United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
A world of memories of a joyous past, unflecked by a single one of
the miseries of the present, crowded in upon Harry on the wings of
this well-remembered tune. It was a favorite hymn at the Methodist
church in Sardis, and the last time he had heard it was when he
had accompanied Rachel to the church to attend services conducted
by a noted evangelist.
Ah, Rachel!--what of her?
He had not thought of her since a swift recollection of her words
at the parting scene on the piazza had come to spur up his faltering
resolution, as the regiment advanced up the side of Wildcat. Now
one bitter thought of how useless all that he had gone through
with the day before was to rehabilitate himself in her good opinion
was speedily chased from his mind by the still bitterer one of the
contempt she must feel for him, did she but know of his present
abject prostration.
After all, might not the occurrences of yesterday be but the memories
of a nightmare? They seemed too unreal for probability. Perhaps
he was just recovering consciousness after the delirium of a fever.
The walnut sticks in the fireplace popped as sharply as pistols,
and he trembled from head to foot.
“Heavens, I'm a bigger coward than ever,” he said bitterly, and
turning himself painfully in bed, he fixed his eyes upon the wall.
“I was led to believe,” he continued, “that after I had once been
under fire, I would cease to dread it. Now, it seems to me more
dreadful than I ever imagined it to be.”
Aunt Debby's wheel hummed and droned still louder, but her pleasant
tones rode on the cadences like an Aeolian harp in a rising wind:
“Man may trouble and distress me,
'T will but drive me to Thy breast;
Life with trials hard may press me;
Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.
O, 'tis not in grief to harm me,
While Thy love is left to me.
O, 'twere not in joy to charm me,
Were that joy unmixed with Thee.”
He wondered weakly why ther were no monasteries in this land and
age, to serve as harbors or refuge for those who shrank from the
fearfulness of war.
He turned over again wearily, and Aunt Debby, looking toward him,
encountered his wide-open eyes.
“Yer awake, air ye?” she said kindly. “Hope I didn't disturb you.
I wuz tryin' ter make ez little noise ez possible.”
“No, you didn't rouse me. It's hard for me to sleep in daylight,
even when fatigued, as I am.”
“Ef ye want ter git up now,” she said, stopping the whell by pressing
the stick against a spoke, and laying the “roll” in her hand upon
the wheel-head, “I'll hev some breakfast fur ye in a jiffy. Ye
kin rise an' dress while I run down ter the spring arter a fresh
bucket o' water.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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