Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1891 — SERGT. DELANY'S MARY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SERGT. DELANY'S MARY.

, rr—ACE to face we J/2 Cp/ sat for some time Mr? PLt/y id the cars, speed- — i, across coun- ! fc -tl 7 through Ohio. \a Old he was, hut |Bb I 1 and bright If e 7 e > erect of y /jy\ x figure and ruddy P if I in cheek. He sat 1* well forward on the seat as though InaSfn l accoutrements Mfa still prevented any lounging of W body. I noted

lum for an “old sabre” in a moment. He made Ibe first advance, with a preliminary “Hem!” an involuntary salute, the passing of his left palm over the upper lip, where a mustache ought to have been, and a slight Irish accent. “Beg pardon, sir, but I think you’re in the sarviceV” “Bight you are,” I replied, “and if Ism not mistaken, you’ve been there, ti-o!”

Then the right hand went to the forehead in formal salute, and the man t)i(came rigid. “Thankee, sir. I’m proud to say I’ve been that same, and prouder to know that I haven’t lost the ‘set up’ of a }oldier yet. Forty-two years eight months live days, hoy and man, I sarved the country in the field. Delany's my name—Sergeant Darcy Delany, Cavalry, Second Dragoons, in flie long ago times—an’ ■tiler’s few officers nor men of the ould •army that don’t know Sergeant Delany an’ be willin’ to spake a good word lor liim." Then we talked and talked—lie most •—through several hours. In the congenial topic, the comradeship, and with that sort of patronage an old blade feels for the young soldier, he gave confidences that no other circumstances ■could have called forth, and taking the cream of his story I can connect what, to him at least, was a ! l of his life. “iou could not have served so long and escaped wounds ?” I said, to lead him on. “I’ve me share of them, sir; sure they’re part o’ the trade— give ’em an’ take’em—that’s what we’re for, ain’t, it? And the fun of givin’them evens up the pain of takin’ ’em, an’ that squares all. But I’m a hale, hearty man yet, wid me head on me shoulders and me full complemint of arms and legs, an’ anything short of the wantin’ of them don’t count, or shouldn’t.”, I laughed. “I wish you could convince my wife that wounds are such trifles,” I said. “Ah! then ye’re married, sir. "Well, they "used to say that a wife ruined a man for soldiering, but I never believed it, never !” “Nor do I,” was my reply. “I don’t think I will do my duty any worse for having to earn honor for the little wife •and daughter I’m going now to see.” “Wife and daughter! But you’re the lucky man, sir. God care for them tenderly, and- for you as you do

your duty by them. That’s the sar'vice shows what’s in a man; there’s wounds to be got there that steel or lead can never make, an’ too often there’s no cure on earth for. “Let ine tell you of my wound in that line of duty, sir—the wound Igavemeeelf. I was, fifty or more year sago, I was —if Ido say it meself—as tight a lad as «.er threw leg over a saddle and wore * blade, cocked me cap, carried a cane to out the air, an’.winked atthegurrls. But I was caught early and fast. I’m of Irish extraction, tho* maybe you' mightn’t think it, I was brought over iiere so young; but Irish I am, an’ so the fightin’ an’ love-makin’s small -credit to me—it’s just natheral as (breathin’. “I’d just got me corporal’s stripes, «n’ were stuck up with them like they were a Major Gineral’s, when the ould Dragoons were quathered at , *n’ there I met as nate a little Irish lass as ever sthepped in shoe-leather. A week of hard oourthiu’ an’ I was a

married man, ai*’ bettli6r enlistment papers I never signed. I always needed strict discipline at homo an’ on duty. I had it then, an’ it was the makin’of me. “Faith, it didn’t seem no more nor than from i eveille to retreat afore a year slipped around, and I w r as not only a sergeant but the father of a daughter. Mary we called her, after the ould mother of me, that I loved well, but were ever a throublesome son to; and I say it bouldlv, no purttier creather than our little Mary ever came on earth, and the graces of her as she growed were that astonishing that though her mother were a well-mannered, knowledgable, brisk woman always, and I was ever a prompt soldier, yet where our Mary got her high-breedin’ ways were continual the worst sort of jiuzzle to me. “There may have been men, ther’ is men—yourself, sir, for one—that loved and loves their little one well as I, but there were uever a man loved daughter better nor I did mine, since God gave daughters !o men. When she first came I were some put out that she weren’t a hoy, hut she soon filled my heart to that degree that there weren’t room to wish for or put another if it had been a boy had come—even if he’d a-been twins. • I taught her all a hoy should know. She could sliwim, ride, shoot, run an’ skate by the time she were 9 years old, so that n’er a boy in field nor garrison could anything like aquil her. An’ she could whistle too, she could, that true and sweet ’twould charm the birds off the trees to hear her. I’d laugh to scorn when some ould sour would he tellin’ me the savin’ about ’whistling gurrls an’ crowin’ hens’ always cornin’ to some bad end. ‘Badluck back in yer teeth!’ I’d say, ‘harm can never come to my Mary,’ an’ I believed it. I always had a good strong lump of a notion of music meself, though mighty little of the talent for producin’ it; but by bard work and a dale of practicin’, an’ after nigh drivin’ me wife and all the garrison deaf an’ crazy, I learned to make a fair fist, or mouth I should say, with the fife, an’ could give ‘Yankee Doodle,’ ‘Garrvowen,’ an’ sich, to the satisfaction of meself and friends, except the regular band members. Well, she, Mary, could bate me out an’ out with that same fife

in no time—she could bate the fife, major himsilf—an’ there was no measurin’ the pride T had in her. “We lived well and happy, an’ I never fought tho worse for knowing they’d glory for me, dead or alive, an’ it came that Mary was siventeen year onld, an’ the likes of her for beauty an’ style weren’t to be found in the counthry. “She were siventeen, as I say, an’ more nor well educated for the daughter of a man and woman sti.l in ihe sarvice. We were long quarthered in garrison then, an’ to plaze her independinee, an’ to fit her for takin’ care of herself, we let her go into the town to larn the dressmakiu’ thrade—never a gurrl livin’ had the fine, high taste in dress like to her.

“Well, ther’ came a young leftenant to our troop; a gay, handsome, brave chap lie were, Barton by name. I respected him as an officer, an’ soon I loved him as a man. “It were some ten months after he joined, when one night I went to my quarthers in the barracks, and Mary wasn’t there to sit down at table with me. I’d r been at the stables afore I went in, an’ Leftenant Barton had come to me with his bright smile an’ friendly way, liouldin’out his hand. ‘Good-by, Sergeant,’ says he, ‘l’m off to-night.’ ‘Off where, sir ?’ says I. ‘I resigned two weeks ago,’ says he, ‘an’ my papers have just come in,’ says he. “I were more sorry than words could tell to be losin’ him, an’ that onsettled me. I’m quick-tempered betimes, an’ quick-spoken, too,’an’when I went in the wife says to me, says she, ‘You’re late, but there’s the illegant sthew for ye,’says she. ' “ ‘The divil fly away with ye’r sthew, Mrs. Delany!’. says L ‘Where’s me daughter V ‘How should I know ?’ says she. ‘I s’pose she’s kep’ late. Ate yer sthew, man, an’ don’t be cursin’ at me, for I won’t take it off youner no man,’ says she. “I’m mortil fond of Irish sthew, sir, an’ the woman don’t live cp,n bate Mrs. Delany makin’ it. But with this an’ that I were that put about I never enjoyed bite less nor I did that same evening. “Fight o’clock cable, and no Mary. I worried more and more each minute. Then the wife came out from the room in front with a bit of a had just been handed to her. I read it: ‘Dear father and mother, I have gone away with Mr. Barton, whom I love even more than I do' you—l never stopped £o yead the more there was of it. I tote it info bits. I threw it from the and as the breeze floated it away it seemed to carry my life with it. « Ti “Before I oould find my voice to give tongue to the curses that were swellin’ up in my heart and throat, I heard quick feet running up the bare stairway of the barracks, and then Mary burst in on us—in silks and satins aud laces she was, like to a queen dressed for a ball. “‘Oh, father! daddy!’—she called me by the name she gave me in her baby days, and that she knew I bes£ loved to hear—‘daddy! mother!’‘fhe

cried, T courdn't go, after all, without seeing yen once more. We “Her mother would have takeD the girl to her arms, but I stepped betwixt them. “ ‘Silence!’ I said. ‘You’re no daughter of mine from this hour. Mrs. Delauy, don’t touch her—don’t look at her —don’t dare to spake to her. Go from us, girl. I’ll hear no word out of your mouth. Go, before I disgrace me manhood an’ me uniform by strikin’ ye dead. Go, before I curse yo!’ “The wife knew what I was when me temper was up, au’ it cowed even the spirit in her. The girl knew, too—knew far too well to spake to me then. She looked at me, turned, and went away. “Ah! sorrow an’ wounds an’ pain like to that is hard to bear. It’s the broken heart I carried in me breast them days, an’ long after. Comrades and friends tried to speak to me of her and of him, but I swore I’d kill the first man named the name of aithur of them to me—an’ I’d a done it. I could not live and face the men an’ officers who had known an’ respected us for so long. I had the right to ask for my discharge after that length of service an’ I did it an’ got it, an’ we went away among strangers, to hide our sorrow and our shame. I sought to find a spot where never a one should know our faces or our history.

“The wife never troubled me about me hardness, -tho’ ’twer a sorry time she had to live in peace with me. I knew no other trade nor soldierin’ an’ things didn’t go well with us. I got a pension from the Government, an’that, witli little else, we had to struggle on for a livin’. Not that I hadn’t money by me, for I had, because Mary, somehow, kep’ track of us, an’ every month would come a letter with a fifty-dollar bill in it to me. No word —just the bank note. An’ Christmas an’ birthdays ther’d be a straight hundred dollar greenback I’d get. So I knew that, anyway, me gurrl warn’t come to want. “But I didn’t know what she might come to, an’ I just banked lhat money au’ it rolled up into the thousands in no 4ime. As for toucliin’of it formeself, I’d a seen the wife o’ me starvin’ before me eyes; I’d a crawled, begged, died for a crust, afore I’d a touched it. “The Bartons were a rich and high family. Often I swore in me anger that I’d go an’ curse them an’ tell them of the ruin of the gurrl and our lives. But the love that still stuck to me for Mary, an’ the pride of me, held me back from exposin’ the wound. "We aged fast, the home, such as we could have, was dark an’still—l never missed tho ould fife—never wanted to hear the squeak of it or a child’s voice. The wound me daughter an’ me officer had given me was killin’ 'life. That wound hurt me more and deadlier nor any I ever got from Mexicans, reds or rebels, an’ I had them on my body from all of ’em. ’** * * * * * » “It were just six year’s from the time I got that same death-wound, an’ we were livin’, sorter livin’, in Philadelphia. with hard scratehin’ oftentimes to make things meet for quathers an’ rations, when I comes in late one night from adav’s laborin’; bard come down that, sir, for a born soldier. I came in late an’ the wife says; ‘You’re wanted immediate to the Continiatal Hotel,’ says she ; ‘you’ve been sent for twice.’ ‘Who .is it, an’ what is it ?’ says I. 1 ‘I don’t know,’ says she, ‘but brush yerself up an’ go at once, ihaybe it’s good luck acomia; an’ I’ll have a brave hot stew for ye ready when ye come back.’ “fio i; tln i mined up for inspire an’ review.*;* I’d been trviu’ to get a Watchman’s place on the railroad, an’ I thought maybe some one was wantin’ to see me by rason of that. “I goes to the hotel, an’ marches bould as a sheep up to the fine clerk behind the marble counter. ‘Me name’s Delaney,’ says I; ‘there’s some one here’s been sendin’ for me. ’ He touches a bell, an’ a black man steps to the front. “ ‘Show this gentleman up to Parlor B,’ says be. “ ‘Gentleman!’ thinks I; ‘Parlor B!’ thinks I. ‘lt’s risin’ in the world I be. Maybe they’ll be askin’ me to be Prisident of the road,’ thinks I as I follows the black man, all in a daze of wonder, for I couldn’t think of anything but the railroad business could be takin’ me there. “ ’Twas the iligant room I was shown into, an’ never a soul in it. The sar-

vint left me there alone, an’ I were just smoothin’ me hair afore the big lookin’-glass, when I heard the swish like a dress beside me, an’ felt that something or somebody more than common was close at haud. “I turned half-face about, an’ there stood Mary! My Mary! Oh! so sweet, so beautiful, so like a queen with her dear, tlirue, lender blue eyes lookin’ the wistful lovbl of her heart at me. “ ‘Oh, daddy!’ she cried, callin’ me that name again, an’ holdin’ .out her two arms. ‘Oh, daddy 1 Listen to me now.’ | ... > “The ould anger rose up. in me, hot, though the heart wa3 buratin’ in me breast, an’ the lumps were chokin’ in me throat so I could scarce spake at all. “ ‘Not a word will I spake to ye or hear from ye.’ said L ‘Not a word has a honest ould soldier for deserters or traitors or worse. You’re dead to your poor mother an’ to me. There was never a Mary Delany from the night

[ you left onr roof.’ And I gathered my strength to put it into my feet that X might go from her. “ ‘So,’ said a voice that I knew well even after all them years. ‘No, but she is and was Mary Barton ever since that same night, ould Sargent 1 Darcy Delany,’ an’ round afore me came the fine, grand Liftinent an’ puts his arm into mine an’ give me the square look of a true man right into me eyes, while his other arm reaches out an’ grasps Mary about the waist. “I managed, somehow, to clear away the tears that were blindin’ me. I felt a little pat on me knee an’ I looked down to see a little angel face a" d hear the sweet voice ‘Drandad,’ an’ it seemed as if my Mary, 4 year ould again, were standin’ there at my feet. “ ‘ Tiss me, drandad,’ says the little one, au’ I takes her up, an’ Mary an’ Barton helps me into a eofy, an’ I sits there—me as never shed a tear for sorrow, nor shame, nor poverty, nor sufferin’ —I sits there cryin’ the eyes out of me head tor very joy. “They told me how they had been married before ever me child had sought me that night, six long years before. How, when I had driven her away, they went to England an’ France an’ them other countries, so Mary could put the top gold on all her accomplishmints. How Barton’s father and mother had come to them in Paris when little Mary were born, an’ how they all loved and prided in my daughter, the wife of their son. They told me all this as I sat nursing the wee lass of my own Mary, an’, God forgive me, I sat an’ listened, never thinkin’ of the poor ould lonesome wife that I had left in our shabby home an’ that was waitin’ for me.

“But Mary thought of her, an’ soon we were in a carriage an’ drivin’ toward the mother fast as horses could take us. I went in first, with the baby fast asleep in me arms. The wife had gone to bed in the back room, but she heard me, an’ calls out; ‘ls that you, Sergeant? an’do ye briDg good news? Ye’ll find the sthew keepin’ hot for ye •on the stove-step.’ “ ‘Divil fly away wid yer sthew, Mrs. Delany!’ says I. ‘lt’s a pretty sthew I’ve got here for ye. Come here out of that!’ says I. But before she could rise from the bed, Mary was in on her, an’—well, well! can a” man tell what two wimin would or could or wouldn’t or couldn’t do, under such circumstances. Truth, an’ we was all a bit crazy for a while. “An’ when Mary onwrapped the baby there was something fell onto the floor, an’ I picked it up, an’, man alive! if it weren’t that ould fife, that I’d uever missed, tho’ Mary had snatched it up, as a remembrance like, as she was being driven from her father’s home on her wedding night. Always she had treasured it an’ it had been the first thing she’d put in the hands of her own little baby. Faith, I waked the whole house au’ neighborhood with that same fife an’‘Yankee Doodle’ an’ ‘Garryowen’ that blessed night, an’ it’s a good thing the police were all sound sleepers, or seemed to be, for, what with me feelin’s an’ bein’ out of practice, I played bad enough to wake the dead.

“There’s little more left to tell, sir. Our throubles and trials were all over. The next mornin’, at the hotel, we all a-settin’ there, I says to them: ‘lt must be mighty expensive travelin’ in Europe an’ livin’ in hotels like this. Now, if ye young people are wantin’ a few hundreds, or, for all of that, a few thousands, I’ve a matter of five thousand dollars an’ more, that I’ve been a lavin’ by for six years, an’ ye’re welcome to it, for it’s more yours nor mine, anyway,’ says I. “An’ with that the arms of Mary were about my neck an’ her streamin’ tears were on my cheeks. ‘Oh, you dear, proud old daddy!’ she sobbed, ‘an’ you would never touch that money in all your sore need! I might have known it—thinking as you did of me—but, oh! daddy, how could you think that /’ “So then I had to explain an’ beg off an’ make excuses like a whipped boy, to dry the eyes of my darlin’. That money, sir, went to buy a little farm where the wife an’ me live now' —live like major generals, both of us, an’ two happier ould souls ain’t on top this earth. “There’s a boy now, sir. I’m going to see him christened Darcy Delany Barton —that’s why I’m tiiraveling now; the ould wife is too sthricken with the rheumatics to come, but it shows that the Liftinent, as I love to call him, an’ my Mary, ain’t ever grown ashamed of the "battered ould dragoon.” I had a flask, with somefbiag in it—for medicinal purposes only. Could I do less than ask this noble old soldier to join me in a toast to the health, wealth, happiness and honor of young Darcy Delany Barton? I so did. “Well, sir, talkin’s mighty dry work, an’ me throat’s dry as a lime kiln. It s proud an’ willin’ I’d be to join ye in a sup for good luck to the young soldier, an’ to you an’ yours; but, d’ye see, / sir, I wouldn’t touch the drop now. Five minutes or less will bring me to them, an’ lickers good enough in its way, but the kiss of Mary an’ them babies is strengthnin’ sweetness that the least drop of dilutin’ spoils the flavor to me lips. Thank ye all the same, sir.” A few moments more and we drew up at the station. The sergeant stepped from the cars, and as the train moved on I could still see him the happy center of a beautiful, loving family group.

"THEN THE RIGHT HAND WENT TO THE FORE-HEAD."

"BUT I STEPPED EETWIX' THEM."

"I TURNED ABOUT-AN' THERE STOOD MARY."