part 2 chapter
27
t here’s been a disaster in the library. books are strewn across the blue rug, the
spines gnawed off every one. some were printed in the early 1800s, saved by pa from his
father’s small collection and hauled all the way from goshen when my family bought this farm.
now the books are ruined. on the heap is my favorite—hiawatha’s saga, nothing now but naked
folds of paper sliding out of two pieces of printed cardboard.
for one hundred and seventy-two years, these books were safe in our house. but because my
great-grandson and his wife neglected to turn off the heater in the library when they locked the
front door for the winter, there is this tragedy. a squirrel, attracted to warm air floating up the
chimney, clambered down and spent the winter feasting on the rabbit-hide glue that binds the
books together. i heard the rustling in the library, the gnashing and ripping. the creature then
defecated where it ate.
i screamed at the varmint, but it paid no more attention than the people. stomping made no
difference either. my moldering spirit is now so enfeebled that i’m powerless to frighten even a
varmint.
then i discovered something i’d never seen before. splayed open across the top of the old
traveling salesman set of encyclopedias was a volume with a faint pencil scrawl between the
printed lines. i looked more closely. it was mary’s handwriting and easily recognized tone. she
must have used the volume at a time when there was no paper. ma and pa never opened these
books. they bought them solely for our education, and mary knew her writing wouldn’t be
found. i strained to read her words.
t he w orst y ear e ver
a uthor m iss m ary s miley
january 1, 1865. when tom left for the war four years ago, ma begged him to write
every day what was happening to him. i guess she didn’t imagine that we at home
would have anything out of the ordinary to record. how wrong she was. i will set down
in this book how grievous the old year has been and pray that the next will be no worse.
to begin with, i’ve lost both my mother and my brother. not to death so far—mind
you that might be easier because death brings certainty. families mourn, and then,
over time, there’s healing
after the wilderness and spotsylvania battles, we heard that most of the stonewall
brigade was killed or captured, but we had no way to know what had happened to tom.
finally, we received his brief note from the fort. at least we were certain he was alive!
and ma has gone mad. when she heard tom had been taken, she took to her bed
most every day, and when she was up, she pored over her bible from dawn until dusk
and prayed for tom’s safety without any concern for the rest of us or her old life. then
the trickle of letters stopped.
folks describe the prison as just this side of hell. we’ve heard of boys taking ill and
dying there—just like the first years of camp. mrs. mcclean’s son bill was in the fort
last spring and was so worn out and poorly fed that he died several weeks after getting
home. and he was traded out after only a few months. this was before lincoln called
off all prisoner exchanges because the south considered union black soldiers to be
property, not equal to a southern soldier in trade. mrs. mcclean’s heart is still
profoundly broken. such stories add considerably to ma’s burden.
since 1862 there has been less and less of everything a body requires for living. and
there has been more and more of what might frighten someone to death. all but
crippled augusta boys are gone, and there’s no one left who’s strong enough to put in
crops by himself. i heard the substitute minister say that one hundred and eighteen
boys from our church are on the battlefield. and all the horses are gone. there can’t be
any farming without horses. our soldiers, wandering up and down the road in front of
the house, come to the door and demand to be fed. they have such swollen bare feet
and tatters for clothes that we can’t refuse, but we risk starvation ourselves with each
boy we feed. what they don’t take is confiscated by the army to appease starving
troops. they say that when meat is found, one pound has to do for a whole day’s ration
for eight soldiers. confederate currency is as useless as leaves fallen from trees. and it
takes more bills to buy something miniscule than the leaves any one tree could shed. i
hear a five-dollar cotton calico frock now costs as much as $500, if there are any frocks
to be had in these parts.
pa trapped a possum up in the woods for christmas dinner this year, and we had
some dried mushrooms left from foraging at the end of the summer. he skinned the
pitiful thing, and tish and i made a stew using the mushrooms and some sweet
potatoes we’d buried in the cellar—although a possum hardly gives enough meat for
more than one person. no one dares carry a hunting rifle for fear that yanks who ride
through here will think they are guerillas and shoot them dead on the spot, no questions
asked. ma had another of her terrible headaches and couldn’t help with the dinner. it
was a right gloomy gathering. so many people are missing family members now, and
the holiday makes their absence strike deeper in the heart. we certainly missed tom,
and i secretly held beards close in my thoughts.
i’ve learned to eat some things that would never have touched my lips before. it
never occurred to me that i would try to suck the last sliver of meat from a stringy
possum leg or seek ways to prepare acorns. i don’t know what people in town do for
food. we can wander up in our woods or in the fields to find eatables. depending upon
the seasons, we’ve had dandelion greens, wild onions, chanterelles, walnuts,
blackberries, and what root vegetables we can grow and store. tish and i everyday
search on the ground and in the bushes for something digestible. there’s no
ammunition to shoot deer or wild turkey, but pa’s old rusty traps for rabbits and
possums, sometimes squirrels, have saved our lives. we’ve not tasted sugar or coffee
in the past three years. nothing from across the seas gets past the union boats barring
the southern ports.
i guess i’m taking my time getting to the hard parts to tell. i’ll begin with june sixth,
when the federal troops stormed staunton. the familiar but dreaded roar of thousands
of rifles fifteen miles away reverberated all day, starting at nine o’clock in the morning. i
have heard that five or six thousand men fought around the town. ma was still fretting
over what had happened to tom and kept to her room, huddled in bed with covers over
her head and a pillow on top to block the sound. she bound a woolen scarf around her
ears in a final attempt to muffle the noise. tish paced, and pa read his books,
pretending that everything was just fine. i hummed to calm my nerves, but it did little
good. artillery had not been this near in all the years of the war, and we knew that if
they took staunton, the yankees would continue southwest right past our house on the
way to lexington to destroy the military institute there. when the firing ceased, pa went
out on the staunton road to see if anyone closer to town knew the outcome. he hurried
back with a long face. staunton’s streets were overcome by union troops. ma had
arisen from her bed and was fretting in a chair. “do you know the date, children? it’s
june, the sixth month of the year, the sixth day of the month, and the year is in the
decade starting with a six. 666 is satan’s mark. we’ve been sent a sign.” tish rolled her
eyes at me and made a sour face.
none of us slept peacefully that night or the night after, each straining to hear any
unnatural noise that might signal the advance of the enemy in the farm’s direction.
there’s no light at night. candles are impossible to obtain, so that we must go to bed
when the sun sets unless we choose to sit with our hands in our laps in the blackness.
that makes for an endless, sleepless night. i was terrified to drift off, lest soldiers come
while i was unconscious. some families have fared without too much hardship, but
others have lost everything and been treated roughly. tish and i began to bicker,
substituting crankiness for the anxious gnawing at our innards. ma came out of her
room only for meals. she kept her bible alongside as she chewed in silence. every now
and then she’d caress the cover with her thumb, rubbing it again and again over the
gold embossed letters holy bible.
on tuesday morning, i told tish and pa that i couldn’t stay still another minute. i
walked out the back to ascend the rise high above the house. going past pa’s tiny
kitchen garden hidden behind the barn in the midst of brambles, i was careful to keep
my eyes on the ground, stepping cautiously between the rows of potatoes and squash
vines. i wanted to avoid seeing what he’d nailed earlier in the day to a t-shaped stake
in the middle of the few corn plants. the crows had been pecking the valuable ripening
ears. a scarecrow of clothing and straw would attract army foragers’ attention to our
stalks, so pa had hidden in the brambles with a sturdy slingshot and expertly downed
one of the crows with a stone to the head. no form of meat can be wasted these days,
so the dark bird was gutted, and its flesh was put aside for ma to make a pie. the
carcass’s majestic, sparkling black wings were spread broad and affixed with nails to
the stake’s crossbar in the garden to warn other crows. pa had stepped back to register
its sinister appearance when another crow approached. it caught sight of its dead
brother and, with agonized screams, rent the early morning sky. it instantly pivoted in
the air and lifted on the current. the alarmed cawing could be heard echoing across the
hills. the dead bird with its broken head and dulled eyes surely was a dark omen, but of
what i wasn’t certain. compelling my feet to move as rapidly as possible, i moved past
the garden and started the climb through the pasture.
there are no more cattle to graze the grass short in the upper field. they had been
seized two years previous, and the movement of my skirts scything through the waist-
high stems and leaves sent disturbed grasshoppers and tiny sweat bees spiraling
upward in a cloud. thorns snagged the fabric, and the trip took longer than usual
because i had to repeatedly disentangle myself from their grasp. reaching the crest, i
found a soft patch of grass and stretched out on my back to watch the hawks soar
between the top of the hill and the clouds.
but calm was forgotten when i arose to return to the house. toward staunton a
plume of black smoke bulged into the air. it couldn’t be a house or barn fire. it was
larger than anything i’d ever seen. a bewildered moment passed until i realized that i
was witnessing the burning of the town. i tore down the big hill to alert the family,
ripping my skirts as i raced through the briars. the town’s destruction struck terror in
my heart for what then might happen to unguarded farms. when i ran hollering onto the
back porch, pa leaped up from his seat in the library to see what so ailed me. my
breathless account drew ma out of her room at the top of the stairs, and she began to
shriek, ”i told you so, i told you. this is a continuation of the prophesied tribulations.”
ma recently has spent more and more time studying the books of the old and new
testament. she’s taken the wild prophesy of the book of revelations as her guide
these days. ma is a good woman devoted to her family and god, but she’s put her trust
in the author of tracts who divines the world’s end by 1865 in almost every verse of the
bible’s two books. to ma’s thinking, northerners are precipitating mankind’s doom.
they have abandoned the ways of the lord and are attempting to destroy his
institutions.
with neighbors struggling to get by and feeling low in spirit, social calls have fallen
off in the past two years. ma has had few distractions from time spent cross-referencing
bible pages with apocalyptic religious tracts. when tish and i mourned so over the
death of sam lucas, she tried to console us by advising us to study the book of
revelations. she believes that god’s love brings these terrible losses to make us
stronger so that at the end we will be among the multitude summoned before him on
judgment day. she reminded us that unlike our brother, sam came over to the lord at
church when he was home on furlough the last time. “he’ll stand right alongside us on
that glorious day. oh lord, if only i knew if tom was saved,” she insisted. we stopped
listening to her biblical rants and litany of concerns about our brother’s soul.
after tom was captured, ma became much more agitated and bitter about the war.
at the dinner table she lectured pa that all of the south’s suffering is for the sake of
purifying her peoples’ faith. that god has risen up these babylonians in washington,
these evil forces, to bring judgment on the world for its sin. “now, christiana, it’s not
possible for man to know god’s will, nor can we predict the future,” my father said.
but she continued. “for certain, abe lincoln is the antichrist. it’s all prophesied in the
book of revelations. don’t you believe the bible?” pa just looked at his hands and
didn’t respond. “the south has been chosen as the new jerusalem, and this purified
land will be where the savior returns,” ma insisted. she scarcely looks like herself these
days, with her lips set tight and her eyes so hard.
pa shows sore-hearted patience toward her vehement preaching, but at least his
mind can be occupied with other thoughts. he’s concerned with our survival. ma has
got so she only sleeps, reads her book, and berates us when she’s awake. she seems
not to care about us anymore. if we chide her or speak our hurt, she responds with
some quote to reinforce her position. with each death from illness, battlefield killing,
and decrease in food she finds evidence of the work of the horsemen who bring
famine, plague, and civil war. she says they are in our midst already. the fourth, pale
death, she’s begun to see in recurring dreams that rouse her shrieking from her bed.
sometimes we think ma rests in her chair, but she’ll be staring at something in the
distance and then will cry out some verse about the hour of judgment.
this was her unfettered state of mind while pa, tish, and i feared that at any
moment several thousand enemy troops might come stalking down our road. pa
believes that a deserted house fares far worse from the soldiers’ depredations than one
where the family remains. he was steely in his resolve to stay where we were. nothing
tish and i said, no matter how forcefully or pitifully we pleaded, could discourage this
view.
if pa had his way in this, ma might be in true danger. we’ve heard that folks were
sent away to federal prison for saying something only slightly insulting. ma’s hostile
ravings might cause the enemy to shoot her. pa decided that tish should guide ma into
the cellar where they would hide. if ma made any outburst, the thick stone walls would
muffle its meaning. pa and i would stay in the main part of the house.
while we were forming our plan, there were horses’ hooves on the road toward
staunton. pa darted out and located mr. lucas. confederate soldiers who’d been
defeated in the battle for that town had been spotted in the area; some companies had
scattered toward lexington. mr. lucas told pa that a group had begged at his door for
food and boots that morning. hastening to the window, i saw quite a number of our men
toting rifles and loping hunched over through side fields toward the beard’s place. pa
raced through the door and hollered at tish, “take your mother and get to the
basement.” ma loudly protested but hiding suited both of them better. they were too
distracted with hand wringing and whimpering to find a secure place anywhere else.
there was nothing to be done but sit side-by-side with our father on the library sofa and
wait. i could hardly breathe. he patted my arm, trying to maintain his own composure.
after what seemed days but was probably an hour, faint strains of the “star-
spangled banner” reached our ears. folks said that invading yankees like to sing their
anthem as an insult to southerners. my teeth were clacking in my head, and my body
quaked. pa continued to pat my hand, but i could see that he trembled too. the singing
grew more distinct. the lilting tune seemed to be an anthem of death. there was a shot
fired. the song abruptly stopped and was replaced by men yelling and more shots—all
coming from the center of bethel.
blasts echoed from the hills as well as lower on the road. as the chaos of men’s
voices and gunfire grew nearer, pa and i flew toward the back hall, the room farthest
from the road and with only one window. we dove onto the floor and cowered behind
the stairs. i couldn’t tell you how long the dreadful cries and loud reports of rifles
erupted from the battle below the house. the odor of gunpowder seeped into the hall,
and puffs of smoke drifted past the window. glass shattered in the front room and
crashed to the floor like hail. with a sharp crack, a bullet slammed into the limestone
foundation near the porch. i held my breath, every muscle frozen as i pressed into the
floor. my head was turned away from pa, but i could hear his ragged breath and knew
that he was frightened too. eventually most of the clamor moved on down the road
toward lexington, but the shouts of a few men were still audible near the front of the
house. pa and i remained rigid on the floor, not knowing when it would be advisable to
get up. now we could clearly hear ma’s incoherent howls of rage directed toward our
invaders. fortunately, at this point we were the only ones who would have been able to
make out her words.
then voices were at close range, and footsteps sounded on the porch. a man called
out as he pounded his fist on the door, “please, can you help us here? if anyone is
there, we need help desperately. we have a seriously wounded soldier who needs
care.” pa and i looked at one another. there was such urgency in the tone that the
request seemed sincere.
pa cracked the door apiece while i hovered behind. “what’s going on here? who do
you have there?” he spoke through the opening. two disheveled and filthy
confederates supported a bleeding man who was slumped over. he had a severe head
wound. a third soldier coaxed a riderless horse into the yard.
“our company’s run off to thwart the enemy before they attack lexington, but we
can’t desert our comrade wounded like this. can you shelter him and care for his
horse?” he looked over my father’s shoulder and said, “miss, you remain in the house.
there are dead men on the road—sights you shouldn’t see.”
pa directed them to put the man down on the parlor floor. he then told the soldiers to
tie the bay mare up in the woods at the top of the hill where it would be invisible from
the road. the poor animal looked famished. its ribs poked out like barrel staves. ma
and tish came up out of the cellar with pa’s “all’s safe!” cry, and they hurried into the
parlor to view the unconscious visitor on the floor. although ma’s reason seems
destroyed, she was able to move quickly to deal with the wounded boy. she ordered
me to heat water and fetch the mustard plaster, and she commanded tish to drag a
mattress from the spare bedroom and assemble some blankets. blood so obscured the
boy’s face that it was hard to tell how old he was, but when ma sponged him with warm
water, i saw that the fellow was about tom’s age. he had a vicious gash on the right
side of his head with shattered bone visible through shredded flesh. the right side of
his face was misshapen with bruises and swelling. i’d never witnessed such gore and
had to stifle bile as it rose in my throat. i’d be no use to anyone if i’d given in to my
revulsion.
the next few days were quiet. all the while, the wounded soldier lay senseless in the
parlor with ma tending to him. there was no laudanum, morphine, or even whiskey to
be had anywhere and no other potions to ease his pain. the federal blockade on the
coast made sure of that. the patient’s cries of agony added another reason for
sleeplessness. before he arrived, we spent nights straining to hear enemy boots and
horses. afterward, i heard ma’s quiet footsteps on the stairs for many a night. she
would sit vigil with him, humming the lullabies we heard as babies and alternating with
hymns. her sweet, crooning voice seemed to soothe away some of his distress.
“if only i had some honey. this wound needs honey or it will fester, and we’ll lose
him,” ma fretted to pa.
he looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, “i think i may be able to get you
some. i can’t promise you, but i’ll give it my best effort.” we have no bees, and anyone
who does, conceals the precious sweet from others, but pa has traps and occasional
meat. the next day, he walked into bethel with a freshly trapped possum in his
rucksack and returned with a most valuable container of honey to heal our wounded
soldier.
here’s how it came to be that ma’s desperate plea was granted: pa told us that on a
trip back from staunton in mr. lucas’ wagon a month earlier, he had noticed a swarm of
bees near old mr. tatternook’s house at the gable end near the roof line. he and mr.
lucas reined in the horse, curious to see what the bees were doing so far away from a
hive or wild tree nest. they observed a horde flying into the octagonal attic window. mr.
lucas immediately suspected that old tatternook had captured himself a queen and
had her there under his roof.
no one in the community knows the old man well because he keeps to himself, and
he’s ignored by most. he’s scary looking with a black eye patch and broad-brimmed
black hat that almost conceals his other eye and beak nose. ma says he looks like a
catholic priest with his shiny black suit and white shirt, and she deeply dislikes
catholics. i’ve seen him once or twice shuffling along, hunched over and seemingly
indifferent to the passing landscape.
pa asked mr. lucas what he made of the fact that this fellow never attends church.
reverend mcintyre had reported that when he went to call a few years ago, the old man
said that he has no need for a wrathful god who waits to punish him for every misstep.
“that’s blasphemy!” mr. lucas said.
pa replied, “to make things worse, he told reverend mcintyre some nonsense about
how his god speaks to him daily through the fragrant breezes in the cedar trees, the
melodies of the whippoorwill, and the pattering rain on the forest floor.” when the
minister warned tatternook against being drawn into evil, tatternook said there is no
evil. he believes that it’s man’s ignorance of who he really is that causes him to harm
other creatures, and that self-righteous people claiming to speak for god have done the
greatest harm throughout history.
“so, what do you make of this kind of talk?” pa asked.
mr. lucas then reminded pa of the time when tatternook warned homer reynolds
to keep his boy dennis away from the hind ends of horses while they waited in
reynolds’ blacksmith barn to be shod. and not two days later, eight-year-old dennis
was kicked in the belly by the beard’s mare. he died within the week.
pa replied that he thought the incident with dennis was nothing more than
coincidence.
mr. lucas disagreed. “don’t you recall that jenny beard took sick after the old man
knocked at the door and presented mrs. beard with herbs to treat typhus? jenny came
down with a fever the next day, and her mother is convinced that the girl’s life was
saved only through the old man’s foresight. she was so desperate when jenny was
close to dying that she made her mind up to ignore suspicious talk about mr.
tatternook. i think he knows things the rest of us don’t.”
“well, i’m reserving judgment until there’s better proof,” pa said as mr. lucas lay the
reins across the horse’s back. the wagon rumbled the two men toward home.
so it was old tatternook that pa approached to trade his possum for honey. but he
said that when he offered the animal to the old man, he told pa that he didn’t kill or eat
animals. what pa had was of no use to him, and pa would have to go elsewhere to
barter. mr. tatternook shook his head as he sadly stroked the possum’s dull fur.
“if you’ll not have this meat, might i persuade you to share just a little of the honey i
know is hidden in your attic hives? we have a critically injured soldier in our parlor, and
honey is needed to knit his flesh together,” pleaded pa. “a man’s life is at risk.”
the old man looked surprised and then viewed him steadily with his one eye. he
seemed to be weighing the urgency of the request and pa’s knowledge of his secret
hives. finally, he ushered pa into his front room and asked him to wait. pa described a
room aromatic with clumps of dill, lemon balm, feverfew, alfalfa, and sage wrapped with
cord and hung to dry from whitewashed beams. bottles of shriveled leaves hand
labeled “fever,” “headache,” “nausea,” and other ailments crowded a small, rough plank
table. the place was an upside-down meadow after a dry season. it soothed him.
mr. tatternook finally returned with a precious blue mason jar full of honey wrapped
in an old, checked cloth along with some leaves of feverfew he said would help with
ma’s chronic headaches. he then bid pa farewell. puzzled, but with spirits lifted, pa
journeyed home.
when he handed his bundle to ma, a wrinkled note fell out. flattening it on the table,
she read, “dear mrs. smiley, cease worrying about your son. he’ll return to you safely
from prison. you may rest easy. regards, r. f. tatternook.”
“oh, what a demented old man!” ma spat. “how did he ever know tom is in union
prison? and he can’t possibly guess tom’s fate.” she dismissively tossed the note
aside. i snatched it from the floor and read it. mr. tatternook is a soothsayer and a
good man. proof was his knowledge of ma’s recurring headaches. the note gave me
hope.
tish and i couldn’t keep our thoughts from the jar of honey on the table. we yearned
for just a fingertip’s worth. having been without for so long, we deserved just a moment
of indulgence. but ma was unrelenting. she guarded the jar with fierce protectiveness
and secreted it in her room at all times. daily she swathed the sticky sweet on the
man’s head as she swaddled it in torn sheets. she used every scrap of fabric in the
house; bedcoverings, petticoats, nightgowns, and summer curtains were torn into
bandaging. sure that she would come after our last calico dresses, i hid away my
favorite blue with the lacy collar—even though it is now threadbare around the cuffs and
has patches on the skirt. ma cut the boy’s bloody clothes from his body, and pa found
some of tom’s pants and shirts to replace them. he was inches shorter than tom, but
with cuffs and sleeves rolled, the clothes were a fine fit. a homemade turban bandage
crafted from brightly colored cloths transformed him into a turkish sultan from my
geography schoolbook.
after two weeks had passed, ma burst into the kitchen, her cheeks ruddy with
excitement. “our patient is awake! he’s finally awake!”
“are you sure, ma, or are you just wishing it’s so?” i asked, as i set down my knife
from chopping pine needles for tea.
“oh, no. come see! he opened his eyes and smiled at me. for just the briefest
moment,” she said as the three of us headed for the parlor. “what a beautiful smile it
was!” but we found him unconscious again. in the days following, he was awake for
longer and longer periods but couldn’t speak coherently. stuttering and gesturing, he
finally made it known by signs that he’d like to write something. tish ran to the library
and grabbed an old textbook, from which she tore pages, and then found a pencil. he
wrote in crooked letters that he was lieutenant franklin spragins from charlotte, north
carolina, and had been in the cavalry. when he was able to convey his father’s name
and home place, i wrote a letter that described his condition and location. franklin
languished in the parlor, unable to converse in more than a word or two. we hadn’t
counted on having an extra mouth to feed. even with his diminished appetite, his
presence meant we each had even less. ma spooned corn grits into his mouth as there
was always a little extra grain to be found in cracks and corners around the mill. and
tish surreptitiously saved bits of possum meat from her plate to share after a meal
when pa had been lucky with his traps. she and i took turns reading to franklin, which
seemed to soothe his agitation.
tish had spelled ma in the early days, and if you ask me, she liked to be in the parlor
next to him far more than was necessary. she could talk of nothing else. what did we
think his home was like? did we think he had a wife or sweetheart back in north
carolina? and on and on. she burst into sobs when i teased her about him and was
sullen with me for a full day after. nevertheless, she shamelessly stared at his sleeping
form whenever he was dozing.
she also gathered flowers from the garden every day for our patient. pa nailed rough
strips of pine where the windowpanes had been shot out, and the bedclothes and
medical materials gave the parlor a disheveled look– but tish’s roses, daisies, field
thistles, and blue cornflowers filled the room with a summer fragrance. i suppose she
prayed fervently for a wartime romance to develop. once ma was able to wash the oily,
blood-matted mess on his scalp, i could see why tish might be sweet on him. he was a
fine- looking man with the high cheekbones and fair complexion of folks from the
lowlands of the carolinas. soft brown eyes shone out of a kind face, despite being so
gaunt. we were all very excited when it became certain that he would live, but his sight
was mighty poor and his ability to speak clearly did not improve. his left arm seemed
useless as well. perhaps with time he will heal better, but he’ll be far away from tish
and our doorstep by then.
after the first union skirmish, pa hid the old moldy ham under a floorboard in the
attic. hoarding it in the smoke house no longer seemed wise. we wandered from room
to room trying to imagine what would catch the eye of a thieving soldier, but there was
simply too much to conceal. we were overwhelmed by the very notion and gave up.
however, tish and i did wrap the silver forks and knives in a flour-sacking dishcloth and
lugged them in a basket to the top of the hill. we had a tiff about where to put them.
she favored burial next to a fence post as a marker. i preferred a spot under the big
oak where chanterelle foraging is best. it’s a site we know well. she finally agreed that
yankees might carry off the fence post for burning but could never fully remove the big
oak. chopped down, there would still be a stump to mark the place. after digging a hole
suitable for our bundle, we covered it with dirt and a large rock, then tossed twigs and
acorns around to make the ground appear undisturbed. prayer would have to provide
security for the rest of our possessions. there was worry enough about the family’s
safety without overly much thought for things that could be replaced.
franklin spragins’s father came from north carolina two months later, in early
august, to fetch his son home. by this time, franklin had recovered enough to sit
upright for an hour or two a day but was still quite weak. ma had taught him to feed
himself with his one good hand. he still only communicated clearly by scratching out
barely legible letters, and that seemed to tire him mightily. his father had navigated his
finely built wagon around combat near richmond and threaded through the mountains
toward the valley where battles could spring up at any time. when he saw his son in
our parlor, both men burst into tears. mr. spragins clung to him until franklin seemed
embarrassed by so much emotion and looked to ma for help. she gently led the man
away to join us where tish and i were discreetly waiting on the porch. mr. spragins
lingered for a week before chancing the hazardous trip home.
ma, pa, and he struck up quite a friendship during that time and talked for hours in
the library as franklin rested in the parlor. one afternoon, i overheard them discuss
how hopeless the confederacy’s prospects of winning this war were. mr. spragins
didn’t believe the war was about ending slavery or even honoring states’ rights. he
espoused the same nonsense as ma, but just wasn’t crazed by it. “mr. and mrs. smiley,
do you think god damns the people of the south for their sins?” mr. spragins asked.
“this position is frequently taken by our north carolina churches, and i’m inclined to
concur.”
“i have no doubt,” ma clapped her hands, joyful to have found a kindred spirit.
mr. spragins said, “so many folks are concerned with the outcome of the november
election—particularly those who pray abe lincoln’s defeat will end the war—but they’re
looking for a solution in the wrong place. the war is god’s doing, and until men of the
south learn to be more devout, god will allow the war to persist.”
ma’s repeated “amens” could be heard beyond the parlor, and pa’s echoed hers.
“but when will people of the confederacy gain this wisdom?” my father wondered.
mr. spragins said, “i wish i knew. obviously, our great losses haven’t been enough
to bring a necessary level of humility.” but i wondered about the effectiveness of prayer,
because months later lincoln won the election.
i think mr. spragins was so overjoyed to see his son alive, he failed to notice how
franklin’s chances for a normal life had been reduced. mr. spragins shares tish’s
wishful view of his son’s future. as he prepared to leave, he spoke with relief of
franklin’s return home to help with the fieldwork now that all his slaves but one had
been taken off by the confederate army for labor. pa helped him arrange a borrowed
mattress in the back of the wagon for franklin’s comfort, and one morning, as we all
stood on the porch and waved, mr. spragins and his son departed. ma and tish
watched until the wagon was out of sight, and then they wiped at tears rolling down
their cheeks, tish for dashed romantic dreams and ma who was suddenly more aware
of tom’s absence.
franklin’s horse boarded with us until early september, as mr. spragins couldn’t
both drive the wagon and handle franklin’s steed. by the time his remaining slave minis
arrived to guide her home, the mare had added some bulk to her ribs. i had scoured the
corners of the barn and the fields for bits of hay and found sufficient to bring her back to
health. fortunately, the mare was gone by some days when the burning came into the
valley.
caring for franklin spragins had made ma better. she was so busy being useful that
she had no time to rant. perhaps she thought her kind attention to another mother’s son
would earn her tom’s safety in the lord’s eyes. but then an awful thing occurred.
not long after, the family headed off to church in the buggy for sunday services. as
the grounds came into view, we saw neighbors’ wagons and carriages tethered to the
fence at the side of the road as usual, but there was a crowd congregated underneath
the ancient oak tree.
pa was the first to notice and said, “what the dickens is going on here? the service
should start any minute now. these people will be late to their pews.”
“over by the tree—that looks like mr. blue and mr. lucas, but what on earth are they
doing?” tish asked.
we craned beyond the buggy sides to see. mr. blue, who is a tall and hardy man for
his age, stood at the base of the tree, and the shorter, slightly built mr. lucas teetered
on his shoulders. he awkwardly tried to heave himself up onto the lowest sturdy limb, a
knife clutched in his teeth.
“look, there’s something exceedingly strange hanging from that branch.” i pointed
toward the elongated object at the end of a rope. it softly twirled in the morning breeze.
it looked like a long, lumpy sack of potatoes, but the men’s horrified expressions and
alarmed talk suggested that the object was something much more unpleasant.
buzzards crouched in the upper branches and hungrily eyed the scene. a cloud of them
with outstretched wings swirled around the tree’s crown, projecting their shadows on
the tight knot of men below.
ma spied them and began to scream, “satan’s fallen angels! they are descending
upon us! can’t you see them? you girls take cover! they steal souls, and they’re right
here in our own church yard!” she tugged at her hair and cowered under her shawl.
tish tried to calm her, “hush, ma. those are just buzzards. settle down. there’s
nothing to fear from these ordinary birds. you’ve seen them on the fields picking at deer
carcasses more times than you can count.” but no amount of reasoning would calm
her. for a split second, her vision became mine—the wrinkled gray heads of the greasy
creatures did look like those of small demons. then i recalled that they are merely
nature’s housekeepers who never kill anything for food. they only clear away natural
deaths and the bad deeds of others.
pa joined the crowd around the tree, and ma, tish, and i watched in horrible
fascination as mr. lucas inched out over the broad limb and severed the rope. the
sack fell with a dull thud and collapsed in an eerily still, shapeless pile. but you just
knew that inside were arms, legs, and a lolling head. everyone was struck dumb. they
stared at the spot where the encased body lay, until several men roused themselves
and half– carried, half– dragged the bundle to the edge of the cemetery for later
interment.
nervously twisting his hat in his hands, pa returned to the buggy. he sighed and
seemed to dread the effect of the explanation to come. he couldn’t deny what we had
seen, and we would demand to know more. haltingly he began, as ma whimpered
inconsolably. “now, christiana, you and the girls needn’t worry. it’s all over. there’s
nothing here that can harm us.” he stroked her hand. “not anymore.”
he then explained what the substitute minister, reverend brown, had just reported
to the assembled men. brown had been awakened at daybreak by a disturbance, and
when he peered from behind a parsonage window curtain, he saw yankee soldiers
advancing up the road with a hostage. the man’s wrists were bound by rope to the
back of his captors’ wagon. the poor soul stumbled and fell, his sobs for mercy audible
from where the reverend watched. the hostage was near naked, and his feet left
bloody trails in the road’s dust, the minister had said.
“he watched? why didn’t he do something to help the man?” i knew the answer the
minute i said this, but i couldn’t help myself.
“what could he do? he had no gun, and he was outnumbered,” pa said. then he
proceeded to tell how brown heard the yanks declare that the church was a perfect
spot for a mock trial. they took places across the porch steps with an officer as judge
and six others as jury to try the man for murder. he thought their captive must have
killed a yankee soldier to merit such cruel treatment. well, the poor fellow was in no
condition to offer any defense. their pronouncement was: guilty. death by noose.
reverend brown told the group that the pitiful fellow didn’t utter a word as they
shrouded his entire form with a sack and encircled his neck with a rope. after they
seated him sideways on a horse, they whacked the beast on the rump. he made a
startled leap forward. before you could blink, reverend brown said, the prisoner was
yanked off and swung in the air, twitching and writhing until the job was done.
pa lowered his head and told us, “god bless the poor man’s soul. it seems that we
must suffer the effects of their visit too. the scoundrels made off with the sterling silver
communion cups as well as the bible from the pulpit.”
we later read details in the spectator. the victim was samuel creigh from down
around lewiston, about seventy miles farther toward the western mountains. some
believed his wife had shot a raiding yankee who had attacked him. others thought mr.
creigh killed the soldier in self-defense. this slaying had occurred six months earlier,
but in recent days some enemy of creigh’s had reported him to the yankees in the
lewiston area. the yanks found the body stuffed in creigh’s empty well. he was then
tied to the wagon as a lesson for all to witness. the image of the sack dangling below
the buzzards still spawns nightmares, and ma was worse again.
tish and i had drifted along with the comfortable memory of the sensible mother who
had guided our lives so admirably until recently. now, after the lynching, she seemed to
lose touch with our world again. we had to face the fact that her unpredictable, angry
behavior was a persistent danger to her as well as to us.
pa summoned tish and me into the library not long after ma went off again. he had
seemed preoccupied for days. now he cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses on
his nose. “i’ve been thinking about ma,” he said at last. “i’m worried we’re running out of
time. more than likely, the soldiers will come this way again. we can’t let your mother
face even one of them.”
this was the topic i’d dreaded most, but tish seemed to have thought about it.
“what about the basement?” she asked. “we hid there last time. and the soldiers never
even entered the house. perhaps we’ll have that good fortune again.”
pa frowned. “that was just a skirmish, and the yanks were only passing through. we
need to find a place where she won’t be discovered, even if they storm the house.”
pa’s voice dropped, and he couldn’t meet our eyes. “she may heap invective on their
heads, and if that’s the case, who knows what may happen. lucas told me of a man
who was pistol-whipped when he called one of them a yankee bastard. they then
burned his house to the ground.” tish’s face drained of color, and i’m sure i looked the
same.
“do you think we could persuade her to walk to the top of the hill to hide?” tish
stammered, remembering our hike with the table silver and the stout old oak’s illusion of
safety. she must have envisioned ma warmly enfolded by the tree that had weathered
so many storms.
“that won’t do,” i said. “she might refuse to go, pa can’t carry her that distance, and
how would you keep her there? bound to a tree?” tears came to my eyes.
tish snapped at me. “i’d stay with her.” she paused. “but there would be no shelter.
what if the weather is cold or rainy? we’d catch our death of pneumonia. i guess
mary’s right. it won’t work.”
this conversation was sorely grievous to pa. he insisted, “her hiding place should
be here. but i can’t imagine where in the house we might conceal her.” he sighed.
i thought of the small attic cubby over the back addition where i used to hide my
broken china- head dolls. there wasn’t much illumination in that area, as the gable
windows are located at the other end. it also had the advantage of being far from the
central downstairs rooms. pa and tish agreed this was a possibility, but it was no better
for muffling her voice than the cellar. there was no barrier between the attic sections. it
was simply a less likely place for a soldier to venture.
i steeled myself before i spoke, remembering that ma’s and our lives hung in the
balance. “what if we tied a flannel around her mouth? the yankees would be here for
plunder, not lodging. there’s no advantage to staying in tiny bethel. they’d be gone
mercifully quick. you know as well as i that we have few provisions for anyone’s use.”
pa slowly shook his bowed head. “i think we first need to ask for the lord’s blessings
and guidance. and pray that he keeps the enemy from our door so that we never have
to consider these actions.” he added, “god help your poor mother to come to her
senses in the meantime.” my heart broke to see him so sad. i reached for his hand and
squeezed it. he said in a low tone, as if to himself, “i just can’t reconcile her deep
devotion and her purity of life with the angry, disturbed woman she’s become.”
we moved from the parlor, unwilling to meet each other’s eyes, and found some
solitary chores about the house or up in the barn to wipe away the bitter traces of our
conversation. there was no solution that any of us could find conscionable, but at least
we now had a plan.
in early september, when the enemy troops had moved from the staunton area
toward lynchburg to rip up train lines, and the confederates were able to restore
telegraph wires from charlottesville to staunton, there was the possibility of news
again. and what dreadful news it was!
pa and mr. beard were curious to see if rumors of staunton’s ruin were accurate and
to learn where our troops were fighting. they set out one morning for town in mr.
beard’s wagon drawn by his old mare. hidden in a barn down on overgrown lane
several miles off the bethel road, both had been safe from army scavengers. pa had
brought several bushels of potatoes from this past summer’s harvest, hoping to barter.
but they had little hope of finding something of value. these days there is little to be
purchased or traded in staunton, thanks to the summer’s occupation of fifteen thousand
union soldiers in this town of an already deprived four thousand. pa returned empty-
handed.
when he entered the back door, he found tish and me trying to entertain an agitated
ma in the kitchen by singing old favorites like “aura lee.” “what’s going on here?” he
asked.
“ma’s been so anxious, we’ve been trying to entertain her. she was convinced you’d
be captured by the yankees on the road,” tish said. i placed my hands on ma’s to calm
their shaking. even with pa’s return, she wasn’t consoled.
he sank into a kitchen chair, and suddenly looked much older. then he blurted out
his news. “you remember mr. waddell, the newspaper editor in town? well, we met him
as he was running out of his office to alert folks on the street about what had just come
over the wire from the charlottesville paper.” the creases in pa’s brow deepened as he
recounted how someone in that town had got hold of an issue of the new york
observer. it had reported grant’s newest plan for bringing virginia to its knees. union
troops had been ordered to eat out virginia clean and clear so that a crow flying over
the valley should have to carry his own provender from end to end. “those were
grant’s exact words, waddell said. and grant has an even more diabolical plan in store
for us.”
“we are already eaten out clean and clear,” i said. “there is barely anything left for
humans or crows, as it is. what could be worse?”
“oh, mary. there is worse,” he said. “waddell told us that grant has also
commanded all valley barns, mills, stored grain, hay for horses, and crop fields to be
torched, and all animals to be either slaughtered or driven off. yankee soldiers have
already set out from winchester to march south down the valley to carry out his plan.”
“god help us,” tish cried out. she grabbed the edge of the kitchen table to steady
herself.
“how can we survive, and, worse, what will become of ma if yankees come this way
again?” i said.
with pa seated before her, ma fell into one of her last days reveries, addressing
someone none of us could see. “glory, glory, you say. and what about god’s blessed
manna?” she cocked her head to listen. “will there be an endless supply, that we may
never suffer hunger? and will we enjoy eternal peace? oh, precious angel, shine thy
light upon my face as we sing god’s praises in heaven.” she then recited a list of
heaven’s glories for us all after judgment day. i hoped she envisioned an ample
supply of sugar, bacon, honey, cakes, pies, real coffee, and cotton calico dresses.
nothing pa had said registered with her, and i was having my own difficulties absorbing
this bleak account. tish’s lips were quivering, and her face was ashen.
two weeks later, a gentle, cool rain had been steadily falling in the late afternoon
when mr. beard galloped into the yard. we had just finished supper when his footsteps
pounded up the front steps. as tish opened the door, he pushed his way past her and
found pa. “it’s started. the burning has started! the enemy has torched all the barns in
waynesboro, and they’re headed this way,” he said. “i ’spect they won’t get here until
tomorrow morning but be prepared!” he barely spit the words out before he leaped on
his steed and was down the road to tell the next neighbor.
my eyes nervously took in the room, imagining what a soldier might find desirable,
but there was really nothing to be done outwardly to prepare. the shriveled smoked
ham was hidden in the attic, the silver was buried, and all else of value to an army was
already taken. what to do with ma was the real problem. solving it would take every bit
of courage and determination we had.
we kept to ourselves, while ma persisted with her constant litany of prayer and
exhortation. tish wept silently, but i was numb with apprehension. his face pinched
with worry, pa hugged each of us to him. “i’m going to shut myself in the parlor to ask
the lord’s counsel. while i’m there, you girls might pray for guidance as well,” he told
us, as tish whimpered.
“now, tish, we’ll get through this. just be calm and trust in your own strength and
god’s divine will.” pa strode into the parlor and closed the door behind him.
after persuading ma to go to bed, we spent the long night tormented by our
individual anxieties. i couldn’t bear to discard my day dress, afraid i wouldn’t be
prepared if something happened before sunrise.
near dawn, i heard pa pacing in their room as i crept in my bare feet downstairs to
sit on the porch. i hoped to be soothed by calls of owls perched in the cool, dark cedars
and by the rippling sighs of the high creek. but one step outside brought a strong smell
of bitter wood smoke. off to the north, a faint orange glow capped the black hilltops with
an eerie sunrise come too early in the day.
i stormed into the house, my cries of alarm drawing tish and pa into the upstairs
hallway. ma’s enquiries of “what’s going on? what are you all so upset about?” came
from the bedroom.
“don’t you fret, christiana. everything’s going to be all right,” pa called with a tremor
that only we could hear. in a softer voice he said to us, “what in god’s name will we
do? the enemy will be here shortly if you can see fire in the distance.”
firmly i said, “remember our plan, pa. i’ll take two chairs up to the attic, one for her
and another for one of us.”
“i’ll stay with her,” tish said. “just like last time. i’ve no desire to confront yankee
soldiers.”
“but what if the yankees set the house on fire?” i said. “promise me you’ll come
downstairs with ma at the first whiff of smoke, regardless of what you fear from the
soldiers. please promise.” she glumly nodded assent.
pa removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. putting them back on, he joined me as
i stepped into the bedroom to reason with my mother. taking a seat on the bed, pa
held her hand. he gently brushed a strand of gray hair from her forehead, saying,
“christiana, my love, yankee soldiers approach on the road, and you will be safest
waiting with tish in the attic. please come with us up the stairs and stay there until i
give a sign.” she glared at him, but he continued. “tish is coming too. it will be exactly
like the last time. it will be over quickly, and then all will be well. but you’ll need to stay
quiet while they’re here.”
ma sat up straight and retorted, “william, if you think i’m afraid of the devil’s minions,
you are sorely mistaken. if none of you have the backbone, i’ll confront them myself
and tell them of the power of the lord.” an expression of horror crossed my father’s
face. “they all suckle at the whore of babylon’s bosom, every one of them. let me
greet them with word of the true lord.”
“no, no, christiana, you’ll bring harm to all of us!” he said.
“nonsense. his mercy shields me. i’ll be spared any harm.” she threw back the
bedcovers, placed her feet solidly on the floor, and fastened her long robe.
pa gave me such an exasperated look. ma was clearly not going to go peacefully to
the attic. stronger odors of burning wood and another powerful and objectionable scent
crept under the windows. later we learned that the enemy had pitched living hogs on
bonfires made of fence rails and posts at a neighboring farm. the sky had become
murky with a low ceiling of gray. where there should have been a glow of brightening
dawn, there was none.
tish peered out through the window. suddenly she yelled, “oh, my heavens, look at
this! they must be at the hogshead place now! whatever will we do?” orange fingers
of flame clawed at the sky in front of us. it looked as though hell had split open and was
attempting to suck the town of bethel in. cries of desperate animals and gun blasts
filled the air. there was no longer time to squander.
before ma could protest, pa scooped her up into his arms. he cradled her for a
moment against his chest as tears coursed down his cheeks. she hadn’t realized that
she wouldn’t confront the soldiers at the door, and when the truth dawned, she twisted
and writhed in his arms. “now there, christiana, be calm. this is for your own good, my
tina girl. please be still. please, please be still.” he held her in a lover’s embrace, trying
to soothe her. loosed from its daytime braid, her straight hair rippled in a gray stream
down her back and framed her furious face, while her billowing, white cotton robe
trailed down from his arms. “william, what are you doing? you’re siding with satan
himself,” she shrieked. i’d never seen her this bad off.
“you go downstairs, tish, and watch for them. call up and warn us when they’re
close,” i said as i shoved my sister toward the door. i tore the bed sheets into thick
strips. now ma sobbed, gasping for breath. grabbing a handful of strips, i propped the
attic door open as pa wrestled her toward the stairs leading into the musty darkness
above. he uttered tender, consoling words as she bellowed and frantically beat at his
arms.
ma’s body was fixed in rage. we struggled to maneuver her across the attic floor
toward the space over the back addition. once there, she was so wearied by resistance
that she crumpled into the high-backed armchair i had placed in the dimmest corner. pa
adjusted her in the seat. we were almost useless with weeping. i quickly grasped her
wrists and bound them together as she pleaded, “no, no, mary, how could you do this
to your mother? let me loose, let me loose. i pray you to free me.”
“ma, i beg your forgiveness.” i paused to wipe my eyes. “someday you’ll understand
that this was necessary to save all of us,” i said as i quickly wound the sheeting around
her waist and tied it to the chair. i secured her to its sturdy frame, but all the time
worried that i might grievously squeeze her.
tish’s cry of alarm resounded in the front hall. “pa, mary—they’re coming! i hear the
horses!” tish took the stairs two at a time and gasped in dismay when she saw our
mother tied in the corner darkness. i dropped the extra strips of sheeting on the floor.
quivering from head to toe, i told her again, “if there’s the first whiff of smoke in the
house, grab ma and run. burning alive is more horrible than anything a yankee might
do.” i then joined pa at the front door.
somewhere in the distance beyond the roiling smoke, a whistle pierced the air.
then, a company of about fifty indigo-clad cavalry soldiers charged into sight, with
flaming torches of oil-soaked rags twisted on long stakes held high. they sang at the
top of their lungs, “mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord, he is
trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored,” as more lines of that
dreadful song swelled closer. when they gained our lane, most cantered up the path to
the barn. a man who appeared to be their leader and several others veered toward the
house, dismounted, and secured their horses to the fence near the porch. pa and i
hastened into the yard, hoping to draw them away from the house. flickering torches
turned the yankees nearing the big red bank barn into the stuff of nightmares. the farm
animals were long ago claimed by the confederate army, but pa’s farming implements
—rakes, plows, and harrows—were stored inside, and he had bolted the large doors
with a heavy iron padlock. several soldiers strode toward the house.
“you there, old man,” one spat at pa. “where are the keys to the barn padlock?”
another demanded: “give them to us or pay with your life!” he raised his rifle as if to
take aim. pa merely glowered at both of them.
others were now on the porch, demanding whatever we had in the way of food. one
had a patch that concealed his left eye, and they all looked ill fed and sickly. their
threadbare uniforms were stained with smoke, oil, blood and who knows what. several
of them were without footwear. even if they were yankees, i ached to think what it must
have been like to charge in combat through fields of shattered corn stalks and knife-like
branches, and then to hike on bloody feet for miles between battles.
“there is no key. it’s lost,” i shouted when i gathered my senses. pa shot a fierce
look to hush me up. the soldiers sped back to the barn door. one of them drew his
pistol and blasted the lock apart. they then disappeared, shortly to re-emerge with the
pa’s plow, harnesses, saddles, barrows, rakes, scythes, harrows, and wood troughs
that they heaped on a bed of fence rails. others collected dried cow patties and loose
hay from the barnyard and added them as kindling, along with dry leaves and sticks.
torchbearers then spread out around the barn perimeter and, on signal, dipped their
cracking torches into the pile.
dampness from the previous night slowed the fire, but eventually small flames
toasted the grasses and spread in a widening circle. more blazing torches were flung
into the open barn doors, and soon an ungodly roar sucked at the air. the barn
crackled like gunshot as flames devoured the dry floorboards and beams. then, with a
great thundering, the wings of the roof collapsed and left only a few skeletal outside
beams standing. the sight rippled from earth to sky. stunned, i idly wondered if sparks
might leap to the house, and if we might lose it as well.
the officer and his men spun from the spectacle before them and rapidly
approached the house, pounding up the porch steps. my heart lurched, and pa and i
followed quickly to keep up. they stomped into the library and pitched books from the
shelves onto the floor, eyeing a copy now and then and thrusting an appealing one into
a rucksack. the invaders cast cushions onto the floor, tore paintings from the walls,
ripped curtains down, and upended chairs. our refusals to meet demands for silver and
valuables further aggravated them. the one with the eye patch ordered pa and me to
kneel on the floor in the library, while the others ransacked the downstairs. i could hear
them travel from room to room, slamming drawers and cupboards. they exclaimed with
pleasure when they found something to give a mother or sweetheart and swore when
their search was in vain. one came back into the parlor chewing on the last candle that
ma put aside for an emergency.
“missy, where are your potatoes and apples? i know you have something to eat in
this house besides tallow wax. something puts meat on those bones.” he pinched my
upper arm, and his rankness made me gag. like some of the others, he had what
appeared to be fresh blood on his shirt, and then i remembered the order to kill the
animals. the hogsheads managed to spare some of their hogs and sheep in the past
by hiding them in a thicket of prickly bushes on a distant hill, but evidence that they’d
been discovered discolored this man’s clothes. perhaps if i fessed up about the
potatoes in the basement, they’d leave the upper floors unexplored. i held my breath,
listening for oaths coming from the attic. thank god, there were none.
all but the officer went below in the quest for fruit and vegetables put up in crocks
and stored there for the winter. he headed toward the hall stairs. footsteps soon
passed from one room to another above our heads. his boots halted at the attic door,
and the knob rasped. he ascended the last set of stairs and then rummaged about. my
heart thudded so violently our captor would surely hear it. there was silence and then
tish’s muffled voice, pleading most pitifully, although i could not make out distinct
words. the man responded. there was still no utterance from ma. pa and i avoided
looking at one another for fear of giving away our thoughts.
after what seemed an eternity, the officer clumped down from the attic and
descended the main stairway. at the same time, men emerged from the cellar with
knapsacks that bulged with all of this season’s potatoes and the few apples that we had
gathered. the officer grabbed the man by the collar. “empty your sacks,” the officer
ordered, “and deposit everything that you’ve taken from this house here in the center of
the hall. leave it all behind now, or you’ll pay later.”
“what the hell?” one soldier demanded.
another asked, “have you lost your mind? we need this stuff.”
“do what i say. now.” the officer said and placed his hand on his revolver for
emphasis.
there was much cursing as our provisions were spilled out on the floor. the officer
wearily passed his hand over his eyes. “i don’t know how much more of this i can
stand,” he said to no one in particular. if he wasn’t a yankee, i might have felt sorry for
this man who had forgotten he was the enemy. he was attractive with his light brown,
wavy hair and a tall, thin frame. but his weary, dispirited eyes revealed someone who
had seen too much.
pa and i hadn’t recovered from our shock when the sharp sound of a whistle again
split the air and the intruders departed. hooves pounded the lane and then the road as
they tore away in a mob, holding aloft torches newly ignited from our burning barn. we
froze, straining to hear if the riders continued down the road past the mill, or if they
would incinerate that too and destroy all hope. but the hoofbeats clattered into the far
distance more and more faintly until they vanished altogether.
with an all’s clear shout from pa, tish came down the stairs, guiding a mute and
unbound ma by the arm. she was subdued and seemed to understand the peril that
had just passed. i asked tish, “what in the world happened up there? that officer
ordered his men to abandon everything they’d taken. it’s a miracle.”
barely able to locate her voice, tish softly said, “he was poking about the attic, i
guess hoping to locate something under the floorboards or hidden in the eaves, when
he spied ma and me huddled back under the roof beams. when the yankees raced up
the lane, i was forced to gag her. there was just no other choice. i wound a piece of
sheeting around her mouth. oh, mary, she didn’t struggle. she just slumped against the
bindings. it broke my heart.” tish paused to wipe away the tears, and i squeezed her
hand in mine. she continued, “when the officer saw us crouched there in the half dark,
he was speechless for a moment, staring. imagine what a sight we must have seemed
—a woman gagged and tightly bound in a chair with her daughter at her side! i was
frightened witless, but i begged him to understand that ma had gone mad with the war’s
hardships, and that her insanity might lead her to offend his men. i couldn’t say
anything but the truth. he told me not to be disquieted any longer. it was then that he
descended and made his men return our goods.” tish plunked down onto the bottom
step in relief and grief; her shoulders shook with raw sobs suppressed so long. now i
understood why the mill had been spared. the good officer knew we would starve
without it and took pity on us again. pa pulled ma to him and held her tight, softly
stroking her hair and begging her to forgive him.
just then, the strong odor of wood smoke tugged me back to what was happening
outside. racing to the parlor window, i saw our bethel neighbors charge up the farm
lane, shovels and leather buckets swinging from their shoulders and hands. mr. beard
and several men threw themselves into digging a ditch around the little flames lapping
at the edge of the lawn. heat from the barn was too intense for a person to stand in its
proximity for very long. i tucked my skirts up and joined neighbors who relayed buckets
of water from the stream and splashed it on the edges of the flames nearest the house.
men soaked neckerchiefs in the buckets before affixing them over their noses and
mouths, and a torn strip of petticoat afforded me the same protection. we frantically
worked, as we hacked and coughed to clear our chests. but before long, most of us
were hampered by aching lungs and impaired vision. we were compelled to leave or go
inside the house, where we clustered at the windows with dread. if rain had not fallen
the previous night, we might have lost everything. as it was, the combination of the
ditch and the dampness saved our home.
the barn ruins smoldered for days. our hair and our skin stank of it. the acrid scent
burrowed into the walls of the house and into the stuffed furniture and rugs. charcoal-
tinged drainage emitted from our lungs and nostrils for a week. not one tool remained
with which to turn the soil in the spring. not even a rusty hoe to unearth a small kitchen
plot.
stories about the burning spread from neighbor to neighbor like the smoke. local
folks were abuzz about old tatternook and how, when the yanks came by, he boldly
pursued them through his barn doorway and put a curse on them.
mr. tatternook came to visit a few days later. “these are for your wife,” he told pa,
as he extended a bundle of dried lemon balm and lavender bound by string. “tell her to
wear the leaves in a small, loosely woven sack around her neck. the aroma will calm
her anxiety.”
“you heard that she suffers from nerves? i’ll make sure she makes use of these.
thank you. come in, mr. tatternook, and tell us how you fared during the burning.
we’ve heard stories,” pa said.
“i’ll stay here by the door, thank you. you hold in your hand all that’s left of my
healing herbs. i saved a few dry bundles while the yankees gathered tinder. i tried to
warn them, but they wouldn’t listen to a one-eyed old man. one even waved a revolver
at me before incinerating my barn.”
“warned them of what?” pa asked.
tatternook said, “their end was nigh. i told them to prepare themselves and their
comrades to go in peace. the soldier spat and snarled, ‘get on your way, old bastard,
or it’s your own end that will be nigh.’ at that point i gave up and left the barn and them
to fate.”
he told pa that he knew they’d be bushwhacked later that day between bethel and
staunton, and not one life would be spared. their shallow graves by the road would be
disguised with leaves and brambles. everyone in bethel swears his story is true. but
you never know. so much terrible has happened that truth and fiction no longer seem to
have any particularities between them. i hope the kind officer was not among them.
