possible; but nevertheless he could not
forget the white face on the old rug. “Pshaw! ” he said to
himself, haven't I seen tumble-down old houses and battered
human beings before this ? ”
>>
»
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## p. 16176 (#522) ##########################################
16176
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
»
-
At evening came a violent thunder-storm, and the splendor of
the heavens was terrible. We have chained you, mighty spirit,”
thought the keeper as he watched the lightning: “and some time
we shall learn the laws of the winds and foretell the storms;
then prayers will no more be offered in churches to alter the
weather than they would be offered now to alter an eclipse. Yet
back of the lightning and the wind lies the power of the great
Creator, just the same. ”
But still into his musings crept, with shadowy persistence, the
white face on the rug.
“Nonsense! ” he exclaimed: “if white faces are going around
as ghosts, how about the fourteen thousand white faces that went
under the sod down yonder ? If they could arise and walk, the
whole State would be filled, and no more carpet-baggers needed. ”
So having balanced the one with the fourteen thousand, he went
to bed.
Daylight brought rain,-still, soft, gray rain; the next morn-
ing showed the same, and the third likewise; the nights keep-
ing up their part with low-down clouds and steady pattering on
the roof. "If there was a river here, we should have a flood,”
thought the keeper, drumming idly on his window-pane. Mem-
ory brought back the steep New England hillsides shedding their
rain into the brooks, which grew in a night to torrents, and
filled the rivers so that they overflowed their banks; then, sud-
denly, an old house in a sunken corner of a waste rose before
his eyes, and he seemed to see the rain dropping from a moldy
ceiling on the straw where a white face lay.
"Really, I have nothing else to do to-day, you know," he
remarked in an apologetic way to himself, as he and his umbrella
went along the old road; and he repeated the remark as he
entered the room where the man lay, just as he had fancied, on
the damp straw.
“The weather is unpleasant,” said the man. “Pomp, bring a
chair. ”
Pomp brought one, the only one, and the visitor sat down.
A fire smoldered on the hearth, and puffed out acrid smoke now
and then, as if the rain had clogged the soot in the long-neglected
chimney; from the streaked ceiling oozing drops fell with a dull
splash into little pools on the decayed floor; the door would not
close; the broken panes were stopped with rags, as if the old
servant had tried to keep out the damp; in the ashes a corn.
cake was baking.
## p. 16177 (#523) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16177
“I am afraid you have not been so well during these long
rainy days,” said the keeper, scanning the face on the straw.
"My old enemy, rheumatism,” answered the man: the first
sunshine will drive it away. ”
They talked awhile,- or rather the keeper talked, for the
other seemed hardly able to speak, as the waves of pain swept
over him; then the visitor went outside and called Pomp out. "Is
there any one to help him or not? ” he asked impatiently.
"Fine fambly, befo' de war," began Pomp.
“Never mind all that: is there any one to help him now
»
yes or no ? »
ness.
“No,” said the old black with a burst of despairing truthful.
“Miss Bettina, she's as poor as Mars' Ward, an’dere's
no one else. He's had noth’n but hard corn-cake for three days,
an' he can't swaller it no more. ”
The next morning saw Ward De Rosset lying on the white
pallet in the keeper's cottage, and old Pomp, marveling at the
cleanliness all around him, installed as nurse. A strange asylum
for a Confederate soldier, was it not ? But he knew nothing of
the change, which he would have fought with his last breath if
consciousness had remained; returning fever, however, had ab-
sorbed his senses, and then it was that the keeper and the slave
had borne him slowly across the waste, resting many times, but
accomplishing the journey at last.
That evening John Rodman, strolling to and fro in the dusky
twilight, paused alongside of the other Rodman. «I do not want
him here, and that is the plain truth,” he said, pursuing the
current of his thoughts. “He fills the house; he and Pomp
together disturb all my ways. He'll be ready to Aling a brick at
me too, when his senses come back; small thanks shall I have
for lying on the floor, giving up all my comforts, and what is
more, riding over the spirit of the place with a vengeance! ” He
threw himself down on the grass beside the mound, and lay look-
ing up toward the stars, which were coming out one by one in
the deep blue of the Southern night. “With a vengeance, did I
say? That is it exactly — the vengeance of kindness. The poor
fellow has suffered horribly in body and in estate, and now iron-
ical Fortune throws him in my way, as if saying, 'Let us
how far your selfishness will yield. This is not a question of
magnanimity; there is no magnanimity about it, for the war is
over, and you Northerners have gained every point for which you
see
XXVII-1012
## p. 16178 (#524) ##########################################
16178
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
-
fought. This is merely a question between man and man; it
would be the same if the sufferer was a poor Federal - one of the
carpet-baggers whom you despise so, for instance — or a pagan
Chinaman. ' And Fortune is right; don't you think so, Blank
Rodman? I put it to you, now, to one who has suffered the
extreme rigor of the other side — those prison-pens yonder. ”
Whereupon Blank Rodman answered that he had fought for
a great cause, and that he knew it, although a plain man and
not given to speech-making; he was not one of those who had
sat safely at home all through the war, and now belittled it and
made light of its issues. (Here a murmur came up from the
long line of the trenches, as though all the dead had cried out. )
But now the points for which he had fought being gained, and
strife ended, it was the plain duty of every man to encourage
peace. For his part he bore no malice: he was glad the poor
Confederate was up in the cottage, and he did not think any the
less of the keeper for bringing him there. He would like to add
that he thought more of him; but he was sorry to say that he
was well aware what an effort it was, and how almost grudgingly
the charity began.
If Blank Rodman did not say this, at least the keeper im.
agined that he did. «That is what he would have said,” he
thought. "I am glad you do not object,” he added, pretending
to himself that he had not noticed the rest of the remark.
“We do not object to the brave soldier who honestly fought
for his cause, even though he fought on the other side,” an-
swered Blank Rodman for the whole fourteen thousand.
never let a coward, a double-face, or a flippant-tongued idler walk
over our heads. It would make us rise in our graves! ”
And the keeper seemed to see a shadowy pageant sweep by:
gaunt soldiers with white faces, arming anew against the subtle
product of peace; men who said, “It was nothing! Behold, we
saw it with our eyes! ” — stay-at-home eyes.
The third day the fever abated, and Ward De Rosset noticed
his surroundings. Old Pomp acknowledged that he had been
moved, but veiled the locality: “To a frien's house, Mars' Ward. ”
“But I have no friends now, Pomp,” said the weak voice.
Pomp was very much amused at the absurdity of this. “No
frien's! Mars' Ward, no frien's ! » He was obliged to go out of
the room to hide his laughter. The sick man lay feebly think-
ing that the bed was cool and fresh, and the closed green blinds
»
((
>
« But
(
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## p. 16179 (#525) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16179
pleasant; his thin fingers stroked the linen sheet, and his eyes
wandered from object to object. The only thing that broke the
rule of bare utility in the simple room was a square of white
drawing-paper on the wall, upon which was inscribed in orna-
mental text the following verse:
-
« Toujours femme varie,
Bien fou qui s'y fie;
Une femme souvent
N'est qu'une plume au vent. '
(
»
With the persistency of illness the eyes and mind of Ward De
Rosset went over and over this distich: he knew something of
French, but was unequal to the effort of translating; the rhymes
alone caught his vagrant fancy. “Toujours femme varie,” he
said to himself over and over again; and when the keeper en-
tered, he said it to him.
"Certainly,” answered the keeper; «bien fou qui s'y fie. '
How do you find yourself this morning ? ”
"I have not found myself at all, so far. Is this your house ? »
« Yes. ”
“Pomp told me I was in a friend's house," observed the sick
man vaguely.
“Well, it isn't an enemy's. Had any breakfast ? No? Better
not talk then.
He went to the detached shed which served for a kitchen,
upset all Pomp's clumsy arrangements, and ordered him outside;
then he set to work and prepared a delicate breakfast with his
best skill. The sick man eagerly eyed the tray as he entered.
“Better have your hands and face sponged off, I think,” said
Rodman; and then he propped him up skillfully, and left him to
his repast.
The grass needed mowing on the parade-ground; he
shouldered his scythe and started down the path, viciously kick-
ing the gravel aside as he walked. « Wasn't solitude your prin-
cipal idea, John Rodman, when you applied for this place ? ” he
demanded of himself. How much of it are you likely to have
“
with sick men, and sick men's servants, and so forth ? »
The “and so forth,” thrown in as a rhetorical climax, turned
into reality, and arrived bodily upon the scene - a climax indeed.
One afternoon, returning late to the cottage, he found a girl sit.
ting by the pallet - a girl young and dimpled and dewy; one of
the creamy roses of the South that, even in the bud, are richer
## p. 16180 (#526) ##########################################
16180
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
(
in color and luxuriance than any Northern flower. He saw her
through the door, and paused; distressed old Pomp met him and
beckoned him cautiously outside. «Miss Bettina,” he whispered
gutturally: “she's come back from somewhuz, an' she's awful
mad 'cause Mars' Ward's here. I tole her all 'bout 'em — de leaks
an' de rheumatiz an' de hard corn-cake; but she done gone scole
me; and Mars' Ward, he know now whar he is, an' he mad too. ”
"Is the girl a fool? ” said Rodman. He was just beginning
to rally a little. He stalked into the room and confronted her.
"I have the honor of addressing - »
“Miss Ward. "
“And I am John Rodman, keeper of the national cemetery. "
This she ignored entirely; it was as though he had said, "I
am John Jones the coachman. ” Coachmen were useful in their
way; but their names were unimportant.
The keeper sat down and looked at his new visitor. The lit-
tle creature fairly radiated scorn: her pretty head was thrown
back; her eyes, dark-brown, fringed with long dark lashes, hardly
deigned a glance: she spoke to him as though he was something
to be paid and dismissed like any other mechanic.
“We are indebted to you for some days' board, I believe, keeper
medicines, I presume, and general attendance. My cousin will
be removed to-day to our own residence; I wish to pay now what
he owes. ”
The keeper saw that her dress was old and faded; the small
black shawl had evidently been washed and many times mended;
the old-fashioned knitted purse she held in her hand was lank
with long famine.
“Very well,” he said: “if you choose to treat a kindness in
that way, I consider five dollars a day none too much for the
annoyance, expense, and trouble I have suffered.
Let me see:
five days — or is it six ? Yes. Thirty dollars, Miss Ward. ”
He looked at her steadily; she flushed. "The money will be
sent to you," she began haughtily; then, hesitatingly, "I must
ask a little time - »
"O Betty, Betty, you know you cannot pay it. Why try to
disguise But that does not excuse you for bringing me here,”
said the sick man, turning toward his host with an attempt to
speak fiercely, which ended in a faltering quaver.
All this time the old slave stood anxiously outside of the
door; in the pauses they could hear his feet shuffling as he
(
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CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16181
.
>>
waited for the decision of his superiors. The keeper rose and
threw open the blinds of the window that looked out on the dis-
tant parade-ground. "Bringing you here," he repeated — "here;
that is my offense, is it ? There they lie, fourteen thousand
brave men and true. Could they come back to earth they would
be the first to pity and aid you, now that you are down. So
would it be with you if the case were reversed; for a soldier is
generous to a soldier.
It was not your own heart that spoke
then; it was the small venom of a woman, that here, as every-
where through the South, is playing its rancorous part.
The sick man gazed out through the window, seeing for the
first time the far-spreading ranks of the dead. He was very
weak, and the keeper's words had touched him; his eyes were
suffused with tears. But Miss Ward rose with a flashing glance.
She turned her back full upon the keeper and ignored his very
existence. "I will take you home immediately, Ward — this very
evening,” she said.
"A nice, comfortable place for a sick man,” commented the
keeper scornfully. "I am going out now, De Rosset, to prepare
your supper: you had better have one good meal before you go. ”
He disappeared; but as he went he heard the sick man say,
deprecatingly: "It isn't very comfortable over at the old house
now, indeed it isn't, Betty; I suffered — " and the girl's passionate
outburst in reply. Then he closed his door and set to work.
When he returned half an hour later, Ward was lying back
exhausted on the pillows, and his cousin sat leaning her head
upon her hand; she had been weeping, and she looked very deso-
late, he noticed, sitting there in what was to her an enemy's
country. Hunger is a strong master, however, especially when
allied to weakness; and the sick man ate with eagerness.
“I must go back," said the girl, rising. "A wagon will be
sent out for you, Ward; Pomp will help you. ”
But Ward had gained a little strength as well as obstinacy
with the nourishing food. "Not to-night,” he said.
“Yes, to-night. ”
“But I cannot go to-night; you are unreasonable, Bettina.
To-morrow will do as well, if go I must. ”
“If go you must! You do not want to go, then — to go to
our own home — and with me Her voice broke; she turned
toward the door.
The keeper stepped forward. (This is all nonsense, Miss
Ward,” he said, “and you know it.
,
Your cousin is in no state
(
## p. 16182 (#528) ##########################################
16182
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
»
to be moved. Wait a week or two, and he can go in safety.
But do not dare to offer me your money again; my kindness
was to the soldier, not to the man, and as such he can accept it.
Come out and see him as often as you please. I shall not in-
trude upon you. Pomp, take the lady home. ”
And the lady went.
Then began a remarkable existence for the four: a Confed-
erate soldier lying ill in the keeper's cottage of a national cem-
etery; a rampant little rebel coming out daily to a place which
was to her anathema-maranatha; a cynical, misanthropic keeper
sleeping on the floor and enduring every variety of discomfort
for a man he never saw before,- a man belonging to an idle,
arrogant class he detested; and an old black freedman allowing
himself to be taught the alphabet in order to gain permission
to wait on his master- - master no longer in law — with all the
devotion of his loving old heart. For the keeper had announced
to Pomp that he must learn his alphabet or go: after all these
years of theory, he, as a New-Englander, could not stand by and
see precious knowledge shut from the black man.
So he opened
it, and mighty dull work he found it.
Ward De Rosset did not rally as rapidly as they expected.
The white-haired doctor from the town rode out on horseback,
pacing slowly up the graveled roadway with a scowl on his brow,
casting, as he dismounted, a furtive glance down toward the
parade-ground. His horse and his coat were alike old and worn;
and his broad shoulders were bent with long service in the mis-
erably provided Confederate hospitals, where he had striven to
do his duty through every day and every night of those shad-
owed years. Cursing the incompetency in high places, cursing
the mismanagement of the entire medical department of the
Confederate army, cursing the recklessness and indifference which
left the men suffering for want of proper hospitals and hospital
stores, he yet went on resolutely doing his best with the poor
means in his control, until the last. Then he came home, he and
his old horse, and went the rounds again - he prescribing for
whooping-cough or measles, and Dobbin waiting outside; the only
difference was that fees were small and good meals scarce for
both, not only for the man but for the beast. The doctor sat
down and chatted awhile kindly with De Rosset, whose father
and uncle had been dear friends of his in the bright, prosperous
days; then he left a few harmless medicines and rose to go,–
his gaze resting a moment on Miss Ward, then on Pomp, as if he
## p. 16183 (#529) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16183
was
were hesitating. But he said nothing until on the walk outside
he met the keeper, and recognized a person to whom he could
tell the truth. « There is nothing to be done: he may recover,
he may not; it is a question of strength merely. He needs no
medicines; only nourishing food, rest, and careful tendance. ”
“He shall have them,” answered the keeper briefly. And then
the old gentleman mounted his horse and rode away,— his first
and last visit to a national cemetery.
National! » he said to himself-national! »
All talk of moving De Rosset ceased, but Miss Ward moved
into the old house. There was not much to move: herself, her
one trunk, and Marí, a black attendant, whose name probably
began life as Maria, since the accent still dwelt on the curtailed
last syllable. The keeper went there once, and once only; and
then
an errand for the sick man, whose fancies came
sometimes at inconvenient hours — when Pomp had gone to town,
for instance. On this occasion the keeper entered the mockery
of a gate and knocked at the front door, from which the bars
had been removed; the piazza still showed its decaying planks,
but quick-growing summer vines had been planted, and were now
encircling the old pillars and veiling all defects with their green-
ery. It was a woman's pathetic effort to cover up what can-
not be covered, — poverty. The blinds on one side were open,
and white curtains waved to and fro in the breeze; into this
room he was ushered by Marí. Matting lay on the floor, streaked
here and there ominously by the dampness from the near ground.
The furniture was of dark mahogany, handsome in its day: chairs;
a heavy pier-table with low-down glass, into which no one by
any possibility could look unless he had eyes in his ankles; a
sofa with a stiff round pillow of hair-cloth under each curved
end; and a mirror with a compartment framed off at the top,
containing a picture of shepherds and shepherdesses, and lambs
with blue ribbons around their necks, all enjoying themselves
in the most natural and lifelike manner. Flowers stood on the
high mantelpiece, but their fragrance could not overcome the
faint odor of the damp straw-matting. On a table were books:
a life of General Lee, and three or four shabby little volumes
printed at the South during the war,— waifs of prose and poetry
of that highly wrought, richly colored style which seems indige-
nous to Southern soil.
"Some way, the whole thing reminds me of a funeral,”
thought the keeper.
-
## p. 16184 (#530) ##########################################
16184
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
Miss Ward entered, and the room bloomed at once; at least
that is what a lover would have said.
Rodman, however, merely
noticed that she bloomed, and not the room, and he said to him-
self that she would not bloom long if she continued to live in
such a moldy place. Their conversation in these days was excess-
ively polite, shortened to the extreme minimum possible, and con-
ducted without the aid of the eyes, at least on one side. Rodman
had discovered that Miss Ward never looked at him, and so he
did not look at her,- that is, not often; he was human, how-
ever, and she was delightfully pretty. On this occasion they
exchanged exactly five sentences, and then he departed, but not
before his quick eyes had discovered that the rest of the house
was in even worse condition than this parlor; which, by the
way, Miss Ward considered quite a grand apartment: she had
been down near the coast, trying to teach school; and there the
desolation was far greater than here, both armies having passed
back and forward over the ground, foragers out, and the torch at
work more than once.
Will there ever come a change for the better ? ” thought the
keeper, as he walked homeward. «What an enormous stone has
got to be rolled up-hill! But at least, John Rodman, you need
not go to work at it; you are not called upon to lend your
shoulder. "
None the less, however, did he call out Pomp that very after-
noon and sternly teach him “E” and “F,” using the smooth
white sand for a blackboard, and a stick for chalk. Pomp's primer
was a government placard hanging on the wall of the office. It
read as follows:
IN THIS CEMETERY REPOSE THE REMAINS
OF
FOURTEEN THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE UNITED
STATES SOLDIERS
Tell me not in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream;
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul!
## p. 16185 (#531) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16185
»
« The only known instance of the government's condescend-
ing to poetry,” the keeper had thought, when he first read this
placard. It was placed there for the instruction and edification
of visitors; but no visitors coming, he took the liberty of using
it as a primer for Pomp. The large letters served the purpose
admirably, and Pomp learned the entire quotation; what he
thought of it has not transpired. Miss Ward came over daily
to see her cousin. At first she brought him soups and various
concoctions from her own kitchen,- the leaky cavern, once the
dining-room, where the soldier had taken refuge after his last
dismissal from hospital: but the keeper's soups were richer, and
free from the taint of smoke; his martial laws of neatness even
disorderly old Pomp dared not disobey, and the sick man soon
learned the difference. He thanked the girl, who came bringing
the dishes over carefully in her own dimpled hands, and then,
when she was gone, he sent them untasted away. By chance
Miss Ward learned this, and wept bitter tears over it; she con-
tinued to come, but her poor little soups and jellies she brought
no more.
One morning in May the keeper was working near the flag-
staff, when his eyes fell upon a procession coming down the road
which led from the town, and turning toward the cemetery. No
one ever came that way: what could it mean?
entered the gate, and showed itself to be negroes walking two
and two, -old uncles and aunties, young men and girls, and even
little children, all dressed in their best; a very poor best, some-
times gravely ludicrous imitations of “ole mars'or “ole miss',”
sometimes mere rags bravely patched together and adorned with
a strip of black calico or rosette of black ribbon; not one was
without a badge of mourning. All carried flowers, common blos-
soms from the little gardens behind the cabins that stretched
around the town on the outskirts,— the new forlorn cabins with
their chimneys of piled stones and ragged patches of corn; each
little darkey had his bouquet and marched solemnly along, rolling
his eyes around, but without even the beginning of a smile, while
the elders moved forward with gravity, the bubbling, irrepress-
ible gayety of the negro subdued by the new-born dignity of the
freedman.
« Memorial Day,” thought the keeper: "I had forgotten it. ”
“Will you do us de hono', sah, to take de head ob de pro-
cessio', sah ? " said the leader with a ceremonious bow. Now, the
It drew near,
((
## p. 16186 (#532) ##########################################
16186
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
keeper had not much sympathy with the strewing of flowers,
North or South: he had seen the beautiful ceremony more than
once turned into a political demonstration. Here, however, in
this small, isolated, interior town, there was nothing of that kind:
the whole population of white faces laid their roses and wept
true tears on the graves of their lost ones in the village church-
yard when the Southern Memorial Day came round; and just as
naturally the whole population of black faces went out to the
national cemetery with their flowers on the day when, through-
out the North, spring blossoms were laid on the graves of the
soldiers, from the little Maine village to the stretching ranks
of Arlington, from Greenwood to the far Western burial-places of
San Francisco. The keeper joined the procession and led the
way to the parade-ground. As they approached the trenches, the
leader began singing, and all joined. "Swing low, sweet chariot,”
sang the freedmen, and their hymn rose and fell with strange,
sweet harmony, - one of those wild, unwritten melodies which
the North heard with surprise and marveling when, after the
war, bands of singers came to their cities and sang the songs of
slavery, in order to gain for their children the coveted education.
«Swing low, sweet chariot,” sang the freedmen; and two by
two they passed along, strewing the graves with flowers till all
the green was dotted with color. It was a pathetic sight to see
some of the old men and women, ignorant field-hands, bent, dull-
eyed, and past the possibility of education even in its simplest
forms, carefully placing their poor flowers to the best advantage.
They knew dimly that the men who lay beneath those mounds
had done something wonderful for them and for their children;
and so they came bringing their blossoms, with little intelligence
but with much love.
The ceremony over, they retired. As he turned, the keeper
caught a glimpse of Miss Ward's face at the window.
« Hope we's not makin' too free, sah,” said the leader, as the
procession, with many a bow and scrape, took leave, “but we's
kep' de day now two years, sah, befo' you came, sah, and we's
teachin' de chil'en to keep it, sah. ”
The keeper returned to the cottage. “Not a white face,” he
said.
«Certainly not,” replied Miss Ward, crisply.
“I know some graves at the North, Miss Ward-graves of
Southern soldiers; and I know some Northern women who do not
(C
## p. 16187 (#533) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16187
scorn to lay a few flowers on the lonely mounds as they pass by
with their blossoms on our Memorial Day. ”
“ You are fortunate. They must be angels. We have no
angels here. "
“I am inclined to believe you are right,” said the keeper.
That night old Pomp, who had remained invisible in the
kitchen during the ceremony, stole away in the twilight and
came back with a few flowers. Rodman saw him going down
toward the parade-ground, and watched. The old man had but
a few blossoms: he arranged them hastily on the mounds with
many a furtive glance toward the house, and then stole back,
satisfied; he had performed his part.
Ward De Rosset lay on his pallet, apparently unchanged; he
seemed neither stronger nor weaker. He had grown childishly
dependent upon his host, and wearied for him, as the Scotch say;
but Rodman withstood his fancies, and gave him only the even-
ings, when Miss Bettina was not there. One afternoon, however,
it rained so violently that he was forced to seek shelter: he set
himself to work on the ledgers; he was on the ninth thousand
now. But the sick man heard his step in the outer room, and
called in his weak voice, “Rodman, Rodman. ” After a time he
went in, and it ended in his staying; for the patient was nervous
and irritable, and he pitied the nurse, who seemed able to please
him in nothing. De Rosset turned with a sigh of relief toward
the strong hands that lifted him readily, toward the composed
manner, toward the man's voice that seemed to bring a breeze
from outside into the close room; animated, cheered, he talked
volubly. The keeper listened, answered once in a while, and qui-
etly took the rest of the afternoon into his own hands.
Miss Ward yielded to the silent change, leaned back, and closed
her eyes. She looked exhausted and for the first time pallid;
the loosened dark hair curled in little rings about her temples,
and her lips were parted as though she was too tired to close
them — for hers were not the thin, straight lips that shut tight
naturally, like the straight line of a closed box. The sick man
talked on.
Come, Rodman,” he said after a while, “I have read that
lying verse of yours over at least ten thousand and fifty-nine
times; please tell me its history: I want to have something
definite to think of when I read it for the ten thousand and
sixtieth. ”
## p. 16188 (#534) ##########################################
16188
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
« Toujours femme varie,
Bien fou qui s'y fie;
Une femme souvent
N'est qu'une plume au vent,”
read the keeper slowly, with his execrable English accent. “Well,
I don't know that I have any objection to telling the story. I
am not sure but that it will do me good to hear it all over
myself in plain language again. ”
“Then it concerns yourself,” said De Rosset: “so much the
better. I hope it will be, as the children say, the truth, and
long. "
“It will be the truth, but not long. When the war broke out
I was twenty-eight years old, living with my mother on our farm
in New England. My father and two brothers had died and left
me the homestead; otherwise I should have broken away and
sought fortune farther westward, where the lands are better
and life is more free. But mother loved the house, the fields,
and every crooked tree. She was alone, and so I stayed with
her. In the centre of the village green stood the square white
meeting-house; and near by, the small cottage where the pastor
lived. The minister's daughter Mary was my promised wife.
Mary was a slender creature, with a profusion of pale flaxen
hair, large serious blue eyes, and small, delicate features; she was
timid almost to a fault; her voice was low and gentle. She was
not eighteen, and we were to wait a year. The war came, and
I volunteered, of course, and marched away. We wrote to each
other often: my letters were full of the camp and skirmishes;
hers told of the village, — how the widow Brown had fallen ill,
and how it was feared that Squire Stafford's boys were lapsing
into evil ways. Then came the day when my regiment marched
to the field of its slaughter, and soon after our shattered rem-
nant went home. Mary cried over me, and came out every day
to the farm-house with her bunches of violets; she read aloud
to me from her good little books, and I used to lie and watch
her profile bending over the page, with the light falling on her
flaxen hair low down against the small white throat. Then my
wound healed, and I went again, this time for three years; and
Mary's father blessed me, and said that when peace came he
would call me son, but not before, for these were no times for
marrying or giving in marriage.
a good man, a red-
hot abolitionist, and a roaring lion as regards temperance; but
He was
## p. 16189 (#535) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16189
nature had made him so small in body that no one was much
frightened when he roared. I said that I went for three years;
but eight years have passed, and I have never been back to the
village. First mother died. Then Mary turned false. I sold the
farm by letter, and lost the money three months afterward in an
unfortunate investment. My health failed. Like many another
Northern soldier, I remembered the healing climate of the South;
its soft airs came back to me when the snow lay deep on the
fields, and the sharp wind whistled around the poor tavern where
the moneyless, half-crippled volunteer sat coughing by the fire.
I applied for this place and obtained it. That is all. ”
“But it is not all,” said the sick man, raising himself on his
elbow; "you have not told half yet, nor anything at all about
the French verse. ”
« Oh — that ? There was a little Frenchman staying at the
hotel; he had formerly been a dancing-master, and was full of
dry, withered conceits, although he looked like a thin and bilious
old ape dressed as a man. He taught me, or tried to teach me,
various wise sayings; among them this one, which pleased my
fancy so much that I gave him twenty-five cents to write it out
in large text for me. ”
« « Toujours femme varie,) ) repeated De Rosset; but you
“
don't really think so, do you, Rodman ? »
«I do. But they cannot help it: it is their nature. - I beg
your pardon, Miss Ward. I was speaking as though you were
not here. ”
Miss Ward's eyelids barely acknowledged his existence; that
was all.
But some time after she remarked to her cousin that
it was only in New England that one found that pale flaxen
hair.
June was waning, when suddenly the summons came. Ward
De Rosset died. He was unconscious toward the last, and
death, in the guise of sleep, bore away his soul. They carried
him home to the old house; and from there the funeral started,
- a few family carriages, dingy and battered, following the
hearse, for death revived the old neighborhood feeling; that
honor at least they could pay,- the sonless mothers and the
widows who lived shut up in the old houses with everything
falling into ruin around them, brooding over the past. The
keeper watched the small procession as it passed his gate on
the way to the church-yard in the village. “There he goes, poor
>
(
## p. 16190 (#536) ##########################################
16190
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
H
C
»
>>
fellow, his sufferings over at last,” he said; and then he set the
cottage in order and began the old solitary life again.
He saw Miss Ward but once.
It was a breathless evening in August, when the moonlight
flooded the level country. He had started out to stroll across the
waste; but the mood changed, and climbing over the eastern wall
he had walked back to the flagstaff, and now lay at its foot gaz-
ing up into the infinite sky. A step sounded on the gravel walk;
he turned his face that way, and recognized Miss Ward. With
confident step she passed the dark cottage, and brushed his arm
with her robe as he lay unseen in the shadow. She went down
toward the parade-ground, and his eyes followed her. Softly out-
lined in the moonlight, she moved to and fro among the mounds,
pausing often, and once he thought she knelt. Then slowly she
returned, and he raised himself and waited; she saw him, started,
then paused.
“I thought you were away,” she said: “Pomp told me so. ”
« You set him to watch me ? »
“Yes. I wished to come here once, and I did not wish to
meet you. "
“Why did you wish to come ? »
« Because Ward was here — and because — because never
mind. It is enough that I wished to walk once among these
mounds. ”
"And pray there ? ”
« Well - and if I did! ” said the girl defiantly.
Rodman stood facing her, with his arms folded; his eyes
rested on her face; he said nothing.
"I am going away to-morrow," began Miss Ward again, as-
suming with an effort her old, pulseless manner. “I have sold
the place, and I shall never return, I think; I am going far away. ”
«Where? ”
« To Tennessee. ”
“That is not so very far,” said the keeper smiling.
“There I shall begin a new existence,” pursued the voice,
ignoring the comment.
“ You have scarcely begun the old: you are hardly more than
a child now. What are you going to do in Tennessee ? ”
Teach. ”
"Have you relatives there? ”
“No. ”
## p. 16191 (#537) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16191
"A miserable life - a hard, lonely, loveless life,” said Rodman.
"God help the woman who must be that dreary thing, a teacher
from necessity! »
Miss Ward turned swiftly, but the keeper kept by her side.
He saw the tears glittering on her eyelashes, and his voice soft-
ened. “Do not leave me in anger," he said; “I should not have
spoken so, although indeed it was the truth. Walk back with
me to the cottage, and take your last look at the room where
poor Ward died, and then I will go with you to your home. ”
“No: Pomp is waiting at the gate," said the girl, almost
inarticulately.
“Very well; to the gate then. ”
They went toward the cottage in silence; the keeper threw
open the door.
“Go in,” he said. “I will wait outside. ”
The girl entered and went into the inner room, throwing her.
self down upon her knees at the bedside. «O Ward, Ward ! »
she sobbed; "I am all alone in the world now, Ward — all
alone ! She buried her face in her hands, and gave way to a
passion of tears; and the keeper could not help but hear as he
waited outside. Then the desolate little creature rose and came
forth; putting on, as she did so, her poor armor of pride. The
keeper had not moved from the doorstep. Now he turned his
face. “Before you go-go away for ever from this place — will
you write your name in my register,” he said “the visitors'
register? The government had it prepared for the throngs who
would visit these graves; but with the exception of the blacks,
who cannot write, no one has come, and the register is empty.
Will you write your name? Yet do not write it unless you
can think gently of the men who lie there under the grass. I
believe you do think gently of them, else why have you come of
your own accord to stand by the side of their graves ? » As he
said this, he looked fixedly at her.
Miss Ward did not answer; but neither did she write.
“Very well,” said the keeper: "come away.
come away. You will not, I
see. ”
« I cannot! Shall I, Bettina Ward, set my name down in
black and white as a visitor to this cemetery, where lie fourteen
thousand of the soldiers who killed my father, my three broth-
ers, my cousins; who brought desolation upon all our house, and
ruin upon all our neighborhood, all our State, and all our coun-
try ? - for the South is our country, and not your North. Shall
(C
»
## p. 16192 (#538) ##########################################
16192
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
a
I forget these things ? Never! Sooner let my right hand wither
by my side! I was but a child; yet I remember the tears of
my mother, and the grief of all around us. There was not a
house where there was not one dead. ”
“It is true," answered the keeper: "at the South, all went. ”
They walked down to the gate together in silence.
"Good-by,” said John, holding out his hand; you will give
me yours or not as you choose, but I will not have it as
favor. ”
She gave it.
“I hope that life will grow brighter to you as the years pass.
May God bless you! ”
He dropped her hand; she turned, and passed through the
gateway; then he sprang after her.
«Nothing can change you,” he said; “I know it, I have
known it all along: you are part of your country, part of the
time, part of the bitter hour through which she is passing.
Nothing can change you; if it could, you would not be what
you are, and I should not -
But you cannot change. Good-by,
Bettina, poor little child - good-by. Follow your path out into
the world. Yet do not think, dear, that I have not seen — have
not understood. ”
He bent and kissed her hand; then he was gone, and she went
on alone.
A week later the keeper strolled over toward the old house.
It was twilight; but the new
was still at work. He
was one of those sandy-haired, energetic Maine men, who, prob-
abiy on the principle of extremes, were often found through the
South, making new homes for themselves in the pleasant land.
"Pulling down the old house, are you? " said the keeper, lean-
ing idly on the gate, which was already flanked by a new fence.
« Yes,” replied the Maine man, pausing: “it was only an old
shell, just ready to tumble on our heads. You're the keeper over
yonder, ain't you ?
