Homeland

by Barbara Hambly

  Last night I was brought running from the summer kitchen into the parlor by Mercy’s screams and the smell of smoke. Mother was standing in the middle of the room. The sleeve of her dress was on fire. She stared fixedly at the flames without making a move to help herself; Peggie pressed in a corner, clutching Nollie, in frozen panic. I slapped out the fire—it was from her bedroom-candle, fallen on the floor where it thankfully went out—and turned to see Papa standing in the door of the bedroom in his nightshirt, hands over his mouth and panic stamped upon his face. Then Mother began to struggle and sob in pain, and Papa ran to hold her, and all was confusion, but it was clear that Mother had no recollection of brushing against the candle, nor of her dress taking fire. We bandaged her arm, made her drink a little brandy-and-water as a composer, and I made Papa drink some, too, for he was shaking as badly as she, dropping the glass and the water-pitcher and his glasses. Though it was nearly midnight I took the lantern and walked the four miles into Northwest Harbor to fetch Dr. Ferguson. The moon is in its last quarter and the night overcast, and it would not have been safe to take the horse. When I returned with the doctor I took Papa aside, and said, “Is there anyone that you know at Yale, who is a specialist in injuries of the brain?” He said yes; and, he would write in the morning, asking a recommendation, of who Mother must see.

  I have just now been in her room. How much she has changed over the summer! It has been some weeks now, since I have seen her accustomed sharpness. I do not know what to do, except to follow the example and precept of those impossibly courageous, impossibly good young ladies—and to follow your example, my friend. Wherever you are, I know you have passed through horrors: getting your sister out of Nashville, coming home to find the world you knew laid waste. And those are only the ones that I know about. Please hold my hand through this time.

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 8

  Oliver is dead. Of his regiment, only fifteen men and two officers survived. Will told me this when I came down to the Town Landing to return home this afternoon. When I got home at twilight I found Papa sitting on the boulder by our gate, alone. He said he had brought the news to Mother, and they and Peggie had wept together. Yet he said, a little later in the day, Mother had come in from the garden and asked, Was there any letter from Ollie? Peggie had sobbed out that he was dead in the battle, and both wept again, as if it were the first time of hearing it—but, Papa said, it had just now happened a third time, that Mother had no remembrance of the news, nor even that a battle had been fought. Peggie had told her, he said, and again it was as if she were hearing it for the first time, and he could not endure it.

  I walked him up to the house, and took Peggie aside, and begged her, to be brave for Mother’s sake. She struck my hands aside and told me, it was well for me to say, for it was my traitorous husband who had murdered hers. At this I caught her by the hair, and said, You may think whatever you please, but if you trouble Mother with that or with any mention of Ollie’s death, I will pull all your hair out by the roots.

  It is now three in the morning. Through the wall of my bedroom I can hear Peggie crying, and Nollie wailing feebly. Papa stays with Mother, who is in great pain. Peggie refused to let me bring Nollie in here with Mercy and me. I can not believe that at this time yesterday morning, I did not know my brother was dead; and I can not believe that I will never see Ollie again. I have prayed, and found a little quiet. You have walked this road before me, my friend, and it is as if I can see your lantern ahead of me in the distance.

  Always your friend,

  Cora

  [N.B. The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1-3, 1863.]

  Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine

  To

  Susanna Ashford

  [not sent]

  FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1863

  Dearest Friend,

  An appointment has been made with a Dr. Hazelitt, a brain specialist, in New York City, for Tuesday next. Will has offered himself as escort for Mother and me. Though it is nearly two days’ travel by train, I have decided to take my Mercy, as well. She is a sturdy girl and not at all shy of strangers. To you only will I confide the ugliness that with long ostracism has taken root in my soul, like fungus in the dark: I do not honestly suspect that Peggie, or Elinor, or any Daughter of the Union would knowingly do harm to my child—Emory’s child. I have not read so many novels as that. Yet I know that for a one-year-old girl, adventuresome and newly adept at walking, neglect is enough to place her in danger. Papa is so distraught that he sometimes barely knows where he himself is, much less his granddaughter.

  Perhaps I have read too many novels, or found too many pamphlets tucked under my pillow, lauding the burning of “Rebel” houses, the thrusting of daggers into Rebel hearts. Perhaps, like Papa and poor Peggie, I am also a little bit insane with grief, and as unaware of it as Mother is unaware that she is not as she was.

  SATURDAY, JULY 11

  If I cannot speak to you, my friend, or hold your hand, I have at least the acquaintance of the intrepid Miss Dashwood, to remind me that one is not necessarily flinty of soul—or a traitor to the Union—to be thinking. We must put up the cucumbers and the peaches, now, if we are to have them to eat in the dead of winter, whether Ollie is dead or not. With prices as they are, and—God forgive me for even thinking this—without Ollie’s pay, this winter we will be able to buy almost nothing at the store. Peggie sees nothing amiss with “borrowing” what we need from Uncle M, and refuses to see that my Uncle is not a rich man: everyone more wealthy than her indigent father, to her mind, “can afford to help us.” On my way home from the Landing yesterevening I stopped and spoke to Aunt Hester, who says, she will put up our vegetables with her own, if Papa will bring them to her. I think he will be fit, to do that.

  Ollie loved preserved peaches. I will think of that, as Mother and I—Mother thank Heavens kept from work near the stove, by her burnt arm—labor through this hot, heavy day peeling, slicing, boiling syrup, and melting wax. Each jar will be for him. I will send a jar with this letter. If it can magically find its way to you, surely I can enclose two jars of peaches.

  MONDAY, JULY 13

  I had meant to write to you from New York City, informing you of our safe arrival. Instead I take up my pen in the summer kitchen again, exhausted and troubled at heart. Papa drove us to Green’s Landing as soon as I set the milk-pans in the cellar, with Mother protesting all the way that her headaches are not so bad that she needs to see any doctor about them. Yet news of the rioting in New York turned us back when we stepped off the Lady Anne at Portland. Mother declared, “That’s ridiculous. It is the Copperheads, that are inciting those wicked foreigners to riot.” Yet Will, Uncle M, and Papa have said that all over Deer Isle one hears the same angry muttering, that the government may as well ask three million dollars to buy oneself out of the draft, as three hundred, a sum that no poor man has.

  Mother twice asked me, Why were we wearing black? I said gently that I would tell her later, but as we were returning, she began to weep softly, and said “Ollie—my Ollie is dead.” Yet by the time we reached home, she seemed to have forgotten again. As I had arranged to recess school until Thursday, because of our journey, I spent the remainder of the day hunting eggs and putting them down in brine for the winter and churning butter. As with the peaches, I can only keep at these homely chores by telling myself, how much Ollie enjoyed having egg-custard now and then in the winter, and butter.

  I do not know what else I can do.

  Cora

  Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine

  To

  Susanna Ashford

  [not sent]

  THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1863

  Dearest Susanna,

  Night, and peace, and the smell of cut hay heavy in the darkness. I am re-reading Vanity Fair, taking refuge in Mr. Thackeray’s astringent amusement. He reminds me to have patience with those former friends who speak coldly to me, and whisper amongst themselves the moment I turn away. Or if I can not pity, at least I can laugh at their ways, a
nd so dissolve my anger before it begins to corrode my heart. Right now, I find in this greater comfort than in those Psalms that urge God to break the teeth of the wicked in their mouths, or rejoice that the righteous will be able to wash their feet in their enemies’ blood.

  I seldom leave the farm now, remaining here on Sundays when Papa and Peggie take Mother to church. This is the only time that Peggie emerges from the house; almost the only time she emerges from her room. Hard labor tomorrow, for we have moved wash-day to Saturday, so that I can help. Thus, when I come home tomorrow from teaching, it will be the work of hauling and boiling water to soak the clothes and sheets overnight. Mother finds it ridiculous that these precautions are taken, but finally admits that her headaches render her too tired to do as much as she used to. Thank Heavens the evening light lingers until past ten.

  Is all well with you, in Richmond, or Atlanta, or wherever it is that you and Julia have taken refuge? How I look forward to the day when the post will bring me once more a letter full of your drawings, bearing the longed-for word that you are safe.

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 1

  Nollie’s birthday. We had a picnic at the edge of the woods close by the house, for the poor little fellow, but Peggie was so overcome with recollection, that she would not leave her room. Mother asked her, what was wrong … and so, learned of her son’s death, yet again. Well that you wrote me, my dear friend, your letter about feeling two things with equal strength at the same time, though they be contradictory: else I would be hard put to explain the intensity of my desire to shake Peggie senseless. God knows the bottommost fathom of our hearts.

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 6

  Aunt Hester tells me that her friend Mrs. Eaton, whose husband died in camp of wounds after the battle at Gettysburg, is to marry again, and has sent her four children away to other homes, as her new husband cannot support them.

  MONDAY, AUGUST 10

  Selectmen went about the island today, summoning men for the draft. Many are out with the cod-fleet still. Many more say that the government has no right to take a man from the support of his wife and children, if he does not wish to go. Others ask why, if we were victorious at Gettysburg and have taken Vicksburg, is this War not over yet? As if every man in the Confederacy would cry in chorus, “Oh, we are beaten, hard luck!” and throw down their rifles. Sometimes I wonder if people listen to what they themselves are saying?!!

  Papa has not been sleeping, so shaken is he still by the news of the Draft Riots in New York. Over a thousand people killed or injured, during the three days that the mobs controlled the city. Some of the papers say that it was the Copperheads who incited the Irish and German laborers to riot, but others—and Will still brings me half a dozen, both for and against the War—say that there was no need for outsiders to inflame poor men forced to risk their lives, when rich ones can buy their way free. When he read how the mob burned the black children’s orphanage, and murdered one of the little girls there—how they lynched or drowned free black shopkeepers and laborers whenever they could catch them—poor Papa wept. For a time he even talked wildly of enlisting himself, though he is sixty.

  Aunt Hester and the youth who works for her and Uncle M, named Jared Dow, walk over to help with the farm tasks nearly every day, for Mother has headaches two or three times a week now. The pain is so agonizing that Papa must remain at her side. With all else that is taking place, it is wicked for me to worry about the wood not being cut for the winter to come.

  Dr. Hazelitt has not returned any of Papa’s inquiries, and we can only assume that he left New York on account of the rioting. Papa has found no other recommendation yet.

  Forgive me, friend, if I am too tired these summer nights, to write to you. When I come home I scrub the casks for the cider and vinegar, come September; often I must scald all the milk-pails and pans as well, if Peggie has left that task undone. I know you understand—not because you are one of those sweet, ideal heroines, but because you are my friend.

  Your friend,

  Cora

  Susanna Ashford, Bayberry Run Plantation

  Greene County, Tennessee

  To

  Cora Poole

  [not sent]

  MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 1863

  Dearest Cora,

  Please forgive me. You will wonder, I know, why I no longer write to you. Even when the War is over, why I won’t and can’t, not ever again. And it tears me to pieces, not to be able to explain. But I can’t.

  Yet I need to write. Not to tell you what happened, but only because there is no one else to whom I can say, I’m lonely, and I’m so afraid. When I was a child, I used to make up new adventures for people I love in my books: other things Gringoire and Quasimodo and the Beggar King did in Paris, that Mr. Hugo didn’t write about (including how they rescued Quentin Durward from a sorcerer—I hope you’ve been able to make Quentin’s acquaintance by this time, somehow?). They were real to me, like the fairies in the woods were real.

  I know you’re there in Maine, on your island, with your parents and Peggie and babies Mercy and Nollie, that it’s beautiful there, and safe, and you have enough to eat and aren’t afraid. Is it all right, if I pretend now that you’re someone who lives in Paris in 1483, or that you’re one of the fairies who live in the laurel hell on Scanlon’s Mountain? Who I can write to, and not have to explain what happened?

  As you can see, we’re back on Bayberry Run. The day they hoisted the flag of truce, for Gen’l Pemberton to go across the lines and meet Grant, Emory brought, of all people—Pa. Pa all decked out in a new Confederate uniform with gold lace on his sleeves nearly up to his shoulders, and a black plume in his hat. Pa practically fluffing and crowing, as if he was the only person who’d ever sneaked across the Federal lines into town (which he wasn’t, by a long chalk); Pa full of how this friend in Richmond had said this, and that friend in Richmond had promised him that, and how he’d gotten a horse and a wagon and papers signed by General McPherson, USA, himself, to get us across the lines. “I’m going to do for my girls what I should have done long ago!” he announced, posing for a statue of himself in the door of the cave. “I’m taking you back home.

  We left V’brg the next day, passing lines—risers—of Federal troops, all marching into the town. I thought they’d look well-fed and smart in new uniforms (well, newer than the Confederates have, anyway) but they didn’t. They weren’t as gaunt as our men, but they were just as caked with red-gold mud, dusty and bearded and tired. They barely glanced at Emory, riding beside our wagon with a slouch hat on and one arm tied to his body underneath his shirt, so it would look like he’d lost it, and a patch over one eye. Tom lay in the back of the wagon, muttering now and then—he’d had a fever for days—with his head in Julia’s lap. I kept looking along the lines of men, wondering if I’d see Justin Poole. There seemed no end to them, trudging past us, miles of them. The dust trampled up from their boots dyed the air yellow. And after them, wagonloads of provisions, and cows and sheep they’d lifted from farms between Jackson and here, and then like a second straggly army, hundreds of prostitutes and thousands of runaway slaves, men and women and even little children, sticking to the Army for dear life.

  But what would I have done, if I’d seen Justin? Jumped out and gone with him? Yet I kept thinking, He’s here. I know he’s here.

  I didn’t see him. The men kept marching by, as many as trees in a forest, except each with his own face, his own eyes. At the end of one of the Illinois regiments I saw Justin’s dogs again, trotting along in the yellow dust with their tongues hanging out. I don’t know if Emory saw them or not.

  It took us about two weeks to get here. Nellie ran off from us the second night, after Pa tried to get in her blanket with her. I was so mad I could have screamed, because Nellie was truly loyal to us, but Julia said, how ungrateful Nellie was, and told me not to have a “base mind.” It’s just as well Nellie did go, because Regal’s militia is still here. The only servants left on Bayberry were Den and Mammy Iris and Den’s
brother Joey, living in one of the tobacco-sheds about a mile from the house. They grew the only corn on the place and just about in the county, and sold it to the militia. But a week after we returned, Regal’s Corporal Lyle Gilkerson got drunk and shot Joey for being uppity, and Den and Mammy and their children left that night. With the Federals coming into the east of the State now, and Emory’s experience in battle (which most of the militia don’t have—not real battle), tho’ Pa has taken over command from Regal, it’s Emory who’s really running the troop. All summer they didn’t fight anybody, just “collected supplies” That means they rode around the county stealing whatever they could, from whoever they could. It’s what we’ve been eating: Julia, Pa, Tom, Tommy, and me.

  Now that the Federals are closing in on Knoxville, we’re getting Federal corn and Federal beef, and most of Emory’s men ride horses with U.S. branded on their hips. Once they even hit Greeneville, and hanged two men whose sons had gone to fight for the Union.

  I kept up the corn-patch Den and Mammy started, and in the full of the moon would sneak ears out, and hide them in the rafters of their old house. It was pretty scary, because there’s no way of knowing who’s riding around the countryside at night, but I was lucky; I got about three bushels up there before the nights got too dark to see my way. Good thing I did, too, because Pa took and handed all the rest of the crop over to the militia. Emory is teaching me to set trap-lines and dead-falls in the woods, and I’m pretty careful only to bring home part of what I catch. This takes up the greater part of my day.