Tom’s wound proved to be more serious than even the surgeon had anticipated; but the best care which it was possible to give in a military hospital was bestowed upon him. Old Hapgood, in recognition of his services on that eventful night, was permitted to be near the patient as much as the interests of the service would permit; and the old man was happy when seated by the rude couch of the soldier boy, ministering to his necessities, or cheering him with bright hopes of the future. A strong friendship had grown up between them, for Tom’s kind heart and brave conduct produced a deep impression upon the old man.
“Here, Tom,” said Captain Benson, as he approached the sufferer, a few days after he entered the hospital, and laid a paper upon the bed. “Here’s a prescription which the colonel says you must take.”
“What is it?” asked Tom, with a faint smile.
“A sergeant’s warrant.”
“Glory, glory, hallelujah, as we go marching on!” exclaimed old Hapgood, jumping up like a youth of sixteen, and swinging his cap above his head.
“Shut up, there!” shouted the hospital steward. “Don’t you know any better than to make such a racket in this place?”
“I beg pardon, Jameson. I forgot where I was,” apologized the veteran. “The news was so good I couldn’t help it. Our Tom is a sergeant now!”
“Not yet, Hapgood,” replied Tom, feebly. “I can’t accept it, Captain Benson; it belongs to Hapgood, sir, and I shall feel a great deal better if you put his name in place of mine.”
“Don’t do it, cap’n!” interposed the old man, vehemently. “Tom shall be a brigadier general if the war lasts one year more. I should feel like a whipped kitten if that warrant was altered.”
“The matter has been fully and fairly considered at head-quarters, and there is no such thing as altering the decision now; so, Tom, you can put the stripes on your arm just as soon as you please.”
Hapgood insisted, the surgeon insisted, and the captain insisted; and Tom was too sick to hold way with them in an argument, and his name was placed upon the roster of the company as a sergeant. He was proud of the distinction which had been conferred upon him, though he thought Hapgood, as an older and abler soldier, was better entitled to the honor than himself.
It was six weeks before Tom was able to enter upon the actual enjoyment of the well-merited promotion which he had won by his gallantry; but when he appeared before the company with the chevron of the sergeant upon his arm, he was lustily cheered by his comrades, and it was evident that the appointment was a very popular one. Not even the grumblers, of whom there is a full quota in every regiment, deemed it prudent to growl at the decision of the officers. If any one ventured to suggest that he was too young to be placed over older and stronger men, his friends replied, that men in the army were measured by bravery and skill, not by years.
If my young readers wish to know why Tom’s appointment was so well received by his companions in arms, I can only reply, that he had not only been brave and cheerful in the midst of peril and hardship, but he was kind and obliging to his comrades. He had always been willing to help those that needed help, to sympathize with those in trouble, and generally to do all he could to render those around him happy.
Above all these considerations, Tom was a young man of high principle. He had obeyed his mother’s parting injunction, often repeated in the letters which came to him from home, and had faithfully “read his Testament.” Without being a hypocrite or a canting saint, Tom carried about with him the true elements of Christian character.
Tom had fought a greater battle than that in which he had been engaged at Bull Run a hundred times, in resisting the temptations which beset him from within and without. True to God and true to himself, he had won the victory. Though his lot was cast in the midst of men who swore, gambled, and drank liquor, he had shunned these vices, and loved the sinner while he hated the sin. Such a person could not fail to win the respect of his companions. Though he had been jeered at and insulted for being sober, honest, and pious, he had fought down and lived down all these vilifiers, and won their esteem.
It must be acknowledged that Tom’s piety was of the robust type. He would not allow any man to insult him; and after the chastisement he had given Ben Lethbridge, not even those who were strong enough to whip him were disposed to trespass upon his rights and dignity. Perhaps Tom’s creed needed a little revising; but he lived under martial law, which does not take cognizance of insults and revilings. He was willing to be smitten on the one cheek, and on the other also, for the good of his country, or even his friends, but not to be wantonly insulted.
The influence of Tom’s principles was not confined to himself, for “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” This was particularly true of Hapgood, who, more through Tom’s preaching and practice than from any strength in his own character, had steadily maintained his purpose to abstain from intoxicating drinks, though occasional opportunities were presented for the indulgence of his darling vice. Tom and he read the Testament and other good books which were sent to the regiment, and both profited by them.
When the soldier boy was discharged from the hospital, the surgeon gave him a pair of woolen socks, from a case of them which had been sent by the friends of the soldier in Boston and its vicinity. He was very much in need of them, and from the depths of his heart he blessed the ladies who had done this good work. He unrolled the socks, and proceeded to pull one of them on. It was as good a fit as though his mother had knit it on purpose for him.
“God bless the lady that knit these socks!” exclaimed Tom, as he began to draw on the other.
“Amen!” replied Hapgood, who was watching the operation in full sympathy with his protege.
“Eh! what’s this?” added Tom, for his foot had met with an obstruction in its passage down the leg.
He pulled off the sock, and thrusting his hand into it, took therefrom a letter enclosed in an envelope.
“See that, uncle?” said he, exhibiting the prize.
“What is it, Tom? Open it quick,” replied Hapgood.
The soldier boy broke the envelope, and took from it a note enclosing a photograph. Tom looked at the picture with a feeling of pleasure, which would have caused the original of the miniature, the author of the note, and the author of the socks, to blush up to her eyes if she had beheld the expression of admiration which glowed upon the handsome, manly face of the young sergeant.
“By all that’s lovely, isn’t she a beauty!” exclaimed Tom, rapturously, as he glanced from the picture to Hapgood, who was looking over his shoulder.
“She’s hahnsome, and no mistake,” replied the veteran, with a grim smile.
“Well, she is!” added Tom, whose eyes were riveted to the photograph.
“Well, why don’t you read the letter, Tom?” demanded the old soldier, after the young man had gazed with blushing cheek upon the sweet face of the author of his socks for full five minutes.
“I guess I will,” said Tom; but he did not; for the picture seemed to be glory and beauty enough to satisfy him for the present.
“Read the letter, Tom!” shouted the veteran, after he had waited as long as the nature of the case seemed to require.
The soldier boy carefully placed the photograph in the envelope, and unfolded the letter. It was written in a beautiful hand, which looked as soft and delicate as the fair fingers which had penned the lines. He glanced at it as a whole, admired the penmanship, and the fairy-like symmetry that make up the tout-ensemble of the page, and was about to dissolve into another rhapsody, when Hapgood, who was not half so sentimental as the sergeant, became impatient to know the contents of the missive. Tom read it aloud to the stoical veteran; and though we cannot clothe its sweet words in the fairy chirography which transported our hero, and made the letter a dream of bliss to him, we shall venture to present it to our curious readers, stiffened and hardened into the dull, cold forms of the printer’s art.
No.——, RUTLAND STREET, BOSTON, Nov. 5, 1861.
MY DEAR SOLDIER:—
This is the first pair of socks I ever knit; and I send them to you with my blessing upon the brave defenders of my country. I hope they will keep your feet warm, and thus keep your heart warm towards God and our blessed land.
Grandma says I am a silly girl, and I suppose I am; but if you feel half as much interest in me as I do in the person who will wear the first pair of socks I ever knit, you will wish to know how I look; therefore I send you my photograph.
I very much desire to know whether my work has done any good; whether my socks are ever worn in a battle; and most of all, I desire to know how the noble fellow looks that wears them. Therefore I beg you to answer my letter, and also to send me your photograph, if you can conveniently.
Now, my dear soldier, be brave and true, and, above all, do not run away from the rebels with my socks on your feet. You may retreat when your officers order you to retire; but if you are a coward, and find yourself compelled to run away, please pull them off before you do so, for I should die with mortification if I thought I had knit a pair of socks for a union soldier to run away in.
Truly yours, for our flag and our country.
LILIAN ASHFORD.
“Well, if that gal ain’t a trump, then there ain’t no snakes in Virginny!” exclaimed Hapgood. “She’s got the true grit, and no mistake.”
“That’s so,” replied the recipient of the gift, thoughtfully, as he bent down, and began to pull off the sock which encased his left foot.
“What are you doing?” demanded Hapgood, surprised at this new movement of his companion.
“I can’t wear these socks yet, uncle,” replied he.
“Why not?”
Don’t she say she wants them worn in a battle?”
“Tom, you are a little fool!” added the veteran, petulantly. “Are you going with cold feet just to please a silly gal, whose head is as full of moonshine as an egg is of meat. Put on the socks, and keep your feet warm. If you don’t, I’ll write to her, and tell what a fool you are.”
Tom did put them on, but he could not help feeling that uncle Hapgood, as he was familiarly called in the camp, did not understand and appreciate his sentiments. The socks seemed to be too precious to be worn in the vulgar mud of Maryland. To him there was something ethereal about them, and it looked a little like profanation to put any thing emanating from the fairy fingers of the original of that photograph, and the author of that letter, upon his feet.
“Now you act like a sensible fellow, as you are, Tom,” said Hapgood, as the sergeant put on his army brogans.
“Well, uncle, one thing is certain: I never will run away from the rebels with these socks on,” added Tom, with a rich glow of enthusiasm.
“If Gen’l McClennon don’t stir his stumps pretty soon, you’ll wear ’em out afore you git a chance to run away.”
Tom, almost for the first time since he had been in the army, wanted to be alone. With those socks on, it seemed just as though he was walking the streets of the New Jerusalem, with heaven and stacks of silver-fringed and golden-tinged clouds beneath his feet, buried up to the eyes in floods of liquid moonshine.
If “grandma” really thought that Lilian Ashford was a silly girl, and if Lilian really supposed so herself, it must be added, in justification of her conduct, that she had given the soldier boy a new incentive to do his duty nobly, and kindled in his soul a holy aspiration to serve God and his country with renewed zeal and fidelity.
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