by Ann Rinaldi
"Sorry, sir. Didn't mean to sass you," Sam said quietly. "I even saddled your horse like you wanted."
David becalmed himself. But why did he want his horse saddled? What was he about this morning?
"Can I go now?" Sam inquired politely. "I won't go far. Just wanna see the Yankees, sir, is all. Be back in an hour."
Satisfied by the submissive tone, David nodded. "Be careful," he warned. "Don't go beyond our street."
Sam was gone before the sentence was finished.
By now, of course, the faint tones of joy that had all along been drifting toward us from outside our windows were distinct sounds of celebration.
I wanted, more than I wanted to take my next breath, to go outside, but I knew better than to ask. Why bother? Only to earn myself a stern no?
But I did give my brother an appealing look, which he was expecting.
There it was, once again in a flash, some of the old harmony between us. We had shared something almost magical once, something I'd never had with either Joel or Brandon, though they were both wonderful brothers to me.
That pleasing agreement of emotion that David and I had enjoyed, that had allowed us to be in tune with each other's needs with no words or warning. It had been something our senses became aware of in an instant.
It happened now.
He knew, without my asking, what I wanted.
"All right," he said, "but you're not to budge from my side."
And so we went out onto the front steps to join the crowds up and down the street who waited the arrival of General John Buford. The Yankees, come to our aid.
They were cavalry, all of them.
David told me that Buford had skirmished of late with Confederate James Longstreet. David kept track of every battle of the war. I don't know where he got his intelligence from, but he also told me that the Confederates who'd come to town were dressed poorly with no shoes on their feet. And the only reason they'd come this way was because they'd heard there was a warehouse hereabouts full of shoes.
He also said that Buford was a cavalry commander who used horses to get his men to where he wanted them to be, then had them dismount to fight.
As they came thundering down the street, young girls, most of whom I knew, made offerings, tankards of refreshment. Water? I wondered.
Or what? Beer? Buttermilk? The soldiers stopped their horses and accepted the gifts, lifted their hats. Some leaned down from their saddles and kissed the girls' hands. I thrilled at that.
Some girls handed up flowers and started singing "Our Union Forever," and the men tucked flowers in their hats.
Then one officer, leading a brigade, broke away and, seeing David standing there, halted to speak to him.
He asked my brother which was the best way to get out to Chambersburg Pike.
"If you can wait just a second, I'll get my horse. She's saddled," David said. "I'll show you the way."
The officer agreed, and David ran around the side of the house.
So that's why his horse was saddled. So he could be ready for something like this, I thought.
The officer smiled at me. I saw a kind of fondness in his blue eyes as he took my measure and I knew what it was. I knew I was old enough and pretty enough to be appreciated now by a handsome young officer who sported a dashing mustache. In a respectful manner, of course.
My hair, which was of a sandy color, I wore loose to my shoulders most of the time, though Mama preferred me to tie it back, proper-like. My eyes were amber brown. Pa said some man would drown in them someday, but he hoped not too soon, that he hoped my long, fringed eyelashes would keep him from falling in.
And I was starting to get a figure, finally, at long last.
I smiled back at the officer now, taken not only by the considerable looks of him but by the picture he presented, his sleek horse, the excellent condition of its bridle and halter, the Colt .45 he carried in his holster, the saber he wore.
And in the sling hung from his saddle, the Springfield rifle.
I recognized all his accouterments because Joel and Brandon carried the same things.
"I'm Captain Jensen," he said, and he asked of David, "He your brother?"
"My name's Tacy. Yessir. He's not in the army because of his twisted leg. I have two other brothers serving with the Second Pennsylvania Cavalry. And my pa's a physician with the army. Can I get you some water, sir?"
"That would be nice, Miss Tacy."
So I dashed into the house then and, quick as a rabbit twitches its nose, came out with a sparkling glass of water.
The officer drank it down in one gulp, handed back the glass, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and thanked me.
Then David came around the side of the house on his horse. "Behave yourself," he admonished sternly.
The officer saw in an instant the connection between us, put his hand to the brim of his hat in a salute, nodded his head, and winked at me.
I wished him good luck. Then he rode off with David. His impatient brigade followed.
In no time at all they were out of sight and lost in the dust that the rest of the cavalry made as they rode down the street.
I was about to go reluctantly back into the house when I heard someone calling me.
"Tacy! Tacy!"
I turned. A girl had broken away from a crowd of people across the street. Nancy Burns. She went to school with me. She lived with her mother and grandfather over on Chambersburg Street. Her pa and older brother were both gone for soldiers.
Nancy's grandfather was from Scotland and said he was descended from the Scottish poet Robert Burns. He told stories about being in the War of 1812 and the Mexican War. He was past seventy now and waiting for the Rebs to come to Gettysburg. He would, he told his family, be ready to fight.
He had tried to enlist but been turned down.
He embarrassed Nancy, because many in town laughed at him. He waited impatiently for an eclipse of the moon. He spoke constantly of fighting. He drank and roamed the town and threw insults at people.
Nancy's mother had her hands full trying to control her father, and so, quite frequently, did not pay mind to what her daughter was about. Now Nancy ran to the stoop of my house.
"Can you come?" She was breathless with excitement, her face flushed, her golden curls askew. "A few of us are going to the Lutheran Theological Seminary, to the cupola on the roof. I've got my grandfather's binoculars." And she produced them from under the snow white apron she wore over her calico dress.
"You can see near to Washington with this thing. We'll be able to see from there what's happening. Will your brother let you go?"
She had once told me that she was taken aback by David's sternness. And I knew she would not survive two days under his supervision.
"He's not around," I said.
"It's less than a mile from here. Come on—we'll have some sport."
"I should at least tell Mama I'm going to your house or something."
"Good, you do that. Meet us across the street."
So I lied to Mama and told her I was going to Nancy Burns's house for an hour or so. She gave permission and off I went.
The other girls were Debbie Shields, Agnes Bylander, and Virginia Myers. The town was so crowded and the citizens in such a merry mood that no one noticed us walking the half-mile to the end of town, then crossing the street and trekking up the hill to the seminary.
There were by now, if you took the time to look, Yankee soldiers camped all around the base of the hill. You could tell of their presence by the smoke already rising in the air from the many campfires, from the tops of the tents being erected. And then, just when your attention got captured by that, the seminary itself caught and stole your eye.
I'd seen it many times from a distance but had never been up this close. It certainly was a spectacle. It was a huge brick building, three stories high, that seemed to go on and on, standing there against the hard blue sky, with a white cupola on top.
I wondered if there came to b
e a battle here, if the building would be destroyed.
It had a right to be destroyed, I decided. It was too high-toned for Gettysburg. Those who had built it had been too full of themselves, gotten beyond their own assigned post in life. It frightened me when people did that. It was like, in getting too big for their britches, they were tempting God.
"That," Nancy said, pointing up to the cupola, "is where we're headed."
For a moment it came to me. She's as crazy as her grandfather.
We all stared at her, and I knew the other girls were thinking the same thing. We'd come this far. Why not go the rest of the way? And the place seemed deserted since the Rebs had arrived.
"We've got to be careful the Zieglers don't hear us," Nancy cautioned. "Their apartment is on the first floor."
I'd forgotten about them. And I should know better because Mama knew Catherine Ziegler. Her father was the caretaker here. So we crept silently past their door and followed Nancy just as quietly down the wide hall. The sounds of our footfalls echoed anyway as we found our way up the winding stairs, right to the cupola.
Nancy ran right to the end to look out with her binoculars. "Oh my God!" she said. "What a view. You can see everything from here! Oh, girls. You must look!"
One after another we handed the binoculars around. When it came to my turn I was breathless. It wasn't the first time I'd looked through a telescope. Both Brandon and Joel had them, and before they left for war, they had taught me how to use them and trusted me to handle them carefully.
But now, what I saw!
I saw what God must see looking down on us from above.
I saw the mountains, as God must have seen them to His satisfaction, right after He created them, blue and hazy in the west. I saw the men camping on the slopes below us. I could see their faces as they leaned over campfires, the insignias on their uniforms.
I saw one soldier take a locket out of his pocket, open it, and gaze into it to look at a likeness of someone. His sweetheart? His wife?
I felt, truth to tell, like an intruder, looking on things I had no right to see.
I saw a beautiful horse chomping on some oats out of a bag fastened around its neck, and I thought of Ramrod and got sad.
Then I had to give the binoculars back to Nancy.
We all enjoyed a second look around, and then, soon enough, it was time to go.
When we got back downstairs into the wide foyer with the marble floor and the big windows, we stopped.
Just coming in the door was a tall man, a soldier. No, an officer, a very tall and handsome officer.
He had two attendants with him.
He was steely-eyed and wore a handlebar mustache, and he had a good head of hair, for he was young, younger than any officer had a right to be. His uniform had a single row of gold buttons down the front and gold epaulets on the shoulders. He stood stock-still when he saw us. "What are you girls doing here?" he demanded.
His voice was strong and echoed in the empty hall.
We stood, stunned into silence at first. Then I spoke, because I figured that somebody should, lest we all be arrested as spies.
"We were just looking at the countryside with our binoculars, sir," I said.
"Where are you from?"
"We live in town," I said. "I have two brothers serving in the army. My pa is a surgeon in the army."
"What army?"
"Yours, sir. The Union army. My brothers are with the Second Pennsylvania Cavalry."
"What is your name?"
"Tacy Stryker, sir. My brothers are Joel and Brandon Stryker. These are my friends from town, Nancy Burns, Debbie Shields, Agnes Bylander, and Virginia Myers. Nancy Burns's grandfather is well past seventy now and he's gone off, this very morning, to fight for the Union, General."
"How do you know I'm a general?"
"By your uniform, sir, your epaulets. My brothers, Joel and Brandon, schooled me in a lot of military matters."
He nodded. "I am General John Buford. Those are some of my men out there on the hill. You girls do not belong in this place, and I am very angry to see you here. Do your families know you are here?"
"No, sir," I answered.
"You should be questioned as spies or, at the very least, given a good spanking, but I am going to let you off the hook, because I believe you, Tacy Stryker. Apparently your brothers, being in the military, have schooled you in manners about how to deal with your superiors. Am I correct?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, they have done a good job, And I wish them well in their future battles. Now go! Go home immediately and stay there. A battle is coming!"
I curtsied. The others didn't. The general nodded at me and smiled as I ran from the room.
Hundreds of Buford's men were strewn about the grounds around the seminary, and I begged Nancy to find another way out than the road down Seminary Hill.
"Why?" she demanded.
"Because I know a captain in the brigade. He stopped by our house this morning for directions, and my brother David rode off with him to show him the way. If David is still hanging around here and sees me, he'll kill me, that's why. Is that good enough for you?"
It was. We found another path home.
Fortunately, I arrived home before David. And before Mama had cause to worry about me.
But I was on edge the rest of that day, thinking David would find out, praying to God he wouldn't, promising God all kinds of things if only He would keep David from discovering my sins. Even while I longed to tell both Mama and David that I had met General John Buford.
David was in a horrible mood, likely from having seen all those beautiful, capable Yankee soldiers, all those men his own age and younger, who had gone to war. He'd probably been hit in the face with the reality of his deficiency ten times over this morning, like buckets of cold water. And rehashed the unfairness of it on the way home.
Word came to us from Josie that most of the families on the street were inviting Yankee officers into their homes for dinner.
"Did you invite anyone?" Mama asked David.
"No," he answered grouchily from a chair in the parlor, where he was reading the Lancaster Daily Express. "I didn't."
"I feel we should," Mama said. "Why don't you take a walk down the street. I'm sure you'll meet an officer. Invite him for supper. Don't you think that would be nice?"
"No, I don't," David responded dully.
I could see Mama's face fall in disappointment. She too suffered from David's moods, though she never said a word about it. She knew she must put up with him, and even respected his moods.
I didn't, though. Never would. "I think you're being rude to Mama," I said.
He looked at me, scowling. "Did I ask what you think?"
"No, but I'm telling you."
"You are, are you? So then, while you're telling me things, tell me where you were today."
My heart came to a standstill. "At Nancy Burns's house. This morning."
There was a moment's dreadful silence. God, I prayed, you're supposed to be on my side, remember?
My brother was leveling a solemn, searching gaze at me, one of those looks that made me know he was seeing through to my soul. I'm finished, I thought. He knows. Now he's going to swallow me all of a piece, nothing less.
"Who gave you permission to go out?" he asked.
My voice scarce worked. "Mama did. I asked."
He looked at Mama.
"That's right," she said, "I did."
David lowered his head, went back to his newspaper. "Well, if I'd been home I'd never have given permission."
That was it, that was all. My heart started beating again, and it was so loud that I thought both of them must have heard it.
CHAPTER FIVE
IN SPITE OF his mood, late that night David took me with him to Christ Lutheran Church to bring some vittles to Marvelous and her mother in the belfry.
Oh, it wasn't his idea to take me along. It was Mama's.
"Take her with you, David. She'
s had a lot of losses these last few days. Her father was home for such a short time and she had to say goodbye to him again. She's still just a little girl, you know, and she misses her father. And she misses Marvelous, too, hidden away as she is up there. And she's lost her horse. And don't forget Jennie Wade. Even though they fought, I know there's an ache in her heart for Jennie."
Tears built up in my throat when Mama said all that.
She had summed up my troubles before I could even acknowledge them to myself. And even though she understood and respected David's moods, he was still her son, and on occasion she could still reprimand him.
And on occasion he listened.
He stood there in the kitchen with a lantern in one hand and a basket of food in the other.
"All right," he said to me, "come on, then. But I'm doing this for Mama." He handed the basket of food to me and picked up a stone jar of water. "And we leave when I say so."
***
WE FOUND our way through the darkened church and up the stairs with no difficulty.
Marvelous had seen us coming and was waiting excitedly. We hugged.
"I know this whole place by heart," she said. "I know how many pews there be and I tiptoe around up and down between the aisles at night when nobody's about."
Her mother was busy thanking David for the food and water, asking him the news and complaining how she could not keep her daughter in tow. "Awful difficult keepin' that chile quiet in here," she was saying. "An' I miss my Basil so. Did you get word to him that we's okay, David?"
"Yes," my brother told her. "He wanted to come and see you, then decided he didn't want to let on to anybody that you're still in town. You know you and Marvelous could come and hide out in our cellar, Mary."
"Nosir, don't wanna get you all in trouble. We stayin' right here till this thing blow over. I do anythin', anythin' to keep me an' Marvelous from bein' sold into slavery. Oh, this food is so good. Tell your mama thank you. She is such a good woman. And you, son"—she put her hand on his arm—"you be such a good boy. I always did love you, David, like a son."
They ate the food and I sat next to Marvelous in near silent companionship, talking only occasionally, telling her how I missed her, making plans for what we'd do when the Rebs were driven out of town. We giggled, we whispered. David and Mary paid no mind to us, and by the lantern's light we near fell asleep, leaning against each other while David and Mary exchanged news and confidences.