Though Waters Roar

by Lynn Austin

  Milkweed and chicory whipped against her legs as she sprinted across the pasture behind the barn. Mud clung to the bottoms of her shoes, but she didn’t stop running until she reached her brothers’ swing near the river, out of breath and out of tears. She straddled the seat and backed up to push off with her feet. She wished she could make it go as high as her brothers used to go.

  It wasn’t fair! She wouldn’t mind doing something noble and brave, like hiding slaves or fighting a battle, but why was she stuck doing farm work? Endless farm work. She dangled uselessly from the swing, kicking at the dirt and feeling sorry for herself for nearly half an hour before Franklin came looking for her.

  “You’re not swinging very high, Bebe. Need a push?” He grabbed her from behind and pulled the swing back as far as he could, then let go. Each time Bebe swung back, Franklin gave her another push until she was soaring higher than ever before. The rope creaked as it rubbed against the tree branch and her stomach dropped every time the swing did. Her eyes watered in the wind. She felt like she was flying.

  Franklin stopped pushing after a while and sank down on the ground with a sigh. He tore out a wide blade of grass and stretched it between his thumbs to whistle through it—a feat that Bebe had never been able to do. “You have to pump with your legs if you want to keep going,” he told her. “Stretch out your legs every time you go forward, then try to scoop air with them on the way back.”

  Bebe tried it, pouring all of her anger into the task as she reached and stretched, remembering how her brothers used to do it. When she felt the swing respond, she pumped harder, going higher.

  “That’s it! . . . I think you’ve got it!” Franklin called.

  Bebe pumped as hard as she could, no longer afraid of falling, wishing she never had to stop. “I don’t want you to go!” she shouted.

  “I know,” he said quietly. “But I have to. Somebody needs to lick those Rebels once and for all.” She looked down at him, lounging on the grass, and knew that what Franklin faced was much worse than what she did. He could be killed. She stopped pumping and allowed the swing to slow, dragging her feet in the dirt.

  “Are you scared, Franklin? Tell me the truth.”

  “I’ve decided not to think about it. I’m just going to do what I have to do and take it one day at a time.” That was what their father always said—“one day at a time.” But those days had already added up to more than two years.

  “I’ll knit you some socks,” Bebe said suddenly.

  “Ha!” Franklin laughed. “You hate to knit.”

  “I know. But you’ll need them to keep your feet warm.” She pushed off with her feet and began to pump again, going higher, faster.

  “I think you’ve got the hang of it, Bebe.” He gave another piercing whistle, then tossed the piece of grass aside. “We’ll be fine, both of us. We’ll do what we have to do, and we’ll be fine.”

  When the day finally came for Franklin to leave, Bebe couldn’t bear to watch him go. She hugged him tightly, then ran upstairs to her bedroom, stuffing her fingers in her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear the wagon driving away. She forced herself not to cry as she wandered into her brothers’ room and gazed around at their empty beds. Franklin had left his bureau drawer open, and one leg of his work trousers hung out of it. Bebe started to tuck it inside and close the drawer, then changed her mind. She pulled out the overalls and held them up in front of her. They were miles too long for her, but if she hiked up the straps and rolled up the legs she could make them fit.

  “Beatrice, what in the world are you wearing?” Hannah asked when Bebe came downstairs a while later.

  “I’ve decided to borrow Franklin’s overalls until he gets back.

  It’ll be easier to do his chores.”

  “They look quite unbecoming on you. And the Bible says that it’s wrong for women to wear men’s clothing.”

  Bebe felt a surge of anger. “The Bible also says not to kill people, and everyone is killing each other, aren’t they?”

  “Beatrice . . .”

  She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “And what does the Bible say about women doing men’s work?”

  Hannah displayed relentless patience. “God’s Word says that whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your heart as unto the Lord.”

  “Well then, I don’t see why the Lord would care if I did what I have to do in a pair of pants.”

  Even in trousers, Bebe found it difficult to do her work “as unto the Lord,” especially when her father demanded that it be done his way. Before long, the only time Bebe wore a dress was when she went to church on Sunday. That’s where she was when she heard the news that General Lee and his Rebel army had defeated the Union forces at Winchester, Virginia, and had now crossed the border into her state, Pennsylvania. The townswomen were all aflutter about it after the service.

  “We need to make preparations,” Mrs. Harrison told the gathered group of women, “or the Rebels will take all of our food and ravish our daughters.”

  Bebe wasn’t worried about being “ravished”—how would anyone even know she was a girl, dressed in Franklin’s clothes and smelling of manure? But she would fight to the death before she’d let those Rebels steal one morsel of the food she had labored so hard to grow.

  “We need to buy some extra gunpowder for Papa’s shotgun,” she told Hannah as they walked back to their wagon. “I’m going to shoot those dirty Rebels if they come near our farm.”

  Hannah’s habitually mild expression grew stern. “Now, listen to me, Beatrice. It’s bad enough that my sons are forced to kill—I won’t have my daughter killing, as well.”

  “But what if they try to take our food?”

  “Jesus says that if someone asks for your cloak, you should give him your coat also. If the Rebels need our food that badly, we’ll let them have it.”

  “Mama, no! Not after all my hard work! I’m not going to let anyone have it!”

  Hannah smoothed back Bebe’s hair and caressed her cheek. “Don’t borrow trouble by worrying about something that may never happen. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ ”

  Bebe wondered if she really could kill a Rebel soldier. Two weeks later on her fifteenth birthday, she thought that perhaps she could. On her family’s weekly trip to town, she found all of her neighbors talking about the series of battles that had been fought near the village of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Her parents found a telegram waiting for them in Harrison’s General Store. Hannah’s hands trembled as she tore open the envelope. Bebe watched her face turn pale as she read it.

  “What happened?” Bebe asked. “What does it say?”

  Hannah choked out the words as if wringing them from her heart. “Your brother Joseph has been killed in battle.”

  Grief settled over Bebe’s household like deep snow, bringing life on the farm to a suffocating standstill and chilling everyone’s soul. The neighbors brought food but no one felt like eating it. As Bebe lay awake in her bedroom at night, she heard the floors creaking downstairs as her father paced sleeplessly. She remembered Joseph’s wide grin and joyous laughter and wanted to kill a hundred Rebels in retaliation.

  “How could God let this happen?” she asked her mother.

  “We’ve been praying and asking Him to protect the boys.”

  “God isn’t causing this war, Beatrice, people are.”

  “Well, why doesn’t He stop us?” For once, her mother had no answer.

  Bebe never did see her father weep, but he attacked his chores with a ferocity that frightened her. Hannah grieved quietly for her son, allowing her tears to fall silently as she went about her work.

  But Bebe railed at God, alternating between fits of anger and fits of tears until a day came when she was so hot and weary from the unending work, so feverish with rage, that she dropped her father’s hoe in the middle of the vegetable patch and sprinted across the pasture toward the river. When she reached the swing she climbed onto it, remembering the day that Franklin
had taught her to pump; remembering Joseph whooping for joy as he’d leaped from the swing into the river.

  Bebe started swinging parallel to the river as she always had, then changed her mind. She twisted around on the wooden plank and backed up, preparing to swing out over the river for the first time. The rope creaked against the tree branch as she pumped higher and higher, and she wondered if it might be so rotten after all these years that it would break from the strain. She decided that she didn’t care. Even if it snapped off while she was in midair and she tumbled to the ground and broke every bone in her body, she couldn’t possibly feel any more pain than she already did.

  At first Bebe clenched her eyes tightly shut, afraid to look down at the river as the swing carried her out over it. But the July day was so hot, her smoldering anger so intense, that without thinking she abruptly released the rope and dropped through the air into the river.

  Bebe realized her mistake the moment her body plunged beneath the surface. She couldn’t swim! Her skin tingled all over from the water’s cruel slap, and she felt as if she had awakened for the first time in her life. She opened her eyes beneath the murky river and feared she was about to die—and she didn’t want to die.

  Somehow, she rose to the surface, coughing and sputtering for air. The shore looked a long way off. Bebe had just enough time to draw a quick breath before the water washed over her head and pulled her under again. The current gripped her as if it were a living thing, and she struggled against it with all her might, flailing and kicking as she tried to fight her way to the top for another gulp of air. Each time her head emerged, she heard birds singing and cattle lowing in the distance. Each time she went under, the growling river muffled the sounds as it tried to hold her down and pin her beneath the surface.

  Bebe knew there was no one to save her. If she yielded to the current and allowed it to carry her downstream, she would die. If she wanted to survive, she would have to fight to stay afloat, then fight her way to the riverbank. Bebe made up her mind to fight.

  Franklin’s heavy work boots felt like rocks tied to her ankles, so she kicked them off, then slipped the straps of his overalls from her shoulders and wiggled out of them. Freed from her cumbersome clothing, she bobbed above the surface again, long enough to drag more air into her lungs, long enough to catch a glimpse of the distant shore. Then she went under.

  Bebe fought with all her might until her limbs felt leaden with fatigue. Her stomach ached from swallowing gallons of water. She could feel the current carrying her downstream, but at the same time her efforts were gradually moving her closer to shore. After what seemed like hours, Bebe’s feet touched the rocky bottom. She could stand. She struggled upright, sharp stones jabbing her feet, and walked toward the shore as the river tried to drag her under one last time. At last she flopped down on dry land, collapsing with relief. She gazed up at the blue sky and white clouds and realized that in all of her struggles, it had never occurred to her to pray.

  Bebe walked through the kitchen door a while later, still dripping wet, wearing only her socks, pantaloons and calico blouse.

  “Beatrice, what happened to you?” Hannah said when she saw her. “Where are your clothes?”

  “I jumped off the boys’ swing into the river.”

  Hannah stared at her.

  “I can’t go on much longer, Mama. I hate this ugly war. Why can’t things be the way they were three years ago?”

  Hannah sighed and drew Bebe into her arms, even though the water from Bebe’s clothing soaked through to hers. “Never forget, Beatrice, that the greater goal is to win freedom for the slaves. That’s what we’ve been praying for and working for all this time. That’s what Joseph gave his life for. If we ask the Lord to give us love and compassion for those poor souls, then we’ll be willing to make any sacrifice.”

  “But Joseph is gone and . . . and I don’t want to lose the other boys, too. When is this war going to end?”

  “Do you want to know the secret of contentment, Beatrice?” Hannah released her and stepped back to hold Bebe’s water-shriveled hands in her own. A damp spot now darkened the front of Hannah’s apron. “We need to live each day as if it was a gift. God gives us that gift every morning when the sun rises, like the tickets they give out when you ride on the train.”

  “I’ve never been on a train,” Bebe said, sulking.

  “That ticket is only good for today. Yesterday is gone and that ticket is used up. We don’t have a ticket for tomorrow because life has no guarantees. Each day is a gift. When the sun comes up, we need to ask the Lord, ‘What would you like me to do for you today?’ That’s how you’ll find contentment.”

  “But . . . didn’t you always say that we should have a plan so we’d know exactly where we’re headed? You said we wouldn’t get anywhere in life without a map.”

  “That’s true. But we need to let God draw the map for us, then follow it in faith.”

  Bebe stared at the floor. She knew that her feeble faith fell far short of her mother’s. “I can’t do that,” she mumbled.

  “You’re not willing to give your life to Him each day?”

  Bebe thought of how she had nearly drowned and how she had saved herself. She shook her head. “If this is what He’s going to do with my life . . . then I guess not.”

  She endured another summer, another harvest—this time without Franklin’s help. Another winter arrived, and she learned to split wood and shovel snow. In the spring she watched four new baby calves come into the world and helped her father plant corn and cut hay. And just when it seemed as though the war would never end, it did.

  “I wish I could dress up in boys’ clothes like you did,” I said when Grandma Bebe finished her story. The envelopes were all licked, my water glass was empty, and my tongue felt as raspy as a cat’s.

  Grandma shook her head. “No, don’t wish for that. Those heavy old boots and baggy overalls were nearly the death of me.” She tilted her head to one side as she studied me. I loved the way my grandmother looked at me, as if I were a treasure chest filled with glittering gold and precious jewels.

  “Harriet, don’t give your mother a hard time about the party dress. Let her go ahead and decorate the outside of you. She can’t change what’s on the inside, you know—and that’s the most important part of you. Only God can change you on the inside.”

  “How does He do that?”

  “Sometimes through suffering,” she said quietly. Her gaze got all soft and blurry-eyed as she continued to look at me. “I didn’t know during those war years that God was preparing me for the future, but He was. He knew that I would need to be strong in order to get through what lay ahead.”

  “Why, Grandma? What happened?”

  I wanted to hear the rest of the story, but Grandma shook her head. “That’s a tale for another day.” She stood and smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt. “Thanks for your help, dear, but you’d better run along home. And make sure you enjoy that tea party, you hear?”

  I made a face. “You can lead a horse to water,” I grumbled, “but you can’t make him drink.”

  Grandma’s laughter followed me out the door.

  CHAPTER

  7

  My jailhouse breakfast, when it finally arrived, was a terrible disappointment. It consisted of lumpy oatmeal and dry toast. The coffee tasted as though it had been sitting on the back of the stove for the past month, boiling continuously. None of the meal was palatable, so I set the tray on the floor and leaned against the brick wall again to do some more thinking. When you have nothing else to do except think, a lot of strange memories come to mind. One of them featured Grandma Bebe’s brother, Franklin.

  I had heard stories about him over the years, but I finally met him in person on Decoration Day in 1911, when I was eleven years old. Grandma had purchased her own car by then, much to my mother’s dismay. “There’s no telling how much trouble she’ll get into now that she can drive her own car,” my mother said, so she asked me to tag along and keep Gra
ndma out of mischief. Little did Mother know that I was an eager partner in Grandma’s mischief, and that I had no intention of keeping her out of it. In fact, Grandma was secretly teaching me how to drive on the dirt roads outside of town now that my legs were long enough to reach the pedals. I couldn’t wait for another driving lesson that day.

  We left early in the morning and traveled out of town, enjoying the drive through the rolling farmland, admiring the misty forests of the Appalachian Mountains in the distance. Grandma let me slide behind the wheel and practice driving for a few miles as soon as we reached the countryside. She didn’t say where we were going, but I hoped she was taking me to one of her temperance rallies and that we’d be pelted with eggs and spoiled tomatoes. Grandma had shown me a story in the newspaper about a saloon owner who had captured several skunks and set them loose on a group of temperance women who were protesting outside his saloon. Since I was all prepared for some excitement, I was a little disappointed when Grandma motored into a village I’d never visited before and parked her car in a cemetery, of all places.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked as we removed our driving gloves and dusters and tossed them onto the seat. “Did someone die?”

  “Of course, Harriet—thousands of people died!” She spread her hands and stared at me in exasperation as if her reply should make perfect sense. “It’s Decoration Day!”

  “Oh . . .” I still didn’t understand, but she linked arms with me and towed me over to a raggedy group of ancient soldiers who were milling around a Civil War monument. They were all holding miniature American flags and waiting for the ceremony to begin. I had seen Grand Army of the Republic veterans before, marching in Fourth of July parades in our hometown, but I had never gotten close enough to see how tattered and moth-eaten their uniforms were after forty-six years. Or how ill-fitting. The passing years were unkind to people’s bodies, expanding them in some places, contracting them in others. I gazed around at these somber men, with their aged faces and gray hair, and I tried to imagine them as young men, their uniforms new, their bodies fit and hearty as they bravely marched off to fight a war that would change them forever. I saw a well-deserved pride in their tired expressions, an awareness that they had courageously stepped forward when their country needed them. They had a right to be proud of their accomplishments.