“People in town don’t want things getting more crowded,” Mr. Berry said. “That’s why they block building projects like that. Took me almost five years to buy that lot.”
“You own that land?”
“Yup.”
Oliver looked at Ella, who looked ready to jump out the window. “What are you gonna do with it?”
“My company leased it to another company who’s building a gas station there. Tell your mom the yuppies lost a round.”
“Wow.” So it was official—Ella’s parents were loaded.
“But you should really thank them,” Mr. Berry continued, pointing to the Weller sign as they passed it. “They fund almost all my deals.”
Oliver looked to Ella for some help carrying this conversation. Nothing. He looked at the brick storefronts out his window. Boring. He looked ahead at the traffic. Tons.
And Ella’s dad was still talking. “You can borrow money for just about anything. The deals I’ve made with their financing are putting Ella’s sister through college—and you too, baby,” he called back.
The car stopped again. Oliver could see the courthouse, three traffic lights ahead. The historical society was right around here.
Ella opened the door and dragged her backpack out behind her.
“Ella, we’re not—” her dad started.
“We’ll walk,” she shouted back.
—CHAPTER THIRTEEN—
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF BOREDOM
Oliver did one of those awkward run-skip-walks to catch up with her.
“. . . never shuts up about it,” Ella mumbled.
“What?”
She glared back toward the Mercedes like she wanted to commit murder.
“Hang on.” Oliver could barely keep up with her. “I think we just passed it.”
Ella finally slowed down. “Sorry I didn’t warn you about him—I didn’t know he was coming.”
“It’s okay.” Oliver got out his phone. He checked out the nearest street sign, and pointed across the road to a building. “It’s that one.”
They jaywalked to the other side and looked up at the small stone house with black shutters. Slate steps led up to a porch supported by two white columns, with a black door that had a bronze plaque in the center. DOYLESTOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, it read. Oliver wasn’t that cool, but even he knew that this was the kind of place where Civil War coolness went to die.
Ella charged up the steps and opened the door.
Oliver followed her into a cramped living room that somebody had turned into an office lobby. There were big rugs over wooden floors, a fireplace, a few side tables, and like twenty chairs from an ancient century. In one of those chairs slept a man old enough to be from one of those centuries. Or maybe he’d just died of boredom.
“Should I poke him?” Ella whispered.
Oliver spotted a fire iron along the wall. No. That would be really awkward if he was sleeping or dead.
He shook his head.
“Then what?”
Oliver looked around, and then shoved the door closed so it made a loud bang.
“No grapes,” the old man mumbled. Then he went back to sleep.
“At least we know he’s alive,” Oliver whispered.
Ella motioned to a side table next to Oliver that had a giant book near the edge. “Push it off.”
“I don’t know why we’re still whispering,” he said in a normal voice.
Ella clamped her hand over her mouth as she snorted.
Oliver shoved the book to the floor.
Thud.
“Myrtle Beach!” the old man shouted. He shot straight up to a standing position, put his hands in his pockets, and swayed like an elm tree in the wind. “Hello there.”
“Uh, hi,” Oliver said. “I’m Oliver. This is Ella. We’re from Kennesaw Middle School . . . Mr. Carrow’s class . . . we’re researching—”
“Raymond Stone.” The man’s eyes lit up like Private Stone was some sort of super soldier who singlehandedly won the war with his bayonet. “Mr. Carrow said you’d be over. This way.” He waved for them to follow down the hall. “I’m Mr. Daniels, the weekday caretaker of this place. We don’t get many visitors, so sometimes I doze off. Don’t tell my boss.”
“Uh, okay.” Oliver wondered how they got any visitors, ever. He completely got the dozing-off part.
The old man chuckled. “Just joking. I’m the boss. Guess you could say I’d have to fire myself.”
“Right.”
“This is the main research area,” Mr. Daniels said, leading them into the next room. It was a little bigger than the entryway and had two reading tables in the center. Bookshelves lined one wall and some computer stations took up the other. There was a guy typing on one of them who looked like he played computer games for a living. Oliver wasn’t really sure how old he was. High school, maybe? College? It was hard to tell with computer game people. Oliver waved. The guy dumped some M&M’s in his mouth.
“That’s Hal, one of our volunteers,” Mr. Daniels said. “He does a lot of transcription work for us— taking primary sources and digitizing them. He’s the one who put together Stone’s little biography for the website using county and military records. But I think the story you’re looking for is in here.” He pulled a big white file box off a shelf and gently put it down in front of them like it was full of gold.
Ella took the lid off. “Awesome.”
Oliver rolled his eyes.
“Not a fan of primary sources?” Mr. Daniels asked.
“More a fan of battles.”
“Give it a chance.” His eyes did that sparkly thing again. “You never know what interesting things you might discover in uninteresting places.”
Like discovering that I have a fatal allergy to studying soldiers who died of diarrhea, Oliver thought.
Mr. Daniels pulled a three-ring binder out of the box. “You’re the first to get a peek, so I’d be grateful if you could inventory the items as you go. And you’ll notice they’re all in protective sleeves; if you take them out the oils of your skin will speed up the decay.” He pointed to a box of latex gloves next to Hal. “Put on a pair of those if you really have to handle something.”
Hal put a hand on top of the latex glove box without looking away from the computer screen.
“If you have any questions, you should ask him. Hal knows more about navigating documents than most historians.”
“Is there a bathroom?” Oliver asked.
Mr. Daniels rapped on a door in the hall as he passed it. Oliver took a step toward it, but something grabbed his shirt.
“If you think you’re leaving me with him, you’re insane,” she whispered, eyeing Hal.
“But I have to pee.”
Hal’s chair squeaked as it spun slowly around. He ate some M&M’s, and then completed the revolution back to the screen.
“Okay,” Oliver said. “I’ll just hold it.”
They pulled chairs to the farthest possible spot from Hal and unpacked their stuff. By the time Oliver had his notes out, Ella was already squinting at the first letter.
“The writing is so tiny,” she said.
Oliver leaned closer, but it all just looked like swirly lines. “Is that English?”
“It’s cursive. We learned it in fifth grade.”
“Yeah—our names.”
Ella inspected the letter through its protective sheet. “Philadelphia, October second, 1862.”
“How can you read that?”
“I went to private school until third grade. We were only allowed to write in cursive. Haven’t done it in a while, but it’ll come back.” She gave her laptop to him. “You type it up as I read it.”
Sixty-seven minutes later—Oliver knew because he counted every one—they’d transcribed eight letters.
“This is incredibly borin
g,” he said. “And now I really have to pee.”
“I think it’s pretty interesting.”
“Interesting?” Oliver scrolled up. “Dear Mother: I received your letter from the 12th and 21st this morning. Home. How much pleasure there is in that word. The last eight days have been trying ones for the regiment. We have been kept constantly moving, and were almost starved. Many of the regiment have the flux, including me. Tell Father I do not regret my service even though he does.”
He went to the next one.
“Dear Sister: Here I am at last in Dixie on a rise of ground one mile and a half from the Capital. How long we are going to stay I don’t know. A man came along with a load of apples and offered them to us. I thought of Father taking the corn to Philadelphia without me and hope he is getting on with the hired hand. A word or two I should like from him.” Oliver made a snoring sound. “You think that’s interesting?”
“Yeah.”
“But there’s no fighting. Zero. He’s just talking about people he bumped into from his hometown, food, walking, and his geographic location.”
“War isn’t just about fighting.”
“Uh, I’m pretty sure it’s mostly about fighting.”
“I guess, but fighting only took up a small percentage of a soldier’s life. I think that’s what Mr. Carrow is trying to make us see: that fighting is just part of the story.”
“Maybe fighting took up less time, but it’s definitely the most important part. It’s what I’ve been practicing for.”
“Oh, right—your reenactment club.”
“It’s not a club—it’s a regiment.”
“Regiment, right.”
“We’ve been drilling for almost a year to get ready for the big three-day Gettysburg reenactment in July. I mean, it’s big every year, but this year it’s really big because it’s during the actual one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary.”
Ella looked straight at him. “When’s your next session?”
“It’s called—”
“Yeah, drill. When’s the next one?”
“Uh, why?”
“I want to see it.”
“Why?”
“I could record some footage for the documentary. I think it’s called B-roll—like for showing without sound during a narration,” Ella said. “Plus it sounds pretty cool.”
“Oh.” Something warm spread from the center of Oliver’s chest up to his face. He had the strange urge to get up and high-five Ella, even though he wasn’t the type of person who got or gave high fives.
“What?”
“Uh, nothing. It’s just no one’s ever said that about it before. That it’s cool.”
“That’s because people are usually too busy doing stuff other people tell them is cool to see what is actually cool,” Ella said. “Like all those publishers who read Harry Potter but rejected it because they were too busy reading other books they thought would sell better.”
“Yeah,” Oliver said. “Or like those people at the China Buffet who start with the salad bar.”
“Exactly. Or like when your mom hears some stupid singer all over the radio and thinks she’s the world’s best mom for buying you concert tickets, even though if she’d stop working for one second and listen, she’d know you hate all that radio crap.”
Oliver blinked. He’d missed something.
“Right,” he said. “Drill is on Saturdays from ten to noon.”
“Tomorrow?” Ella frowned. “I can’t go. I’m grounded ’cause of the texting thing.”
“Oh, right.” Shoot. Suddenly he really wanted her there. She thought it was cool. “Maybe next week.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You’d probably sweat to death, anyway,” Oliver said, trying to make her feel better. “My mom doesn’t even stay when it’s this hot. She tells my dad she’s jogging but she really goes to Home Goods and looks for sales.”
Ella shrugged it off and flipped to the next letter.
“July 6, 1863. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Dear Mrs. Stone . . . As you in all probability have not heard of the death of your son, and as I was witness to his death, I consider it my duty to write you. Raymond passed in the night, having suffered of flux for many months. He was very brave in the face of death and thanked our Lord Jesus Christ that he could give his life for his country. He spoke often of his father, wanting him to know that he did not regret enlisting even though he never saw the battlefield. He said the farm would be taken care of in his death, and prayed that you would not worry. With this letter are his things. I am sorry for your loss. Sincerely, Susanna Wentworth.”
Oliver finished typing and saved the document. “My mom said she wanted us to wait outside anyway. If we don’t, she’ll definitely use the horn and it’ll be really embarrassing.”
“Ollie—we basically just read his last words. Have some respect.”
He watched her examine the letter in silence. “It’s not like he was Captain America or something.”
“What does that mean?”
“I just mean it’s not like he died making some heroic charge at Gettysburg. He died of diarrhea, off the battlefield. He never even fought.”
Ella stared at him for a second. “Just because he didn’t die in an epic battle doesn’t mean his story isn’t important.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t important.”
“Just not important enough to do a project on.”
Oliver examined her face, and it told him that answering honestly was not a good idea.
Beeeep-beeeeeeeeeeeep went the van’s horn.
“She knows it’s embarrassing,” Oliver said. “That’s why she does it.”
Ella looked at the letter a little longer before slowly putting the binder back in the cardboard box. As they walked out of the research room, Oliver half waved to Hal, which reminded him—he had a question.
“Uh, Hal.”
Hal rotated around slowly. “Yes?”
His voice was a little whinier than Oliver had imagined for such a big guy.
“You’re sure Stone joined the 68th down in Philly and not the 104th?” Oliver asked.
Hal clicked around a little and curled his index finger for Oliver to come closer. Oliver shuffled over and peered at a scanned-in parchment ledger with—get this—more cursive writing. “This is a muster roll for the 68th Pennsylvania Volunteers,” Hal said.
It was bookmarked, which Oliver found to be awesome. He followed Hal’s chubby finger halfway down a column labeled NAME until he found it. Raymond Stone. Farther to the right under DATE it said Sept. 3, 1862.
Beeeep-beeeeep-beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
“Okay,” Oliver said. “Thanks.”
He turned back at the hallway.
“I don’t get it: Why would a soldier from here enlist with a regiment in Philadelphia?”
Hal shrugged.
And opened another packet of M&M’s.
—CHAPTER FOURTEEN—
THE PROBLEM WITH WOOL TROUSERS
It was hot and humid and so freaking sunny at the park that Oliver wondered if the earth had slipped its orbit and drifted closer to the late-May sun. His wool pants felt like ten layers of sheepskin. He was literally drenched in sweat.
“Attention company!” shouted the large, bearded Sergeant Tom. The sound echoed across the public park’s open field and reached a few mid-morning runners suffering under the beating rays.
Oliver locked his knees, threw his shoulders back, and held his left arm rigid against the seam of his wool trousers. His right hand was busy keeping the rifle from slipping onto the ground—the most embarrassing thing you could ever do as a Civil War reenactor.
“In each rank, count—oh crap.”
A body hit the ground somewhere to Oliver’s right. He wasn’t about to break rank—this was war, people. Sliding his eyes as
far as he could without moving his head, Oliver saw the ripped wool trouser seat of a giant rear end. It was hard to tell who it was, as a lot of the 104th Pennsylvania Volunteers could generally be categorized as large.
“Give me your canteen, Joe,” Sergeant Tom said to the closest soldier.
“Sorry, Tom—drank it all,” panted Joe.
“Permission to break rank, Sergeant,” Oliver shouted.
“What? Yeah, of course, Oliver. Granted.”
Oliver sprinted to Sergeant Tom and gave him his canteen.
“Thanks, Ollie. Joe, help me roll him over.”
“I think I’m gonna faint myself,” Joe said, kneeling down. He was the only soldier in the 104th without a beard (aside from Oliver) because he managed a bank and wasn’t allowed to look like a Civil War reenactor prepping hardcore for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The lack of beard let Oliver see water dripping off the fleshy, jiggly part under Joe’s chin.
“I’ll help,” Oliver said as the rest of the regiment—all nine of them who had decided to come out on this blazing hot morning—looked on in concern.
“On three,” Sergeant Tom said. They heaved the soldier over and dumped some water on his face. “Frank, you okay?”
“Should I call 911?” Joe asked.
“No, he’s fine,” Sergeant Tom said. “Just fainted. And gave himself a bloody nose.”
Frank patted his face and stared at the blood in confusion. “What happened?”
“You got shot,” Joe said. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of your truck.”
“You fainted,” Sergeant Tom grunted, helping Frank sit up. “Let’s get you to the pavilion.”
It took the two men ten minutes to get Frank to the pavilion. Oliver carried the fallen soldier’s weapon.
“I think that’s good for today,” Sergeant Tom said to the remaining members of the 104th who hadn’t already gone to their cars and driven the heck home. “See everybody next week. Check your email in case I have to change the drill field; I think I saw a flyer about Ultimate Frisbee or something happening here next weekend.”
“Glad my crew wasn’t here to see this,” Frank said, holding a dirty cloth from Sergeant Tom’s knapsack to his nose.
The Not-So-Boring Letters of Private Nobody Page 5