Winston Churchill

“ Before we could become the great nation He has destined us to be, our sins must be wiped out in blood. You loved that flag, Virginia. You love it still.
“I say in all sincerity, may you always love it. May the day come when this Nation, North and South, may look back upon it with reverence. Thousands upon thousands of brave Americans have died under it for what they believed was right. But may the day come again when you will love that flag you see there now—Washington's flag—better still.”
He stopped, and the tears were wet upon Virginia's lashes. ”

“ Hopper has boarded a Fifth Street car, which jangles on with many halts until it comes to Bremen, a German settlement in the north of the city. At Bremen great droves of mules fill the street, and crowd the entrances of the sale stables there. Whips are cracking like pistol shots, Gentlemen with the yellow cavalry stripe of the United States Army are pushing to and fro among the drivers and the owners, and fingering the frightened animals. A herd breaks from the confusion and is driven like a whirlwind down the street, dividing at the Market House. ”

“ People who saw her during that fearful summer, fresh and with color in her cheeks, marvelled. Great-hearted Puss Russell, who came frequently to inquire, was quieted before her friend, and the frank and jesting tongue was silent in that presence. Anne Brinsmade came with her father and wondered. A miracle had changed Virginia. Her poise, her gentleness, her dignity, were the effects which people saw. Her force people felt. And this is why we cannot of ourselves add one cubit to our stature. It is God who changes,—who cleanses us of our levity with the fire of trial. ”

“ The coarse army bread is drawn eagerly from the knapsacks of the blue, smoke quivers above a hundred fires, and the smell of frying bacon brings a wistful look into the gaunt faces. Tears stand in the eyes of many a man as he eats the food his Yankee brothers have given him on the birthday of their country.
Within the city it is the same. Stephen Brice, now a captain in General Lauman's brigade, sees with thanksgiving the stars and stripes flutter from the dome of that court-house which he had so long watched from afar. ”

“ America was in Freeport that day, the rush of her people and the surprise of her climate. The rain had ceased, and quickly was come out of the northwest a boisterous wind, chilled by the lakes and scented by the hemlocks of the Minnesota forests. The sun smiled and frowned Clouds hurried in the sky, mocking the human hubbub below. Cheering thousands pressed about the station as Mr. Lincoln's train arrived. They hemmed him in his triumphal passage under the great arching trees to the new Brewster House. The Chief Marshal and his aides, great men before, were suddenly immortal. ”

“ As they dashed across Walnut at Seventh came the fusillade. Virginia leaned out of the window. Down the vista of the street was a mass of blue uniforms, and a film of white smoke hanging about the columns of the old Presbyterian Church Mr. Brinsmade quietly drew her back into the carriage.
The shots ceased, giving place to an angry roar that struck terror to her heart that wet and lowering afternoon. The powerful black horses galloped on. Nicodemus tugging at the reins, and great splotches of mud flying in at the windows. The roar of the crowd died to an ominous moaning behind them. ”

“ They had passed Alton, and the black cloud that hung in the still autumn air over the city was in sight. It was dusk when the 'Jackson' pushed her nose into the levee, and the song of the negro stevedores rose from below as they pulled the gang-plank on to the landing-stage. Stephen stood apart on the hurricane deck, gazing at the dark line of sooty warehouses. How many young men with their way to make have felt the same as he did after some pleasant excursion. The presence of a tall form beside him shook him from his revery, and he looked up to recognize the benevolent face of Mr. Brinsmade. ”

“ Colfax spied the stooping figure of Eliphalet.
“Do you work here?” he demanded.
“I callate.”
“What?”
“I callate to,” responded Mr. Hopper again, without rising.
“Please find Mr. Hood,” directed Mr. Colfax, with a wave of his cane, “and say that Miss Carvel is here—”
Whereupon Miss Carvel seated herself upon the edge of a bale and giggled, which did not have a soothing effect upon either of the young men. How abominably you were wont to behave in those days, Virginia.
“Just say that Mr. Colfax sent you,” Clarence continued, with a note of irritation. “There's a good fellow.” ”

“ Toward a little island set in the blue waters of Charleston harbor anxious eyes were strained.
Was the flag still there?
God alone may count the wives and mothers who listened in the still hours of the night for the guns of Sumter. One sultry night in April Stephen's mother awoke with fear in her heart, for she had heard them. Hark! that is the roar now, faint but sullen. That is the red flash far across the black Southern sky. For in our beds are the terrors and cruelties of life revealed to us. There is a demon to be faced, and nought alone.
Mrs. Brice was a brave woman. ”

“ At sight of it anger made him hot again. The car for South St. Louis stood at the end of the line, fast filling with curious people who had read in their papers that morning of the equipment of the new troops. There was little talk among them, and that little guarded.
It was a May morning to rouse a sluggard; the night air tingled into life at the touch of the sunshine, the trees in the flitting glory of their first green. Stephen found the shaded street in front of the Arsenal already filled with an expectant crowd. ”

“ And yet he knew that Virginia Carvel and the women like her were ready to follow with bare feet the march of the soldiers of the South.
The rain was come now, in a flood. Stephen's mother could not see in the blackness the bitterness on his face. Above the roar of the waters she listened for his voice.
“I will not go, mother,” he said. “If at length every man is needed, that will be different.”
“It is for you to decide, my son,” she answered. “There are many ways in which you can serve your country here. But remember that you may have to face hard things.” ”

“ The eastern side of the Brinsmade house is almost wholly taken up by the big drawing-room where Anne gave her fancy-dress ball. From the windows might be seen, through the trees in the grounds, the Father of Waters below. But the room is gloomy now, that once was gay, and a heavy coat of soot is spread on the porch at the back, where the apple blossoms still fall thinly in the spring. The huge black town has coiled about the place the garden still struggles on, but the giants of the forest are dying and dead. Bellefontaine Road itself, once the drive of fashion, is no more. ”

“ It has been truly said that Abraham Lincoln knew the human heart.
The officer still stood facing the President, the girl staring at his profile. The door closed behind him. “Major Brice,” said Mr. Lincoln, “when you asked me to pardon Colonel Colfax, I believe that you told me he was inside his own skirmish lines when he was captured.”
“Yes, sir, he was.”
Suddenly Stephen turned, as if impelled by the President's gaze, and so his eyes met Virginia's. He forgot time and place,—for the while even this man whom he revered above all men. He saw her hand tighten on the arm of her chair. ”

“ A great drove of mules was charging down the gorge of the street, and straight at him. He dived into an entrance, and stood looking at the animals in startled wonder as they thundered by, flinging the mud over the pavements. A cursing lot of drovers on ragged horses made the rear guard.
Eliphalet mopped his brow. The mules seemed to have aroused in him some sense of his atomity, where the sight of the pillar of smoke and of the black cattle had failed. The feeling of a stranger in a strange land was upon him at last. A strange land, indeed! Could it be one with his native New England? ”

“ A million of these, with all the firearms in the world, could not prevail against the flower of the South. Then she had begun whimsically to sing a verse of a song she had heard the week before, and suddenly her exaltation was fled, and her fingers left the keys. Gaining the window, trembling, half-expectant, she flung open a blind. The troops, the people, were gone, and there alone in the road stood—Stephen Brice. The others close behind her saw him, too, and Puss cried out in her surprise. The impression, when the room was dark once more, was of sternness and sadness,—and of strength. ”

“ Then she crossed quickly over to where her aunt was lying on the lounge.
“O Jinny,” murmured that lady, who had revived, “can't you do something? Haven't you done anything? They will be here any moment to burn us, to murder us—to—oh, my poor boy! Why isn't he here to protect his mother! Why was Comyn so senseless, so thoughtless, as to leave us at such a time!”
“I don't think there is any need to be frightened,” said Virginia, with a calmness that made her aunt tremble with anger. “It is probably only a rumor. Ned, run to Mr. Brinsmade's and ask him about it.” ”

“ What are they waiting for? Why don't they move? Hark! A clatter and a cloud of dust by the market place, an ecstasy of cheers running in waves the length of the crowd. Make way for the dragoons! Here they come at last, four and four, the horses prancing and dancing and pointing quivering ears at the tossing sea of hats and parasols and ribbons. Maude Catherwood squeezes Virginia's arm. There, riding in front, erect and firm in the saddle, is Captain Clarence Colfax. Virginia is red and white, and red again,—true colors of the Confederacy. ”

“ Up and down the grassy streets flowed the promenade, proud fathers and mothers, and sweethearts and sisters and wives in gala dress. Wear your bright gowns now, you devoted women. The day is coming when you will make them over and over again, or tear them to lint, to stanch the blood of these young men who wear their new gray so well.
Every afternoon Virginia drove with her father and her aunt to Camp Jackson. ”

“ Ah, Virginia, who had thought to hear that argument from your lips? What would frank Captain Lige say of the consistency of women, if he heard you now? And how give an account of yourself to Anne Brinsmade? What contrariness has set you so intense against your own argument?
Before one can answer this, before Mr. Clarence can recover from his astonishment and remind her of her vehement words on the subject at Bellegarde, Mr. Stephen is making thither with the air of one who conquers. Again the natural contrariness of women. ”

“ You must come with me one night to South St. Louis, that you may know us. Then you will perhaps understand, Stephen. You will not think of us as foreign swill, but as patriots who love our new Vaterland even as you love it. You must come to our Turner Halls, where we are drilling against the time when the Union shall have need of us.”
“You are drilling now?” exclaimed Stephen, in still greater astonishment. The German's eloquence had made him tingle, even as had the songs.
“Prosit deine Blume!” answered Richter, smiling and holding up his glass of beer. ”

“ Many times since Abraham Lincoln has been called to that mansion which God has reserved for the patriots who have served Him also, Stephen Brice has thought of that steaming night in the low-ceiled room of the country tavern, reeking with the smell of coarse food and hot humanity. He remembers vividly how at first his gorge rose, and recalls how gradually there crept over him a forgetfulness of the squalidity and discomfort. Then came a space gray with puzzling wonder. Then the dawning of a worship for a very ugly man in a rumpled and ill-made coat. ”

“ How can you sit still, Virginia? If I were your age and able to drag myself to the street, I should be at the Arsenal now. I should be on my knees before that detestable Captain Lyon, even if he is a Yankee.” Virginia kept her temper.
“I do not go on my knees to any man,” she said. “Rosetta, tell Ned I wish the carriage at once.”
Her aunt seized her convulsively by the arm.
“Where are you going, Jinny?” she demanded. “Your Pa would never forgive me if anything happened to you.” ”

“ For a dubious instant of silence Colonel Carvel stared. Then—then he slapped his knees, broke into a storm of laughter, and went out of the room. He left Stephen in a moist state of discomfiture.
The Judge had bolted upright from the pillows.
“You have been neglecting your law, sir,” he cried.
“I wrote the article at night,” said Stephen, indignantly.
“Then it must have been Sunday night, Mr. Brice.”
At this point Virginia hid her face in her handkerchief which trembled visibly. Being a woman, whose ways are unaccountable, the older man took no notice of her. ”

“ On the other hand, once you got beyond the gold lace and the etiquette, you discovered a good man and a patriot. It was far from being the General's fault that Mr. Hopper and others made money in mules and worthless army blankets. Such things always have been, and always will be unavoidable when this great country of ours rises from the deep sleep of security into which her sons have lulled her, to demand her sword. We shall never be able to realize that the maintenance of a standing army of comfortable size will save millions in the end. So much for Democracy when it becomes a catchword. ”

“ Through the long years of their lives together, he would never know. He was not a weak man now, was Clarence Colfax. He was merely a man possessed of a devil, enchained by the power of self-repression come upon her whom he loved.
And day by day that power seemed to grow more intense,—invulnerable. Among her friends and in the little household it had raised Virginia to heights which she herself did not seem to realize. She was become the mistress of Bellegarde. Mrs. Colfax was under its sway, and doubly miserable because Clarence would listen to her tirades no more. ”

“ Stephen turned to the open window, tears of intense agony in his eyes. In that instant he saw the regiment marching, and the flag flying at its head.
“It is my duty to stay here, Carl,” he said brokenly.
Richter took an appealing step toward him and stopped. He realized that with this young New Englander a decision once made was unalterable. In all his knowledge of Stephen he never remembered him to change. With the demonstrative sympathy of his race, he yearned to comfort him, and knew not how. Two hundred years of Puritanism had reared barriers not to be broken down. ”

“ A time is coming when we shall need that blood and that bone in this Republic. Wealth not yet dreamed of will flow out of this land, and the waters of it will rot all save the pure, and corrupt all save the incorruptible. Half-tried men wilt go down before that flood. You and those like you will remember how your fathers governed,—strongly, sternly, justly. It was so that they governed themselves.
“Be vigilant. Serve your city, serve your state, but above all serve your country.”
He paused to catch his breath, which was coming painfully now, and reached out his bony hand to seek Stephen's. ”

“ It was about five in the afternoon when they started out together under Virginia's white parasol, Eugenie's slimmer courage upheld by her friend's bearing. We must remember that Virginia was young, and that her feelings were akin to those our great-grandmothers experienced when the British held New York. It was as if she had been born to wear the red and white of the South. Elderly gentlemen of Northern persuasion paused in their homeward walk to smile in admiration,—some sadly, as Mr. Brinsmade. Young gentlemen found an excuse to retrace their steps a block or two. ”