“I’m sure he could stay with Mrs. Patton,” Hannah suggested.
“Very good.”
“I’m not leaving!”
“You are leaving,” Joel said firmly. Then he ruffled the little boy’s hair. “But don’t think I’m letting you out of work. The girls and I can’t run this farm by ourselves.”
Justin brightened.
The doctor cleared his throat. “I’m afraid you’ll have to do it without Maddy. She’s in no condition to take such a risk.” There was a long pause as the doctor looked from Hannah to Joel. In the silence, they could hear Mama’s rasping coughs as she fought for breath in the next room.
Maddy looked away out the window, her face grown stiff and emotionless. “I suppose I could move in with my in-laws.”
Hannah’s heart sank. Could three children run the farm alone? Could they nurse Mama, care for the stock, cook, clean, do the mending, the washing, the endless chores—alone?
“Perhaps we could find you some help in town,” the old man suggested.
But Joel shored up his shoulders. “We’ll manage. It’s a slow time of year. Anything that doesn’t have to get done till spring can wait till spring.”
Justin added proudly, “Yeah, me and Joel can take care of things.”
Hannah looked from one brother to the other, Joel with his broad shoulders and unruffled demeanor, Justin with a stubborn set to his jaw and a light in his eyes, and she lifted her own chin. They would all make Pa proud together. “We’ll be all right, Doctor Graves.”
The doctor smiled slowly and looked around at each face. “I believe you will.”
He laid a tin of powders and a colored glass vial on the table and gave them meticulous instructions. “If she gets worse, or if you need any help, don’t hesitate to call for me.”
The old man reached for his bag, paused, and turned to them with a sigh. “You kids have enough trouble…” His eyes were wells of pity. “There’s been another battle. In Fredericksburg, Virginia. A terrible one. I’m afraid our army didn’t fare well.” He groped for his bag. “I hate to have to tell you, but I thought you’d want to know.”
~
Mama’s condition worsened until she was seized with bouts of gagging, even vomiting, from the violence of her coughing fits. The whites of her eyes turned red as blood vessels ruptured, and the precious liquids that kept life in her flowed into the bedpan faster than Hannah could replace them with broth and milk and hot tea.
Every few hours Hannah carefully administered pecacuanha powder and tincture of belladonna and even a sedative made from camphor and opium, but nothing seemed to help. And as Mama grew worse, Hannah grew increasingly exhausted.
The boys tended the stock, carried water, filled the wood box, and brought in all the food items Hannah requested. Joel even boiled and hung the ever-growing pile of laundry. Hannah didn’t have to step outside for anything, but she also didn’t see the sun for two weeks. She rose with the darkness of morning, toiled through the short hours of daylight, stopping only to eat two simple meals with Joel, and dropped into bed long after nightfall. She spoke to no one except Joel, Mama, and the doctor.
Occasionally she spotted Justin outside the window. And once Mrs. Stockdale delivered a mincemeat pie and some blueberry preserves and a letter from Maddy, but she didn’t stay for tea. Hannah could hardly blame her, though she longed for just twenty minutes of conversation.
Another time Mrs. Carver brought a stew and paid her a short visit while Mr. Carver helped Joel repair a broken door on the barn, but they didn’t stay long either. Even good friends like the Carvers didn’t want to linger at a sick house.
But at least they had come. There’d been no sign of Wes.
One morning, in the third week of Mama’s illness, Hannah sliced up a loaf of bread with the last of Mrs. Stockdale’s preserves and poured a cup of strong, hot coffee. She sank wearily into a chair. The thought of another long, lonely day made her want to crawl back into bed and pull a pillow over her head, but she faced Joel bravely.
“The loan comes due in two weeks,” she reminded him.
He nodded. “I sold the yearling sheep last week, and Mrs. Patton said she’d keep the milk cow till we can afford to buy her back.”
“There goes our butter money.”
“We’ll make it,” he assured her. He looked absolutely certain.
“How much do we still owe?”
“About seventy-five dollars.”
Her heart plunged. How could he look so calm? How could he be so sure? “I wish we hadn’t paid Mr. Lawson’s store credit off.”
Joel laughed. “It wouldn’t have been enough. We’d still have to sell off more stock.”
“Not the horses, Joel! We can’t make a living if we sell the plow horses.”
“Not the plow horses,” he agreed as he left the table. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it.”
But darkness, stress, and exhaustion all fought against Joel’s confident words. She did worry. After all their struggle, after Pa and Seth volunteered to serve in the war, after they had worked and sweated and strained and tried, they were going to lose their farm. It just wasn’t fair.
Blackness gripped Hannah. She threw a chair over backwards and cursed the war. Forgetting her mother’s ears in the next room, she swore at Mr. Lincoln, at the Confederacy, and at the colored slaves at the heart of the conflict. She thrashed them roundly, up one wall and down another until she slumped into the chair, as drained as an empty kettle.
Defeat after defeat after defeat. The names of faraway battlefields, once so glamorous and exciting, tolled through her memory like the clanging of a church bell. Seven Pines, Shiloh, Bull Run, Antietam, and now Fredericksburg. They were claiming men like Pa who had worked so hard to build the country, destroying their families, draining the blood of American pioneers. And at the end of it all—if Pa came home at all—he wouldn’t even have a bit of land to call his own.
She was tottering on the edge of that black place in her mind where fear, worry, and the unknown all mixed together in a deadly poison when a knock at the door startled her back to reality. Rubbing her hands over her face, she took a deep breath and threw the door wide.
“Hello, Hannah.” Sue Ellen stood on the snowy stoop holding a loaf of bread and a bucket of soup. The towel thrown over its top couldn’t contain the steamy aroma.
Hannah managed a smile and reached for the food. “Thank you, Sue Ellen. I appreciate your kindness.” She began tugging the door closed, but the girl stopped it with an open palm.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
Hannah blinked. “What?”
“I want to come in.”
“But—are you sure? It’s catching in here.”
Sue Ellen laughed and stepped in uninvited. “I’ll risk it. I’ve no younger siblings to carry it home to. You look terrible,” she added as she donned Mama’s apron and promptly began clearing breakfast dishes.
Hannah stood in the doorway, still holding the steaming bucket, and watched stupidly as Sue Ellen filled a basin with hot water. “Why are you doing this?”
Sue Ellen shrugged. “Doc said you need help. And I hardly ever catch anything, so Mama finally let me come. Oh,” the girl said, turning to her, “I spoke with Mr. Covington in town and he wanted me to tell you he’s coming today at two o’clock sharp. He says he has to get his paintings shipped to New York by the end of the year, but he can’t finish the last one without you.”
“Doesn’t he know he could get sick?”
Sue Ellen gave a breezy wave. “He said he’s too ornery to catch it.”
“He is,” Hannah chuckled. It sounded rusty.
She watched as Sue Ellen scrubbed up the few dishes then started in on the floor. The girl really wasn’t going away. Hannah sank to a chair with gratitude.
“That is a very practical fashion you are wearing,” Sue Ellen commented with a dimpled smile.
Hannah looked down. She had on Seth’s trousers and an old shirtw
aist of Maddy’s. It did look pretty silly.
“Practical,” Sue Ellen continued, “but not very feminine. Perhaps we could embroider some flowers on your britches to tell them apart from your brother’s.”
Hannah scowled, embarrassed, before she realized Sue Ellen was making a joke. She chuckled again then laughed out loud.
Soon the kitchen floor glistened like it hadn’t in weeks. Sue Ellen stood up and surveyed it with a critical eye. “Good. Now how about these windows?” But first she placed the bucket of soup on the stove where it would keep warm.
Why hadn’t Hannah noticed before how kind the girl was?
She knew why, of course. She’d never needed Sue Ellen’s friendship. She always had Mary Ann, and then Wes. Now the girl’s unexpected presence blazed like a light in a dark, musty closet. And like a cockroach suddenly exposed, Hannah’s discouragement scurried back into the far corners of her mind. Together the girls accomplished four times the work Hannah had hoped to do alone.
At noon, Joel joined them for bowls of the best-tasting chicken vegetable soup Hannah could remember eating. Or perhaps it had just been so long since her last good meal. Or maybe it was the cheerful company.
Sue Ellen popped up from her chair. “Hannah, you still look tired. I’ll wash up these dishes then start in on that basket of mending. You go take a short rest before Mr. Covington gets here. We don’t want all of New York City seeing you look like a goblin.”
Hannah was only too willing to comply. As she left the table, she noticed that Joel, for once, seemed in no hurry to return to his chores. And she was trying to recall why she never liked Sue Ellen.
~
A rough pounding woke Hannah with a start. She flew down the stairs to open the door before the noise disturbed her mother, but Sue Ellen had already admitted Mr. Covington. He stood filling the entryway with his easel, canvas, and paints.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Covington,” she greeted. He grunted, raking her with a questioning eye. With a flush of embarrassment, she recalled her trousers.
“I can go change,” she mumbled.
“Now hold on. That might be just the thing…” He rubbed at his chin with one hand, one eye screwed up tight. “Yes, it’s simply brilliant! You’re the picture of a country girl making do in time of war. The folks back home will love it.”
“They won’t be scandalized?” she asked skeptically.
“No doubt, no doubt. But they’ll get over it. And then they’ll find it quaint. Perfectly quaint.”
He held up a partially finished painting of a horse in a box stall with sparkling eye and arched neck and snow on the barn window. Hannah could almost feel the animal’s frosty breath. “Mr. Covington…” she breathed.
He held up a warning finger. “Remember our agreement.” She bit back a smile. “Now, if you’ll throw on a shawl and accompany me to the barn, I’ll proceed to paint you leaning against the half door.”
The barn smelled of hay, manure, and old timbers—a sweet, wholesome fragrance. Mr. Covington promptly positioned her with an arm draped across the top of Rounder’s stall door. As she gazed in at him, Rounder sauntered over to investigate. Hannah rubbed the white spot between his eyes.
“This is my pa’s horse,” she said. Then she gave a caustic smile. “At least it was. I don’t even know if Pa’s dead or alive. We’ve heard nothing for weeks.” When she allowed herself to speak about it, her buried fears welled up suddenly, like venom leaking from an old wound.
Mr. Covington glanced up as he painted. “I heard the seventeenth wasn’t a part of the last battle.”
“Rumors,” she spat out, surprised at her own bitterness. “Nobody knows anything for sure after both sides are done slaughtering each other. It takes weeks to sort out the details, and even then nothing’s certain. He could be dead on the battlefield, unidentified, and we might never know it.”
Rounder nudged her gently, questioningly, with his muzzle. She cupped a hand over the soft warmth. “Of course, it might be better if he died without knowing how I’ve let him down.”
“What sort of rubbish are you talking about, girl?”
The sting of her anger vanished, replaced by empty hopelessness. “I’ve failed him, Mr. Covington. Just before he left, he told me to take care of things while he was gone.”
She could still see her father standing there outside the barn door, wearing his good suit and holding some personal items wrapped up in an old pillowcase. He had hugged her and kissed the top of her head. “Remember, Peanut, be brave. I love you, and I’m counting on you. When I come home, I expect to see everything just as I left it.”
It was the last thing he had said to her.
She turned to the artist. “I let him down. I’ve lost the farm.”
Mr. Covington set down his brush and regarded her shrewdly. “So, you failed to control that hailstorm, did you?” His words were sharp. “And you could have influenced market prices? And why didn’t you do a better job dictating the actions of that scoundrel, Lawson?”
She looked at him wonderingly.
“Bah, the story’s all over town.”
He picked up his brush and focused again on the tiny strokes. “You’ve been climbing broken ladders ever since I’ve known you. Running from reality, chasing shadowy dreams, trying your darnedest to be some kind of hero. You can’t do the impossible, child.”
Hannah turned back to face Rounder. He had moved to the trough and was pulling up wisps of hay and munching them happily.
Mr. Covington’s words poured out harsh and unpleasant, but as always, she found they were true. And though they were meant to relieve her, to lessen the pressure she put on herself, they made her feel worse. She couldn’t hope to do the impossible. She couldn’t save the farm. Her father, when he returned—if he returned—would have to start all over again somewhere else. She felt as broken as Mr. Covington’s ladder.
She watched Rounder arch his neck at some noise in the farmyard. His ears pricked forward, his eyes focused intently on something outside the door. He was breathtakingly beautiful, and the sharp look in his eye proclaimed his intelligence. He was an extremely valuable animal.
Her eyes grew round. Of course! If everything else failed, they could sell Rounder. Why had she never thought of it before?
But even as the thought entered her head, her stomach squeezed in rebellion. Rounder was Pa’s horse. He loved Rounder. She loved Rounder. It would be a betrayal.
But if it would save the farm…
When Mr. Covington finished his painting, he packed up his equipment and tucked his brushes in his pocket. Pulling his hand out, he gave her a thick envelope. “Briggs asked me to deliver this.”
Hannah recognized her father’s handwriting. Not waiting to see the artist on his way, she raced to the house and tore open the packet.
It contained one thin note from Seth and an entire stack of letters from her father, tied neatly with a bit of string. Pa’s were arranged in order, starting way back in September, and Hannah knew they would be full of pictures, stories, and snippets of camp life. She set them aside to savor with her family later. Seth’s, however, she unfolded immediately. He wrote much less, but he always included the news she was most anxious to hear, and he did not fail her this time.
November 20, 1862
Dear Mama and everyone,
I’m sorry I haven’t written more, but my hand has been pretty sore. I’ll try to catch you up now.
Soon after Antietam, our regiment left Maryland, crossing the Potomac River to Waterford, Virginia where we encamped for some time. There we learned that McClellan had been relieved of command. My joy was great till I learned who would be our new commander: Burnside, the same idiot who tried his darnedest to destroy our corps at the Antietam Creek bridge.
Burnside moved us on to Falmouth with plans to cross the Rappahannock and surprise the enemy. But our pontoon bridges were delayed, and instead of fording the river as we should have done, the old fool waited for weeks to cross til
l the enemy was well dug in on the heights across the river.
(The delay had one advantage. We received your package in Falmouth, and our stockings and mufflers have kept us in good stead. It does not get as cold here as it does at home, but the wind blows through a man, particularly during picket duty.)
Pa is not well. He has fought as hard as any other man, uncomplaining, hanging on despite poor health. But the marching, exposure, his age, and dysentery have wiped him out. He’s exhausted. He won’t tell you, but he’s been in and out of the hospital half a dozen times. Our sergeant is working to get him released from the service altogether.
Pa’s a bad case, but everybody’s sick. Camp is cold and dirty, and most everybody has some kind of intestinal ailment, so it stinks, too. Outbreaks of measles and smallpox spread like wildfire. Then there’s pneumonia, tuberculosis, typhoid, whooping cough. If the Rebs knew how disease was aiding their cause, they could sit back and wait out the war. But I suppose they are faring the same.
But don’t worry, Mama. I’m one of the lucky ones. Aside from a bit of the flux and a deserting finger, I’m fine. Even well. But I miss you all.
Your son,
Seth Wallace
Chapter 14
Two weeks before Christmas, Mama’s coughing fits began to ease. She still looked weak and as pale as the sheet she lay on, but her breathing regulated and her food stayed down. A well-pleased Doctor Graves declared that the other children could move back in soon after the New Year. They would celebrate Christmas together then.
Hannah’s burden lightened tremendously. Sue Ellen appeared on the doorstep every few days and set herself to household tasks as though she lived there. The dogged persistence Hannah had always scorned in the girl now earned her admiration, and tasks that had overwhelmed her became as pleasant as a spring walk under the older girl’s steady hand. The house sparkled, wonderful smells filled the kitchen, and three hot meals covered the table once again.
Only one worry haunted Hannah’s mind—money.
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