“Why, Nell,” he said, “you are taking this thing of being a soldier’s wife too seriously.”
It was delightful to be in my old home once more. Friends and kindred crowded around me, the river and bay and ocean sang my old cradle-songs to me again, and, above all, Dan was near and came in from camp as often as he could. Then he was ordered away to Suffolk, which is twenty miles from Norfolk, and there, of course, he could not ride in to see me. But that was not so bad as it might have been. I could hear from him regularly, he had not yet been in any actual engagement, my fears were subsiding, or I was getting accustomed to them. I had, of course, telegraphed to Petersburg for my baggage and had made myself as comfortable as possible. An old uncle had taken it into his head to become quite fond of me, and altogether I was very far from unhappy. This uncle was eccentric and had eccentric ways of comforting me when I had the blues.
“Why, Nellie, my dear,” he used to say, “you ought to be playing dolls, and here you are a wife, and if Dan gets killed you will be a widow.”
On the heels of which cheerful observation this despatch came from Suffolk:
“Come by next train. Dan slightly hurt.
When I got to Suffolk four of the company met me.
“Don’t be alarmed, Miss Nell,” said the great fellows, sympathy and desire to cheer me blending in their eyes. “Dan will pull through all right.”
Then Jack Carrington took me aside and explained as gently and tenderly as if he had been my brother:
“It happened yesterday, Miss Nell, but we wouldn’t let you know because there was no way for you to get here then. We thought it wouldn’t be so hard on you if we waited and sent the telegram just before train time. Your uncle got one before you did, but we told him not to tell you till just before train time, and he wired us back to tell you ourselves, that he couldn’t tell you. Dan is getting all right now – he’ll soon get well, Miss Nell, indeed he will. But the doctor said I must warn you – Miss Nell, you must be brave, you see – or I can’t tell you at all. The doctor said I mustn’t let you go in there unless you were perfectly calm. The wound is nothing at all, Miss Nell.”
Poor Jack was almost as unnerved as I was. He mopped my face with a wet handkerchief, and made somebody bring me some brandy.
But the words ringing in my head, “A soldier’s wife,” pulled me together more than the brandy, and I made Jack go on.
“It’s nothing but his arm. We were out on vidette duty yesterday and we got shot into. You see, Miss Nell, you must be brave or I can’t tell you!”
I pulled myself together again and insisted that I was brave.
“You don’t look like it, Miss Nell. I declare you don’t.”
“But I am. See now.”
Jack didn’t seem to see, but he went on, looking scared himself all the time.
“The real trouble was Dare Devil. You see, after Dan’s arm got hurt – I wish it had been me or George who had caught that shot, but, hang the luck! it was Dan. You know Dare Devil’s old trick – catching the bit in his teeth. Well, he did that and ran away. Dan held on with his good arm until that d – d horse (excuse me, Miss Nell!) wheeled suddenly and dashed into the woods. The limbs of the trees dragged Dan out of his saddle, and his foot caught in the stirrup and Dare Devil dragged him (take some brandy, Miss Nell) until the strap broke. We picked Dan up insensible; he was delirious all night, and we thought for a time that he was done for, but, thank God! he’s all right now. I hate to tell you, Miss Nell, but – you’ll see how his head is – and the doctor said we mustn’t let you go in if you couldn’t be calm.”
“I understand,” I said, “I will be very careful – ”
And to prove how careful I could be, I broke down crying.
They didn’t know what to do with me, poor fellows. They begged me not to cry, and then they said crying would do me good, and I had four pairs of broad shoulders to cry on. They were all as gentle and pitiful with me as a mother is with a baby. One of them got out his nice fresh handkerchief and wiped my eyes with it. I had come off the second time without a change of handkerchiefs, and this time without even a tooth-brush. When I had cried my trouble out and was quite calm, I told them I was ready to go to my husband. They took me to the door and I went in quietly, and seeing that he was awake, bent over him.
“I am here, Dan,” I said smiling.
He tried to smile back.
“Take my head in your hands, Nell,” he whispered, “and turn it so I can kiss you.”
I laid my hands softly and firmly on each side of his head and turned it on the pillow. As I did so, a quantity of sand fell away.
I don’t know whether his head had been properly dressed or not, but I know that for a number of days the sand fell away from it whenever I took it into my hands to turn it.
“After I fell,” he told me, when he was allowed to talk, “my head was in the dirt, of course, and it was beat first against one tree and then against another. When I felt my senses leaving me, I clasped my arms tight around my head. I don’t know how I managed it, but I got hold of my crippled arm with my good one, and when I was picked up my arms were locked in some way about my head. That is all that saved me.”
I took the law into my own hands. Before Dan got well Dare Devil had been shot.
CHAPTER IV
THE REALITIES OF WAR
When Dan recovered I returned to Norfolk, and there I stayed for some time, getting letters from him, taking care of uncle and developing a genius for housekeeping. One day I was out shopping when I saw everybody running toward the quay. I turned and went with the crowd. We saw the Merrimac swing out of the harbor – or did she crawl? A curious looking craft she was, that first of our ironclads, ugly and ominous.
She had not been gone many hours when the sound of guns came over the water followed by silence, terrible silence, that lasted until after the lamps were lit. Suddenly there was tumultuous cheering from the quay. The Merrimac had come home after destroying the Cumberland and the Congress.
“Well for the Congress!” we said. Her commander had eaten and drunk of Norfolk’s hospitality, and then had turned his guns upon her – upon a city full of his friends. Bravely done, O Merrimac! But that night I cried myself to sleep. Under the sullen waters of Hampton Roads slept brave men and true, to whom Stars and Stripes and Southern Cross alike meant nothing now. The commander of the Congress was among the dead, and he had been my friend – I had danced with him in my father’s house. Next day, the Monitor met the Merrimac and turned the tide of victory against us. Her commander was John L. Worden, who had been our guest beloved.
During all this time I had been separated from my husband. He had been detailed to make a survey of Pig Point and the surrounding country, and it was not until he reached Smithfield that he sent for me. We were beginning now to realize that war was upon us in earnest. There was the retreat from Yorktown; Norfolk was evacuated. Troops were moving. Everything was bustle and confusion. My husband went off with his command, the order for departure so sudden that he had not time to plan for me.
As Northern troops began to occupy the country, fearing that I would be left in the enemy’s lines and so cut off from getting to him, I took the matter into my own hands and went in a covered wagon to Zuni, twenty miles distant, where I had heard that his command was encamped for a few days. After a rough ride I got there only to find that my husband had started off to Smithfield for me. We had passed each other on the road, each in a covered wagon. There was nothing to do except to wait his return that night.
As