CHAPTER XII

A TELEGRAM

JOY'S JOURNAL.

" Saturday , June 21st.

"Well, we are here at last, and it is really very nice. I didn't suppose I should like it so much; but there is a great deal to be seen. We stopped over one train at Baltimore. It rained like everything, but uncle wanted us to see the city. So we took a hack and drove about, and saw Washington's monument. I suppose I ought to describe it, but it was so rainy I didn't notice it very much. I think monuments look like big ghosts, and then I'm always afraid they'll tumble over on me.

"Gypsy said she wondered whether George Washington ever looked down out of heaven to see the monuments, and cities, and towns, and all the things that are named after him, and what he thought about it. Wasn't it queer in her?

"We stopped at a great cathedral there is in Baltimore, too. It was very handsome, only so dark. I saw some Irish women saying their prayers round in the pews, and there was a dish of holy water by the door, and they all dipped their fingers in it and crossed themselves as they went in and out.

"We saw ever so many negroes in Baltimore, too. From the time you get to Philadelphia, on to Washington, there are ever so many; it's so different from New England. I never saw so many there in all my life as we have seen these few days. Gypsy doubled up her fist and looked real angry when she saw them sometimes, and said, 'Just to think! perhaps that man is a slave, or that little girl!' But I never thought about it somehow. To-morrow I will write about Washington. Baltimore has taken up all my room."

GYPSY'S JOURNAL.

Willard's Hotel , Saturday Night.

"You ought to have seen the yellow omnibus we came up from the dépôt in! Such a looking thing! It was ever so long, something like a square stove-pipe, pulled out; and it was real crowded, and the way it jolted! There were several of them there waiting for the passengers. I should think they might have some decent, comfortable horse-cars, the way they do in other cities. I think it's very nice at Philadelphia. They come to the dépôts at every train, and go down at every train. Father says the horse-car arrangements are better in Philadelphia than they are in Boston or New York.

"It seems very funny here, to be in a city that is under military rule. There are a great many soldiers, and barracks where they sleep; and a great many tents, too. There are forts, father says, all around the city, and Monday we can see some of them. While we were riding up from the dépôt I saw six soldiers marching along with a Rebel prisoner. Father says they found him hanging around the Capitol, and that he was a Rebel spy. He had on a ragged coat, and a great many black whiskers, and he was swearing terribly. I didn't feel sorry for him a bit, and I hope they'll hang him, or something; but father says he doesn't know.

"We are at Willard's Hotel. Father came here for the same reason he went to the Brevoort—so we might see what it was like. It is very large, and so many stairs! and such long dining-tables, and so many men eating at them. We didn't have as nice a supper as we did in New York.

"It is late now, and the lamps are lighted in the streets. I can see from the window the people hurrying by, and some soldiers, and one funny little tired mule drawing a great wagon of something.

"There! he's stopped and won't move an inch, and the man is whipping him awfully. The wicked old thing....

"I was just going to open the window and tell him to stop, but father says I mustn't.

"As we rode up from the dépôt, I saw a great round dim thing away in the dark. Father says it is the dome of the Capitol."

GYPSY'S JOURNAL.

"After Sundown, Sunday Night .

"Father says it isn't any harm to write a little about what we saw to-day, because we haven't been anywhere except to church.

"The horrid old gong woke me up real early this morning. I should have thought it very late at home, but they don't have breakfast in hotels till eight o'clock hardly ever, and you can get up all along till eleven, just as you like. This morning we were so tired that we didn't want to get up a bit.

"There was a waiter at the table that tipped over a great plateful of beefsteak and gravy right on to a lady's blue silk morning-dress. She was a Senator's wife, and she jumped like anything. Joy said, 'What a shame!' but I think it's real silly in people to wear blue silk morning-dresses, because then you can't wear anything any nicer, and you won't feel dressed up in the afternoon a bit.—Oh, I forgot! this isn't Sunday!

"Well, we all went to church this morning to Dr. Gurley's church. Dr. Gurley is a Presbyterian, father says. I don't care anything about that, but I thought you might. That is the church President Lincoln goes to, and we went there so as to see him.

"He sat clear up in front, and I couldn't see anything all through the sermon but the back of his head. We sat 'most down by the door. Besides, there was a little boy in the pew next ours that kept his father's umbrella right over the top of the pew, and made me laugh. He was just about as big as Winnie. Oh, they say slip here instead of pew, just as they do in Boston. I don't see what's the use. Joy doesn't like it because I keep saying pew. She says it's countrified. I think one is just as good as another.

"Well, you see, we just waited, and father looked at the minister, and Joy and I kept watching the President's kid gloves. They were black because he's in mourning for his little boy, and he kept putting his hand to his face a great deal. He moved round too, ever so much. I kept thinking how tired he was, working away all the week, taking care of those great armies, and being scolded when we got beaten, just as if it were all his fault. I think it is real good in him to come to church anyway. If I were President and had so much to do, and got so tired, I'd stay at home Sundays and go to sleep,—if you'd let me. I think President Lincoln must be a very good man. I'm sure he is, and I'll tell you why.

"After church we waited so as to see him. There were ever so many strangers sitting there together,—about fifty I should say, but father laughed and said twenty. Well, we all stood up, and he began to walk down the aisle with his wife, and I saw his face, and he isn't homely, but he looks real kind, and oh, mother! so sober and sad! and I know he's a good man, and that's why.

"Mrs. Lincoln was dressed all in black, with a long crape veil. She kind of peeked out under it, but I couldn't see her very well, and I didn't think much about her because I was looking at him.

"Well, then, you see there were some people in front of me, and I couldn't see very well, so I just stepped up on a cricket so's to be tall, and what do you think? When the President was opposite, just opposite, and looked round at us, that old cricket had to tip over, and down I went, flat, in the bottom of the pew!

"I guess my cheeks were as red as two beets when I got up; and the President saw me, and he looked right at me,—right into my eyes and laughed. He did now, really, and he looked as if he couldn't help it, possibly.

"When he laughs it looks like a little sunbeam or something, running all over his face.

"Father says we shan't probably see him again. They don't have any receptions now at the White House, because they are in mourning.

"We went to a Quaker meeting this afternoon, but there isn't any time to tell about it."

JOY'S JOURNAL.

" Monday , June 23.

"Oh dear me! We've seen so much to-day I can't remember half of it. I shall write what I can, and Gypsy may write the rest.

"In the first place, we went to the Capitol. It's built of white marble, and it's very large. There are quantities of long steps on different sides of it, and so many doors, and passages, and rooms, and pillars. I never could find my way out, in the world, alone. I wonder the Senators don't get lost sometimes.

"About the first place you come into is a round room, called the rotunda. Uncle says rotunda means round. There are some pictures there. One of them is Washington crossing the Delaware, with great cakes of ice beating up against the boat. One of the men has a flag in his hand. Gypsy and I liked it ever so much.

"Oh!—the dome of the Capitol isn't quite finished. There is scaffolding up there, and it doesn't look very pretty.

"Well, then we went upstairs, and I never saw such handsome stairs! They are marble, and so wide! and the banisters are the most elegant variegated marble,—a sort of dark brown, and they are so broad! Why, I should think they were a foot and a half broad, but then I don't know exactly how much a foot is.

"We went into two rooms that Gypsy and I both liked best of anything. One is called the Marble Room, and the other the Fresco Room. The Marble Room is all made of marble,—walls, floor, window-sills, everything but the furniture. The marble is of different colors and patterns, and just as beautiful! The furniture is covered with drab damask.

"The Fresco Room is all made of pictures. Frescoes are pictures painted on the ceilings, Uncle says. He says Michael Angelo, the great sculptor and artist, used to paint a great many, and that they are very beautiful. He says he had to lie flat on scaffoldings while he was painting the domes of great churches, and that, by looking up so, in that position, he hurt his eyes very much. This room I started to tell about is real pretty. I've almost forgotten what the furniture is covered with. Seems to me it is yellow damask, or else it's the Marble Room that's yellow, and this is drab,—or else—I declare! We've seen so much to-day, I've got everything mixed up!

"Uncle has just been correcting our journals, and he says it isn't proper to say 'I've got,' but I ought to say 'I have.'

"Oh, I forgot to say that the Senators' wives and daughters who are boarding here are very stylish people. When I grow up I mean to marry a Senator, and come to Washington, and give great parties.

"I don't see why I don't hear from father. You know it's nearly three weeks now since I had a letter. I thought I should have one last week, just as much as could be."

GYPSY'S JOURNAL.

"Eight o'clock, Monday Night .

"Joy has told ever so much about the Capitol, and I don't want to tell it all over again. If I forget it, I can look at her journal, you know.

"But she didn't tell about Congress. Well, you see if we'd come a little later we shouldn't have seen them at all; and if it didn't happen to be a long session we shouldn't see them so late in the season. But then we did. I'm very glad, only I thought it was rather stupid.

"I liked the halls, anyway. They're splendid, only there's a great deal of yellow about them; and then there are some places for pictures, and the pictures aren't put up yet.

"There's a gallery runs round, where visitors sit. The Senators and Representatives are down on the floor. We went into the Senate first. They sat in seats that curved round, and the President of the Senate—that's Vice-President Hamlin—he sits in a sort of little pulpit, and looks after things. If anybody wants to speak, they have to ask him, and he says, 'The Senator from so-and-so has the floor.' Then when they get into a fight, he has to settle it. Isn't it funny in such great grown-up men to quarrel? But they do, like everything. There was one man got real mad at Mr. Sumner to-day.

"I didn't care about what they were talking about, but it was fun to look down and see all the desks and papers, and some of them were just as sleepy as could be. Then they kept whispering to each other while a man was speaking, and sometimes they talked right out loud. If I should do that at school, I guess Miss Cardrew would give it to me. But what I thought was queerest of all, they all talked right at the Vice-President, and kept saying, 'Mr. President,' and 'Sir,' just as if there weren't anybody else in the room.

"Some of the Senators are handsome, and a good many more aren't. Joy stood up for Mr. Sumner because he came from Massachusetts. He is a nice-looking man, and I had to say so. He has a high forehead, and he looks exactly like a gentleman. Besides, father says he has done a noble work for the country and the slaves, and the rest of New England ought to be just as proud of him as Massachusetts.

"We went into the House of Representatives, too, and it was a great deal noisier there than it was in the Senate, there were so many more of them. I saw one man eating peanuts. Most all of them looked hungry. The man that sits up behind the desk and takes care of the House, is called the Speaker. I think it's real funny, because he never makes a speech. As we came out of the Capitol, father turned round and looked back and said: 'Just think! All the laws that govern this great country come out from there.' He said some more about it, too, but there was the funniest little negro boy peeking through the fence, and I didn't hear.

"We went to the White House next. Father says it's something like a palace, only some palaces are handsomer. It's white marble like the Capitol. We went up the steps, and a man let us right in. We saw two rooms. One is called the Red Room and one the Green Room.

The Red Room is furnished in red damask and the Green is all green. They were very handsome, only all the furniture was ranged along the walls, and that made it seem so big and empty. Father says that's because these rooms are used for receptions, and there is such a crowd.

"There is a Blue Room, too, that visitors are sometimes let into. Father asked the doorkeeper; but he said, 'The family were at breakfast in it.' That was eleven o'clock ! I guess I'd like to be a President's daughter, and not have to get up. We didn't see anything more of President Lincoln.

"We've been going all day, and we've been to the Patent Office and the Smithsonian Institute, but I'm too tired to say anything about them."

GYPSY'S JOURNAL.

" Tuesday.

"We've been over to Alexandria—that's across the Potomac River—in the funniest little steamboat you ever saw. When you went in or came out of the cabin, you have to crawl under a stove-pipe. It wasn't high enough to walk straight. I don't like Alexandria. It's all mud and secessionists. People looked cross, and Joy was afraid they'd shoot us. We saw the house where Col. Ellsworth was shot at the beginning of the war. The man was very polite, and showed us round. The plastering around the place where he fell, and all the stairs , had been cut away by people as relics. We saw the church where Gen. Washington used to go, too."

JOY'S JOURNAL

" Wednesday Night.

"We are just home from Mount Vernon and we've had a splendid time. We went in a steamboat; it's some way from Washington. You can go by land, if you want to. It was real pleasant. Gen. Washington's house was there,—a queer, low old place, and we went all over it. There was a nice garden, and beautiful grounds, with woods clear down to the water. He is buried on the place under a marble tomb, with a sort of brick shed all around it. There is nothing on the tomb but the word Washington . His wife is buried by him, and it says on hers, Martha, Consort of Washington . All the gentlemen took off their hats while we stood there. To-morrow we are going to Manassas, if there is a boat. Uncle is going to see. I am having a splendid time. Won't it be nice telling father all about it when he comes home?"

Joy laid down her pen suddenly. She heard a strange noise in her uncle's room where he and Gypsy were sitting. It was a sort of cry,—a low, smothered cry, as of some one in grief or pain. She shut up her portfolio and hurried in. Mr. Breynton held a paper in his hand. Gypsy was looking over his shoulder, and her face was very pale.

"What is it? What's the matter?"

Nobody answered.

Mr. Breynton turned away his face. Gypsy broke out crying.

"Why, what is the matter?" said Joy, looking alarmed.

"Joy, my poor child—" began her uncle. But Gypsy sprang forward suddenly, and threw her arms around Joy's neck.

"Oh, Joy, Joy,—your father!"

"Let me see that paper!" Joy caught it before they could stop her, opened it, read it,—dropped it slowly. It was a telegram from Yorkbury:—

" Boston papers say Joy's father died in France two weeks ago. "