Chapter 1
Mrs. Wesley frequently embarrasses me by remarking in the presence ofother persons--our intimate friends, of course--"Wesley, you are notbrilliant, but you are good."
From Mrs. Wesley's outlook, which is that of a very high ideal, there isnothing uncomplimentary in the remark, nothing so intended, but I mustconfess that I have sometimes felt as if I were paying a rather largeprice for character. Yet when I reflect on my cousin the colonel, and myown action in the matter, I am ready with gratitude to accept Mrs.Wesley's estimate of me, for if I am not good, I am not anything.Perhaps it is an instance of my lack of brilliancy that I am willing torelate certain facts which strongly tend to substantiate this. Mypurpose, however, is not to prove either my goodness or my dulness, butto leave some record, even if slight and imperfect, of my only relative.When a family is reduced like ours to a single relative, it is well tomake the most of him. One should celebrate him annually, as it were.
One morning in the latter part of May, a few weeks after the close ofthe war of the rebellion, as I was hurrying down Sixth Avenue in pursuitof a heedless horse-car, I ran against a young person whose shabbinessof aspect was all that impressed itself upon me in the instant ofcollision. At a second glance I saw that this person was clad in theuniform of a Confederate soldier--an officer's uniform originally, forthere were signs that certain insignia of rank had been removed from thecuffs and collar of the threadbare coat. He wore a wide-brimmed felt hatof a military fashion, decorated with a tarnished gilt cord, the twoends of which, terminating in acorns, hung down over his nose. Hisbutternut trousers were tucked into the tops of a pair of high cavalryboots, of such primitive workmanship as to suggest the possibility thatthe wearer had made them himself. In fact, his whole appearance had animpromptu air about it. The young man eyed me gloomily for half aminute; then a light came into his countenance.
"Wesley--Tom Wesley!" he exclaimed. "Dear old boy!"
To be sure I was Thomas Wesley, and, under conceivable circumstances,dear old boy; but who on earth was he?
"You don't know me?" he said, laying a hand on each of my shoulders, andleaning back as he contemplated me with a large smile in anticipatoryenjoyment of my surprise and pleasure when I should come to know him. "Iam George W. Flagg, and long may I wave!"
My cousin Flagg! It was no wonder that I did not recognize him.
When the Flagg family, consisting of father and son, removed to theSouth, George was ten years old and I was thirteen. It was twenty yearssince he and I had passed a few weeks together on grandfather Wesley'sfarm in New Jersey. Our intimacy began and ended there, for it had notripened into letters; perhaps because we were too young when we parted.Later I had had a hundred intermittent impulses to write to him, but didnot. Meanwhile separation and silence had clothed him in my mind withsomething of the mistiness of a half-remembered dream. Yet the instantWashington Flagg mentioned his name the boyish features began rapidly todefine themselves behind the maturer mask, until he stood before me inthe crude form in which my memory had slyly embalmed him.
Now my sense of kinship is particularly strong, for reasons which Ishall presently touch upon, and I straightway grasped my cousin's handwith a warmth that would have seemed exaggerated to a bystander, ifthere had been a bystander; but it was early in the day, and the avenuehad not yet awakened to life. As this bitter world goes, a sleek,prosperous, well-dressed man does not usually throw much heartiness intohis manner when he is accosted on the street by so unpromising anddismal an object as my cousin Washington Flagg was that morning. Not atall in the way of sounding the trumpet of my own geniality, but simplyas the statement of a fact, I will say that I threw a great deal ofheartiness into my greeting. This man to me meant Family.
I stood curiously alone in the world. My father died before I was born,and my mother shortly afterwards. I had neither brother nor sister.Indeed, I never had any near relatives except a grandfather until mysons came along. Mrs. Wesley, when I married her, was not merely an onlychild, but an orphan. Fate denied me even a mother-in-law. I had oneuncle and one cousin. The former I do not remember ever to have seen,and my association with the latter, as has been stated, was of a mostlimited order. Perhaps I should have had less sentiment about familyties if I had had more of them. As it was, Washington Flagg occupied theposition of sole kinsman, always excepting the little Wesleys, and I wasas glad to see him that May morning in his poverty as if he had come tome loaded with the title-deeds of those vast estates which our ancestors(I wonder that I was allowed any ancestors: why wasn't I created at onceout of some stray scrap of protoplasm?) were supposed to have held inthe colonial period. As I gazed upon Washington Flagg I thrilled withthe sense that I was gazing upon the materialization in a concrete formof all the ghostly brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces which Ihad never had.
"Dear old boy!" I exclaimed, in my turn, holding on to his hand as if Iwere afraid that I was going to lose him again for another twenty years."Bless my stars! where did you come from?"
"From Dixie's Land," he said, with a laugh. "'Way down in Dixie."
In a few words, and with a picturesqueness of phrase in which I noted arich Southern flavor, he explained the phenomenon of his presence in NewYork. After Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court-House, my cousin hadmanaged to reach Washington, where he was fortunate enough to get a freepass to Baltimore. He had nearly starved to death in making his way outof Virginia. To quote his words, "The wind that is supposed to betempered expressly for shorn lambs was not blowing very heavily aboutthat time." At Baltimore he fell in with a former Mobile acquaintance,from whom he borrowed a sum sufficient to pay the fare to New York--ahumiliating necessity, as my cousin remarked, for a man who had been acolonel in Stonewall Jackson's brigade. Flagg had reached the citybefore daybreak, and had wandered for hours along the water-front,waiting for some place to open, in order that he might look up myaddress in the Directory, if I were still in the land of the living. Hehad had what he described as an antediluvian sandwich the previous dayat two o'clock, since which banquet no food had passed his lips.
"And I'll be hanged," he said, "if the first shop that took down itsshutters wasn't a restaurant, with a cursed rib of roast beef, flankedwith celery, and a ham in curl-papers staring at me through the window-pane. A little tin sign, with 'Meals at All Hours' painted on it--whatdid they want to go and do that for?--knocked the breath clean out ofme. I gave one look, and ploughed up the street, for if I had stayedfifteen seconds longer in front of that plate-glass, I reckon I wouldhave burst it in. Well, I put distance between me and temptation, and byand by I came to a newspaper office, where I cornered a Directory. I wason the way to your house when we collided; and now, Tom Wesley, forheaven's sake introduce me to something to eat. There is no false prideabout me; I'd shake hands with a bone."
The moisture was ready to gather in my eyes, and for a second or two Iwas unable to manage my voice. Here was my only kinsman on the verge ofcollapse--one miserable sandwich, like a thin plank, between him anddestruction. My own plenteous though hasty morning meal turned intoreproachful lead within me.
"Dear old boy!" I cried again. "Come along! I can see that you arenearly famished."
"I've a right smart appetite, Thomas, there's no mistake about that. Ifappetite were assets, I could invite a whole regiment to rations."
I had thrust my hand under his arm, and was dragging him towards a smalloyster shop, whose red balloon in a side street had caught my eye, whenI suddenly remembered that it was imperative on me to be at the officeat eight o'clock that morning, in order to prepare certain papers wantedby the president of the board, previous to a meeting of the directors.(I was at that time under-secretary of the Savonarola Fire InsuranceCompany.) The recollection of the business which had caused me to be onfoot at this unusual hour brought me to a dead halt. I dropped mycousin's arm, and stood looking at him helplessly. It seemed soinhospitable, not to say cold-blooded, to send him off to get hisbreakfast alone. Flagg misinterpreted my embarrassment.
"Of course," he said, with a touch of dignity which pierced me throughthe bosom, "I do not wish to be taken to any place where I woulddisgrace you. I know how impossible I am. Yet this suit of clothes costme twelve hundred dollars in Confederate scrip. These boots are not muchto look at, but they were made by a scion of one of the first familiesof the South; I paid him two hundred dollars for them, and he was rightglad to get it. To such miserable straits have Southern gentlemen beenreduced by the vandals of the North. Perhaps you don't like theConfederate gray?"
"Bother your boots and your clothes!" I cried. "Nobody will notice themhere." (Which was true enough, for in those days the land was strewedwith shreds and patches of the war. The drivers and conductors of streetcars wore overcoats made out of shoddy army blankets, and the dustmenwent about in cast-off infantry caps.) "What troubles me is that I can'twait to start you on your breakfast."
"I reckon I don't need much starting."
I explained the situation to him, and suggested that instead of going tothe restaurant, he should go directly to my house, and be served by Mrs.Wesley, to whom I would write a line on a leaf of my memorandum-book. Idid not suggest this step in the first instance because the littleoyster saloon, close at hand, had seemed to offer the shortest cut to mycousin's relief.
"So you're married?" said he.
"Yes--and you?"
"I haven't taken any matrimony in mine."
"I've been married six years, and have two boys."
"No! How far is your house?" he inquired. "Will I have to take a caar?"
"A 'caar'? Ah, yes--that is to say, no. A car isn't worth while. You seethat bakery two blocks from here, at the right? That's on the corner ofClinton Place. You turn down there. You'll notice in looking over whatI've written to Mrs. Wesley that she is to furnish you with someclothes, such as are worn by--by vandals of the North in comfortablecircumstances."
"Tom Wesley, you are as good as a straight flush. If you ever come downSouth, when this cruel war is over, our people will treat you like oneof the crowned heads--only a devilish sight better, for the crownedheads rather went back on us. If England had recognized the SouthernConfederacy"--
"Never mind that; your tenderloin steak is cooling."
"Don't mention it! I go. But I say, Tom--Mrs. Wesley? Really, I amhardly presentable. Are there other ladies around?"
"There's no one but Mrs. Wesley."
"Do you think I can count on her being glad to see me at such shortnotice?"
"She will be a sister to you," I said warmly.
"Well, I reckon that you two are a pair of trumps. Au revoir! Be good toyourself."
With this, my cousin strode off, tucking my note to Mrs. Wesley insidethe leather belt buckled tightly around his waist. I lingered a momenton the curbstone, and looked after him with a sensation of mingledpride, amusement, and curiosity. That was my Family; there it was, inthat broad back and those not ungraceful legs, striding up Sixth Avenue,with its noble intellect intent on thoughts of breakfast. I was thankfulthat it had not been written in the book of fate that this limb of theclosely pruned Wesley tree should be lopped off by the sword of war. Butas Washington Flagg turned into Clinton Place, I had a misgiving. It washardly to be expected that a person of his temperament, fresh from afour years' desperate struggle and a disastrous defeat, would refrainfrom expressing his views on the subject. That those views would besomewhat lurid, I was convinced by the phrases which he had dropped hereand there in the course of our conversation. He was, to all intents andpurposes, a Southerner. He had been a colonel in Stonewall Jackson'sbrigade. And Mrs. Wesley was such an uncompromising patriot! It was inthe blood. Her great-grandfather, on the mother's side, had frozen todeath at Valley Forge in the winter of 1778, and her grandfather, on thepaternal side, had had his head taken off by a round-shot from hisMajesty's sloop of war Porpoise in 1812. I believe that Mrs. Wesleywould have applied for a divorce from me if I had not served a year inthe army at the beginning of the war.
I began bitterly to regret that I had been obliged to present my cousinto her so abruptly. I wished it had occurred to me to give him a word ortwo of caution, or that I had had sense enough to adhere to my firstplan of letting him feed himself at the little oyster establishmentround the corner. But wishes and regrets could not now mend the matter;so I hailed an approaching horse-car, and comforted myself on the rearplatform with the reflection that perhaps the colonel would not wave thepalmetto leaf too vigorously, if he waved it at all, in the face of Mrs.Wesley.
Chapter 2
The awkwardness of the situation disturbed me more or less during theforenoon; but fortunately it was a half-holiday, and I was able to leavethe office shortly after one o'clock.
I do not know how I came to work myself into such a state of mind on theway up town, but as I stepped from the horse-car and turned into ClintonPlace I had a strong apprehension that I should find some unpleasantchange in the facial aspect of the little red brick building I occupied--a scowl, for instance, on the brown-stone eyebrow over the front door.I actually had a feeling of relief when I saw that the facade presentedits usual unaggressive appearance.
As I entered the hall, Mrs. Wesley, who had heard my pass-key grating inthe lock, was coming down-stairs.
"Is my cousin here, Clara?" I asked, in the act of reaching up to hangmy hat on the rack.
"No," said Mrs. Wesley. There was a tone in that monosyllable thatstruck me. "But he has been here?"
"He has been here," replied Mrs. Wesley. "May be you noticed the bell-knob hanging out one or two inches. Is Mr. Flagg in the habit ofstretching the bell-wire of the houses he visits, when the door is notopened in a moment? Has he escaped from somewhere?"
"Escaped from somewhere!" I echoed. "I only asked; he behaved sostrangely."
"Good heavens, Clara! what has the man done? I hope that nothingunpleasant has happened. Flagg is my only surviving relative--I may sayour only surviving relative--and I should be pained to have anymisunderstanding. I want you to like him."
"There was a slight misunderstanding at first," said Clara, and a smileflitted across her face, softening the features which had worn an air ofunusual seriousness and preoccupation. "But it is all right now, dear.He has eaten everything in the house--that bit of spring lamb I savedexpressly for you!--and has gone down town 'on a raid,' as he called it,in your second-best suit--the checked tweed. I did all I could for him."
"My dear, something has ruffled you. What is it?"
"Wesley," said my wife slowly, and in a perplexed way, "I have had sofew relatives that perhaps I don't know what to do with them, or what tosay to them."
"You always say and do what is just right."
"I began unfortunately with Mr. Flagg, then. Mary was washing the disheswhen he rang, and I went to the door. If he IS our cousin, I must saythat he cut a remarkable figure on the doorstep."
"I can imagine it, my dear, coming upon you so unexpectedly. There werepeculiarities in his costume."
"For an instant," Clara went on, "I took him for the ashman, though theashman always goes to the area door, and never comes on Tuesdays; andthen, before the creature had a chance to speak, I said, 'We don't wantany,' supposing he had something to sell. Instead of going away quietly,as I expected he would do, the man made a motion to come in, and Islammed the door on him."
"Dear! dear!"
"What else could I do, all alone in the hall? How was I to know that hewas one of the family?"
"What happened next?"
"Well, I saw that I had shut the lapel of his coat in the door-jamb, andthat the man couldn't go away if he wanted to ever so much. Wasn't itdreadful? Of course I didn't dare to open the door, and there he was! Hebegan pounding on the panels and ringing the bell in a manner to curdleone's blood. He rang the bell at least a hundred times in succession. Istood there with my hand on the bolt, not daring to move or breathe. Icalled to Mary to put on her things, steal out the lower way, and bringthe police. Suddenly everything was still outside, and presently I saw apiece of paper slowly slipping in over the threshold, oh, so slyly! Ifelt my hands and feet grow cold. I felt that the man himself was aboutto follow that narrow strip of paper; that he was bound to get in thatway, or through the keyhole, or somehow. Then I recognized yourhandwriting. My first thought was that you had been killed in somehorrible accident"--
"And had dropped you a line?"
"I didn't reason about it, Wesley; I was paralyzed. I picked up thepaper, and read it, and opened the door, and Mr. Flagg rushed in as ifhe had been shot out of something. 'Don't want any?' he shouted. 'But Ido! I want some breakfast!' You should have heard him."
"He stated a fact, at any rate. To be sure he might have stated it lessvivaciously." I was beginning to be amused.
"After that he was quieter, and tried to make himself agreeable, and welaughed a little together over my mistake--that is, HE laughed. Ofcourse I got breakfast for him--and such a breakfast!"
"He had been without anything to eat since yesterday."
"I should have imagined," said Clara, "that he had eaten nothing sincethe war broke out."
"Did he say anything in particular about himself?" I asked, with arecurrent touch of anxiety.
"He wasn't particular what he said about himself. Without in the leastseeing the horror of it, he positively boasted of having been in therebel army."
"Yes--a colonel."
"That makes it all the worse," replied Clara.
"But they had to have colonels, you know."
"Is Mr. Flagg a Virginian, or a Mississippian, or a Georgian?"
"No, my dear; he was born in the State of Maine; but he has lived solong in the South that he's quite one of them for the present. We mustmake allowances for him, Clara. Did he say anything else?"
"Oh, yes."
"What did he say?"
"He said he'd come back to supper."
It was clear that Clara was not favorably impressed by my cousin, and,indeed, the circumstances attending his advent were not happy. It waslikewise clear that I had him on my hands, temporarily at least. Ialmost reproach myself even now for saying "on my hands," in connectionwith my own flesh and blood. The responsibility did not so define itselfat the time. It took the form of a novel and pleasing duty. Here was myonly kinsman, in a strange city, without friends, money, or hopefuloutlook. My course lay before me as straight as a turnpike. I had agreat deal of family pride, even if I did not have any family to speakof, and I was resolved that what little I had should not perish for wantof proper sustenance.
Shortly before six o'clock Washington Flagg again presented himself atour doorstep, and obtained admission to the house with fewerdifficulties than he had encountered earlier in the day.
I do not think I ever saw a man in destitute circumstances so entirelycheerful as my cousin was. Neither the immediate past, which must havebeen full of hardships, nor the immediate future, which was not lavishof its promises, seemed to give him any but a momentary and impersonalconcern. At the supper-table he talked much and well, exceedingly well,I thought, except when he touched on the war, which he was continuallydoing, and then I was on tenter-hooks. His point of view was so opposedto ours as to threaten in several instances to bring on an engagementall along the line. This calamity was averted by my passing something tohim at the critical moment. Now I checked his advance by a slice of coldtongue, and now I turned his flank with another cup of tea; but Iquestioned my ability to preserve peace throughout the evening. Beforethe meal was at an end there had crept into Clara's manner a politecalmness which I never liked to see. What was I going to do with thesetwo after supper, when my cousin Flagg, with his mind undistracted byrelays of cream toast, could give his entire attention to the LostCause?
As we were pushing the chairs back from the table, I was inspired withthe idea of taking our guest off to a cafe concert over in the Bowery--avolksgarten very popular in those days. While my whispered suggestionwas meeting Clara's cordial approval, our friend Bleeker dropped in. Sothe colonel and Bleeker and I passed the evening with "lager-beer andMeyer-beer," as my lively kinsman put it; after which he spent the nighton the sofa in our sitting-room, for we had no spare chamber to place athis disposal.
"I shall be very snug here," he said, smiling down my apologies. "I'm a'possum for adapting myself to any odd hollow."
The next morning my cousin was early astir, possibly not having foundthat narrow springless lounge all a 'possum could wish, and joined us indiscussing a plan which I had proposed overnight to Mrs. Wesley, namely,that he should hire an apartment in a quiet street near by, and take hismeals--that was to say, his dinner--with us, until he could make sucharrangements as would allow him to live more conveniently. To returnSouth, where all the lines of his previous business connections werepresumably broken, was at present out of the question.
"The war has ruined our people," said the colonel. "I will have to putup for a while with a place in a bank or an insurance office, orsomething in that small way. The world owes me a living, North orSouth."
His remark nettled me a little, though he was, of course, unaware of myrelations with the Savonarola Fire Insurance Company, and had meant noslight.
"I don't quite see that," I observed.
"Don't see what?"
"How the world contrived to get so deeply into your debt--how all thepoints of the compass managed it."
"Thomas, I didn't ask to be born, did I?"
"Probably not."
"But I was born, wasn't I?"
"To all appearances."
"Well, then!"
"But you cannot hold the world in general responsible for your birth.The responsibility narrows itself down to your parents."
"Then I am euchred. By one of those laws of nature which make this globea sweet spot to live on, they were taken from me just when I needed themmost--my mother in my infancy, and my father in my childhood."
"But your father left you something?"
"The old gentleman left me nothing, and I've been steadily increasingthe legacy ever since."
"What did you do before the war?" inquired Clara sympathetically. Hismention of his early losses had touched her.
"Oh, a number of things. I read law for a while. At one time I wasinterested in a large concern for the manufacture of patent metallicburial cases; but nobody seemed to die that year. Good health raged likean epidemic all over the South. Latterly I dabbled a little in stocks--and stocks dabbled in me."
"You were not successful, then?" I said.
"I was at first, but when the war fever broke out and the Southern heartwas fired, everything that didn't go down went up."
"And you couldn't meet your obligations?"
"That wasn't the trouble--I couldn't get away from them," replied thecolonel, with a winsome smile. "I met them at every corner."
The man had a fashion of turning his very misfortunes into pleasantries.Surely prosperity would be wasted on a person so gifted with optimism. Ifelt it to be kind and proper, however, to express the hope that he hadreached the end of his adversity, and to assure him that I would doanything I could in the world to help him.
"Tom Wesley, I believe you would."
Before the close of that day Mrs. Wesley, who is a lady that does notallow any species of vegetation to accumulate under her feet, hadsecured a furnished room for our kinsman in a street branching off fromClinton Place, and at a moderate additional expense contracted to havehim served with breakfast on the premises. Previous to this I had dineddown town, returning home in the evening to a rather heavy tea, whichwas really my wife's dinner--Sheridan and Ulysses (such were the heroicnames under which the two little Wesleys were staggering) had theirprincipal meal at midday. It was, of course, not desirable that thecolonel should share this meal with them and Mrs. Wesley in my absence.So we decided to have a six o'clock dinner; a temporary disarrangementof our domestic machinery, for my cousin Flagg would doubtless find someacceptable employment before long, and leave the household free to slipback into its regular grooves.
An outline of the physical aspects of the exotic kinsman who had sounexpectedly added himself to the figures at our happy fireside seemsnot out of place here. The portrait, being the result of many sittings,does not in some points convey the exact impression he made upon us inthe earlier moments of our intimacy; but that is not important.
Though Washington Flagg had first opened his eyes on the banks of thePenobscot, he appeared to have been planned by nature to adorn the banksof the Rappahannock. There was nothing of the New Englander about him.The sallowness of his complexion and the blackness of his straight hair,which he wore long, were those of the typical Southerner. He was ofmedium height and loosely built, with a kind of elastic grace in hisdisjointedness. When he smiled he was positively handsome; in repose hisfeatures were nearly plain, the lips too indecisive, and the eyeslacking in lustre. A sparse tuft of beard at his chin--he was otherwisesmoothly shaven--lengthened the face. There was, when he willed it,something very ingratiating in his manner--even Clara admitted that--acourteous and unconventional sort of ease. In all these surfacecharacteristics he was a geographical anomaly. In the cast of his mindhe was more Southern than the South, as a Northern convert is apt to be.Even his speech, like the dyer's arm, had taken tints from hisenvironment. One might say that his pronunciation had literally beencolored by his long association with the colored race. He invariablysaid flo' for floor, and djew for dew; but I do not anywhere attempt aphonetic reproduction of his dialect; in its finer qualities it was tooelusive to be snared in a network of letters. In spite of hisdisplacements, for my cousin had lived all over the South in hisboyhood, he had contrived to pick up a very decent education. As to hisother attributes, he shall be left to reveal them himself.
Chapter 3
Mrs. Wesley kindly assumed the charge of establishing Washington Flaggin his headquarters, as he termed the snug hall bedroom in MacdougalStreet. There were numberless details to be looked to. His wardrobe,among the rest, needed replenishing down to the most unconsideredbutton, for Flagg had dropped into our little world with as fewimpedimenta as if he had been a newly born infant. Though my condition,like that desired by Agur, the son of Jakeh, was one of neither povertynor riches, greenbacks in those days were greenbacks. I mention the factin order to say that my satisfaction in coming to the rescue of mykinsman would have been greatly lessened if it had involved no self-denial whatever.
The day following his installation I was partly annoyed, partly amused,to find that Flagg had purchased a rather expensive meerschaum pipe anda pound or two of Latakia tobacco.
"I cannot afford to smoke cigars," he explained. "I must economize untilI get on my feet."
Perhaps it would have been wiser if I had personally attended to hisexpenditures, minor as well as major, but it did not seem practicable toleave him without a cent in his pocket. His pilgrimage down town thatforenoon had apparently had no purpose beyond this purchase, though onthe previous evening I had directed his notice to two or threecommercial advertisements which impressed me as worth looking into. Ihesitated to ask him if he had looked into them. A collateral feeling ofdelicacy prevented me from breathing a word to Clara about the pipe.
Our reconstructed household, with its unreconstructed member, now movedforward on the lines laid down. Punctually at a quarter to six P. M. mycousin appeared at the front door, hung his hat on the rack, and passedinto the sitting-room, sometimes humming in the hall a bar or two of TheBonny Blue Flag that bears a Single Star, to the infinite distaste ofMrs. Wesley, who was usually at that moment giving the finishing touchesto the dinner-table. After dinner, during which I was in a state ofunrelaxed anxiety lest the colonel should get himself on too delicateground, I took him into my small snuggery at the foot of the hall, wherecoffee was served to us, Mrs. Wesley being left to her own devices.
For several days matters went as smoothly as I could have hoped. I foundit so easy, when desirable, to switch the colonel on to one of mycarefully contrived side tracks that I began to be proud of my skill andto enjoy the exercise of it. But one evening, just as we were in themiddle of the dessert, he suddenly broke out with, "We were conquered bymere brute force, you know!"
"That is very true," I replied. "It is brute force that tells in war.Wasn't it Napoleon who said that he had remarked that God was generallyon the side which had the heaviest artillery?"
"The North had that, fast enough, and crushed a free people with it."
"A free people with four millions of slaves?" observed Mrs. Wesleyquietly.
"Slavery was a patriarchal institution, my dear lady. But I reckon it isexploded now. The Emancipation Proclamation was a dastardly warmeasure."
"It did something more and better than free the blacks," said Mrs.Wesley; "it freed the whites. Dear me!" she added, glancing at Sheridanand Ulysses, who, in a brief reprieve from bed, were over in one cornerof the room dissecting a small wooden camel, "I cannot be thankfulenough that the children are too young to understand such sentiments."
The colonel, to my great relief, remained silent; but as soon as Clarahad closed the dining-room door behind her, he said, "Tom Wesley, Ireckon your wife doesn't wholly like me."
"She likes you immensely," I cried, inwardly begging to be forgiven."But she is a firm believer in the justice of the Northern cause."
"May be she lost a brother, or something."
"No; she never had a brother. If she had had one, he would have beenkilled in the first battle of the war. She sent me to the front to bekilled, and I went willingly; but I wasn't good enough; the enemywouldn't have me at any price after a year's trial. Mrs. Wesley feelsvery strongly on this subject, and I wish you would try, like a goodfellow, not to bring the question up at dinner-time. I am squarelyopposed to your views myself, but I don't mind what you say as she does.So talk to me as much as you want to, but don't talk in Clara'spresence. When persons disagree as you two do, argument is useless.Besides, the whole thing has been settled on the battlefield, and itisn't worth while to fight it all over again on a table-cloth."
"I suppose it isn't," he assented good-naturedly. "But you people up atthe North here don't suspicion what we have been through. You caughtonly the edge of the hurricane. The most of you, I take it, weren't init at all."
"Our dearest were in it."
"Well, we got whipped, Wesley, I acknowledge it; but we deserved to win,if ever bravery deserved it."
"The South was brave, nobody contests that; but ''t is not enough to bebrave'--
"'The angry valor dashed On the awful shield of God,'
as one of our poets says."
"Blast one of your poets! Our people were right, too."
"Come, now, Flagg, when you talk about your people, you ought to meanNortherners, for you were born in the North."
"That was just the kind of luck that has followed me all my life. Mybody belongs to Bangor, Maine, and my soul to Charleston, SouthCarolina."
"You've got a problem there that ought to bother you."
"It does," said the colonel, with a laugh.
"Meanwhile, my dear boy, don't distress Mrs. Wesley with it. She isready to be very fond of you, if you will let her. It would bealtogether sad and shameful if a family so contracted as ours couldn'tget along without internal dissensions."
My cousin instantly professed the greatest regard for Mrs. Wesley, anddeclared that both of us were good enough to be Southrons. He promisedthat in future he would take all the care he could not to run againsther prejudices, which merely grew out of her confused conception ofState rights and the right of self-government. Women never understoodanything about political economy and government, anyhow.
Having accomplished thus much with the colonel, I turned my attention,on his departure, to smoothing Clara. I reminded her that nearlyeverybody North and South had kinsmen or friends in both armies. To besure, it was unfortunate that we, having only one kinsman, should havehad him on the wrong side. That was better than having no kinsman atall. (Clara was inclined to demur at this.) It had not been practicablefor him to divide himself; if it had been, he would probably have doneit, and the two halves would doubtless have arrayed themselves againsteach other. They would, in a manner, have been bound to do so. However,the war was over, we were victorious, and could afford to bemagnanimous.
"But he doesn't seem to have discovered that the war is over," returnedClara. "He 'still waves.'"
"It is likely that certain obstinate persons on both sides of Mason andDixon's line will be a long time making the discovery. Some will nevermake it--so much the worse for them and the country."
Mrs. Wesley meditated and said nothing, but I saw that so far as she andthe colonel were concerned the war was not over.
Chapter 4
This slight breeze cleared the atmosphere for the time being. My cousinFlagg took pains to avoid all but the most indirect allusions to thewar, except when we were alone, and in several small ways endeavored--with not too dazzling success--to be agreeable to Clara. Thetransparency of the effort was perhaps the partial cause of its failure.And then, too, the nature of his little attentions was not alwayscarefully considered on his part. For example, Mrs. Wesley could hardlybe expected to lend herself with any grace at all to the proposal hemade one sultry June evening to "knock her up" a mint-julep, "the mostrefreshing beverage on earth, madam, in hot weather, I can assure you."Judge Ashburton Todhunter, of Fauquier County, had taught him to preparethis pungent elixir from a private receipt for which the judge had oncerefused the sum of fifty dollars, offered to him by Colonel StanleyBluegrass, of Chattanooga, and this was at a moment, too, when the judgehad been losing very heavily at draw poker.
"All quiet along the Potomac," whispered the colonel, with a momentarypride in the pacific relations he had established between himself andMrs. Wesley.
As the mint and one or two other necessary ingredients were lacking toour family stores, the idea of julep was dismissed as a vain dream, andits place supplied by iced Congress water, a liquid which my cousincharacterized, in a hasty aside to me, as being a drink fit only forimbecile infants of a tender age.
Washington Flagg's frequent and familiar mention of governors, judges,colonels, and majors clearly indicated that he had moved in aristocraticlatitudes in the South, and threw light on his disinclination toconsider any of the humbler employments which might have been open tohim. He had so far conceded to the exigency of the case as to inquire ifthere were a possible chance for him in the Savonarola Fire InsuranceCompany. He had learned of my secretaryship. There was no vacancy in theoffice, and if there had been, I would have taken no steps to fill itwith my cousin. He knew nothing of the business. Besides, however deeplyI had his interests at heart, I should have hesitated to risk my ownsituation by becoming sponsor for so unmanageable an element as heappeared to be.
At odd times in my snuggery after dinner Flagg glanced over the "wants"columns of the evening journal, but never found anything he wanted. Hefound many amusing advertisements that served him as pegs on which tohang witty comment, but nothing to be taken seriously. I ventured tosuggest that he should advertise. He received the idea with littlewarmth.
"No, my dear boy, I can't join the long procession of scullions, cooks,butlers, valets, and bottle-washers which seem to make up so large apart of your population. I couldn't keep step with them. It isaltogether impossible for me to conduct myself in this matter like amenial-of-all-work out of place. 'Wanted, a situation, by a respectableyoung person of temperate habits; understands the care of horses; iswilling to go into the country and milk the cow with the crumpled horn.'No; many thanks."
"State your own requirements, Flagg. I didn't propose that you shouldoffer yourself as coachman."
"It would amount to the same thing, Wesley. I should at once berelegated to his level. Some large opportunity is dead sure to presentitself to me if I wait. I believe the office should seek the man."
"I have noticed that a man has to meet his opportunities more thanhalfway, or he doesn't get acquainted with them. Mohammed was obliged togo to the mountain, after waiting for the mountain to come to him."
"Mohammed's mistake was that he didn't wait long enough. He was tooimpatient. But don't you fret. I have come to Yankeedom to make myfortune. The despot's heel is on your shore, and it means to remainthere until he hears of something greatly to his advantage."
A few days following this conversation, Mr. Nelson, of Files & Nelson,wholesale grocers on Front Street, mentioned to me casually that he waslooking for a shipping-clerk. Before the war the firm had done anextensive Southern trade, which they purposed to build up again now thatthe ports of the South were thrown open. The place in question involveda great deal of outdoor work--the loading and unloading of spicycargoes, a life among the piers--all which seemed to me just suited tomy cousin's woodland nature. I could not picture him nailed to a desk ina counting-room. The salary was not bewildering, but the sum was to beelastic, if ability were shown. Here was an excellent chance, astepping-stone, at all events; perhaps the large opportunity itself,artfully disguised as fifteen dollars a week. I spoke of Flagg to Mr.Nelson, and arranged a meeting between them for the next day.
I said nothing of the matter at the dinner-table that evening; but anencouraging thing always makes a lantern of me, and Clara saw the lightin my face. As soon as dinner was over I drew my cousin into the littleside room, and laid the affair before him.
"And I have made an appointment for you to meet Mr. Nelson to-morrow atone o'clock," I said, in conclusion.
"My dear Wesley"--he had listened to me in silence, and now spokewithout enthusiasm--"I don't know what you were thinking of to doanything of the sort. I will not keep the appointment with that person.The only possible intercourse I could have with him would be to ordergroceries at his shop. The idea of a man who has moved in the bestsociety of the South, who has been engaged in great if unsuccessfulenterprises, who has led the picked chivalry of his oppressed landagainst the Northern hordes--the idea of a gentleman of this kidneymeekly simmering down into a factotum to a Yankee dealer in cannedgoods! No, sir; I reckon I can do better than that."
The lantern went out.
I resolved that moment to let my cousin shape his own destiny--a taskwhich in no way appeared to trouble him. And, indeed, now that I lookback to it, why should he have troubled himself? He had a comfortable ifnot luxurious apartment in Macdougal Street; a daily dinner that askedonly to be eaten; a wardrobe that was replenished when it neededreplenishing; a weekly allowance that made up for its modesty by itspunctuality. If ever a man was in a position patiently to await theobsequious approach of large opportunities that man was WashingtonFlagg. He was not insensible to the fact. He passed his time serenely.He walked the streets--Flagg was a great walker--sometimes wandering forhours in the Central Park. His Southern life, passed partly amongplantations, had given him a relish for trees and rocks and waters. Hewas also a hungry reader of novels. When he had devoured our slenderstore of fiction, which was soon done, he took books from a smallcirculating library on Sixth Avenue. That he gave no thought whatever tothe future was clear. He simply drifted down the gentle stream of thepresent. Sufficient to the day was the sunshine thereof.
In spite of his unforgivable inertia, and the egotism that enveloped himlike an atmosphere, there was a charm to the man that put my impatienceto sleep. I tried to think that this indifference and sunny idlenesswere perhaps the natural reaction of that larger life of emotion andactivity from which he had just emerged. I reflected a great deal onthat life, and, though I lamented the fact that he had drawn his swordon the wrong side, there was, down deep in my heart, an involuntarysympathetic throb for the valor that had not availed. I suppose theinexplicable ties of kinship had something to do with all this.
Washington Flagg had now been with us five weeks. He usually lingeredawhile after dinner; sometimes spent the entire evening with the family,or, rather, with me, for Mrs. Wesley preferred the sitting-room to myden when I had company. Besides, there were Sheridan and Ulysses to belooked to. Toward the close of the sixth week I noticed that Flagg hadfallen into a way of leaving immediately after dinner. He had alsofallen into another way not so open to pleasant criticism.
By degrees--by degrees so subtle as almost to escape measurement--he hadglided back to the forbidden and dangerous ground of the war. At firstit was an intangible reference to something that occurred on such andsuch a date, the date in question being that of some sanguinary battle;then a swift sarcasm, veiled and softly shod; then a sarcasm thatdropped its veil for an instant, and showed its sharp features. At lasthis thought wore no disguise. Possibly the man could not help it;possibly there was something in the atmosphere of the house thatimpelled him to say things which he would have been unlikely to sayelsewhere. Whatever was the explanation, my cousin Flagg began to makehimself disagreeable again at meal-times.
He had never much regarded my disapproval, and now his early ill-definedfear of Mrs. Wesley was evaporated. He no longer hesitated to indulge inhis war reminiscences, which necessarily brought his personal exploitsunder a calcium-light. These exploits usually emphasized his intimacywith some of the more dashing Southern leaders, such as StonewallJackson and Jeb Stuart and Mosby. We found ourselves practicallyconscripted in the Confederate army. We were taken on long midnightrides through the passes of the Cumberland Mountains and hurled on someFederal outpost; we were made--a mere handful as we were--to assault andcarry most formidable earthworks; we crossed dangerous fords, andbivouacked under boughs hung with weird gonfalons of gray moss, slithere and there by the edge of a star. Many a time we crawled stealthilythrough tangled vines and shrubs to the skirt of a wood, and across afallen log sighted the Yankee picket whose bayonet point glimmered nowand then far off in the moonlight. We spent a great many hours aroundthe camp-fire counting our metaphorical scalps.
One evening the colonel was especially exasperating with anecdotes ofStonewall Jackson, and details of what he said to the general and whatthe general said to him.
"Stonewall Jackson often used to say to me, 'George'--he always calledme George, in just that off-hand way--'George, when we get to New York,you shall have quarters in the Astor House, and pasture your mareSpitfire in the Park."'
"That was very thoughtful of Stonewall Jackson," remarked Mrs. Wesley,with the faintest little whiteness gathering at the lips. "I am sorrythat your late friend did not accompany you to the city, and personallysuperintend your settlement here. He would have been able to surroundyou with so many more comforts than you have in Macdougal Street."
The colonel smiled upon Clara, and made a deprecating gesture with hisleft hand. Nothing seemed to pierce his ironclad composure. A momentafterward he returned to the theme, and recited some verses called"Stonewall Jackson's Way." He recited them very well. One stanza lingersin my memory--
"We see him now--the old slouched hat Cocked o'er his brow askew, The shrewd, dry smile, the speech so pat, So calm, so blunt, so true. The Blue-light Elder knows 'em well. Says he: 'That's Banks; he's fond of shell. Lord save his soul! we'll give him'--Well, That's Stonewall Jackson's way."
"His ways must have been far from agreeable," observed my wife, "if thatis a sample of them."
After the colonel had taken himself off, Mrs. Wesley, sinking wearilyupon the sofa, said, "I think I am getting rather tired of StonewallJackson."
"We both are, my dear; and some of our corps commanders used to find himrather tiresome now and then. He was really a great soldier, Clara;perhaps the greatest on the other side."
"I suppose he was; but Flagg comes next--according to his own report.Why, Tom, if your cousin had been in all the battles he says he has, theman would have been killed ten times over. He'd have had at least an armor a leg shot off."
That Washington Flagg had all his limbs on was actually becoming agrievance to Mrs. Wesley.
The situation filled me with anxiety. Between my cousin's deplorableattitude and my wife's justifiable irritation, I was extremelyperplexed. If I had had a dozen cousins, the solution of the difficultywould have been simple. But to close our door on our only kinsman was anintolerable alternative.
If any word of mine has caused the impression that Clara was not gentleand sympathetic and altogether feminine, I have wronged her. The reservewhich strangers mistook for coldness was a shell that melted at theslightest kind touch, her masterful air the merest seeming. But whateverlatent antagonism lay in her nature the colonel had the faculty ofbringing to the surface. It must be conceded that the circumstances inwhich she was placed were trying, and Clara was without that strong,perhaps abnormal, sense of relationship which sustained me in theordeal. Later on, when matters grew more complicated, I could but admireher resignation--if it were not helpless despair. Sometimes, indeed, shewas unable to obliterate herself, and not only stood by her guns, butcarried the war into the enemy's country. I very frequently found myselfbetween two fires, and was glad to drag what small fragments were leftof me from the scene of action. In brief, the little house in ClintonPlace was rapidly transforming itself into a ghastly caricature of home.
Up to the present state of affairs the colonel had never once failed toappear at dinner-time. We had become so accustomed to his ring at theprescribed hour, and to hearing him outside in the hall softly hummingThe Bonny Blue Flag, or I wish I was in Dixie's Land (a wish which hedid not wholly monopolize)--we had, I repeat, become so accustomed tothese details that one night when he absented himself we experienced akind of alarm. It was not until the clock struck ten that we gave overexpecting him. Then, fearing that possibly he was ill, I put on my hatand stepped round to Macdougal Street. Mr. Flagg had gone out late inthe afternoon, and had not returned. No, he had left no word in case anyone called. What had happened? I smile to myself now, and I have smileda great many times, at the remembrance of how worried I was that nightas I walked slowly back to Clinton Place.
The next evening my cousin explained his absence. He had made theacquaintance of some distinguished literary gentlemen, who had invitedhim to dine with them at a certain German cafe, which at an earlier datehad been rather famous as the rendezvous of a group of youngjournalists, wits, and unblossomed poets, known as "The Bohemians." Thewar had caused sad havoc with these light--hearted Knights of the LongTable, and it was only upon a scattered remnant of the goodly companythat the colonel had fallen. How it came about, I do not know. I knowthat the acquaintance presently flowered into intimacy, and that atfrequent intervals after this we had a vacant chair at table. My cousindid not give himself the pains to advise us of his engagements, so theseabsences were not as pleasant as they would have been if we had notexpected him every minute.
Recently, too, our expectation of his coming was tinged with a dreadwhich neither I nor Mrs. Wesley had named to each other. A change wasgradually taking place in my cousin. Hitherto his amiability, even whenhe was most unendurable, had been a part of him. Obviously he was losingthat lightness of spirit which we once disliked and now began to regret.He was inclined to be excitable and sullen by turns, and often of late Ihad been obliged to go to the bottom of my diplomacy in preventing somepainful scene. As I have said, neither my wife nor I had spokendefinitely of this alteration; but the cause and nature of it could notlong be ignored between us.
"How patient you are with him, dear!" said Mrs. Wesley, as I was turningout the gas after one of our grim and grotesque little dinners: thecolonel had not dined with us before for a week. "I don't see how youcan be so patient with the man."
"Blood is thicker than water, Clara."
"But it isn't thicker than whiskey and water, is it?"
She had said it. The colonel was drinking. It was not a question of thatlight elixir the precious receipt for which had been confided to him byJudge Ashburton Todhunter, of Fauquier County; it was a question of aheavier and more immediate poison. The fact that Flagg might in somedesperate state drop in on us at any moment stared us in the face. Thatwas a very serious contingency, and it was one I could not guardagainst. I had no false ideas touching my influence over WashingtonFlagg. I did not dream of attempting to influence him; I was powerless.I could do nothing but wait, and wonder what would happen. There wasnothing the man might not be capable of in some insane moment.
In the meanwhile I was afraid to go out of an evening and leave Claraalone. It was impossible for us to ask a friend to dinner, though,indeed, we had not done that since my cousin dropped down on us. It wasno relief that his visits grew rarer and rarer; the apprehensionremained. It was no relief when they ceased altogether, for it came tothat at last.
A month had elapsed since he had called at the house. I had caught sightof him once on Broadway as I was riding up town in an omnibus. He wasstanding at the top of the steep flight of steps that led to HerrPfaff's saloon in the basement. It was probably Flagg's dinner hour.Mrs. Morgan, the landlady in Macdougal Street, a melancholy little soul,was now the only link between me and my kinsman. I had a weeklyinterview with her. I learned that Mr. Flagg slept late, was seldom induring the day, and usually returned after midnight. A person with thiseccentric scheme of life was not likely to be at home at such hours as Imight find it convenient to call. Nevertheless, from time to time Iknocked at the unresponsive door of his room. The two notes I hadwritten to him he left unanswered.
All this was very grievous. He had been a trouble to me when I had him,and he was a trouble to me now I had lost him. My trouble had merelychanged its color. On what downward way were his footsteps? What was tobe the end of it? Sometimes I lay awake at night thinking of him. Ofcourse, if he went to the dogs, he had nobody to blame but himself. Iwas not responsible for his wrong-going; nevertheless, I could not throwoff my anxiety in the matter. That Flagg was leading a wild life inthese days was presumable. Indeed, certain rumors to that effect wereindirectly blown to me from the caves of Gambrinus. Not that I believethe bohemians demoralized him. He probably demoralized the bohemians. Ibegan to reflect whether fate had not behaved rather handsomely, afterall, in not giving me a great many relatives.
If I remember rightly, it was two months since I had laid eyes on mycousin, when, on returning home one evening, I noticed that the frontdoor stood wide open, and had apparently been left to take care ofitself. As I mounted the steps, a little annoyed at Mary's carelessness,I heard voices in the hall. Washington Flagg was standing at the foot ofthe staircase, with his hand on the newel-post, and Mrs. Wesley washalfway up the stairs, as if in the act of descending. I learned laterthat she had occupied this position for about three quarters of an hour.She was extremely pale and much agitated. Flagg's flushed face andtilted hat told his part of the story. He was not in one of hissaturnine moods. He was amiably, and, if I may say it, gracefully drunk,and evidently had all his wits about him.
"I've been telling Mrs. Wesley," he began at once, as if I had beenpresent all the while, and he was politely lifting me into theconversation--"I've been telling Mrs. Wesley that I'm a Lost Cause."
"A lost soul," was Mrs. Wesley's amendment from the staircase. "Oh, Tom,I am so glad you have come! I thought you never would! I let him in anhour or two ago, and he has kept me here ever since."
"You were so entertaining," said my cousin, with a courteous sweep ofhis disengaged hand, and speaking with that correctness of enunciationwhich sometimes survives everything.
"Flagg," I said, stepping to his side, "you will oblige me by returningto your lodgings."
"You think I'm not all right?"
"I am sure of it."
"And you don't want me here, dear old boy?"
"No, I don't want you here. The time has come for me to be frank withyou, Flagg, and I see that your mind is clear enough to enable you tounderstand what I say."
"I reckon I can follow you, Thomas."
"My stock of romantic nonsense about kinship and family duties, and allthat, has given out, and will not be renewed."
"Won't do business any more at the old stand?"
"Exactly so. I have done everything I could to help you, and you havedone nothing whatever for yourself. You have not even done yourself thescant justice of treating Clara and me decently. In future you will beobliged to look after your own affairs, financial as well as social.Your best plan now is to go to work. I shall no longer concern myselfwith your comings and goings, except so far as to prevent you fromcoming here and disturbing Clara. Have you put that down?"
"Wesley, my boy, I'll pay you for this."
"If you do, it will be the first thing you have paid for since you cameNorth."
My statement, however accurate, was not wholly delicate, and Isubsequently regretted it, but when a patient man loses his patience hegoes to extremes. Washington Flagg straightened himself for an instant,and then smiled upon me in an amused, patronizing way quiteuntranslatable.
"Thomas, that was neat, very neat--for you. When I see Judge AshburtonTodhunter I'll tell him about it. It's the sort of mild joke he likes."
"I should be proud to have Judge Ashburton Todhunter's approval of anyremark of mine, but in the meanwhile it would be a greater pleasure tome to have you return at once to Macdougal Street, where, no doubt, Mrs.Morgan is delaying dinner for you."
"Say no more, Wesley. I'll never set foot in your house again, as sureas my name is Flagg--and long may I wave o'er the land of the free andthe home of the brave."
"He is a kind of Flagg that I don't wish to have wave over MY home,"said Mrs. Wesley, descending the stairs as my cousin with painful careclosed the door softly behind him.
So the end was come. It had come with less unpleasantness than I shouldhave predicted. The ties of kindred, too tightly stretched, had snapped;but they had snapped very gently, so to speak.
Chapter 5
Washington Flagg was as good as his word, which is perhaps not a strongindorsement. He never again set foot in my house. A week afterward Ifound that he had quitted Macdougal Street.
"He has gone South," said Mrs. Morgan.
"Did he leave no message for me?"
"He didn't leave a message for nobody."
"Did he happen to say to what part of the South he was bound?"
"He said he was going back to Dixie's Land, and didn't say no more."
That was all. His departure had been as abrupt and unlocked for as hisarrival. I wondered if he would turn up again at the end of anothertwenty years, and I wondered how he had paid his travelling expenses tothe land of the magnolia and the persimmon. That mystery was solved afew days subsequently when a draft (for so reasonable a sum as not to beworth mentioning to Clara) was presented to me for payment at my office.
Washington Flagg was gone, but his shadow was to linger for a whilelonger on our household. It was difficult to realize that the weightwhich had oppressed us had been removed. We were scarcely conscious ofhow heavy it had been until it was lifted. I was now and then forced tomake an effort not to expect the colonel to dinner.
A month or two after his disappearance an incident occurred whichbrought him back very vividly and in a somewhat sinister shape to ourimaginations. Quite late one night there was a sharp ring at the door.Mary having gone to bed, I answered the bell. On the doorstep stood atall, pale girl, rather shabbily dressed, but with a kind of beautyabout her; it seemed to flash from her eyelashes, which I noticed werevery heavy. The hall light fell full upon this slight figure, standingthere wrapped in an insufficient shawl, against a dense background ofwhirling snowflakes. She asked if I could give her Colonel Flagg'saddress. On receiving my reply, the girl swiftly descended the steps,and vanished into the darkness. There was a tantalizing point of romanceand mystery to all this. As I slowly closed the front door I felt thatperhaps I was closing it on a tragedy--one of those piteous, unwrittentragedies of the great city. I have wondered a thousand times who thatgirl was and what became of her.
Before the end of the year another incident--this time with a touch ofcomedy--lighted up the past of my kinsman. Among the travelling agentsfor the Savonarola Fire Insurance Company was a young man by the name ofBrett, Charles Brett, a new employee. His family had been ruined by thewar, and he had wandered North, as the son of many a Southern gentlemanhad been obliged to do, to earn his living. We became friends, andfrequently lunched together when his business brought him to the city.Brett had been in the Confederate army, and it occurred to me one day toask him if he had ever known my cousin the colonel. Brett was acquaintedwith a George W. Flagg; had known him somewhat intimately, in fact; butit was probably not the same man. We compared notes, and my Flagg washis Flagg.
"But he wasn't a colonel," said Brett. "Why, Flagg wasn't in the war atall. I don't fancy he heard a gun fired, unless it went off by accidentin some training-camp for recruits. He got himself exempt from servicein the field by working in the government saltworks. A heap of the boysescaped conscription that way."
In the saltworks! That connected my cousin with the navy rather thanwith the army!
I would have liked not to believe Brett's statement, but it was socircumstantial and precise as not to be doubted. Brett was far fromsuspecting how deeply his information had cut me. In spite of myloyalty, the discovery that my kinsman had not been a full-blown rebelwas vastly humiliating. How that once curiously regarded flower ofchivalry had withered! What about those reckless moonlight raids? Whathad become of Prince Rupert, at the head of his plumed cavaliers,sweeping through the valley of the Shenandoah, and dealing meriteddestruction to the boys in blue? In view of Brett's startlingrevelation, my kinsman's personal anecdotes of Stonewall Jackson took onan amusing quality which they had not possessed for us in the originaltelling.
I was disappointed that Clara's astonishment was much more moderate thanmine.
"He was TOO brave, Tom, dear. He always seemed to be overdoing it just agrain, don't you think?"
I didn't think so at the time; I was afraid he was telling the truth.And now, by one of those contradictions inseparable from weak humanity,I regretted that he was not. A hero had tumbled from the familypedestal--a misguided hero, to be sure, but still a hero. My vanity,which in this case was of a complex kind, had received a shock.
I did not recover from it for nearly three months, when I received asecond shock of a more serious nature. It came in the shape of a letter,dated at Pensacola, Florida, and written by one Sylvester K. Matthews,advising me that George Flagg had died of the yellow fever in that citythe previous month. I gathered from the letter that the writer had beenwith my cousin through his illness, and was probably an intimate friend;at all events the details of the funeral had fallen to the charge of Mr.Matthews, who enclosed the receipted bills with the remark that he hadpaid them, but supposed that I would prefer to do so, leaving it, in away, at my option.
The news of my cousin's death grieved me more than I should haveimagined beforehand. He had not appreciated my kindness; he had notadded to my happiness while I was endeavoring to secure his; he had beenflagrantly ungrateful, and in one or two minor matters had deceived me.Yet, after all said and done, he was my cousin, my only cousin--and hewas dead. Let us criticise the living, but spare the dead.
I put the memoranda back into the envelope; they consisted of a bill formedical attendance, a board bill, the nurse's account, and anundertaker's bill, with its pathetic and, to me, happily, unfamiliaritems. For the rest of the day I was unable to fix my attention on mywork, or to compose myself sufficiently to write to Mr. Matthews. Iquitted the office that evening an hour earlier than was my habit.
Whether Clara was deeply affected by what had happened, or whether shedisapproved of my taking upon myself expenses which, under the peculiarcircumstances, might properly be borne by Flagg's intimate friend andcomrade, was something I could not determine. She made no comments. Ifshe considered that I had already done all that my duty demanded of meto do for my cousin, she was wise enough not to say so; for she musthave seen that I took a different and unalterable view of it. Clara hasher own way fifty-nine minutes out of the hour, but the sixtieth minuteis mine.
She was plainly not disposed to talk on the subject; but I wanted totalk with some one on the subject; so, when dinner was through, I putthe Matthews papers into my pocket and went up to my friend Bleeker's,in Seventeenth Street. Though a little cynical at times, he was a manwhose judgment I thought well of.
After reading the letter and glancing over the memoranda, Bleeker turnedto me and said, "You want to know how it strikes me--is that it?"
"Well--yes."
"The man is dead?"
"Yes."
"And buried?"
"Assuredly."
"And the bills are paid?"
"You see yourself they are receipted."
"Well, then," said Bleeker, "considering all things, I should let wellenough alone."
"You mean you would do nothing in the matter?"
"I should 'let the dead past bury its dead,' as Longfellow says."Bleeker was always quoting Longfellow.
"But it isn't the dead past, it's the living present that has attendedto the business; and he has sent in his account with all the items. Ican't have this Matthews going about the country telling everybody thatI allowed him to pay my cousin's funeral expenses."
"Then pay them. You have come to me for advice after making up your mindto follow your own course. That's just the way people do when theyreally want to be advised. I've done it myself, Wesley--I've done itmyself."
The result was, I sent Mr. Matthews a check, after which I impulsivelythrew those dreadful bills into the office grate. I had no right to doit, for the vouchers really belonged to Mr. Matthews, and might bewanted some day; but they had haunted me like so many ghosts until Idestroyed them. I fell asleep that night trying to recollect whether theitems included a head-stone for my cousin's grave. I couldn't for thelife of me remember, and it troubled me not a little. There were enoughnameless graves in the South, without his being added to the number.
One day, a fortnight later, as Clara and I were finishing dinner, youngBrett called at the house. I had supposed him to be in Omaha. He had, ineffect, just come from there and elsewhere on one of his long businesstours, and had arrived in the city too late in the afternoon to reporthimself at the office. He now dropped in merely for a moment, but wepersuaded him to remain and share the dessert with us. I purposed tokeep him until Clara left us to our cigars. I wished to tell him of mycousin's death, which I did not care to do, while she was at the table.We were talking of this and that, when Brett looked up, and said ratherabruptly--
"By the way, I saw Flagg on the street the other day in Mobile. He waslooking well."
The bit of melon I had in my mouth refused to be swallowed. I fancy thatmy face was a study. A dead silence followed; and then my wife reachedacross the table, and pressing my hand, said very gently--
"Wesley, you were not brilliant, but you were good."
All this was longer ago than I care to remember. I heard no more fromMr. Matthews. Last week, oddly enough, while glancing over a file ofrecent Southern newspapers, I came upon the announcement of the death ofGeorge W. Flagg. It was yellow fever this time also. If later on Ireceive any bills in connection with that event, I shall let my friendBleeker audit them.
THE END.
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