The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army: A Story of the Great Rebellion, - [story reading .TXT] 📗

soon would be, in the midst of the traitors, and she trembled for him. Uncle Wyman was a secessionist; and, beyond this, she had not much confidence in his integrity, and if Captain Somers came home at all, his property would all be swept away, and he would be a beggar.

The events of that day were not calculated to conciliate Squire Pemberton towards them, and the farm and the cottage would pass away from them. All these things had been considered and reconsidered by the devoted mother. Poverty and want seemed to stare her in the face; and to add to all these troubles, Thomas did not come home, and, as fond mothers will, she anticipated the worst.

John entered the kitchen, and carelessly flung his cap upon the table. Mrs. Somers looked at him, and waited patiently to hear any intelligence he might bring. But John threw himself into a chair, looking more gloomy than before he left the house. He did not speak, and therefore he had no good news to tell.

“You didn’t see anything of him—did you?” asked Mrs. Somers; but it was a useless question, for she had already interpreted the meaning of his downcast looks.

“No, mother; there isn’t a man, woman, or child stirring in the village; and I didn’t see a light in a single house.”

“What do you suppose can have become of him?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. Tom is old enough and smart enough to take care of himself.”

“It’s very strange.”

“So it is. I haven’t any idea what has become of him.”

“Did you look around Squire Pemberton’s house, where he was seen last?”

“I looked about on both sides of the road, going and coming from the Harbor. I whistled all the way, and if he had been any where round, he would have whistled back, as he always does.”

“What do you suppose has become of him?” demanded the poor mother, worried beyond expression at the mysterious disappearance of her son.

“I can’t tell, mother.”

“Don’t you think we had better call up the neighbors, and have something done about it?”

“I don’t know,” replied John, hardly less anxious than his mother.

“I don’t suppose they would be able to find him if we did,” added Mrs. Somers, wiping away the tears from her face.

“I can’t think anything has happened to him, mother. If he had been on the water, or anything of that kind, I should feel worse about it.”

“If I only knew where he was, I shouldn’t feel so bad about it,” said she; and her position, certainly, was a reasonable one.

“What’s the matter, sister?” called gran’ther Greene, from his chamber. “Hasn’t that boy got home yet?”

“No, he hasn’t come yet, and I am worried to death about him,” replied Mrs. Somers, opening the door of her brother’s room.

“What o’clock is it?”

“After twelve. Thomas never stayed out so late in his life before. What do you suppose has become of him?”

“Law sake! I haven’t the leastest idea,” answered the old man. “Thomas is a smart boy, and knows enough to keep out of trouble.”

“That’s what I say,” added John, who had unlimited confidence in his brother’s ability to take care of himself.

“I’ll tell you what I think, John,” said Mrs. Somers, throwing herself into her chair with an air of desperation.

But she did not tell John what she thought: on the contrary, she sat rocking herself in silence, as though her thought was too big and too momentous for utterance.

“Well, what do you think, mother?” asked John, when he had waited a reasonable time for her to express her opinion on the exciting topic.

Mrs. Somers rocked herself more violently than before, and made no reply.

“What were you going to say?”

“I think the boy has gone off to Boston, and gone into the army,” replied she, desperately, as though she had fully made up her mind to commit herself to this belief.

“Do you think so, mother?”

“I feel almost sure of it.”

“I don’t think so, mother. Tom wouldn’t have gone off without saying something to me about it.”

“If he wouldn’t say it to me, he wouldn’t be likely to say it to you, John. It don’t look a bit like Thomas to go off and leave his mother in this way,” moaned the poor woman, wiping away a deluge of tears that now poured from her eyes.

“I don’t believe he has done any such thing, mother,” protested John.

“I feel almost certain about it, now. If the boy wanted to go, and couldn’t stay at home, he ought to have told me so.”

“He did say he wanted to go.”

“I didn’t think he really meant it. I want my boys to love their country, and be ready to fight for it. Much as I should hate to part with them, if they are needed, they may go; but I don’t like to have them run away and leave me in this mean way. I shouldn’t feel half so bad if I knew Thomas was in the army now, as I do to think he ran away from home, just as though he had done some mean thing. I am willing he should go, and he wouldn’t be a son of mine if he wasn’t ready to go and fight for his country, and die for her too, if there was any need of it. I didn’t think Thomas would serve me in this way.”

“I don’t believe he has.”

“I know he’s gone. I like his spunk, but if he had only come to me and said he must go, I wouldn’t have said a word; but to go off without bidding us good by—it’s too bad, and I didn’t think Thomas would do such a thing.”

Mrs. Somers rose from her chair, and paced the room in the highest state of agitation and excitement. The rockers were not adequate to the duty required of them, and nothing less than the whole floor of the kitchen was sufficient for the proper venting of her emotion.

“Do you mean to say, mother, that you would have given him leave to go, even if he had teased you for a month?” asked John.

“Certainly I should,” replied his mother, stopping short in the middle of the floor. “I’m ready and willing to have my boys fight for their country, but I don’t want them to sneak off as though they had been robbing a hen-roost, and without even saying good by to me.”

“If Tom were here, do you mean to say you would let him go?” demanded John, earnestly.

“Certainly I do; I mean so. But I don’t think there is any need of boys like him going, when there are men enough to do the fighting.”

“You told Tom he shouldn’t go.”

“Well, I didn’t think he really meant it. If he had—What’s that, John?” asked she, suddenly, as a noise at the window attracted her attention.

“Only the cat, mother.”

“If Thomas or you had asked me in earnest, and there was need of your going, I wouldn’t have kept either of you at home. I would go to the poorhouse first. My father and my brother both fought for their country, and my sons shall when their country wants them.”

“Then you are willing Tom should go?”

“I am, but not to have him sneak off like a sheep-stealer.”

“Three cheers for you, mother!” shouted Thomas, as he threw up the window at which he had been standing for some ten minutes listening to this interesting conversation.

“Where have you been, Thomas?” exclaimed the delighted mother.

“Open the door, Jack, and let me in, and I will tell you all about it,” replied the absentee.

“Come in; the door isn’t locked,” said John.

He came in; and what he had to tell will interest the reader as well as his mother and his brother.

Chapter VII. A Midnight Adventure.

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Tom Somers was an enterprising young man, as our readers have already discovered; and when the door of the finished room in the attic of Squire Pemberton’s house was fastened upon him, he was not at all disposed to submit to the fate which appeared to be in store for him. The idea of becoming a victim to the squire’s malice was not to be entertained, and he threw himself upon the bed to devise some means by which he might make his escape.

The prospect was not encouraging, for there was only one window in the chamber, and the distance to the ground was suggestive of broken limbs, if not of a broken neck. Tom had read the Life of Baron Trenck, and of Stephen Burroughs, but the experience of neither of these worthies seemed to be available on the present occasion.

As the family had not yet retired, it would not be safe to commence operations for some hours. The stale, commonplace method of tying the sheets and blankets together, and thus forming a rope by which he could descend to the ground, occurred to him; but he had not much confidence in the project. He lay quietly on the bed till he heard the clocks on the churches at the Harbor strike twelve. It was time then, if ever, for the family to be asleep, and he decided to attempt an escape by another means which had been suggested to him. If it failed, he could then resort to the old-fashioned way of going down on the rope made of sheets and blankets.

The apartment in which Tom was confined was not what people in the country call an “upright chamber.” The sides of the room were about four feet in height; and a section of the apartment would have formed one half of an irregular octagon. In each side of the chamber there was a small door, opening into the space near the eaves of the house, which was used to store old trunks, old boxes, the disused spinning-wheel, and other lumber of this description. Tom had been in the attic before, and he remembered these doors, through one of which he now proposed to make his escape.

When the clock struck twelve, he cautiously rose from the bed, and pulled off his boots, which a proper respect for his host or the bed had not prompted him to do before. The house was old, and the floors had a tendency to creak beneath his tread. With the utmost care, he crawled on his hands and knees to one of the doors of the lumber hole, which he succeeded in opening without much noise.

Making his way in among the old boxes, trunks, and spinning-wheels, he was fully embarked in his difficult venture. The dust which he stirred up in his progress produced an almost irresistible desire to sneeze, which Lord Dundreary might have been happy to indulge, but which might have been fatal to the execution of Tom Somers’s purpose. He rubbed his nose, and held his handkerchief over the intractable member, and succeeded in overcoming its dangerous tendency. His movements were necessarily very slow, for he was in constant dread lest some antiquated relic of the past should tumble over, and thus disturb the slumbers of the family who occupied the chambers below.

But in spite of the perils and difficulties that environed his path, there was something exciting and exhilarating in the undertaking. It was a real adventure, and, as such, Tom enjoyed it. As he worked his way through the labyrinth of antiquities, he could not but picture to himself the surprise and chagrin of Squire Pemberton, when he should come up to the attic chamber to wreak his vengeance upon him. He could see the magnate of Pinchbrook start, compress his lips and clinch his fists, when he found the bird had flown.

“Better not crow till I get out of the woods,” said he to himself, while his imagination was still busy upon the agreeable picture.

After a series of trials and difficulties which our space does not permit us to describe in full, Tom emerged from the repository of antiquities, and stood in the open space in front of the finished chamber. With one boot in each hand, he felt his way to the stairs, and descended to the entry over the front door. All obstacles now seemed to be overcome, for he had nothing to do but go down stairs and walk out.

It often happens, amid the uncertainties of this unstable world, that we encounter the greatest trials and difficulties precisely where we expect to find none. As Tom walked along the entry, with one hand on the rail that protected the staircase to guide him, he struck his foot against the pole upon which Fred Pemberton had suspended the flag out of the window. It was very careless of the squire, when he took the flag in, to leave the stick in that unsafe position, for one of his own family might have stumbled against it, and broken a leg or an arm, or possibly a neck; and if it might have been a “cause of offence” to one of the Pembertons, it certainly laid a grievous burden upon the shoulders of