The Drummer Boy

by J. T. Trowbridge

  XX.

  SUNDAY BEFORE THE BATTLE.

  Frank was leaning over the rail of the schooner gazing down at thebeautiful flashing water, and thinking of home. It was Sunday there, too,he remembered; and he could almost hear the sweet-toned bells solemnlychiming, and see the atmosphere of Sabbath peace brooding over field andvillage, and feel the serious gladness of the time. The folks weregetting ready for church. There was his father, shaved and clean, in hisblack stock and somewhat threadbare, but still respectable, best coat.And there was Helen, bright and blooming, with her bonnet on, and withher Bible and question-book in her hand, setting out for the morningSunday-school. His mother was not going to meeting; she was to stay athome with Hattie, and read to her, or, what was better, comfort her withaffectionate, gentle, confiding words. But Willie was going with Helen,as he seemed anxious, by strut, and hurry, and loud, impatient talk, tolet every body know. And Frank wished from his heart that he could bewith them that day; and he wondered, did they miss him, and were theythinking of him, far off here in Carolina waters, alone in the midst ofsuch crowds of men?

  "Wouldn't I like to be in that boat, boys!" said Ellis. "Don't she comedancing on the waves!"

  "She's pulling towards us," said Atwater. "I believe they're comingaboard."

  "O, Atwater!" cried Frank, as the boat drew near. "There's a face there Iknow! One you know, too!" And he clapped his hands with joy; for it was aface he had seen in Boston, and he felt that it came with news from home.

  The rare brightness kindled in Atwater's eyes as he gazed, and remembered.The boat came alongside, and hailed the schooner. And a man in the bow,as it rose upon a wave, seizing hold of the ladder of tarred rope,stepped quickly upon it, and came on board, cordially received by CaptainEdney, who appeared to have been expecting him.

  "It's the minister that married Atwater!" the rumor ran round among thetroops. "What's his name, Frank?"

  "His name's Egglestone," said Frank, his heart swelling with anxiety tospeak with him.

  The minister had come on a mission of Christian love to the soldiers ofthe expedition; and having, the day before, sent word to Captain Edney ofhis arrival, he had in return received an invitation to visit theschooner and preach to the men this Sunday morning.

  A previous announcement that religious services would probably be held onboard, had excited little interest; the troops surmising that thechaplain of the regiment, who had never been with them enough to wintheir hearts or awaken their attention, was to rejoin them, and preachone of his formal discourses.

  But far different was the feeling when it was known that the "man thatmarried Atwater" was to conduct the exercises. Then the soldiersremembered that they were New Englanders; and that here also God'sSabbath shed its silent influence, far though they were from the rudehills and rocky shores of home.

  'Tis curious how a little leaven of memory will sometimes work in theheart. Here was half a regiment of men, who had come to fight the battlesof their country. As with one accord they had left the amenities ofpeaceful life behind them, and assumed the rugged manners of war. Of latethey had seemed almost oblivious of the fact that God, and Christianworship, and Christian rules of life were still in existence. But to-daythey were reminded. To-day the child was awakened--the child that hadknown the wholesome New England nurture, that had sat on mother's knee,and had its earliest thought tuned to the music of Sunday bells; thechild that lay hidden in the deep heart of every man of them, the samelived again, and looked forth from the eyes, and smiled once more in thesoftened visage of the man. And the man was carried back, far from thesestrange scenes, far from the relentless iron front of war, across alienlands, and over stormy seas,--carried back by the child yearningwithin,--to the old door yard, the village trees, the family fireside,the family pew, and the hushed congregation.

  It was Mr. Egglestone's aim, in the beginning of the sermon he preachedthat morning, to remind the soldiers of their childhood. "It is athought," he said, "which almost moves me to tears,--that all these hardyframes around me were but the soft, warm, dimpled forms of so manyinfants once. And nearly every one of you was, I suppose, watched over bytender parents, who beheld, with mutual joy, the development of eachbeautiful faculty. The first step taken by the babe's unassisted feet,the first articulate word spoken by the little lisping lips,--whatdelight they gave, and how long were they remembered! And what thoughtsof the child's future came day and night to those parents' breasts! andof what earnest prayers was it the subject! And of all the parents of allthose children who are here as men to-day, not one foresaw a scene likethis; none dreamed that they were raising up patriots to fight forfreedom's second birth on this continent, in the most stupendous of civilwars.

  "But Providence leads us by strange ways, and by hidden paths we comeupon brinks of destiny which no prophet foresaw. Now the days of peaceare over. Many of you who were children are now the fathers of children.But your place is not at home to watch over them as you were watchedover, but to strive by some means to work out a harder problem than anyever ciphered on slates at school."

  Then he explained to his audience the origin of the war; for he believedit best that every soldier should understand well the cause he wasfighting for. He spoke of the compact of States, which could not berightfully broken. He spoke of the serpent that had been nursed in thebosom of those States. He related how slavery, from being at first amerely tolerated evil, which all good men hoped soon to see abolished,had grown arrogant, aggressive, monstrous; until, angered by resistanceto its claims, it had deluged the land with blood. Such was the nature ofan institution based upon selfishness and wrong. And such was the bitterresult of building a LIE into the foundations of our national structure.Proclaiming to the world, as the first principle of our republican formof government, that "all men are created free and equal," we had at thesame time held a race in bondage.

  "Neither nation nor individual," said he, "can in any noble sensesucceed, with such rotten inconsistency woven into its life. It was thisshoddy in the garment of our Goddess of Liberty, which has occasioned therent which those needles there"--pointing to some bayonets--"must mend.And it is this shoddy of contradiction and infidelity which makes many aman's prosperity, seemingly substantial at first, promising warmth andwear, fall suddenly to pieces, and leave his soul naked to the winds ofheaven."

  It was not so much a sermon as a friendly, affectionate, earnest talkwith the men, whom he sought to counsel and encourage. There was amelting love in his tones which went to their inmost souls. And when heexhorted them to do the work of men who feared God, but not any mortalfoe, who dreaded dishonor, but not death, he made every heart ring withthe stirring appeal.

  Then suddenly his voice sank to a tone of solemn sweetness, as he said,--

  "Peace! O, my brothers! struggle and violence are not the all of life.But God's love, the love of man to man, holiness, blessedness,--it is forthese realities we are created, and placed here on this beautiful earth,under this blue sky, with human faces and throbbing human hearts aroundus. And the end of all is PEACE. But only through fiery trial and valiantdoing can any peace worth the name come to us; and to make the futuretruly blessed, we must make the present truly brave."

  Before and after the discourse the men sang some of the good old tuneswhich all had been familiar with at home, and which descended like warmrain upon the ground where the scattered seed of the sermon fell.

  The services ended, Mr. Egglestone went freely among the soldiers, andconversed with any who wanted to have speech of him; especially withAtwater; whose wife he had seen a few days before leaving Boston, whereshe came to see him, having learned who he was, and that he was aboutdeparting for the army in which her husband served.

  After long waiting, Frank's turn came at last. They sat down on a benchapart; and the clergyman told him he had lately seen his mother, and thatshe had charged him with many messages. And one was a message of sorrow.

  "She had heard
unwelcome news of you," he said, holding the boy's hand."And she wished me to say to you what I could to save you from what shedreads most--what any wise, loving mother dreads most for her child. Butis there need of my saying any thing? By what your captain tells me, andstill more by what your face tells me, I am convinced that I may spare mywords. You have had in your own experience a better lesson than any bodycan teach you. You have erred, you have suffered. And"--he took a letterfrom his pocket--"I have something here to make you remember what youhave learned--I think, for always."

  Frank had listened, humbly, tremblingly, full of tears which he did notshed for the eyes that were about them. But now he started, and took theletter eagerly. "What's it? any bad news?" for he felt an alarmingpresentiment.

  "I do not think it is bad. If you had seen what I saw, you would notthink so either." Mr. Egglestone's manner was exceedingly tender, and hisvoice was liquid and low. "All is well with your folks at home; both withthose who are there as you left them, and with the one whose true home isnot there any longer, but in a brighter land, we trust."

  "O!"--it was almost a cry of pain that broke from Frank. "Hattie?"

  "Yes, Frank; it is of Hattie I am speaking. She has passed away. I waspresent, and saw her depart. And she was very calm and happy, and herlast look was a smile, and her last words were words of hope and love.The letter will tell you all about it. I recall one thing, however, whichI will repeat, since it so nearly concerns you. They were speaking ofyou. And she said, 'Maybe I shall see him before any of you will! Yes!'she added, her face shining already like a spirit's with the joyfulthought, 'tell him how I love him; and say that I shall be with him whenhe does not know!' And I am sure that, if it is possible for souls thathave escaped from these environments of flesh to be near us still, shewill often be near you, loving you, influencing you. Perhaps she ispresent now, and hears all we say, and sees how badly you feel, andthinks you would not feel quite so badly if you knew that she is happy."

  Frank would have spoken, to ask some earnest question which arose in hisheart; but his feelings were too much agitated, and he could not trusthis voice.

  "We will believe such things are true of our lost ones," Mr. Egglestonesaid, with a parting pressure of the boy's hand. "For, with that faith,we shall surely try so to live that, when they approach us, they will notbe repelled; and thus we will be guarded from evil, if not by any directinfluence of theirs, then by our own reverence and love for them."

  With this he took his leave. And Frank crept into his bunk, and turnedaway his face, before he dared to open and read his mother's letter.

  In that letter there were no reproofs for his misconduct. But in place ofsuch his mother had written the simple story of Hattie's death, with manyaffecting little details, showing her thoughtful tenderness for all, hercheerful sweetness, and her love for Frank. Then followed affectionatemessages from them at home, who were very lonely now, and longed to havehim with them--all which had a power beyond any reproaches to win the boyback to that purity of heart and life which belonged to hishome-affections, and was safe when they were strong, and was imperilledwhen they were forgotten.

  "O, to think," he said to himself, "only this morning I was imagining howit looked at home to-day--and it is all so different! I am gone, and nowHattie is gone too!"