THE MYRTLE LEAF. A THANKSGIVING STORY. BY A. A. HOPKINS CHAPTER I.

       When Clyde Hammond enlisted in the —th Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteers, and said good bye to the old home which was nestled half hidden in the Androscoggin Valley, he carried with him something more than the memories which linked him so strongly to the old place and the aged pair remaining there. It was a simple little something, and possessed of a very trifling meaning, one would think. Clyde thought differently. It was not a picture, and yet it was a more beautiful one than artist ever painted. It was not a story, but a sweeter one than it told to him never was listened to. It was merely a myrtle leaf — an evergreen token that he carried carefully next to his heart all the way to the front, and which he guarded almost reverently through the memorable days that crept by after his regiment was assigned to actual duty.

       It was the best company he had, often. He fell into the habit of taking it from its resting place, when the camp fire gave out its flickering light and he fancied his comrades were asleep, or when alone on picket, and looking at the pretty picture it sketched for him, or listening to the whispered tale it breathed. But he concealed it from all other eyes. There was a touch of holiness about it, somehow, and he felt that a curious gaze would desecrate it. Once his messmate, Lieutenant Lange, came upon him suddenly, as he sat holding the fragile leaf by the stem, half lost in a dreamy reverie, and his abrupt "Why, what on earth is the man dreaming over?" caused Clyde to blush as rosy as did ever a young girl caught in reading her first love letter. He showed it to Lange, then; smiling furtively as the Lieutenant casually remarked —

       "Only a myrtle leaf, to me; but to you" —

       Lange stopped there. He had no wish to appear curious or inquisitive, and he knew, beside, that Clyde Hammond kept his own secrets until such time as it pleased him to confide in others. They were friends — these two; friends in the degree known only to those who face death together almost daily. Each knew that there was manly stuff in the other, — that, whatever should come to him in the fortune of war, the other would be a true helper in so far as in him lay.

       Through several engagements they had battled bravely, and when their first year of service was ended, had well earned the name of veterans. Hammond had been promoted from the ranks of a Lieutenantcy which promotion pleased him no more than it did his friend Lange, and while in their hearts there was a deep sense of gratitude for the good fortune that had thus far attended them, they looked forward to further efforts in behalf of their country with a lively anticipation. It was hardly possible that throughout the future strife both should go unscathed, and Hammond, looked more frequently than ever at the dry and brittle token he still cherished, thought fondly of the little fingers that once pressed it, and wondered if they would ever again be clasped in his.

       Then came one of those bloody conflicts which tested so sorely the loyal ranks, and the reports of which fairly chilled us as they thrilled over the North-land. it was Antietam, I think. The —th New Hampshire Volunteers were in the thickest of it, and suffered fearfully. In a charge which the regiment participated in, toward evening — a headlong, blind sortie, through a piece of wood — Hammond and Lange became separated, and after a retreat had been effected, the former was missing. Just at twilight, while the battle was yet raging along another part of the line, Lieut. Lange ventured again into the wood. He hoped to find his friend alive, and to be able to bring him in. Many a form with the soul gone out of it he stumbl'd o'er in the shadows; and many a poor wounded fellow looked pitifully up at him as he closely scanned the features of those lying around. His search was rewarded, finally. In a little hollow, by an old stump, Clyde lay, a bullet hole through his body, and the red current of life oozing out slowly. He could talk yet.

       "I'm pretty near done for, old fellow," he said, through a bit of a smile, "but I am glad you came. You can deliver a message I began to fear must go ungiven. You remember the myrtle leaf, Lange? Well, there 's a little girl away up among the granite hills, who gave it to me the night before I left home. She's made the place more gladsome for the old folks than it might have been, for she's a merry-hearted body, and like a daughter to them. But she's not my sister, though my companion as such for a dozen years, and she was to be my wife when I got back."

       His voice trembled preceptibly, but he swallowed a draught from Lange's canteen and continued:

       "That's what the myrtle leaf meant to me; but it's over now, and I want you to put the leaf in a letter and send it to Nell, along with a few words just to let her and the others know that I'm not coming. You'll do it, won't you? You know where it should go."

       Lange found the simple keepsake, where it had all along been carefully hidden, and at that moment Clyde fainted entirely. Firing near at hand compelled Lange to move back to his regiment, and with never a thought but that his friend was among the dead, he that evening wrote the promised message to the little girl up among the mountains, and inclosed in it the myrtle leaf she had given when she gave her troth.

 

       It was mid-summer when the message reached its destination — mid-summer amid the gray New Hampshire hills. There had been breaths from the sunny South which wafted even into the peaceful valley where the Hammond homestead was situated, and which had a taint of blood in them. But none of them had breathed upon the senses of the little home circle that now waited anxiously for news from their "boy in blue." He had been kept safely so long that they were beginning to think him proof against the dangers of war, but when news of the battle came and was not speedily followed by assurances of his welfare, they doubted. In the midst of their anxious doubting and hoping, the message came.

       It was just such an one as came to many and many another — just such a one as cut to thousands of other hearts — saving, perhaps the leaf of myrtle. This sanctified, in a certain sense, the grief of Ellen Vane to herself. She had not known of him keeping it. He never had mentioned it in his letters, and she had almost forgotten the giving of it. How much it had been to him — how much her memory had been to him — the little faded leaf eloquently told. As something sacred, therefore, she laid it aside. And as he had brought it forth often, to see the picture which it hid from all the others, so she had often drawn it from its receptacle, to read in it a sadder story than ever a young heart ought to know, and to see in it a sadder picture than ever loving eyes ought to behold. The dry leaf was to her a semblance of others of its kind, which she saw evermore running over a lonely grave.

       Mid-summer died away in a smoky haze; the harvest moon came and went with its silver sheen; Autumn put on its many-colored robes of royalty and reigned in splendor. Over the Hammond farm, meanwhile, the sunlight and moonlight seemed to shine dimly. Things were not as they used to be before the reading of that terrible message. Nell was a merry-hearted body, as Clyde had said, but her merriment was not now as genuine as formerly. She saw the picture of that lonely mound, alas! too often; and when a grave comes into a heart the laugh goes out. The old folks, whom she endeavored to comfort, seldom spoke of their loss in her presence, but together they spoke of him who was slain, with a fond tenderness, and of their lonely future with a shade of despondency lightened only by the faith that it would soon be brighter "over the river."

       The dull, leaden days of November crept on apace. There was a dull chill in the hearts of Ellen Vane and those whom she knew as father and mother; there was a chill in the air around them. The snow come drifting silently down, at length,. During all the weary day preceding Thanksgiving the feathery flakes floated down through the still atmosphere, while the fields grew white, and the trees nodded to each other in their new and spotless plumes, and the seringo-bushes disappeared in a strangely grotesque form. Before the twilight settled over the new earth with an uncertain dimness, Ellen drew forth her myrtle leaf once more, and dreamed over, as she looked upon it, the brief happiness that gladdened her young life, seeing still, through the thin veil of her dream, the grave that she fancied would never be shut out from her sight.

       Morning dawned — Thanksgiving morning — calmly, clear and beautiful. Arrayed in its white robe the world seemed as pure as in the long-gone Eden-Days. The hush of a holy silence was on the air — such a hush as might prelude the Laus Deo of all heaven's angels. It was a fit day for thank-offerings.

       Thanksgiving should be honored at the Hammond farm-house as it had been honored there for a half a century. Less joyfully, perhaps, — there would be no merry gathering, no happy meeting of old and young, no laughing evening games — but not the less sincerely honored. The outbreaking of thankfulness in the old man's prayer, after the morning meal, was no less fervent because of the tremor in the voice which uttered it. He could give thanks even amid his mourning.

       Throughout the forenoon Ellen busied herself in preparing the Thanksgiving dinner. She took a sad kind of pride in making it rich and generous, like the old-time one when they spread a more ample board, and feasted and made glad. yet she thought sorrowingly of those, for they were the last. They would be no more. There ought to be something of gladness in the days to come, but they would not be like those gone by.

       The last, her heart echoed, as the turkey, done to a delicious brown, was set upon the table. And as she thought of the myrtle leaf, she placed a fourth plate upon the board, and set a fourth chair by it. it was a sudden fancy of hers, prompted, she hardly knew by what, and when, at that moment, someone rapped at the outer door, her foolish little heart gave a sudden leap that frightened her.

       "Have you invited a guest?" the father queried, as she stepped to give admittance.

       She had no time for reply. Not pausing for bidding to come, the visitor raised the latch and entered. Her heart leaped again, and then stood still, and the daylight faded out of her sight for a moment as Clyde Hammond folded her in his arms.

       "I gave up the myrtle leaf, my darling, but I clung to life," he whispered.

       And as he told his story of slow returning to consciousness from that death-swoon on the battle field — of the weary months in Southern hospitals — and of the sickening longings for home — there were tears in the eyes of parents and betrothed, and a Laus Deo in the heart of each; while the thank-offering that went up from the old hearth-stone was the frankincense and myrrh of souls that had known bitter sorrow, but were now filled with exceeding joy!

 
[THE END]