Then Azalia and Daphne sung the Star-spangled Banner, the congregation joining in the chorus. Under the excitement of the moment, Judge Adams called for contributions for the soldiers, and the old farmers took out their pocket-books. Those who had made up their minds to give five dollars gave ten, while Mr. Middlekauf, Hans"s father, who thought he would give twenty-five, put fifty into the hat.
When the meeting was over, Paul stepped down from the platform, threw his arms around his mother"s neck and kissed her, and heard her whisper, "G.o.d bless you, Paul." Then the people came to shake hands with him.
Even Miss Dobb came up, all smiles, shaking her curls, holding out her bony hand, and saying, "I am glad to see you, Colonel Parker. You know that I was your old teacher. I really feel proud to know that you have acquitted yourself so well. I shall claim part of the honor. You must come and take tea with me, and tell me all about the battles," she said.
"My leave of absence is short. I shall not have time to make many visits; but it will give me great pleasure to call upon those who have _always_ been my friends," said Paul, with a look so searching that it brought the blood into her faded cheeks.
Hearty the welcome from Azalia and Daphne, and from those who had been his scholars, who listened with eager interest to the words which fell from his lips. Golden the days and blissful those few hours spent with his mother, sitting by her side in the old kitchen; with Daphne and Azalia, singing the old songs; with Azalia alone, stealing down the shaded walk in the calm moonlight, talking of the changeful past, and looking into the dreamy future, the whippoorwills and plovers piping to them from the cloverfields, the crickets chirping them a cheerful welcome, and the river saluting them with its ceaseless serenade!
CHAPTER XVII.
CHICKAMAUGA.
Quick the changes. Paul was once more with the army, amid the mountains of Tennessee, marching upon Chattanooga with General Rosecrans, tramping over Lookout Mountain, and along the Chickamauga.
Then came a day of disaster in September. A great battle began on Sat.u.r.day morning, lasted through Sunday, and closed on Monday. Paul rode courageously where duty called him, through the dark woods, along the winding river, where the bullets sang, where the sh.e.l.ls burst, where hundreds of brave men fell. Terrible the contest. It was like a thunder-storm among the mountains,--like the growling of the angry surf upon the sh.o.r.e of the ocean. How trying, after hours of hard fighting, to see the lines waver and behold the Rebels move victoriously over the field! with disaster setting in, and to know that all that is worth living for is trembling in the scale!
There are such moments in battle. General Rosecrans"s army was outnumbered. Paul saw the Rebels driving in the centre and turning the left flank to cut off all retreat to Chattanooga. The moment for great, heroic action had come. He felt the blood leap through his veins as it never had leaped before. The Rebel line was advancing up the hill. The Union batteries were making ready to leave.
"Stay where you are!" he shouted. "Give them canister! Double shot the guns! Quick! One minute now is worth a thousand hours."
"Rally! rally! Don"t let them have the guns!" he shouted to the flying troops. They were magic words. Men who had started to run came back.
Those who were about to leave stood in their places, ready to die where they were. Five minutes pa.s.sed; they seemed ages. On--nearer--up to the muzzles of the guns came the Rebels; then, losing heart, fled down the hill, where hundreds of their comrades lay dying and dead. Their efforts to break the line had failed. But once more they advanced in stronger force, rushing up the hill. Fearful the din and strife, the shouts and yells, the clashing of sabres and bayonets, the roar of the cannon, the explosion of sh.e.l.ls. Paul found himself suddenly falling, then all was dark.
When he came to himself the scene had changed. He was lying upon the ground. A soldier, wearing a dirty gray jacket, and with long hair, was pulling off his boots, saying, "This Yankee has got a pair of boots worth having."
"Hold on! what are you up to?" said Paul.
"Hullo! blue bellie, ye are alive, are ye? Tho"t yer was dead. Reckon I"ll take yer boots, and yer coat tew."
Paul saw how it was: he was wounded, and left on the field. He was in the hands of the Rebels; but hardest to bear was the thought that the army had been defeated. He was stiff and sore. The blood was oozing from a wound in his side. He was burning up with fever. He asked the Rebels who were around him for a drink of water; but, instead of moistening his parched lips, one pointed his gun at him and threatened to blow out his brains. They stripped off his coat and picked his pockets. Around him were hundreds of dead men. The day wore away and the night came on. He opened his lips to drink the falling dew, and lay with his face towards the stars. He thought of his mother, of home, of Azalia, of the angels and G.o.d. Many times he had thought how sad it must be to die alone upon the battle-field, far from friends; but now he remembered the words of Jesus Christ: "I will not leave you comfortless. My peace I give unto you." Heaven seemed near, and he felt that the angels were not far away.
He had tried to do his duty. He believed that, whether living or dying, G.o.d would take care of him, and of his mother. In his soul there was sweet peace and composure; but what was the meaning of the strange feeling creeping over him, the numbness of his hands, the fluttering of his heart? Was it not the coming on of death? He remembered the prayer of his childhood, lisped many a time while kneeling by his mother"s side, and repeated it once more.
"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."
The stars were fading. His senses reeled. His eyelids closed, and he lay pale, cold, and motionless, among the dead.
CHAPTER XVIII.
HOW HE LIVED IN THE MEMORY OF HIS FRIENDS.
"Colonel Parker, mortally wounded and left on the field." So read the account of the battle in the newspapers,--which told of the disaster to the army,--how the lines were broken, how the cannon were lost, how Paul was shot through the breast, how, had it not been for General Thomas, it would have been a day of utter ruin. Father Surplice went up to the little old house to break the sad tidings to Paul"s mother, for he could best give comfort and consolation in time of affliction.
"I have sad news," he said. She saw it in his face, even before he spoke, and knew that something terrible had happened. "A great battle has been fought, and G.o.d has seen fit that your son should die for his country."
She made no outcry, but the tears glistened in her eyes. She wiped them away, and calmly replied: "I gave him freely to the country and to G.o.d.
I know that he was a dutiful, affectionate son. I am not sorry that I let him go." Then with clasped hands she looked upward, through her blinding tears, and thanked G.o.d that Paul had been faithful, honest, true, and good.
The neighbors came in to comfort her, but were surprised to find her so calm, and to hear her say, "It is well."
It was a gloomy day in New Hope,--in the stores and shops, and in the school-house, for the children affectionately remembered their old teacher. When the s.e.xton tolled the bell, they bowed their heads and wept bitter tears. Mr. Chrome laid down his paint-brush and sat with folded hands, saying, "I can"t work." Colonel Dare dashed a tear from his eye, and said, "So slavery takes our n.o.blest and best." He walked down to the little old house and said to Mrs. Parker, "You never shall want while I have a cent left." Judge Adams came, and with much emotion asked, "What can I do for you?"
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters," she replied, so calmly that the Judge felt that she was the strong one and he the weak.
When Azalia heard the news the rose-bloom faded from her cheeks and her heart stood still. In imagination she saw Paul lying on the ground, with blood flowing from his side, enduring dreadful agony, while waiting the coming of death. She could hardly think of him as gone, never to return, yet the church-bell was tolling mournfully, gone, gone, gone! She clasped her hands upon her heart to keep it from bursting.
"Be comforted, my child. He has gone to a better world than this," said her mother, sympathizing in her sorrow.
Daphne came in, and bathed Azalia"s burning brow, kissed her tenderly, and said, "Don"t cry, dear."
Azalia was not weeping,--there were no tears in her eyes. G.o.d had not wiped them all away, but the great and sudden affliction was like the heat of a fiery furnace. It had dried the fountains. Though her mother and Daphne were so kind and tender, they could not take away her heart-ache. It was a weary day. She sat by the window and gazed upon the wheat-fields, brown and bare, for it was almost October, and the reapers had gathered the grain. Beyond the fields was the river, shrunk to a narrow bed by the heats of summer. Dead leaves were floating down the stream. Like the _Miserere_ which the choir chanted at the funeral of a sweet young girl before Paul went to the army, was the murmuring of the water. Beyond the river were green meadows and gardens and orchards, where dahlias were blooming, and grapes and apples ripening in the mellow sunshine. She thought of Paul as having pa.s.sed over the river, and as walking in the vineyard of the Lord. The summer flowers which she had planted in her own garden were faded, the stalks were dry, and the leaves withered. They never would bloom again. Like them, the brightness of her life had pa.s.sed away.
Night brought no relief. It seemed as if her heart would break, but she remembered what Jesus said: "Come unto me and I will give you rest." She told Him all her grief, asked Him to help her, inasmuch as He was able to bear the sorrows of all the world. So confiding in Him, she experienced indescribable peace of mind.
Then in the evening they who walked along the street stopped and listened by the gate to hear the music which floated out through the open window, bowing their heads, and in silence wiping away their tears.
It was the music of the "Messiah," which Handel composed. She sung it in church one Sunday before Paul went to the army, and Father Surplice said it set him to thinking about the music of heaven; but now to the pa.s.sers in the street it was as if Jesus called them, so sweet and tender was the song.
It was consoling to take from her bureau the letters which Paul had written, and read again what she had read many times,--to look upon the laurel-leaf which he plucked in the woods at Donelson, the locust-blossoms which he gathered at Shiloh, the moss-rose which grew in a garden at Vicksburg,--to read his n.o.ble and manly words of his determination to do his duty in all things.
"Life is worth nothing," read one of the letters, "unless devoted to n.o.ble ends. I thank G.o.d that I live in this age, for there never has been so great an opportunity to do good. The heroes of all ages, those who have toiled and suffered to make the world better, are looking down from the past to see if I am worthy to be of their number. I can see the millions yet to come beckoning me to do my duty for their sake. They will judge me. What answer can I give them if I falter?"
Thus in her sorrow Azalia found some comfort in looking at the faded flowers, and in reflecting that he had not faltered in the hour of trial, but had proved himself worthy to be numbered with the heroic dead.
CHAPTER XIX.
WHAT BECAME OF A TRAITOR.
But Paul was not dead. He was in the hands of the enemy. He had been taken up from the battle-field while unconscious, put into an ambulance, and carried with other wounded to a Rebel hospital.
"We can"t do anything for this Yankee," said one of the surgeons who looked at his wound.
"No, he will pop off right soon, I reckon," said another; and Paul was left to live or die, as it might be.
When he awoke from his stupor he found himself in an old barn, lying on a pile of straw. He was weak and faint, and suffered excruciating pain.
The Rebel soldier had stolen his coat, and he had no blanket to protect him from the cold night-winds. He was helpless. His flesh was hot, his lips were parched. A fever set in, his flesh wasted away, and his eyes became wild, gla.s.sy, and sunken. Week after week he lay powerless to help himself, often out of his head and talking of home, or imagining he was in battle. How long the days! how lonesome the nights! But he had a strong const.i.tution, and instead of "popping off," as the surgeon predicted, began to get well. Months pa.s.sed, of pain and agony and weary longing. It was sweet relief when he was able to creep out and sit in the warm sunshine.
One day a Rebel lieutenant, wearing a gay uniform trimmed with gold lace, came past him. Paul saw that he had been drinking liquor, for he could not walk straight.