United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
"Yes, you look as if troubled about something. But there, see what an
egotistic fellow I am! As if you hadn't troubles of your own! pretty
deep ones, too, I fear. Our coming here has given you a wonderful
experience, Miss Baron. No matter; you've met it like a soldier and
will have much to remember in after years. You can never become a
commonplace woman now and there are such a lot of 'em in the world.
When I remember all you have done for us it makes me ill to think of
some in our town--giggling, silly little flirts, with no higher
ambition than to strut down the street in a new dress."
"Oh, don't think of them or over-praise me. Perhaps if they had been
here and compelled to face things they would have done better than I. A
short time ago I didn't dream of these experiences, and then I would
have said I couldn't possibly endure them."
"Well, you have," resumed the captain, who was slightly feverish,
excited and inclined to talk. "One of my dearest hopes now is to get
back to my little girl soon and deepen her mind by making her ashamed
of the silly things in a girl's life. Of course I wish her to be joyous
and happy as a young thing should be, as I think you would be if you
had the chance. By means of your story I can make her ashamed ever to
indulge in those picayune, contemptible feminine traits which
exasperate men. I want her to be brave, helpful, sincere, like you,
like her mother. How quickly poor Yarry recognized the spirit in which
you came among us at first! Jove! I didn't think him capable of such
feeling. I tell you, Miss Baron, the roughest of us reverence an
unselfish woman--one who doesn't think of herself first and always. She
mayn't be a saint, but if she has heart enough for sympathy and is
brave and simple enough to bestow it just as a cool spring gushes from
the ground, we feel she is the woman God meant her to be. Ah, uncle,
that reminds me--another cup of that cold water. For some reason I'm
awfully thirsty this morning."
Miss Lou listened with hands nervously clasping and unclasping, utterly
at a loss to know how to tell the man, dreaming of home and planning
for the future, that he must soon sleep beside poor Yarry. She had
already taken to herself the mournful comfort that his grave also
should be where she could care for it and keep it green.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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