At the first soft note from the singer the games ceased, and the reader put down his book.
The banjo had come to Washington with the negroes following the wake of the army. She had laid aside her guitar and learned to play all the stirring camp songs of the South. Her voice was low, soothing, and tender. It held every silent listener in a spell.
As she played and sang the songs the wounded man loved, her eyes lingered in pity on his sun-bronzed face, pinched and drawn with fever. He was sleeping the stupid sleep that gives no rest. She could count the irregular pounding of his heart in the throb of the big vein on his neck. His lips were dry and burnt, and the little boyish moustache curled upward from the row of white teeth as if scorched by the fiery breath.
He began to talk in flighty sentences, and she listened—his mother—his sister—and yes, she was sure as she bent nearer—a little sweetheart who lived next door. They all had sweethearts—these Southern boys. Again he was teasing his dog—and then back in battle.
At length he opened his eyes, great dark-brown eyes, unnaturally bright, with a strange yearning look in their depths as they rested on Elsie. He tried to smile and feebly said:
“Here’s—a—fly—on—my—left—ear—my—guns—can’t—somehow—reach—him—won’t—you—”
She sprang forward and brushed the fly away.
Again he opened his eyes.
“Excuse—me—for—asking—but am I alive?”
“Yes, indeed,” was the cheerful answer.
“Well, now, then, is this me, or is it not me, or has a cannon shot me, or has the devil got me?”
“It’s you. The cannon didn’t shoot you, but three muskets did. The devil hasn’t got you yet, but he will unless you’re good.”
“I’ll be good if you won’t leave me——”
Elsie turned her head away smiling, and he went on slowly:
“But I’m dead, I know. I’m sleeping on a cot with a canopy over it. I ain’t hungry any more, and an angel has been hovering over me playing on a harp of gold——”
“Only a little Yankee girl playing the banjo.”
“Can’t fool me—I’m in heaven.”
“You’re in the hospital.”
“Funny hospital—look at that harp and that big trumpet hanging close by it—that’s Gabriel’s trumpet——”
“No,” she laughed. “This is the Patent Office building, that covers two blocks, now a temporary hospital. There are seventy thousand wounded soldiers in town, and more coming on every train. The thirty-five hospitals are overcrowded.”
He closed his eyes a moment in silence, and then spoke with a feeble tremor:
“I’m afraid you don’t know who I am—I can’t impose on you—I’m a rebel——”
“Yes, I know. You are Colonel Ben Cameron. It makes no difference to me now which side you fought on.”
“Well, I’m in heaven—been dead a long time. I can prove it, if you’ll play again.”
“What shall I play?”
“First, ‘O Jonny Booker Help dis Nigger.’ ”
She played and sang it beautifully.
“Now, ‘Wake Up in the Morning.’ ”
Again he listened with wide, staring eyes that saw nothing except visions within.
“Now, then, ‘The Ole Gray Hoss.’ ”
As the last notes died away he tried to smile again:
“One more—‘Hard Times an’ Wuss er Comin‘.’ ”
With deft, sure touch and soft negro dialect she sang it through.
“Now, didn’t I tell you that you couldn’t fool me? No Yankee girl could play and sing these songs, I’m in heaven, and you’re an angel.”
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself to flirt with me, with one foot in the grave?”
“That’s the time to get on good terms with the angels—but I’m done dead——”
Elsie laughed in spite of herself.
“I know it,” he went on, “because you have shining golden hair and amber eyes instead of blue ones. I never saw a girl in my life before with such eyes and hair.”
“But you’re young yet.”
“Never—was—such—a—girl—on—earth—you’re—an——”
She lifted her finger in warning, and his eyelids drooped In exhausted stupor.
“You musn’t talk any more,” she whispered, shaking her head.
A commotion at the door caused Elsie to turn from the cot. A sweet motherly woman of fifty, in an old faded black dress, was pleading with the guard to be allowed to pass.
“Can’t do it, m’um. It’s agin the rules.”
“But I must go in. I’ve tramped for four days through a wilderness of hospitals, and I know he must be here.”
“Special orders, m’um—wounded rebels in here that belong in prison.”
“Very well, young man,” said the pleading voice. “My baby boy’s in this place, wounded and about to die. I’m going in there. You can shoot me if you like, or you can turn your head the other way.”
She stepped quickly past the soldier, who merely stared with dim eyes out the door and saw nothing.
She stood for a moment with a look of helpless bewilderment. The vast area of the second story of the great monolithic pile was crowded with rows of sick, wounded, and dying men—a strange, solemn, and curious sight. Against the walls were ponderous glass cases, filled with models of every kind of invention the genius of man had dreamed. Between these cases were deep lateral openings, eight feet wide, crowded with the sick, and long rows of them were stretched through the centre of the hall. A gallery ran around above the cases, and this was filled with cots. The clatter of the feet of passing surgeons and nurses over the marble floor added to the weird impression.
Elsie saw the look of helpless appeal in the mother’s face and hurried forward to meet her:
“Is this Mrs. Cameron, of South Carolina?”
The trembling figure in black grasped her hand eagerly:
“Yes, yes, my dear, and I’m looking for my boy, who is wounded unto death. Can you help me?”
“I thought I recognized you from a miniature I’ve seen,” she answered softly. “I’ll lead you direct to his cot.”
“Thank you, thank you!” came the low reply.
In a moment she was beside him, and Elsie walked away to the open window through which came the chirp of sparrows from the lilac bushes in full bloom below.
The mother threw one look of infinite tenderness on the drawn face, and her hands suddenly clasped in prayer:
“I thank Thee, Lord Jesus, for this hour! Thou hast heard the cry of my soul and led my feet!” She gently knelt, kissed the hot lips, smoothed the dark tangled hair back from his forehead, and her hand rested over his eyes.
A faint flush tinged his face.
“It’s you, Mamma—I—know—you—that’s—your—hand—or—else—it’s—God’s!”
She