Alice's Tulips: A Novel

by Dallas, Sandra

  “Oh, lady.” Annie put her face into her hands and shook her head back and forth, but she did not weep.

  “What is it?”

  “You know what it is. I kilt that terrible bad man is what.”

  Her words were so muffled, I wasn’t sure I had heard her right. “You what?”

  “That Mr. Smead devil, the one that done everybody so much bad. I kilt him. I swan! I can’t marry Mr. Stout with blood on my hands.”

  I drew a deep breath and put my head down to keep from growing faint while I tried to make sense of her words. “Mother Bullock said she killed him.”

  Annie sniffed. “Wind stuff, that was. She said it ’cause she thought you done it.”

  We were still for a moment. The stars were polka dots in the blue-black sky. One dot streaked across the darkness, and I crossed myself, making an X on my chest. “Why did you do it? Was he after you?”

  “Joybell. He was messing with her. He catched her in the barn when me and the old missus was in the field and you in town. He did first one thing and then another.” Annie clenched her fists, and the skin on her face grew tight. “He been a-waitin’ a long time, and watching her from far off, like the day we swimmed. He come gassin’ and bio win’ to the house by the creek. That’s how we chanced to move in here. There weren’t no snake. I warned him off, but evil was in his blood so bad, he couldn’t stop himself, and he said he’d come back and likewise. That morning, I come in from the field ’cause the hoe broke, and I heard Joybell crying, and I picked up the big hay knife from the stack, and I run for the barn. Joybell was all tremblish. Her dress was pult up, and Mr. Smead had her legs spread out, and he was having his way with her. I got there too late for that. I said I’d kill him, but he just laughed and told me I wouldn’t be able to kill him any more than you done, and you’d had you an ax. Said he’d forced you just like he’d done Joybell, and now it was my turn. I hit him on the head with the hay knife. Hit him and hit him, and when he didn’t move no more, I told Joybell to wash herself in the horse trough and hide in the haystack. I loaded him on that old cart and hauled him out to the woods. Joybell’s fretted herself sick ever since, but lady, I can’t have did nothing else.”

  Annie turned to me with such anguish on her face that I put my arms around her and we both cried. Oh, Lizzie, I could not tell even you what happened that day in the woods, but now that Annie has said it aloud, I will admit to you that Mr. Smead threw me on the sharp rocks of the path and ravished me, pressing me into the stones until my skin was torn in a dozen places. At the critical moment, I could not bring the ax down on his head. When he was done with me, he sneered and said he no longer cared to marry me. Then he spit on me and went off, leaving me bruised and bloody in the path. I could not bear to touch the ax again, so left it behind. I know you have wondered about the details of what transpired but knew my anguish and did not press me. Well, there is the truth of it.

  “I ask forgiving,” Annie said simply, looking down at her hands. “I let them suspicion you ’cause if they’d’ve known it was me, they’d’ve hanged me for sure. If it come down to hanging you, I wouldn’t’ve keeped it a secret.” She nodded her head up and down, then from side to side. “Still, it weren’t right, letting folks think you done a wicked thing, when it was me.”

  “If Joybell was mine, I would have done the same,” I says.

  “You would?”

  I squeezed her hand. “Yes.”

  “What shall Annie do now, lady?” she asks. “Annie’s flurried.”

  I shifted so that I could rub my bad foot, which had begun to torment me. Both Annie and I go barefoot most of the time. “Do you want to tell Harve?”

  “Oh Lordy, lady, no, but it ain’t right, keeping it from a husband.”

  “I’d say anything that happened before you met Harve is none of his business. You don’t expect him to tell you everything, do you?”

  Annie shook her head.

  “You will do a disservice to all of us if you do. Piecake won’t have a mother, and you’d betray Mother Bullock. She knew you’d done it. How else would she have known about the cart?”

  “She lied for me?”

  “It was her deathbed gift, and it’s poor pay indeed to call her a liar.”

  Annie looked awed. “Nobody ever done such for me before.”

  “It’s women’s lies, Annie. There are things women have to keep to themselves.” I tried to get up but couldn’t, so Annie stood and took my arm, pulling me up. “Here is what you will do,” I tell her, looking her full in the face. “You killed a bad man, and maybe you saved some lives in the doing of it. You did a good thing, as did Mother Bullock in taking the blame. So be right in your mind about it. Don’t tell the sheriff, and don’t tell Harve. If you have the need to talk about it, come to me.”

  Annie thought that over for a long time. Then she says, “If you need to talk, you can come to me, too.”

  We clasped each other’s hands without speaking. Then Annie went inside, and I hobbled over to Mother Bullock’s garden and looked at the tulips. The petals had flattened out on the stems, and a few had fallen off. I picked up four or three petals and scattered them across Mother Bullock’s grave. “You wouldn’t have done that for Annie,” I says. “You thought I killed him. You died with the lie on your mouth for me.”

  Your humble sister,

  Alice Bullock

  May 1, 1865

  Dear Lizzie,

  The mice have gotten into the trunk and had their way with my two good dresses. Now they are fit only for quilt pieces. It is asking a great deal, but I would be greatly pleased if you would loan Annie your silk dress that is the color of grapes for her wedding. It would look almost as good on her as you. I have not mentioned it to her, so if you say no, there is no harm done, but I think you grew fond of her when you were here and know that to be married in such a beautiful gown would be a dream come true for Annie. She has never worn anything but cotton and osnaburg.

  They will be married after harvest, and while it began as a marriage of convenience, from present appearances, they are very much in love. They want to stay on at Bramble Farm. In fact, Harve asked if it might be for sale, as Charlie talked about going out west after the war. I think Harve has made up his mind that Charlie is done for.

  Union soldiers come down Egg and Butter Road all the time now. Many farmers send them on their way, for they are ragged and carry guns and have “toad stabbers” on their belts, but we feed any that turn in at our gate, several each day. “Maybe some woman somewhere is feeding Charlie,” I explain to Harve, but he says we should feed them no matter what, for they have kept the Union together. Mrs. Kittie warns us to be careful of freebooters, but I think they are only poor soldier boys, and I never see one coming but that I don’t look close to see if he is Charlie. Oh, Lizzie, what if Charlie has changed so much that I won’t recognize him?

  I have but little time for writing this morning. I hear Harve’s team, and I must hurry to finish this letter, which Harve will post this evening. Lizzie, tell James to stay home! Doesn’t he know that every jobless Union soldier will turn to General Grant for help, and the general will place them above a man whose only connection to him is that they once passed on the street?

  The news is so bad, I can but sit here and cry. Harve met a man in Slatyfork with a Keokuk newspaper that has the story. Doubtless you have heard it. The Sultana blew up, killing hundreds of our soldiers who had been released from Andersonville and were on their way home. The boat was fitted up for four or three hundred passengers, but two thousand or more soldiers crowded onto it at Vicksburg. The explosion took place above Memphis, with the Mississippi at flood, so most of the passengers are drowned. The paper says not one in four survived. Oh, Lizzie, to think that those poor boys survived a Confederate prison, only to die on their way home. Many of the bodies were mere skeletons of men. Some of the drowned were missing an arm or leg, so it was little wonder they could not swim in the swift waters. There were no names of the d
ead in the paper, and it is reported that the government itself may not know who was on the boat. Lizzie, I have believed all along that Charlie would come back, but now I have lost faith. Nobody could live through all this.

  In despair,

  Alice Bullock

  May 4, 1865

  Dear Lizzie,

  I feel rather dull this morning, as I have not slept since the news of the Sultana. Harve says not to give up, for Charlie has got himself out of many a bad scrape before. Besides, says Harve, we do not even know if Charlie was on the boat. But Harve gave up on Charlie even before the Sultana. I won’t don the widow’s weeds yet, but to hope Charlie is alive, I can’t. Mother Bullock said she feared Charlie would be buried in an unmarked grave on the battlefield. Well, I think he will lie in a watery grave in the Mississippi, and that is worse, for he did not die for our country, but for the greed of the war profiteers. Charlie could not swim, so I think he had no chance at all. A few minutes ago, a soldier came down the road, but my heart no longer leapt in hopes he was Charlie. Poor man, he looked as old as God’s old dog, and grateful was he for a meal of bread and beans and a cup of buttermilk.

  “Are you wounded?” I asks.

  “They hurt me in my arse, and I can’t hardly ever sit down anymore,” he replies, “begging your pardon, ma’am.”

  Nealie has called on me twice since we received news of the Sultana. She takes my mind off Charlie for a few minutes, but I wish you were here to put your arms around me, since only you understand how much I love him. Annie asked if she should tell Nealie about Mr. Samuel Smead’s death, but I say no. Now, here’s the odd thing of it: I thought Nealie had killed him, and I believe she thought I did it—and may think so yet.

  Pray for Charlie and for your sister,

  Alice K. Bullock

  May 10, 1865

  Dear Lizzie,

  The war has been over one month now, with no word from Charlie. I will not know for sure until the government tells me I am a widow, but it ought to be clear to even someone as blind as Joybell that things do not look good. This morning Harve brought a letter from my friend Mary McCauley in Fort Madison, telling me her sister Mattie is to marry Luke Spenser, who returned from the war some time past and has been farming in the west. (The match is quite the surprise, as Luke was to have married Persia Chalmers, but perhaps he came to his senses. People in Fort Madison think Mattie has done very well for herself, but I believe he is the lucky one.) I think I should learn a lesson from this, and it is that we must accept what life gives us and move along. The war has been too much with me, and I must try to leave it behind. But, oh, Lizzie, it will be a long time before I can leave Charlie behind. I try to keep my feelings to myself, for Harve and Annie are regular turtledoves, and I don’t want to spoil their happiness. When alone, however, I cry bitter tears at my loss.

  Still, I am forcing myself to think of the future, and as Harve had offered a good price for the farm, I thought I must make up my mind before he changes his. So I have told him if there is no word from Charlie, I will sell him the farm at year’s end. I will not make any decisions on my future until then. I think I would like to go to Galena, if you are still there—or to Washington, should James’s chances be better than I think. I will have a widow’s pension, although as Charlie made only thirteen dollars a month as a soldier, it will be a widow’s mite indeed. Harve will pay me a good price for the farm, so I shall have money to invest. (But don’t tell that to James, for I remember what happened when he took charge of your inheritance.) I hope to do a little work to earn my keep, but with my poor foot, I could not find employment as a clerk in a shop or operate a boardinghouse. Perhaps I could take in sewing. Why, I could even teach young girls fancy stitching, like Miss Densmore. I already know how to embroider and make quilts, and I think I could learn how to tap poor students on the top of their heads with a thimble.

  Now, Lizzie, we have always been frank, and if you do not want me to come to you, you must say so right away, and I will understand. I am not a charity case yet and can pay my own way. If you think I would interfere, then I could go home to Fort Madison. Isn’t it odd how Mama and Papa once approved of James but not of Charlie. Now they have nothing favorable to say of James but call Charlie Bullock a savior of the republic. As long as Union veterans are in favor, Mama and Papa would not mind taking in the widow of one. Or perhaps I could join Billy in the West. I had a letter from him one week past saying he has gone to panning gold at Breckenridge, in Colorado Territory. So you see, I have many choices, but not the one I want most of all—to live out my days with my darling Charlie Bullock.

  With affection from,

  Alice Bullock

  May 15, 1865

  Dearest Lizzie,

  I had swept the house and set my bread sponge, so with the sun burning off the mist left from a hard rain and the robins hollering, I decided to air the winter bedding. I spread the quilts all along the worm fence, lining them up on the zigs and zags as neat as a new pin. The bright colors made Bramble Farm look like a gypsy fair. Then I went to the washtubs, which are near the rain barrel, out behind the house, where the lilacs are in bloom. I heated the water and poured it into a tub, then added the lye soap (we save the bar of castile for washing the girls) and commenced to rub the clothes on the scrub board. I was up to my elbows in the tub of soapy water, when I saw a scraggier using a stout walking stick to make his way through the black mud stew that is Egg and Butter Road these days. I sighed, for I did not want the water to grow cold whilst I fixed his plate of food. But I would not turn away a soldier. And I could tell he was a Union soldier from the soldier’s pants and cap, although his coat was not a government-issue one. It was made from an old quilt. So I put Annie’s wet dress aside and shook the water from my arms. But the sight of something made me stop with my arms in midair. I did not recognize the man; who was thin and bearded, like most of them. I recognized the coat. Or I thought I did. My mind was confused for a moment, like a spinning wheel when the wheel moves finely but the linen has got tangled. Slowly, it came to me where I had seen that quilt. I had made it myself. It was Charlie’s Friendship quilt.

  A shiver ran through me. I let my arms down slowly, but all hell could not have made my feet move. He did not see me at first. He looked at the log cabin, then at the barn, where the morning glories have started up, and to the fields in the distance. Then he came in at the gate, and as he did, he turned his head and looked in my direction and dropped his knapsack and stick. “Alice!”

  He seemed to cross the yard in a single leap, and in an instant, his arms were about me.

  “There was never such a pretty sight as you standing here.”

  “Oh, Charlie, you came home.”

  “I said I would, now didn’t I?”

  “We thought you drowned on the Sultana. Me and Harve thought you were dead.”

  Charlie laughed. “I came on the tramp. All the way up from Georgia. They let us go, and there wasn’t room in the wagons, so the men that could, they walked. It felt so good, I just kept on a-walkin’.”

  He stepped back, holding me at arm’s length. “I thought of you looking like this. Every day since I left.”

  “Like a washwoman?”

  “If you were a washerwoman, I would be just as glad to come home to you.”

  He took off his coat and set it on the bench. “This here could do for a wash. I hain’t ever taken it off but once or twice. It saved my life, I guess. Without it, I would have froze myself.” Charlie glanced about the farm, then turned to me again. “I thought about you every step these old feet took. Say, look at this.” He did a little jig. “I promised I’d come back with two good feet for dancing.”

  “I wished I’d never said that.”

  “Well, I came back, didn’t I? And we can dance all you like now.”

  Tears trickled down my face. “You’re not going to cry because I came home, are you?” Charlie asked. Then he frowned. “You’re all right, aren’t you? You haven’t any sickne
ss?”

  “No, not sick,” I reply. Then I slowly lifted the hem of my skirt and stuck out my bare right foot. Charlie knelt in the dirt and took the puckered and scarred stub in his hands and brushed off the mud. “I got almost no foot left, Charlie. It froze off. It’s me that can’t dance.”

  Charlie set the foot back on the ground. Then he stood up and grinned at me. “Well, then, Doll Baby, I guess I’ll just have to dance for both of us.” And he picked me up and twirled me around the barnyard.

  I think you will not hear for a time.

  From the happiest sister you have ever known,

  Alice Keeler Bullock

  Author’s Note

  I pore over quilt books the way some people devour cookbooks, which made researching Alice’s Tulips a joy. The following books not only were the most helpful but were fun to read. All but a handful of American quilt books, incidentally, were written after 1970.

  These are the three quilt classics:

  Finely, Ruth E. Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them. [Location not given]: Charles T. Branford Co., 1929.

  Hall, Carrie A., and Rose G. Kretsinger. The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt. Caldwell: Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1935.

  Webster, Marie D. Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them. Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1915.

  A number of states have launched quilt documentation projects that result in colorful books. While not as well illustrated, this modest work is one of the most informative:

  Clarke, Mary Washington. Kentucky Quilts and Their Makers. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1976.

  Most quilt histories mention the Civil War. These go into detail:

  Adams, E. Bryding. “Alabama Gunboat Quilts.” Virginia Gunn. “Quilts for Union Soldiers in the Civil War.” In Quiltmaking in America: Beyond the Myths. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1994.