The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers Volume Ii Part 26

"John Brown's body," which has been "marching on" for some time past, my boy, being thus considerably in advance of our strictly Const.i.tutional Army, has at length made a great strategic movement, and evoked the following promissory note from our Honest Old Abe:

COLORLESS DOMICIL, Sept. 22d, 1862.

"Ninety days after date I promise to pay the Southern Confederacy, or order, the full amount of its deserts.

"$ _Emanc.i.p.ation._ H. O. ABE."

The morning after this little settlement was made, my boy, I met the conservative Kentucky chap on Pennsylvania avenue, and was greatly edified by his high-minded remarks on the subject. "Having recently disposed of any attached contrabands to good advantage," says he, sagely, "I am now deeply convinced that my brother-in-law, the Southern Confederacy, has brought this dispensation upon himself. I have said all along that it would be so at last," says the genial Kentucky chap, casting another glance at the score of a recent game of Euchre which he held in his hand. "I have said all along that it would be so at last, and I am still disposed to sustain the Administration and crush the Black Republicans."

When I remembered the sentiments held by this accommodating chap only about a week ago, my boy, I could not but feel that he had made a remarkably sudden revolution on the axes he had to grind; and as there was a pleasing spice of human audacity in his easy way of suiting his style to the political demands of the moment, I was strongly reminded of a chap I once knew in the Sixth Ward.

He was a young chap of gorgeous vest-pattern, and one Sunday afternoon he went out riding with another sprightly young chap, who was accompanied by his plighted pink bonnet. They were riding joyously along in their hired vehicle, my boy, pleasantly discussing the merits of Eighty's new foreman, and other subjects equally well calculated to entertain and improve the fond female mind, when, as they turned a sharp corner, there loomed up, at some distance ahead, a house bearing a sign reading:

FEED STORE

OATS FOR SALE HERE.

No sooner did the spirited livery-horse observe this dangerous sign, my boy, than he dashed toward it in a manner worthy of my own gothic steed, the architectural Pegasus; and as there happened to be a few stones in the way, the two chaps and the pink bonnet were presently shot into the surrounding atmosphere without regard to the character of the day. While the excited quadruped went on with the two fore-wheels of the vehicle for the purpose of reading the sign nearer by, the chap of the gorgeous vest-pattern announced his safe arrival in a sand-bank by the appropriate and cheery cry of "Fire! fire! fire!" and the other chap and the pink bonnet warbled hasty thanksgivings in the bosom of a romantic ditch. How they finally caught the spirited livery horse, and induced him to come back to the city again by making a copy of the sign on a bit of paper, and placing it in his mouth, and how they ultimately reached home, you must imagine. But in about a week after, the unnatural livery-stable keeper brought suit against the smitten chap for the two hind-wheels of his wagon; and when the young chap of gorgeous vest-pattern was put upon the stand to prove that the catastrophe was not the driver's fault, he winked agreeably at the people, and says he: "My friend and a.s.soshate exerted hisself visibly to subdue the fiery old oat-mill. As it was, his brains was nearly dashed out, his neck-tie was sprained, and he _found his watch wound up_."

Here the livery lawyer thought he had the friendly chap in a tight place, and says he:

"You say that by being thrown from the wagon so violently, the defendant's watch was wound up. Perhaps you will inform the court how such a strange phenomenon _could_ occur?"

The young chap merely paused long enough to make another desperate attempt to reconcile the bottom-edge of his waistcoat to the top-edge of his inexpressibles, and says he, with a fine smile:

"Why, it was easy enough for his watch to be wound up by it, my covey; because _he turned three times in the air before he lit_."

Accommodating conservative chaps, my boy, though momentarily thrown out of their reckoning, by reason of sudden proceedings caused by the latest signs of the times, have a happy apt.i.tude for turning-about as often as may seem necessary, before alighting on a fixed principle.

The Mackerel chaplain, who came up from Harper's Ferry on Monday afternoon, was delighted with H. O. Abe's promissory note, and considers that old John Brown is at last

AVENGED.

G.o.d'S scales of Justice hang between The deed Unjust and the end Unseen, And the sparrow's fall in the one is weighed By the Lord's own Hand in the other laid.

In the prairie path to our Sun-set gate, In the flow'ring heart of a new-born State, Are the hopes of an old man's waning years, 'Neath headstones worn by an old man's tears.

When the bright sun sinks in the rose-lipped West, His last red ray is the headstone's crest; And the mounds he laves in a crimson flood Are a Soldier's wealth baptized in blood!

Do ye ask who reared those headstones there, And crowned with thorns a sire's gray hair?

And by whom the Land's great debt was paid To the Soldier old, in the graves they made?

Shrink, Pity! shrink, at the question dire; And, Honor, burn in a blush of fire!

Turn, Angel, turn from the page thine eyes, Or the Sin, once written, never dies!

They were men of the Land he had fought to save From a foreign foe that had crossed the wave, When his sun-lit youth was a martial song, And shook a throne as it swelled along.

They were sons of the clime whose soft, warm breath Is the soul of earth, and a life in death; Where the Summer dreams on the couch of Spring, And the songs of birds through the whole year ring;

Where the falling leaf is the cup that grew To catch the gems of the new leaf's dew, And the winds that through the vine-leaves creep Are the sighs of Time in a pleasant sleep.

But there lurked a taint in the clime so blest, Like a serpent coiled in a ring-dove's nest, And the human sounds to the ear it gave Were the clank of chains on a low-browed Slave!

The Soldier old at his sentry-post, Where the sun's last trail of light is lost, Beheld the shame of the Land he loved, And the old, old love in his bosom moved.

He cried to the land, Beware! Beware Of the symboled Curse in the Bondman there!

And a prophet's soul in fire came down To live in the voice of old John Brown.

He cried; and the ingrate answer came In words of steel from a tongue of flame; They dyed his hearth in the blood of kin, And his dear ones fell for the Nation's Sin!

O, matchless deed! that a fiend might scorn, O, deed of shame! for a world to mourn; A Soldier's pay in his blood most dear, And a land to mock at a Father's tear!

Is't strange that the tranquil soul of age Was turned to strife in a madman's rage?

Is't strange that the cry of blood did seem Like the roll of drums in a martial dream?

Is't strange the clank of the Helot's chain Should drive the Wrong to the old man's brain, To fire his heart with a santon's zeal, And mate his arm to the Soldier's steel?

The bane of Wrong to its depth had gone, And the sword of Right from its sheath was drawn; But the cabined Slave heard not his cry, And the old man armed him but to die.

Ye may call him Mad, that he did not quail When his stout blade broke on the unblest mail; Ye may call him Mad, that he struck alone, And made the land's dark Curse his own;

But the Eye of G.o.d looked down and saw A just life lost by an unjust law; And black was the day with G.o.d's own frown When the Southern Cross was a martyr's Crown!

Apostate clime! the blood then shed, Fell thick with vengeance on thy head, To weigh it down 'neath the coming rod When thy red right hand should be stretched to G.o.d.

Behold the price of the life ye took; At the death ye gave 'twas a world that shook; And the despot deed that one heart broke, From their slavish sleep a Million woke!

Not all alone did the victim fall, Whose wrongs first brought him to your thrall; The old man played a Nation's part, And ye struck your blow at a Nation's heart!

The freemen-host is at your door, And a Voice goes forth with a stern "No More!"

To the deadly Curse, whose swift redeem Was the visioned thought of John Brown's dream.

To the Country's Wrong, and the Country's stain, It shall prove as the scythe to the yielding grain; And the dauntless pow'r to spread it forth, Is the free-born soul of the chainless North.

From the East, and West, and North they come, To the bugle's call and the roll of drum; And a form walks viewless by their side-- A form that was born when the Old Man died!

The Soldier old in his grave may rest, Afar with his dead in the prairie West; But a red ray falls on the headstone there, Like a G.o.d's reply to a Soldier's pray'r.

He may sleep in peace 'neath the greenwood pall, For the land's great heart hath heard his call; And a people's Will and a people's Might, Shall right the Wrong and proclaim the Right.

The foe may howl at the fiat just, And gnash his fangs in the trodden dust; But the battle leaves his bark a wreck, And the Freeman's heel is on his neck.

Not all in vain is the lesson taught, That a great soul's Dream is the world's New Thought; And the Scaffold marked with a death sublime Is the Throne ordained for the coming time.

The chaplain runs as naturally to poetry, my boy, as a water-melon does to seed, and his muse is apt to be--alas! what a melancholy one!

In my last epistle, I was somewhat hyperbolical when I meant to be metaphorical, as some of the older writers were allegorical when they meant to be categorical. I told you, my boy, that we had cornered the prudish Confederacy in Accomac, and "thrown our arms around her." Your natural ignorance will demand an explanation; and I deem it fit to say, that by the phrase "thrown our arms around her," I meant to say that certain Mackerel regiments, in furtherance of the profound strategy of the General of the Mackerel Brigade, had thrown their arms away, on every side of the entrapped Confederacy. It was believed that the Confederacy was perfectly safe for immediate capture, my boy; but upon the discovery that the fords of Allkwyet River, in the rear of Accomac, where the Confederacy could cross, were adjoining each other, and extended from the source of the river to its mouth, it was deemed proper to let the Confederacy court further ruination by retiring in that direction. Hence, whilst the watchful Conic section took a brief nap, the Anatomical Cavalry was sent rapidly in front of the disgracefully retreating Confederacy to clear the road for it to the river, and then telegraph the news of the great victory to all the excellent morning journals.