by Lynn Austin
Warmth from the cows raised the temperature in the barn a few degrees, but by the time Bebe finished her chores and returned to the house, she felt as cold and stiff as a brass weather vane. She had often complained while scrubbing laundry and washing dishes with her mother, but she wished she were helping in the warm, cozy kitchen again. She missed her quiet conversations with Hannah.
“Can you stoke the fire a little hotter, Mama?” she asked as she dumped an extra armload of firewood into the kitchen woodbox. “I’m so frozen I can barely move.” Her hair crackled and sparked as she pulled off her woolen hat and shook her long braids free.
Franklin tromped through the door behind her and snatched up his plate, piling on eggs and bacon and biscuits from the warming oven. He was taking more than his fair share, from what Bebe could see. She quickly grabbed her own plate and shoved Franklin aside with her hip.
“Hey, move over. Some of this food is for me, you know.”
Franklin laughed and shoved her in return, tussling with her the way her brothers used to wrestle with each other, even though the top of Bebe’s head barely reached Franklin’s shoulders. At fourteen, she was still as tiny as a ten-year-old, although her back had grown strong during the past two years and her rock-rough hands were callused from wielding pitchforks and shovels and scythes.
“I’m not only frozen, I’m starved!” she said, shoving a warm biscuit into her mouth. Any ladylike manners she once might have possessed had deteriorated significantly since the war began. She didn’t care.
“I can’t help thinking of James and William and Joseph,” Hannah said as she put more wood in the stove. “Imagine eating hardtack and sleeping outside in tents on the cold, hard ground . . . I hope they’ve found someplace to attend church this morning.”
The thought of going outside again made Bebe shiver. “Do we have to go to church?” she asked. “Can’t we just stay home and read the Bible here, for once? It’s too cold to ride all the way into town—and I could use a rest. Papa thinks we’re his slaves.”
“You don’t know what slavery is,” Hannah said gently. “You should thank God every day that you don’t have an evil overseer standing behind you with a whip like those poor slaves down South do. And thank God we have the freedom to attend church.”
“Well, I’m going to pray that this war ends soon so the boys can come home and do their own work.”
Franklin nudged her with his elbow, frowning. “Don’t do that. I don’t want the war to end yet. I want my turn to fight.”
Bebe stared at her brother. His cheeks were still red from the cold, his sweaty hair mashed flat from his stocking cap. She suddenly realized how much she would miss Franklin if he went off to war, too. The bond between them had grown strong as they’d worked together every day, and Franklin no longer treated her like a pesky little sister the way her other brothers had. She didn’t know what she would do if she ever saw his name on the list posted at the general store of all the local boys who had been killed or wounded in battle. But Bebe didn’t know how to explain her reasons to Franklin. Instead, she slid the rest of her bacon onto his plate.
“Here . . . I took too much.” She lifted one of her biscuits onto his plate, too.
The kitchen door opened and their father came inside, trailing powdery snow from his boots and sending a shiver of cold air down Bebe’s neck. “Which one of you boys left my axe lying on the ground?”
“I guess I did,” Bebe said meekly. “Sorry . . . I had to use it to chop the ice out of the watering troughs.”
“I’ve told you boys a hundred times to take care of my tools. That axe will be no good to anyone if it rusts.”
“Sorry . . . And I’m a girl, Papa, not a boy.” Henry didn’t acknowledge the correction.
Bebe gulped down the rest of her food and quickly changed into her Sunday clothes, tying a bonnet over her unruly hair. Hannah had warmed bricks in the oven so Bebe could thaw out her frozen feet on the trip to town. She still felt grumpy as she sat down in the church pew between Franklin and her father, fuming about the endless war that might take Franklin away from her, and certain that she smelled as strongly of manure as they did, even though she had washed and changed her clothes and shoes. She barely paid attention to Reverend Webster’s sermon until she noticed that an unusual hush had fallen over the congregation. She uncrossed her arms and sat up to listen.
“And so our prayers have been answered,” he was saying. “According to the latest news, President Lincoln has signed an Emancipation Proclamation, which means that every slave in every rebellious state is now a free man!”
For a moment, the silence in the church was absolute. Bebe tried to imagine what it would feel like to suddenly be granted her freedom after a lifetime of slavery. Probably even better than if her brothers came home. Then one of the elders began to sing the doxology in a wavering baritone, and one by one the other members of the congregation joined in.
Praise God from Whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all creatures here below
Praise Him above ye Heavenly Host.
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost . . . Amen.
Bebe recalled the feeling of joy and relief she’d felt on that long-ago day when the bounty hunters had turned their horses around and trotted away from the farm wagon, and she felt guilty for complaining about the farm work. She had read the tattered copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin with its pages falling out and its back cover missing, and she felt the rightness of the abolition movement with every ounce of her strength.
“God heard the slaves’ groaning,” Pastor Webster continued, “just as He once heard the cries of the slaves in Egypt. He heard our congregation’s prayers, and now He has answered them. But the slaves will still be in bondage until the war is over and liberation comes—which is all the more reason for us to keep praying for our soldiers and leaders, keep praying for the war to end soon. And when peace returns to our land once again, imagine all the other things we can accomplish if we continue to work together as God’s people to further His kingdom.”
Bebe was quiet for most of the ride home until the wagon reached the fork in the road, reminding her as it always did of the day she and her mother had helped Mary and Katie escape. “Wasn’t that wonderful news we heard today about the slaves?” she asked.
“God is so good,” Hannah murmured.
Bebe glanced down the other road and remembered the bounty hunters sitting astride their powerful horses. She remembered their hunting dogs jostling and sniffing as they approached the wagon. And she remembered the two brave women huddled beneath the firewood, holding their breath. That’s why her brothers were fighting this war. Sometimes it was so hard to take her mind off the daily aches and pains and so easy to lose sight of the bigger goal.
As her farmhouse came into view beyond the turn in the road, Bebe vowed to pray every day for the war to end. And though she knew it was selfish of her, she wanted it to end for her own freedom as much as for the slaves.
CHAPTER
6
Morning comes very early when you’re locked in a jail cell. The high, barred windows had no curtains, so I awakened with the sunrise. I sat up, rubbing my eyes with my fists to get out the jail dust, then smoothed my hair off my face. The cell had no mirror, so I could only imagine how disheveled I must look.
Even in the best of times I was never fastidious with my hair and clothing. I had much more important things to attend to than brushing my hair for one hundred strokes or taking hours to pin it up in a fashionable Gibson girl style or applying layers of cosmetics to my cheeks. I wore my hair bobbed, and I purchased clothing that was “serviceable,” much to my mother’s dismay. I couldn’t be bothered with lace that could be torn or silk that would catch and shred easily.
After my wild car ride last evening, and a long uncomfortable night on a lumpy mattress, I figured I must look like Longfellow’s The Wreck of the Hesperus. I found myself wishing for a hairbrush. And a toothbrush. Never in my life have I
slept in my clothes. Mother would be appalled, I’m sure.
There is an old adage that says, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” but that didn’t stop my mother from trying hard over the years, to transform me into a silk purse. As I lay down on my jailhouse bunk again, trying in vain to go back to sleep, I recalled one of her more memorable attempts. It was during the summer of 1910, when I was a wild and wiry child with scrawny legs and a rat’s nest of brown hair . . .
“Harriet, it’s time you learned to be more ladylike.” My mother made the pronouncement with a firm voice and a determined nod of her stately blond head.
“But I’m not a lady,” I argued. “I’m only ten!” I rose from my seat at the breakfast table and began backing slowly from the room, trying to make my escape.
“Halt!” Mother said. “I mean it, Harriet. Your manners are atrocious, and I don’t know where to begin to describe your lack of concern for your appearance.”
In truth, my appearance was hopeless, so why be concerned? I was mousy and plain, and no amount of wishing would ever transform me into a beauty like my sister, Alice. Or my mother for that matter, who was an older, more elegant version of my sister. God had abundantly blessed both of them with delicate features, golden hair, and alabaster skin. Both had the dainty upturned nose, pointed chin, and mysterious, haughty demeanor of a Gibson girl. Men’s heads turned when Mother and Alice sashayed past. Men probably averted their gazes when I did.
“I’ve let you run wild for much too long,” Mother continued. “But starting today that’s all going to change.”
I gulped. I glanced at Alice and saw her nodding in agreement. I was doomed.
“Mother and I have decided to plan a garden luncheon,” Alice said gleefully. “We’re going to invite all of our friends—and yours too, Harriet. Won’t it be fun?”
“I would sooner be stuck on a spit and roasted over a fire.”
“Why must you say such outrageous things?” Mother asked. “Honestly, I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth. Perhaps that should be our first task, Alice, teaching the girl to hold her tongue.”
I was tempted to stick out said tongue at them, but I knew it would get me into worse trouble. Mother made me sit down at the table again. “And please pay attention to your posture, Harriet. Don’t slouch. If you’re ever going to learn grace and poise, you’ll need to begin with a straight spine.”
I listened in horror as they spelled out their plans for me, conspiring to outfit me in a frilly white dress complete with lace and bows. I had no desire to turn all feminine and fluttery. My short, skinny body still resembled a child’s, which was fine with me. I wanted no part of womanhood.
But after breakfast Mother and Alice marched me down to Daddy’s department store against my will, then stood around my dressing room door oohing and ahhing and telling me how pretty I looked as I tried on scratchy dresses with lots of ruffles and flounces and frills. “I look like a stray dog trying to fit into a party dress,” I told them.
Alice bounced on her toes and clapped her pretty hands. “No you don’t, Harriet, you look sweet.”
I made a face. The last thing I wanted to be was sweet. “I hope you’re not going to buy me a vial of smelling salts and a crochet-edged handkerchief, too,” I grumbled.
As soon as we returned home, I bolted away as if my bloomers were on fire and ran straight to Grandma Bebe’s house to tell her the terrible news.
“Mercy me, Harriet, who’s chasing you?” she asked as I burst through her door, panting like a hound dog. Grandma sat at her dining room table, which was piled high, as usual, with letters and envelopes and copies of the temperance paper, The Union Signal. As far as I could recall, I had never actually seen the top of her dining room table—much less eaten a meal on it.
“Grandma?” I asked breathlessly, “I’m not going to start growing all soft and lumpy like Alice, am I?”
“Not within the next few minutes, I shouldn’t think. Sit down, dear. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Mother is trying to make me wear frilly dresses and go to tea parties, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to look like Alice, I want to look like you.”
“Horrors! Why would you wish for such a thing? I’ve never grown any bigger than a ten-year-old. Of course, I always blamed my stunted growth on all of the farm work I had to endure while my brothers were away at war, but—”
“Can farm work really stunt your growth?” I was ready to hop on the first hay wagon if it meant avoiding a figure like Alice’s and all the attention that came with it.
“I’m not really sure if it can,” Grandma replied, “but I always figured that since my father needed another son so badly, my body simply complied. Will you be staying long, Harriet dear? I could use some help with these envelopes.”
Grandma was always doing something for “the cause,” and I was willing to help her as long as it didn’t involve going to jail. After my father bailed her out a few months earlier, I’d heard him say that if she got arrested again she would just have to stay there, no matter how many tears Alice shed.
“How’s your tongue, Harriet? Can you lick some envelopes for me?”
“I guess so.” Licking envelopes was much better than sipping tea and acting all ladylike. Grandma brought me a glass of water to “wet my whistle.”
“I wish I were a boy,” I said with a sigh. “Did you hate being a girl, too, Grandma?”
“I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I was your age,” she replied. “I hated doing my brothers’ chores while they were away at war, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a woman, either. It seemed to me that boys had more interesting opportunities than girls did.”
“But isn’t that why the suffragettes are marching? So women will have more opportunities?”
“I suppose that’s one of the things they’re trying to change. But back then I didn’t know what I wanted. If you had asked me, I would have told you that I hated doing my brothers’ chores, but I didn’t necessarily want to do housework, either. That nasty war dragged on and on until I didn’t think my life could possibly get any worse—and then it did. . . .”
Spring came early in 1863, and as the weather grew warmer, Bebe steeled herself for another season of work. Last spring she’d held on to the hope that the war would end soon. Now she knew better. In March, when she and her father drove into town one morning to pick up supplies from Harrison’s General Store, the shopkeeper had more bad news for them.
“How old is your boy now, Henry?” Mr. Harrison asked as he weighed out two pounds of sugar.
Henry gestured to Bebe with his thumb. “You mean this one?”
“I’m a girl, Papa,” she said, in case he’d forgotten.
“No, your youngest boy . . . the one who isn’t fighting yet.”
Bebe’s father looked to her for the answer. “Franklin is eighteen,” she told them.
Mr. Harrison shook his head. “That’s hard luck for you, Henry. Looks like he’ll be leaving for the war, too, before long.”
“Leaving!” Bebe stared at Mr. Harrison, waiting for him to break into a grin and tell her that it had all been a joke. He was known to be a big kidder. But his expression never changed as he slid the sack of sugar across the counter.
“Yup. Just got word that Congress has passed a new draft law. They’re conscripting boys from age eighteen on up—which means my boy will have to go, too.” He twirled the ends of his handlebar mustache and shook his head. “Seems the Union army needs more soldiers—which is hardly surprising the way our generals have been sacrificing them left and right. I’m guessing there’ll be a lot of folks needing farm help this summer. Don’t know how I’ll manage the store shorthanded.”
Henry scooped up the parcel of sugar and pointed to the shelf behind Mr. Harrison’s head. “I’ll take some of that lamp oil, too, Herbert.”
Bebe stared at her father. How could he remain so calm after hearing the news? She wanted to scream. “What are we going
to do if Franklin has to go away?” she asked on the way home.
“One day at a time,” her father murmured. “One day at a time.”
Franklin’s draft notice arrived in the mail a few weeks later. Bebe sat at the dinner table with her family that evening waiting to hear what he and her father planned to do about it. Franklin was the only one who seemed cheerful about the situation. Bebe tried to be patient, waiting until the chicken and potatoes and carrots were all eaten and the rhubarb pie was cut and served, but no one seemed willing to discuss the matter. She cleared her throat, taking it upon herself to start the conversation.
“People in town are saying you can pay three hundred dollars to hire a substitute and get out of fighting in the war,” she said. “That’s what Mr. Harrison down at the store might do so his son won’t have to go.”
Henry frowned. “We don’t have three hundred dollars.”
“Besides, I want to go,” Franklin added.
Bebe could no longer sit quietly. She pushed her chair away from the table and sprang to her feet. “You can’t let him leave, Papa! How will we ever manage this farm all by ourselves?”
Hannah laid her hand on Bebe’s arm. “Hush, Beatrice. We’ll be fine.” She would never dream of telling her husband what he could or couldn’t do.
“But I’ll be the only one left, Mama, and I’m a girl! I can’t do all the work that needs to be done around here without Franklin.”
“Hush now,” Hannah soothed. “With the Lord’s help, we can do anything. God is asking the men to do their part to help free the slaves, and we need to do ours.”
“Well, I can’t do it! I won’t!” Bebe ran from the house, past the vegetable garden and through the barnyard, wishing she could run all the way to Canada like the other escaped slaves. That’s how she thought of herself—as a slave, forced to labor against her will.