The Pledge, Value

by Jane Peart

  This year, war talk had reached even this remote mountain community. Jesse and Reid, now grown men, helped Uncle Merriman on his large tobacco farm. They seemed eager to hear what news their town cousins brought but were reluctant to leave home to join up. Granny Eliza held to her staunch belief that it wasn’t mountain folks’ fight. “Let them as has sumpin’ to protect, go. We’d have more to lose than gain. ‘Sides, I don’t hold with killin’ for somebody else’s purpose.”

  JoBeth spent many hours with her grandmother on this trip. Eliza seemed to have aged a great deal since the summer before—she was a little more bent, a little slower in her movement, though still sharp, with a dry, ironic wit. She still was at her quilting frame a good part of every day, and JoBeth was more interested in the skill than she had ever been before. She marveled that Eliza’s gnarled, rheumatic fingers could yet ply a needle so deftly, making tiny stitches.

  “What do you call this pattern, Granny?” JoBeth asked one day as she sat beside her at the frame.

  “This here’s called Jacob’s Ladder. But there’s other names for it. Most quilters change things in a pattern to make it their own. Your Mama’s real good at that! She’s done fine with her quilts, she has. Earned enough to send Shelby off to that fine school to get his education.”

  JoBeth nodded. “She’s doing more than ever. Besides the quilts people order, she’s making quilts for the soldiers too. She and Aunt Josie and the other aunties meet once a week to quilt.”

  “And what about you, missy?” Eliza turned a sharp glance at her granddaughter.

  “I help, cutting out patches. I’m not really that good at quilting.” She didn’t add that she’d never been much interested. JoBeth was too active, too impatient, to spend hours perfecting the skill needed to produce the beautiful quilts her mother did.

  Turning back to her work, Eliza said, “My next quilt will be for you. What kind would you like? What shall it be? The Double Wedding Ring pattern or”—she chuckled—“the Old Maid’s Puzzle?”

  JoBeth laughed ruefully. “Maybe it had better be the Old Maid’s Puzzle!”

  “What? No young man beatin’ a path to your door?”

  Before JoBeth had to answer, Aunt Katie came in from the garden with a basketful of ripe corn and enlisted JoBeth’s help in shucking it so they could have it for supper.

  When Shelby returned to school early in September, JoBeth felt lonelier than ever.

  That autumn seemed particularly beautiful. But its beauty made her even more melancholy, reminding her of how she and Wes had walked the hills, glorying in the winey, crisp weather, the smells of burning leaves, and the scent of ripening fruit in the orchards. Those weeks and months she walked a lonely path. Not a day went by that JoBeth did not think of him, long for him. She would close her eyes and try to remember his face, those clear, blue, truthful eyes, the hair that never seemed to stay put, the kind, gentle mouth.

  In addition to JoBeth’s anxiety about Wes and his safety, she also began to worry about Shelby. His letters to her were very different from the ones he wrote to their mother, the ones Johanna so proudly read aloud to the rest of the family. Those were filled with descriptions of his classes, his instructors, his fellow seminarians. But to JoBeth he told of his feelings that he was a “slacker.”

  While other fellows my age are out on the firing line, putting themselves at risk every day, I am poring over translations of Greek gospels. It seems wrong that I am safe behind these “ivy walls,” tucked away in an “ivory tower” for that faraway day when I may be of some possible use to someone. And don’t write and tell me that I’ve been called. I know that—I felt that (unless I’ve been deluded and self-deceived). However, might not the question be asked, Would I not be even better able to serve my fellow man if I’d been tried in the crucible so many of my peers are facing now? If I’d had my “dross burned away into silver”? You and I have always been able to tell each other our real feelings—I long for those heart-to-heart talks we used to have. I hope that when I come home, we can find a way to go to one of our old haunts. I need to confide in one I know will not only listen sympathetically but also help me find some answers. Don’t think I don’t know and understand that you, too, are going through your own troubled time. As we struggle together, may we both find the right path.

  JoBeth thought long and hard about what should she write back. It was all too much to put into words in a single letter. As he had suggested, their real confidential talk would have to wait until he was home. But she wanted to send him some reply, even if it was inadequate. She wrote, reminding him how hard their mother had worked, making and selling her quilts to pay his school tuition and fees, how disappointed she would be if he gave it up and joined the army.

  All of us have our own purpose in life, Shelby. Yours may be of greater value than taking up a gun and going out and fighting. No one should doubt your purity of intent, and no one could ever call you a coward.

  Before she signed and sealed the letter, JoBeth had an inspiration. She wanted to add something that would speak to Shelby’s heart in a special way. She got out her little concordance and, whispering a prayer for guidance, thumbed through it to look up the reference she wanted. When she found it, she quickly copied it onto the bottom of the page.

  Jeremiah 29:11: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ ”

  I can’t wait till Christmas, when you’ll be home and we’ll have a chance to talk.

  Always your loving sister,

  JoBeth

  December 1861

  The family Christmas was to be held at Holly Grove. Both Harvel and Munroe had secured leave. The war that was supposed to be over by Christmas cast its dreadful shadow still. In spite of that, Marilee, Harvel’s wife, declared they would have a party just like in the old days.

  JoBeth tried to enter into the preparations with the same anticipation the others had, doing her best to hide her own downheartedness. She wrapped presents with her mother, welcomed Shelby home for his school holidays, went with Aunt Josie to help decorate the church for Christmas services.

  Her mother had made her a new outfit—a bright-red merino wool skirt and short Spanish jacket trimmed with black braid, and a popular Garibaldi blouse of black satin to wear under it. It was enormously becoming, but JoBeth’s first thought was that she wished Wes could see her in it.

  Two days before Christmas, she received a letter from Wes. It was on the hall table when she came in from shopping one afternoon. No one mentioned that it had arrived, nor asked her about it afterward. Wes was a subject never brought up, never referred to, in the Cady household.

  JoBeth took the letter upstairs to read it in private. The battered envelope looked as though it had passed through many hands, had endured a hard journey before reaching her.

  Dearest JoBeth,

  I have started several letters to you, then stopped. There is so much to say, and I don’t know where to begin or how to say it.

  Being in the army is not at all what I thought. I imagined that everyone fighting for the Union would have the same high resolve as I did coming in, that the spirit among my fellow soldiers would be high, the ideals and conversation lofty. I’m afraid it is not at all that way, at least among us common soldiers. To say I have been sadly disillusioned is to put it mildly. Not that there aren’t good-hearted men among us, but most seem not to know what it is we’re supposed to be fighting for, and there is a great deal of coarse talk that, without my taking a superior attitude would be resented, I have to hear.

  If I didn’t have you to think about, this life would be unbearable. At least after a day’s march (no encounters with the “enemy” as yet), I can carry my bedroll apart from the others, lie down on my blanket by my fire, and concentrate all my thoughts on you. What we had together, how lovely you are, how sweet and pure, and how much I love you.

  I hope we have made the right decision, the
right choice. Others who oppose this war, I’ve heard, simply took themselves and their families away, to Europe or England or out west. But I don’t think you can run away, escape from your responsibility. This is my country, and I have to believe it is worth fighting for. That you have to suffer is a great sorrow to me. At least I am among those who have chosen to fight on this side—you are daily among people who despise your allegiance to a man whom they consider a traitor. God willing, we will soon have peace and both sides will be reconciled.

  That, I fear, may be a long time coming. Longer than either you or I thought. It all seems such a waste—of time, men, and of the beautiful country our Creator gave us to live in and enjoy. As yet I haven’t been in any battle, not even a minor skirmish, but I have seen troops returning, seen men with wounds that defy description, and listened to horror tales from veterans. I do not relish when my time comes to face—I cannot even call them the “enemy.” My nightmare is that as we rush at each other from either side—and there is much hand-to-hand combat, I’m told—I will see the faces of men I know!

  Reading this, JoBeth felt her heart wrench. Not only was Wes suffering the hardships of army life but his sensitive soul was in agony. There was a second page, more hastily written, and she realized from its date that it had been added later.

  This may be my last opportunity to write for a while, so I want to have a chance to say this, for I know not what may befall. I love you, JoBeth. I pray God it will not be long until we are together again. But I fear the worst. No one talks anymore of an early victory or a peaceful settlement.

  She couldn’t hold back the tears that streamed down her cheeks. She read it over and over, the tears falling on the pages so that they became blotted.

  The thought of going to the party at Holly Grove the day after next and pretending things she didn’t feel seemed impossible. But she knew she had to. There was no alternative. No one would understand if she stayed away. She would have to go.

  Determinedly she buried her heartache and joined the family for supper, keeping up her end of the conversation by sheer willpower. Only Shelby seemed aware that all was not well with her. He did his bit by turning the attention from her so that her unusually subdued manner was not noticed or commented upon by their uncle, aunt, or mother. He rendered stories of schoolboy pranks and other events, lightening the hour for everyone. JoBeth was grateful. When Shelby suggested a chess game with Uncle Madison afterward, she was able to slip away without any trouble.

  On Christmas morning, after attending early church service, they came home to breakfast and to open their presents, then drove over to Holly Grove. Marilee had carried out her promise to have the kind of Christmas party that Holly Grove was famous for. Evergreens tied with gilded ribbons were arranged on mantels and windowsills, candles glowed, and the long table in the dining room, spread with a Battenberg lace cloth, was beautifully set with gleaming silver, sparkling glassware, and a pyramid of cloved oranges and pine cones as a centerpiece.

  The house was festive, as was the company. The Cady grandchildren were a lively bunch and had the run of the place. Their father, home for such a brief time, had suspended all discipline, so no one tried to stop the shouting, the tooting of tin horns, or the beating of toy drums, all of which were presents they’d been given. The mood among the military men was buoyant. Harvel and Munroe and the friends they had invited as guests were all in some branch of the Confederate service. As JoBeth listened to them talk, she heard a far less sober perspective of the war than she had read in Wes’s letter. They were sure of victory, sure of their superiority in spirit and fighting skills.

  Quite suddenly JoBeth could bear it no longer. Listening to all the bravado, knowing it was all directed against the man she loved and what he represented, she felt the blood rush up into her head. The room seemed to become stifling, the fire burned red-hot, the walls tilted dangerously. She thought she might faint. She had never before fainted in her life, but she now felt very much as if she were about to. I must get out of here, get some fresh air, she thought. She stood up, edged toward the parlor door, murmuring some excuse, and slipped out of the room. She rushed down the long hall, knowing that at the end there was a door leading out to the back porch. She pushed it open, went out into the darkening evening, and leaned on the railing, gulping the cold air. The pounding in her heart, the throbbing in her temples, mercifully slowed. Then the chill air penetrated her clothing and she shivered. She knew she had to go back, get through the rest of the evening, not let on that anything was wrong.

  But it was wrong, horribly wrong. And she didn’t know how long it would be going on. Wes didn’t know, either. It was so hard to live in a house where Uncle Madison did nothing but talk about the war and what they were going to do to those Yankees. She shivered again. I feel torn to pieces, she thought, closing her eyes and hugging her arms around her shoulders. I love Wes. I want to believe that what he is doing is right. But what about the others? Uncle Harvel and Uncle Munroe are both good men. Even the Spencer twins. And maybe Shelby will have to go if the war lasts any longer. Wes thinks it will—Oh, dear Lord, help me! I don’t know what I think or feel or even who I am anymore. What will become of me? Tears rose into her eyes, and she wiped them away. She couldn’t go back if her eyes were all red. They would all wonder why she was crying when everyone else was celebrating. Dear God, help me be brave like Wes. Bless and keep us both, please.

  In a few minutes, JoBeth felt calmer. Resolutely she went back inside. There she rounded up the children and got them into a rollicking game of blindman’s bluff, much to the relief of their mother and aunties. The gentlemen had removed themselves to the study for brandy and cigars, so the ladies settled down for a nice chat. Shelby joined JoBeth and later gathered the little cousins around him in a storytelling that quieted them down enough so that eventually they could be put to bed.

  Driving back to the Willows in the winter dark, JoBeth realized with a twinge of sadness that this was the first time in her life that she was glad that Christmas was over.

  Part Two

  A quilt, woven of love, dreams, and threaded with grief, joys and laughter sewn into its patches, tells of life beyond the shadows of hidden love, secret messages.

  Carrie A. Hall

  Chapter Eight

  Against all predictions, the war edged into a second year. No one had dreamed it would last this long. Both armies had been camped through the winter months, with little action on either part. However, with the coming of spring, everyone on both sides braced for the battles that inevitably would happen.

  JoBeth wasn’t sure just when or how the idea of the quilt came to her. Of course! she thought. It would be so simple, so subtle, so innocuous, that no one would guess, no one would suspect. Every young woman made quilts for her hope chest. No one would think anything of one she would design for herself. The secret would be her own. The hidden truth. She would keep working on the quilt all the time Wes was gone, as a kind of talisman to their promise, their pledge to each other.

  She took out a sheet of paper and, with a pencil, began sketching her idea. Each square would have a dove in the corner, an olive branch in its mouth, and in the center would be clasped hands holding a heart!

  Her mother seemed mildly surprised at JoBeth’s sudden interest in quilting and readily told her to rummage in her scrap bag or among her many various lengths of cloth to select material for her design. Her choice for the center of the square was a blue-gray calico with a tiny pattern. The dove shapes were white, the clasped hands she cut from pale-pink cotton, and the heart was red, as was the binding of each square. The olive branches she would embroider in brown and green thread after the patch was completed. Satisfied with her selection, she began work with high hopes. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too large a quilt—perhaps the war would be over soon.

  JoBeth’s optimism, however, was short-lived. There was too much evidence to the contrary. Harvel’s letters were full of the hardships the Confederate forces were suffe
ring, camped as they were in winter weather that most of the Southern men were unused to. There were difficulties in reaching the troops with supplies and food as well as medical necessities. All this was discussed and worried over at length in the Cady household. JoBeth, who knew that Wes was suffering the same kind of discomfort, distress, and deprivation, had no one with whom to vent her own anxieties. When Aunt Josie enlisted Johanna’s help in packing boxes with warm quilts, homemade jellies, knitted scarves, and gloves to send to her sons, JoBeth’s desire to do the same for Wes had to be suppressed.

  It was so unfair, yet she could do nothing about it.

  The days were long and the work on the quilt went slowly. JoBeth started diligently enough, but then her thoughts would wander, bringing Wes dreamily to mind. Was he cold, hungry, weary? The long marches, the battles he might be fighting, the danger, all played on her vivid imagination. If only she would hear from him! Mail was slow and irregular, especially that coming through the lines from the North. All such mail was probably considered suspicious, she thought, and was more than likely opened and read to see if it contained any information that could be used or could be damaging to the enemy.

  JoBeth had also started keeping a journal into which she poured her thoughts, her feelings, her fears, her hopes, her dreams. It was a place where all their secrets could be safe. JoBeth hid both the growing stack of letters from Wes and her journal under a loose floorboard under the rug in her bedroom.