Southern Son

by Victoria Wilcox

  “That’ll do, son,” said Henry Holliday.

  “Pa, I thought you were still down there . . .”

  “I followed you up. I don’t want you to get hurt, son. I just want you to learn to think before you speak, and not let the Irish in you get the better of your judgment. You’ve got a tendency to be impetuous, I fear. But God knows, your mother would never forgive me if I ever let anything happen to her boy.” And for a moment, John Henry thought he saw something soft go across his father’s stern face, something warm like the flicker of the oil lamp lighting Robert’s room.

  “But I would have jumped, Pa,” he said eagerly, basking in the unexpected warmth in his father’s cool blue eyes, and in his heart he added: I’d do anything for you, Pa . . .

  “I know, son. But I hope this particular lesson’s already been learned. Now get on down there and say you’re sorry to your cousin Mattie. And let’s not hear any more about this jumpin’ business, all right?”

  “All right,” he said, but hesitated a moment before obeying. “Pa?”

  “Yes, son.”

  “I just wanted to say . . . I . . .” he stammered, unsure of how to put the feeling into words.

  “I’m listenin’, John Henry.”

  “I’m glad you’re home, Pa.”

  And Henry nodded, accepting the welcome.

  The easiest part of his punishment was asking for Mattie’s forgiveness, since he didn’t really care whether she forgave him or not. As long as she wasn’t hurt, he didn’t see that any harm had been done. She could rant and rave at him all night if she wanted.

  But Mattie wasn’t angry a bit, only flushed with the excitement of her brave feat.

  “My mother says I should be ashamed, jumpin’ out a window like a boy! But I think she’s most upset about my skirts comin’ up. Sophie told her you boys saw my underthings—did you?”

  “I don’t know,” John Henry lied, “maybe. I wasn’t thinkin’ about underthings just then.”

  The truth was that he had indeed noticed Mattie’s drawers as she lay in the pile of leaves with her skirts all around her neck. Robert had noticed, too. How could they not? Neither of them had sisters, so girl’s underclothes were something novel to them both. He’d seen the hem of Mattie’s pantalettes before, of course, as she pulled her skirts up to ride horseback and as she stood in the window before jumping. But never before this night had he seen all the way up.

  “Well, I don’t care if you did see,” she said with a toss of her auburn hair. “You’re just a child, anyhow.”

  “I don’t guess you’re so grown up yourself,” he shot back, “or you wouldn’t have been jumpin’ from the window at all.”

  Mattie clenched her fists and pursed her lips, and John Henry wasn’t sure whether she was going to hit him or cry. Then she squared her small shoulders and put her chin up in the air.

  “I am still waitin’ for your apology, Cousin John Henry. And I’ll tell your father if you don’t make it good.”

  She had him there. So he launched into the prettiest words he could find to beg her forgiveness. Better to humiliate himself in front of a girl than to earn his father’s displeasure again, and he got down on one knee and bent his head like a true penitent.

  “Mattie Holliday, I am sorry for darin’ you to jump out of Robert’s window—even if you did take me up on it of your own free will—and I hope you will forgive me for bein’ so ungentlemanly.” Then he looked up at her from under his sandy lashes, his blue eyes as full of repentance as he could make them appear to be.

  “Get up off the floor, John Henry! You’re makin’ a fool of yourself! Of course I’ll forgive you, don’t I always?” and when he grinned up at her, she smiled reluctantly. “I never saw a boy who could get into so much trouble, or get out of it so easily!”

  “That’s ‘cause I’m so charmin’,” he said without a trace of sarcasm. “My mother taught me to be a gentleman. Besides,” he added with another grin, “you always did like me special.”

  And Mattie had to smile herself at that. “I always did,” she said fondly, “ever since you were a baby. I guess if I’d had a brother, I’d want him to be just like you. Even if you are trouble most of the time.”

  “Aw, Mattie! I thought I was your best sweetheart! That’s what you always used to call me when we were little, remember?”

  “You still are little,” she teased, reaching up to pat him on the head and tousling his sandy hair. “But I guess you’ll always be my best sweetheart, trouble or not.”

  They all stayed over at Uncle John’s house that night, the adults filling the beds and the children sleeping together on pallets on the floor. But in spite of the cramped accommodations, John Henry slept well. He liked being surrounded by his family. He felt safe inside that close circle of cousins and aunts and uncles, and only wished that his three Holliday uncles still off at the war could be with them, too. Uncle Rob, Mattie’s father, was still off fighting, as were Aunt Martha’s husband, Colonel James Johnson, and Aunt Rebecca’s husband, John Jones. In fact, of all the men in the family, only Uncle John Holliday had not gone off to war, choosing instead to serve in the Georgia Home Guard Cavalry. As a doctor and a surgeon, his medical skills would be needed at home should Georgia ever be threatened with direct attack by the Federals.

  For as long as he could remember, John Henry had been fascinated by his uncle’s medical practice. He loved to spend time in the everyday parlor Uncle John used as a medical office, looking through the collection of medicine bottles in the tall apothecary cabinet and admiring the collection of surgical tools stored neatly near the examining table: saws and lancets, bone forceps, bullet extractors and long-handled surgical probes. His uncle even had a real human skeleton hanging on a metal frame, left over from his school days at the Medical College of Augusta; a gruesome and wonderful sight for a wide-eyed eleven-year-old boy.

  The medical office was just off the entry hall, with one door leading to the side yard so that patients could come and go without disturbing the rest of the family, and another door leading to the guest room where surgical patients could stay over a night for observation, and it was there that John Henry would sometimes hide, leaving the door to the office open just a crack so that he could hear Uncle John’s conversations with his patients. A boy could learn a lot about life that way, he’d discovered through the years, overhearing everything from headache remedies to tooth pullings -- and sometimes far more private matters. He was eavesdropping, he knew, but he excused himself with the notion that he might someday follow his uncle into the professional field and would need all the knowledge he could glean.

  And so it was that on the morning following the funeral, as his father saw to packing up the spring wagon for their trip back home to Griffin and John Henry stole a few free moments listening near the medical office door, he overheard his uncle in intimate conversation with his mother—and wished that he hadn’t heard at all.

  “Alice Jane, my dear,” his Uncle John said in a voice surprisingly tender for a doctor’s office. “My dear, sweet sister-in-law . . .”

  “Please, John, don’t,” John Henry’s mother said, her own lovely voice full of emotion. “Don’t say anything just now. Henry mustn’t see I’ve been cryin’, or he’s sure to suspect somethin’. You must promise me.”

  “But he’s my own brother! I don’t know how long I can go on bein’ disloyal to him like this.”

  “He’ll find out soon enough, and we’ll deal with it then,” Alice Jane said. “And when the time comes, I’ll tell him myself, in my own way. You must promise me!”

  “If only he hadn’t come home just now, and sick as he’s been,” Uncle John said. “I do hate to burden him with the news of this . . .”

  “Then it must remain our secret, dear John. Now kiss me and wish me well, for I’ve a hard road ahead, it seems.”

  “You have such strength, my dear! All right, then. I’ll keep my silence awhile longer.”

  Then came a brief silence when
his uncle must have given his mother the asked for kiss. And sitting on the floor of the room next door, his head leaning against the doorframe, John Henry felt his heart slowly turn over inside of him. How could Uncle John be so despicable? And how could his perfect mother welcome his uncle’s advances? Oh, if only he hadn’t been listening at all . . .

  Then he heard his own name, and he had to keep on listening.

  “And what of the boy?” his uncle said. “What about John Henry?”

  “My darlin’ boy . . .” Alice Jane said on a sigh. “I suppose my little sisters will have to look after him. Margaret and Ella and Helena are livin’ with us now, you know, since our own father passed away. Until they’re married themselves, they can tend to him.”

  “He could come here. He’d have a good home here. My boys are like brothers to him already.”

  “No, dear John. His father would never let him go, you know that. But perhaps Henry will remarry, give my son a new mother . . .” Then she began to weep. “Oh, John! It’s leavin’ my little boy that makes this so hard! I don’t think I can bear it!”

  “Then we won’t talk of it anymore. God willin’, he’ll be grown before the time comes.”

  Then there was another long pause that might have been another embrace, and John Henry thought that he would never again hear anything as awful as that intimate silence. But there was more, and worse. For when his uncle spoke again, his voice cooler now, professional again, his words had nothing at all to do with any supposed faithlessness, and John Henry knew he had been rash in judging him.

  “You may have years yet, Alice Jane. Consumption is a long illness. And there are spontaneous remissions . . .”

  “Miracles, you mean? Then I’ll pray for a miracle. But you must remember that Henry’s not to know until I’m ready to tell him. It won’t help him recover from his battle sickness to be worryin’ about me. And he’ll need all his own strength, soon enough. So, brother to my husband or not, you must be my own doctor first and promise to keep my confidence. And if you do love me as a sister, as you say, you’ll honor my request, and not tell Henry that I have the consumption.”

  Consumption—John Henry mouthed the word in disbelief. He knew from other overheard diagnoses that consumption was always fatal. But worse than knowing that his mother was dying, was knowing and not being able to tell.

  The homeward road from Fayetteville to Griffin led through dense woods and across winding streams that often washed out the low wooden bridges, and there was always the possibility of some adventure along the way. Now and then a deer would leap out of the green darkness and cross the path before them, and Henry would grab at a loaded rifle and try for a quick shot, startling the stillness and leaving a smell of gunpowder in the air. And sometimes, John Henry would imagine that the deer was followed by the quick silent footfalls of Indians, their dark skins hiding them in the darker shadows of the trees. But that was just imagination, he knew, for the Indians who had walked the paths and followed the deer were gone now, driven out by the white men, though their names remained on the countryside: Chattahoochee, Etowa, Kennesaw, Oconee. He liked to let the words linger in his mind like an incantation, bringing the past back to life. And sometimes, he imagined it was Yankees in those shadowy woods, and his father’s shot had been lucky and found its mark in a blue-coat’s heart. The Yanks weren’t nearly as romantic as the Indians, but with the War still dragging on, they were a more likely foe.

  But on this long trip, he hadn’t the heart to watch for deer or worry about the Yanks. He was weighed down with the awful secret he had just discovered, and all he could think about was the fact that his mother was dying.

  “You’re quiet today, John Henry,” Alice Jane said, looking back to where he sat on a pallet of blankets in the wagon bed. “Aren’t you feelin’ well?”

  And it was all he could do to keep his emotions in check, looking back at her sitting beside his father on the board wagon bed. But he mustn’t let on what he had learned, so he shrugged his shoulders under the wool blanket that covered him, keeping him warm in the chilly November air, and said: “I’m fine, Ma.”

  “Probably just worn out from the visit,” his father said, and glanced at his wife. “You’re quiet today, too, Alice Jane. Somethin’ on your mind?”

  “Nothin’, dear,” she said, and John Henry believed it was the first time he had ever heard his mother tell a lie.

  “Then why aren’t you singin’?” Henry asked. “You’re usually like a lark on these trips. John Henry, has your mother ever told you she could have been an opera singer, if she hadn’t got married to me?”

  “Yes, Pa,” John Henry said, “she told me.”

  Alice Jane McKey’s lovely soprano voice was famous around Griffin, and folks said she could have been an opera diva, if she hadn’t married so young. But when handsome Lieutenant Henry Holliday had come calling, fresh from his service in the Mexican War, Alice Jane had fallen head-over-heels and forgotten about everything else. Within just a few months they were married, and by the end of their first year together Alice Jane was a mother. And though her little Martha Eleanora had lived only a few months, John Henry came along soon after, and Alice Jane had been a devoted mother ever since. She still sang some, though, for weddings and funerals and such, and gave piano lessons to neighbor children. All the McKeys were musical, from Aunt Ella and Aunt Margaret who played piano for Sunday services, to Uncle Tom McKey who had gone off to War as a musician in the Griffin Light Guards Band.

  “Well,” Henry said, “let’s hear a song. No point in havin’ a wife with a pretty voice if I can’t have some entertainment to help me drive.”

  And as Alice Jane obediently started into the strains of a hymn, John Henry thought he knew why she had chosen this particular one:

  “Abide with me, fast falls the eventide!

  The darkness deepens, lord with me abide!

  When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

  Help of the helpless, O abide with me!

  Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day.

  Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away.

  Change and decay in all around I see,

  O Thou, who changest not, abide with me . . .”

  Her voice broke on the words and she started to weep, and John Henry reached out to touch her shoulder as if he could comfort her pain.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, reaching a gloved hand to his. “I guess I’m still feelin’ poorly about Grandpa Bob’s passing.”

  “I know, Ma,” he said, and meant I know. “Pa? Is Uncle John really a good doctor? I mean, does he really know all that much about things?”

  “He knows more than most of these country doctors do, since he went to the medical college for his degree. Why do you ask?”

  And when he hesitated a moment too long in answering, his mother gave him a questioning look, and he had to turn his eyes away from hers.

  “Aw, you know I always liked to watch Uncle John work,” he said, which was true at least, though not really an answer to his father’s question. “In fact, I’ve been thinkin’ about bein’ a doctor myself one day. You know Uncle John let me help when he pulled Littleton Clark’s tooth last time we came to visit?”

  “Your mother mentioned somethin’ about that.”

  And with the subject safely changed away from his mother’s illness and his own ill-mannered eavesdropping, he went on more easily.

  “I was thinkin’ that maybe I could go over to Fayetteville next summer when school is out, spend some time in Uncle John’s office. I could assist him again and learn a whole lot . . .”

  “Not next summer, son,” Henry said. “Next summer we’ll be busy movin’.”

  “Movin’?” Alice Jane said in surprise. “Movin’ where? What are you talkin’ about, Henry?”

  “I’m talkin’ about gettin’ out of Griffin before the Yankees get here. You know Lincoln’s issued an Emancipation Proclamation, freein’ all the slaves in the rebel states? I fear
that once the emancipation takes effect come January, things are gonna get hot down here in Georgia, and I don’t want my family anywhere near it.”

  “But where will we go?” she asked, bewildered. “Everything we have is here; your family in Fayetteville, my family in Griffin. We have my sisters livin’ with us. What will they do? And our baby girl is buried in Griffin! We can’t leave her all alone . . .”

  “We’re goin’ down to south Georgia,” Henry stated, ignoring her protestations, “a little place called Valdosta, and your sisters will just have to come along. I hear the land down there is good for cotton.”

  “What land?” Alice Jane said, her voice growing desperate. “We don’t own any land down there! Please, Henry, surely you’re not serious about this . . .”

  But he was serious, and seemingly set upon his new plan.

  “We’ll have some land soon enough,” he replied, “once my father’s estate is settled. You know that place of his out by the Harp’s farm? Well, John’s neighbor, Colonel Dorsey, has made an offer on it, and a good one for these hard times. Once the sale’s done, my brothers and I will split the profit as our inheritance. There ought to be plenty to buy a place down in Valdosta, and some field darkies as well. You’ll see, Alice, it’ll be like a new life for us, and in a few years. . .”

  “In a few years . . .” she echoed, and John Henry expected to hear her start weeping again, thinking of how few years she might have to share her husband’s dream. But instead she smiled bravely and put her hand on Henry’s arm. “It sounds wonderful, my dear. You’ll have so much to do, so much to think about. Why, I believe we’ll love livin’ out in the country, won’t we John Henry? You’ve always wanted a horse of your own. Now maybe you can have one.”