In League with Israel: A Tale of the Chattanooga ConferenceJohnston, Annie F. (Annie Fellows)
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In League with Israel: A Tale of the Chattanooga Conference
Johnston, Annie F. (Annie Fellows)
Epworth League (U.S.) -- Fiction
Bethany wondered if her cousin Frank had told him of all she had
suffered, or if he had guessed it intuitively. Somehow she felt that he
had not been told, but that he had divined it. Yet when they stopped on
the Chickamauga battle-field, and she saw him go leaping across the
rough fields like an overgrown boy, she thought of her cousin Ray's
remark, "They used to call him the wild Irishman," and wondered at the
contradictory phases his character presented. She saw him pause and lay
his hand reverently on the largest cannon, and then come running back
across the furrows with long, awkward jumps.
"What on earth did you do that for, Cragmore?" asked Mr. Marion, in his
teasing way. "The idea of keeping us waiting while you were racing
across a ten-acre lot to pat an old gun."
"Old gun, is it?" was the laughing answer, yet there was a flash in his
eyes that belied the laugh. "Odds, man! it is one of the greatest
orators that ever roused a continent. I just wanted to lay my hands on
its dumb lips." He waved his arm with an exulting gesture. "Aye, but
they spoke in thunder-tones once, the day they spoke freedom to a race."
He did not take his seat in the carriage for a while, but followed at a
little distance, ranging the woods on both sides; sometimes plunging
into a leafy hollow to examine the bark of an old tree where the shells
had plowed deep scars; sometimes dropping on his knees to brush away the
leaves from a tiny wild-flower, that any one but a true woodsman would
have passed with unseeing eyes. Once he brought a rare specimen up to
the carriage to ask its name. He had never seen one like it before. That
was the only one he gathered.
"It's a pity to tear them up, when they would wither in just a few
hours," he said; "the solitary places are so glad for them."
"He's a queer combination," said Dr. Bascom, as he watched him break a
little sprig of cedar from the stump of a battle-broken tree to put in
his card-case. "Sometimes he is the veriest clown; at others, a child
could not be more artless; and I have seen him a few times when he
seemed to be aroused into a spiritual giant. He fairly touched the
stars."
Bethany was so tired by the morning's drive that she did not go to the
opening services in the big tent that afternoon.
"Well, you missed it!" said Mr. Marion, when he came in after supper,
"and so did David Herschel."
"Missed what?" inquired Bethany.
"The mayor's address of welcome, this afternoon. You know he is a Jew.
Such a broad, fraternal speech must have been a revelation to a great
many of his audience. I tell you, it was fine! You're going to-night,
aren't you, Bethany?"
"No," she answered, "I want to save myself for the sunrise
prayer-meeting on the mountain to-morrow. I saw the sun come up over the
Rigi once. It is a sight worth staying up all night to see."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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