Kitabı oku: «True To His Colors», sayfa 13

CHAPTER XIV

MARCY CHANGES HIS CLOTHES

Marcy Gray was blessed with as much courage as most boys, but he would have been glad if he could have backed out of that car without being seen, and gone into another. Perhaps the conviction that he was "an odd sheep in the flock," and that he held, and had often published, opinions that differed widely from those that animated the excited, gesticulating men before him, had something to do with his nervousness and timidity; and it may be that the revolvers he saw brandished by two or three of the half-tipsy passengers had more effect upon him. But he could not retreat. They saw his uniform as soon as he opened the door, and some of the noisiest among them stumbled to greet him.

"Here's one of our brave fellows now," shouted one, firing his revolver out of the window with one hand while he extended the other to Marcy. "Got his soldier clothes on and going to the front before our guns in Charleston harbor have got through smoking. Young man, you're my style. I'm a member of the Baltimore Grays, and I'm on my way home to join 'em in defense of our young republic. What regiment?"

"Company A, Barrington Cadets," replied Marcy, rightly supposing that the Baltimore man was too far gone to remember, if indeed he had ever heard, that there was a military school in the town they had just left. "I'm going home on a leave of absence."

"Course you are," replied the man. "Services not needed at present and mebbe never will be. The Yankees are all mechanics and small trades-people, and there's no fight in such. We're gentlemen, and there's fight in us, I bet you. But you show your good will in putting on those soldier clothes, and that's what every man's got to do, or go up to the United States. Those who are not for us are against us, and we'll make short work with 'em. Say, we licked 'em, didn't we?"

"Of course," answered Marcy. "Fifty-one soldiers without food or powder don't stand much chance against five thousand well-equipped men."

"It would have been all the same if there had been fifty-one thousand of 'em," declared the Baltimore man. "Aint got any business there. Fort belongs to So' Car'lina. Why didn't they get out when Beau'gard told 'em to, if they didn't want to get licked? Three cheers for Southern Confed'sy!"

Much disgusted, Marcy Gray finally succeeded in releasing his hand from the man's detaining grasp and forced his way 'to a seat; but he was often stopped to hear his patriotism applauded, and President Lincoln denounced for bringing on a useless war by trying to throw provisions into Fort Sumter.

"I don't see what else he could have done," soliloquized the North Carolina boy, as he squeezed himself into as small a compass as possible in a seat next to a window. "The fort belonged to the United States, and it was the President's business to hold fast to it if he could. South Carolina wanted a pretext for firing on the flag, and she got it. She'll be sorry for it when she sees grass growing in the streets of her principal city. So I am taken for a rebel, am I? What would that Baltimore fellow do to me if he knew that I have two Union flags in my trunk, and that I mean to hoist them some day? My life wouldn't be worth a minute's purchase if these passengers knew how I feel toward them and their miserable Confederacy."

All the way to Raleigh, which was nearly three hundred and sixty miles from Barrington, Marcy Gray lived in a fever of suspense. Although he did not know a soul on board the train, he might have had companions enough if he had been a little more sociable; but he did not care to make any new acquaintances, especially among people who were so nearly beside themselves. They all took him for just what he wasn't – a rebel soldier; and being ignorant of the fact that he was going toward home as fast as steam could take him, they supposed that the reason he was so silent and thoughtful was because he was lonely, and felt sorrowful over parting from his friends; and so it came about that now and then some one would sit down beside him and try to give him a comforting and cheering word. All the ladies who spoke to him were eager for war and disunion. They were worse than the men; Marcy found that out before he had gone fifty miles on his journey.

Marcy mentally denounced these sympathetic and well-meaning rebels as so many nuisances, for they drew upon him attentions that he would have been glad to escape. They asked him all sorts of questions, and the boy adroitly managed to truthfully answer every one of them, and without exciting suspicion. Matters were even worse when the train stopped. The flags that were fluttering from the locomotive and the car windows attracted the notice of the station loafers, who whooped and yelled and crowded up to shake hands with the passengers. At such times Marcy always took off his cap; but that did no good, for some one was sure to see his gray overcoat, and propose cheers for him. Marcy trembled when he thought of what they would do to him if they learned that he was the strongest Union boy in the school he had left. But there was little danger of that. His secret was safe.

Raleigh was reached at last, and Marcy Gray, feeling like a stranger in a strange land, changed cars for Boydtown, which was a hundred and twenty miles further on. But before doing that he stepped into a telegraph office and sent the following dispatch to his mother:

"Will take a late breakfast with you to-morrow if you will send Morris to meet me at the depot. Three cheers for the right."

"How much?" he asked the operator, after the latter had read it over.

"Not a cent to a soldier," he replied, reaching out his hand, and taking it for granted that the boy was fresh from the seat of war. "Warm times in Charleston the other day, I suppose?"

"I shouldn't wonder if it was hot in the fort," answered Marcy, with a smile.

"But you happened to be on the outside."

"You're right, I did. It was no place for me in there."

"No; nor for any other man who believes in the right. Tell us all about it. Were you frightened when you heard the shells bursting over your head, and did the Yankees – "

"I must ask you to excuse me," said Marcy, hastily, "my train is ready to go, and I have barely time to catch it."

"Well, good luck to you."

Marcy hastened from the telegraph office before any one else could speak to him, and thanked his lucky stars that before another night came he would be at home where he could appear in his true character; but he was satisfied, from what his mother had said in her letters, that he would find few friends among the neighbors. They were nearly all secessionists, Mrs. Gray wrote, and those who were not were compelled to pretend that they were, in order to avoid being driven from the country. It was a bad state of affairs altogether, but Marcy knew he would have to get used to it. He slept but little that night, and it was a great relief to him when the train stopped at Boydtown, which was located on a navigable arm of Pamlico Sound, and was as far as the railroad went. As Marcy lived near Albemarle Sound, there was still a ride of thirty-five miles before him, but that would be taken in his mother's carriage, provided any of the negroes had been over to Nashville and got the dispatch he sent from Raleigh the day before. All doubts on this point were removed when the train drew up at the station, for the first person he saw on the platform was Morris, the coachman, who greeted him heartily as he stepped from the car. This faithful old slave was Marcy's friend and mentor, and Sailor Jack's as well; and the boy Julius, who had come with the spring wagon to bring home the trunk, was their playmate. Julius was just about Marcy's age. They had hunted and fished together, sailed their boats in the same mudhole, and had many a fight over their marbles, in which, we are sorry to say, Marcy did not always come out first best.

"There's my check, Julius," said Marcy, handing it over, and slipping a piece of money into the black boy's palm at the same time. "Shut the carriage door, Morris. I am going to ride on the box so that I can talk to you. I want you to tell me everything that's happened since I have been away. You are a good rebel, of course."

"Now, Marse Marcy, you know a heap better'n that," replied Morris, who plumed himself on being the "properest talking colored gentleman on the plantation." "Git up, heah," he shouted to his horses. "Don't you know that the long-lost prodigal son has come back? You don't want to say too much around heah. Everything in town got ears. Wait till we git in the country and then you can talk. Yes, sar, your mother is well; quite well. But she's powerful sorry."

"I know she is. Do you hear anything from Jack?"

"Not the first word. He's on the ship Sabine, which done sailed for some place, but I dunno where."

"I wish he was safe at home," said Marcy. "Somehow I feel uneasy about him."

He would have felt more than simply uneasy if he could have looked far enough into the future to see that Jack's ship was destined to be one of the first of a large number of defenseless vessels to fall into the hands of Captain Semmes, who, as commander of the Sumter, unfurled the Confederate flag on the high seas, June 30, 1861. But, as we shall presently see, the Sabine did not "stay captured." She escaped, and brought the prize crew that Semmes had thrown aboard of her into a Northern port as prisoners.

"There aint no secesh out on the watah, is there, Marse Marcy?" exclaimed Morris.

"I'm afraid there will be some there before long. We're going to have war, Morris. I saw by a paper I bought on the train to-day that President Lincoln has called out seventy-five thousand men."

"Shucks!" cried the negro. "That aint half enough men. The secesh done got a hundred thousand already."

"I think myself that he might as well have mustered in half a million while he was about it. But the thing that rather surprises me is that he should call upon the border States for troops," said Marcy, pulling from his pocket the paper of which he had spoken. "Of course he'll not get them. Hear what the Governor of this State says: 'Your dispatch is received; and if genuine, which its extraordinary character leads me to doubt, I have to say in reply that I regard the levy of troops made by the administration for the purpose of subjugating the States of the South, as in violation of the Constitution, and a usurpation of power. I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and in this war upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North Carolina.'"

"Marse Linkum oughter hang that man," exclaimed Morris wrathfully.

"That's what I say. He's a pretty fellow to talk about violating the Constitution when South Carolina has already violated it by levying war against the United States. The Southern folks seem to have little sense and less consistency. But don't let's waste any more time on politics. How are everything and everybody at home? Is my schooner all right, and has Bose got over the drubbing that big coon gave him last fall? How many of the boys have run away?"

"Now, just listen at you," exclaimed Morris. "Who going to run away from the Missus, and where he going to run to?"

"To the Yankees, of course. This war will make you black ones all free."

"Aw! Go on now, Marse Marcy."

"I really believe it. You darkies are the cause of all this fuss, and you will have to be killed off or made free before we can be a united people again."

The coachman's inimitable laugh rang out cheerily. The Northern folks need not trouble their heads about him, he said. He was better off than thousands of the poor whites in the free States, and wouldn't accept his freedom if it was offered to him. His subsequent actions proved that he meant every word he said; for when Marcy read the Emancipation Proclamation to him and his fellow-servants two years later, and told them that they were free to make their way into the Union lines if they could, Morris refused to budge an inch. A few of the slaves had already gone; a few more took Marcy at his word and slipped away by night with their bundles on their shoulders, but those who could get back to the plantation were very glad to come. Freedom wasn't such a beautiful thing after all, because it did not bring the freedom from work that they had looked for, and the Yankee soldiers were really harder task-masters than the ones from whom they had been so anxious to escape.

During the ride homeward Marcy did not see a single thing to remind him that there was a war impending – not a tent or Confederate flag or soldier in uniform was in sight. Negroes sang as they went to their work in the wide fields that stretched out on either side of the road, the birds chirped, the air was soft and balmy, the wheels hummed a melodious tune as they spun rapidly along the hard road, and all his surroundings spoke of peace and plenty.

At last an abrupt turn brought him within sight of his home, – in every respect a typical Southern home, with wide, cool halls, large and airy rooms, broad piazzas, and spacious, well-kept grounds, in which fruits, flowers, and grand old trees abounded. A few miles away, but in plain view, were the sparkling waters of the sound, peaceful enough now, but destined ere long to be plowed by the keels of hostile ships, and tossed into wavelets by shrieking shot and shell. On the left, and about three hundred yards in front of the house, was Seven Mile Creek; and the first thing in it that caught Marcy's eye was his handsome schooner, the Fairy Belle, riding safely at her moorings. Marcy would have found it hard to find words with which to express his admiration for that little craft, and the way she behaved in rough weather. With her aid, and with Julius for a companion, he had explored every nook, corner, and inlet along the dangerous and intricate coast of the sound for miles in both directions; and they were as familiar to him as the road that led from Barrington to the academy. He and Sailor Jack were good pilots for that coast as far down as Hatteras Inlet, and on one or two occasions had been fortunate enough to assist distressed vessels in finding a safe anchorage.

Old Bose, the dog that had been so roughly handled by the last coon Marcy helped dispatch, was the first to welcome him when the carriage turned into the yard, and said, as plainly as a dog could say anything, that he was both surprised and hurt because his usually attentive master had scarcely more than a word and a pat for him. The boy did not even hear the greetings of the numerous house-servants who clustered about the carriage when it was brought to a stand-still, for his eyes and thoughts were concentrated upon the pale woman in black who stood at the top of the wide steps leading to the porch. It was his mother, and in a second more she was clasped in his arms.

"Are you so sorry I've come that you are going to cry over it?" exclaimed Marcy, when he saw that there were tears in her eyes. "I know you'll not expect me to shake hands with you until I have had a chance to say a word to my mother," he added, addressing the blacks who had followed close at his heels. "I will see you all after a while. Come in, mother. I told you I would be late to breakfast, but I know you have saved a bite for me."

After a few earnest questions had been asked and answered by both of them, Marcy went up to his room, whither his trunk had already been carried. His first task was to remove some of the North Carolina dust that had settled on his hands and face, and his next to divest himself of his uniform and put on a suit of citizen's clothes. During his long ride that gray coat had brought him in pretty close contact with some people he hoped he would never meet again.

"Stay there," said he, as he hung the garment upon a hook in his closet.

"I shall never wear you again, but I'll keep you to remind me of old

Barrington."

The boy afterward had reason to wish he had hidden that uniform or destroyed it. A detachment of Sherman's cavalry scouted through the country, after completing their famous march to the sea, went all over the house in search of valuables and contraband goods, and one of the first things they pitched upon was that gray suit. It might have been a serious thing for Marcy, had it not been for the flag Dick Graham gave him. What became of the other, the one that was hauled down on the day the news of the surrender of Fort Sumter was received, shall be told in its proper place.

"I feel like a free man once more," he said, when he rejoined his mother in the parlor and walked into the dining-room with his arm thrown protectingly around her waist. "Where's Dinah?" he added, seeing that there was no one to wait at table.

"I preferred to have our first breakfast in private," replied Mrs. Gray. "In times like these one doesn't know whom to trust. There's been nothing like open enmity yet," she continued, noticing a shade of anxiety on her son's face. "I have thought it wise to keep my own counsel, and have taken no part in the discussions that have been held in my presence; but I have not escaped suspicion."

"I understand you perfectly," answered Marcy. "Are there no Union people at all in this country?"

"There may be, but I do not know who they are. There are some who have told me, privately, that they are opposed to secession, but having the best of reasons for believing that they said so on purpose to induce me to express my opinion, I have kept silent. You must do the same, and be constantly on your guard. If your friends, or those who were your friends once, assure you that their sympathies are all for the Union, you may listen, but you must not say one word. If you do, you may regret it when it is too late to recall it."

"Why, this is worse than Barrington," Marcy declared. "There you know who your enemies are; but here you've got to look out for everybody, or the first thing you know some sneak may get on the blind side of you. Now, mother, let's talk business. How are the darkies?"

"They seem to be as happy and contented as they ever were, and as willing to work. The overseer hasn't a word of fault to find with them."

"So far so good. How's the overseer; Union or secesh?"

"You must decide that for yourself after you have talked with him," replied Mrs. Gray. "I think he will bear watching. At any rate, I do not trust him."

"Then if I have anything to say, he shall not stay around here a minute after his contract runs out. We don't want anybody about that we are afraid of. You're going to run the plantation right along. I suppose?"

"I thought I would, unless you have something better to propose."

"Well, I haven't. This is my boyhood's home and Jack's. By the way, where is Jack?"

"On the high seas somewhere, and that is all I can tell you."

"And Rodney once said he might never get back again," replied Marcy. "He thinks the South is going to have a navy that will beat anything the world ever saw. Yes, Rodney is a rebel to the backbone," he added in response to an inquiry from his mother. "Says the Northern folks will be whipped before they can take their coats off; but for all that he showed considerable feeling when he came to say good-by. He is under a promise to enlist under the Stars and Bars within twenty-four hours after he reaches home, and I know he will do it, if he can get to a recruiting office. But to return to business. I am sure we had better keep right along as we have been going, instead of pulling up stakes and moving to some new place to meet dangers and difficulties of which we know nothing. We've got to eat, and we must have something to wear; and how are we to get things if we have no crops? Have you any money?"

Mrs. Gray started perceptibly at this abrupt question, and before replying arose to her feet and opened, in quick succession, all the doors leading out of the dining-room.

"Aha!" said Marcy, who thought he knew the meaning of this pantomime. "You remind me of old Uncle Toby. He had money which he lost because he hid it in the ground instead of putting it where it would have been safe."

"That is what I have done with ours," said his mother, in a scarcely audible whisper. "That is to say, I have concealed it."

"How much?"

"Nearly thirty thousand dollars, and it is all in gold."

"W-h-e-w!" whistled Marcy. "What put it into your head?"

"I took warning; that is all. The Southern people have often threatened to secede if a Republican President was elected, and I was sure they meant it; so when the election returns came in and this excitement began, I made several quiet business trips to Newbern, Wilmington, Norfolk, and Richmond."

"Why, you never said a word about it in your letters."

"I know it. I did not think it necessary to trouble you with it. I drew a little money each time, brought it home in safety, and I trust without exciting suspicion, though on that point, of course, I cannot be sure, and hid it in the cellar at dead of night, after I had taken the greatest pains to assure myself that every one in the house was soundly asleep."

"How did you cover up the place where you had been digging?"

"I didn't do any digging," his mother answered, with a smile. "I took a stone out of the wall as heavy as I could lift, and cemented it in place again, after keeping out a sum sufficient to meet our immediate wants. It took me three nights to do it."

"It's a shame that there wasn't someone here whom you could trust to do the work for you," said Marcy. "I am here to bear the hard knocks now."

The Southerners were careful of their women. If they had had the faintest conception of the trials and privations their mothers, wives, and sisters would be called upon to bear, they never would have fired upon Sumter. The patience and heroic endurance exhibited by these carefully nurtured women, during the dark days of the war, were little short of sublime.

Marcy and his mother sat a long time at the table, and when they arose from it Mrs. Gray knew pretty nearly what had been going on at Barrington during the last few months (not a word was said, however, concerning the letter Rodney wrote to Bud Goble), and Marcy had a very correct idea of the way matters were being managed on the plantation. He had nothing to suggest. The only thing they could do was to keep along in the even tenor of their way, and await developments. There was one thing for which he was sorry, and that was that he could not discharge Hanson, the overseer, that very day. He believed his mother was afraid of him; but the man was under contract for a year, and could have claimed damages if he had been turned adrift without good and sufficient reason. It was not the damages that Marcy cared for, but he was restrained from urging Hanson's dismissal through fear of setting the neighbors' tongues in motion.

"Hanson is secesh, easy enough," he said to himself. "If he were not, some of those officious planters would have demanded his discharge long ago. If we turn him away without a cause, they will say that we are persecuting him on account of his principles, and that would be bad for us. The man will have to stay for the present, and I'll make it my business to know every move he makes."

Marcy devoted the first few days to renewing old acquaintances among the black people on the plantation, who were overjoyed to see him safe at home, and in calling upon some of the neighboring planters; but the last proved to be rather a disagreeable duty, and one which he did not prosecute for any length of time. It seemed to him that something intangible had come between him and those who used to be on the best of terms with him something that could not be seen or felt, but which was none the less a barrier to their social intercourse. He was not of them, and they knew it; that was all there was of it. Before he had been at home ten days he began to see the force of his cousin Rodney's warning, that if he did not turn his back upon the Union and proclaim himself a secessionist, his neighbors would not have the first thing to do with him, and during those ten days two things happened that made the situation harder to bear than it was at first.

The little town of Nashville, to which Marcy sent his dispatch from Raleigh, was situated about three miles distant from the plantation. Besides the telegraph, express, and post offices it contained a court house, two hotels, and the homes of about five hundred inhabitants. The mail was received twice each day, and as often as it came in, rain or shine, there was some one from Mrs. Gray's house there to meet it. This duty was at once assumed by Marcy, who, besides having a fast horse of his own which he was fond of riding, was so impatient to see the latest papers that he could not wait for anybody to bring them to him. He always read them on his way home, allowing his filly to choose her own gait. On the day he reached home the papers told him that President Lincoln had placed an embargo upon the seaports of all the seceded States; but Marcy did not pay much attention to that. It was nothing more than those States might have expected, but it was a question whether or not the navy was strong enough to enforce the blockade. The same paper informed him that President Davis was ready to issue letters of marque and reprisal to anybody who would equip a privateer, and give bonds that the laws of the Confederate States regulating the capture of prizes should be obeyed. The boy didn't give a second thought to that either. His schooner wasn't heavy enough to engage in the business of privateering, and she would not have gone into it if she had been. She had always floated the flag of the Union, and as long as she remained in his keeping, she never would carry any other. But when on the 29th of April Marcy read that President Lincoln, two days before, had included the ports of Virginia and North Carolina in the limits of his proclamation, it made him open his eyes.

"My State hasn't seceded yet, and here he has gone and shut up her ports," exclaimed Marcy indignantly. "That's a pretty thing to do, isn't it now? Hurry up, Fanny. Let's get home and see what mother thinks about it."