The Red Acorn Part 27

"Come," he resumed, "le's bedizen ourselves; le's a.s.sume th' shplendor 'propriate t' th' 'casion."

When the troops marched in in the afternoon, the encountered at the head of the crowd that met them at the crossing of the creek just ouside of town, a man who seemed filled with deep emotion, and clothed with strange fancies. He wore a tall silk hat of antique patter, carefully brushed, which he protected from the rays of the sun with a huge blue cotton umbrella. A blue broadcloth coat, with gilt b.u.t.tons, sat jauntily over a black satin vest, and nankeen trousers. A pair of gold spectacles reposed in magisterial dignity about half way down his nose, and a large silver-headed cane in the left hand balanced the umbrella in the right.

By the side of the man with rare vestments stood another figure of even more limpness of general bearing, whose garb consisted of a soldier's uniform pantaloons and woolen s.h.i.+rt--none too clean--set off by a black dress-coat, and white linen vest.

As the head of the column came up he in the blue broadcloth pulled off his hat and spectacles, and addressed himself to speech:

"Allow me, s.h.i.+r, to welcome you with hoshpitable hands to a b.l.o.o.d.y--no, let me tender you, s.h.i.+r, the liberties of our city, and reshoice shat she old banner which has braved she battle, hash----"

The column had stopped, and the Captain commanding the advance was listening patiently to what he supposed was the address of an enthusiastic, but eccentric old Kentuckian, when one of the sharp-eyed ones in the company shouted out:

"I declare, it's Kent Edwards and Abe Bolton."

The yell of laughter and applause at the ludicrous masquerade shook the hills. The Colonel rode up to see what occasioned it. He recognized his two men, and his face darkened with anger.

"You infernal rascals," he shouted, "you have been off plundering houses, have you, in place of being with your company. I'll stop this sort of thing mighty sudden. This regiment shall not degrade itself by plundering and robbing, if I have to shoot every man in it. Captain, arrest those men, and keep thim in close confinement until I can have them tried and properly punished."

Chapter XVII. Alspaugh on a Bed of Pain.

This is the very ecstacy of love, Whose violent property foredoes itself.

And leads the will to desperate undertakings As often as any pa.s.sion under Heaven That does afflict our natures.--Hamlet

Endurance is made possible by reason of the element of divisibility.

Metaphysical mathematicians imagine that there is possibly a "fourth dimension," by the existence of which many hitherto inexplicable phenomena may be explained. They think that probably this fourth dimension is SUCCESSION OF TIME.

So endurance of unendurable things is explainable on the ground that but a small portion of them has to be endured in any given s.p.a.ce of time.

It is the old fable of the clock, whose pendulum and wheels stopped one day, appalled by the discovery that they would have to move and tick over three million times a year for many wearisome years, but resumed work again when reminded that they would only have to tick ONCE each second.

So it was with Rachel Bond.

The unendurable whole of a month's or a week's experience was endurable when divided in detail and spread over the hours and days.

She was a woman--young and high-natured.

Being a woman she had a martyr-joy in affliction that comes in the guise of duty. Young, she enjoyed the usefulness and importance attached to her work in the hospital. High-natured, she felt a keen satisfaction in triumphing over daily difficulties and obstacles, even though these were mainly her own feelings.

Though months had gone by it seemed as if no amount of habituation could dull the edge of the sickening disgust which continually a.s.sailed her sense and womanly instincts. The smells were as nauseating, the sights as repulsive, the sounds of misery as saddening as the day when she first set foot inside the hospital.

From throbbing heart to dainty finger-tip, every fiber in her maidenly body was in active rebellion while she ministered to the rough and coa.r.s.e men who formed the bulk of the patients, and whose afflictions she could not help knowing were too frequently the direct result of their own sins and willful disobedience of Nature's laws.

One day, when flushed and wearied with the peevish exactions of a hulking fellow whose indisposition was trifling, she said to Dr.

Denslow:

"It is distressing to find out how much unmanliness there is in apparently manly men."

"Yes," answered the doctor, with his customary calm philosophy; "and it is equally gratifying to find out how much real manliness there is in some apparently unmanly men. You have been having an experience with some brawny subject?"

"Yes. If the fellow's spirit were equal to his bone and brawn, he would o'ertop, Julius Caesar. Instead, he whimpers like a school-girl."

"That's about the way it usually goes. It may be that my views are colored by my lacking three or four inches of six feet, but I am sometimes strongly inclined to believe that every man--big or little--is given about the same amount of will or vital power, and the bigger and more lumbering the body he has to move with it, the less he accomplishes, and the sooner it is exhausted. You have found, I have no doubt, that as a rule the broad-chested, muscular six-footers, whose lives have ever pa.s.sed at hard work in the open air, groan and sigh incessantly under the burden of minor afflictions, worry every one with their querulousness, moan for their wives, mothers, or sweethearts, and the comforts of the homes they have left, and finally fret and grieve themselves into the grave, while slender, soft-muscled boys bear real distress without a murmur, and survive sickness and wounds that by all rules ought to prove fatal."

"There is certainly a good deal in that; but what irritates me now is a display of querulous tyranny."

"Well, you know what Dr. Johnson says: 'That a sick man is a scoundrel.'

There is a basis of truth in that apparent cruelty. It is true that 'scoundrel' is rather a harsh term to apply to a man whose moral obliquities have not received the official stamp in open court by a jury of his peers. The man whose imprudences and self-indulgences have made his liver slothful, his stomach rebellious, and wrecked his const.i.tution in other ways, may--probably does--become an exasperating little tyrant, full of all manner of petty selfishness, which saps the comfort of others, as acid vapors corrode metals, but does that make him a 'scoundrel?' Opinions vary. His much enduring feminine relatives would probably resent such a query with tearful indignation, while unprejudiced outsiders would probably reply calmly in the affirmative."

"What is the medical man's view?" asked Rachel, much amused by this cool scrutiny of what people are too often inclined to regard as among the "inscrutable providences."

"I don't speak in anything for the profession at large, but my own private judgement is that any man is a scoundrel who robs others of anything that is of value to them, and he is none the less so when he makes his aches and pains, mostly incurred by his gluttony, pa.s.sions or laziness, the means of plundering others of the comforts and pleasures which are their due."

Going into the wards one morning, Rachel found that Lieutenant Jacob Alspaugh had been brought in, suffering from what the Surgeon p.r.o.nounced to be "febrile symptoms of a mild type, from which he will no doubt recover in a few days, with rest, quiet and proper food."

It is possibly worth while to note the coincidence that these symptoms developed with unexpected suddenness in the midst of earnest preparations by the Army of the c.u.mberland, for a terrible grapple at Perryville with the Rebel Army of the Tennessee.

Alspaugh recognized Rachel at once, much to her embarra.s.sment, for her pride winced at playing the role of nurse before an acquaintance, especially when that acquaintance was her father's hired-man, whom she knew too well to esteem highly.

"O, Miss Rachel," he groaned, as she came to his cot in response to his earnest call, "I'm so glad to see you, for I'm the sickest man that ever came into this hospital. Nothin' but the best o' care 'll carry me through, and I know you'll give it to me for the sake of old times," and Jacob's face expressed to his comrades the idea that there had been a time when his relations with her had been exceedingly tender.

Rachel's face flushed at the impudent a.s.sumption, but she overcame the temptation to make a snubbing answer, and replied quietly:

"No, Jacob, you are not so sick as you think you are." ("She calls him 'Jacob,'" audibly commented some of those near, as if this was a confirmation of Jakes insinuation.) "The Surgeons say," she continued, "that your symptoms are not at all bad, and that you'll be up again in a few days."

"O, them Doctors always talk that way. They're the flintiest-hearted set I ever see in all my born days. They're always pretending that they don't believe there is nothin' the matter with a feller. I really believe they'd a little liefer a man'd die than not. They don't seem to take no sort of interest in savin' the soldiers that the country needs so badly."

Rachel felt as if it would sweeten much hard service if she could tell Alspaugh outright her opinion that he was acting very calfishly; but other counsels prevailed, and she said encouragingly:

"You are only discouraged, Jacob--that's all. A few days rest here will restore both your health and your spirits."

"No, I'm not discouraged. I'm not the kind to git down in the mouth--you know me well enough for that. I'm sick, sick I tell you--sicker'n any other man in this hospital, an' nothin' but the best o' nursin' 'll save my life for the country. O, how I wish I was at home with my mother; she'd take care o' me."

Rachel could not repress a smile at the rememberance of Jake's termagant mother had her dirty, comfortless cottage, an how her intemperance in administering such castis.e.m.e.nt as conveyed most grief to a boy's nature first drove Jake to seek refuge with her father.

"No doubt it would be very comfortable," she answered, "if you could get home to your mother; but there's no need of it, because you'll be well before you could possibly reach there."

"No, I'll never be well," persisted Jake, "unless I have the best o'

care; but I feel much better now, since I find you here, for I'm sure you'll take as much interest in me as a sister would."

She shuddered a little at the prospect of even temporary sisterly relations to the fellow, but replied guardedly:

"Of course I'll do what I can for you, Jacob," and started to move away, but he caught her dress and whimpered:

"O, don't go, Miss Rachel; do go and leave me all alone. Stay any way till I'm fixed somehow comfortable."