BILL, THE BOUND BOY.
Bill Bradley was a blacksmith boy. He was an orphan, and had beenapprenticed to old Carnahan the day Lincoln was elected, and had pumpedthe bellows and swung the sledge every day since. Old Carnahan wasa stern task-master, and got out of his bound boy all the law wouldallow. We used to pass the shop every time we drove from our farm inthe country, and there was nothing in the county seat, the greatesttown we had ever seen, so notable as the great shock of fiery red hairdisplayed by Bill Bradley. He always stood at the door of the shop aswe passed at noon-time and nodded at us with the cheeriest sort of asmile. It was a thing to remember with pride when a town boy honored uswith recognition.
Money was mighty scarce in our house those days. Dimes were things totreasure carefully; and dollars, when they came, were something spokenof with bated breath and hidden away--or paid out grudgingly. And ironwas in demand. The cannons made those first years of the war calledinto requisition it seemed to me all the fragments of old cast ironthere was in the country. Blacksmiths were paying first a cent, thentwo cents, and finally two and a half cents a pound; though they didnot make a difference whether you "took it out in trade" or demandedcash.
We boys in the country used to gather up every bit of metal that wouldsell, and carefully save it till we had a hundred pounds or more, andthen take it to town and convert it into the infrequent cash or thealmost as acceptable and quite costly groceries.
One day when we took our plunder to town we found the streets instrange commotion.
"They're listing soldiers," said a nervous voice in our ears, and whenwe turned we found Bill Bradley, wide-eyed, excited, and reckless. Wewere surprised, for we knew it was time for him to be at the forge, andwe knew how strict was his employer in the matter of time.
We drove to the blacksmith shop with the fragments of iron, and foundBill Bradley there before us. He was pumping the bellows, and old manCarnahan was rating him soundly for his absence. The red head was atrifle higher, the blue eyes a trifle wider, and the breath was quickerand more charged with warning. Carnahan should have known. But hedidn't. He grew more enraged, till at a word of defense from the boy helost his temper completely, and, in a fit of exasperation, struck hisapprentice.
The blow was not a severe one, and Bill could not have suffered atwinge of pain. But his pride was hurt, and that blow ended for him, asthat larger, later blow ended for four millions of others, his seasonof servitude.
"I'll quit you," he cried, trembling and almost weeping with excitementand rage. "I'll list for a soldier."
We left the iron in a pile on the shabby floor, and followed him withpalpitating hearts to the little lobby of the post-office. He wasgreeted with a chorus of shouts, as was each new recruit, and a touchof ridicule must have mingled with the hailing, for it straightened himand stiffened him and sent him to the captain with as firm a front asever was borne by a novice.
If the men were changed by the donning of the blue, what transformationwas this wrought in our blacksmith boy? He was inches taller andfathoms deeper. He was a man. He stood about with the recruits, hisbrow darkening a little when Carnahan approached, for he did not yetunderstand the privilege of a warrior. But more than any other man inuniform he was severed from civil life. He was one of this wonderfullegion that was filling the world with comment--and filling the homeswith woe. We came to town that Saturday when the troops were musteredin, and watched them drilling. We saw our blacksmith boy, and wonderedhow we ever had addressed him, he was a being so different from allhe had been before. We saw the march by twos and fours and companyfront, the double-quick and the charge; and we heard the fledglingofficers swear with strange oaths at the men they were later to pushinto conflict. We fancied Bill Bradley would not stand much of that. Wesaw them march to the depot, and then wept, I fear, at the passionategood-bys. There were fathers and younger brothers and desolate wives;but the saddest of all were the partings from mothers. It was sopiteous, the hopelessness of their despair, the utter abandon of theirtears.
And then after much shaking of hands and waving of hands the train wasaway. We saw load after load go by on the cars after that, and alwayslooked eagerly for the sight of some face we knew. But the faces whichwe knew were swallowed and lost in a sea of strangeness--a sea, wepray, which never may grow familiar.
We read of the terrible battles that Western army fought; we read oftheir victories, and the far too frequent defeats. We read the listsof killed and wounded, and saw at last in the longest column the nameof Private William Bradley. How far that name removed him from us! Hewas William now--not common Bill; not Bill the blacksmith's bound boy.We wondered if there was anything we could do for him, and in the nextbox that went from our town mother sent underclothes and stockings tothe youth; for there was no one near us by blood or friendship whoweathered that winter in the South, and no one near Bill to rememberhim. And one day toward the dawn of spring a letter came from thehospital, written in the clumsy hand of the orphan, acknowledging thereceipt of the clothes, and thanking for them with the clumsy, genuinefeeling of one who seldom speaks and never forgets a favor. He was wellagain, he said, and would be returned for duty in the morning. Theylooked for another hard battle, for the enemy was massing, and thisnew general that had won in the past believed in sledge-hammers anddecisive measures. At the end of the letter was the sentence:
"Tha have mad me a corprl."
How proud he was of that--prouder of it than were the thousands who hadother things to comfort them. And how near us he seemed to come as theweary months went by and the fighting began again. Once fix your mindon a man in the distance and a man who stands front face with dangernight and day and never flinches; and it is wonderful how completely hewill fill your sky. You imagine all manner of great things about him,dread all manner of terrible things, and end at last by loving him.So, when that other battle was fought by the general who believed insturdy blows, and when Vicksburg laid down her arms at the feet of avictorious army, we read again in the terrible lists of the killed andwounded the name of our blacksmith boy. This time, too, it was amongthe wounded--in the longest column; but it bore a prefix that surprisedus. It was "Sergeant Bradley" now. The meager details of that time didnot help us to all the information we wanted. We did not know how badlyhe was injured, but we sent a box of jellies and pickles and thingsthat are not issued with the rations; and got another letter telling ofthe battle. And it makes no difference how many of these reports youread in the paper, this letter from a man who was in the thick of thefight was far more authentic. It was far more real.
But Sergeant Bradley was sorely wounded this time. We found more aboutit later when a letter from the captain was printed in the countypaper, detailing the events that had been important from a subaltern'sstandpoint and boasting of the prowess of his men. In this was told thestory of a Mississippi regiment, those tigers of the South--a chargethat was met by the tattered remnant of the Indiana brigade. He told ofthe clashing of man against man, and the loss of the banner over andover again--that banner that went down to the army with the blessingsof a thousand women when Corinth fell. And it told how, when thehowling, shouting, slashing, shrieking legions swept the Northernersback for a moment, and the guns were taken and not a thing could livein the sea of triumphant assault, Corporal William Bradley had wrappedhis shattered arms about the flag and rolled with it right under theguns that were turned against his brethren.
"I knew you would come back again," said the hero, when the charge wasrepulsed and the battery was recaptured. "I knew you would come back,and I saved the flag."
He had, and he wore a sergeant's chevron for his heroism. But the hurtwould not heal. The sulphurous smoke, the fearful concussions of earthand air as he burrowed under the guns and waited for rescue, the swordthrusts and bayonet pricks, the white flesh torn by whistling ball, andthe two bones broken by the shattered shell--all this was tribulationwhich would not pass away. Sergeant Bradley lay long in the hospital.
One night in the autumn,
as we sat there under a waning moon andlistened to the shrill complaint of a hidden cicada, we were consciousof a figure making slow progress along the path by the roadside. Itwas a man, and even in the darkness of night we could see it was notfamiliar. For the matter of that, the figure of a man at all those dayswas not a common thing. Men were away in the South, as a general rule.But this figure grew stranger as it came nearer. Presently the gateswung open, and the watch-dog gave challenge. We silenced him and roseto meet a limping, swaying figure in Federal blue. He said nothing, andseemed, with that grinning insistence of the uncouth man, to wish wemight remember him. We had filled our thought with Bradley, no doubt;but this could not be he.
It was, however, and when we were sure of that we gave him a welcomeand hearty cheer. But he was very weak. It seemed, after the firsttimid acceptance of our greeting, he began to fail, and to take lessand less of interest in the things about him. We thought he would liketo hear news from town. He had forgotten all about the town. We hopeda little later he would enjoy a word of cheer from the front. There wasno army for him now. He lay there so white on the pillow, his red hairmaking the whiteness more vivid; his blue eyes looking so steadily, yetso listlessly, at a single point in the wall; he stirred so slightly atthe passing of day and night--and then he closed his eyes.
It was long before he opened them again. When he did he saw motherbeside him. She was cooling the cloth she laid on his forehead.
"I thought I wanted to come home," he said, and then closed his eyesagain. There was no relevancy in the remark. No one had spoken to him,and there had never been a thought of this or other place as a home forhim. It must have been on his mind all the time.
But there was youth to support him, and the blessings of twenty yearsto pour their vigor into his veins. His mending was slow, but it wassure. He walked about the farm at Thanksgiving, and returned to duty atChristmas. He was a different man. It seemed impossible he ever couldhave been a bound boy. He was dignified, self-reliant. He spoke easilyand without embarrassment, no matter if it was a general addressed. Andhe was a lieutenant when the war was done.
No, he didn't die. He lived to remember twenty battles and a dozenwounds. He lived to make a modest beginning in business, and to followit to comfortable success. He owns his home now and under his broad hathides red hair that will never be quite gray. He stands to-day with hischildren at the graves of the men who were with him in the army, whowere with him in danger and suffering and success. He stands with thosechildren and tells them the story and the lesson of the day.
To him it was the working out of a problem, the right solution afteryears of wrong. To him and to me his record typifies the average ofthat darker period. Thousands and tens of thousands went in with awhim to come out with a halo. They enlisted under the spur of example,of banter, of pique. Yet they fought like Greeks, and forgave likeChristians. It was the hand of the common man that left home duties andhome obligations to take up the greater cause of a nation. It was thetriumph of simplicity--that silent legion which boasted little beforethe war, and never complained when hardship came. It was the triumph ofall that is good in the American who lives to see the realization ofdreams that were not bold enough to paint their horoscope when prophecywas loudest.