Who goes there? : $b The story of a spy in the Civil WarBenson, B. K. (Blackwood Ketcham)
History
Who goes there? : $b The story of a spy in the Civil War
Benson, B. K. (Blackwood Ketcham)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
He seldom spoke of the past, but he seemed strangely interested in the
political condition of every civilized nation. The future of the human
race was a subject to which he undoubtedly gave much thought. I have
heard him more than once declare, with emphasis, that the outlook for
the advancement of America was not auspicious. In regard to the
sectional discord in the United States, he showed a strange unconcern. I
knew that he believed it a matter of indifference whether secession, of
which we were beginning again to hear some mutterings, was a
constitutional right; but on the question of slavery his interest was
intense. He believed that slavery could not endure, let secession be
attempted or abandoned, let secession fail or succeed.
In my vacations I spoke to my father of the profound man who had
interested himself in my mental welfare; my father approved the
intimacy. He did not know Dr. Khayme personally, but he had much reason
to believe him a worthy man. I had never said anything to my father
about the note he had written to the Doctor; for a long time, in fact,
the thought of doing so did not come to me, and when it did come I
decided that, since my father had not mentioned the matter, it was not
for me to do so; it was a peculiar note.
My father gave me to know that his former wish to abridge my life in the
South had given way to his fears, and that I was to continue to spend my
winters in Charleston. In after years I learned that Dr. Khayme had not
thought my condition exempt from danger.
So had passed the winters and vacations until the fall of '57, without
recurrence of my trouble. I no longer feared a lapse; my father and the
physicians agreed that my migrations should cease, and I entered
college. I wrote Dr. Khayme a letter, in which I expressed great regret
on account of our separation, but I received no reply.
On Christmas Day of this year, 1857, I was at home. Suddenly, even
without the least premonition or obvious cause, I suffered lapse of
memory. The period affected embraced, with remarkable exactness, all the
time that had elapsed since I had last seen Dr. Khayme.
Early in January my father accompanied me to Charleston. He was induced
to take me there because I was conscious of nothing that had happened
since the last day I spent there, and he was, moreover, very anxious to
meet Dr. Khayme. We learned, on our arrival in Charleston, however, that
the Doctor and his daughter had sailed for Liverpool early in September.
My father and I travelled in the South until November, 1858, when my
memory was completely restored. He then returned to Massachusetts,
leaving me in Carolina, and I did not return to the North until
August, 1860.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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