Woven with the Ship: A Novel of 1865

  "SONNY BOY'S" DIARY

  AN INCIDENT OF THE WAR IN CHINA

  "Oh, a strange hand writes for our dear son--O stricken mother's soul! All swims before her eyes--flashes with black--she catches the main words only; Sentences broken--'gun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital; At present low, but will soon be better.'"

  WALT WHITMAN

  Among the most devoted of my parishioners was a certain Mrs.Allen,--devoted to the Church, of course, that is; although, if I mayjudge from her actions, I think she held me personally in high esteemas well. When I became acquainted with her she was a widow with oneson. Other children, girls, had been born to her I learned afterward,but she had lost them in their early childhood; and, after the deathof her husband, who had been a major in the marine corps of the UnitedStates navy, her life had been entirely devoted to this son, in whomher heart was so wrapped up that she fairly worshipped him.

  She was a gentle, quiet, retiring little woman, sad-faced and inclinedto melancholy when George, her son, was not with her. He was a hearty,healthy lad, abounding in strength and spirits, full of fun andmischief, but never vicious, and he certainly adored her with agenuine enthusiasm. His mother seemed actually to bask in the sunshineof his presence, and when they were together she was a differentwoman.

  When I first knew them the boy had just been given an appointment atAnnapolis; and though he graduated at the head of his class and shouldnaturally have gone into the line of the navy, he had followed thefamily tradition by electing to serve in the marine corps, as hisfather and grandfather before him had done. He had risen to the gradeof first lieutenant, and was one of the officers of the little band ofUnited States marines who formed the Legation guard in Pekin duringthe terrible summer of 1900. I well remember the fearful anxiety andyet the superhuman resolution with which Mrs. Allen confronted thosedays of silence and suspense.

  Sadly enough, among the first messages which got through from thebesieged ministers was one announcing the death of her son. I was withher, of course, immediately upon the receipt of the news. Her griefwas as silent as it was terrible. She made no complaint. The blow juststruck her down. Her heart was affected in some way, and Dr. Taylorinformed me, and I, in turn, told her that her days were numbered. Ifelt that it was best that she should know it. Now that her son hadbeen taken, the desire to live left her, and she was almost happy inthe thought that a short time--a month or two at most, the doctorsaid--would unite them again.

  A few days after the receipt of the first bad news, freedom ofcommunication having been restored meanwhile, the report of George'sdeath was contradicted. Some one had blundered in the first message,and things were in such a state we could never find out who. He hadbeen desperately wounded, they said, but would recover.

  His mother brightened under this encouraging news. There was a faintrally and some improvement in her condition, but nothing of apermanent character. She realized the situation fully, but shesummoned all her resolution and determination to her assistance andtold me that she could not die until she had seen her son again. Dr.Taylor thought that probably she might survive under the inspirationof her devotion until the boy, about whom we continued to receivefavorable reports, should come home again.

  So she lingered through the summer, struggling, anxious, hopeful,determined. I happened to be with her on the eventful day when shereceived his first letter. The joy with which she took it from me andtore it open with her white, feeble, trembling hands was almostpainful to witness. I felt as if I were intruding upon a meeting; buther blank look of astonishment changing to regret, and then to bitterdisappointment, even anguish, as she mastered its contents wassurprising.

  "I have lost my boy," she said, with trembling lips, after a while, asshe handed me the letter.

  "What?" I cried.

  "Oh, no; he is getting better and is coming back. I do not mean that;but--but--he is going to be married. Read it yourself."

  Why, it was a letter to make any woman's heart proud, I thought, and Isaid so. There were sober words of thanksgiving to God that his lifehad been spared; a modest expression of satisfaction in the promotionto a captaincy, which had come to him for his splendid courage duringthe siege, notably when he led the attack on the sand-bag fort on thewall, where he was wounded; and lots of love for his mother. That wasnot all, though. He had been a demonstrative boy always, I suppose; hehad lavished affectionate endearments upon her, and she had been firstin his heart; but now--ah, there was the rub.

  I realized, as I reflected on the situation, that I was only a man,and that no man had ever fathomed the subtle depths of a woman's--amother's--heart. It was as she had said; he was going to be married. Imust admit that nine-tenths of the letter was filled with descriptionsof the young woman to whom he had plighted his troth. He sang herpraises with the blindness of youth and the ardor of manhood.

  They had met for the first time during the siege. She had been abelated traveller who had been caught in the Boxer uprising, and hadbeen forced to take shelter in the Legation. She had shown herself tobe a heroine, of course. Everybody was heroic in those days. We allexpected they would be, and they were. After George had been woundedshe had nursed him back to life and won her way into his heart in theprocess. It was all quite natural, certainly, and very romantic. Shewas coming back with him. They were to be married by one of themissionaries in the Legation, where the romance had begun, as soon ashe was able to stand it, and he hoped soon to present to his mother anew daughter, who was "the best, the sweetest, the noblest littlewoman in the world, and whom I love and adore with all my heart," andso on until the end of the letter.

  I thought myself that he might have spared her a little of that; and,as I watched Mrs. Allen's face and tried to talk to comfort her, Ibegan to have a dim realization of what a shock it was. That boy hadbeen everything to her, as I said, and she to him. She had always beenfirst in his affection and he in hers. Alone in the world, the two hadgrown up together. Now that his life was spared, she confronted thefact that she was called upon to share him with another woman.

  Oh, the bitterness of jealousy in old age! It was there. Oh, thehopeless feeling that comes over a mother when she realizes that, in acertain sense, she is supplanted! I saw it in the white face, thepressed lips, the trembling hands of the stricken woman leaning backin the chair before me. It matters not that it is the usual course oflife; that did not make it easier for her. Other mothers had to bearsuch things, we both knew, but now it seemed different.

  Well, I comforted her as best I could, said all things possible beforeI left her, but to little purpose, I fear. The next day she was dead.The second shock had been too much for her. I was with her when shepassed away. When I came into the room I noticed that the table by herbed was covered with a pile of common red-backed blank books, which Ihad never seen before.

  "Sonny Boy!"--that's what she called him; in spite of the fact that hewas a great big fellow, and as manly as a soldier should be, he wasalways in her heart what he had been as a child--"Sonny Boy's diary,"she whispered to me; "I want you to take them--keep them until hecomes home and then give them to him. And I want you to read them,too, so that you may know--and--and--sympathize."

  Sympathize with whom? I wondered. With George or with her? Ah, I soonfound out. I thought she had gone after the prayers had been said, shelay on the bed so still and quiet. But she opened her eyes presentlyand whispered brokenly in the silence,--

  "Tell him--I love him better than--than--any one in the wholeworld--will--ever--love him--Sonny--Boy."

  After that her eyes remained open until I closed them.

  I took the books home, and the evening of the day of the funeral I satdown to read them. It was late at night, or rather early in themorning, when I finished them, and then I did something for which myconscience has troubled me ever since.

  I wish that I could tell you all that was in those little worn blankbooks. Every word of them had been written by her own han
d. She beganwith his birth, the first entry being made as soon as she was able tohold a pen. She chronicled religiously every event that bore even theremotest relation to the boy. You could see how he grew into her life,how he became a part of it, and, finally, as the years passed by, allof it. There was nothing that he did or said which was not noted. Hismost trivial actions, his most unimportant words, were all faithfullyset down and commented upon. In those books was the history of thedevelopment of a human being,--nay, the development of a great passionas well.

  As he grew older, and his mother lost successively his father and thetwo little girls, it was easy to see how the boy became more and moreto her. The entries were longer and more connected,--more coherent, Ishould say. There were whole pages filled with her speculationsconcerning him. She set down the ambitions she had cherished for hiswork, the hopes born in her heart for his future, her dreams of hisachievements that were to be; she quoted freely from his letters whenhe was away at school. She inserted photographs of him in all stagesof development. She wrote out the prayers she made for his welfare.

  The entries abounded with expressions of her ever-growing, absorbinglove for him. Yes, and when he had his boyish flirtations and hadevidently written to her about charming girls he had met, the jealousyof a mother's heart spoke in her comments. It was quite evident to meas I read on, absorbed in it all, that she would never be able to bearthe idea of any one coming between her and that lad. How she rejoicedin his successes and love for her! There were troubles,too,--illnesses, scrapes; but her love never wavered, and thingsalways seemed to come right in the end.

  I could see that the keeping of that diary had become a passion withher. She confessed herself to it as a devotee might to some spiritualadviser. She poured out her heart on those pages which no living eyebut mine had ever seen, I verily believe. She was absolutely true;entirely frank. The book was a self-revelation, all unconscious. Icould see the ennobling effect of that great passion. She grew greateras I read on and on. A soul was laid bare in the written pages. Iseemed to be treading on hallowed ground as I tenderly turned thefaded leaves. No one could ever have spoken aloud as she wrote. It'snot in nature to do so. It was her secret heart, her most sacredfeelings, her inmost soul that lived and vibrated in the silentletters. I seemed to be looking upon things not meant for mortal eyes.

  And through it all there was a note of depreciation. Was she, couldshe, be worthy of him? Oh, the sweetness of the humility of a mother!

  But I cannot linger to tell all the story, all I read, all I divined.At last came the entries of the present year. When he had gone awayshe had sworn she would be brave. He was a soldier, he must do hisduty and uphold the honored name of his father; but, oh, the anxietyof it all! I could see that it had almost killed her; yet she had keptup under the dreadful strain until the news of his death came.

  I am not ashamed to say that I put the book down and cried like a babywhen I read what she had written. Broken-hearted sentences, bits ofprayer, words of Scripture, "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son!" Tears onthe pages. The leaves were alive with her words. As I said, they spokeas no human voice could have spoken. They told a tale which humanitycould not have revealed. And her heart was broken.

  Then came the entry on the day when I had told her she was doomed. Thesubdued joy with which she heard the news, with which she lookedforward to the prospect of a speedy meeting, was quite evident. Onephrase struck me on that page:

  "The work of years is over; I lay down the pen," she had written. "Sonny Boy"--she never failed to use that title; she clung to it the more tenaciously as he grew older; it seemed very sweet to me--"is gone and I am going, thank God! In death as in life we will be together. 'The book may close over' and be opened no more. He cannot return to me, but I shall go to him. I shall write no more. I have left directions that this story of a life--or two lives, his and mine--shall be burned when I am gone to meet Sonny Boy."

  But on the next page the entries began again. She had taken up herwonted life-long task once more when she found that he was living.Curiously enough, while there was joy in the pages now, I seemed toread in them more of regret--in spite of herself. The doom writtenagainst her could not be revoked. Yet the conditions were changed. Shehad to look forward to a long parting instead of an eternal meeting,and it hurt her. Yet she must live until he came back. I saw it washer will power alone that kept her up. She must see him again beforeshe went out into the dark, or the light rather, to wait for him.

  So, in a hand that grew more feeble from day to day, she jotted downher hopes and longings for her son. How much the trembling letterstold of her growing weakness! how different were the characters fromthe bold, flowing, graceful writing of the beginning!

  Finally I came to the entry--the last--on the day she had received thenews of his approaching marriage. Oh, the anguish that ran through thewritten words! They seemed to gasp out her grief from the page;sometimes I could scarcely decipher them. I turned back to the entryfollowing the report of his death, and I declare it was no moreheart-broken. Another woman had come between them. With unconsciouscruelty, in that fatal letter George had told her over and over againhow much he loved the woman he was about to marry. She could not getaway from it. Innocently enough, he had given her to understand thathe loved the girl more than all the world. Thoughtlessly he plungedthis dagger into his gentle mother's heart.

  I didn't blame him for his feelings. He could not help them; and, as Isaid, it was human nature anyway. The experience is common to everymother in greater or less degree. She had to expect it, or she oughtto have done so. Still, I did wish he had not been quite soenthusiastic; not that it would have made much difference, for it wasthe fact that killed. His mother had intuition enough, she loved himenough to divine the truth through any reticence.

  "I can't bear it," I read, "to know that I have no longer the first place, that another woman is nearer to him than I. To feel that the first of his love is given to a stranger! The best of his heart is hers! Who is she? What right had she to come between us? What has she done for him compared to me? Ever since he was first put in my arms, ever since I heard him cry the first time after the awful pain and anguish of deliverance, he has been mine! Mine! Mine! And she has taken him! Oh, God, pity me! I cannot give him up and live! He must not bring her here. I shall never like her! I hate her! I do not believe she is--Oh, how wicked I am! And he will be so happy while I suffer! I'm glad he will be happy--but it kills me. Thank God! it will not be for long. I don't want to see her. Pity me, my Saviour! You had a mother! I am an old, lonely, dying woman. Mercy, mercy! I don't want to see him--either--that I should write it--my son! with a light in his eyes and love in his voice for another woman. I shall die now. Perhaps I may find comfort then. But I shall never forget. He wrote about her on seven pages of his letter, and one was enough for me. Oh, Sonny Boy, to lose you, to--your little old mother is breaking her heart! Be assured of one thing, my son, I love you and I have loved you better than any one in the whole world will ever love you"--these were the words she had whispered to me on her death-bed--"no matter how much joy you may have, how much happiness, no matter where you may go, whom you may meet, what they may say, no one in this world will ever love you as I have. No one will ever think of you as your mother."

  That was all. And I'm afraid it was true.

  "There is none In all this cold and hollow world, no fount Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within A mother's heart."

  I sat there in the gray of the morning with the open book in my hand.She had told me to give the volumes to George when he returned, and Icould not--if I desired to do so--disregard her wish; yet to laybefore him the sorrow, the regret, the sadness of that last entry: toleave with him that final thought of his mother, to cloud his weddedlife with a suspicion which I knew he could never dispel, that his joyhad been her death, his marriage had broken her heart--I could not doit! S
till, to withhold from that boy the last words of his mother--itdid not seem right!

  What did I do? you ask. Well, with a horribly guilty feeling, I cutthe last leaf containing those terribly piteous words out of thediary. I did it carefully so that he would never know that anythinghad been taken away. I felt like a thief all the time, somehow.

  I did not destroy the leaf. I could not do so. I put it away carefullywith my other treasures, and when George came home with his sweet,beautiful young wife,--and I thanked God he had her to help him bearhis unfeigned sorrow at the loss of his mother,--I gave him the diarywithout the missing leaf; and her last message to him, as I deliveredit, was one simply of love and blessing. And I almost felt as if hismother thanked me for it. I hope so.

  I take out that missing leaf sometimes when I am alone in my study,and read it over and wonder whether, after all, I did right or not.

  EXTRAVAGANZAS

  "'Tis a pleasure to please, and the straw that can tickle us Is a source of enjoyment, though slightly ridiculous."

  OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

  "A careless song with a little nonsense in it now and then does not misbecome a monarch."

  WALPOLE