Chloe slid to her knees, and taking the soft white hand in both of hers, covered it with kisses and tears, while her whole frame shook with her bitter weeping.
"Mammy, dear mammy, what is it?" Elsie asked in real alarm, quite forgetting for the moment the news of the morning, which indeed she could never have expected to cause such distress.
"Dis chile don't want no freedom," sobbed the poor old creature at length, "she lubs to b'long to her darlin' young missis: Uncle Joe he sing an' jump an' praise de Lord, 'cause freedom come, but your ole mammy don't want no freedom; she can't go for to leave you, Miss Elsie, her bressed darlin' chile dat she been done take care ob ever since she born."
"Mammy dear, you shall never leave me except of your own free will," Elsie answered, in tender soothing tones. "Come, get up, and don't cry any more. Why, it would come as near breaking my heart as yours, if we had to part. What could I or my babies ever do without our old mammy to look after our comfort!"
"Bress your heart, honey, you'se allus good an' kind to your ole mammy," Chloe said, checking her sobs and wiping away her tears, as she slowly rose to her feet; "de Lord bress you an' keep you. Now let your mammy gib you one good hug, like when you little chile."
"And many times since," said Elsie, smiling sweetly into the tear-swollen eyes of her faithful old nurse, and not only submitting to, but returning the embrace.
Chapter Twenty-Sixth
"And faint not, heart of man! though years wane slow!
There have been those that from the deepest caves,
And cells of night and fastnesses below
The stormy dashing of the ocean waves,
Down, farther down than gold lies hid, have nurs'd
A quenchless hope, and watch'd their time and burst
On the bright day like wakeners from the grave."
—MRS. HEMANS
Noon of a sultry July day, 1864; the scorching sun looks down upon a pine forest; in its midst a cleared space some thirty acres in extent, surrounded by a log stockade ten feet high, the timbers set three feet deep into the ground; a star fort, with one gun at each corner of the square enclosure; on top of the stockade sentinel boxes placed twenty feet apart, reached by steps from the outside; in each of these a vigilant guard with loaded musket, constantly on the watch for the slightest pretext for shooting down some one or more of the prisoners, of whom there are from twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand.
All along the inner side of the wall, six feet from it, stretches a dead line; and any poor fellow thoughtlessly or accidentally laying a hand upon it, or allowing any part of his body to reach under or over it, will be instantly shot.
A green, slimy, sluggish stream, bringing with it all the filth of the sewers of Andersonville, a village three miles distant, flows directly across the enclosure from east to west. Formerly, the only water fit to drink came from a spring beyond the eastern wall, which flowing under it, into the enclosure, emptied itself into the other stream, a few feet within the dead line.
It did not suffice to satisfy the thirst of the thousands who must drink or die, and the little corner where its waters could be reached was always crowded, men pressing upon each other till often one or another would be pushed against the dead line, shot by the guard, and the body left lying till the next morning; even if it had fallen into the water beyond the line, polluting the scant supply left for the living. But the cry of these perishing ones had gone up into the ears of the merciful Father of us all, and of late a spring of clear water bubbles up in their midst.
But powder and shot, famine, exposure (for the prisoners have no shelter, except as they burrow in the earth), and malaria from that sluggish, filthy stream, and the marshy ground on either side of it, are doing a fearful work: every morning a wagon drawn by four mules is driven in, and the corpses—scattered here and there to the number of from eighty-five to a hundred—gathered up, tossed into it like sticks of wood, taken away and thrown promiscuously into a hole dug for the purpose, and earth shoveled over them.
There are corpses lying about now; there are men, slowly breathing out their last of life, with no dying bed, no pillow save the hard ground, no mother, wife, sister, daughter near, to weep over, or to comfort them as they enter the dark valley.
Others there are, wasted and worn till scarce more than living skeletons, creeping about on hands and feet, lying or sitting in every attitude of despair and suffering; a dull, hopeless misery in their sunken eyes, a pathetic patience fit to touch a heart of stone; while others still have grown frantic with that terrible pain, the hunger gnawing at their very vitals, and go staggering about, wildly raving in their helpless agony.
And on them all the scorching sun beats pitilessly down. Hard, cruel fate! scorched with heat, with the cool shelter of the pine forests on every side; perishing with hunger in a land of plenty.
In one corner, but a yard or so within the dead line, a group of officers in the Federal uniform—evidently men of culture and refinement, spite of their hatless and shoeless condition, ragged, soiled raiment, unkempt hair, and unshaven faces—sit on the ground, like their comrades in misfortune, sweltering in the sun.
"When will this end?" sighs one. "I'd sooner die a hundred deaths on the battle-field."
"Ah, who wouldn't?" exclaims another; "to starve, roast, and freeze by turns for one's country, requires more patriotism by far than to march up to the cannon's mouth, or charge up hill under a galling fire of musketry."
"True indeed, Jones," returns a fair-haired, blue-eyed young man, with face so gaunt and haggard with famine that his own mother would scarcely have recognized him, and distinguished from the rest by a ball and chain attached to wrist and ankle; "and yet we bear it for her sake and for Freedom's. Who of us regrets that we did not stay at home in inglorious ease, and leave our grand old ship of state to founder and go to pieces amid the rocks of secession?"
"None of us, Allison! No, no! the Union forever!" returned several voices in chorus.
"Hark!"—as the sharp crack of a rifle was heard, and a prisoner who, half crazed with suffering, had, in staggering about, approached too near the fatal line and laid a hand upon it, fell dead—"another patriot soul has gone to its account, and another rebel earned a thirty days' furlough."
The dark eyes of the speaker flashed with indignation.
"Poor fellows, they don't know that it is to preserve their liberties we fight, starve, and die; to save them from the despotism their ambitious and unscrupulous leaders desire to establish over them," remarked Harold Allison; "how grossly the masses of the Southern people have been deceived by a few hot-headed politicians, bent upon obtaining power for themselves at whatever cost."
"True," returned the other, drily; "but it's just a little difficult to keep these things in mind under present circumstances. By the way, Allison, have you a sister who married a Mr. Horace Dinsmore?"
"Yes, do you know Rose?" asked Harold, in some surprise.
"I was once a guest at the Oaks for a fortnight or so, at the time of the marriage of Miss Elsie, Mr. Dinsmore's daughter, to a Mr. Travilla."
Harold's face grew a shade paler, but his tones were calm and quiet. "Indeed! and may I ask your name?"
"Harry Duncan, at your service," returned the other, with a bow and smile. "I met your three brothers there, also your sisters, Mrs. Carrington and Miss May Allison."
The color deepened slightly on Harry's cheek as he pronounced the last name. The pretty face, graceful form, charming manners, and sprightly conversation of the young lady were still fresh in his memory. Having enjoyed the hospitalities of Andersonville for but a few days, he was in better condition, as to health and clothing, than the