“Nothing hard about splitting wood.” Jeff shrugged. “Kinda fun. I like it.” He looked over then toward the house. “Not sure I did the right thing yet, Mr. Carter. Been worrying me some.”
“You mean about helping an enemy soldier escape?”
“Yes, sir.” Jeff frowned. “I know what would happen if I got caught doing it. I’d probably be shot or hanged. After all, he is the enemy.”
“I suppose technically that’s true, son,” Mr. Carter said, “but somehow he just don’t seem like he’s much of a threat, does he? Never saw a quieter, meeker boy.”
“Well, that’s true enough. But some of these quiet ones, when the battle starts they turn into wildcats. I’ve seen it happen.” He stacked an armload of wood and then said, “This ought to be enough to get you through a while. I’ll cut some more before I leave.”
They went back into the house, and Jeff dropped the wood into the woodbox. Then he turned to wash his hands at the sink.
“Why, Jeff,” Leah’s mother said, “you’ve cut enough wood to last for two weeks, I do believe. Why don’t you rest a while?”
“I’m not gonna rest. I can do that when I get back. I’m gonna walk around and take a look at the country. I sure do miss it, Miz Carter.”
“Well, why don’t you and Leah go out and hunt birds’ eggs? You haven’t done that in a while.”
Jeff laughed. “No, we haven’t. Maybe we’ll do that after lunch.”
“It’ll be ready soon. Don’t go too far away.”
Jeff walked into the living room and saw Ezra with the baby.
Ezra looked over and said, “This sister of yours, she’s some girl, Jeff. Look at these dark eyes. I never seen such dark eyes.”
Jeff grinned at Esther, who smiled at him and doubled up her fist and struck herself in the eye with it.
Both boys laughed, and Jeff said, “Yeah, she’s growing up so fast, I can’t believe it.”
Leah joined them then. “Let me hold her a while. You haven’t let her get out of your hands, Ezra.”
Reluctantly Ezra surrendered the baby, and Leah kissed her on the cheek. “You’re a precious thing,” she whispered, “and going to be the prettiest girl in these mountains.”
Ezra said quietly, “Well, maybe the second prettiest.”
Leah’s cheeks turned rosy.
Jeff gave the Union soldier a direct look but said nothing.
Later on they all sat down and ate the meal that Mrs. Carter and Sarah had prepared.
Sarah had dark hair and dark blue eyes, and Ezra had told Jeff, “I don’t blame your brother for liking her. She sure is pretty.”
Now, as they sat around the table, Mr. Carter said, “Well, we don’t have all the family here, but we’re grateful for what’s here. Let’s thank the Lord for the food.”
They all bowed their heads.
He said a quick blessing and afterward smiled and said, “All right, pitch in. Your mother’s a terrible cook, Leah, but no matter.”
Mrs. Carter sniffed. “I notice you haven’t turned anything down.”
They ate heartily and then enjoyed some of the peach pie that Leah had baked.
Ezra said, “I’ll sure miss this cooking when I’m gone, Mrs. Carter. I never ate such food in my life.”
Dan Carter looked over at his wife.
Leah was watching, and she saw a look pass between them. She had often wondered how those two could understand each other without saying a word, but they did.
“Where are you going now, Ezra?”
Ezra shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t rightly know, Mr. Carter. Not going to be in the army. I gave my parole to your brother, so I guess I’ll go get a job somewhere.”
Mary Carter looked at him over her coffee cup. “Don’t you have any people at all, Ezra?”
“No, ma’am. Nobody. I guess I’ll go back up North since it’s the only place I know.”
Dan said abruptly, “Why do you want to go up there? Do you like it up there, Ezra?”
“It’s the only place I know,” he repeated.
“I’ve been thinking,” Mr. Carter said, “since I’m gone with the sutler business, this place sure needs a man’s hand. We had a good helper, but he quit and went to the city. Why don’t you just stay around here? Plenty of work for a young fellow like you.”
Ezra stared at Dan Carter with a startled expression on his face. “Why, I never thought of it!” he exclaimed. His glance shifted at once to Leah, who smiled at him, then he nodded. “I can’t think of anything in the world I’d rather do than work on a farm, specially with you folks. You wouldn’t have to pay me—”
“Pay you! Why, of course, we’ll pay you. The laborer is worthy of his hire.” Dan slapped the table, making the dishes jingle.
“Now you stop that banging on the table,” Mrs. Carter scolded her husband. Then she smiled at Ezra. “I don’t know how good a hand you’d be in the field, but you’re mighty good at taking care of younguns. You can give me and Sarah a rest now and then with Esther. You wouldn’t mind that, would you?”
They all saw that young Ezra Payne was struggling with his feelings. He was staring down at his plate, and his fork was held so tightly in his right hand that his knuckles were white.
Silence fell over the table, and when Ezra looked up he had to blink. Finally, he muttered, “I’ll do my best to please you.”
After the meal was over, Jeff said, “Guess I’ll go out and look things over.”
“Take the gun along, Jeff,” Mr. Carter said. “A rabbit or two would be pretty good in the pot.”
“All right.”
“I want to go too, Jeff,” Leah said, “and I get to take a shot.”
“Why, you couldn’t hit a barn!”
“That’s what you say. Come on, let’s go.”
As Leah and Jeff made their way down the road and disappeared into the woods, Ezra watched them. Then he said, “They’re real good friends, aren’t they, Miss Sarah?”
“Yes, they are. They’ve known each other all their lives. I think it broke Leah’s heart when Jeff had to leave.”
Ezra said nothing, but his eyes did not leave the place where the two had disappeared.
For Jeff, coming back to the old paths he had walked so many times growing up was pure joy. He held the shotgun in the crook of his arm, his eyes going everywhere.
“Look,” he said, “you remember the time Old Ranger and Pink treed the bobcat over there in that big sycamore? We tried to knock him out with rocks. Remember that?”
Leah laughed. “Weren’t we birds, though? If that cat had come down, I bet you would have seen a pair of scared kids taking off.”
Jeff grinned. “We really got into some pickles. It’s a wonder your folks—or mine—didn’t wear out a peach tree switch on both of us.”
“They did once or twice.”
“Yes, they did,” he agreed.
As they crested a rise, he looked down on the valley and said, “I don’t want to go see our home place. It’d just remind me of what things used to be like.”
They walked for an hour and shot two rabbits. Jeff expressed amazement that Leah actually hit one. “First time you ever hit anything,” he teased. He put the rabbits in a sack and carried them. “Here, you carry the gun.”
They finally came to the creek and made their way down to the bridge.
“Don’t have time to go trying to catch Old Napoleon”—the huge bass that inhabited that part of the river. Jeff had caught him once and let him go. “I hate to go back,” he said suddenly.
“Someday, Jeff, all this war will be over.”
Jeff turned to Leah, noticing the brightness of her eyes. She was wearing a simple green dress that matched her eyes, and the breeze was causing her hair to blow. Somehow he’d never noticed before how smooth her cheeks were and how clean her jawline was. Suddenly he said, “I never thought about Ezra staying here.”
“I’m glad he is, though. He doesn’t have anywhere else to go, and he likes my family.
”
“He likes you,” Jeff said, his jaw growing tight.
Leah stared at him. “Why, Jeff! I think you’re jealous.”
“Jealous? Who’s jealous?”
“You are! I can tell.” She laughed at him and said, “You don’t have any business being jealous. After all, you went absolutely cockeyed every time Lucy Driscoll walked by. I never saw a boy behave so foolishly.”
Jeff glared, and his face reddened, perhaps because he knew she spoke the truth. “I don’t want to talk about that,” he snapped.
He turned and walked quickly off, and Leah ran to catch up with him. “Jeff,” she said, “don’t be mad.”
He abruptly stopped and faced her. “I’m sorry, Leah. Don’t know what’s the matter with me. It’s all right if you like Ezra.”
Leah smiled suddenly. “I’m glad for your permission. It’s all right if you like Lucy too, if you want to.”
“I don’t want to. I stopped liking her the minute she said she looked at that letter. That wasn’t right.”
They stood there for a long time until finally he said, “Leah …”
“Yes, Jeff?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “It’s all right if you like Ezra better than you like me.”
Leah put her hand on his cheek. She leaned forward and whispered, “He’s real nice, but he’s not my best friend, Jeff.”
He was silent. Then he reached up and covered her hand with his own and smiled. He said quietly, “Come on, we’d better go back.”
They turned and walked back down the path, Leah’s hand secure in Jeff’s. She looked up at him, and the world suddenly seemed not so dark.
The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and she whispered, “Some day, Jeff, we’ll come back to all this.”
The Bonnets and Bugles Series includes:
978-0-8024-0911-9 Drummer Boy at Bull Run—#1
978-0-8024-0912-6 Yankee Belles in Dixie—#2
978-0-8024-0913-3 The Secret of Richmond Manor—#3
978-0-8024-0914-0 The Soldier Boy’s Discovery—#4
978-0-8024-0915-7 Blockade Runner—#5
978-0-8024-0916-4 The Gallant Boys of Gettysburg—#6
978-0-8024-0917-1 The Battle of Lookout Mountain—#7
978-0-8024-0918-8 Encounter at Cold Harbor—#8
978-0-8024-0919-5 Fire over Atlanta—#9
978-0-8024-0920-1 Bring the Boys Home—#10
Secret of Richmond Manor Page 12