Elsie's Womanhood Part 35

Nor would those of Mr. Dinsmore and Rose. In the esteem of these wise, Christian parents the G.o.d-given charge of their own offspring took undoubted precedence of the claims of society.

Thus placidly pa.s.sed the summer and autumn, the monotony of their secluded life relieved by the enjoyment of literary pursuits, and varied by walks, rides, drives, and an occasional sail, in bright, still weather, over the waters of the lovely bay.

Elsie entered the drawing-room one morning, with the little daughter in her arms. The child was beautiful as a cherub, the mother sweet and fair as ever, nor a day older in appearance than while yet a girl in her father's house.

She found him sole occupant of the room, pacing to and fro with downcast eyes and troubled countenance. But looking up quickly at the sound of her footsteps he came hastily towards her.

"Come to grandpa," he said, holding out his hands to the little one; then as he took her in his arms, "My dear daughter, if I had any authority over you now----"

"Papa," she interrupted, blushing deeply, while the quick tears sprang to her eyes, "you hurt me! Please don't speak so. I am as ready now as ever to obey your slightest behest."

"Then, my darling, don't carry this child. You are not strong, and I fear will do yourself an injury. She can walk very well now, and if necessary to have her carried, call upon me, her father, or one of the servants; Aunt Chloe, Uncle Joe, Dinah, one or another is almost sure to be at hand."

"I will try to follow out your wishes, papa. Edward has said the same thing to me, and no doubt you are right; but it is so sweet to have her in my arms, and so hard to refuse when she asks to be taken up."

"You mustn't ask mamma to carry you," Mr. Dinsmore said to the child, caressing her tenderly as he spoke; "poor mamma is not strong, and you will make her sick."

They had seated themselves side by side upon a sofa. The little one turned a piteous look upon her mother, and with a quivering lip and fast-filling eyes, said, "Mamma sick? Elsie tiss her, make her well?"

"No, my precious pet, mother isn't sick; so don't cry," Elsie answered, receiving the offered kiss, as the babe left her grandfather's knee and crept to her; then the soft little hands patted her on the cheeks and the chubby arms clung about her neck.

But catching sight, through the open window, of her father coming up the garden walk, wee Elsie hastily let go her hold, slid to the floor and ran to meet him.

Mr. Dinsmore seemed again lost in gloomy thought.

"Papa, dear, what is it? What troubles you so?" asked Elsie, moving closer to him, and leaning affectionately on his shoulder, while the soft eyes sought his with a wistful, anxious expression.

He put his arm about her, and just touching her cheek with his lips, heaved a deep sigh. "The papers bring us bad news. Lincoln is elected."

"Ah well, let us not borrow trouble, papa; perhaps he may prove a pretty good president after all."

"Just what I think," remarked Mr. Travilla, who had come in with his little girl in his arms at the moment of Mr. Dinsmore's announcement, and seated himself on his wife's other side; "let us wait and see. All may go right with our country yet."

Mr. Dinsmore shook his head sadly. "I wish I could think so, but in the past history of all republics whenever section has arrayed itself against section the result has been either a peaceful separation, or civil war; nor can we hope to be an exception to the rule."

"I should mourn over either," said Elsie, "I cannot bear to contemplate the dismemberment of our great, glorious old Union. Foreign nations would never respect either portion as they do the undivided whole."

"No; and I can't believe either section can be so mad as to go that length," remarked her husband, fondling his baby daughter as he spoke.

"The North, of course, does not desire a separation; but if the South goes, will be pretty sure to let her go peaceably."

"I doubt it, Travilla; and even if a peaceable separation should be allowed at first, so many causes of contention would result (such as the control of the navigation of the Mississippi, the refusal of the North to restore runaway negroes, etc., etc.), that it would soon come to blows."

"Horace, you frighten me," said Rose, who had come in while they were talking.

The color faded from Elsie's cheek, and a shudder ran over her, as she turned eagerly to hear her husband reply.

"Why cross the bridge before we come to it, Dinsmore?" he answered cheerily, meeting his wife's anxious look with one so fond and free from care, that her heart grew light; "surely there'll be no fighting where there is no yoke of oppression to cast off. There can be no effect without a cause."

"The accursed l.u.s.t of power on the part of a few selfish, unprincipled men, may invent a cause, and for the carrying out of their own ambitious schemes, they may lead the people to believe and act upon it. No one proposes to interfere with our inst.i.tution where it already exists--even the Republican party has emphatically denied any such intention--yet the hue and cry has been raised that slavery will be abolished by the incoming administration, arms put into the hands of the blacks, and a servile insurrection will bring untold horrors to the hearths and homes of the South."

"Oh, dreadful, dreadful!" cried Rose.

"But, my dear, there is really no such danger: the men (unscrupulous politicians) do not believe it themselves; but they want power, and as they could never succeed in getting the ma.s.ses to rebel to compa.s.s their selfish ends, they have invented this falsehood and are deceiving the people with it."

"Don't put all the blame on the one side, Dinsmore," said Mr. Travilla.

"No; that would be very unfair. The framers of our const.i.tution looked to gradual emanc.i.p.ation to rid us of this blot on our escutcheon, this palpable inconsistency between our conduct and our political creed.

"It did so in a number of States, and probably would ere this in all, but for the fierce attacks of a few ultra-abolitionists, who were more zealous to pull the mote out of their brother's eye than the beam out of their own, and so exasperated the Southern people by their wholesale abuse and denunciations, that all thought of emanc.i.p.ation was given up.

"It is human nature to cling the tighter to anything another attempts to force from you; even though you may have felt ready enough to give it up of your own free will."

"Very true," said Travilla, "and Garrison and his crew would have been at better work repenting of their own sins, than denouncing those of their neighbors."

"But, papa, you don't think it can come to war, a civil war, in our dear country? the best land the sun shines on; and where there is none of the oppression that makes a wise man mad!"

"I fear it, daughter, I greatly fear it; but we will cast this care, as well as all others, upon Him who 'doeth according to His will, in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.'"

What a winter of uncertainty and gloom to Americans, both at home and abroad, was that of 1860-'61. Each mail brought to our anxious friends in Naples news calculated to depress them more and more in view of the calamities that seemed to await their loved land.

State after State was seceding and seizing upon United States property within its limits--forts, a.r.s.enals, navy-yards, custom-houses, mints, ships, armories, and military stores--while the government at Washington remained inactive, doubtless fearing to precipitate the civil strife.

Still Mr. Travilla, Rose, and Elsie, like many lovers of the Union, both North and South, clung to the hope that war might yet be averted.

At length came the news of the formation of the Confederacy: Davis's election as its president; then of the firing upon the Star of the West, an unarmed vessel bearing troops and supplies to Fort Sumter.

"Well, the first gun has been fired," said Mr. Dinsmore, with a sigh, as he laid down the paper from which he had been reading the account.

"But perhaps it may be the only one, papa," remarked Elsie hopefully.

"I wish it may," replied her father, rising and beginning to pace to and fro, as was his wont when excited or disturbed.

The next news from America was looked for with intense anxiety. It was delayed longer than usual; and at length a heavy mail came, consisting of letters and Capers of various dates from the twelfth to the twentieth of April, and bringing news of the most exciting character in the fall of Fort Sumter: the call of the president for seventy-five thousand troops to defend the capital, the seizure of the United States armory at Harper's Ferry by the Confederates; the attack on the Ma.s.sachusetts troops while pa.s.sing through Baltimore, and lastly the seizure of Norfolk Navy-yard.

Dinner was just over at the villa, the family still chatting over the dessert, children and all in an unusually merry mood, when this mail was brought in by a servant, and handed to Mr. Dinsmore.

He promptly distributed it, took up the paper of the earliest date, and glancing over the headings, exclaimed, with a groan, "It has come!"

"What?" queried the others, in excited chorus.

"War! My country! oh, my country! Fort Sumter has fallen after a terrific bombardment of thirty-six hours." And he proceeded to read aloud the account of the engagement, the others listening in almost breathless silence.

"And they have dared to fire upon the flag! the emblem of our nationality, the symbol of Revolutionary glory; to tear it down and trample it in the dust!" cried Mr. Travilla, pushing back his chair in unwonted excitement; "shameful, shameful!"

Tears were rolling down Elsie's cheeks, and Rose's eyes were full.

"Let us adjourn to the library and learn together all these papers and letters can tell us," said Mr. Dinsmore, rising. "'Twill be better so; we shall need the support of each other's sympathy."

He led the way and the rest followed.