Kathie's Soldiers Part 26

Afterward Mr. Conover went down to the cottage. Freddy brought his solitaire-board to Kathie.

"I've forgotten how it is done," he said, "and I want you to show me.

Let me take them out, and you just tell me when I go wrong."

It really seemed that Fred had a marvellous faculty for going wrong.

Kathie felt very much as if she did not care to be bothered. She was restless and nervous, and wanted to curl herself up on Aunt Ruth's lounge and think a little.

"Greater love hath no man--" the words kept running through her mind.

But the love began in little things, even the love which suffered at last upon the cross. So she roused herself to patience and interest.

Uncle Robert looked quite grave when he returned. The Morrisons had heard the tidings, and were very anxious.

"I must write to Mr. Morrison's captain to-morrow," he said. "We must make every effort to find him. He may have been wounded and carried off of the field unnoticed."

Kathie prayed fervently for Mr. Morrison's safety. Uncle Robert made immediate inquiries, and they waited in half fear, half hope. In the mean while events in Virginia had the stirring ring of near victories.

All was breathless excitement throughout the land. Sorties, surprises, battles, Sherman coming up from his march to the sea, Sheridan brave and das.h.i.+ng as ever, and Grant going slowly with his men, like some ponderous machine that was to crush at last.

And then the telegraph flashed the news far and wide: "Lee has surrendered!" "Richmond has been taken!"

It seemed so odd to Kathie to be going on in her quiet, uneventful fas.h.i.+on. School lessons, music practices, home duties,--nothing grand or heroic. Mrs. Wilder's lecture to the girls had been productive of a little good, beside breaking the foolish cabal; for in it she had touched upon dress and parties, and tried to set before them the urgency of paying some attention to their studies. So there were fewer bows, a plainer arrangement of hair, and less talk of fas.h.i.+on.

"I think it was mean to crowd Kathie Alston out," declared Sue Coleman.

"Mamma says the Alstons are people one might be proud of anywhere; and they are extremely well connected. She met them one evening at Mrs.

Adams's, and that elegant Mr. Langdon thinks Mr. Conover about perfect.

Mamma is so sorry that we did not have her in the tableaux. Every one noticed it. That was your fault, Belle!"

"Of course you are all quite at liberty to choose your own friends,"

Belle answered, loftily; "I'm sure you agreed to it. You did not want Mary Carson and all that rabble."

"Mary and Kathie are not friends in our acceptation of the term. She is polite to Mary, and I am not sure but that a ladylike courtesy is more effectual in keeping people at a distance than absolute rudeness. I believe Kathie and Emma Lauriston are the only two girls in the school who have not indulged in rudeness in some form or other."

"If she is not hand and glove with Mary Carson, she has another friend who is no better, whom she visits and sends pictures to, and I don't know what all. It's a second or third cousin of our cook. Of course these Strongs are rich; so it is not the breeding as much as the money.

But, as I said, you can all do as you like. It seems to me that half of the town has gone crazy on the subject of Kathie Alston."

Emma was a little troubled with these talks about Sarah Strong. She had a certain delicacy which held her aloof from any such a.s.sociations.

"Kathie," she said at length, "I wish you would tell me how you came to take a fancy to those people who were at--the Fair, I believe."

Kathie colored a little. "I don't know as you would understand it," she answered, slowly.

"I am beginning to comprehend some things," her eyes drooping a little, and glancing past Kathie.

"I noticed them at the Fair--because--something was said to hurt their feelings--"

"O, I know! Lottie Thorne came over to our table and made fun of the woman. But--do you not think--such people always take advantage of a little notice?--and then it leads to mortifying embarra.s.sments."

"Maybe that is just one of the things G.o.d puts in the daily warfare to make us good soldiers. It is like being a private in the army. Sometimes people sneer at the hard, rough work the soldiers have to do, and yet it often helps the officers to gain the victory."

"And the officers have the credit. That looks rather unjust, doesn't it?"

"It would seem hard if G.o.d did not remember it all."

"But how did you come to visit the Strongs?"

Kathie told the whole story. "I cannot explain these things to you just as Uncle Robert does," she went on, with a rather perplexed smile.

"Always when I am in any doubt or trouble I go to him. He thinks when people are anxious for mental or social improvement a helping hand does them so much good. Persons in their own station cannot give it, as a general thing. And the Saviour said, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these--'"

"Yes, I see. But it is harder to do your good in that way, Kathie."

"Digging in the trenches"; and Kathie smiled.

"Ah, you have gone out as a private in the ranks; and I am afraid, after all, that very few of us like to be privates," Emma returned. "But it certainly did show a good deal of delicate feeling and remembrance when Sarah Strong sent you the lichen."

"I thought so. And our visit was very pleasant."

"Only, if she had not spoken to you that day in the street, it would have saved you a good deal of pain and trouble," returned Emma.

"Maybe it was just what I needed. Life is so pleasant and lovely to me that I might forget who gives it all if every once in a while something did not bring me back to Him. And it is so good, when others misunderstand and blame, to know that G.o.d sees all, and never makes a mistake in his judgment."

Emma was silent. It was the keeping near to Him that rendered Kathie meek, patient, and full of love. And it seemed to Emma as if she strayed continually.

Was it because Kathie always had some good work in hand?

But amid all the rejoicing, and the certainty that Mr. Meredith would recover, the other shadow seemed to be growing deeper. Three weeks, and not a word of Mr. Morrison yet. His captain remembered the man, and could only account for the disappearance by supposing that he had been buried among the rebel dead. Twice since the battle they had exchanged prisoners, and he had not been returned among the well or wounded; and now every one was flocking to the Union lines.

"Mr. Darrell went to Was.h.i.+ngton to-day," Uncle Robert announced to Kathie. "He is to bring Jessie and Mr. Meredith home."

"Here,--to Brookside?"

"Yes," with a smile. "He needs the quiet and the country air, and I fancy there are two or three people here whom he is longing to see."

Kathie's heart beat with a great bound.

By and by she found herself rambling slowly toward the cottage. Hugh was busy with some spring preparations, pruning trees and vines. He nodded to her, but did not seem inclined to stop and talk, and Jamie caught hold of her dress, begging her to come in.

Grandmother took off her spectacles and wiped them; she often did this now, for her eyes grew dim many times a day.

"So you have had good news," she said, after the first greeting. "I am glad there is a little joy saved out of the great wreck. Such a handsome young man as Mr. Meredith was too; but there's many a bonny lad sleeping under the sod, who was fair enough to his mother."

Kathie slipped her hand within the one so wrinkled and trembling.

"It is such a sorrow to us all," she said, in her soft, comforting tone.

"I keep thinking of it day and night. It was so n.o.ble in him to go--to suffer--"

"It is the one thing, Miss Kathie, that gives me a little resignation. I shall always feel thankful that he went in your dear uncle's stead, not for the money merely. And if it has saved him--if it has kept you all together; but this is too sad a talk for you, dear child."

The tears were dropping from Kathie's long bronze lashes.

"Dear grandmother, there has not been a morning nor night but that I have remembered him and his generous deed. I know his life was as precious to you as Uncle Robert's was to us, and now poor little Ethel is an orphan--for my sake. How strange that the whole world keeps doing for one another, and that, after all, no one really stands alone in it!"