The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 16, 1903, Page 2

THE SUNDAY CALL. TR | “Sherwood, this is gorgeous. This is magnificent. I in belleve a Californian is spinning yarns about his State, o n how much he sings its pratses se flowers. Did u ever ike them?"” And Colone t bobbing about . went rolling througt impatient enthusiz s his air and settled him nst the cus you see this sort of g You're v it,” £ t on, If env but posit never saw any ke it a dream. And ocean but it's good. Why, you K perfume here with every re at a difference. 1f s “could be induced to grow k the be & ed to a erisp ime of the year. I tell you t WOc we ‘v nevbr had such luxury as this military post affords when we were serving Uncle Sam, eh? Nothing about the peace and splendor of this scen bell of o re ind you of the veritable e unpleasantness,’ Is the Sherwood was silent—almost impressive- ly silent—for several moments. Then he answered slowly N John, racks there isn’t; not here at the But I believe I can show you some things farther on that will remind you of the past. At least, they do me. And it's all so strange that I wonder if it will make you feel the same way. Driver, go on quickly to Fort Point, will There was such an 0dd note in his volice that the Colonel looked at him curiously, and then he, too, lapsed Into siience for the rest of the drive. Near the fort the two gentlemen left the carriagd and climbed the hills unt!l they found them- selves on the highest point.that overlooks the Golden Gate. There they sat down among the wild flowers as if they were two boys, and looked over the waters to the right and to the left—at the peaceful vessels In the bay and the great steamers that approached the harbor from either side. /It might have been an hour before either spoke again. The mystic spell that had s@ often enthralied Sherwood Fuller took hold of Colonel Graham now in even an added degree, and soon, as if by some subtle influence that controlled both alike, they slipped forward from their sitting posture and stretched full length, facé downward, upon the grass, s At last it was Colonel Graham who spcke as if he were merely continuing the con- versation: “Yes, certainly this is no dream. This is Port Hudson. And there in that grand curve is the Mississippi.” He paused for a moment in an attl- tude at once tense and eager, his hands tightly ping an imaginary gun, and then continued warningly: *And thepe are the rebe’'s farther down the s I¥ing low in the grass Hne after clear to the precipice. Our identical ition. Sherwood,” he went on more naturally. relaxing the tension a little, “on tbat 4th day of June, 1863, when we were driven back and when I, wounded and unable to go farther. fell among the trees. where you and little Flor—where you found me.” At this instant the two men straight- ened up and siiently clasped hands. As they ced one ancther, there was more than & suspicion of moisture in the col- onel’s brown eves, as he sald: “What kids we were then—and my God! what a fight it was! Yes. Sherwood: you have a duplicate of every corner of the world here. You must have kept this for the last bite as we children used to say.” “¥es. T did, John. T hoped you'd make the discovery, too. And vou have. My brother George and 1 came under the spell separately, years ago when we first came to California and we take the first day of the annual G. A. R. encampment as our one holiday and visit this spot €very year no matter what hapoens, and we siip into the grass just as you and I did. We take this one holiday and we take it together, and we see Port Hud- son out of the same eyes. I've tried it on others who knew Port Hudson well, but who did not fight there, and they never mentioned a resemblance. Isn't it strange what memory will do?" “It's not memory, Sherwood,” the col- onel answered in subdued tones, “That was all too terrible ever to be anything but a vivid realit: “But we've all scattered a bit since then and the ranks are thinning out pretty fast now, John.” “Yes, Sherwood, pretty fast.”. & “And you never married, John?" “No.” And the colonel averted his head and looked with unseeing eyes over land and sea that seemed suddenly clouded in a dull haze. For a minute both were =llent, and then Sherwood asked with en- forced cheerfulness: “Tell me, John, what became of that saucy little rebel—Florence—Florence—ah, yes—Florence Grady—who wouldn't speak to me except to order me about. Ah, what a fascination was hers. Ye gods and what beauty. Do you remember how her eyes could plead, John, when she wanted anything?" 3 ‘The colenel bowed his head and kicked little @ents in the grass at his feet, but did not speak. “You find John Graham—you were plain John Graham then, colonel—you find John Graham,” she say “He's a Yankee— just a no good Yankee,” she says, "“and I'm ashamed of him since he turned egainst his home and his folks in the Bouth to fight with you hateful Northern- but he’s my cousin,” she says, “and I'd llke to be sure he wasn't starving. I'd like to xive him some water and— and—something to eat. I hate him for being a turn coat to the South, but he's my cousin, and I did like him—once. He was ‘Cousin Jack’ then. You Northern- ers have overrun our land and Cousin Ja'—he’s back here at his old home again somewhere, but he's fighting against us. Maybe he wouldn't if he knew. Where is he?"’ Y “You know I'm not a coward, John. I @1d my best as a boy to face those rebels —and they were the devil's own, I'll ad- mit, but that little Southern girl with the blue-black eres simply took all the courage out of me. I couldn't tell her you were dead—as I believed you were— when 1 hid you beneath those fallen logs after the battle that day, when we were forced to retreat. of the whole war half as bad as that. And now hers we are, John, you and I together again, a small—a very small— part of that great Grand Army of the Republic gathered here on the shores of the Pacific, who will soon be no more.” Sherwood sighed. But the colonel never moved, Truly it was a strange reunion of these two men who had fought side by side as boys in that great struggle, although one was from Loulstana. with all the tradi- tl of the old South ever coloring his dreams, an ardent, impulsive lad then— now Colonel John Graham, famous in law and politics on the Atlantic coast. The other was from Maine, but instead of returning home at the close of the war he had come West and gained riches, and now in memory these two old com- There was no ordeal . rades, each in his own way, wers lving over again the sorrows and the glories of that great conflict. The friendship that had endured through alk the long stretch of time since they had entered their last fight tegether on that fatal 14th of June, charging and retreating and charging again into the very mouths of the belch- ing cannon at Port Hudson, glowed mow with renewed warmth. “Forty years ago,” Colonel Graham murmured like one in a dream. “Forty years ago,” Fuller echoed as softly, “but I can ‘see: it all as plainly now, John, as if it were just happenihg before my very eyes. We were a pretty ragged little handful when General Neal Dow led us Into battle that scorching hot Sunday morning, weren't we? The whole company dwindled down to thirty-two men, with the forts on one side of us and the gunboats on the other and a mur- derous line of ‘rebs’ Intreanched in be- tween and a perfect jungle of fallen logs to charge over, even before we got . to the bottom of that accursed slope for . hand to hapd fighting. My God, John, do you rememi what an awful fight that was?’ The colonel had straightened himself vp and was following his companion’s words with brain keenlv alert. *“Yes, Bherwood; I thought we had them sure on that bayonet chatge until the fort began to shell us.” “Phew! and what a terrific hall of shot 1t was. How did any' of us ever get back through that tangle of timber alive? But it was on that second charge that they got you, wasn't It, John?" “T know that we had driven them up tha slope again, when that shot got me in both legs. I don't remember any- thing after that until she—" “Yes, I remember now, John. You were just in front of me as we cleared the last trench and it turned my beart sick to ses you go tumbling over and over, but I didn’t have time to stop. I don't believe any of us expected to hold that position or get back out of It alive It was on the second retreat that I found you.and hid you under thoss logs. And then they got me—bullet in the leg, too Funny, wasn't it?, There were only sev- enteen came back that second time, John —all of them more or less shot up. “It was the same night in the hospital, John, that she came a looking for you, and In her flerce, headstrong way orders ing me to find you—when—Lordy me, I wasn't able to lea the sick ward for over three months. She said she hated ¥ John, for fighting with us, but any one with half an eye could see that she really loved ‘Cousin Jack.' What ha pened, John? She found you, &idn’t she? “Yed, she found me, Sherwood,” the colonel answered with a trace of huski- ness in his voice, “but it wasn't that. It was what happened afterward—after she had nursed me through it all and got me almost well in the hope I'd go back to my own folks—when I joined the com- pany again after the surrender of Vicks- burg and marched with the old flag to re- ceive the surrender of Port Hudspn. It was then, Sherwood—'), but the colonel broke off abruptly, cvercome by the mem- ory of all that followed. He feit agaln the tumultuous emotions that assalled him then—he, ome of the conquerors — as he beheld m@mberless friends, companions and relatives of his youth, filing past him, beaten, st and discquraged. The flush of victory melted from his cheeks and his hot blood surged back on a saddened heart, as he saw the hatred that shot from eyes that had once given him looks of love. All this had been hard to bear, but when his little brother George, a boy of 16, the ghost of the laughing child he re- membered, was about to pass him he forgot victory, wounds and discipline, and clasped the warm little figure in his _arms crying, “George, George, don’t you know me?” His only answer was & curse and & blow in the face. Then, for the first time he had realized that he had a brother no lenger; that he was in very truth an outcast from hls family. And then ‘there rushed over him the meeting with his mother—the proud, wealthy apd beautiful mother he had left only a few years before—who now con- fronted him—a white-haired. broken- hearted widow, In & poverty-stricken ruined mansion, bereft of all that had made life dear. And this had been his home and he had helped In the conflict that had wrecked it She had not cursed or reviled him, a8 in the first moment of their meeting he had feared she might, but without a word she had turned to a desk near by and handed him a little bundle of letters—all unopened, save one, and that one the let- ter he had written her from West Point telling her of his change of views, and that duty as he saw It demanded that he fight against the South he had always loved so well. Then had coma the hardest blow of all, when she had ordered him to leave her Sight forever, vowing that she would draw down all the curses of héaven and hell upon his head, If by any means he should try to win his headstrong little cousin. And his mother's will had pre- valled. After that the fever had come again and— “Forty years ago,” he murmured, with le‘nd once more bowed to the ground. "And you never saw her again, John?™ ““No, Sherwood, they would never an- swer my letters at home, after they made me an outcast. Sometimes I thought she'd come to me, and I never margled. *1 just waited and waited. But she never came. I've seatched everywhere, Sher- wood. God heipfme, old man, I still go on searching—but it's no use.” Again he broke off abruptly and made a great effort at self-comtrol. Sherwood put his hand on his shoulder sympatheti- cally, and slence reigned again. Then they turned and slowly made their way back to the carriage. Here a host of army officers and their wives and daughters had gathered, and the colonel was aroused from his sad reverie to hear some one saying: “I ‘wish you two reformed rebels to meet. Colonel Graham, allow me to pre- -e:tlyrl-. GradytJ-chaon." ittle cry of “Cousin Jack!” heard, and Mrs. Grady Jackson's ;o:: blue black eyes were staring up at the colonel, and two little hands were pressed agalnst breast, while her lips moved without uttering a sound, and the great tears rolled unheeded down her cheeks. In a second the colonel had her in Fis arms and lifted her into the carriage: he jumped in beside her, covering her face with the long crape veil, and then ralsing his hat begged to be excused, say “I'll see you to-morrow, S “Now," he cried to the driver, “go back to_town.” : Mr. Fuller didn't see him to-morrow nor the rext day, but the day after, In answer to a phone from the Palace Hotel, he was shown into a private parlor, where |‘l|ltle ‘Wedding party awaited him. ‘Sherwood.”” sald the colonel, leading forward the laughing little rebel in white, “‘of course you remember General Flor- ence Grady, from whom you took orders. Well, she has con mded to become General Florenee Graham, from whom 1 shall have the honor of taking orders for the remainder of my life. The sur- render of Port Hudson was a dream, the estrangement -a dream, the forty years after a dream. This alone ls reality.” “Amen! With all my soul,” said Fuller, as he kissed the bride.