"There, that"s best I can do," he said, surveying the screed. "It"ll have to go that way, and let the Deacon study it out. He"s got more time "n I have, and mebbe knows all about it. I can"t spend no more time on it. No. 3, pa.s.senger, from the West "s due in 20 minutes, and I"ve got to get ready for it. Good luck; there comes the Deacon"s darky now, with a load of wheat. I"ll send it out by him."
The operator wrote out his last version of the message on a telegraph-blank, inclosed it in a West ern Union envelope, which he addressed to Deacon Klegg, and gave to Abraham Lincoln, with strong injunctions to make all haste back home with it.
Impressed with these, Abraham, as soon as he delivered his grain to the elevator, put his team to a trot, and maintained it until he reached home.
Everything about the usually cheerful farm-house was shrouded in palpable gloom. The papers of the day before, with their ghastly lists of the dead and wounded, had contained Si"s and Shorty"s names, besides those of other boys of the neighborhood, in terrific, unmistakable plainness. There were few homes into which mourning had not come. The window curtains were drawn down, the front doors closed, no one appeared on the front porch, and it seemed that even the dogs and the fowls were op pressed with the general sadness, and forebore their usual cheerful utterances. Attired in sober black, with eyes red from weeping, and with camphor bottle near, Mr. Klegg sat in Si"s room, and between her fits of uncontrollable weeping turned over, one after another, the reminders of her son. There were his bed, his clothes, which she had herself fashioned in loving toil for him; the well-thumbed school-books which had cost him so many anxious hours, his gun and fishing rod. All these were now sacred to her. Elsewhere in the house his teary-eyed sisters went softly and silently about their daily work.
The father had sought distraction in active work, and was in the cornfield, long corn-knife in hand, shocking up the tall stalks with a desperate energy to bring forgetfulness.
Abraham Lincoln burst into the kitchen, and taking the dispatch from his hat said:
"Hyah am a papeh or sumfin dat de agent down at de station done tole me to bring hyah jest as quick as I done could. He said hit done come ober a wire or a telugraph, or sumfin ob dat ere sort, and you must hab hit right-a-way."
"O, my; it"s a telegraph dispatch," screamed Maria with that sickening apprehension that all women have of telegrams. "It"s awful. I can"t tech it. Take it Sophy."
"How can I," groaned poor Sophia, with a fresh outburst of tears. "But I suppose I must."
The mother heard the scream and the words, and hurried into the room.
"It"s a telegraph dispatch, mother," said both the girls as they saw her.
"Merciful Father," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Klegg, sinking into a chair in so nearly a faint that Maria ran into the next room for the camphor-bottle, while Sophy rushed outside and blew the horn for the Deacon. Presently he entered, his sleeves rolled to the elbow over his brawny arms, and his shirt and pantaloons covered with the spanish-needles and burrs which would grow, even in so well-tilled fields as Deacon Klegg"s.
"What"s the matter, mother? What"s the matter, girls?" he asked anxiously.
Mrs. Klegg could only look at him in speechless misery.
"We"ve got a telegraph dispatch," finally answered Maria, bursting in a torrent of tears, into which Sophia joined sympathetically, "and we know it"s about poor Si."
"Yes, it must be about poor Si; n.o.body else but him," added Sophia with a wail.
The father"s face grew more sorrowful than be fore. "What does it say?"
he nerved himself to ask, after a moment"s pause.
"We don"t know," sobbed Maria. "We haint opened it. We"re afraid to.
Here it is."
The father took it with trembling hand. "Well," he said after a little hesitation, "it can"t tell nothin" no worse than we"ve already heard.
Let"s open it. Bring me my specs."
Maria ran for the spectacles, while her father, making a strong effort to calm himself, slit open the envelope with a jack-knife, adjusted his gla.s.ses, and read the inclosure over very slowly.
"Josiah Nott killed Hospital at Chattanooga badly wounded E. C. Bower"s ox. What on airth does that mean? I can"t for the life o" me make it out."
"Read it over again, pap," said Maria, suddenly drying her eyes.
The father did so.
"Le" me read it, pap," said Maria, s.n.a.t.c.hing the telegram from his hand.
"Josiah," said she, read ing. "That"s Si"s right name."
"Certainly it is," said her mother, reviving.
"Certainly; I didn"t think o" that before," echoed the father.
"Josiah not killed," continued she. "Good heavens, that"s what that means. They rebels has got hold o" the wires, and shook "em and tangled up the rest, but the beginnin"s all straight."
"I believe that Sam Elkins down at the station "s mixed it up," said Sophia, with hope springing in her breast. "He never can get things straight. He was in the cla.s.s with me when I went to school, and too dumb to come in when it rained. He was the worst writer, speller and reader in the school. Think o" him being a telegraph operator. Why, he couldn"t spell well enough to make tally-marks on a door when you"re measurin" corn. Railroad was mighty hard up for help when it hired him.
Let me read that dispatch. "Josiah not killed." That means Si Klegg, as sure"s you"re born. It can"t mean nothin" else, or it wouldn"t be addressed to you, pap. "Hospital at Chattanooga." Chattanooga"s near where the battle was fought. "Badly wounded." That means Si"s bin shot.
"E. C. Bower"s ox." What in the world can that be?"
"Bowersox?" said her father, catching the sound. "Why, that"s the name o" the Lootenant Si and Shorty was under when they came home. Don"t you remember they told us about him? I remember the name, for a man named Bowersox used to run a mill down on Bean-Blossom Crick, years ago, and I wondered if he was his son. He"s sent me that dispatch, and signed his name. The Lord be praised for His never-endin" mercies. Si"s alive, after all. Le" me read that over again."
He took the dispatch with shaking hands, but there was too much mist on his gla.s.ses-, and he had to hand it back to Maria to read over again to convince himself.
"I"ll tell you what let"s do: Let"s all get in the wagon and ride over to the station, and get Sam Elkins to read the dispatch over again,"
suggested Sophia. "I"ll jest bet he"s mummixed it up."
"Don"t blame him, Sophy," urged Maria. "I think the rebels has got at the poles or wires and shook "em, and mixed the letters up. It"s just like "em."
Sophy"s suggestion was carried out. Abraham Lincoln was directed to get out the spring wagon, and the Deacon helped hitch up, while the "women folks" got ready.
While they were at the station getting Sam Elkins to re-examine the dots and dashes on his strip of paper, the Eastern express arrived, bringing the morning papers. The Deacon bought one, and the girls nervously turned to the war news. They gave a scream of exultation when they read the revised returns of the killed and wounded, and found under head of "Wounded, in Hospital at Chattanooga":
"Corporal Josiah Klegg, Q, 200th Ind.
"Private Daniel Elliott, Q, 200th Ind."
"Mother and girls, I"m goin" to Chattanoogy on the next train," said the Deacon.
It was only a few hours until the train from the East would be along, and grief was measurably forgotten in the joy that Si was still alive and in the bustle of the Deacon"s preparation for the journey.
"No," he said, in response to the innumerable suggestions made by the mother and daughters. "You kin jest set all them things back. I"ve bin down there once, and learned something. I"m goin" to take nothin with me but my Bible, a couple o" clean shirts, and my razor. A wise man learns by experience."
Mother and girls were inconsolable, for each had something that they were sure "Si would like," and would "do him good," but they knew Josiah Klegg, Sr., well enough to understand what was the condition when he had once made up his mind.
"If Si and Shorty"s able to be moved," he consoled them with, "I"m going to bring them straight back home with me, and then you kin nuss and coddle them all you want to."
The news of his prospective journey had flashed through the neighborhood, so that he met at the station the relatives of most of the men in Co. Q, each with a burden of messages and comforts for those who were living, or of tearful inquiries as to those reported dead.
He took charge of the letters and money, refused the other things, and gave to the kin of the wounded and dead sympathetic a.s.surances of doing every thing possible.
He had no particular trouble or advanture until he reached Nashville.
There he found that he could go no farther without procuring a pa.s.s from the Provost-Marshal. At the Provosts"s office he found a highly miscellaneous crowd besieging that official for the necessary permission to travel on the military railroad. There were more or less honest and loyal speculators in cotton who were ready to take any chances in the vicissitudes of the military situation to get a few bales of the precious staple. There were others who were downright smugglers, and willing to give the rebels anything, from quinine to gun-caps, for cotton. There were sutlers, pedlers, and gamblers. And there were more or less loyal citizens of the country south who wanted to get back to their homes, some to be honest, law-abiding citizens, more to get in communication with the rebels and aid and abet the rebellion.
Deacon Klegg"s heart sank as he surveyed the pushing, eager crowd which had gotten there before him, and most of whom were being treated very cavalierly by the Provost-Marshal.
"No," he heard that official say to a man who appeared a plain farmer like himself; "you not only can have no pa.s.s, but you can"t stay in Nashville an other day. I remember you. I"ve heard you tell that story of a sick son in the hospital before. I remember all the details. You haven"t changed one. You"re a smuggler, and I believe a spy. You"ve got mule-loads of quinine somewhere in hiding, and may be gun-caps and other munitions of war. If you know what"s good for you, you"ll take the next train north, and never stop until you are on the other side of the Ohio River. If you are in town to-morrow morning, I"ll put you to work on the fortifications, and keep you there till the end of the war. Get out of my office at once."