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Lincoln Conscript

<h2>CHAPTER V AN UNEXPECTED BREAKFAST</h2> As Bob descended the stairs to open the hall-door in response to the knocking, his mother stood on the upper landing, trembling with excitement and fear. When the door was finally opened, she could see, dimly outlined in the doorway, a man dressed in the uniform of a sergeant in the army of the United States. “We have come,” he said to Bob, “by order of the provost-marshal, to arrest Rhett Bannister, who has been drafted and has failed to respond.” The man was courteous in manner, but firm of speech. “He is not here,” replied Bob. “Pardon me,” said the man, “but we believe he is here. He was in this house last night. To the best of our knowledge[101] he has not left it. We shall be obliged to search the premises.” “You may do so,” answered Bob, “but I assure you he is not here.” Without waiting to discuss the matter, the sergeant stepped into the hall, followed by a private in uniform. Outside, the house-doors were guarded by the two soldiers who remained. If Rhett Bannister were within, there would be no chance for him to escape. The sergeant pushed his way into the parlor and sitting-room, threw open the blinds, and looked carefully about him. He went into the dining-room, raised the shades, and examined the pantries and the kitchen. He procured a lantern, went into the cellar and searched every nook and corner of it. “It is necessary for me,” he said when he came back up the cellar-stairs, “to ask permission to go into the second story. Who is up there?” “My mother and my young sister,” replied Bob. [102] “Will you kindly go ahead and tell them that we are coming. I shall have to examine every room.” “You may go now,” said the boy. “My mother is dressed.” So they went, all three, upstairs. The soldiers peered into the room where Louise, undisturbed by the noise, still slept peacefully on. In the presence of Mrs. Bannister the sergeant removed his cap. “I regret this necessity, madam,” he said, “but we are under orders to arrest Rhett Bannister, and it is our duty to make this search.” The woman was too much frightened to reply, so the party went on into the other rooms, up the ladder into the attic, into all the corners and closets, everywhere. When the search was completed, the sergeant came back to the head of the stairs and addressed Mrs. Bannister. “You are Rhett Bannister’s wife?” “Yes,” tremblingly, “yes, I am his wife.” “I am sorry, but your husband is now[103] classed as a deserter. If he is arrested he becomes subject to the death penalty. I believe that only a prompt surrender on his part will lead to a suspension or abatement of his sentence. If you know where he is I would advise you, for your own sake, to urge him to give himself up at once.” She turned to Bob, appealingly. “Do I have to tell, Robbie? Do I? Do I have to? Would it be better?” “No, mother, you don’t have to, and it wouldn’t be better. Father has made up his mind what he wants to do, and we have no right to interfere with his plans.” The frightened woman was clinging to Bob’s arm and looking up tearfully into his face. “I am sorry to be obliged to add,” said the sergeant, “that all persons who aid and abet a deserter in his efforts to escape arrest, are classed as co-conspirators with him, and as traitors to their country, and are subject to punishment accordingly. So, if[104] either of you have any knowledge as to Rhett Bannister’s whereabouts, I—” But at this point the terrified woman gave way completely; the sympathizing sergeant turned away from her, and Bob led her, sobbing convulsively, back to her own room. When he was again able to leave her and go downstairs, he found that the soldiers had made a thorough search of the out-of-door premises, and were just returning from the shop, the lock on the door of which they had forced, and the interior of which they had explored. Strangely enough, it had not occurred to them to examine the tower of the windmill. There was nothing about it, either in the shop or on the outside, which would indicate to the casual observer that it might become a hiding-place for a fugitive. If it had occurred to them, and they had proceeded with such a search, the tragedy which Bob feared would surely have come. For Rhett Bannister, standing in his cramped quarters within the tower, watching, through his[105] port-hole, the movements of the soldiers about his house and yard, and their approach to the shop, listening to the breaking of the lock on the shop-door, and to the exploration going on beneath him, was ready, on the instant of discovery, from his point of advantage, to shoot to kill any person who attempted to force him from his place of concealment. Yet, for that morning at least, a merciful Providence so blinded the eyes and dulled the wits of those soldiers as to save Rhett Bannister from the disgrace and horror of shedding another’s blood. When Bob came out on the kitchen porch and glanced involuntarily and fearfully up at the windmill tower, he caught a glimpse of a rifle-barrel through one of the small dark openings his father had made, and knew, on the instant, how narrowly the household had escaped a tragedy. For, even as he looked, the soldiers were coming back, by the garden-path, to the house. The young sergeant was plainly disappointed[106] and vexed over the result of his expedition. He had hoped and intended to have credit for bagging the most notorious copperhead in that section of the state. And now that his ambition was likely to fail of realization, he could not quite repress his deep feeling of annoyance. He came back to the boy on the porch. “I don’t want to be harsh,” he said, “but from either you or your mother I must have definite information as to Rhett Bannister’s whereabouts. I believe both of you know where he is.” “My mother is already so frightened by your raid,” replied Bob, “that if she knew and was willing to tell, I doubt whether she would be able to. But you may ask me any questions you like.” “Very well. Do you know where your father is at this moment?” “I believe I do.” “Where is he?” “I will not tell.” The sergeant’s face flushed, and he bit[107] his drooping moustache. He was plainly angry. “I have already told you,” he said, “that to shield deserters is an offense hardly less treasonable than desertion itself. I don’t intend to be balked in this thing. Your father is somewhere about these premises. I know, for I have had the house watched. He could not have escaped. You can point out his hiding-place to me, or I will put you under arrest and take you before the provost-marshal.” The boy’s face paled and his lip quivered, but he was still resolute. “I’ll go,” he said, “but I’ll not tell.” “Very well, come on!” The sergeant spoke gruffly, and laid a rough hand on the lad’s shoulder. “Let me go first and tell my mother.” “No. It’s your choice to go—go now. March!” Then a better thought came into the sergeant’s mind. Down on the Delaware a good and anxious mother was fearing and[108] praying for him. The thought of her softened his anger. “Well,” he said, “go and tell her. Tell her anything you like. But sooner or later you will tell us what we want to know.” Bob hurried upstairs to his mother’s room. “Mother,” he said, “I’ve discovered a way to get rid of these men. I’ve offered to go up to Mount Hermon with them. When we are gone you can let father know.” <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/image04.jpg" width-obs="484" height-obs="600" alt="" title="" /> <div class="caption">“I’VE DISCOVERED A WAY TO GET RID OF THESE MEN.”</div> </div> “Oh, Robbie! they don’t mean any harm to you?” “None at all, mother. But tell father—tell father not to go into the windmill tower again. They might find out—somehow—that that’s his hiding-place, and come back here before I do, to get him. Tell him not to go into the tower again, not for anything.” He kissed his mother good-by and hurried out into the hall. His little sister stood there, clad in her nightdress, with flushed[109] cheeks and rumpled hair and wondering eyes. “Good-by, Dotty!” he called back to her as he hurried down the stairs. “I’ve got to go up to town early this morning. I’m off now. You jump back into bed and get your beauty sleep.” In another minute he was out in the road with the sergeant and his three men, and they went marching away toward Mount Hermon. The young officer was inclined to be silent and severe at first, but he soon thawed out, and then Bob found his conversation to be most interesting. He said, in answer to the boy’s inquiry, that he had been in the service since almost the beginning of the war. He had been with McClellan all through the Peninsular Campaign. He had fought at Antietam and at Fredericksburg and Gettysburg. In that last great battle a bullet had pierced his thigh, severing a small artery, and he had nearly bled to death before receiving surgical attention. But he was almost[110] well now, and ready again for active service. And as they walked on, and the young man told of his battles and his marches and his wounds, of the glory of fighting for the old flag, and of his ardent hope for ultimate victory and peace, and above all, of his reverence for the great and noble President at Washington, whom all the soldiers loved and honored, and for whom they would cheerfully have died, Bob felt the tides of patriotism rising high and higher in his breast; and, notwithstanding the errand which the young soldier had tried his best to perform, the boy could not help feeling in his heart that here indeed was a hero worthy of his admiration. Absorbed in the story, carried away by his enthusiasm for a cause which could command such fealty as this, he forgot, for the time, that his father, a despised copperhead, a fugitive from the execution of the draft, with the penalty for desertion hanging over his head, was still back at the old[111] home, ready to shed the blood of any who might dare seek to apprehend him. He forgot that he himself was under arrest as a traitor, charged with aiding and abetting his father, on his way to the office of the provost-marshal, where he must either purge himself from contempt, by answering the questions put to him, or suffer the penalty of his disobedience. So, with glowing eyes and flushed cheeks and swiftly beating heart, he told of his own hopes and beliefs and desires, of his own longing for the ascendency of the Union cause, of his faith in the great generals, Meade, Sheridan, Sherman, Grant, and of his absolute devotion to the one overmastering hero of the mighty war, Abraham Lincoln. And when he had told all these things, with an earnestness and enthusiasm that stamped them as unmistakably genuine, and his own patriotism as quite unsullied, it is small wonder that the heart of the young soldier warmed to him, and, before either of them was aware of it, they were the best of friends. [112] At a turn in the road the perspective of the long straight street that led through the village lay before them. The leafage of October, red and yellow and glorious along the maple-bordered highway, grew brilliant in the morning light. Back in the valley below them, as they turned and looked, they saw the fog-banks, which had lain heavy and close to the earth, beginning to break and drift away under the influence of the morning sun. The young sergeant bared his head and gazed in admiration at the rolling landscape, as it broadened away to the east. “Beautiful!” he exclaimed. “Beautiful! I remember a morning down in the Shenandoah Valley when the sun rose on a landscape much like this; and, even in the stress of the work on hand, I admired it and remember it.” “What was the work, sergeant?” asked Bob. “Covering the retreat of a beaten army, my boy; one of the gloomiest tasks of war:[113] on every side the evidence of disaster and the wrecks of battle: abandoned cannon, broken wheels, carcasses of horses, the suffering wounded, and the unburied dead. Oh! war is a terrible thing after all—a terrible thing. To-morrow I go back to it. I report for duty to my regiment somewhere down on the Rappahannock.” Bob spoke up eagerly:— “Then you won’t be able to go back to—to—” “To get Rhett Bannister? No. That duty will devolve on some one else now. I must report to the provost-marshal at Easton to-night. It’s too bad I couldn’t have had the credit of capturing him, he’s such a notorious copperhead. Oh, I forgot! You’re his son, aren’t you? And I have you under arrest, taking you to the provost-marshal. That’s strange! Why, boy, you are no traitor. I never saw a man more loyal than you are. Indeed, I have talked with few men who know more about the war, the campaigns, and the generals. I[114] never heard a man outside the ranks express more genuine devotion to his country. How is it? What do you mean by having Rhett Bannister for a father?” “I can’t explain it,” replied Bob, “except that I know he’s honest about it, and truly believes he’s right. He’s of Southern ancestry, you know. His father was a South Carolinian. I can’t blame him. I don’t blame him. I’ve tried to think the way he does about it, and not be against him, but I can’t, I simply can’t!” “No, my boy, you can’t! But you can tell me where he is. It’s not yet too late to get him and reach Carbon Creek for the noon train. Will you do it?” “No, sergeant, I won’t. I’m loyal to my country; but I’m loyal to my father too, and I won’t betray him.” “Well, I admire your pluck, but I’ll have to take you— Will I, though?—is it my duty? Say, boys!” he called to the three private soldiers who had preceded them; “boys, halt!” [115] The men stopped and wheeled round to face their commander. “Soldiers,” he said, “you know why I’m taking this boy. I considered his conduct treasonable in not disclosing his father’s hiding-place. But I find that in reality he is just as loyal as any one of us, except that he knows his father’s secret and refuses to give it away. Now what shall we do with him?” They had reached a point in front of the dwelling-house of Sarah Jane Stark. The men looked in on the smooth green lawn, and then away to the eastern hill range. But before they had made up their minds how to reply to the officer’s question, a woman, coming down the walk from the house, reached the gate where they were standing. It was Sarah Jane Stark herself. “What’s all this about?” she inquired. “Bob Bannister, what are you doing here with these soldiers?” “I’ve been arrested, Miss Stark,” replied Bob modestly. [116] “You? Arrested? Fudge! What does the boy mean?” turning to the officer. “It means, madam,” replied the sergeant courteously but firmly, “that this boy knows the whereabouts of Rhett Bannister, whom we have orders to arrest, and will not disclose them. We are taking him to the provost-marshal.” “What for?” “To compel him to tell where his father is, or punish him for his disobedience.” “Oh, nonsense! The boy isn’t to blame. You’d do the same thing yourself in his place. Besides there isn’t a more patriotic citizen in Mount Hermon township than this very boy. I know what I’m talking about.” The sergeant doffed his cap. “I believe you are more than half right, madam,” he said. “I myself am inclined to think that he may do us more good right here at his home, as a somewhat remarkable illustration of patriotism under difficulties, than he would lying in a guard-house living on bread and water.” [117] “Of course he will! Mind you, I’ve no excuses for his fool father. That man’s making the mistake of his life. But this boy is all right. Say, have you had breakfast, any of you?” “My men and I have not, and I do not think young Bannister has. We will stop at the Bennett House in the village long enough for breakfast.” “Oh, nonsense! The Bennett House! You come right up here to the Sarah Jane Stark house, and I’ll give you a better breakfast than you’ll get at all the Bennett Houses in the country, and it won’t cost you a penny either.” She turned up the path as she spoke, and, after a moment of hesitation, the rest of the party followed her. The delay, however, gave the officer an opportunity to make a whispered inquiry of Bob concerning her, and, being thus assured of her integrity and loyalty, he no longer hesitated to lead his little party to her house. “Now, you go right into the kitchen,”[118] she said, “all of you, and wash your hands, and by the time you’ve done that, breakfast’ll be ready.” And Sarah Jane Stark was as good as her word, and her breakfast was as good as her promises. The pleasant sight of it, and the fragrant odor of it, as they entered the dining-room, was something long to be remembered. When they were all seated she turned abruptly to the sergeant. “What’s your name?” she asked. “Anderson,” he replied, “Stanley B. Anderson.” “Well, Sergeant Anderson, you ask a blessing.” The young fellow flushed to the tips of his ears. “I have never done such a thing,” he said. “I beg you will excuse me. At my home my mother always says grace. Will you not say it here?” “Very well, I will. And I want you all to say ‘amen,’ every one of you.” [119] So they bowed their heads, and Sarah Jane Stark said:— “O Lord, make us thankful for this food; confound the enemies of our country, and give us charity in our hearts for all men.” And every one at the table responded heartily, “Amen!” It was a delicious breakfast and a delightful occasion. They all said so afterward, and many times afterward. In the hearts of these boys in uniform Sarah Jane Stark found a warm place at once. For they were mere boys—not one of them was over twenty-three, and this woman of middle age, with her big heart, her bluff manner, her solicitude for their comfort, her interest in their stories of the war, her intense patriotism, and withal her broad charity, came suddenly into their lives, like a breath from some bigger, better, sweeter world than they had lived in, and they loved her. And one day, in the following June, after the battle and slaughter of Cold Harbor,[120] one of these poor fellows, lying on a rough cot in a field hospital, dying from a dreadful wound, dictated a last letter to his waiting mother at home, and another to Sarah Jane Stark at Mount Hermon. And when she was old and wrinkled and gray, this dear woman, who never had a child of her own, would read over again that brief, pathetic letter from the dying soldier boy of Cold Harbor, and weep as she read. So, after breakfast, they all went out into the beautiful October morning, and down the footpath to the gate where she had first found them. And she shook hands with every one of the young soldiers, and wished them God-speed, and early and abundant victory, and the blessings of a long peace. Then she turned to Bob and said:— “Now, you run along back home, and put an end to your mother’s anxiety, and tell your miserable father for me, that the Lord has delivered him this once out of the hands of the Philistines, so that he may enter the armies of Abraham Lincoln like a[121] man, and fight for his country as he ought to; and somehow—I can’t tell you why, but somehow I have an intuition that he’s going to do it.” And the sergeant and the provost-guard stood by and heard her and said never a word. So they parted. Sarah Jane Stark walked back up the footpath, across the lawn, to her comfortable home. The young soldiers, refreshed, invigorated and high-spirited, went swinging up through the streets of Mount Hermon to their appointed rendezvous. And Bob Bannister, with newer, bigger thoughts in his mind, with his soul filled with larger enthusiasms, with a determination in his heart to break in some way, any way, the galling bonds of disloyalty that girded and girdled his own home, went back free down the road by which he had come an hour before, a prisoner of the United States. <hr class="chap" /> [122] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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