by Thomas Dixon
CHAPTER II
THE GREAT HEART
The next morning, when Elsie reached the obscure boarding-house at whichMrs. Cameron stopped, the mother had gone to the market to buy a bunch ofroses to place beside her boy's cot.
As Elsie awaited her return, the practical little Yankee maid thought witha pang of the tenderness and folly of such people. She knew this motherhad scarcely enough to eat, but to her bread was of small importance,flowers necessary to life. After all, it was very sweet, this foolishnessof these Southern people, and it somehow made her homesick.
"How can I tell her!" she sighed. "And yet I must."
She had only waited a moment when Mrs. Cameron suddenly entered with herdaughter. She threw her flowers on the table, sprang forward to meetElsie, seized her hands and called to Margaret.
"How good of you to come so soon! This, Margaret, is our dear littlefriend who has been so good to Ben and to me."
Margaret took Elsie's hand and longed to throw her arms around her neck,but something in the quiet dignity of the Northern girl's manner held herback. She only smiled tenderly through her big dark eyes, and softlysaid:
"We love you! Ben was my last brother. We were playmates and chums. Myheart broke when he ran away to the front. How can we thank you and yourbrother!"
"I'm sure we've done nothing more than you would have done for us," saidElsie, as Mrs. Cameron left the room.
"Yes, I know, but we can never tell you how grateful we are to you. Wefeel that you have saved Ben's life and ours. The war has been one longhorror to us since my first brother was killed. But now it's over, and wehave Ben left, and our hearts have been crying for joy all night."
"I hoped my brother, Captain Phil Stoneman, would be here to-day to meetyou and help me, but he can't reach Washington before Friday."
"He caught Ben in his arms!" cried Margaret. "I know he's brave, and youmust be proud of him."
"Doctor Barnes says they are as much alike as twins--only Phil is notquite so tall and has blond hair like mine."
"You will let me see him and thank him the moment he comes?"
"Hurry, Margaret!" cheerily cried Mrs. Cameron, reentering the parlour."Get ready; we must go at once to the hospital."
Margaret turned and with stately grace hurried from the room. The olddress she wore as unconscious of its shabbiness as though it were a royalrobe.
"And now, my dear, what must I do to get the passes?" asked the mothereagerly.
Elsie's warm amber eyes grew misty for a moment, and the fair skin withits gorgeous rose tints of the North paled. She hesitated, tried to speak,and was silent.
The sensitive soul of the Southern woman read the message of sorrow wordshad not framed.
"Tell me, quickly! Thedoctor--has--not--concealed--his--true--condition--from--me?"
"No, he is certain to recover."
"What then?"
"Worse--he is condemned to death by court-martial."
"Condemned to death--a--wounded--prisoner--of--war!" she whispered slowly,with blanched face.
"Yes, he was accused of violating the rules of war as a guerilla raider inthe invasion of Pennsylvania."
"Absurd and monstrous! He was on General Jeb Stuart's staff and could haveacted only under his orders. He joined the infantry after Stuart's death,and rose to be a colonel, though but a boy. There's some terriblemistake!"
"Unless we can obtain his pardon," Elsie went on in even, restrainedtones, "there is no hope. We must appeal to the President."
The mother's lips trembled, and she seemed about to faint.
"Could I see the President?" she asked, recovering herself with aneffort.
"He has just reached Washington from the front, and is thronged bythousands. It will be difficult."
The mother's lips were moving in silent prayer, and her eyes were tightlyclosed to keep back the tears.
"Can you help me, dear?" she asked piteously.
"Yes," was the quick response.
"You see," she went on, "I feel so helpless. I have never been to theWhite House or seen the President, and I don't know how to go about seeinghim or how to ask him--and--I am afraid of Mr. Lincoln! I have heard somany harsh things said of him."
"I'll do my best, Mrs. Cameron. We must go at once to the White House andtry to see him."
The mother lifted the girl's hand and stroked it gently.
"We will not tell Margaret. Poor child! she could not endure this. When wereturn, we may have better news. It can't be worse. I'll send her on anerrand."
She took up the bouquet of gorgeous roses with a sigh, buried her face inthe fresh perfume, as if to gain strength in their beauty and fragrance,and left the room.
In a few moments she had returned and was on her way with Elsie to theWhite House.
It was a beautiful spring morning, this eleventh day of April, 1865. Theglorious sunshine, the shimmering green of the grass, the warm breezes,and the shouts of victory mocked the mother's anguish.
At the White House gates they passed the blue sentry pacing silently backand forth, who merely glanced at them with keen eyes and said nothing. Inthe steady beat of his feet the mother could hear the tramp of soldiersleading her boy to the place of death!
A great lump rose in her throat as she caught the first view of theExecutive Mansion gleaming white and silent and ghostlike among thebudding trees. The tall columns of the great facade, spotless as snow, thespray of the fountain, the marble walls, pure, dazzling, and cold, seemedto her the gateway to some great tomb in which her own dead and the deadof all the people lay! To her the fair white palace, basking there in thesunlight and budding grass, shrub, and tree, was the Judgment House ofFate. She thought of all the weary feet that had climbed its fateful stepsin hope to return in despair, of its fierce dramas on which the lives ofmillions had hung, and her heart grew sick.
A long line of people already stretched from the entrance under theportico far out across the park, awaiting their turn to see thePresident.
Mrs. Cameron placed her hand falteringly on Elsie's shoulder.
"Look, my dear, what a crowd already! Must we wait in line?"
"No, I can get you past the throng with my father's name."
"Will it be very difficult to reach the President?"
"No, it's very easy. Guards and sentinels annoy him. He frets until theyare removed. An assassin or maniac could kill him almost any hour of theday or night. The doors are open at all hours, very late at night. I haveoften walked up to the rooms of his secretaries as late as nine o'clockwithout being challenged by a soul."
"What must I call him? Must I say 'Your Excellency?'"
"By no means--he hates titles and forms. You should say 'Mr. President' inaddressing him. But you will please him best if, in your sweet, homelikeway, you will just call him by his name. You can rely on his sympathy.Read this letter of his to a widow. I brought it to show you."
She handed Mrs. Cameron a newspaper clipping on which was printed Mr.Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby, of Boston, who had lost five sons in thewar.
Over and over she read its sentences until they echoed as solemn music inher soul:
"I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which shouldattempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But Icannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in thethanks of the republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Fathermay assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only thecherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must beyours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
"Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
"ABRAHAM LINCOLN."
"And the President paused amid a thousand cares to write that letter to abroken-hearted woman?" the mother asked.
"Yes."
"Then he is good down to the last secret depths of a great heart! Only aChristian father could have written that letter. I shall not be afraid tospeak to him. And they told me he was an inf
idel!"
Elsie led her by a private way past the crowd and into the office of MajorHay, the President's private secretary. A word from the Great Commoner'sdaughter admitted them at once to the President's room.
"Just take a seat on one side, Miss Elsie," said Major Hay; "watch yourfirst opportunity and introduce your friend."
On entering the room, Mrs. Cameron could not see the President, who wasseated at his desk surrounded by three men in deep consultation over amass of official documents.
She looked about the room nervously and felt reassured by its plainaspect. It was a medium-sized, officelike place, with no signs of eleganceor ceremony. Mr. Lincoln was seated in an armchair beside a highwriting-desk and table combined. She noticed that his feet were large andthat they rested on a piece of simple straw matting. Around the room weresofas and chairs covered with green worsted.
When the group about the chair parted a moment, she caught the firstglimpse of the man who held her life in the hollow of his hand. Shestudied him with breathless interest. His back was still turned. Evenwhile seated, she saw that he was a man of enormous stature, fully sixfeet four inches tall, legs and arms abnormally long, and huge broadshoulders slightly stooped. His head was powerful and crowned with a massof heavy brown hair, tinged with silver.
He turned his head slightly and she saw his profile set in its short darkbeard--the broad intellectual brow, half covered by unmanageable hair, hisface marked with deep-cut lines of life and death, with great hollows inthe cheeks and under the eyes. In the lines which marked the corners ofhis mouth she could see firmness, and his beetling brows and unusuallyheavy eyelids looked stern and formidable. Her heart sank. She lookedagain and saw goodness, tenderness, sorrow, canny shrewdness, and astrange lurking smile all haunting his mouth and eye.
Suddenly he threw himself forward in his chair, wheeled and faced one ofhis tormentors with a curious and comical expression. With one handpatting the other, and a funny look overspreading his face, he said:
"My friend, let me tell you something----"
The man again stepped before him, and she could hear nothing. When thestory was finished, the man tried to laugh. It died in a feeble effort.But the President laughed heartily, laughed all over, and laughed hisvisitors out of the room.
Mrs. Cameron turned toward Elsie with a mute look of appeal to give herthis moment of good-humour in which to plead her cause, but before shecould move a man of military bearing suddenly stepped before thePresident.
He began to speak, but seeing the look of stern decision in Mr. Lincoln'sface, turned abruptly and said:
"Mr. President, I see you are fully determined not to do me justice!"
Mr. Lincoln slightly compressed his lips, rose quietly, seized theintruder by the arm, and led him toward the door.
"This is the third time you have forced your presence on me, sir, askingthat I reverse the just sentence of a court-martial, dismissing you fromthe service. I told you my decision was carefully made and was final. NowI give you fair warning never to show yourself in this room again. I canbear censure, but I will not endure insult!"
In whining tones the man begged for his papers he had dropped.
"Begone, sir," said the President, as he thrust him through the door."Your papers will be sent to you."
The poor mother trembled at this startling act and sank back limp in herseat.
With quick, swinging stride the President walked back to his desk,accompanied by Major Hay and a young German girl, whose simple dress toldthat she was from the Western plains.
He handed the secretary an official paper.
"Give this pardon to the boy's mother when she comes this morning," hesaid kindly to the secretary, his eyes suddenly full of gentleness.
"How could I consent to shoot a boy raised on a farm, in the habit ofgoing to bed at dark, for falling asleep at his post when required towatch all night? I'll never go into eternity with the blood of such a boyon my skirts."
Again the mother's heart rose.
"You remember the young man I pardoned for a similar offence in '62, aboutwhich Stanton made such a fuss?" he went on in softly reminiscent tones."Well, here is that pardon."
He drew from the lining of his silk hat a photograph, around which waswrapped an executive pardon. Through the lower end of it was a bullet-holestained with blood.
"I got this in Richmond. They found him dead on the field. He fell in thefront ranks with my photograph in his pocket next to his heart, thispardon wrapped around it, and on the back of it in his boy's scrawl, '_Godbless Abraham Lincoln_.' I love to invest in bonds like that."
The secretary returned to his room, the girl who was waiting steppedforward, and the President rose to receive her.
The mother's quick eye noted, with surprise, the simple dignity andchivalry of manner with which he received this humble woman of thepeople.
With straightforward eloquence the girl poured out her story, begging forthe pardon of her young brother who had been sentenced to death as adeserter. He listened in silence.
How pathetic the deep melancholy of his sad face! Yes, she was sure, thesaddest face that God ever made in all the world! Her own stricken heartfor a moment went out to him in sympathy.
The President took off his spectacles, wiped his forehead with the largered silk handkerchief he carried, and his eyes twinkled kindly down intothe good German face.
"You seem an honest, truthful, sweet girl," he said, "and"--hesmiled--"you don't wear hoop skirts! I may be whipped for this, but I'lltrust you and your brother, too. He shall be pardoned." Elsie rose tointroduce Mrs. Cameron, when a Congressman from Massachusetts suddenlystepped before her and pressed for the pardon of a slave trader whose shiphad been confiscated. He had spent five years in prison, but could not paythe heavy fine in money imposed.
The President had taken his seat again, and read the eloquent appeal formercy. He looked up over his spectacles, fixed his eyes piercingly on theCongressman and said:
"This is a moving appeal, sir, expressed with great eloquence. I mightpardon a murderer under the spell of such words, but a man who can make abusiness of going to Africa and robbing her of her helpless children andselling them into bondage--no, sir--he may rot in jail before he shallhave liberty by any act of mine!"
Again the mother's heart sank.
Her hour had come. She must put the issue of life or death to the test,and as Elsie rose and stepped quickly forward, she followed; nervingherself for the ordeal.
The President took Elsie's hand familiarly and smiled without rising.Evidently she was well known to him.
"Will you hear the prayer of a broken-hearted mother of the South, who haslost four sons in General Lee's army?" she asked.
Looking quietly past the girl, he caught sight, for the first time, of thefaded dress and the sorrow-shadowed face.
He was on his feet in a moment, extended his hand and led her to a chair.
"Take this seat, Madam, and then tell me in your own way what I can do foryou." In simple words, mighty with the eloquence of a mother's heart, shetold her story and asked for the pardon of her boy, promising his word ofhonour and her own that he would never again take up arms against theUnion.
"The war is over now, Mr. Lincoln," she said, "and we have lost all. Canyou conceive the desolation of _my_ heart? My four boys were noble men.They may have been wrong, but they fought for what they believed to beright. You, too, have lost a boy."
The President's eyes grew dim.
"Yes, a beautiful boy----" he said simply.
"Well, mine are all gone but this baby. One of them sleeps in an unmarkedgrave at Gettysburg. One died in a Northern prison. One fell atChancellorsville, one in the Wilderness, and this, my baby, beforePetersburg. Perhaps I've loved him too much, this last one--he's only achild yet----"
"You shall have your boy, my dear Madam," the President said simply,seating himself and writing a brief order to the Secretary of War.
The mother drew near his desk, softly crying.
Through her tears she said:
"My heart is heavy, Mr. Lincoln, when I think of all the hard and bitterthings we have heard of you."
"Well, give my love to the people of South Carolina when you go home, andtell them that I am their President, and that I have never forgotten thisfact in the darkest hours of this awful war; and I am going to doeverything in my power to help them." "You will never regret this generousact," the mother cried with gratitude.
"I reckon not," he answered. "I'll tell you something, Madam, if you won'ttell anybody. It's a secret of my administration. I'm only too glad of anexcuse to save a life when I can. Every drop of blood shed in this warNorth and South has been as if it were wrung out of my heart. A strangefate decreed that the bloodiest war in human history should be foughtunder my direction. And I--to whom the sight of blood is a sickeninghorror--I have been compelled to look on in silent anguish because I couldnot stop it! Now that the Union is saved, not another drop of blood shallbe spilled if I can prevent it."
"May God bless you!" the mother cried, as she received from him theorder.
She held his hand an instant as she took her leave, laughing and sobbingin her great joy.
"I must tell you, Mr. President," she said, "how surprised and how pleasedI am to find you are a Southern man."
"Why, didn't you know that my parents were Virginians, and that I was bornin Kentucky?"
"Very few people in the South know it. I am ashamed to say I did not."
"Then, how did you know I am a Southerner?"
"By your looks, your manner of speech, your easy, kindly ways, yourtenderness and humour, your firmness in the right as you see it, and,above all, the way you rose and bowed to a woman in an old, faded blackdress, whom you knew to be an enemy." "No, Madam, not an enemy now," hesaid softly. "That word is out of date."
"If we had only known you in time----"
The President accompanied her to the door with a deference of manner thatshowed he had been deeply touched.
"Take this letter to Mr. Stanton at once," he said. "Some folks complainof my pardons, but it rests me after a hard day's work if I can save somepoor boy's life. I go to bed happy, thinking of the joy I have given tothose who love him."
As the last words were spoken, a peculiar dreaminess of expression stoleover his careworn face, as if a throng of gracious memories had lifted fora moment the burden of his life.
