LESSON 48 THE SOLDIER’S REPRIEVE

THE SOLDIER’S REPRIEVE

II

LATE that night the door opening on to the back veranda opened softly, and a little girl glided out, and went down the footpath that led to the road by the mill. She seemed to fly rather than walk, turning her head neither to the right nor to the left, but looking now and then to heaven, and folding her hands as if in supplication [1] . Two hours later the same young girl stood at Mill Station, anxiously watching the coming of the night train; and the guard, as he reached down to lift her into the carriage, wondered at the tear- stained face that was upturned toward the dim lantern he held in his hand.

A few questions and ready answers told him all; and no father could have cared more tenderly for his only child than he for our little Blossom. She was on her way to Washington [2] , to ask President Lincoln [3] for her brother’s life. She had stolen away unperceived, leaving only a note to tell her father where and why she had gone. She had brought Bennie’s letter with her; no good, kind heart like the President’s could refuse to be melted by it.

“HE PUT HIS HAND TENDERLY ON HER SHOULDER.”

The next morning they reached New York, and the guard hurried her on to Washington, for every minute now might be the means of saving her brother’s life. So, in an incredibly [4] short time, Blossom reached the capital, and hastened immediately to the White House.

The President had just seated himself to his morning task of looking over and signing important documents [5] , when, without one word of announcement, the door softly opened, and Blossom, with downcast eyes and folded hands, stood before him.

“Well, my child,” he said in his pleasant, cheerful tones, “what do you want so early in the morning?”

“Bennie’s life, please, sir,” faltered Blossom.

“Bennie? Who is Bennie?”

“My brother, sir. They are going to shoot him for sleeping at his post.”

“Oh, yes”; and Mr. Lincoln ran his eye over the papers before him. “I remember! It was a fatal sleep. You see, child, it was at a time of special danger. Thousands of lives might have been lost through his culpable negligence [6] .”

“So my father said,” replied Blossom, gravely; “but poor Bennie was so tired, sir, and Jemmie so weak. He did the work of two, sir, and it was Jemmie’s night, not his; but Jemmie was too tired, and Bennie never thought about himself —that he was tired, too.”

“What is this you say, child? Come here; I do not understand”; and the kind man caught eagerly, as ever, at what seemed to be a justification [7] of the offence.

Blossom went to him. He put his hand tenderly on her shoulder, and turned up the pale, anxious face toward his. How tall he seemed, and he was President of the United States, too! A dim thought of this kind passed for a moment through Blossom’s mind, but she told her simple and straightforward story, and handed Mr. Lincoln Bennie’s letter to read.

He perused it [8] carefully; then, taking up his pen, wrote a few hasty lines and rang his bell. When the messenger appeared, Blossom heard the order given “SEND THIS DESPATCH [9] AT ONCE.”

The President then turned to the girl and said: “Go home, my child, and tell your father, who could approve his country’s sentence even when it took the life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks the life far too precious to be lost. Go back, or—wait until to-morrow; Bennie will need a change after he has so bravely faced death; he shall go with you.”

Two days after this interview the young soldier came to the White House [10] with his little sister. He was called into the President’s private room, and a strap, the emblem [11] of his promotion, was fastened upon his shoulder. “The soldier who could carry a sick comrade’s baggage and die for the act so uncomplainingly, deserves well of his country,” said the President to the young lieutenant.

Then Bennie and Blossom took their way to their Green Mountain home. A crowd had gathered at the Station to welcome them, and, as Farmer Owen’s hand grasped that of his boy, tears flowed down his cheeks, and he was heard to say fervently, “The Lord be praised!”

—MRS . R. D. C. ROBBINS

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[1] supplication: Prayer .

[2] Washington: Political capital of the United States of America .

[3] President Lincoln (1809-1865): Sixteenth President of the United States of America, and one of the greatest of Americans .

[4] incredibly: Hardly to be believed .

[5] important documents: State papers .

[6] culpable negligence: Blameworthy neglect .

[7] justification: Sufficient excuse .

[8] perused it: Read through the letter .

[9] despatch: An important message in writing .

[10] White House: The residence of the President of the United States .

[11] emblem: Sign; token .