Her face must have registered better spirits, because Mr. Covington worked steadily. When he spoke again, his question took Hannah off guard. “Seems you’re a girl who knows her mind. So, if it isn’t bent toward housework or farm work, what exactly is it bent toward?”
Hannah blinked and collected her thoughts. What did she want, really?
In a household of so many people, she hoped to establish her own identity. She was tired of being lumped in with her sister. She didn’t want to become her mother. And she had no desire to live up to whatever her dead brother might have become. She wanted to be herself, to live out the fire of her own spirit.
She answered carefully, “I guess I need to figure out who I am. I don’t want to wake up someday to find that every dream, every adventure, every hope of proving myself has passed me by and that I’ve become an old woman beaten into something everyone else has made me.”
Mr. Covington thought on that awhile, chewing his bottom lip. “And just how are you planning to work that out?”
“I don’t know yet,” she admitted, staring at that unknown place where the sky kissed the land. “But someday I will. Someday I’m leaving.”
Chapter 11
“Hannah, will you bring this package to Mr. Blankford? His son was badly wounded at Antietam, and he’s going down to visit the hospital. He offered to deliver it to your father for us.”
Mama had been busy for many evenings knitting warm socks, mufflers, and mittens for her soldiers. Today she packed them all into a pasteboard box along with a dozen apples and Pa’s favorite kind of cookies. “They might grow stale,” she admitted, “but they’ll be a sight better than beans and hardtack.”
The afternoon was mild so Hannah left Rounder home, navigating the planks to town with her own bare feet.
She liked Mr. Blankford. He was a pudgy, jolly fellow, a little older than Pa, with spreading laugh lines etched into the skin around his eyes. But today, as he opened the door, he looked more thoughtful than merry.
Hannah presented her package. “Mama said to tell you thank you very, very much.”
The lines deepened and he almost smiled, but not quite. “You tell her she’s very, very welcome. I’ll do my best to put it directly into Henry’s hands.”
“What if you can’t find him?” she asked. “What if his company is gone?”
“Then I’ll find out where and rustle up someone who can get it where it needs to go. Don’t worry, young lady. Your Pa will get it.”
She turned to go, then whirled impulsively and threw her arms around the man, planting a kiss on his weathered cheek. “Give him that for me too, would you?”
He did chuckle then. “That might carry more weight coming from you, but I’ll do my best.”
“Thank you, Mr. Blankford. I hope your son is all right.”
“Me too, lass.”
She moved quickly through town and was watching Mr. Lawson’s big tomcat dart around the corner of the Wayland House when Wes flagged her down from the long front porch. “Hannah!” Beside him stood his brother, home from the war, looking strong and recovered from his injury.
“Marcus!” she exclaimed, rushing to greet him. But as she drew near, she could see he didn’t return her enthusiasm. In fact, he little resembled the carefree young man she remembered. His face looked thin, and his skin stretched over it like a tarp tightened down over a loaded wagon.
“Marcus, how good to see you! You look wonderful.”
She faltered over that last word just a bit as the warm brown eyes that once sparkled with humor glowered down at her.
When he didn’t reply, she stumbled on. “I mean, you could use a few good meals. Seth says army food isn’t fit to choke a hog. But, really, you look fantastic! When Wes told me you’d been injured I thought—” She stopped in confusion, then shrugged. “It’s just good to see you home.”
Marcus turned slightly, and Hannah’s eyes landed on an empty sleeve pinned up to his elbow. Her smile crumbled.
“Still look fantastic?” he asked bitterly.
“Oh, Marcus!” she whispered.
Wes cut in. “I told him he should be proud of it. I would be.”
Marcus gave them a cynical smile. “It’s a matter of great pride when a man can no longer work. When he can’t even support himself, let alone a family. But then, what woman would want a one-armed man anyway?”
Hannah didn’t know what to say. Any response would seem flimsy and trite and entirely worthless in the face of such deep hurt.
Marcus laughed bitterly. “I’ll be twenty years old next month. I have a whole lifetime to be proud.”
He turned away and disappeared inside the hotel.
Hannah jabbed Wes hard with her elbow. “You never told me he lost his arm!” she hissed.
“I didn’t know! Marcus didn’t say anything in his letter. Just that he’d been injured.”
“And you couldn’t guess when he wrote with his left hand?” Her voice dripped sarcasm.
“Someone else wrote the letter,” he snapped. “Don’t take it out on me. I’m not the one who lopped off his arm.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just so sad. How did your parents take it?”
“How do you think? They’re just glad to have him home. Pa didn’t even say told-you-so. Mama’s a little worried about him, though.”
“She should be. He seems so depressed.”
“He’ll be fine,” Wes reassured her. “He can do lots of stuff one-handed. Like run a hotel, or work in a bank, or do any number of desk jobs.”
“I suppose you’re right. He’ll learn to live with it.”
“You bet he will!” Wes grinned. “I can’t wait till he shakes off this funk and tells us how he lost it.” He pulled his arm inside his shirt and let his sleeve hang empty. “Golly! I bet it’s a good story.”
Hannah stared at him incredulously. “I’ve got to go home.” Her words were thick with disgust.
“Right. See you tomorrow.” He jerked his sleeve to make it wave at her.
She ran over the planks, the sight of that flapping sleeve etched in her memory. But when she tried to recall the lean, bitter face of Marcus, she saw only the features of her father.
~
The morning was cold, with frost still lingering in the hollows. It was the kind of dawn that asked for a hot bowl of oatmeal with a touch of maple syrup, but Hannah’s breakfast would have to wait a little longer.
“I need you to leach the ashes today,” her mother had said as soon as Hannah bounced down the stairs. “There’s hot water on the stove.”
Autumn chores had begun. There would be no school for many days.
Maddy had reemerged to join their labors, but she was gaunt and listless, hardly the same person she once was. She worked steadily and silently, like a wooden puppet, showing no emotion at all. And she never mentioned her husband’s name. When Hannah had to be with her, she stepped carefully, as if tiptoeing through a litter of new piglets.
Hannah carried the water out to the shed. In the corner, several barrels held ashes that had been collected from cook fires all year long. There was also a wooden hopper that looked like a smaller barrel on legs, except the bottom was made out of thin slats.
Hannah covered the slats with a foot of straw and then filled the hopper with ashes. Placing an empty bucket under it, she poured hot water over the top. Soon a foul-smelling stream of brown liquid flowed through the slats and trickled into the bucket below.
Hannah would have to perform the task several more times before she had leached enough of the strong brown lye to make soap. And soap was just the beginning. Firewood had to be chopped and stacked, and insulation piled around the base of the house and the barn. No doubt the boys would round up the hogs today. Now that it was cold enough to preserve the meat, the animals must be slaughtered, salted, and smoked.
Slaughtering day also meant making sausage and cracklings. Some of the fat would be rendered into candles. The rest would be combined with the b
rown lye and boiled to make soap.
Leaving the hopper to drain, Hannah went in to breakfast. Justin followed her, toting a pail brimming with milk. They sat down just as Mama spooned cornmeal mush into five bowls.
Joel shuffled through a library of papers spread out in front of him. “I sold the last of the potatoes and pumpkins. We haven’t purchased anything for weeks. The butter and egg money has paid off our store credit, and we should get a fair price for the hogs. I think we could pay off Lawson on time if taxes weren’t due.”
Mama closed her eyes wearily. Suddenly, she slammed the spoon onto the table, gouging a chunk out of the wood. “Blast this war! And blast Mr. Lincoln! He pays your pa for soldiering then demands it right back again in taxes. How on earth is anyone supposed to get ahead?”
She kneaded her forehead with one hand. “At least when you don’t make much, they can’t take much away.”
Hannah listened soberly. Perhaps this would be a good time to share her secret. Excusing herself from the table and scrambling upstairs to her room, she rummaged in her sock drawer and pulled out the money she had been saving from Mr. Covington. Over the past six weeks, she had made almost four dollars. She knew it wasn’t much, but maybe it would boost Mama’s spirits.
Scampering down the steps, she dropped the money on the table in front of Mama with a loud clatter. Four bodies went motionless, and four pairs of eyes focused on the shiny coins. Hannah wished Mr. Covington could paint the look on Justin’s face.
“Mercy, child!” Mama exclaimed. “Wherever did you get that?”
Hannah smirked triumphantly at her little brother. “I’ve been modeling for Mr. Covington’s paintings. He pays me each time we finish.”
“You’ve been what?” Mama exclaimed.
“It’s fine, Mama. Mrs. Carver knows, and Mrs. Clark has chaperoned every session. I wanted to surprise you.”
Mama closed her eyes again. “Bless you, child. Joel, put this with the rest. We’ll pay Uncle Sam first. Lawson has promised an extension. At any rate, I’d rather have Mr. Lawson acquire our farm than the government.”
~
Everything gave way for the flurry of work except church services and sessions with Mr. Covington. Even when the kitchen was full of raw pork, Mama sent Hannah for the scheduled hour, calling in Justin to take her place.
“But Mama, making sausage is women’s work,” her brother groused.
“Hush,” Mama ordered, up to her elbows in grease. “It’s the work of anyone who wants to eat this winter. Now grind.”
A chill wind gusted and the sky threatened to spill over. Whether it would pour forth rain or snow was anyone’s guess. Hannah wrapped up snug in a muffler and an extra shawl and welcomed Rounder’s warmth beneath her. As she rode past the smokehouse and out of the yard, the sharp smell of burning hickory chips tickled her nostrils.
Mr. Covington had commandeered a corner of Mrs. Clark’s parlor during Hannah’s last visit.
“You absolutely will not!” the old woman had declared as they carried canvas and paints in from the chilly backyard. “Take it upstairs this instant!”
“Now woman, you know my window faces north,” he snapped. “There’s not enough light up there to fasten my bowtie. How am I supposed to paint?”
“I don’t give two flips of a lamb’s tail how you do it, as long as the mess isn’t in my good sitting room. What will my other boarders say?”
“I’m your only boarder!” Mr. Covington roared. “There isn’t another man on God’s green earth fool enough to rent from you!”
In the end, the artist agreed to pay an additional fifty cents a week for the use of the sunny parlor, and Mrs. Clark left them alone, happily clutching her hard currency.
Hannah entered the room, which was strewn with pictures like the bedroom upstairs. She gasped as she caught sight of herself standing in a barnyard, clutching a milk pail in front of her and staring wistfully into the distance. Mr. Covington had finished the painting several sessions ago, but she hadn’t bothered to look. Now she studied the fine details, the colors and shadows and lines that replicated her face exactly.
Then a second painting grabbed her eye. She picked it up and studied a band of quarter horses with heads raised and tails streaming, galloping freely across a field strewn with autumn leaves. On the lead stallion perched a small figure with faded trousers, windblown hair, and an expression of pure joy. That face, too, she was astonished to see, exactly matched her own!
So Mr. Covington had known who ruined his first painting and nearly ran him into the ground. Yet he never uttered one word.
The artist strode into the room as she clutched the canvas. “It’s very good,” she muttered, feeling foolish. Why must her face always burn so?
She dropped the painting and squared her shoulders to face him. “No, it’s beautiful. The light on the trees, the wind, the color, the fluid movements. It’s like the horses are really there, running across the canvas.”
Mr. Covington arched one heavy brow. “I believe when you signed on we agreed that I needed no critic, young lady.” But Hannah thought she spotted just a hint of satisfaction in the curl of his lip.
He positioned her in a new pose, sitting with a sunhat dangling from one hand and a rake leaning across her lap, as if resting from a garden chore. The time off her feet was welcome, almost restful, and she used the quiet hour to brood over her father.
She missed him terribly. No letters had arrived from either Pa or Seth for nearly three weeks, not since the letter from Antietam. Had Mama’s package reached Pa yet? Would Mr. Blankford be able to find him? Perhaps he and Seth had moved on already. Perhaps there had been more fighting. Perhaps—but she wouldn’t even let her thoughts drift in that direction.
She never worried much about Seth. He was the one with the injury, and she knew the risk of infection was high, but Seth would be fine. Seth was always fine.
She remembered two years ago, when the whole family caught influenza. The weather had grown bitter, and illness had swept through the house till everyone was down with it. Everyone except Seth. Pa was the worst of them all. He was nearly delirious, but he kept choring, kindly and foolishly taking on too much work till he fell unconscious. Ma had sent for Doctor Graves, who diagnosed pneumonia and ordered Pa to stay warm, dry, and quiet for several weeks.
It ate Pa up something fierce having to stay inside helpless while others took over his work. But Seth bore up well. He took Pa’s place like a man, though he was only sixteen at the time, and Pa had been so proud of him. Hannah remembered Pa’s beaming smile, the affectionate way he rumpled Seth’s hair, the catch in his voice when he praised him. She remembered because she had yearned for such praise, but she had been sick in bed, hardly better than Pa.
Now Joel was bearing up in the same manner, running the farm, helping Mama. Steady, strong Joel. Hannah was pretty sure if Pa could see him, Joel would receive the same words of confidence and appreciation. But would she?
“Hannah!” Mr. Covington shouted from across the room. “I told you three times that I’m finished for the day. You’re a million miles away, girl.”
She rose and stretched her back. “Guess I am.” She leaned the rake in the corner and hung the hat on it.
“Were you off on some wild journey where you were free of household chores?” he asked mockingly, plucking coins off his palm and handing them to her.
She shook her head. “Not this time. More like where the guns roar like thunder and camp chores abound.”
“Hmm.” He paused, frowning. “Heard from your father yet?”
She shook her head and he brushed his fingertips over his beard. “Well,” he harrumphed, dismissing the subject, “nothing we can do. We’re finished. But before you leave, I have something I want you to do for me. Come here.”
She followed him behind the canvas he had worked on for the past hour. To her surprise, it remained completely blank.
“I want you to give this to your father, from one soldier to a
nother.” He held out a small oval disc with a miniature portrait painted on it. It was a picture of her looking lost in thought.
She stared in complete astonishment. “This is what you were painting today?”
“Well, I certainly wasn’t mopping the floor. Are you going to take it or not?”
She picked it up carefully, imagining her father’s response when he received it. “Why?”
“Never mind why. I told you, it’s from one soldier to another.”
“But you’re not—” She stopped. She’d been wrong about him once already today. She’d best bite her tongue for a change.
“I’m not a soldier?” he asked. “Look here.” He fumbled around in a stack of canvases and finally pulled one out bearing a portrait of a middle-aged man in a shell jacket with a forage cap under one arm. “That’s me in 1846, during the Mexican War. I kept it all these years. I still have the uniform, too, but only the hat still fits.”
He propped it up against a flowery sofa and glowered down into the younger man’s eyes.
Hannah felt like she’d just opened a book after staring a long while at its cover. She never imagined Mr. Covington as anything other than the cantankerous old artist he had become. But he had lived a whole life before she was even born.
“So you do understand about war,” she admitted, thinking back to a past conversation.
“I understand plenty,” he groused. “I’ve seen enough killing for three lifetimes, but the young ones, they always need to learn for themselves.
“I was asked to take a commission—at my age!—because the North needs officers so badly. But I won’t do it. This war is foolish and frivolous and I want no part of it. Besides,” he added, “I’ve got kin in the South and no wish to meet them in battle.”
She looked down at the miniature. “My pa will appreciate this.”
“Of course he will. That’s why I did it. Now go home. I need a smoke, and I’m tired of babysitting.”
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