The Courier Of The Ozarks Part 30

"Why, Grace, what made you so long?" asked the monitor in charge of the girls when she returned.

"Couldn't get waited on before," answered Grace demurely.

That evening Grace swore her room-mate to eternal secrecy, and then showed her the book.

The girl was horrified. "What made you buy it?" she wailed. "Why, if I should take that book home I would be arrested and sent to prison."

"I am determined to see what kind of a book it is," answered Grace, doggedly. "When I see, I can burn it up if I don't like it."

"I wouldn't touch it for the whole world," exclaimed her room-mate.

"Burn it up. Burn it up now, Grace. What if the girls found it out! We would be disgraced, ostracized, perhaps expelled!"

"If you don't tell, I will take care that no one else sees it," said Grace.

The next day Grace feigned a headache, and remained in her room to read the book. That evening her room-mate asked about it.

"You will never see it," replied Grace. "I looked into it and concluded you were right; it would never do for that book to be found in our room.

I have destroyed it."

"Grace Chittenden," cried the girl, "I believe you pretended to have a headache so you could stay in our room and read that book! I have a mind to report you. What kind of a book was it? Tell me."

"Do you want me to corrupt you too, Mabel?" laughed Grace. "No; the book is destroyed, and that ends it. It is not the kind of a book I thought it was--not so horrid; but it makes one think. I am almost sorry I read it."

That night Grace lay awake a long time thinking of Uncle Tom and Little Eva, and more than once she sighed, "Tilly is right. Slavery is wicked--wicked!"

Grace had been in school two years when the war opened. Even the seclusion of a girl's boarding school could not help being penetrated by the fierce excitement which swept through the whole country. The streets were filled with marching troops. Many of the girls had brothers in Frost's militia. Then Camp Jackson was taken.

Grace heard the distant firing, saw the surging mob in the streets, but in the midst of the excitement her father came. He had hurried to the city to take her home--to take her to the heart of the Ozarks, where he hoped the red waves of war would never come.

Marion Chittenden was by nature fierce and combative, but the horror from which he had fled had so changed him that it was only when some great excitement moved him that his pa.s.sions were aroused. He was a strong partisan of the South and believed the North wholly wrong. It was only his age and an injury that forbade protracted riding on horseback that kept him from offering his services to the State.

Mr. Chittenden's fierce denunciation of the North alarmed Grace. What would he say if he knew she was for the Union? She resolved to keep still and say nothing. She noticed a large number of rough men calling on her father, and a great number of secret consultations were held.

The first great shock came to Grace when one day her father said, "Grace, I wish you would cease visiting Helen Osborne, and by all means do not invite her here. I want no intercourse between the two families."

Grace opened her eyes in astonishment. "Why, father, what is the matter?" she asked.

"Osborne is a sneaking Yankee, an abolitionist, and the old fool can't keep his mouth shut."

"What difference should that make as far as Helen and I are concerned?"

asked Grace, her eyes flashing.

Surprised at the feeling his daughter showed, Mr. Chittenden said more gently: "Grace, you do not understand, you do not realize the feeling throughout the country. To be friendly with the Osbornes would bring suspicion on me. Even your visits would be misconstrued. Do as I ask you, Grace, for my sake."

She promised, though very reluctantly. More than once she resolved to tell her father her true feelings, but shrank from the ordeal.

After that Grace did not leave the valley. Rough, uncouth men came to visit her father more frequently than ever, and she heard enough to know that the waves of war had rolled clear down to Springfield and that the whole State was becoming a vast armed camp.

One day her father seemed much perturbed, and at last rode away in company with several men. Grace noticed they were all armed. Feeling alarmed as well as lonely, she resolved to take a ride. Ordering her favorite horse saddled, she soon was galloping down the valley towards the Osbornes. Why she took that direction she hardly knew. She rode as near to the Osbornes as she thought prudent, and was about to turn back, when she saw a great cloud of smoke arising.

"It must be the Osborne house," she exclaimed, and urged her horse forward. When she came to where she could see she reined in her horse and gazed at the scene in horror. Not only was Mr. Osborne's house in flames, but his barn and outbuildings, as well as stacks of grain.

But it was not so much the fire as what else she saw that made her face pale and her breath to come in gasps. A little apart from the fire stood a group of men, and in their midst Mr. Osborne, with a rope around his neck. His wife and daughter were clinging to him, and even from where Grace was their shrieks and cries for mercy reached her ears. She took one look, then struck her horse a sharp blow and, like a whirlwind, came upon the scene. Astonished, the men stood like statues.

"You pretend to be men, I suppose," she cried, "and call this war.

Cowards! Poltroons! Murderers!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "You pretend to be men and call this war!"]

Just then she caught sight of her father in the group. "You too!" she gasped, and fell fainting from her horse.

When she came to she was in her father's arms, the men had gone, and bending over her was Helen Osborne, bathing her face. She opened her eyes and then, shuddering, closed them again. She had looked into the face of a man stricken as unto death.

"Grace, Grace," he moaned, "another such look as that will kill me. You do not understand. I was trying to save life, not take it."

A shiver went through her body, but she did not open her eyes nor answer.

"Grace, hear me. I am not what you think. O G.o.d!"

"What did you say, father?" she whispered.

"That I was trying to save Mr. Osborne, not hang him."

Once more her eyes opened, but now they looked with love into her father's face. "Thank G.o.d!" she murmured, and her arms went around his neck. The strong man wept as he clasped her to his breast and kissed her again and again.

"Take me home," she whispered weakly. "I feel, oh, so faint!"

On the invitation of Mr. Chittenden the Osbornes accompanied him. The next day he sent them out of the country.

When Grace was strong enough to hear, her father told her all. Mr.

Osborne's p.r.o.nounced Northern principles had made him very obnoxious to those who sympathized with the South. "It was for this reason, Grace,"

he said, "I forbade your visiting Helen. Even a friendly intercourse between you two would have brought suspicion on me. You cannot understand the terrible feeling towards all Yankees and those who sympathize with them. Mr. Osborne was repeatedly warned to leave the country, but he paid no attention to the warnings. Instead, he became active in giving information to the Federal authorities. Some time ago it became known that he had sent to the Federal commander at Rolla the name of every active Southern sympathizer in the country. My name was on the list as one of the leaders.

"This was too much for the boys, and they decided on summary punishment, but, knowing that I was opposed to extreme means, they tried to keep what they were to do from me. I found it out and did all in my power to save him, but a vote was taken, and it was decided he should be burned out and then hanged. It was only your timely arrival that saved him. He is well out of the country now, for which I am thankful."

Grace listened to his account in silence, then said: "I'm so glad, father, you tried to save him. I thought--oh, I can't tell what I thought, it was so dreadful."

She then seemed struggling with herself, as if she wanted to say something and dared not.

"What is it, child?" asked Mr. Chittenden gently.

Looking at him with yearning eyes, she whispered, "Do you love me?"

"What a question, Grace! Better than my life! You should know that!"

"And will you let anything come between? Will you always love me, even if I am not what you think?"

"Grace, what do you mean?" he cried, brokenly. A terrible suspicion came to him that her mind was wandering, that the shock she had received had unbalanced her reason.