Chapter Twelve
"Thy fate is the common fate of all,
For in each life some rain must fall;
Some days must be dark and dreary."
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When I fully realized the true situation, I looked for my friend Blair, and saw another occupied his cot.
"Where is Blair?" I inquired of Pat.
"Poor fellow; he is dead and buried, and dug up again, and is now on his way to St. Louis."
"When did he die, Pat? Please tell me all about it," I pleaded.
"I don't know the date," he replied, "but he received a discharge and telegraphed his guardian to come after him and that very evening while talking about going home, he fell over on his face, and when we picked him up he was dead; so they buried him before his guardian arrived, and when he came he had him dug up and taken home."
When Pat had finished, I turned my face to the wall and wept. The days of my convalescence passed slowly, chiefly because of my ravenous appetite. Oh, how long between meals! The only nourishment I received was a cup of tea and a slice of white bread.
Oh, how delicious that tea and bread was! If only there had been a barrel of tea and a wagon loaf of bread, that I might satisfy my craving!
One day Pat came to me and said, "Here is a book that me mither sent me; it's foine reading for a hungry man."
I took the book and glanced at its contents. "Why, Pat," I said, "This is a cook book."
"Sure," he replied. "Dandy recates for good cooking. Whin ye read av the puddin's and poies and cakes, yer mouth will water."
"But my mouth is watering all the time now without being satisfied. How in the world did she come to send a cook book?" I continued.
"That's just where the joke comes in," he replied. "She sent it for me edification, that I might learn to do foine cooking. Poor mither! She never dreamed that it was the stuff to work wid, the ingredients, and not the scientific knowledge that we are in nade av."
But nevertheless, we did get a lot of imaginary pleasure from that book. Just like a lot of children at play making mud pies and cakes and baking them in the sun. So it was with us, for when I was reading aloud the formulas of some fancy dish some poor boy clapped his hands in glee and said:
"Oh, dear, I can almost taste it."
So, you see, our pies, cakes and puddin's, like those of our younger playfellows, were not only baked, but consumed also, in an imaginary flash of sunlight.
Mocking-Bird Companion
During my convalescence the drowsy aftermath of fever changed to insomnia. I would sit for hours at the window, looking out upon the beautiful moonlit scene. I had a companion who could not or did not sleep during these moonlight nights. My comrade was a southern mocking bird. He would perch himself in a large magnolia tree nearby, and the volume of song that came from that little warbler was marvelously grand. It did me more good than the doctor's medicine. I think largely owing to his cheerful song I was saved from that dreadful disease, nostalgia, which generally proved fatal. The soldiers called it 'blue devils' or 'mamma sickness.' When I had recovered sufficiently to walk out I went down to the Tishomingo hotel, where there was a well of good water. When I came to the well I found it guarded by two soldiers whose orders were to allow none to approach it but commissioned officers.
There were other wells, but the water from them was mineral, about the color and consistency of buttermilk, with a quinine flavor. I determined to have a canteen of that good water, so I took a stand and waited for the appearance of some commissioned officer who would be kind enough to fill it for me. After asking several and being refused I was about to give up from lack of strength, when an old friend, W. W. Shoemaker, a lieutenant in the Fourth Ohio cavalry, rode up the street. I hailed him and reached out my hand. He looked at me for some time before he recognized me.
"Why, Ben! What in the world is the matter with you?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing now," I replied. I have been sick but I am going to my regiment soon.
I told him of my desire for a canteen of that water, and he filled it for me. He bade me good-bye and rode away. I watched him until he disappeared in the coming twilight, far down the Inks road, and my heart went on with him because he was from Dayton. Shoemaker often recalls the event when we meet and says, "I expected that to be a last good-bye."
Soon, after this, I reported to my regiment at Tuscumbia, Ala. By some mistake I had been reported as dead. The hospital steward had taken my name instead of Blair's. When I arrived a wild cheer went up for Benedict. By this time I had got so reconciled to being dead and buried and recalled to life that I began to get used to it, and to doubt my own personality, and wonder whether or not there was such a thing as transmigration of the soul.
When I made an invoice of my effects, I had the same old jack knife, the same pocketbook and more convincing still, I had the same old wart on my index finger and the same scar on my leg where the old sow had bit me when but six years old, when I attempted to abduct one of her piggies. As there was no doubt in my mind about the identity of my soul I was now convinced that I was in the right, or same old body. In a few days my final discharge came, and I prepared to start homeward.
Saying Good-bye
I can never forget my parting from the dear boys whom I had learned to love. The good-bye did not present itself to me then as being so sad, but when the rest returned my fatherly captain's place was vacant, as also was that of Reel, Ray, Keil, Browser, Joe and Squire Vannatta, Kumler, Stokes, Haller, Matthews and Capp. All of those had pitched their tents on 'Flames eternal camping ground' by the flashlight of the musket and cannon. I speak of them as boys, as I cannot do otherwise, for on that day when I looked into their faces for the last time, with the exception of Matthews and the captain, I saw them as beardless boys, as such they live in my memory.
At this late day when we meet at our regimental reunions and exchange greetings, we are still boys in spirit, if not in body, but in spirit only, for sadly we realize that the only boys are those who fell out of line during the conflict, and sleep in soldier's graves.
On these reunion days we meet as John, George and Tom. God bless them! We recognize each other notwithstanding the fearful changes that time has made. We do not see John, George and Tom just as we saw them in our youth, but we are a composite picture. 'Old Time' has been snapping his camera upon their faces from year to year. But as the first impression on the plate of a composite is the one that predominates; just so with them, for we see through the film of age the same dear, old faces and when our hands strike palm to palm a connection is made on the switchboard and the circuit is complete. Like the two keys of a treasure box, one held by the depositor and one by the custodian, when inserted making the lock obedient to the concerted action, so it is with us both keys are in the lock. The wealth of years is revealed. Memories treasure box is open.
John, George and Tom are not creatures of imagination. John M. Reel is a citizen of Dayton, and when I meet him I recognize the same John who raised my head so tenderly and gave me a drink of cool water when I was burning with fever. Because I knew at the time that a long, toilsome journey under a sweltering sun had been made to obtain it made it a hundred fold more precious. Like the water brought to David from the well at Bethlehem, it was fit for an oblation. That water, like Elijah's food, not only strengthened me for forty days, but even now, after more than forty years, I feel it refreshing.
