Propah place, sah, fur Mars' Ward –
own uncle's house,” said the old slave, loyally striving to main-
tain the family dignity even then.
own uncle's house,” said the old slave, loyally striving to main-
tain the family dignity even then.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v27 - Wat to Zor
' She lived in Cleveland until the death of
her father, Charles Jarvis Woolson, in 1869. From 1873 to 1879 she
lived with her mother in Florida and in other Southern States, -a
sojourn whose fruits appear in the book of short stories of life in the
South headed by Rodman the Keeper,' and in East Angels. ' Miss
Woolson seemed capable of appreciating with equal intensity the
stern, self-sufficing, conscientious New England character, and the
sensuous, easy, lovable nature of the far South. She drew both with
equal truth, and enjoyed contrasting them by bringing them together;
as in the story (The Front Yard,' — in which a good-for-nothing
family of Italian peasants have for a stepmother a New England
woman who lives a modified New England life in Assisi, — in East
Angels,' and elsewhere. Her later short stories are nearly all of
## p. 16166 (#512) ##########################################
16166
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
Italy, or of Americans in Italy. She herself lived abroad continuously
after 1880, dying in Venice January 23d, 1894.
The scenes of her novels are laid in her own country, recalling
the associations of her childhood, —'Horace Chase, however, being
a novel of life in North Carolina. Anne,' 'Jupiter Lights,' (For the
Major,' have their setting in the North; East Angels,' in the far
South. Of these novels (Anne) is the most powerful and striking,
showing as it does Miss Woolson's ability to portray many kinds
of people — above all, her skill in the portraiture of women. She un-
derstood her own sex; her heroines are in no wise remarkable. They
may be met every day; their weakness, their strength, their love,
are found in every household. She understood men as well as an
unmarried woman can understand them, an unmarried woman with
the intuition of the artist. She understood perhaps best of all “the
common people,” especially their homely and hearty qualities. In
her novels she rarely gives way to sentiment or to feminine pathos;
the reader receives the impression that she has certain marketable
qualities in writing under curb. Her reserve force is a part of her
charm. On the whole her novels are strong, sane, and wholesomely
objective, having nothing in common with the hysteria of current
fiction. They fulfill the best purpose of a novel, to entertain without
enervating
RODMAN THE KEEPER
From Rodman the Keeper, and Other Southern Sketches. ) Published by
Harper & Brothers. Copyright 1880, by D. Appleton & Co.
“K
EEPER of what? Keeper of the dead. Well, it is easier to
keep the dead than the living; and as for the gloom of
the thing, the living among whom I have been lately
were not a hilarious set. ”
John Rodman sat in the doorway and looked out over his
domain. The little cottage behind him was empty of life save
himself alone. In one room the slender appointments provided
by government for the keeper, who being still alive must sleep
and eat, made the bareness doubly bare: in the other the desk
and the great ledgers, the ink and pens, the register, the
loud-ticking clock on the wall, and the flag folded on a shelf,
were all for the kept — whose names, in hastily written, blotted
rolls of manuscript, were waiting to be transcribed in the new
red-bound ledgers in the keeper's best handwriting day by day,
while the clock was to tell him the hour when the flag must
## p. 16167 (#513) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16167
rise over the mounds where reposed the bodies of fourteen thou-
sand United States soldiers — who had languished where once
stood the prison-pens on the opposite slopes, now fair and peace-
ful in the sunset; who had fallen by the way in long marches
to and fro under the burning sun; who had fought and died on
the many battle-fields that reddened the beautiful State, stretch-
ing from the peaks of the marble mountains in the smoky west
down to the sea islands of the ocean border. The last rim of the
sun's red ball had sunk below the horizon line, and the western
sky glowed with deep rose color, which faded away above into
pink, into the salmon tint, into shades of that far-away heavenly
emerald which the brush of the earthly artist can never repro-
duce, but which is found sometimes in the iridescent heart of
the opal. The small town, a mile distant, stood turning its back
on the cemetery: but the keeper could see the pleasant, rambling
old mansions, each with its rose-garden and neglected outlying
fields, the empty negro quarters falling into ruin, and everything
just as it stood when on that April morning the first gun was
fired on Sumter; apparently not a nail added, not a brushful
of paint applied, not a fallen brick replaced, or latch or lock
repaired.
The keeper had noted these things as he strolled through
the town, but not with surprise; for he had seen the South in
its first estate, when, fresh, strong, and fired with enthusiasm, he
too had marched away from his village home with the colors
flying above and the girls waving their handkerchiefs behind, as
the regiment, a thousand strong, filed down the dusty road.
That regiment, a weak, scarred two hundred, came back a year
later with lagging step and colors tattered and scorched, and
the girls could not wave their handkerchiefs, wet and sodden
with tears. But the keeper, his wound healed, had gone again;
and he had seen with his New England eyes the magnificence
and the carelessness of the South, her splendor and negligence,
her wealth and thriftlessness, as through Virginia and the fair
Carolinas, across Georgia and into sunny Florida, he had marched
month by month, first a lieutenant, then captain, and finally ma-
jor and colonel, as death mowed down those above him, and he
and his good conduct were left. Everywhere magnificence went
hand in hand with neglect, and he had said so as chance now
and then threw a conversation in his path.
“We have no such shiftless ways,” he would remark, after
he had furtively supplied a prisoner with hard-tack and coffee.
(
## p. 16168 (#514) ##########################################
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CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
»
"And no such grand ones, either,” Johnny Reb would reply,
if he was a man of spirit; and generally he was.
The Yankee, forced to acknowledge the truth of this state-
ment, qualified it by observing that he would rather have more
thrift with a little less grandeur; whereupon the other answered
that he would not: and there the conversation rested. So now
ex-Colonel Rodman, keeper of the national cemetery, viewed the
little town in its second estate with philosophic eyes. « It is
part of a great problem now working itself out; I am not here
to tend the living but the dead,” he said.
Whereupon, as he walked among the long mounds, a voice
seemed to rise from the still ranks below: “While ye have time,
do good to men,” it said. Behold, we are beyond your care. ”
But the keeper did not heed.
This still evening in early February he looked out over the
level waste. The little town stood in the lowlands: there were
no hills from whence cometh help-calm heights that lift the
soul above earth and its cares; no river to lead the aspirations
of the children outward toward the great sea. Everything was
monotonous; and the only spirit that rose above the waste was
a bitterness for the gained and sorrow for the lost cause. The
keeper was the only man whose presence personated the for-
mer in their sight, and upon him therefore, as representative,
the bitterness fell; not in words, but in averted looks, in sudden
silences when he approached, in withdrawals and avoidance, until
he lived and moved in a vacuum: wherever he went there was
presently no one save himself; the very shop-keeper who sold him
sugar seemed turned into a man of wood, and took his money
reluctantly, although the shilling gained stood perhaps for that
day's dinner.
So Rodman withdrew himself, and came and went among
them no more: the broad acres of his domain gave him as much
exercise as his shattered ankle could bear; he ordered his few
supplies by the quantity, and began the life of a solitary, his
island marked out by the massive granite wall with which the
United States government has carefully surrounded those sad
Southern cemeteries of hers — sad, not so much from the number
of the mounds representing youth and strength cut off in their
bloom,- for that is but the fortune of war,- as for the complete
isolation which marks them. “Strangers in a strange land” is
the thought of all who, coming and going to and from Florida,
turn aside here and there to stand for a moment among the
## p. 16169 (#515) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16169
closely ranged graves which seem already a part of the past –
that near past which in our hurrying American life is even now
so far away.
The government work was completed before the
keeper came: the lines of the trenches were defined by low
granite copings, and the comparatively few single mounds were
headed by trim little white boards bearing generally the word
“Unknown,” but here and there a name and an age,- in most
cases a boy from some far-away Northern State; "twenty-one,”
"twenty-two," said the inscriptions; the dates were those dark
years among the sixties, measured now more than by anything
else in the number of maidens widowed in heart, and women
widowed indeed, who sit still and remember while the world
rushes by. At sunrise the keeper ran up the Stars and Stripes;
and so precise were his ideas of the accessories belonging to the
place, that from his own small store of money he had taken
enough, by stinting himself, to buy a second flag for stormy
weather, so that, rain or not, the colors should float over the
dead. This was not patriotism so called or rather miscalled, it
was not sentimental fancy, it was not zeal or triumph: it was
simply a sense of the fitness of things, a conscientiousness which
had in it nothing of religion, unless indeed a man's endeavor
to live up to his own ideal of his duty be a religion. The
same feeling led the keeper to spend hours in copying the rolls.
"John Andrew Warren, Company G, Eighth New Hampshire
Infantry,” he repeated, as he slowly wrote the name, giving
"John Andrew” clear, bold capitals and a lettering impossible
to mistake; died August 15, 1863, aged twenty-two years. ”_"He
came from the prison-pen yonder, and lies somewhere in those
trenches, I suppose. Now then, John Andrew, don't fancy I am
I
sorrowing for you; no doubt you are better off than I am at this
very moment. But none the less, John Andrew, shall pen, ink,
and hand do their duty to you. For that I am here. ”
Infinite pains and labor went into these records of the dead;
one hair's-breadth error and the whole page was replaced by a
new one. The same spirit kept the grass carefully away from
the low coping of the trenches, kept the graveled paths smooth
and the mounds green, and the bare little cottage neat as a man-
of-war. When the keeper cooked his dinner, the door toward
the east, where the dead lay, was scrupulously closed; nor was
it opened until everything was in perfect order again. At sunset
the flag was lowered; and then it was the keeper's habit to
walk slowly up and down the path until the shadows veiled the
## p. 16170 (#516) ##########################################
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CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
»
mounds on each side, and there was nothing save the peaceful
green of earth.
«So time will efface our little lives and sorrows,”
he mused, “and we shall be as nothing in the indistinguishable
past. ” Yet none the less did he fulfill the duties of every day
and hour with exactness. "At least they shall not say that I was
lacking,” he murmured to himself as he thought vaguely of the
future beyond these graves. Who they were, it would have
troubled him to formulate, since he was one of the many sons
whom New England in this generation sends forth with a belief
composed entirely of negatives. As the season advanced, he
worked all day in the sunshine. “My garden looks well,” he
said. . « I like this cemetery, because it is the original resting-
place of the dead who lie beneath. They were not brought here
from distant places, gathered up by contract, numbered, and de-
scribed, like so much merchandise; their first repose has not been
broken, their peace has been undisturbed. Hasty burials the
prison authorities gave them: the thin bodies were tumbled into
the trenches by men almost as thin; for the whole State went
hungry in those dark days. There were not many prayers, no
tears, as the dead-carts went the rounds. But the prayers had
been said, and the tears had fallen, while the poor fellows were
still alive in the pens yonder; and when at last death came, it
was like a release. They suffered long; and I for one believe
that therefore shall their rest be long,- long and sweet. ”
After a time began the rain,—the soft, persistent, gray rain
of the Southern lowlands,- and he stayed within and copied an-
other thousand names into the ledger. He would not allow him-
self the companionship of a dog, lest the creature should bark
at night and disturb the quiet. There was no one to hear save
himself, and it would have been a friendly sound as he lay awake
on his narrow iron bed; but it seemed to him against the spirit
of the place. He would not smoke, although he had the soldier's
fondness for a pipe. Many a dreary evening, beneath a hastily
built shelter of boughs, when the rain poured down and every-
thing was comfortless, he had found solace in the curling smoke;
but now it seemed to him that it would be incongruous, and at
times he almost felt as if it would be selfish too. “They cannot
smoke, you know, down there under the wet grass,” he thought,
as standing at the window he looked toward the ranks of the
mounds stretching across the eastern end from side to side — “my
parade-ground,” he called it. And then he would smile at his
own fancies, draw the curtain, shut out the rain and the night,
-
## p. 16171 (#517) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16171
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light his lamp, and go to work on the ledgers again. Some of
the names lingered in his memory; he felt as if he had known
the men who bore them, as if they had been boys together, and
were friends even now although separated for a time. "James
Marvin, Company B, Fifth Maine. The Fifth Maine was in the
seven days' battle. I say, do you remember that retreat down
the Quaker church road, and the way Phil Kearny held the
rear-guard firm ? ” And over the whole seven days he wandered
with his mute friend, who remembered everything and everybody
in the most satisfactory way. One of the little head-boards in
the parade-ground attracted him peculiarly because the name
inscribed was his own:
Rodman, Company A, One Hun-
dred and Sixth New York. ”
“I remember that regiment: it came from the extreme north-
ern part of the State. Blank Rodman must have melted down
here, coming as he did from the half-arctic region along the St.
Lawrence. I wonder what he thought of the first hot day, say
in South Carolina, along those simmering rice-fields ? ” He grew
into the habit of pausing for a moment by the side of this grave
every morning and evening. «Blank Rodman.
« Blank Rodman. It might easily
have been John. And then where should I be ? ”
But Blank Rodman remained silent; and the keeper, after
pulling up a weed or two and trimming the grass over his rela-
tive, went off to his duties again. “I am convinced that Blank
is a relative,” he said to himself; distant perhaps, but still a
kinsman. ”
One April day the heat was almost insupportable; but the sun's
rays were not those brazen beams that sometimes in North-
ern cities burn the air and scorch the pavements to a white
heat, - rather were they soft and still; the moist earth exhaled
her richness, not a leaf stirred, and the whole level country
seemed sitting in a hot vapor bath. In the early dawn the
keeper had performed his outdoor tasks; but all day he remained
almost without stirring in his chair between two windows, striv-
ing to exist. At high noon out came a little black, bringing his
supplies from the town, whistling and shuffling along, gay as a
lark. The keeper watched him coming slowly down the white
road, loitering by the way in the hot blaze, stopping to turn a
somersault or two, to dangle over a bridge rail, to execute various
impromptu capers all by himself. He reached the gate at last,
entered, and having come all the way up the path in a hornpipe
step, he set down his basket at the door to indulge in one long
-
## p. 16172 (#518) ##########################################
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CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
(
(
and final double-shuffle before knocking. "Stop that! ” said the
keeper through the closed blinds. The little darkey darted back;
but as nothing further came out of the window-a boot, for
instance, or some other stray missile — he took courage, showed
his ivories, and drew near again. “Do you suppose I am going
to have you stirring up the heat in that way? ” demanded the
keeper.
The little black grinned, but made no reply, unless smoothing
the hot white sand with his black toes could be construed as
such; he now removed his rimless hat and made a bow.
“Is it or is it not warm ? ” asked the keeper, as a naturalist
might inquire of a salamander, not referring to his own so much
as to the salamander's ideas on the subject.
"Dunno, mars',” replied the little black.
« How do
you
feel ? »
"'Spects I feel all right, mars'. ”
The keeper gave up the investigation, and presented to the
salamander a nickel cent. "I suppose there is no such thing as
a cool spring in all this melting country,” he said.
But the salamander indicated with his thumb a clump of trees
on the green plain north of the cemetery. “Ole Mars' Ward's
place — cole spring dah. ” He then departed, breaking into a run
after he had passed the gate, his ample mouth watering at the
thought of a certain chunk of taffy at the mercantile establish-
ment kept by Aunt Dinah in a corner of her one-roomed cabin.
At sunset the keeper went thirstily out with a tin pail on his
arm, in search of the cold spring. "If it could only be like the
spring down under the rocks where I used to drink when I was
a boy! ” he thought. He had never walked in that direction
before. Indeed, now that he had abandoned the town, he seldom
went beyond the walls of the cemetery. An old road led across
to the clump of trees, through fields run to waste, and following
it he came to the place,-a deserted house with tumble-down
fences and overgrown garden, the out-buildings indicating that
once upon a time there were many servants and a prosperous
master. The house was of wood, large on the ground, with
encircling piazzas; across the front door rough bars had been
nailed, and the closed blinds were protected in the same manner;
from long want of paint the clapboards were gray and mossy, and
the floor of the piazza had fallen in here and there from decay.
The keeper decided that his cemetery as a much
nore cheer-
ful place than this, and then he looked around for the spring.
C
## p. 16173 (#519) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16173
Behind the house the ground sloped down; it must be there.
He went around and came suddenly upon a man lying on an
old rug outside of a back door.
« Excuse me.
I thought nobody
lived here,” he said.
“Nobody does,” replied the man: "I am not much of a body,
am I?
His left arm was gone, and his face was thin and worn with
long illness; he closed his eyes after speaking, as though the few
words had exhausted him.
“I came for water from a cold spring you have here, some-
where,” pursued the keeper, contemplating the wreck before him
with the interest of one who has himself been severely wounded,
and knows the long, weary pain. The man waved his hand
toward the slope without unclosing his eyes, and Rodman went
off with his pail, and found a little shady hollow, once curbed
and paved with white pebbles, but now neglected, like all the
place. The water was cold, however - deliciously cold. He filled
his pail, and thought that perhaps after all he would exert him-
self to make coffee, now that the sun was down: it would taste
better made of this cold water. When he came up the slope
the man's eyes were open.
“Have some water ? » asked Rodman.
“Yes: there's a gourd inside. ”
The keeper entered, and found himself in a large, bare room:
in one corner was some straw covered with an old counterpane,
in another a table and chair; a kettle hung in the deep fireplace,
and a few dishes stood on a shelf: by the door on a nail hung
a gourd; he filled it and gave it to the host of this desolate
abode. The man drank with eagerness.
Pomp has gone to town,” he said, and I could not get
down to the spring to-day, I have had so much pain. ”
“And when will Pomp return? ”
“He should be here now; he is very late to-night. ”
"Can I get you anything ? ”
“No, thank you: he will soon be here. ”
The keeper looked out over the waste; there was
in sight. He was not a man of any especial kindliness,- he had
himself been too hardly treated in life for that, but he could
not find it in his heart to leave this helpless creature all alone
with night so near. So he sat down on the door-step. “I will
rest awhile,” he said, not asking but announcing it.
The man
had turned away and closed his eyes again, and they both
»
(C
((
no
one
## p. 16174 (#520) ##########################################
16174
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
(
(
remained silent, busy with their own thoughts; for each had
recognized the ex-soldier, Northern and Southern, in portions of
the old uniforms, and in the accent. The war and its memories
were still very near to the maimed, poverty-stricken Confederate;
and the other knew that they were, and did not obtrude himself.
Twilight fell, and no one came.
"Let me get you something,” said Rodman; for the face
looked ghastly as the fever abated. The other refused. Dark-
ness came; still no one.
« Look here,” said Rodman, rising, "I have been wounded
myself, was in hospital for months: I know how you feel. You
must have food — a cup of tea, now, and a slice of toast, brown
and thin. ”
“I have not tasted tea or wheaten bread for weeks,” answered
the man; his voice died off into a wail, as though feebleness and
pain had drawn the cry from him in spite of himself. Rodman
lighted a match: there was no candle, only a piece of pitch-pine
stuck in an iron socket on the wall; he set fire to this primitive
torch and looked around.
« There is nothing there,” said the man outside, making an
effort to speak carelessly: “my servant went to town for sup-
plies. Do not trouble yourself to wait; he will come presently,
and- and I want nothing. ”
But Rodman saw through proud poverty's lie: he knew that
irregular quavering of the voice, and that trembling of the
hand; the poor fellow had but one to tremble. He continued
his search; but the bare room gave back nothing, not a crumb.
“Well, if you are not hungry,” he said briskly, “I am -hun-
gry as a bear; and I'll tell you what I am going to do. I live
not far from here, and I live all alone, too: I haven't a servant
as you have.
Let me
take
supper here with you just for a
change; and if your servant comes, so much the better,
he can
wait upon us.
I'll run over and bring back the things. ”
He was gone without waiting for a reply: the shattered ankle
made good time over the waste, and soon returned, limping a
little, but bravely hasting, while on a tray came the keeper's best
supplies,— Irish potatoes, corned beef, wheaten bread, butter, and
coffee; for he would not eat the hot biscuits, the corn-cake, the
bacon and hominy of the country, and constantly made little
New England meals for himself in his prejudiced little kitchen.
The pine-torch flared in the doorway; a breeze had come down
from the far mountains and cooled the air. Rodman kindled a
>>
## p. 16175 (#521) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16175
»
fire on the cavernous hearth, filled the kettle, found a saucepan,
and commenced operations, while the other lay outside and
watched every movement in the lighted room.
A11 ready: let me help you in. Here we are now-fried
potatoes, cold beef, mustard, toast, butter, and tea.
Eat, man;
and the next time I am laid up, you shall come over and cook
for me. ”
Hunger conquered; and the other ate – ate as he had not
eaten for months. As he was finishing a second cup of tea, a
slow step came around the house; it was the missing Pomp, an
old negro, bent and shriveled, who carried a bag of meal and
some bacon in his basket. “That is what they live on,” thought
the keeper.
He took leave without more words. “I suppose now I can
be allowed to go home in peace,” he grumbled to conscience.
The negro followed him across what was once the lawn. “Fin'
Mars' Ward mighty low,” he said apologetically, as he swung
open the gate which still hung between its posts, although the
fence was down, “but I hurred and hurred as fas' as I could:
it's mighty furto de town. Proud to see you, sah; hope you'll
come again. 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.
her father, Charles Jarvis Woolson, in 1869. From 1873 to 1879 she
lived with her mother in Florida and in other Southern States, -a
sojourn whose fruits appear in the book of short stories of life in the
South headed by Rodman the Keeper,' and in East Angels. ' Miss
Woolson seemed capable of appreciating with equal intensity the
stern, self-sufficing, conscientious New England character, and the
sensuous, easy, lovable nature of the far South. She drew both with
equal truth, and enjoyed contrasting them by bringing them together;
as in the story (The Front Yard,' — in which a good-for-nothing
family of Italian peasants have for a stepmother a New England
woman who lives a modified New England life in Assisi, — in East
Angels,' and elsewhere. Her later short stories are nearly all of
## p. 16166 (#512) ##########################################
16166
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
Italy, or of Americans in Italy. She herself lived abroad continuously
after 1880, dying in Venice January 23d, 1894.
The scenes of her novels are laid in her own country, recalling
the associations of her childhood, —'Horace Chase, however, being
a novel of life in North Carolina. Anne,' 'Jupiter Lights,' (For the
Major,' have their setting in the North; East Angels,' in the far
South. Of these novels (Anne) is the most powerful and striking,
showing as it does Miss Woolson's ability to portray many kinds
of people — above all, her skill in the portraiture of women. She un-
derstood her own sex; her heroines are in no wise remarkable. They
may be met every day; their weakness, their strength, their love,
are found in every household. She understood men as well as an
unmarried woman can understand them, an unmarried woman with
the intuition of the artist. She understood perhaps best of all “the
common people,” especially their homely and hearty qualities. In
her novels she rarely gives way to sentiment or to feminine pathos;
the reader receives the impression that she has certain marketable
qualities in writing under curb. Her reserve force is a part of her
charm. On the whole her novels are strong, sane, and wholesomely
objective, having nothing in common with the hysteria of current
fiction. They fulfill the best purpose of a novel, to entertain without
enervating
RODMAN THE KEEPER
From Rodman the Keeper, and Other Southern Sketches. ) Published by
Harper & Brothers. Copyright 1880, by D. Appleton & Co.
“K
EEPER of what? Keeper of the dead. Well, it is easier to
keep the dead than the living; and as for the gloom of
the thing, the living among whom I have been lately
were not a hilarious set. ”
John Rodman sat in the doorway and looked out over his
domain. The little cottage behind him was empty of life save
himself alone. In one room the slender appointments provided
by government for the keeper, who being still alive must sleep
and eat, made the bareness doubly bare: in the other the desk
and the great ledgers, the ink and pens, the register, the
loud-ticking clock on the wall, and the flag folded on a shelf,
were all for the kept — whose names, in hastily written, blotted
rolls of manuscript, were waiting to be transcribed in the new
red-bound ledgers in the keeper's best handwriting day by day,
while the clock was to tell him the hour when the flag must
## p. 16167 (#513) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16167
rise over the mounds where reposed the bodies of fourteen thou-
sand United States soldiers — who had languished where once
stood the prison-pens on the opposite slopes, now fair and peace-
ful in the sunset; who had fallen by the way in long marches
to and fro under the burning sun; who had fought and died on
the many battle-fields that reddened the beautiful State, stretch-
ing from the peaks of the marble mountains in the smoky west
down to the sea islands of the ocean border. The last rim of the
sun's red ball had sunk below the horizon line, and the western
sky glowed with deep rose color, which faded away above into
pink, into the salmon tint, into shades of that far-away heavenly
emerald which the brush of the earthly artist can never repro-
duce, but which is found sometimes in the iridescent heart of
the opal. The small town, a mile distant, stood turning its back
on the cemetery: but the keeper could see the pleasant, rambling
old mansions, each with its rose-garden and neglected outlying
fields, the empty negro quarters falling into ruin, and everything
just as it stood when on that April morning the first gun was
fired on Sumter; apparently not a nail added, not a brushful
of paint applied, not a fallen brick replaced, or latch or lock
repaired.
The keeper had noted these things as he strolled through
the town, but not with surprise; for he had seen the South in
its first estate, when, fresh, strong, and fired with enthusiasm, he
too had marched away from his village home with the colors
flying above and the girls waving their handkerchiefs behind, as
the regiment, a thousand strong, filed down the dusty road.
That regiment, a weak, scarred two hundred, came back a year
later with lagging step and colors tattered and scorched, and
the girls could not wave their handkerchiefs, wet and sodden
with tears. But the keeper, his wound healed, had gone again;
and he had seen with his New England eyes the magnificence
and the carelessness of the South, her splendor and negligence,
her wealth and thriftlessness, as through Virginia and the fair
Carolinas, across Georgia and into sunny Florida, he had marched
month by month, first a lieutenant, then captain, and finally ma-
jor and colonel, as death mowed down those above him, and he
and his good conduct were left. Everywhere magnificence went
hand in hand with neglect, and he had said so as chance now
and then threw a conversation in his path.
“We have no such shiftless ways,” he would remark, after
he had furtively supplied a prisoner with hard-tack and coffee.
(
## p. 16168 (#514) ##########################################
16168
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
»
"And no such grand ones, either,” Johnny Reb would reply,
if he was a man of spirit; and generally he was.
The Yankee, forced to acknowledge the truth of this state-
ment, qualified it by observing that he would rather have more
thrift with a little less grandeur; whereupon the other answered
that he would not: and there the conversation rested. So now
ex-Colonel Rodman, keeper of the national cemetery, viewed the
little town in its second estate with philosophic eyes. « It is
part of a great problem now working itself out; I am not here
to tend the living but the dead,” he said.
Whereupon, as he walked among the long mounds, a voice
seemed to rise from the still ranks below: “While ye have time,
do good to men,” it said. Behold, we are beyond your care. ”
But the keeper did not heed.
This still evening in early February he looked out over the
level waste. The little town stood in the lowlands: there were
no hills from whence cometh help-calm heights that lift the
soul above earth and its cares; no river to lead the aspirations
of the children outward toward the great sea. Everything was
monotonous; and the only spirit that rose above the waste was
a bitterness for the gained and sorrow for the lost cause. The
keeper was the only man whose presence personated the for-
mer in their sight, and upon him therefore, as representative,
the bitterness fell; not in words, but in averted looks, in sudden
silences when he approached, in withdrawals and avoidance, until
he lived and moved in a vacuum: wherever he went there was
presently no one save himself; the very shop-keeper who sold him
sugar seemed turned into a man of wood, and took his money
reluctantly, although the shilling gained stood perhaps for that
day's dinner.
So Rodman withdrew himself, and came and went among
them no more: the broad acres of his domain gave him as much
exercise as his shattered ankle could bear; he ordered his few
supplies by the quantity, and began the life of a solitary, his
island marked out by the massive granite wall with which the
United States government has carefully surrounded those sad
Southern cemeteries of hers — sad, not so much from the number
of the mounds representing youth and strength cut off in their
bloom,- for that is but the fortune of war,- as for the complete
isolation which marks them. “Strangers in a strange land” is
the thought of all who, coming and going to and from Florida,
turn aside here and there to stand for a moment among the
## p. 16169 (#515) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16169
closely ranged graves which seem already a part of the past –
that near past which in our hurrying American life is even now
so far away.
The government work was completed before the
keeper came: the lines of the trenches were defined by low
granite copings, and the comparatively few single mounds were
headed by trim little white boards bearing generally the word
“Unknown,” but here and there a name and an age,- in most
cases a boy from some far-away Northern State; "twenty-one,”
"twenty-two," said the inscriptions; the dates were those dark
years among the sixties, measured now more than by anything
else in the number of maidens widowed in heart, and women
widowed indeed, who sit still and remember while the world
rushes by. At sunrise the keeper ran up the Stars and Stripes;
and so precise were his ideas of the accessories belonging to the
place, that from his own small store of money he had taken
enough, by stinting himself, to buy a second flag for stormy
weather, so that, rain or not, the colors should float over the
dead. This was not patriotism so called or rather miscalled, it
was not sentimental fancy, it was not zeal or triumph: it was
simply a sense of the fitness of things, a conscientiousness which
had in it nothing of religion, unless indeed a man's endeavor
to live up to his own ideal of his duty be a religion. The
same feeling led the keeper to spend hours in copying the rolls.
"John Andrew Warren, Company G, Eighth New Hampshire
Infantry,” he repeated, as he slowly wrote the name, giving
"John Andrew” clear, bold capitals and a lettering impossible
to mistake; died August 15, 1863, aged twenty-two years. ”_"He
came from the prison-pen yonder, and lies somewhere in those
trenches, I suppose. Now then, John Andrew, don't fancy I am
I
sorrowing for you; no doubt you are better off than I am at this
very moment. But none the less, John Andrew, shall pen, ink,
and hand do their duty to you. For that I am here. ”
Infinite pains and labor went into these records of the dead;
one hair's-breadth error and the whole page was replaced by a
new one. The same spirit kept the grass carefully away from
the low coping of the trenches, kept the graveled paths smooth
and the mounds green, and the bare little cottage neat as a man-
of-war. When the keeper cooked his dinner, the door toward
the east, where the dead lay, was scrupulously closed; nor was
it opened until everything was in perfect order again. At sunset
the flag was lowered; and then it was the keeper's habit to
walk slowly up and down the path until the shadows veiled the
## p. 16170 (#516) ##########################################
16170
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
»
mounds on each side, and there was nothing save the peaceful
green of earth.
«So time will efface our little lives and sorrows,”
he mused, “and we shall be as nothing in the indistinguishable
past. ” Yet none the less did he fulfill the duties of every day
and hour with exactness. "At least they shall not say that I was
lacking,” he murmured to himself as he thought vaguely of the
future beyond these graves. Who they were, it would have
troubled him to formulate, since he was one of the many sons
whom New England in this generation sends forth with a belief
composed entirely of negatives. As the season advanced, he
worked all day in the sunshine. “My garden looks well,” he
said. . « I like this cemetery, because it is the original resting-
place of the dead who lie beneath. They were not brought here
from distant places, gathered up by contract, numbered, and de-
scribed, like so much merchandise; their first repose has not been
broken, their peace has been undisturbed. Hasty burials the
prison authorities gave them: the thin bodies were tumbled into
the trenches by men almost as thin; for the whole State went
hungry in those dark days. There were not many prayers, no
tears, as the dead-carts went the rounds. But the prayers had
been said, and the tears had fallen, while the poor fellows were
still alive in the pens yonder; and when at last death came, it
was like a release. They suffered long; and I for one believe
that therefore shall their rest be long,- long and sweet. ”
After a time began the rain,—the soft, persistent, gray rain
of the Southern lowlands,- and he stayed within and copied an-
other thousand names into the ledger. He would not allow him-
self the companionship of a dog, lest the creature should bark
at night and disturb the quiet. There was no one to hear save
himself, and it would have been a friendly sound as he lay awake
on his narrow iron bed; but it seemed to him against the spirit
of the place. He would not smoke, although he had the soldier's
fondness for a pipe. Many a dreary evening, beneath a hastily
built shelter of boughs, when the rain poured down and every-
thing was comfortless, he had found solace in the curling smoke;
but now it seemed to him that it would be incongruous, and at
times he almost felt as if it would be selfish too. “They cannot
smoke, you know, down there under the wet grass,” he thought,
as standing at the window he looked toward the ranks of the
mounds stretching across the eastern end from side to side — “my
parade-ground,” he called it. And then he would smile at his
own fancies, draw the curtain, shut out the rain and the night,
-
## p. 16171 (#517) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
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C
light his lamp, and go to work on the ledgers again. Some of
the names lingered in his memory; he felt as if he had known
the men who bore them, as if they had been boys together, and
were friends even now although separated for a time. "James
Marvin, Company B, Fifth Maine. The Fifth Maine was in the
seven days' battle. I say, do you remember that retreat down
the Quaker church road, and the way Phil Kearny held the
rear-guard firm ? ” And over the whole seven days he wandered
with his mute friend, who remembered everything and everybody
in the most satisfactory way. One of the little head-boards in
the parade-ground attracted him peculiarly because the name
inscribed was his own:
Rodman, Company A, One Hun-
dred and Sixth New York. ”
“I remember that regiment: it came from the extreme north-
ern part of the State. Blank Rodman must have melted down
here, coming as he did from the half-arctic region along the St.
Lawrence. I wonder what he thought of the first hot day, say
in South Carolina, along those simmering rice-fields ? ” He grew
into the habit of pausing for a moment by the side of this grave
every morning and evening. «Blank Rodman.
« Blank Rodman. It might easily
have been John. And then where should I be ? ”
But Blank Rodman remained silent; and the keeper, after
pulling up a weed or two and trimming the grass over his rela-
tive, went off to his duties again. “I am convinced that Blank
is a relative,” he said to himself; distant perhaps, but still a
kinsman. ”
One April day the heat was almost insupportable; but the sun's
rays were not those brazen beams that sometimes in North-
ern cities burn the air and scorch the pavements to a white
heat, - rather were they soft and still; the moist earth exhaled
her richness, not a leaf stirred, and the whole level country
seemed sitting in a hot vapor bath. In the early dawn the
keeper had performed his outdoor tasks; but all day he remained
almost without stirring in his chair between two windows, striv-
ing to exist. At high noon out came a little black, bringing his
supplies from the town, whistling and shuffling along, gay as a
lark. The keeper watched him coming slowly down the white
road, loitering by the way in the hot blaze, stopping to turn a
somersault or two, to dangle over a bridge rail, to execute various
impromptu capers all by himself. He reached the gate at last,
entered, and having come all the way up the path in a hornpipe
step, he set down his basket at the door to indulge in one long
-
## p. 16172 (#518) ##########################################
16172
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
(
(
and final double-shuffle before knocking. "Stop that! ” said the
keeper through the closed blinds. The little darkey darted back;
but as nothing further came out of the window-a boot, for
instance, or some other stray missile — he took courage, showed
his ivories, and drew near again. “Do you suppose I am going
to have you stirring up the heat in that way? ” demanded the
keeper.
The little black grinned, but made no reply, unless smoothing
the hot white sand with his black toes could be construed as
such; he now removed his rimless hat and made a bow.
“Is it or is it not warm ? ” asked the keeper, as a naturalist
might inquire of a salamander, not referring to his own so much
as to the salamander's ideas on the subject.
"Dunno, mars',” replied the little black.
« How do
you
feel ? »
"'Spects I feel all right, mars'. ”
The keeper gave up the investigation, and presented to the
salamander a nickel cent. "I suppose there is no such thing as
a cool spring in all this melting country,” he said.
But the salamander indicated with his thumb a clump of trees
on the green plain north of the cemetery. “Ole Mars' Ward's
place — cole spring dah. ” He then departed, breaking into a run
after he had passed the gate, his ample mouth watering at the
thought of a certain chunk of taffy at the mercantile establish-
ment kept by Aunt Dinah in a corner of her one-roomed cabin.
At sunset the keeper went thirstily out with a tin pail on his
arm, in search of the cold spring. "If it could only be like the
spring down under the rocks where I used to drink when I was
a boy! ” he thought. He had never walked in that direction
before. Indeed, now that he had abandoned the town, he seldom
went beyond the walls of the cemetery. An old road led across
to the clump of trees, through fields run to waste, and following
it he came to the place,-a deserted house with tumble-down
fences and overgrown garden, the out-buildings indicating that
once upon a time there were many servants and a prosperous
master. The house was of wood, large on the ground, with
encircling piazzas; across the front door rough bars had been
nailed, and the closed blinds were protected in the same manner;
from long want of paint the clapboards were gray and mossy, and
the floor of the piazza had fallen in here and there from decay.
The keeper decided that his cemetery as a much
nore cheer-
ful place than this, and then he looked around for the spring.
C
## p. 16173 (#519) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16173
Behind the house the ground sloped down; it must be there.
He went around and came suddenly upon a man lying on an
old rug outside of a back door.
« Excuse me.
I thought nobody
lived here,” he said.
“Nobody does,” replied the man: "I am not much of a body,
am I?
His left arm was gone, and his face was thin and worn with
long illness; he closed his eyes after speaking, as though the few
words had exhausted him.
“I came for water from a cold spring you have here, some-
where,” pursued the keeper, contemplating the wreck before him
with the interest of one who has himself been severely wounded,
and knows the long, weary pain. The man waved his hand
toward the slope without unclosing his eyes, and Rodman went
off with his pail, and found a little shady hollow, once curbed
and paved with white pebbles, but now neglected, like all the
place. The water was cold, however - deliciously cold. He filled
his pail, and thought that perhaps after all he would exert him-
self to make coffee, now that the sun was down: it would taste
better made of this cold water. When he came up the slope
the man's eyes were open.
“Have some water ? » asked Rodman.
“Yes: there's a gourd inside. ”
The keeper entered, and found himself in a large, bare room:
in one corner was some straw covered with an old counterpane,
in another a table and chair; a kettle hung in the deep fireplace,
and a few dishes stood on a shelf: by the door on a nail hung
a gourd; he filled it and gave it to the host of this desolate
abode. The man drank with eagerness.
Pomp has gone to town,” he said, and I could not get
down to the spring to-day, I have had so much pain. ”
“And when will Pomp return? ”
“He should be here now; he is very late to-night. ”
"Can I get you anything ? ”
“No, thank you: he will soon be here. ”
The keeper looked out over the waste; there was
in sight. He was not a man of any especial kindliness,- he had
himself been too hardly treated in life for that, but he could
not find it in his heart to leave this helpless creature all alone
with night so near. So he sat down on the door-step. “I will
rest awhile,” he said, not asking but announcing it.
The man
had turned away and closed his eyes again, and they both
»
(C
((
no
one
## p. 16174 (#520) ##########################################
16174
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
(
(
remained silent, busy with their own thoughts; for each had
recognized the ex-soldier, Northern and Southern, in portions of
the old uniforms, and in the accent. The war and its memories
were still very near to the maimed, poverty-stricken Confederate;
and the other knew that they were, and did not obtrude himself.
Twilight fell, and no one came.
"Let me get you something,” said Rodman; for the face
looked ghastly as the fever abated. The other refused. Dark-
ness came; still no one.
« Look here,” said Rodman, rising, "I have been wounded
myself, was in hospital for months: I know how you feel. You
must have food — a cup of tea, now, and a slice of toast, brown
and thin. ”
“I have not tasted tea or wheaten bread for weeks,” answered
the man; his voice died off into a wail, as though feebleness and
pain had drawn the cry from him in spite of himself. Rodman
lighted a match: there was no candle, only a piece of pitch-pine
stuck in an iron socket on the wall; he set fire to this primitive
torch and looked around.
« There is nothing there,” said the man outside, making an
effort to speak carelessly: “my servant went to town for sup-
plies. Do not trouble yourself to wait; he will come presently,
and- and I want nothing. ”
But Rodman saw through proud poverty's lie: he knew that
irregular quavering of the voice, and that trembling of the
hand; the poor fellow had but one to tremble. He continued
his search; but the bare room gave back nothing, not a crumb.
“Well, if you are not hungry,” he said briskly, “I am -hun-
gry as a bear; and I'll tell you what I am going to do. I live
not far from here, and I live all alone, too: I haven't a servant
as you have.
Let me
take
supper here with you just for a
change; and if your servant comes, so much the better,
he can
wait upon us.
I'll run over and bring back the things. ”
He was gone without waiting for a reply: the shattered ankle
made good time over the waste, and soon returned, limping a
little, but bravely hasting, while on a tray came the keeper's best
supplies,— Irish potatoes, corned beef, wheaten bread, butter, and
coffee; for he would not eat the hot biscuits, the corn-cake, the
bacon and hominy of the country, and constantly made little
New England meals for himself in his prejudiced little kitchen.
The pine-torch flared in the doorway; a breeze had come down
from the far mountains and cooled the air. Rodman kindled a
>>
## p. 16175 (#521) ##########################################
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
16175
»
fire on the cavernous hearth, filled the kettle, found a saucepan,
and commenced operations, while the other lay outside and
watched every movement in the lighted room.
A11 ready: let me help you in. Here we are now-fried
potatoes, cold beef, mustard, toast, butter, and tea.
Eat, man;
and the next time I am laid up, you shall come over and cook
for me. ”
Hunger conquered; and the other ate – ate as he had not
eaten for months. As he was finishing a second cup of tea, a
slow step came around the house; it was the missing Pomp, an
old negro, bent and shriveled, who carried a bag of meal and
some bacon in his basket. “That is what they live on,” thought
the keeper.
He took leave without more words. “I suppose now I can
be allowed to go home in peace,” he grumbled to conscience.
The negro followed him across what was once the lawn. “Fin'
Mars' Ward mighty low,” he said apologetically, as he swung
open the gate which still hung between its posts, although the
fence was down, “but I hurred and hurred as fas' as I could:
it's mighty furto de town. Proud to see you, sah; hope you'll
come again. 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.
