Kitabı oku: «Si Klegg, Book 4», sayfa 12

CHAPTER XVIII. A DISTURBING MESSAGE

THE DEACON HURRIEDLY LEAVES FOR CHATTANOOGA

THAT evening Lieut. Bowersox sent a telegram to Deacon Klegg. It had to be strictly limited to 10 words, and read:

     JOSIAH KLEGG, ESQ.,

     Somepunkins Station, Ind.:

     Josiah not killed. Hospital at Chattanooga. Badly wounded.

     E. C. BOWERSOX.

It did not arrive at Sumpunkins Station, three miles from the Deacon's home, until the next forenoon. The youth who discharged the multifarious duties of Postmaster, passenger, freight and express-agent, baggage-master, and telegraph operator at Sumpunkins Station laboriously spelled out the dots and dashes on the paper strip in the instrument. He had barely enough mastery of the Morse alphabet to communicate the routine messages relating to the railroad's business aided by the intelligence of the conductors and engineers as to what was expected of them. This was the first outside message that he had ever received, and for a while it threatened to be too much for him, especially as the absence of punctuation made it still more enigmatical. He faithfully transcribed each letter as he made it out and then the agglomeration read:

"Josiamn otkildho spitalat chatano ogabadl ywounded ecbower sox."

"Confound them smart operators at Louisville and Jefferson ville," he grumbled, scanning the scrawl. "They never make letters plain, and don't put in half of 'em, just to worrit country operators. I'd like to take a club to 'em. There's no sort o' sense in sich sending. A Philadelphia lawyer couldn't make nothing out of it. But I've got to or get a cussing, and mebbe the bounce. I'll try it over again, and see if I can separate it into words. Why in thunder can't they learn to put a space be tween the words, and not jumble the letters all to gether in that fool fashion?"

The next time he wrote it out:

"J. O. S. I am not kild Hospital at Chattanooga badly wounded E. C. Bower sox."

"That begins to look like something," said he, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "But who is J. O. S.? Nobody o' them initials in this neighbor hood. Nor E. C. Bower. Deacon Klegg can't know any of 'em. Then, how's the hospital badly wounded Bower? What's that about his socks? I'll have to try it over again as soon as No. 7, freight, gets by."

After No. 7 had gotten away, he tackled the message again:

"No, that sixth letter's not an m, but an h. H is four dots, and m is two dashes. It's specks in the paper that makes it look like an h. I'll put in some letters where they're needed. Now let's see how it'll read:"

228 SI KLEGG.

"Josiah Nott killed Hospital at Chattanooga. Badly wounded E. C. Bower sox."

"That seems to have more sense in it, but I don't know any Josiah Nott in this country. Does it mean that he killed a man named Hospital at Chattanooga, and badly wounded E. C. Bower in the socks? That don't seem sense. I'll try it again."

The next time he succeeded in making it read:

"Josiah Nott killed. Hospital at Chattanooga. Badly wounded E. C. Bower's ox."

"There, that's best I can do," he said, surveying the screed. "It'll have to go that way, and let the Deacon study it out. He's got more time 'n I have, and mebbe knows all about it. I can't spend no more time on it. No. 3, passenger, from the West 's due in 20 minutes, and I've got to get ready for it. Good luck; there comes the Deacon's darky now, with a load of wheat. I'll send it out by him."

The operator wrote out his last version of the message on a telegraph-blank, inclosed it in a West ern Union envelope, which he addressed to Deacon Klegg, and gave to Abraham Lincoln, with strong injunctions to make all haste back home with it.

Impressed with these, Abraham, as soon as he delivered his grain to the elevator, put his team to a trot, and maintained it until he reached home.

Everything about the usually cheerful farm-house was shrouded in palpable gloom. The papers of the day before, with their ghastly lists of the dead and wounded, had contained Si's and Shorty's names, besides those of other boys of the neighborhood, in terrific, unmistakable plainness. There were few homes into which mourning had not come. The window curtains were drawn down, the front doors closed, no one appeared on the front porch, and it seemed that even the dogs and the fowls were op pressed with the general sadness, and forebore their usual cheerful utterances. Attired in sober black, with eyes red from weeping, and with camphor bottle near, Mr. Klegg sat in Si's room, and between her fits of uncontrollable weeping turned over, one after another, the reminders of her son. There were his bed, his clothes, which she had herself fashioned in loving toil for him; the well-thumbed school-books which had cost him so many anxious hours, his gun and fishing rod. All these were now sacred to her. Elsewhere in the house his teary-eyed sisters went softly and silently about their daily work.

The father had sought distraction in active work, and was in the cornfield, long corn-knife in hand, shocking up the tall stalks with a desperate energy to bring forgetfulness.

Abraham Lincoln burst into the kitchen, and taking the dispatch from his hat said:

"Hyah am a papeh or sumfin dat de agent down at de station done tole me to bring hyah jest as quick as I done could. He said hit done come ober a wire or a telugraph, or sumfin ob dat ere sort, and you must hab hit right-a-way."

"O, my; it's a telegraph dispatch," screamed Maria with that sickening apprehension that all women have of telegrams. "It's awful. I can't tech it. Take it Sophy."

"How can I," groaned poor Sophia, with a fresh outburst of tears. "But I suppose I must."

The mother heard the scream and the words, and hurried into the room.

"It's a telegraph dispatch, mother," said both the girls as they saw her.

"Merciful Father," ejaculated Mrs. Klegg, sinking into a chair in so nearly a faint that Maria ran into the next room for the camphor-bottle, while Sophy rushed outside and blew the horn for the Deacon. Presently he entered, his sleeves rolled to the elbow over his brawny arms, and his shirt and pantaloons covered with the spanish-needles and burrs which would grow, even in so well-tilled fields as Deacon Klegg's.

"What's the matter, mother? What's the matter, girls?" he asked anxiously.

Mrs. Klegg could only look at him in speechless misery.

"We've got a telegraph dispatch," finally answered Maria, bursting in a torrent of tears, into which Sophia joined sympathetically, "and we know it's about poor Si."

"Yes, it must be about poor Si; nobody else but him," added Sophia with a wail.

The father's face grew more sorrowful than be fore. "What does it say?" he nerved himself to ask, after a moment's pause.

"We don't know," sobbed Maria. "We haint opened it. We're afraid to. Here it is."

The father took it with trembling hand. "Well," he said after a little hesitation, "it can't tell nothin' no worse than we've already heard. Let's open it. Bring me my specs."

Maria ran for the spectacles, while her father, making a strong effort to calm himself, slit open the envelope with a jack-knife, adjusted his glasses, and read the inclosure over very slowly.

"Josiah Nott killed Hospital at Chattanooga badly wounded E. C. Bower's ox. What on airth does that mean? I can't for the life o' me make it out."

"Read it over again, pap," said Maria, suddenly drying her eyes.

The father did so.

"Le' me read it, pap," said Maria, snatching the telegram from his hand. "Josiah," said she, read ing. "That's Si's right name."

"Certainly it is," said her mother, reviving.

"Certainly; I didn't think o' that before," echoed the father.

"Josiah not killed," continued she. "Good heavens, that's what that means. They rebels has got hold o' the wires, and shook 'em and tangled up the rest, but the beginnin's all straight."

"I believe that Sam Elkins down at the station 's mixed it up," said Sophia, with hope springing in her breast. "He never can get things straight. He was in the class with me when I went to school, and too dumb to come in when it rained. He was the worst writer, speller and reader in the school. Think o' him being a telegraph operator. Why, he couldn't spell well enough to make tally-marks on a door when you're measurin' corn. Railroad was mighty hard up for help when it hired him. Let me read that dispatch. 'Josiah not killed.' That means Si Klegg, as sure's you're born. It can't mean nothin' else, or it wouldn't be addressed to you, pap. 'Hospital at Chattanooga.' Chattanooga's near where the battle was fought. 'Badly wounded.' That means Si's bin shot. 'E. C. Bower's ox.' What in the world can that be?"

"Bowersox?" said her father, catching the sound. "Why, that's the name o' the Lootenant Si and Shorty was under when they came home. Don't you remember they told us about him? I remember the name, for a man named Bowersox used to run a mill down on Bean-Blossom Crick, years ago, and I wondered if he was his son. He's sent me that dispatch, and signed his name. The Lord be praised for His never-endin' mercies. Si's alive, after all. Le' me read that over again."

He took the dispatch with shaking hands, but there was too much mist on his glasses-, and he had to hand it back to Maria to read over again to convince himself.

"I'll tell you what let's do: Let's all get in the wagon and ride over to the station, and get Sam Elkins to read the dispatch over again," suggested Sophia. "I'll jest bet he's mummixed it up."

"Don't blame him, Sophy," urged Maria. "I think the rebels has got at the poles or wires and shook 'em, and mixed the letters up. It's just like 'em."

Sophy's suggestion was carried out. Abraham Lincoln was directed to get out the spring wagon, and the Deacon helped hitch up, while the "women folks" got ready.

While they were at the station getting Sam Elkins to re-examine the dots and dashes on his strip of paper, the Eastern express arrived, bringing the morning papers. The Deacon bought one, and the girls nervously turned to the war news. They gave a scream of exultation when they read the revised returns of the killed and wounded, and found under head of "Wounded, in Hospital at Chattanooga":

"Corporal Josiah Klegg, Q, 200th Ind.

"Private Daniel Elliott, Q, 200th Ind."

"Mother and girls, I'm goin' to Chattanoogy on the next train," said the Deacon.

It was only a few hours until the train from the East would be along, and grief was measurably forgotten in the joy that Si was still alive and in the bustle of the Deacon's preparation for the journey.

"No," he said, in response to the innumerable suggestions made by the mother and daughters. "You kin jest set all them things back. I've bin down there once, and learned something. I'm goin' to take nothin with me but my Bible, a couple o' clean shirts, and my razor. A wise man learns by experience."

Mother and girls were inconsolable, for each had something that they were sure "Si would like," and would "do him good," but they knew Josiah Klegg, Sr., well enough to understand what was the condition when he had once made up his mind.

"If Si and Shorty's able to be moved," he consoled them with, "I'm going to bring them straight back home with me, and then you kin nuss and coddle them all you want to."

The news of his prospective journey had flashed through the neighborhood, so that he met at the station the relatives of most of the men in Co. Q, each with a burden of messages and comforts for those who were living, or of tearful inquiries as to those reported dead.

He took charge of the letters and money, refused the other things, and gave to the kin of the wounded and dead sympathetic assurances of doing every thing possible.

He had no particular trouble or advanture until he reached Nashville. There he found that he could go no farther without procuring a pass from the Provost-Marshal. At the Provosts's office he found a highly miscellaneous crowd besieging that official for the necessary permission to travel on the military railroad. There were more or less honest and loyal speculators in cotton who were ready to take any chances in the vicissitudes of the military situation to get a few bales of the precious staple. There were others who were downright smugglers, and willing to give the rebels anything, from quinine to gun-caps, for cotton. There were sutlers, pedlers, and gamblers. And there were more or less loyal citizens of the country south who wanted to get back to their homes, some to be honest, law-abiding citizens, more to get in communication with the rebels and aid and abet the rebellion.

Deacon Klegg's heart sank as he surveyed the pushing, eager crowd which had gotten there before him, and most of whom were being treated very cavalierly by the Provost-Marshal.

"No," he heard that official say to a man who appeared a plain farmer like himself; "you not only can have no pass, but you can't stay in Nashville an other day. I remember you. I've heard you tell that story of a sick son in the hospital before. I remember all the details. You haven't changed one. You're a smuggler, and I believe a spy. You've got mule-loads of quinine somewhere in hiding, and may be gun-caps and other munitions of war. If you know what's good for you, you'll take the next train north, and never stop until you are on the other side of the Ohio River. If you are in town to-morrow morning, I'll put you to work on the fortifications, and keep you there till the end of the war. Get out of my office at once."

Others were turned away with similar brusqueness, until the Deacon was in despair; but the though of Si on a bed of pain nerved him, and he kept his place in the line that was pushing toward the Provost's desk.

Suddenly the Provost looked over those in front of him, and fixing his eye on the Deacon, called out:

"Well, my friend, come up here. What can I do for you?"

The Deacon was astonished, but in obedience to a gesture from the Provost, left the line, and came up.

"What's your name? Where are you from? What are you doing down here? What do you want?" inquired the Provost, scanning him critically.

The Deacon's eyes met his boldly, and he answered the questions categorically.

"Well, Mr. Klegg, you shall have a pass at once, and I sincerely hope that you will find your son recovering. You probably do not remember me, but I have seen you before, when I was on the circuit in Indiana. My clerk there is writing out a pass for you. You will have to take the oath of allegiance, and sign the paper, which I suppose you have no objection to doing."

"None in the world," answered the Deacon, surprised at the unexpected turn of events. "I'll be only too glad. I was gittin' very scared about my pass."

"O, I have hard work here," said the Provost smiling, "in separating the sheep from the goats, but I'm now getting to know the goats tolerably well. There's you're pass, Deacon. A pleasant journey, and a happy termination to it."

The Deacon took out his long calf-skin wallet from his breast, put the precious pass in it, carefully strapped it up again and replaced it, and walked out of the office toward the depot.

He had gone but a few steps from the building when he saw the man who had been ordered out of the city by the Provost, and who seemed to be on the lookout for the Deacon. He came up, greeted the Deacon effusively and shook hands.

"You're from Posey County, Ind., I believe? I used to live there myself. Know Judge Drake?"

"Very well," answered the Deacon a little stiffly, for he was on his guard against cordial strangers.

"You do;" said the stranger warmly. "Splendid man. Great lawyer. Fine judge. I had a great deal to do with him at one time."

"Probably he had a great deal to do with you," thought the Deacon. "He was a terror to evil-doers."

"Say, my friend," said the stranger abruptly, "you got a pass. I couldn't. That old rascal of a Provost-Marshal's down on me because I wouldn't let him into a speculation with me. He's on the make every time, and wants to hog everything. Say, you're a sly one. You worked him fine on that wounded son racket. I think I'd like to tie to you. I'll make it worth your while to turn over that pass to me. It'll fit me just as well as it does you. I'll give you $50 to let me use that pass just two days, and then I'll return it to you."

"Why, you're crazy," gasped the Deacon.

"O, come off, now," said the other impatiently. "Business is business. I haint no time to waste. It's more'n it's worth to me, but I'll make it $100, and agree to be back on this spot to-morrow night with your pass. You can't make $100 as easy any other way."

"I tell you, you're crazy," said the Deacon with rising indignation. "You can't have that pass for no amount o' money. I'm goin' to see my wounded son."

"That's a good enough gag for the Provost, but I understand you, in spite of your hayseed airs. Say, I'll make it $250."

"I tell you, you old fool," said the Deacon angrily, "I won't sell that pass for a mint o' money. Even if I wasn't goin' to see my son I wouldn't let you have it under any circumstances, to use in your traitorous business. Let go o' my coat, if you know what's good for you."

"Now, look here," said the stranger; "I've made you a mighty fair proposition more'n the pass's worth to you. If you don't accept it you'll wish you had. I'm onto you. I'll go right back to the Provost and let out on you. I know enough to settle your hash mighty sudden. Do you hear me?"

It was very near train time, and the Deacon was desperately anxious to not miss the train. He had already wasted more words on this man than he usually did on those he didn't like, and he simply ended the colloquy with a shove that sent the impertinent stranger into the gutter as if a mule had kicked him there, hurried on to the depot, and managed to get on just as the train was moving out.

It was night, and he dozed in his seat until the train reached Bridgeport, Ala., when everybody was turned out of the train, and a general inspection of the passengers made.

"Very sorry for you, sir," said the Lieutenant; "but we can't let you go on. Your pass is all right up to this point, but the Commandant at Nashville has no authority here. Orders are very strict against any more civilians coming to Chattanooga under any pretext. Rations are very short, and there is danger of their being much shorter, with the rebel cavalry slashing around everywhere at our cracker-line. We only saved two bridges to-night by the greatest luck. You'll have to go back to Nashville by the next train."

"O, Mister Lootenant," pleaded the Deacon, with drops of sweat on his brow. "Please let me go on. My only son lays there in Chattanooga, a-dyin' for all I know. He's bin a good soldier. Ask anybody that knows the 200th Injianny, and they'll tell you that there ain't no better soldier in the regiment than Corporal Si Klegg. You've a father yourself. Think how he'd feel if you was layin' in a hospital at the pint o' death, and him not able to git to you. You'll let me go on, I know you will. It aint in you to re fuse."

"I feel awful sorry for you sir," said the Lieutenant, much moved. "And if I had it in my power you should go. But I have got my orders, and I must obey them. I musn't allow anybody not actually be longing to the army to pass on across the river on the train."

"I'll walk every step o' the way, if you'll let me go on," said the Deacon.

"I tell you what you might do," said the Lieutenant suggestively. "It isn't a great ways over the mountains to Chattanooga. There's a herd of cattle starting over there. The Lieutenant in charge is a friend of mine. I'll speak to him to let you go along as a helper. It'll be something of a walk for you, but it's the best I can do. You'll get in there some time to-morrow."

"P'int out your friend to me, and let me go as quick as I kin."

"All right," said the Lieutenant in charge of the herd, when the circumstances were explained to him. "Free passes over my road to Chattanooga are barred. Everybody has to work his way. But I'll see that you get there, if Joe Wheeler's cavalry don't interfere. We are going over in the dark to avoid them. You can put your carpet-bag in that wagon there. Report to the Herd-Boss there."

"You look like a man of sense," said the Herd-Boss, looking him over, and handing him a hickory gad. "And I believe you're all right. I'm goin' to put you at the head, just behind the guide. Keep your eye peeled for rebel cavalry and bushwhackers, and stop and whistle for me if you see anything suspicious."

It was slow, toilsome work urging the lumbering cattle along over the steep, tortuous mountain paths. Naturally, the nimblest, friskiest steers got in the front, and they were a sore trial to the Deacon, to restrain them to the line of march, and keep them from straying off and getting lost. Of course, a Deacon in the Baptist Church could not swear under any provocation, but the way he remarked on the conduct of some of the "critters" as "dumbed," "confounded," and "tormented," had almost as vicious a ring as the profuse profanity of his fellow-herders.

Late in the afternoon the tired-out herd was halted in a creek bottom near Chattanooga. The patient animals lay down, and the weary, footsore Deacon, his clothes covered with burs, his hands and face seamed with bloody scratches, leaned on his frayed gad and looked around over the wilderness of tents, cabins, trains and interminable lines of breastworks and forts.

"Mr. Klegg," said the Herd-Boss, coming toward him, "you've done your duty, and you've done it well. I don't know how I could've ever got this lot through but for your help. Here's your carpet-sack, and here's a haversack o' rations I've put up for you. Take mighty good care of it, for you'll need every cracker. That lot o' tents you see over there, with a yaller flag flyin' over 'em, is a general hospital. Mebbe you'll find your son in there."

The Deacon walked straight to the nearest tent, lifted the flap and inquired:

"Does anybody here know where there is a boy named Si Klegg, of Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteers?"

"Pap, is that you?" said a weak voice in the far corner.

"Great, jumpin' Jehosephat, the Deacon!" ejaculated a tall skeleton of a man, who was holding a cup of coffee to Si's lips.

"Great Goodness, Shorty," said the Deacon, "is that you?"

"What's left o' me," answered Shorty.