CHAPTER XVII.
_"At first happy news came, in gay letters moiled
With my kisses,--of camp life and glory."_
Browning.
The fall and winter wore on. Spring was near. Griffith wrote toKatherine daily and mailed his letters whenever and wherever it waspossible. His personal reports of progress went with regularity toMr. Lincoln, and an occasional note of congratulation or thanks orencouragement came to him in reply. Meantime the Army of the Potomacdid little but wait, and the armies of the South and West were active.Letters from the boys came to Katherine with irregular regularity. Thosefrom Howard were always brief and full of an irresponsible gurgle of funand heroics. He had been in two or three small fights, and wrote of themas if he had enjoyed an outing on a pleasure excursion. He said in onethat when he was on picket duty he had "swapped lies and grub" with thepicket on the other side. "He tried to stuff me with a lot of fictionabout the strength of their force--said they had not less than ninetythousand men in front of us ready to lick us in the morning. I told himthat I'd just happened by accident to hear our roll called, and it tooktwo days and a night to read the names of our officers alone. He was acrack liar but I reckon we got off about even. He had the worst oldgun I ever saw. It came out of the ark. He admired mine, and it was atip-top Enfield, but I told him it was just an old borrowed thing (thelast of which was true) and that my own was nearly as big as fifty ofit and would shoot ten miles. He kicked at me and laughed, but I didn'ttell him I was a gunner in a battery. A battery is a jim-dandy of aplace. I get to ride all the time. That suits me right down to theground. I haven't had a scratch yet and I'm not afraid I'll get one."His letters rattled on in some such fashion whenever he remembered orexerted himself enough to write at all. They developed in slang as themonths went by, and Katherine smiled and sighed.
Beverly's letters kept up their old tone, and he tried in every way hecould think of, to cheer his mother. He had wholly recovered, he said,from his wounds, and was now with Grant in Tennessee. He described thelong moss on the trees, and wrote: "We are moving now toward Corinth.That is the objective point. I was transferred a month ago to Grant'sarmy, and so, unless Roy has been transferred since you wrote me last,I'll get to see him in a few days, I hope. That will be good. It seemsas if we boys had traveled a pretty long road in the matter of age andexperience since we were at home together. I'm glad to hear of Roy'spromotion--the handsome fellow! And so it was for conspicuous bravery atFort Donaldson, was it? Good! Good! Ah, we can be proud of Roy, mother.And he got only a little flesh-wound in it all, and did not have to goto the hospital at all! What lucky dogs we boys are, to be sure. Ihope father is home with you by this time. Of course, I understand theominous silence and inaction in Virginia--in the army of the Potomac--asonly a few of us can. But I do hope that father will do all thePresident asked of him, and get home before they undertake to act uponthe information he is enabling them to gather. Yes, yes, mother, I knowhow terribly hard he took it, and how silently heroic he is and willbe, God bless him! But after all, mother mine, _your_ part is about thehardest of all to bear. I think of that more and more! To sit and wait!To silently sit and wait for you know not what. To take no active part!Oh, the heroic patience and endurance that must take! But don't worryabout us. The fact is that we are not in half so much danger as youthink. When one comes to know how few, after all, of the millions ofrounds of ammunition that are fired, ever find their mark in humanflesh, one can face them pretty courageously. We were talking it over incamp the other day--a lot of the officers. I really had had no idea whata safe place a battle-field is. It seems that out of 7260 balls fired,only ten hit anybody, and only one of those are serious or fatal! Justlook at the chances a fellow has. Why he doesn't seem to be in much moredanger than he is that a brick will fall on him as he walks the streets,or that he'll slip and break his neck on the ice. Doesn't seem so verydangerous, now, does it, mother? Now, I want you to remember thosefigures, for they are correct. Then you remember that I got mythree--which is more than my share of balls, in the very first fight Iwas in; so you see _I'm_ not likely to get any more. Roy had one, so hischance to catch any more is poor; and as for Howard--well, somehow orother, I never feel the least anxiety about Howard. He'd pull througha knot-hole if the knot was still in it. He is so irresistibly,irresponsibly, recklessly indifferent. But at all events, mother, don'tworry too much. My only anxiety, now, is to hear that father is athome again; both for your sake and for his. Ye gods! what a terrificsacrifice the President demanded of him! And what a stubborn heroism ithas taken to make father do it,--with his temperament and feelings,--aheroism and patriotism beyond even the comprehension of most men. Givelittle Margaret the enclosed note, please. I don't know that she canread it, but I wrote it as plain as I could on this shingle. We aremoving pretty steadily now. We stopped to-day, to let the supplies catchup. We start again in an hour or so. We are all ready now.
"I never cease to be glad that you have old aunt Judy, and that shecontinues such a comfort,--and trial. Give her my love, and tell thegentle and buxom Rosanna, that if she were in this part of the countryshe'd 'see the loikes av me' at every turn. Soldiers are thicker thanpeas in a pod, and she'd not have 'to go fur t' foind the loikes av me'multiplied by ten thousand, all of whom 'become their soger close' quiteas truly as did the undersigned when the admiration of Rosanna for meblossomed forth in such eloquence and elaboration of diction. This seemsrather a frivolous letter; but I want you to keep up good heart, littlemother. It won't--it can't--last much longer, and just as soon as fathergets home, I, for one, shall feel quite easy again. I hope he is thereby this time, with his part all done. The last letter I got from him, hethought it would not take much longer to do all they expected him todo, now. Dear old father! His last letter to me was an inspiration and asermon, in living (as he is), without the least bit of preaching in it.He doesn't need to preach. He lives far better than any creed or thanany religion; but----"
Katherine broke off and pondered. Was Beverly still reading ThomasPaine? If he were to be killed! What did he believe? "Lives far betterthan any creed or than any religion," what did he mean? Had Beverlybecome openly an unbeliever in creeds and religions? The thought almostfroze her blood. She fell upon her knees and wept and prayed--not forher son's life to be spared from the bullets of the enemy, as was herhabit, but that the "shafts of the destroyer" might spare his soul! Hercup of anxiety and sorrow was embittered and made to overflow bythe sincerity of a belief which was so simple, and knew so little ofevasion, that the bottomless pit did, indeed, yawn before her for thisson of her youth.
"Save him! save him!" she moaned aloud, "if not from death, at leastfrom destruction, oh, God of my salvation!"
The terrors which should follow unbelief had been long ago, in her rigidPresbyterian home, made so much a part of her very nature, that thesimple, cheerful, happy side of Griffith's religion, which had beenuppermost all these years, had not even yet, in cases of unusual stress,obliterated the horror of Katherine's literal belief in and fear ofan awful hell, and a vengeance-visiting God for those who slighted orquestioned the justice or truth of a cruel revelation of Him. A greatand haunting fear for Beverly's soul eclipsed her fear for his life, andKatherine's religion added terrors to the war that were more real anddark and fearful than the real horrors that are a natural and legitimatepart of a cruel, civil contest. The "comforts," to a loving heart anda clear head, of such a religion, were vague and shadowy; indeed. Itscertain and awful threats were like a flaming sword of wrath ever beforeher eyes. To those who could evade the personal application of thetenets of their faith, who could accept or reject at will the doctrinesthey professed, who could wear as an easy garment the parts they liked,and slip from their shoulders the features of their "revelation" towhich the condition of their own loved ones did not respond, there mightbe comfort. But to Katherine there was none. Her faith was so real andfirm, that it did not doubt a literal damnation, nor could she readfrom under the decree those she loved, simply
because she loved them.An eternal decree of suffering hung over her first-born, the idol of hersoul! The awful burden of her religion was almost more than she couldbear in these days of fear and loneliness, stimulated as it was by theever-present threat and shadow of death for the lamb that had strayed,even so little, from the orthodox fold. Her days were doubly burdened bythe new anxiety, shadowed by the real, and haunted by the agony of fearfor the imaginary, danger to her son. In her dreams, that night, shesaw him stand before an angry and avenging God, and she awoke in a verypanic of delirium and mental anguish. Great beads of moisture stood uponher brow. "Save him! save him! oh, God of our salvation!" she cried out,and little Margaret stirred uneasily in her bed.
"Wat dat, honey? Wat dat yoh say, Mis' Kate!" called out Judy from hercot in the next room. "Did yoh call me, Mis' Kate?"
"No, no, aunt Judy, I had a bad dream. I----"
The old woman hobbled in. "Now, des look aheah, honey, des yoh stop thatkine er dreams, now. Dey ain't no uste t' nobody, an' dey des makesbad wuk all de way 'roun'. An' 'sides dat dey ain't got no sense to'em,nohow." Poor old aunt Judy, her philosophy was deeper and truer than sheknew or than her mistress suspected; but the sound of her kind old voicecomforted Katherine as no philosophy could.
"Dar now, honey, yoh des lay right down dar'n' go to sleep agin. Yoahole aunt Judy des gwine ter stay right heah twell yoah skeer gits gone.Dar now, dar now, honey, dem kine er dreams is all foolishness. Dey isdat! Now, I gwine ter set heah an' yoh des whorl in an' dream sompin'good 'bout Mos Grif, dat's what you do! Aunt Judy gwine ter set rightheah by de bed. Dar now, honey! Dar now, go sleep."