by Larry Hunt
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Home Sweet Home
The little party of Scarburgs including Sary has been on the trail from Alabama to South Carolina for months. A trip, that should have taken only a few weeks, has now stretched in to months. They have ridden through rain, hail, sleet, snow, and flooded rivers. They suffered terribly, but now as Malinda speaks gently to the mules, “Giddy up Joe, come on Little Bob,” she is finally coming up the pathway to Scarlett. Her mind drifts back to that day in 1837, almost twenty-seven years earlier, when Robert told of traveling this very lane as he returned from the Indian Wars. She can still remember his description:
‘I rounded the last bend in the road, nearing the long drive leading to Scarlett’s main house. I knew I should be able to see the house sitting up on the hill through the stand of oaks and maples growing near the entrance gate. The main house should have been a reflection in the lily pond beside the road from the gate to the main house. Glaring intently I could sense something was wrong. I could not see our house. The only things I could see were the six white porch columns and the four red brick chimneys.’
A sense of déjà vu envelops her as she approaches the last bend in the road nearing the drive leading to Scarlett. She stops her wagon and sits quietly looking and was still seeing, in her mind’s eye, the beautiful six white Greek columns of the porch; the four red brick chimneys two on each end of the house; the balcony that overhung the two massive oak front doors and the golden chandelier that hung suspended on a twenty foot chain from the second floor.
Now, all she could see was the blackened remains of her once grand Scarlett Plantation, and the four red brick chimneys. Standing as giant bookends to the beauty of this plantation, now they were only large cardinal shaded tombstones emphasizing the bleak, graveyard appearance that Scarlett had become.
She can stand it no longer, “Gitta up,” she orders turning into the long drive leading up to the once magnificent place called Scarlett, their home. She let the team of mules lead the way up the gravel drive. Her eyes fill with tears seeing the devastated sight before her. Near the main house, the driveway divides and another narrow lane leads to the carriage house, she turns to the right heading in its direction. Her mules come to a stop. Standing in front of her are some children! Who are these children she wonders? Wiping the tears from her eyes, she blinks to clear her blurred vision. She can now see them plainly. “No! No! This cannot be true!”
“Mama, Mama,” screams Lizzie as she runs down the path toward Malinda. “Mama,” yells William, running close behind his baby sister. Lizzie and William run up to the wagon; Malinda is faint, she believes she is going to fall from the wagon.
Stephen Ingram jumps from the wagon, “William, Lizzie is it really you? You did not drown! You’s not ghosts, are you?”
Sary is up on the wagon beside Malinda wetting her face with a handkerchief. The shock of seeing William and Lizzie is just too much for her. In a moment or so, she regains her composure, “William, Lizzie come here my darlings let me touch you. Let me hold you.”
Standing off to one side, Uncle Dave and Ora Lee watch the happy reunion. While Malinda, William, Lizzie and the rest of the family rejoice, Sary speaks to Ora Lee, “Lands sakes woman, what in the world is this? Can youse explain?”
Ora Lee tells how Lizzie fell into the river and could not swim. William jumped in to help. Both were swept downstream in the swollen river. William clung to a tree branch as it floated for miles down the Tallulah River. Eventually, it drifted close enough to shore to allow William to crawl upon the sandy riverbank. He sat with head in his hands, disheartened with tears in his eyes thinking sister Elizabeth had drown. Within minutes, William heard a voice he will never forget, “Here William, I’m here!” It was Lizzie, alive, she had been floating on the large wooden Bible box she had under her arm. She never let it go. Fortunately, they came ashore at the place where the Saluda River empties into the Tallulah River. Mink Creek, where Scarburg Mill is located flows into the Saluda. Luck was with William and Lizzie; they hitched a ride that very afternoon with a riverboat man. A boatman on his way, with a barge full of corn, headed to the Scarburg Mill to get it ground in to cornmeal. William and Lizzie had the comfort of floating almost to Scarlett. Leaving the Tallulah, up the Saluda, from the Saluda into Mink Creek and Scarlettsville. They had been at Scarlett for over a month now.
Uncle Dave and Ora Lee announce, “Everybody come on up to the carriage house. You folks is home now!”