Chapter XXIX: Elfie’s Visit to Little MIM

One by one thy griefs shall meet thee,
Do not fear an armed band;
One will fade as others greet thee,
Shadows passing through the land.

Do not look at life’s long sorrow;
See how small each moment’s pain;
God will help thee for to-morrow,
So each day, begin again.—A. A. PROCTOR.

“Well, here it is, and a meagre account enough,” said Elfie, opening the morning paper as she sat with Erminie at breakfast in the library—“not ten lines of description, if it were put in common type, but filling nearly a whole column in great capital letters like posters.”

“What is it, dear?” inquired Erminie, who was arranging her cups and saucers on the breakfast tray.

“The morning paper’s account of the engagement I described to you at full length last night.”

“Read it aloud, dear, while I pour out our coffee.”

“It is hardly worth reading. It isn’t a hundredth part of what I told you myself. But if you want to hear it, here goes:

“‘BATTLE OF BLEAK HILL. DEFEAT OF THE GUERRILLAS. DEATH OF THE NOTORIOUS FREE SWORD.’”

Elfie read these headings, which were all in very conspicuous type. And then she went on with the description of the fight, with the details of which our readers are already familiar.

“I suppose that the news came by the same train that brought me last night, although it could not be made public until this morning,” said Elfie, as she laid aside the paper.

When they had finished breakfast, and the young mistress of the house had issued her orders for the day to cook, housemaid and man servant, the two young ladies went up stairs together.

“I can’t attend you in your rounds through the hospitals this morning, Erminie dear, for I _must_ go first to see little Mim,” said Elfie, as they parted on the landing, each to seek her own room.

“But you will go with me this afternoon?” urged Erminie, with her hand on the knob of her door.

“Oh, yes—certainly,” answered Elfie, as she disappeared in her chamber.

The two girls came down together dressed to go out. But they parted at the gate, as their paths lay in opposite directions.

Erminie entered the little carriage that was to take her first to the Douglas Hospital.

Elfie walked rapidly towards Pennsylvania Avenue, where she stopped a Navy Yard car, which took her to the eastern suburbs of the city.

She got out of the car at the corner of a quiet street, mostly built up in small, detached houses, with small flower yards before them.

Elfie walked briskly on until she reached a little cottage in a large garden full of fruit trees, where Mim lived with his maiden aunts, four little bits of old ladies, with thin faces and fair hair and blue eyes, who were as “like as peas in a pod” to each other and to Mim himself, who loved them sincerely, and who supported them willingly off his small salary as salesman in a fancy bazaar. “They had all lived single for his sake, and brought him up from a baby,” said credulous little Mim, “and now he would live single for their sakes, and take care of them in their age.”

Elfie, in her eagerness, pulled open the garden gate, and ran up the walk and rang the bell.

One of the little old ladies opened the door.

“Oh, Miss Suzy, how is Mr. Mim? And can I see him?” the visitor exclaimed.

“Oh, Miss Elfie, I am so glad to see you back safe. And Mim is much better, thank you. And of course you can see him immediately, for I do think the sight of you will quite set him up. But maybe I’d better go and break it to him first. His poor head is rather weak yet, and a sudden shock might bring on the fever again.”

“Yes, I think you had better do so, Miss Suzy, and I will wait here until you come back.”

“Do. And I will send sisters to see you. They will be so glad you’ve come,” said the little old lady, as she left the room.

Elfie sat down in the pleasant, rural-like parlor, with its plain, old-fashioned furniture and chintz curtains and chair covers, and waited until she was joined by the three other little old ladies, Miss Sophy, Miss Sary and Miss Molly, who all came running to her, and who all kissed her and made a great crowing over her until the return of their elder sister.

Miss Suzy led Elfie up stairs to a clean, whitewashed and white-curtained chamber, where, in a white-covered easy chair, little Mim, in his dressing gown and slippers, and with his head bound up, reclined.

He made an effort to rise and receive his visitor, but fell back immediately upon his cushions.

“Oh, Mim, dear, don’t try to get up, please. I will come and sit quite close to you, if Miss Suzy will let me,” said Elfie, gently going to his side, and taking his thin hand, and looking piteously in his pale face.

“Miss Fielding, this is _so_ kind of you to come to see me. It does me so much good. You can’t think how anxious I have been to hear of your safety. I think anxiety kept me back from recovery more than anything else. I am so grateful to you for taking the trouble of coming to see me to-day,” said the little hero.

“Oh, Mim, dear, what is there I wouldn’t do to show my sense of your worth and my obligation to you!” said Elfie, with feeling, as she seated herself in the chair that Miss Suzy had been holding behind her, and mutely pressing her to take.

“You overwhelm me, Miss Fielding—you do, indeed,” said little Mim, with emotion. “I have the greatest respect for you, and for all the ladies, and I thought it was no more than just natural to lay down my life for you, if necessary—what any man would do for any lady.”

“But, dear Mim, we had proof enough that day that there wasn’t a man on the ground who was willing to risk getting his head broken to save me from being carried off by the guerrillas, except yourself. Oh, dear Mim, what shall I ever do to prove how much I thank and honor you?”

Little Mim blushed up to the edges of his hair, and could not find words to reply.

“_Oh, dear, deary me_,” sighed Miss Suzy to herself, “I hope she won’t marry him out’n gratitude. I truly hope and trust she won’t marry him out’n gratitude. Her property is all constipated by the rebels, and he hasn’t the means, with his little salary, of supporting us and a wife, and a whole lot of little ones besides. Lord have messy upon us!”

While Miss Suzy thus bemoaned herself, little Mim found his tongue, and answered, like a miniature Bayard or Roland:

“Miss Fielding, I now thank Heaven for my broken head, and for every pain that I have suffered in your cause. Miss Fielding, I would have had not only my head, but every bone in my body broken, to have proved my regard for you, or for any of the ladies, and to have awakened such esteem in your mind would have been consolation and reward enough,” he added with enthusiasm.

“_Oh, Lord, it’s coming_,” moaned Miss Suzy to herself, “it’s coming! I know it’s coming. They’ll be engaged before she leaves the room, and married before the month is out.”

Elfie laid her hand lightly on the bandaged head.

“Did you suffer much pain, Mr. Mim?”

“No, Miss Fielding—nothing to speak of,” he answered, slightingly. And then, as if to change conversation from himself, he laughed and said, “Not near so much as some others.”

“Why, Mim, dear, what do you mean? Were any of the others injured? Not that I care if every coward among them had had his neck broken, so that _you_ were safe. But I thought that you were the only one wounded.”

“So I was, Miss Fielding. But I had rather had my wound than been compelled to change clothes with any of those guerrillas, and caught—what some of my companions caught! On my own account I bear no malice to that big man, for, if he did break my head, he left me my clean clothes.”

Elfie laughed at the recollection of the exchange.

“Such a set of disreputable ragamuffins as they looked, Miss Fielding! I heard afterwards that some of them were denied and driven away from their own doors, and had some trouble before they could make themselves recognized by their own landladies.”

“Served them right, the cowards! It would have served them right if they had been made to wear those tatters for the rest of their lives!”

“I think you are hard on them, Miss Fielding. What could seventeen men do against two hundred guerrillas?”

“They could have died,” said Elfie, ruthlessly.

“Yes, but, Miss Fielding, the guerrillas didn’t want to kill them; they only wanted to take their victuals and clothes and dance with their partners.”

“They could have resisted, and got their heads broken, as _you_ did, my brave Mim! They could have proved their manhood in that way, if they had had any manhood to prove. But I suppose they really had not. You were the only man among them, Mim, dear,” said Elfie.

Again little Mim was overwhelmed and dumbfounded.

“_Oh lor!_” sighed Miss Suzy to herself—“_Oh dear!_ Now they’re getting on dangerous ground again. I know, if I wasn’t in the room, she’d offer to marry him out’n gratitude, and he’d accept, and then there! But I’ll take care not to leave the room while she is in it. If he makes an excuse to get rid of me by asking me to go and fetch anything, I’ll just knock on the floor for some one to come up and bring it. For stir from this room I will not!” she grimly resolved.

Apparently little Mim also thought that the conversation was getting upon dangerous ground, for again he diverted it from himself.

“I don’t know, after all, but what it would have been better if they _had_ resisted the exchange of clothing and got broken heads rather than what they did get. Though indeed they might have got both, for that matter.”

“What was it, Mr. Mim?” inquired Elfie, very indiscreetly. People ought to be very cautious how they ask questions.

“Well, Miss Fielding, a sort of irritating—a—a—sort of irritating—a—a—a—sort of irritating—RASH!” at last triumphantly exclaimed little Mim, elated at having found an inoffensive word to describe the calamity that had overtaken his companions.

“Glad to hear it,” said remorseless Elfie—“hope whatever it is, it will ‘irritate’ them for the rest of their mortal career.”

“But of all the victims,” laughed little Mim, “the greatest sufferer was that dandy fellow—what was his name? Nincomfool?—Sickapoop?—Billydoo? Whatever was the fellow’s name? The one with the tea-rose in his button-hole, who played the guitar and cried and begged so when the big guerrilla made him give up his fine raiment and clothe himself in rags—Sickafool?—Billypoop?”

“Billingcoo?” suggested Elfie.

“Yes—thanks. I knew his name was something that put one in mind of turtle doves and love-letters! Oh! Miss Fielding—!” And little Mim laughed.

“What is it, then? What about Billingcoo?”

“I don’t think he got the rash; but I do think he suffered under the impression that he had absorbed through the pores of his skin the greater half of the weight of rags he wore. He spends his whole income in vapor baths and cologne water!”

“Poor dandy! I hope and trust he may be drafted after the next enrollment! Three years of military duty would take the nonsense out of him,” said Elfie, as, much to the relief of Miss Suzy, she arose to take leave.

“You will stay a little longer with me?” politely pleaded little Mim.

“I would gladly do so; but I promised Miss Rosenthal to be home to an early dinner, so as to be able to go with her to the hospitals this afternoon,” said Elfie.

“Every one is praising Miss Rosenthal. She is called the Angel of the Hospitals,” said Mim.

“She is rightly so called.”

“She has been very kind to _me_ also—finding time in the midst of all her engagements to come to see _me_.”

“_I_ owe her another debt of gratitude in that, Mr. Mim. Now good-bye for the present,” said Elfie, holding out her hand.

“You will come again?” he inquired, looking up pitiably through his hollow eyes.

“Indeed I will come often. I will come every day; and to-morrow I will find you some fruit and flowers, late as it is in the season; and I will bring you the last good new novel that I can find.”

“Oh no! don’t trouble yourself in that way, Miss Fielding. Bring yourself! that will be all sufficient for me,” said little Mim, gallantly.

“I will bring myself and whatever else I please, Mr. Mim. So there now! Now good-bye for to-day. And remember that, present or absent, I shall never forget your brave defence of me, Mr. Mim.”

“Good-bye, and God bless you for this delightful visit, Miss Fielding.”

And so Elfie left the room, escorted by Miss Suzy, who though she really liked her young visitor very well, was now heartily glad to see her out.

In the room below the other sisters had a nice little luncheon spread out upon a table covered with a clean cloth. Tea and toast; chipped beef and light biscuits; and stewed apples and new milk.

They pressed Elfie so hospitably that she was obliged to sit down and partake of the refreshments.

After which she thanked them and took leave.

When Elfie was fairly out of the front garden gate, Miss Suzy closed the house-door, and then turned to her sisters and raised her finger in mysterious warning.

“What ever is the matter now?” inquired Miss Molly, and echoed Miss Sophy and Miss Sarah, gazing at their elder sister in perplexity and uneasiness.

“We don’t want Jim to marry, do we?” she inquired.

“Oh lor’!” exclaimed the other sisters, in horrified chorus.

“Well, then, we must keep a good look-out! She’s a nice girl and I like her! but if we don’t take care, she’ll marry Jim, whether or no!”

“Marry Jim!” echoed all the other sisters.

And if Miss Suzy had said, “She will murder Jim,” and they had believed her, her words could not have caused more consternation.

“Yes, she will!” repeated the elder sister.

“Marry Jim! Our Jim! Oh no! she’s a pretty girl, and a clever girl, and a good girl! and we like her! but we can’t afford to let her have our Jim! Our Jim must not marry!”