George Pickett

“ Corbell looked down at the hurt leaves, then up into George's eyes, saying, "Little brother, be [Pg 349] gentle with the flowers; they die so soon." These, almost his last words, my Soldier had engraved on one side of the gold dollar, the "Confederate Orphan" money which he had willed to us, and wore it always on his watch-chain. ”

“ There ain't a word of truth in brother [Pg 183] George being killed, and you know it, you old thing! I'll go down and smash his mouth for him and kick him to death for scaring you so, my poor sister, 'deed I would; but it isn't so, my sister. You trust in the Lord. I know brother George is not killed, for he said he wouldn't get killed."
"No, it is not so. You are right, my darling. Your brother George is not killed," I said. "Yes, he will come back! he will come back! He said he would, and he will."
Thus I spoke and believed, for my Soldier had never broken a promise. ”

“ He turned aside to consult with his foreman. Nicholson, the engineer, observing the situation from a distance, hurried back with his men. The laborers had already congregated about their employer. Abner Pickett, with grim determination stamped upon every line of his face and every muscle of his body, still sat upon the wall holding his gun in readiness for action. Dannie, white faced and fearful, but with never a thought of desertion, sat beside his grandfather, while Gabriel, standing near by, gripped two cobblestones tightly in his hands. ”

“ Nelson, 32 Wolseley, Lord. "The Americans a race of English-speaking Frenchmen," 63 Wyon. Anglo-Norman Englishman of Norman origin.—Engraver to the Queen.—Engraved seal of the Confederacy, 48 "Yorkshire" blood in Kentucky. Transmitted traits, 44 George P. Marsh quoted, 45 peculiarities of dialect, 44 "Yorkshire," Imported. Gift from Commodore Morgan to Henry Clay, 44 Zen Mays and Poa Pratensis, 49 FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Morning Ledger (Maysville, Kentucky) , June 20, 1906. ”

“ Gabriel left the chair in which he was sitting next his employer, and went down and seated himself on the porch steps. Abner Pickett took his pipe from his mouth, and, grasping it firmly in the fingers of his right hand, looked questioningly from one member of the group to another.
“Well,” he said at last, “why don’t somebody speak? Are you all struck dumb? What is it about the railroad, Dannie?”
“Why, Gran’pap, they—the surveyors you know—they—they—”
“Well?”
“Whacked their stakes in regardless—” broke in Gabriel, in his intense anxiety to help Dannie out. ”

“ His physical forces were certainly subjected to severe tests. His personal leadership in the wintry marches through the North of England were, practically, paralleled in later days by the wintry marches of our Scandinavian general, George Rogers Clark, in the vast territories of the North and West. The prodigious fortitude and endurance manifested in these campaigns proved beyond all question the staying capacity of the Scandinavian blood. The royal Norman had all the tastes of a forest-born man ”

“ In [174] the lower hall he met Charlie Pickett. He went up to him with outstretched hand, for he was generous as well as impetuous.
“Pickett,” he said, “if I made any fool remarks on the witness stand to-day reflecting on you in any way, I want to ask your pardon. You know there’s no man in the profession, nor anywhere else, for that matter, whom I esteem more highly than I do you. My quick tongue always did get me into no end of trouble, and I’m afraid it always will. It wasn’t two minutes ago that I was crushed in repartee by that wise fool from Pickett’s Gap, Gabriel, by name. ”

“ I had a right to take him, Gabriel; I wanted to take him; but I knew it would break Father’s heart, and I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t do it.”
“Well,” replied Gabriel, slowly, “I ain’t got nothin’ to say aginst Abner Pickett. He’s treated me like a white man fer eighteen year an’ up’ards; but ef I had a son like you, an’ a gran’son like Dannie Pickett, I’ll be everlastin’ly gee-hawed ef I wouldn’t git down off’n my high hoss once’t in a w’ile, say once’t in a year to start on, an’ treat ’em both like human bein’s. Not to say but w’at he’s good to Dannie. W’y good ain’t no name fer it. ”

“ Dannie knew that it was useless to question Gabriel further about his father, and he turned away disappointed and vexed.
“No,” he replied impatiently, “I don’t know anything about the new railroad, an’ I don’t know as I care.”
“Well,” continued Gabriel, leaning contemplatively on the handle of his hoe, “ef Abner Pickett gits what it’s wuth to a railroad to run through that gap, he can afford to wear a starched shirt onct in a w’ile on a Sunday.”
“Gran’pap wears the kind o’ shirts that suits him,” replied Dannie, indignantly, “an’ it’s nobody’s business but his own.” ”

“ Gabriel recalled, with startling distinctness, that night on his employer’s porch, when the old man declared with such terrible emphasis that no person could do a better deed than to pull out all the stakes and throw them into the brook. And there was Abner Pickett now, sitting on the front bench, head and shoulders above the crowd, piercing him through with those clear blue eyes. ”

“ When Nicholson once started in to talk, it was of no use trying to interrupt him till he was through.
“Yes,” replied Charlie, sadly, “he recovered; he went home with his grandfather.”
Nicholson stood for a moment in deep thought.
“Look here, Pickett!” he exclaimed finally. “I don’t want to uncover any family secrets; but what I can’t make out is why in the world, if you own such a boy as that, he don’t know it. And, why in all the worlds, if you’ve got a right to have the company of a human being, with his intelligence [177] and conscience and grit and grace, you don’t avail yourself of it.” ”

“ The most casual inspection of the famous Guildhall collection will show, stamped upon Seal after Seal through a long succession of Anglo-Norman kings, the same equestrian figure which, obviously of Norman origin, had appeared in England before the Conquest; and which centuries later was designed by an Anglo-Norman engraver upon the Great Seal of the American Confederate States. The artist was Wyon (engraver to the Queen) , and the original of the symbolic figure was that immortal Cavalier, George Washington—a man of Anglo-Norman blood. ”

“ He glanced ahead at his flagman and directed him to a point farther up in the field, to which point, having fixed and recorded it, he himself hastened, followed by Gabriel and Dannie. Up to this moment the boy had not opened his mouth. Now, with the ring of rising indignation in his voice, he spoke up:—
“Has this railroad got a right to run through my gran’father’s land without his permission?”
Either the engineer was in haste and did not wish to be again interrupted, or else he did not [30] think the boy of sufficient consequence to demand his attention ”

“ It brought them to Fisher’s Eddy an hour before midnight. There, where Abner Pickett was known by every one, he had no trouble in procuring a team and a driver who was willing to make the attempt to get up through the drifted roads to Pickett’s Gap. It never once occurred to the persistent old man that it would be wiser, safer, and far more comfortable, both for him and Dannie, to remain at the village until morning. ”

“ Only Longstreet demurred and protested against the charge. When Pickett asked him for the order to advance he turned away his head sorrowfully and would not speak. Then Pickett, that great leader of men, who was one half daring and one half magnetism and all hero, said proudly: “I shall go forward, sir.” And turned to his lovers. ”

“ And whether or not Abner Pickett was liked by the neighbors, it is very certain that his son Charlie was the most popular young man in that end of Meredith County. No one was surprised when he married the belle of Port Lenox, the nearest up-river town, and brought her to his father’s house. They all said that a young man of his parts could have married any one he chose. But every one was surprised when it became generally known that the young bride had found her way into Abner Pickett’s well-guarded heart. ”

“ Virginia. Every Federal post gave them up to us, from Arlington, where Colonel Robert E. Lee laid down his allegiance to the old flag, to the Pacific, where my Soldier had upheld the integrity of his country against hostile Indians and foreign foes.
In July, 1861, Captain Pickett resigned from the United States Army, made a perilous journey from San Juan, passing by sea around to New York, going thence to Canada and then southward, barely escaping arrest three times. From the window of a railway car along a Kentucky road is seen an old home where he spent a night in his long journey. ”

“ The next moment Charlie Pickett’s figure was lost in the darkness, and Gabriel stood gazing at [185] the place where it had disappeared, muttering to himself:—
“Well, ez ol’ Isra’l Pidgin use to say: ‘On the hull, darkness covers more good deeds than evil ones.’”
[186]
CHAPTER X Whenever a member of the Pickett family set his mind on the accomplishment of a certain object, he found no trouble too great, no task too arduous, no effort too severe to bring about the desired end. Abner Pickett set his mind on going home with Dannie. ”

“ Do you s’pose we sit up all night down at the gap?”
“Really, I didn’t know, Mr. Pickett, without inquiring.”
The witness was losing his temper, the lawyer was getting sarcastic, and the spectators were anticipating a still greater treat in store from the continuance of the examination.
[138]
In his seat at the rear of the court room Dannie sat, dazed, motionless, listening and hearing as one in a dream; in his breast still the imperious demand of his conscience urging him to confess; in his palsied limbs no power to move. Then Marshall took up a new line of examination. ”

“ Charlie should have been less impulsive, more considerate. To declare farm work hateful was, in the mind of Abner Pickett, rank treason. But Charlie was too much like his father to gloss things over. He said what he felt, whether wise or unwise.
Abner Pickett changed his rake from one hand to the other, and still looked at the bulky load of hay making its slow way to the dark and gaping entrance to the barn.
“Yes,” he said slowly and coldly; “that’s [10] been apparent for some time. There’s dogs that’ll bite the hand that feeds ’em.” ”

“ Yet here and there some one, usually some poor and friendless one, would be found brave enough to face an incredulous community and testify to Abner Pickett’s kindness of heart. But he had the Pickett pride. His father had it before him,—brought it with him, indeed, when he came from New England into Pennsylvania and purchased from the commonwealth the four hundred acre tract on which he built the Pickett homestead. Abner Pickett inherited the place from his father. Not a square foot of the four hundred acres had ever been sold. ”

“ The temperature has risen to normal, and the patient has just fallen into a restful sleep. I believe he will live.”
Then he turned and went back into Dannie’s room. For a moment both men stood as if stunned. Instinctively they gazed into each [205] other’s faces. Then Abner Pickett, with great strides, crossed the room to where Charlie stood. ”

“ He was good to you, Gran’pap, an’ to those in the graveyard, an’ to all of us.”
But Abner Pickett stood speechless, with stony eyes and rigid face. Charlie turned to the tipstaff and the doctor.
“Will you kindly leave us alone together?” he asked. “It is a family matter I wish to settle. Gabriel, please close the door and guard it.”
Then they were alone together in the room; three generations, the same blood running in their veins, the same family pride swelling their hearts, the same will and grim determination shaping every act of their lives. ”

“ But, Pickett, say! whose idea was that moonlight survey, anyway? It was a genuine coup-d’état.”
“Oh, that was Wilson’s scheme. Our chief, you know. He knew that you were running along the westerly bank of the Delaware that afternoon and that a location by us next day would be too late. We didn’t dream that you would get through the gap that night. I didn’t dream that you had been through it when I went down in the moonlight. If I had seen your stakes there, I should more than likely have turned back.”
“Well, it’s lucky for your people that you [175] didn’t see them, then. ”

“ When first we practise to deceive!”
But Abner Pickett’s delight at finding his graveyard free left him in no mood to question or to criticise. The predominant thought in his mind was that the engineer, at the cost of increased distance, heavier grading, and additional curvature, had avoided cutting through his graveyard. It relieved his mind and gratified his pride.
“Look, Dannie!” he exclaimed, with a sweep of his arm toward the mouth of the gap, “ain’t [73] that a beautiful curve? I tell you the engineer that laid that out knew his business. ”

“ Abner Pickett walked deliberately to the east wall and seated himself on it, his gun resting carelessly in his lap. Dannie and Gabriel followed him, and took similar positions at his side.
“We’ll have to begin in the graveyard,” said [100] McDonough, the contractor, “and cut down that knoll and carry it east here for this fill.”
“Then the first thing to do,” replied the foreman, “is to tear away that wall, about where them fellows are sitting on it.”
“Exactly. There’s where the line is. Bring your men up and let ’em go at it. Come, gentlemen, you’ll have to vacate your seats up there ”