Aunt 'Liza's Hero, and Other Stories

"Why, of course we will," they answered, heartily. "But why can't you go yourself, Aunt 'Liza? Everybody's going."

Aunt 'Liza pushed back the big sunbonnet, and looked wistfully across the meadows to a distant grove of cedar-trees that were outlined against the clear May sky.

"It's been six years since I was out there. I'm too old and stiff ever to walk that far again, but nobody knows how I long to go sometimes. I s'pose I must wait now until I'm carried there; but then it'll be too late to do anything for him."

Jeff looked at Joe, then at the hopeless expression of the wrinkled face.

"I'll tell you what we can do, Aunt 'Liza," he said, eagerly. "If you don't mind riding in such an outlandish rig, the cart is big enough to hold you comfortably, and we'll make the calves pull you out there. Will you go that way?"

Two tears that were rolling slowly down the furrows of her cheek dropped off suddenly as she laughed aloud.

"Why, bless your heart, sonny," she exclaimed, pleased as a child. "I'd ride behind a sheep to get there. What a fine picture we'll make, to be sure! They'll put us in a comic almanac."

Then she added, solemnly, "I'll thank you to my dying day, boys; and mark my words, the Lord will surely bless you for your kindness to a lonely old woman."

When they were out of sight of the house Joe lay down on the grass and rolled over and over in a fit of laughter.

"My eyes! what a figure we'll cut!" he gasped. "We'll have to go early, or we'll have a crowd at our heels."

"Don't you suppose," said Jeff, "that the grave will be in pretty bad shape, if she hasn't been out there for six years? If it is, she'll feel worse than if she had stayed at home."

"There's a lot of 'em all grown up with weeds and briers, with nothing but 'Unknown' marked on the headboards," answered Joe. "Let's get a cartload of sod, and fix them all up this afternoon."

A little while later the rickety gate of the neglected burying-ground opened to admit two boys shouldering spades and driving a team of calves.

"Get up, Bolivar!" called Jeff; "you're working for your country now."

That Decoration Day was a memorable one in Stone Bluff. The earliest sunshine that streaked the chimney-tops and gilded the broad Ohio, flowing past the little town, found Aunt 'Liza Barnes in her garden. She had stripped her bushes of early roses, and her borders of all their gay old-fashioned flowers, to twist into wreaths to carry with her.

When the morning train came puffing in from Indianapolis a large crowd had assembled at the station to catch a glimpse of Colonel Wake, the orator of the day. Jeff Whitman was there, painfully conscious of being dressed in his best, and of having a dreaded duty to perform.

He watched the colonel step into Judge Brown's carriage, and as it disappeared from view he walked slowly down the street in the direction it had gone.

All the morning Jeff hung around Judge Brown's house, trying to make up his mind to carry out his plan. At last he set his teeth together, and resolutely opened the gate. He felt ready to sink into the ground when the judge himself opened the door. Jeff's voice sounded far away and unnatural when he asked permission to speak to Colonel Wake.

In another moment the boy was in the dreaded presence, nervously fingering his hat, and trying to recall his carefully prepared speech. Then at sight of the colonel's smiling face his embarrassment vanished.

Before he realized it he had poured out the whole story of Aunt 'Liza's hero.

"We are going to take her out there this afternoon," he said, in conclusion. "She hasn't been for six years, and maybe she won't live to go another year. She says people always praise Captain Bowles, who's buried there, and Corporal Reed, and even the little drummer boy, but they never say anything about her Mac. And – and – well, I thought if you knew what a splendid soldier he was, and the brave things he did, maybe you'd just mention him, too. It would please the old lady so much."

The colonel promised, and gave Jeff a hearty handshake, saying he wanted to be introduced to Mrs. Barnes, and would depend on Jeff to point her out to him.

Nearly every one walked out to Cedar Ridge. The way was not long, and by-paths led through shady lanes, where blackberry vines and wild roses trailed over the fence-corners.

Colonel Wake and the judge drove in a carriage. The flower girls were drawn in a gaily decorated moving car, and carried flags and flowers. No one saw Aunt 'Liza in her strange conveyance, for she had gone long before the procession started.

"How nice and green it is," she said, fondly stroking the smooth sod. "I needn't have worried all this time, thinking it wasn't looked after. Somebody has been kind to my Mac. I was going to give every single one of these flowers to him, but now I want you boys to take some of them and put a wreath on every one of those six graves marked 'Unknown.'"

When the procession came up she was sitting on the same old folded quilt that had done duty in the cart as a seat. She leaned contentedly against the wooden headboard, marked simply, "McIntyre Barnes," with the number of his company and regiment. People looked at her in surprise, wondering how she came there.

The boys had hitched the calves out of sight, on the other side of the hill; for being boys, they could not bear to be laughed at.

Overhead the spicy cedar boughs waved softly in the May breeze. Below the bluff the waters of the Ohio sparkled in the sun. During all the ceremonies that preceded Colonel Wake's speech Aunt 'Liza sat with her dim eyes fixed on the Kentucky shore across the shining of the river.

While the band played and the choir sang she never turned her gaze from it. Then the clapping of hands that announced the speaker seemed to arouse her. She listened intently, expectantly.

Colonel Wake was a true orator. He swayed the listening crowd at his will, first to laughter and then to tears.

The boy's story that morning had greatly interested him. At the close, after referring tenderly to the unknown dead, and offering his passing tribute to the others, he told the story of McIntyre Barnes's heroic life.

He told it as only an old soldier and an eloquent speaker could tell it. The old woman, sitting on her folded quilt on her son's grave, threw off the black bonnet to catch every tone, every gesture, and smiled up into his face with proud, grateful eyes.

She felt like a queen coming into a long-deferred kingdom. That was her Mac he was talking about! This great soldier knew him and honoured him.

Somebody called for three cheers for McIntyre Barnes. As the lusty voices rang up through the cedar boughs and echoed across the water she bowed her head on the sod, and her happy tears fell like rain. Perhaps it was the speech that moved them. Perhaps it was the sight of that wrinkled, tear-wet face; for when the flower girls finished strewing their garlands every grave had been decorated, but McIntyre Barnes's had received more than all. It was completely covered with fragrant bloom.

The people who stood near could not help smiling when the boys drove up with the little cart to which the frisky calves were hitched. But Aunt 'Liza was in such an uplifted frame of mind that she would not have noticed had they laughed aloud.

The colonel came and shook her hands, saying he was proud to know the mother of such a son. After that everybody else came crowding around to speak to her.

The band started back toward town, playing a lively quickstep, and the crowd soon dispersed. The boys did not talk much as they walked homeward in the sunset beside Bolivar and Daisy.

As for Aunt 'Liza, she sat smiling happily in the depths of the black sunbonnet, and saying over and over:

"My Mac has had his dues at last. It was a long time, but he's had justice done him at last!"

THE CAPTAIN'S CELEBRATION

"Is there anything I can do for you, captain?" Doctor Morris had made the rounds of the hospital and was standing beside the bed in a narrow little room at the end of the hall. He took the old man's feeble hand in one of his firm ones, and with the other gently stroked the white hair back from his wrinkled forehead. This seemed to smooth away some pain, too, for the faded blue eyes looked up at him with a grateful smile.

"Yes," he answered, "there is. I don't like to trouble you, doctor, but I do want a piece of an old broomstick, and if I could have it early in the morning, I'd be very much obliged to you, sir."

"A broomstick!" repeated the doctor, in amazement, wondering if the old man's mind was beginning to wander. "What under the sun could you do with it?"

A faint smile crossed the captain's face. Then a spell of coughing delayed the answer for a moment.

"I want to carve something," he panted, "and broom-handle wood is easy to cut. The nurse has been like an angel to me all these weeks that I have been in the hospital. Ever since they moved me into this room by myself, I've known that I haven't much longer to live, and I want to leave her something to show that I appreciate her kindness, and was grateful for it."

The doctor pressed the old man's hand as he went on: "I've been thinking I would like to make her a little chain. My grandfather taught me to carve such things when I was a lad. He was a Swiss, you know, and followed my mother over to this country soon after I was born. He was so old that all he could do was just to sit under the trees and carve little toys to amuse the children. I have his pocket-knife yet," he added, with a smile of childish satisfaction that made the old face pathetic.

He looked down at his right hand, so twisted out of shape that it was nearly useless. "I can't do as good work as I used to do thirty years ago, before that Minie ball crippled me," he said. "But Miss Mary will make allowances; she will know that I remembered and was grateful, don't you think?" he asked, anxiously.

"Most certainly," answered the doctor, stooping to arrange the patient's pillows more comfortably about him. "But, captain, I am afraid that I can't allow you to undertake anything that will be a tax on your strength. You haven't any to spare."

So deep a shade of disappointment crept into the old man's wistful eyes that the doctor felt an ache in his throat, and drove it away with a little laugh. "Pshaw!" he said, hastily. "You shall have a mile of broomsticks if you want them. I'll send my son Max up with one inside the next hour."

The gong had just struck the signal for dismissal in the third-ward school building, when the busy physician drove up to the curbstone in his sleigh to get his boy. "Max will be down in a minute, Doctor Morris!" called a boy, as he ran past the sleigh with his skates slung over his shoulder. "Miss Clay kept some of 'em to see about celebrating Washington's Birthday."