United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
The summer rain was falling softly upon the streets of Annapolis, and
the cool evening air came stealing into the room, where Annie Graham sat
by her patient. There were not so many now in her ward, and she had more
time for Jimmie, by whose bedside every leisure moment was passed. She
was sitting by him now, watching him as he slept, and listening
breathlessly to his low murmurings as he seemed to be talking of her and
the dreadful prison life. Then he slept more soundly, and she arranged
the light so that it left his face in shadow, but fell full upon her
own.
Half an hour passed in this way, and Annie’s head was beginning to droop
from languor and drowsiness, when a sudden exclamation startled her, and
she looked up to see her patient’s eyes fixed upon her, while with his
finger he pointed to the window opposite, and whispered,
“The star, it’s risen again, when I thought it had set forever. I take
it as a good omen, Bill. I shall see her face again.”
Did he think himself in prison still, with that star shining over him,
and did he take her for Bill Baker? The thought was not a very
complimentary one, but Annie forgot everything in her joy, at this
evidence of returning reason.
“Jimmie,” she said softly, and she bent her face so close to his, that
her lips touched his forehead, “Jimmie, don’t you know that you are in
Annapolis, with me, with Annie Graham. You remember Annie?”
She had many a time said these very words in his ear, hoping somehow to
impress them upon him, and now she had succeeded, for he repeated them
after her slowly and with long pauses, like a school-boy trying to say a
half-learned lesson.
“Jimmie—don’t you—know—that you—are here—in—Annapolis—with
me—with—Annie—Graham—You remember—Annie?”
And as he said them consciousness began to struggle back,—the black eyes
fastened themselves upon Annie with a wistful look; then they took in
her dress, her hands folded in her lap, the decent covering on the bed
the furniture of the room, and then throwing up his arms he felt of his
flesh, and examined his linen, and patted the pillow, while still the
look of wonder and perplexity deepened on his face. Suddenly he let his
arms drop helplessly, then stretched them feebly towards Annie, and
while both chin and lip quivered touchingly, and the tears streamed from
his eyes, he whispered,
“Clean face, clean hands, soft pillow and bed, with the hunger, and
thirst, and homesickness gone. This is—yes, this must be God’s land, and
_she_ is there with me.”
He fainted then. The shock of coming back to “God’s land” had been too
great, and for a week or more he paid but little heed to what was
passing around him.
“Don’t you know me, Jimmie? It’s I,—it’s Annie,” Mrs. Graham would say
to him, as his restless eyes turned upon her, and he would repeat after
her,
“Don’t you—know—me, Jimmie? It’s I,—it’s Annie.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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