The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers Volume I Part 13

"Nothing," says I, "save a few harmless insects."

"I speak not of them," says he. "Was there anything _inside_ of my head?"

"Nothing!" says I.

"Well," says he, "just listen now."

He shook his head mournfully, and I heard something rattle in it.

"What's that?" I exclaimed.

"That," says he, "is your bullet, which has penetrated my skull, and is rolling about in my brain. I die happy, and with an empty stomach; but there is one thing I should like to see before I perish for my country.

Have you a quarter about you?"

Too much affected to speak, I drew the coin from my pocket and handed it to him.

The dying man clutched it convulsively, and stared at it feverishly.

"This," said he, "is the first quarter I've seen since the fall of Sumter; and, had I wounded you, I should have been totally unable to give you any quarter. Ah! how beautiful it is! how bright, how exquisite, and good for four drinks! But I have not time to say all I feel."

The expiring soldier then laid down his gun, hung his cap and overcoat on a branch of a tree, and blew his nose.

He then died.

And there I stood, my boy, on that lonely beat, looking down on that fallen type of manhood, and thinking how singular it was he had forgotten to give me back my quarter.

As I looked upon him there, I could not help thinking to myself, "here is another whose home shall know him no more."

The sight and the thought so affected me, that I was obliged to turn my back on the corpse and walk a little way from it. When I returned to the spot, the body was gone! Had it gone to Heaven? Perhaps so, my boy--perhaps so; but I hav'n't seen my quarter since.

Your own picket,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.

LETTER XIX.

NOTICING THE ARRIVAL OF A SOLID BOSTON MAN WITH AN UNPRECEDENTED LITERARY PRIZE, AND SHOWING HOW VILLIAM BROWN WAS TRIUMPHANTLY PROMOTED.

WASHINGTON, D.C., November --, 1861.

Having just made a luscious breakfast, my boy, on some biscuit discovered amid the ruins of Herculaneum, and purchased expressly for the grand army by a contracting agent for the Government, I take a sip of coffee from the very boot in which it was warmed, and hasten to pen my dispatch.

On Wednesday morning, my boy, the army here was reenforced by a very fat man from Boston, who said he'd been used to Beacon street all the days of his life, and considered the State House somewhat superior to St. Peter's at Rome. He was a very fat man, my boy: eight hands high, six and a half hands thick, and his head looked like a full moon sinking in the west at five o'clock in the morning. He said he joined the army to fight for the Union, and cure his asthma, and Colonel Wobert Wobinson thoughtfully remarked, that he thought he could grease a pretty long bayonet without feeling uncomfortable. This fat man, my boy, was leaning down to clean his boots just outside of a tent, when the General of the Mackerel Brigade happened to come along, and got a back view of him.

"Thunder!" says the general, stopping short; "who's been sending artillery into camp?"

"There's no artillery here, my boy," says I.

"Well," says he, "then what's the gun-carriage doing here?"

I explained to him that what he took for a gun-carriage was a fat patriot blacking his boots; and he said that he be dam.

Soon after the arrival of this solid Boston man, my boy, I noticed that he always carried about with him, suspended by a strap under his right arm, something carefully wrapped in oilskin. He was sitting with me in my room at Willard's the other evening, and says I to him:

"What's that you hug so much, my Plymouth Rocker?"

He nervously clutched his treasure, and says he:

"It's an unpublished poem of the Honorable Edward, which I found in a very old alb.u.m in Beacon street. It's an immortal and unpublished poem," says he, fondly taking a roll of ma.n.u.script from the oilskin wrapper,--"by the greatest and most silent statesman of the age.

You'll recognize the style at once.--Listen--

"ADVICE TO A MAID.

"Perennial maiden, thou art no less fair Than those whose fairness barely equals thine; And like a cloud on Athos is thy hair, Touched with Promethean fire to make it shine Above the temple of a soul divine; And yet, methinks, it doth resemble, too, The strands Berenice 'mid the stars doth twine, As Mitch.e.l.l's small Astronomy doth show; Procure the book, dear maid, when to the town you go.

"Young as thou art, thou might'st be younger still, If divers years were taken from thy life: And who shall say, if marry man you will, You may not prove some man's own wedded wife?

Such things do happen in this worldly strife, If they take place--that is, if they are done; For with warm love this earthly dream is rife-- And where love shines there always is a sun-- As I remark in my Oration upon Washington.

"Supposing thou dost marry, thou wilt yearn For that which thou dost want; in fact, desire-- The wisdom shaped for older heads to learn, And well designed to tame Youth's giddy fire: The wisdom, conflicts with the world inspire, Such as, perchance, I may myself possess, Though I am but a man, as was my sire, And own not wisdom such as G.o.ds may bless; For man is naught, and naught is nothingness.

"Still, I may tell thee all that I do know, And telling that, tell all I comprehend; Since all man hath is all that he can show, And what he hath not, is not his to lend.

Therefore, young maid, if you will but attend, You shall hear that which shall salute your ear; But if you list not, I my breath shall spend Upon the zephyrs wandering there and here, The far-off hearing less, perhaps, than those more near.

"Remember this: thou art thy husband's wife, And he the mortal thou art married to; Else, thou fore'er hadst led a single life, And he had never come thy heart to woo.

Rememb'ring this, do thou remember, too, He is thy bridegroom, thou his chosen bride; And if unto his side thou provest true, Then thou wilt be for ever at his side; As Tacitus observes, with some degree of pride.

"See that his b.u.t.tons to his shirts adhere, As Trojan Hector to the walls of Troy; And see that not, Achilles-like, appear Rents in his stocking-heels; but be your joy To have his wardrobe all your thoughts employ, Save such deep thought as may, in duty given, Suit to his tastes his dinners; nor annoy Digestion's tenor in its progress even; Then his the joy of Harvard, Boston, and high Heaven.

"If a bread-pudding thou wouldst fondly make-- A thing nutritious, but no costly meal-- Of bread that's stale a due proportion take, And soak in water warm enough to feel; Then add a strip or two of lemon-peel, With curdled milk and raisins to your taste, And stir the whole with ordinary zeal, Until the ma.s.s becomes a luscious paste.

Such pudding strengthens man, and doth involve no waste.

"See thou thy husband's feet are never wet-- For wet brings cold, and colds such direful aches As old Parrhasius never felt when set On cruel racks or slow impaling stakes.

Make him abstain, if sick, from griddle-cakes-- They, being rich, his stomach might derange-- And if in thin-soled shoes a walk he takes, See that his stockings he doth quickly change.

Thus should thy woman's love through woman's duties range.

"And now, fair maiden, all the stars grow pale, And teeming Nature drinks the morning dews; And I must hasten to my Orient vale, And quick put on a pair of over-shoes.

If from my words your woman's heart may choose To find a guidance for a future way, The Olympian impulse and the lyric muse In such approval shall accept their pay.

And so, good-day, young girl--ah me! oh my! good-day.

"EDWARD EVERDEVOURED."

As the solid Boston man finished reading this useful poem, he looked impressively at me, and says he:

"There's domestic eloquence for you! The Honorable Edward is liberal in his views," says he, enthusiastically, "and treats his subject with some lat.i.tude."