The Yankee Widow

by Linda Lael Miller

  When Rachel could no longer keep her eyes open, Caroline carried the child upstairs to her bed, undressed her, then helped her into a nightgown and tucked her in.

  “I have questions,” Rachel said sleepily.

  Caroline, seated on the edge of the bed, bent to kiss Rachel’s forehead. “I will answer them,” she promised. “Every one.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  Caroline had smiled. “Tomorrow,” she replied. “And the day after, too.”

  Rachel considered the question before giving her answer. “I suppose,” she said, with a huge yawn.

  “Good,” Caroline responded.

  “Don’t forget.” Rachel’s voice was small and sleepy.

  Rising, Caroline asked, “Shall I leave the door open a little way?”

  At Rachel’s barely audible “yes, please,” she crept out.

  * * *

  Downstairs, Caroline had taken up her post in the parlor again, determined to keep her Jacob company one last night.

  When the final guests had gone, only Caroline and Enoch remained, and the silence between them, though thick with sorrow, was soothing.

  Hours later, Caroline woke to a pinkish-gold sunrise, still seated in the rocking chair. The lanterns and candles had long since been extinguished, and she was alone with Jacob.

  She rose stiffly, went to stand beside him. She smoothed his hair, stroked his bristly beard, and said her final goodbye.

  Then she gently lowered the hinged lid and left the room.

  * * *

  “Will Papa go into the ground?” Rachel asked, gripping Caroline’s hand very tightly as they stood together in the small grassy cemetery well beyond the orchards, watching as Enoch and the two Bellows boys assisting him carried Jacob’s coffin from the wagon bed.

  Caroline crouched so she could look directly into her daughter’s face instead of looming above her. “Yes, sweetheart,” she replied softly.

  “Won’t he be scared?” Rachel fretted. The poor child was exhausted.

  Caroline tried to smile. “No,” she said. “You see, the part of him that was your papa, his spirit and soul, is gone.”

  Rachel brightened a little, although she was still pale, much in need of a long nap. “Is he in heaven?”

  “I think so,” Caroline said, her eyes scalding. Then, with more certainty, she added, “Yes.”

  “Will Papa come back and visit us sometime?”

  Caroline’s throat closed for a moment, making it impossible to speak. She shook her head and said, “No, honey. I’m afraid not.”

  “Oh,” Rachel said, with the resigned disappointment of a child. She was pensive, watching as Enoch, assisted by Harvey and Jonathan Bellows, placed ropes beneath the coffin and lowered it slowly into the loamy earth.

  Caroline stood very still, holding her daughter close against her side.

  Rachel looked solemnly up at her. “I still have questions,” she said sagely.

  Caroline could only nod.

  They were silent after that. The Bellows boys said their farewells, mounted their mules, tethered nearby, and took their leave.

  Enoch took up his shovel and plunged it hard into the heap of dirt beside the grave. The sound of that first rocky clump striking the lid of Jacob’s coffin made Caroline squeeze her eyes shut. When she opened them, she saw that Enoch, the most stoic of men, wept as he worked to fill in the grave.

  There were prayers, hers and Enoch’s.

  When she could bear no more of standing still, Caroline clasped Rachel’s small hand and led her back toward the house, a quarter of a mile distant.

  Enoch stayed behind.

  Once she and Rachel were home again, and Rachel was playing quietly in her room with her favorite doll, Caroline proceeded to the bedroom that was now hers alone and exchanged her heavy black funeral dress for a serviceable calico. She filled the basin with water from its matching pitcher and splashed her face, then took down her hair, brushed it thoroughly, and pinned it up again, in the loose chignon she usually wore.

  “Mama?”

  Caroline turned to see Rachel standing in the doorway, her beloved doll, a gift from her papa, dangling from one small hand, resembling a figure clinging to the edge of a high cliff.

  “What is it, sweetheart?”

  The little face was solemn. “I heard a noise.”

  Caroline crossed to the child, lifted her into her arms. “What kind of noise?” she asked. As her grandparents had done, raising her, Caroline avoided any note of condescension when she addressed her daughter, and she made a practice of listening as closely as she would to an adult.

  Now she heard the noise, too, a shuffling at the back door. Then it opened—and Enoch appeared, a woman-child in a ragged dress standing beside him. They came inside, with Enoch supporting her, then decisively shutting the door.

  For a moment Caroline was speechless.

  “Who are you?” she asked, but she looked at Enoch. The girl’s presence, of course, was Enoch’s doing.

  Enoch quickly explained that Jubie was a runaway whom he had rescued by the river right before he met Caroline at the station. He had not wanted to trouble Caroline in her grief, so he had let the girl stay in his cabin to keep her safe from any slave catchers on her trail.

  “My name is Jubie,” the girl said politely. She squirmed uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, Missus, but may I use the privy,” she said.

  “I’ll show you the way,” Rachel volunteered, cheerful. She was staring at the girl, fascinated.

  Caroline said to her daughter, “You will do nothing of the sort.” Then to Jubie, she said, “Follow me, please, Jubie.”

  “Yes, Missus,” Jubie replied.

  Reluctant to let the girl venture outside in broad daylight, Caroline nonetheless led her along the narrow hallway at the back of the house and through the door, toward the distant privy. It was some comfort that they could not be seen from the road, but they were surrounded by open fields, broken only by the expanse of the fruit orchard.

  Rachel, true to form, had not stayed inside the house, as she’d been told. “Mama,” she whispered loudly, “who is that young lady?”

  “Never you mind who she is,” Caroline said. “We’ll discuss this later.” A pause. “You must not mention her to anyone. Do you understand?”

  Rachel nodded, her little face bright with innocent curiosity.

  “Mama, you promised I could ask questions.”

  “Tomorrow. That was our agreement.”

  “There’s a baby inside that lady’s tummy,” Rachel remarked. “When it gets born, can I hold it?”

  “May I hold it,” Caroline corrected automatically.

  Rachel waited.

  “We’ll see,” she answered belatedly. “Jubie may not be here when her baby comes.”

  “But if—”

  “Rachel Louise Hammond.”

  This time, it was Rachel who sighed.

  Jubie emerged from the privy.

  “There’s a place to wash up,” Caroline told her, indicating the hand pump near the rear entrance to the house. “Then I’ll bring you something to eat.”

  Rachel ran ahead to the pump, although she was still too small to work the handle. She was delighted by Jubie, with all her mystery, and eager to be helpful.

  Caroline filled the enamel basin kept on hand for the purpose. She smiled, remembering the patience Jacob had shown when she’d first come to the farm, a new bride, used to living in comparative luxury in her grandparents’ brick house. Since the task of drawing water, both for the household and the vegetable garden, would fall mainly to her, he’d taken pains with his instructions for how to use the pump. “You’ll want to alternate between your right arm and your left. That way, one will be as strong as the other,” he’d told her.

  She blinked, looked away for a few momen
ts. It was bittersweet, this remembering, and she knew it would be with her always, although she hoped the pain would lessen with time.

  Jubie broke into her thoughts with a quiet, “I’m real sorry ’bout your man, Missus. It’s a mighty burden to bear.”

  Caroline swallowed, nodded. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Now, let’s get you back into the house.”

  For the next hour, Rachel tagging after her, fairly pulsing with unasked questions, Caroline busied herself seeing to Jubie’s needs. She brought a plate of cold ham and boiled greens from the kitchen house, along with a glass of milk, and gave them to the girl, who ate and drank with touching eagerness.

  After that, she selected a plain cotton dress, underthings and a pair of shoes from her own wardrobe, and offered them to Jubie. Although Caroline was slight herself, standing only five feet one inch tall, the garments would hang on the girl’s scrawny frame, even with her obvious and fairly advanced pregnancy.

  “Thank you for your kindness, Miss Caroline,” Jubie murmured, wide-eyed, when Caroline brought them to her. She arranged for the girl to sleep in the back room where Enoch had slept before moving into the old cabin beyond the orchard. “I...I can’t take these.”

  “Of course you can,” Caroline replied kindly. “Besides, they’re nothing fancy.”

  When Enoch returned to the house, he was wearing clean clothes, and his coarse, close-cropped hair was still damp from washing.

  Rachel was upstairs by then, taking a much-needed nap, and Jubie was resting on the narrow bed in the back room, having taken a sponge bath and slipped into one of Caroline’s nightgowns.

  “Sorry I didn’t get a chance to tell you about Jubie before, Missus, what with seein’ to Jacob.” Enoch said, finding Caroline seated in the parlor, reading.

  “I understand, Enoch.”

  “As you know, many a slave has been hidden on this farm. It’s been the Hammond way, right along,” Enoch said.

  Caroline nodded, thinking about several such fugitives whom they had sheltered on their way North since she and Jacob were married. She’d never mentioned the secret room, even to her grandparents, even though both of whom had been abolitionists, and had most likely harbored escaped slaves themselves.

  A long charged silence fell, reverberating through the room like a series of silent echoes, before Enoch went on. “I killed a man, Missus,” he said. “I didn’t intend to, but there was nothing else I could’ve done, under the circumstances.”

  Caroline’s entire body hummed with alarm, but she didn’t speak. Enoch was an educated man, taught by Jacob’s mother. She trusted his words.

  Slowly, he relayed the entire story, finishing with, “I buried him at the far end of that field we left fallow this year, with his belongings. Problem is, his horse won’t stay gone, no matter how many times I run the critter off. He’s out there in the barn right now, and I reckon there are some might recognize him.”

  “Dear Lord,” Caroline murmured.

  “It’s a serious thing, killing a man,” Enoch allowed miserably. “‘Especially when a black man killed somebody white. I don’t want to bring any trouble to this household. You tell me to move on, and I’ll do it, Missus.”

  Caroline rocked for a while, thinking, saying nothing. She would never blame Enoch for what he’d done; she was sure he’d saved Jubie’s life.

  Finally, she said, “We will just have to take things as they come.” She kept her voice down, in case Rachel had awakened from her nap and crept down the stairs to listen. “Without your help, I couldn’t possibly keep this farm going, and Rachel and I rely on your protection, now that Jacob is gone.”

  Caroline continued, “We are in a most dire situation, you and I. For all that, however, we are also in the midst of a war, one we may very well be caught up in all too soon, if the rumors can be believed.”

  Enoch absorbed her words, then asked, “What about the horse. The one the slave catcher was riding. The man I drowned yonder, in the creek.”

  “Well, with luck, the first army to reach us will confiscate him. In that event, of course, the horse will be a minor concern, at best.”

  Enoch shook his head, as though marveling. “Aren’t you afraid, Missus Caroline?”

  “Naturally, I’m afraid,” Caroline said calmly. “In fact, I’m concerned for all of us.”

  “Then why don’t you take Rachel and high-tail it for safer territory?”

  “This land is all I have, Enoch, all any of us has. Generations of Jacob’s people—Rachel’s people—have lived and worked and died here. They have endured every kind of hardship in order to preserve these acres for their children and their children’s children. How can I do anything less?”

  “Beg pardon, Missus,” Enoch said, “but with two armies on the move, it’s a fair bet they’re going to collide sometime soon. If they happen to meet up anywhere close to here, there’s bound to be a fight bigger than anything your husband’s ancestors ever had to deal with. Bigger than you and I can even imagine.”

  Sounding far braver than she was, Caroline said, “Something else might happen—one or both armies might change direction and miss Gettysburg entirely.”

  “Forgive me for saying so, Missus, but you are one obstinate woman. I can’t say I agree with your logic.” Enoch straightened. “That little girl of yours? What’s to become of her if Lee’s army turns up at our doorstep?”

  Caroline looked away, then looked back at Enoch, rising slowly from her chair. She had given the matter a great deal of thought, gone back and forth between one option and another, for months. “My daughter is, and will always be, my first consideration,” she said. “I will do whatever I must to keep Rachel safe and well.”

  “Except take her far from this farm until the danger is past?” Enoch ventured, very quietly. He knew he was overstepping his bounds, but he pressed on anyway. “Lots of folks have already packed up and left,” he reminded her, “and there are more taking to the roads every day. I heard from Ed Bellows that one of his neighbors, a carriage maker, is planning to leave with his family tomorrow. If you won’t take Miss Rachel away yourself, then send her with someone else.”

  “You know as well as I do, my daughter is only four years old, Enoch,” she said. “And who is to say she would be safer anywhere else? Suppose she’s lost, or falls ill, or winds up in an orphans’ home somewhere? We might never see each other again. And she’s all I have left of Jacob.”

  Enoch sighed. “Then why not place her in your grandmother’s care, send them both to relatives in Philadelphia or even Baltimore?”

  “You know my grandmother would never leave here,” Caroline replied, having already considered the possibility.

  At last, Enoch recognized the truth of Caroline’s words. His suggestion that Caroline take Rachel and go North to safety were futile.

  Caroline also knew his concern was genuine. He was, with Jacob and her grandfather both gone, her only protector. She liked and respected Enoch, and she trusted his judgment, too, but she was Rachel’s mother, her only living parent, and the responsibility for her child’s well-being was hers and hers alone. Now, having weighed one set of dangers against another, repeatedly and in all possible depth, mentally debating the question from every conceivable side, and getting nowhere with the endeavor, she had no choice but to listen to the always-reliable voice inside her: her intuition.

  “My grandmother has agreed to join us here on the farm. Will you please hitch up the wagon and drive into town to fetch her and her belongings? She promised to be ready by nightfall.”

  “I’ll do that,” Enoch said.

  5

  Hammond Farm

  June 20, 1863

  Jubie

  “Can I stay in my bedroom?” Jubie asked plaintively, when Enoch informed her of Mrs. Prescott’s imminent arrival. They were at supper in the kitchen house, eating by the dim glow of
a single lantern. “Or will Missus Prescott be needing that?”

  Caroline didn’t tell her about the secret room under the floor—and why Jubie might eventually need to hide there. Geneva had her own room here at the farm, but Caroline wasn’t planning to discuss household arrangements just now.

  “Yes, you may,” she said vaguely.

  The rest of the meal passed in silence. Jubie ate her cornbread and beans with undisguised eagerness, followed by the peach preserves intended for dessert.

  When they’d finished, Enoch left the kitchen house to harness the mules to the wagon again, while Caroline filled two washbasins from the kettle of hot water steaming on the cookstove. Jubie simultaneously cleared the table and cajoled Rachel to eat just one more bite, then another.

  “I can help you around the house, Missus,” Jubie said earnestly. “I know I can’t go outside in the daylight, but I can clean and look after Miss Rachel when you’re busy with other things. That’s what I did before—took care of the mistress’s house and the children.”

  “Thank you for the offer, Jubie,” Caroline said, “but the most important thing is that you stay safe. You don’t have to keep to your room all the time, as long as it’s just the family here. But as much as possible it would be wise not to leave the main house.”

  “You go on and see to Miss Rachel now,” Jubie urged. “This day was a sad one, all right.”

  “Yes, it was.” Caroline studied the young woman beside her. Jubie was practically swallowed by her borrowed dress, and she seemed ready to give up on the too-big shoes Caroline had lent her.

  Caroline had a great many questions she wanted to ask about the life Jubie was fleeing, not the least of which concerned her pregnancy and when she might give birth, but now did not seem to be the time.

  Perhaps, like the previous runaway slaves the Hammonds had sheltered over the years, Jubie would be spirited away soon by another member of the secret network of antislavery volunteers who served as single links in a long chain of rescuers, careful to remain strangers even to each other.