“No,” came the reply. “Are you?”
Kiss the girls and give them much love from
Alice K. Bullock
November 7, 1864
Sister Lizzie,
No, no, no! Do not be tempted, but tell the boarder to leave at once. If you will not think of your reputation, consider the girls. You had not wrote before that James had withheld connection. Four months! Oh, Lizzie, how can you stand it? He is as mean a husband as ever was. I have gone without for near two years, but that is because Charlie is away, not because he turns his back on me. I think about me and Charlie romping in bed, of course, lots, but even more, I miss Charlie putting his arms around me and taking me on his lap and stroking my head. Lordy, I wish he was here. Perhaps you should ask James to take another walk down under the bridge.
Harve wrote about a strange coincidence, which I shall relate: He stopped at a Secesh house for a drink of water and learned the name of the owner was Osnun. “Why, I knew a man named Redman Osnun in Iowa,” He says. “Could he be your son?”
“The same,” replies the father.
“And what of him? Is he well?” Harve asked.
“You have killed him at Shiloh,” the old mother says, taking the corncob pipe from her mouth. Then she began to weep and scream and hit Harve with her tobacco bag. “A braver boy never lived, and you have killed him dead. You are a butcher.”
“No ma’am. I was not even a soldier when Shiloh was fought,” Harve protests.
“You have shot him,” the mother repeats, snatching up a wooden spoon and beating on Harve’s chest with it.
Gentleman that he is, Harve would not tell the old folks that their son was the greatest coward that ever lived, afraid of his own shadow, and if he was shot, it must have been in the back, for surely he was running away.
Now, listen to your
Sister Alice
P.S. Maybe James should come home one night and find you dressed naked except for your apron. I do not think he could resist that. Of course, you would have to send the girls out, make sure it was not the day for the iceman’s delivery, and get rid of the boarder.
November 9, 1864
Dear Lizzie,
I do not like to write such a gloomy letter as this one, especially since I have not wrote anything cheerful in the longest time. But what is there cheerful to write about? I ask you. If these are not hard times, I hope I never see them.
I had a dream two nights gone that will not leave me, and as I cannot talk of it with Mother Bullock, who disbelieves in such things, or Annie, who believes in them too much, I turn to you. Dear Sister, please help me make sense of it.
The nightmare was about Charlie. I dreamed of a dreadful smell and reached for a handkerchief to hold over my nose, but I hadn’t one and must make do with my hand. The smell grew stronger as I entered a room that was piled high with pieces of bodies—arms and legs and noses, and even heads—all discarded in a heap on the floor. “Why, these belong to you,” says a surgeon in a bloody apron, holding out two arms with hands attached. “These, too,” he adds, nodding at a pair of legs lying under a cot. I did not understand until I looked close at the body on top of the cot. It was Charlie, grinning at me. He wore nothing but a shirt, the sleeves rolled up so that I could see he had no arms at all. And his legs were stumps no longer than an ear of corn. Beside him was a bloody saw, and I knew it had been used to cut off the limbs, for I have recently heard just how it is done. A surgeon cuts through the flesh and muscle with a knife, leaving only a flap of skin. Then with a few quick movements of a saw, he slices through the bone. The artery is tied, then the flap of skin sewn over the stump.
“You see, I used a herringbone stitch,” says the doctor, right proud of his work. “Gold thread, too, and I embroidered my name on the stump.”
“I wish I could see that, but they got my eyes,” Charlie says, turning his bloody face to me. His eyes were dull and cloudy, like bad pearls.
The surgeon held out the arms to me again. “You going to take them for a souvenir? It you don’t want them, I’ll throw them away with the others.” He lifted his chin to indicate the heap of amputed parts of soldiers’ bodies. “No one will buy them, so we feed them to the pigs. They’re first-rate for fattening hogs.”
At that, I woke up and lay in bed the rest of the night, shaking and crying. Most dreams are nonsense after you have gotten up and lit the candle, but this one was as real as if I had experienced the event myself, and I have not got it out of my head. Now I am afraid to go to sleep for fear the dream will come back. Lizzie, I never thought hard about Charlie being maimed like that. I knew he might be killed, or maybe wounded a little and have to sit with a stiff leg stuck straight out. When I saw Sartis without a hand that time in Slatyfork, I thought Charlie might even come home with a little piece of him torn away. Then I’d have to help him cut his meat. I even thought it would be romantic if he came back with a long scar that would grow white and puckered over time. But I never thought he might return without both legs or arms or his face shot away.
I don’t know what caused me to dream such a terrible thing. Perhaps it is my own wickedness, for there is evil in me you do not know about. Or it might have been watching a group of boys play amputee in Slatyfork. One hopped around with a leg tied up behind him. Another had his arm inside his shirt. A third little boy had tied a handkerchief over his eyes and was being led about by a chum, who stopped me and begged money for “the brave soldier boy.” Two girls in aprons stood over another lad lying on the ground with a bandage on top of his head. All three cried that he would surely die by dark.
But, Lizzie, what if something else caused the dream? Is it a presentiment? I stopped this letter just now to get out the dream book I bought at the Soldiers Relief Fair. It says that to dream of both arms being cut off means captivity and sickness. Charlie is already captured. Does this mean he has taken sick? I should warn him to be careful, but how do I do that? For the guards read the letters sent to prisoners and would throw away one that sounded so foolish.
The dream frightened me too much to go back to sleep, so after I stopped crying, I went into the big room, where I found Annie sitting in Mother Bullock’s rocking chair, her hands clasped. “Oh,” I says, “it’s not a good night for sleeping.”
“I peeped in on the old lady, but it ain’t her. I sneaked a look at Piecake, too, whilst you was tumbling around in bed,” Annie says, rocking back and forth, shaking her head. “It ain’t fair if it’s Joybell. Oh, I been asking the Lord, please, sir, not Joybell.”
At first, I thought Annie had had the same dream, but that was impossible. “What are you saying?”
Annie shook her head, looking down at her hands. “You seen it, too, last night, and didn’t remark on it neither, thinking I wouldn’t know. But I did, and I didn’t sleep. You neither, from the way you was thrashing about.”
I sat down in a straight chair and drew my nightdress around me and shivered, for Annie had not made a fire.
“I thought for sure it would be the old lady, but she breathes good,” Annie muttered.
“I don’t understand, Annie.”
“The hawk. It flew direct over the house, and as if that ain’t enough, it turned and flew back again, to make sure. It was calling a corpse. A hawk over the house is as sure a sign of death as ever was. Everybody knows it.”
“Oh, that’s—” I started to tell her I didn’t believe in such things, but maybe I do and don’t know it. If I am so bothered by my dream of Charlie that I ask your help in its meaning, how can I disbelieve Annie’s superstitions?
Then Annie stopped her rocking and looked straight at me, her eyes wide. “It’s me, ain’t it? It’s punishment. Oh Lordy!” She began to cry softly, and I put my arms around her, but she wouldn’t be soothed, and I went back to my own chair.
That afternoon, Nealie stopped on her way back from town with our mail. I was gripped with fear that there would be a letter telling Charlie was dead. But there was only a letter f
rom Harve, and it added to my gloomy mood, for he was out of sorts when he wrote it. It seems Harve is sick of war and expects to come home when his enlistment is up. He asks if I will give him a chicken dinner and a cherry pie, for all he can buy is mule meat and tomcat wienerwurst. He bought a dish of “squirrel stew” from a woman, which he thought tasty enough until he had finished it and she told him it was made of rats. The Southern women are that hard up for food. One mother served her children “Poll Parrot soup,” made from the family pet.
Mother Bullock does not leave her bed much, and I do not think her days will be many in this world. I have been to town once for more pills, but we are out of money now, and I do not know what I shall do when this supply runs out. I think the end is near. I don’t know what I would do without Annie, for I would be alone in this house with a dying woman and a baby. And perhaps we will not have the house for long at that; I have begun to think about the debts Mr. Huff talked of. Mother Bullock has said no more about them, but I think Mr. Huff intends to take advantage of our situation when she is gone. Who would take my side and defend me? I could lose the farm, and Charlie would have no place to come home to. Well, I suppose I should take comfort in knowing some have it worse. I could be Mrs. Kittie, set to marry a scoundrel. Can you imagine a wedding night with the gangly-legged, needle-nosed Mr. Howard? Or with Mrs. Kittie, for that matter? I am glad I did not dream about that!
Lizzie, I am sorry to burden you with my foolishness. I never put stock in a dream before, but I am in fits over this one. I would be grateful if you would give the subject some thought and write your opinion. Please tell me I have got anxious over nothing.
Nealie says she will come to us next week.
I hope your little home is cheerier than mine. I put my faith in the the songwriter who says, “Good times are a-coming.” I wish he had said when I could expect them.
Give my love to the girls,
and write that things with you are improving.
Alice Bullock
November 20, 1864
My dear Lizzie,
I am glad my little plan did the trick with James. Oh, I wish I could have seen the look on his face when he walked through the kitchen door and found you dressed—or undressed, I should say—exactly like Mother Eve. Of course I understand you are too private to put the details on paper, but I expect a full accounting when I see you. I know James is not worthy of you, but little did I know he thought you believed so, too, and did not want connection with him. I am glad he has got over that misunderstanding.
I think you had not yet got my letter about the dream when you wrote. It is still vivid. I put it aside during the day, but thoughts always turn darker at night, and I dwell on it then. I asked Nealie if she attached importance to dreams. She has come to stay with us and shares my bed, and last night, she called out, “Sam.” But when I asked her about the dream the next day, she said she did not recall it and was sure I had misheard her. I am determined to consult a phrenologist next time one is in Slatyfork.
That argus-eyed sheriff has called twice more, each time asking me the same questions, trying to confuse me, but Nealie and Annie refuse to leave my side when he is here, and if I falter, one or the other jumps in with an answer. There is not a single doubt that he and the others at Slatyfork have made up their minds I killed Mr. Samuel Smead. When I went to Slatyfork to get Mother Bullock’s pills, I stopped at the post office, but as soon as I entered, everyone else left. The message was as clear as if they had pelted me with rotten eggs. “I must have scarlet fever,” I say to the postmaster.
“Or a good ax,” he replies sourly. I would have given him Hail Columbia but knew it would hurt my reputation even worse, if that is possible. These days, I send Annie to the mercantile so that I do not have to face Mr. Huff. We pay cash or do without. We will not ask for credit, knowing the request would cause much smirking and would not be extended anyway.
Mrs. Middleton, who calls every few days with a tea she brews for Mother Bullock, says I ought not to worry about what others think. “I know you would not hurt a person, for I see how kindly you have always been to Mrs. Bullock, and her to you,” she says. Well, that is not much reassurance, for Mother Bullock and I have never been kindly to each other, and if my innocence is based on that presumption, I shall be found guilty indeed.
I pick up my pen again, after doing chores. The wind was rackety, and the sky heavy, the dull color of pewter, and it weighed me down. Still, the chill felt good, since we keep a too-hot fire burning in the house for Mother Bullock, who is always cold. The cold weather refreshes me, and I am so near wild, I think one more drop of trouble would upset my reason. So after doing chores, I walked deep into the woods, and for a moment, I thought about walking on and on and never returning to that dark house. I pretended I was walking to Pikes Peak, where the cool snow never melts, for I have thought that when Charlie comes home, we could sell the farm and go a-westering, maybe even find Billy. But since I couldn’t leave just then, I spread my shawl over a pile of golden leaves and lay down. I intended to rest only a moment but went to sleep, and when I awoke, I was covered by a thin blanket of snow. Lizzie, as I lay there, not sure for a second or three where I was, I thought I might return to sleep—the sleep that never wakes. Perhaps mine was the corpse the hawk called. But I knew I could not face Charlie in the hereafter if I did not go back and accept the burden that had been placed on me. So I folded the shawl, then gathered a handful of crimson leaves from under a maple tree. When I returned, no one had missed me, so none know I had almost succumbed to a near-fatal attack of self-pity. I spread the leaves on the bureau beside Mother Bullock’s bed. “Look, they are the soft color of a faded turkey red quilt,” I tell her.
She turned her head and studied the leaves. “Or of blood.”
Oh, I have forgot to tell you. Mrs. Kittie did indeed marry Mr. Howard—and no fresh strawberries were served. I was not in attendance, of course, but Nealie was, and she said that in her low-cut dress, which fitted her like paper on a wall, Mrs. Kittie looked sort of whorish, although not enough to hurt. So much flesh has not been seen in Slatyfork since Independence Day, when pigs were roasted on a spit near the bandstand. She believes Mrs. Kittie is being roasted, too. Mr. Howard announced all bills for the party were to be sent to him, for he had taken charge of his wife’s accounts. The couple embarked for Hannibal on a wedding trip. Oh, Lizzie, just now I laughed out loud, thinking about Mr. Howard claiming his marriage privilege in bed—or perhaps it is Mrs. Kittie who will claim it. I knew I should find some reason to be glad I am yet alive.
With love,
Alice Bullock
November 22, 1864
Dear Sister,
The dollar arrived not five minutes ago, when I picked up the mail and did not wait, but opened your letter. Right grateful am I for your kindness. I know you have much need of it and that you sent the coin at sacrifice to yourself. I would return it if I were not so desperate, for Mother Bullock needs pills bad. Nealie said she would pay us, but perhaps she has forgot, and I could not ask her for the money for fear she would think our hospitality is for sale. So I sit here at the post office to write you a prompt reply before searching for the doctor to purchase the medicine. The no-account old doctor has left us, but a new one is setting up in Slatyfork. He is a veteran with one arm, and the question in town is whether he should be paid only half the regular fee.
Your advice on the dream is greatly appreciated. I had not thought that believing a dream is giving power to the devil. Perhaps now I can get that awful night out of my head.
With love to the best sister anybody ever had,
Alice K. Bullock
November 23, 1864
Dear Lizzie,
I had barely reached our front gate yesterday when Nealie threw open the door of the house and called to me to hurry. “She’s asked for you every minute. We thought you’d never get here.” Nealie all but pulled me through the doorway, then pushed me toward Mother Bullock’s room.
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br /> Expecting the end was near, I did not even take off my shawl, but rushed to the bed and looked down at Mother Bullock, but she was still plenty alive. “I have brought your pills,” I says, brushing snow off me onto the floor, for a storm had begun as I was walking home. “There’s a new doctor in Slatyfork, who has a rolling chair he will lend us so we can push you about the house—and outside when spring comes.”
“You know I won’t be here when spring comes.”
“He gave me laudanum to mix with warm water, which he claims is better for your pain than any other remedy. He was an army surgeon and learned a great deal from treating the soldiers.”
“I have not got a battle wound.” Mother Bullock’s face was bloodless, but her lips were cracked and smeared with red, for she bites them over and over.
“Well, he is cheaper, then,” I says, knowing if nothing else would please her, the savings would. “This medicine cost only a quarter-dollar.” I took off my mittens to untie the string holding the package together. But my hands were cold, and as I fumbled with the knot, I wondered how a one-armed man could tie anything so tight. I couldn’t get the string undone, so I called to Annie, asking her to untie it.
She came into the room with Nealie and took the bundle, picking at the knot. Mother Bullock paid no attention to either one of them, but spoke to me. “Forget medicine. I am passing away.”
“No,” Nealie cries, but Mother Bullock waved a hand impatiently. The old woman hadn’t given in to sentiment before, and she would not at the end. “Alice, I want you should fetch someone.”
“Mr. Doctor,” Annie says. Mother Bullock gave a single shake of her head.
“The preacher?” Nealie asks.
Mother Bullock snorted. “What good’s a preacher, since I fear that God’s killed, too, in this war. And I would not care to see Sister Darnell, either. She was bother enough in life to me. I don’t want her on a deathwatch. Alice, I want you to bring Josiah Couch.”
Alice's Tulips: A Novel Page 20