Painted Windows | Page 6

homes.
Then, rising above this, came stories of devotion, of brotherhood, of
service on the long, desolate marches, of cour- age to the death of those
who fought for a cause. I began to see wherein lay the highest joy of
the soldier, and of how little account he held himself, if the principle
for which he fought could be preserved. I heard for the first time the
wonderful words of Lin- coln at Gettysburg, and learned to re- peat a

part of them.
I was only eight, it is true, but emo- tion has no age, and I understood
then as well as I ever could, what heroism and devotion and
self-forgetfulness mean. I understood, too, the meaning of the words
"our country," and my heart warmed to it, as in the older times the
hearts of boys and girls warmed to the name of their king. The new
knowledge was so beautiful that I thought then, and I think now, that
nothing could have served as so fit an accompaniment to it as the
shouting of those pines. They sang like heroes, and in their swaying
gave me fleeting glimpses of the stars, unbelievably brilliant in the
dusky purple sky, and half-obscured now and then by drifting clouds.
By and by we lay down, not far apart, each rolled in an army blanket,
frayed with service. Our feet were to the fire -- for it was so that
soldiers lay, my fa- ther said -- and our heads rested on mounds of
pine-needles.
Sometimes in the night I felt my fa- ther's hand resting lightly on my
shoul- ders to see that I was covered, but in my dreams he ceased to be
my father and became my comrade, and I was a drummer boy, -- I had
seen the play, "The Drummer Boy of the Rappahan- nock," -- marching
forward, with set teeth, in the face of battle.
Whatever could redeem war and make it glorious seemed to flood my
soul. All that was highest, all that was noble in that dreadful conflict
came to me in my sleep -- to me, the child who had been born when my
father was at "the front." I had a strange baptism of the spirit. I
discovered sorrow and courage, singing trees and stars. I was never
again to think that the fireside and fireside thoughts made up the whole
of life.
My father lies with other soldiers by the Pacific; the forest sings no
more; the old army blankets have disap- peared; the memories of the
terrible war are fading, -- happily fading, -- but they all live again,
sometimes, in my memory, and I am once more a child, with thoughts
as proud and fierce and beautiful as Valkyries.

II
SOLITUDE
AMONG the pictures that I see when I look back into the past, is the
one where I, a sullen, egotistic per- son nine years old, stood quite
alone in the world. To he sure, there were fa- ther and mother in the
house, and there were the other children, and not one among them
knew I was alone. The world certainly would not have re- garded me as
friendless or orphaned. There was nothing in my mere appear- ance, as
I started away to school in my clean ginghams, with my well-brushed
hair, and embroidered school-bag, to lead any one to suppose that I was
a castaway. Yet I was -- I had discovered this fact, hidden though it
might be from others.
I was no longer loved. Father and mother loved the other children; but
not me. I might come home at night, fairly bursting with important
news about what had happened in class or among my friends, and try to
relate my little histories. But did mother listen? Not at all. She would
nod like a mandarin while I talked, or go on turning the leaves of her
book, or writing her letter. What I said was of no importance to her.
Father was even less interested. He frankly told me to keep still, and
went on with the accounts in which he was so absurdly interested, or
examined "papers" -- stupid-looking things done on legal cap, which he
brought home with him from the office. No one kissed me when I
started away in the morn- ing; no one kissed me when I came home at
night. I went to bed unkissed. I felt myself to be a lonely and misunder-
stood child -- perhaps even an adopted one.
Why, I knew a little girl who, when she went up to her room at night,
found the bedclothes turned back, and the shade drawn, and a screen
placed so as to keep off drafts. And her mother brushed her hair twenty
minutes by the