CHAPTER XX.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 408, 5 October 1889, Page 6

CHAPTER XX.

THE LITTLE HOSTAGE. Following Caucus through the streets of the city, wildly jostling drunken soldiers and citizens trying to save their household goods, we plunged into the burning portion of the town, and arrived at the Picken 3 mansion. This being surrounded by a garden, I had hoped might have escaped, bub it was also in flames. The family had lied from it, taking with them what possessions they could carry. Inquiring of some negroes who were trying to save their household goods, they hurriedly told me that the Peytons had been there, but being driven out by the flames, had left about half an hour before. I asked which way. They pointed along another street, but gave little attention to me ; they were too busy trying to save a little of their possessions from the wreck. Fighting my way through the throng with one idea — to find my wife and aid her — I was suddenly arrested by a crowd even more dense than that through which I had passed. At this moment Caucus stopped and cried out, • Golly ! Look at dat chile.' * What do you mean ?' said I. ' Come along and help me find my wife.' j As I uttered this, my attention was arrested by a shriek that apparently came from above me. Looking through the trees of a small garden, I perceived a house which was rapidly becoming a mass of flames. At one of bhe upper windows of this a mulatto servant girl, holding in one arm a child, apparently white, was gesticu lating wildly with the other and calling for assistance. My wife was probably safe, whilst the girl and her child were in mortal danger. For a moment I hesitated ; then dashed into the garden to save t-hein. I had had some experience in my youth as a member of a volunteer fire company, and calling to Caucus to follow me, I pushed through the crowd up to the house. No one was in the yard but negroes, and they were so panicstricken that they had lost their wits, and though yelling and howling like madmen, were doing nothing to aid this woman in her extremity. With a ladder I could have rescued^ her easily, bufc ther© seemed to be ' none at hand. Bolting into the house, I tried the stairway, but it was burning and impossible to ascend. As I did so, the girl screamed and groaned, probably merely from terror, as the flames had nob reached her, though this would be but a matter of a rery few moments. As I ran around the building trying to find a ladder by which to reach the upper windows, I caught sight of a tree at the other end of the house. The branches of this overhung the burning dwelling. Being a live oak, and green, this had not caught fire. If I could descend from its branches to the house I might save her. Looking around for a rope, my eye caught sight of the garden hose that had been used against the flames and then deserted. This I took, and Caucus, who was an expert climber, joining me, we "both had little difficulty in reaching a ¥ranch of the tree immediately over the house. Using the hose as a rope, I descended on to the roof of the verandah just in time, and breaking open one of the windows, sprang into the room, which was now full of suffocating emoke. Seizing the child from the almost fainting girl, I carried it to the roof and passed it up to Caucus as he reached down from the limb of the tree. ' The rescue of the mulatto girl was more difficult. She seemed to hare lost entirely the use of her limbs from terror, bub the roaring of the flames made me think quickly and knotting the hose about her I climbed up it again to the tree. Then Caucus tnd 1, using this hose as a rope, succeeded in swinging her off the verandah, and loworing her to the ground below. Unfortunately, the ho3e, which was rotten, broke ; and bhe girl's descent, for the lasb few feet, was very rapid. As we did thi3, a low moan or scream came from the street in front of the house, apparentty from a woman. The little baby, I could now see by the red glow of the fire, was white. The mulatto girl was probably its nurse. Holding the little infant tenderly , in my arms, I descended the tree carefully but rapidly, as the flames were making my perch rery warm and uncomfortable. As I did so, the child, which had been asleep, opened its arms and gave a little crow. Caucus haying gotten the girl on her feet, she recognised and spoke bo him, and the negro ran franbically oub to the street, before I had descended. A minute after he returned, his eyes rolling, his teeth abbering with excitement, crying : 4 Sah, dar's a lady in de street what would like to tank you for savin' her baby.' • Take the child to her,' replied I, and was about to hand it to him. • Then come with me. My wifs again demands every effort of mine.' ' But, sah, de lady 'sists on seem' you.' With this he ran along, clapped his hands and crowed, then came back to me and chuckled, ' Golly, don't em look like em daddy !' and jabbered and poked the infant under the chin until 1 thought he had gone crazy. Bub at this moment an old gentleman, whose face by the light of bhe burning buildings made me sbart, came rapidly up bo me, seized me by bhe hand and said, •Though you wear bhe uniform of the United States, let me thank you for what you have done for my family. My daughter here desires to thank and bless you for saving her child.' • Yes, and I bhank him, too;' cried a girlish voice that seemed familiar, * though he b a Yankee.' I gave a stare. Miss Belle was standing near me. The other lady, the mother of the child, was murmuring blessings on my head, extending her hands to take her baby from me, bub as she did so I gave a cry of startled joy. Her eye 3, bent down upon her infant to see that it was entirely cafe, at this were lifted to mine. , She gave a stifled shriek, ' Lawrence !' and fell fainting, bub I caught her to my heart as there thrilled through me a wave of ineffable , tenderness and supreme -joy, for something sang, in my brain that I had my wife and my ichild in my arms at the, same moment. As for the rest of , them, they stared like crazy people. The Judge faltered, ' Great ■Heavens 1' while JMifs Belle criedoub. ' Her husband !' and seemed .almost as much gvercome as b«r biefcer, though she did not

come to me and take my hand as she had been about to, when Laura recognised me. The Judge, after a moment, said suddenly: 'Lawrence, you came just in time. Get your wife and child away from here ; then I'll talk to you.' This we did, the Judge explaining to me the accident by which my little baby had been endangered. Driven away by the flames from the Pickens house, my wife, not having the strength to support tho child herself, had taken a mulatto girl to carry it. Tins girl, in the struggling crowd, had got lost, though Laura ran about the streets like a mad woman trying to find her. Being frightened, the girl had taken refuge from some drunken soldiers, had gone up in the second storey of the house, which was deserted by its owners, to be further away from the brutes, mad with whisky, who were following her. In her terror she had not discovered that the house was burning until too late to escape by the stairs. While the Judge was telling me this, Laura had partly regained her senses, and clung to me in thab nervous, appealing manner which shows a man that a wife knows her husband is by her side. had now got out of the immediate vicinity of the fire, and I told the Judge of having saved his home from the marauding cavalry. Obtaining a pass and escort from headquarters, and Caucus procuring an old waggon and pair of army mules, about twelve at night we all returned once more to the Oaks. During this time Miss Belle had not said one word to me, although she looked at me very often, and sometimes her glance seemed to me to be that of shame, which was very unusual in this young lady, as she was not accustomed to begging anyono's pardon under any circumstances. However, I was too busy to think of Belle. I had my child and my wife, who told me in a few hurried words that anxiety for my safety had made her 3ick. That her brother and father, after learning of her marriage, had always been kind to her, but that Miss Belle for six or seven months had never spoken to her, and had only become reconciled to her when her approaching motherhood had made her very feeble. ' But then, Lawrence, Belle became an angel !' murmured Laura, * and nursed me like the kind kister she had always been before. She will forgive you, Lawrence, in time. You saved the baby, and Belle adore 3 it, and that will make her tender to you some day.' The next morning I rode into division headquarters, and after telling the general my story, he laughed and said : ' After such a separation you had better remain with your wife.' 1 That is impossible,' I returned. 'In a day or two the army leaves here, and I have got to go with it to the front. ' ' ' Not at all,' he replied. *We must leave a garrison in this place, and I think I can get you detailed for that duty. You have been away from your wife for a long time, and you may as well' remain as somebody -who has no ties in Columbia. Besides, you are acquainted with the inhabitants here ; they knew you before the war, and General Sherman wishes to establish a good feeling between the troops in gairison and the people in the place. This tire has probably made them very bitter toward him, though we consider that it was not our doing, as the disaster began by the burning cotton, which was fired by the Confederate cavalry to prevent it from falling into our hands. As to the loss of the cotton, lam not at all sorry for it. It belouged to Amos Pierson, and the miserable turn-coao took the oath of allegiance the first man in Columbia.' Two days afterward the bulk of Sherman's army marched out toward North Carolina, to make the closing campaign of the war. News came back Irom it day by day of its further advance and further success. The loss of his cotton, however, made Mr Arnoa Pierson a very poor man. A few days afterward I had reason to know of this, because the old Judge called me into his study and asked my advice. He said : •Mr Bryant — or rather Lawrence — you are now one of my family : the only male member of it that I can speak to on this matter. My son is away in the Confederate army in North Carolina, and as for the girls, they have no head for business. Two years ago I was compelled to mortgage this place, for the necessities of my family, to Mr Amos Pierson for twentyfive thousand dollars. The note falls due to-morrow, and he demands payment of the same. 1 Twenty • five thousand dollars seemed to me a big sum for a moment, but when I reflected that it was in Confederate money, it almost dwindled to nothing when resolved into greenbacks. I looked over the note and found that it was a specific contract to pay twenty-fivo thousand dollars in the ' lawful money of the Confederate States of America,' and a ecured by a mortgage upon ' The Oaks.' At this 1 gave a laugh, and said : 'I will attend to this matter. It is not difficult to obtain twenty-five thousand dollars in Confederate money now. This fifty dollar United States bill, I think, will cover your mortgage. The Confederate Strtes are still a government de facto, and this is a specific contract. If you will come with me, we will make the tender in due form.' The next day, accompanied by Caucus, who wheeled twenty- five thousand dollars in Confederate shinplasters alongside of ua in a wheelbarrow, we went into Columbia, and going into Mr Pierson's office, for the second time in my life, I saw the gentleman who had given me a great deal of trouble. He was looking very miserable, for the war had dealt very hardly with him, and the loss of his cotton seemed to be almost the finishing blow. He smiled, however, upon our entrance, and was quite pleased to receive tho money that Judge Peyton owed him. But on my tendering it to him in Confederate currency, he literally gave a shriek, and demanded bills of the United States of America as being the only legal , tender then due. Upon my explaining to him ths specific nature of the contract, and making, tender for same, and calling in several - citizens and a notary public to witness thus. s.am.a tender, and sealing the' Confederate shinplasters up in his presence, having counted them, he became abusive. ' Ypu* exconvict!' he cried, 'didn't I' put you on 1 Morris Island in a striped dress ? I'll put you in a striped dress again — a very .different uniform from the fancy bluo-you^now wear ! — the accursed uniform that' 'has ruined me !' At this, Morris Island and all my wrongs at his hands rose up in me. I forgot myself, and after hammering Mr Pierson in a way that made Caucus cheer with joy, I kicked him out of his own office, and never felt happier in my life than at the day's work I had done. • This tender of Confederate money of course brought on litigation that has not been ended to this da> — the Judge holding on to his homestead. Mr Piereon still has twenty-five thousand dollars in Confederate money sealed up awaiting his order. During these few weeks Miss Belle never spoke to me. Sometimes as I passed her she wcx 'd give a .ittle shudder and shrink

away, nofc with .horror > or loathing, but rather it seemed to me with shame. I had questioned my wife with regard to the numerous letters and dratt I sent her. To my astonishment she said : ' I never received a line from you, Lawrence, but have written you many, many times. This has had as much to do with my illness as anything els.c— my anxiety for you, and my fear that you might be dead, for I felt sure you would write me if you were alive.' I explained to her the varioue methods I had taken to communicate with her, and [ she seemed very much astounded. 1 Surely,' she cried, • some one of them must have reached me. ■ Some letter from me should certainly havo found you. And the, draft ! What can have become of that ?' I inquired at the bank in Columbia upon which I had received the exchange, and found that though they had advices of same, no such draft had yet been presented. I held several conversations with my wife with regard to this, but we were never i able to fathom it. 1 spoke to the Judge, — he knew nothing about it. 1 I'll speak to Belle about it. She's had full charge of the household while I have been sick,' said Laura. But I remarked, ' Better let the matter drop.' Whether it was something in my manner gave my wife a suspicion I know not ; but she burst out at me : ' You don't think my sister would do such a thing ? You don't think my sister would be mean enough to withhold a husband's letters from his wife, or a wife's from her husband V 1 No,' I said, ' I don't. I don't care what has happened to the letters, Laura, sinco I have you and our child now, and that is enough for me !' Whether Belle overheard theconversation or not I do not know, but I wna fibbing out in the grounds the next morning when that young lady came to me. Her face was very red and her hands trembled. I said, 'Good-morning, Belle,' as 1 always addressed her though she had never yet spoken to me. Then she cried out : ' How can you treat me so well when I used to hate you so ?' • Used to V I said. ' Yes,' she replied. 'But I have forgiven you since you saved the baby — my dear little nephew. 1 4 Oh,' I laughed', ' Belle, I don't think you ever hated me very much.' ' Didn't I?' she cried. ' Look at these ! These will tell you how I hated you, and how much I am ashamed of myself.' Then the girl burst out sobbing as she dropped a packet of letters into my hand. They were those from my wife to me and those I had written to her, all of them unopened. 'Now,' she muttered, 'I want to speak you if you can ever forgive me. I want to ask one favour, whether you forgive me or not. In my hate for you and my rage at my sister having married one of our enemies, I have done something that will make my sister despise me ; perhaps also my father and brother. They are noble ; they do not sneak about and steal letters as I did, and watch for them. Now I want to keep my sister's love. If you tell her, lam afraid I will lose it. You are a Northern man, and your side has conquered. You have everything — have pity also. Leave me my sister's love.' And she commenced to sob more bitterly than ever. • Miss Belle,' I said, ' why don't you ask for a brother's love V ' Your love ?' she gasped. ' Yes, 1 I said, and put my hand upon hers, but as I did so she caught sight of my blue uniform, and cried, 1 Not yet !' Then after a pause the girl continued : ' You have been very noble to me, and perhaps it will come in time. It the North is as noble and magnanimous as you are to me, perhaps the North and South may yet be brother and sister,' and ran away from me. But every day after this she became more friendly, and when her brother came home after Johnston's surrender, even his empty sleeve did not make hor take her hand off my shoulder as we all, from the piazza, watched him ride up the avenue of oaks to be clasped in his father's arms. Soon after this my gallant friend Bee, who had done so much to bring Laura and me together, on his way to Georgia from Lee's surrendered army stopped to spend a few days with us. He was going back to a ruined plantation, a deserted homo and a wrecked fortune, but he was the same gallant debomiaire Georgian aa over, and he laughed and said, as he bade us good-bye : ' Perhaps when I get a home and something to eat in Georgia, I may come back to see you again. I presume by that time I will need a wife.' Here he looked at Miss Belle, who blushed very deeply and went silently into the house. So we began our life ovor again. There were p'enty of railroads to rebuild in the South, and the value of my farm in Illinois made me quite rich at that time and in that region of country. And while doing so the stragglers from the Confederate army gradually dropped nto their old places one by one — those that were left of them. Then one clay my wife said to me as we sat on the old porch of ' The Oaks,' the Judge smoking a Havana cigar now, instead of his old corncob, and Caucus at the other end of the verandah chuckling to our little boy, who was crowing at him in the arm 3 of Miss Belle, ' Most of our soldiers are home now, but Major Harry Walton has never returned, and I have not heard of him for nearly a year. Can he be ctae of the dead ?' On this, I told my wife the story of her letter ; how it had s<*ved my life ; how Walton had loved her too much to make her a widow, and had died fighting for the cauee he loved and believed in, as so many more Southern gentlemen did in those four years of war. And as my words disclosed to Laura the unselfish love of the dead Confederate for her, and what it had dono for mo, she clung to me and murmured : * Lawrence, wo have not christened our boy yet. Let us call him by the name of the man who gave his father life while he found death. Let us call him, Harry Walton Bryant.' , . THE E^JD. '