Andersonville (75 page)

This letter was carried to Anderson on the cars next morning, and lay for three days in an old salt box at Uncle Arch Yeoman’s, where mail intended for citizens of the community was left until neighbors or slaves distributed it. Jonas brought the letter in to Ira while the Claffeys were at breakfast with Harrell Elkins. The project was discussed with animation. Cousin Harry, so often gone into taciturnity these days and so often oblivious of them both, sat with spectacles shining . . . Lucy had the sly thought that the glass lenses were burnished by inner blaze stoked by brain and heart. Oh, and how he does need a joy, she thought. Would that I might afford it for him! He sees hospital, thinks hospital, will recognize nothing but hospital and wrongs contained there.

Cousin Harry talked constantly, with spirit; he’d interrupted Ira’s reading several times with approving comments, with further suggestions. Now that the letter was put next to Ira’s plate, Elkins discoursed on vinegar.

They appear to have forgotten it. Few other adjuncts to the diet could be more efficacious in treatment of scurvy. If you could get word to those Americus folks, they might fetch some barrels of it.

Our own supply is limited, said Lucy.

Elkins stared at her, watery eyes flicking rapidly in magnification. Surely you’re mistaken, Cousin Lucy. You have that great cask on the roofed gallery beside your kitchen—

But it diminishes so rapidly.

However could we use much vinegar? asked her father. Solely for salads, and a trifle for spicing. Daughter, have you been making pickles in quantity?

Not I, not in this heat. And most of your gherkins were burnt by the sun, Poppy. But still there’s less and less vinegar each day.

Have some of the black people developed a thirst?

I’ve detected no such addiction, said Lucy. She was replying directly to her father, but looking directly at Harrell, who sat with smooth face reddened and who made a great business of picking a muffin to pieces.

Lucy lifted her voice slightly, meaningly. It is as if some person came by day or night with a flask, opened the bung, and drew off vinegar.

For a moment the implied accusation and the expression of guilt held Ira perplexed, and he regarded the younger pair with amazement. Then, as the surgeon put his big hand to his forehead and concealed his face, Ira began to chuckle. Merriment spread among the three; Lucy collapsed in giggles; Elkins’s shoulders were shaking, though it seemed that he might have been moved by sobs as well as by mirth; in fact he was close to sobbing.

Have you the tell-tale bottle about you? asked the girl.

Still refusing to face her, Elkins put his other hand down into his pocket and brought the flask forth. His voice shook as he confessed. A very small bottle, you see. A mere brandy flask.

Ring for more coffee, my dear, said Ira. Then, to Harry: Did you think we’d refuse you, Cousin?

Elkins removed his spectacles, wiped his eyes (He is almost comely, thought Lucy, without those great glaring things. I wish that I could see him more often thus) and managed to compose himself for confession. It was only— The first time the thought occurred to me— You see, none of you were about. I observed Naomi at the keg, filling a cruet, so of course I knew that it contained vinegar— I didn’t wish to trouble anyone.

Have your depredations been confined solely to vinegar? asked Ira.

Elkins stared owlishly. Why do you ask that, sir?

Now that I’m put in mind of it, Jem complained that something had been at the cauliflowers.

But you have an over-supply of garden truck.

Not of cauliflowers. We’re far from the seacoast, and enough salt’s not to be had for preparing the beds. Just how have you been conveying cauliflowers to the hospital, Cousin Harry?

I put them in my pockets. And in corners of my medical kit.

What—whole cauliflowers?

You do appear right bulgy at times, said Lucy.

Not whole cauliflowers. I separate the small flowers, the segments— You see, sir, and Cousin Lucy— I’ve had no wish to run afoul of guards or of the Chief Surgeon. My small benevolence—the result of petty thievery—might not meet with his approbation.

Naomi had appeared with a steaming pot of grain coffee, to fill their cups, and had been interested and amazed. Miss Lucy, that Mastah Harry, he always asking me for bones.

Just leftovers, said Elkins weakly.

And he make me save potato parings.

Ira shook his head. But we’ve so many other things. Much has gone to waste, all through the summer.

I—I had no wish to bother you. And I feared to tote a basket. Twould have aroused suspicion, perhaps resentment.

He sipped the last of his coffee with rapid swallowing, he said that he must be up and away. He pushed back his chair, arose and spoke a thanks for the meal, bowed, and went into the hallway where his kit lay upon a chair. He cried a last goodbye through the open door and turned toward the outside gallery. He was halfway down the steps when the light tap of shoes sounded behind him, and he turned quickly. Lucy walked upon the gallery, she was coming toward him. The young man stood motionless, it was almost as if he knew what to expect; he saw her intent, and stood graven; he wished solemnly, he wished in his entire being to share with her; yet he felt wearily that the wrongs of the world and of this particular day and this particular portion of the world were overwhelming them; he dared yield to nothing but the demand of a task he had set for himself.

Lucy spoke two words— Dear Harry, she said. She bent forward and flung her arms around his neck and kissed him long on the mouth.

Do you mean love? he asked, when their faces were apart.

Twas for your great heart, Harry. I understand so well why Sutherland loved you.

But do you mean love? For a critter like me?

I don’t know what I mean, she said softly. I but wished to—award you— Perhaps a kiss from me is nothing—

Elkins pushed her from him rudely. No, no, he mumbled (and it was odd, but she thought of a squirrel; he reminded her of a squirrel, a great baldish squirrel a-muttering). He said, I can’t bear it. We can’t— Not in this! There’s so much filth and screaming. You should hear the gangrenous! No, no, you should not, I couldn’t bear for you to hear them—

But I do, Coz.

You do? Where? Here?

All the way up here, she said with stoicism. I hear them screaming. My ears are keen.

May God damn the people who brought on this war. Elkins spoke in a whisper. He went away down the lane toward the first rifle pits, satchel swinging back and forth in accompaniment to his lunging pace. Lucy stood watching, and then tears washed him from her vision.

At the breakfast table Ira sat with a shred of bacon suspended on his fork, sat motionless and musing, unaware of the tenderness and hurt of this contact on the gallery. He was scarcely aware that Lucy had left the room. He considered his old friend the Reverend Mr. Dillard, and how native sweetness had transcended dry dictates put forth in the Directory for Worship. Very clearly did Ira recall an adjuration to the sick—was it in Chapter Twelve? Thirty-five years earlier Ira Claffey had hoped to become a minister, he had studied with diligence; but eventually saw himself standing before a frosty barrier over which he had no wish to scramble. What would a Presbyterian minister say to the wretched of Andersonville if he felt himself bound by the Directory?
He shall instruct the sick out of the Scriptures, that diseases arise not out of the ground, nor do they come by chance; but that they are directed and sent by a wise and holy God, either for correction of sin, for the trial of grace, for improvement in religion, or for other important ends. . . .
What wise and holy God had constructed the stockade? Was his name Winder? What sin had been performed by the Northerners? The sin of being Northern? Moses Claffey was born in 1845. . . . Let us select a Moses from Indiana or Vermont. He did not die at Crampton’s Gap; at the age of eighteen or nineteen he finds himself in Andersonville, he lies in the hospital and is tended by Cousin Harry; or perhaps he is less fortunate, he is tended by a contract surgeon. Did not the disease of the Northern Moses rise from a putrid kennel in which he was compelled to crouch? Did it not come from the chance which fetched him into captivity in the first place? Oh, wise and holy God, I bless thee for correcting the sin of this Yankee youngun! I beseech thee to award him an additional and increasing trial of grace. Pray to improve his religion; he whimpers and gapes because you have removed his teeth, puffed his gums, fattened his tongue, put the poison in his belly and his blood. . . . And final admonition to you, you cringing Federal Moses: See that you do not despise God’s chastening hand, see that you do not faint under God’s rebukes! . . .

Lucy had gone to cool her face. Now she returned to the room, she came in slowly. Ira did not even look at her; he was lost in disgust at the prim and calloused, lost in admiration of a man who could rise above what fusty pettiness he’d been taught.

Your elderly Uncle Cato Dillard, said Ira. He’s a man.

Yes, Poppy.

Daughter, I swear it: with each review of certain pages—in recollection, naturally—I approach agnosticism.

Yes, Poppy.

And he had thought to find her shocked. His eyes came up under wiry brows now turning whitish, and he saw that some fresh wrong had been visited upon the one great Love remaining to him.

But— Heed me. The thought of Mr. Dillard can expunge a variety of sins, it can draw a rusty nail from a wound—

Yes, Poppy.

Because he is
good
, so good that he is beyond precepts set forth by creaking meddlesome little minds.

Yes. . . .

My dear, about the vinegar. Did you catch Harry
in flagrante delicto
?

Her wan voice . . . Twas in the dawn. I looked from my room and saw him. Lucy’s laughter rattled mechanically. There he was, crouched down, making a most serious business of filling his flask.

Then immediately we should go into the business of manufacturing it! Possibly Coz can fathom a method for smuggling it by the quart; he’s a gentleman of resource. Have we another full barrel at hand?

In the pantry shed.

Then instruct Naomi to tap the fresh barrel, and we shall use the other for mothering. Have the wenches roll two casks beneath the roof—sugar casks would do nicely—and use a proportion of one gallon of sorghum to, say, eleven gallons of clear rainwater. Portion the current vinegar, remaining in what we should now call Coz’s keg, into the other barrels, to supply the mother. Within the month, if the stuff keeps working and doesn’t die, we should have fresh vinegar in quantity.

Ira considered, and then added a question. Have we any gauze or other coarse woven material, fly-proof, among the household supplies?

Not an inch. All used up, long since.

Then take it from the windows of an empty room.

Nnnone there, and he looked up in anguish to see her crying. Lucy made a strong successful effort to control her voice. I took down the last, months ago. I even took the material from the windows of Mother’s room after—she— To make repairs. The only chambers with anything resembling a mosquito-bar are your room, mine and—Cousin Harry’s.

Ira thought in annoyance that if the young people were married the gauze might be taken from one room or the other. He felt a rising impatience with Harrell Elkins. Then take it from my room. We must have it washed and dried with care, to cover the open barrels, to keep out flies. As our good Dr. Chase says, vinegar is an industrious fellow but he does need air in sufficiency.

I shall take it from my own windows, said Lucy stubbornly.

Damn it, you shan’t, cried Ira in full testiness. He was appalled, he had not been driven to such expression of wrath with Lucy since she was fourteen, and sulked because he would not buy her a phaeton. He got up, stamped to his room, pulled down the cloth from both windows. By this time he was enraged with himself because he had become enraged. Below stairs he heard Lucy ordering the black women about, and soon came the rumpus of barrels being brought to the kitchen gallery. Ira descended grumpily, gave over the gauze to Extra for washing, and mumbled an apology to an ashen daughter who ignored him; he could not blame her for ignoring him. Ira was especially patient with the hands that day, fearing that his unsettled condition might cause him to display an additional sharpness to creatures wholly in his power. He still remembered, after forty years, his fright and disgust at witnessing a neighbor abuse an old horse solely because he, the neighbor, had achieved low score in a shooting-match.

Ira turned deliberately from contemplation of the stockade and its problems, and from any thought of Lucy and her grief (he did not fathom the exact nature of her grief, but was positive that it concerned Harry). He tried to soothe his spirit by renewed admiration of the generous Mr. Dillard, and this in turn led to his reflecting on Americus and its people. Ira had known the town well in years when business took him there, when his plantation was itself a business and not a region of weeds surrounding an orchard, a cornfield and a few garden-patches from which a living might be eked out for a handful of whites and blacks. When Cato wrote of Nunns, Dennards, McCrarys and the like, he was fanning a memory.

Eventually that day Ira Claffey worked in a daze. . . . Veronica was young and sane, a lovely morsel to tempt him with her eyes and slimness of her waist and conversation of her skirts . . . the children bounded noisily; they had to be hushed, but their eyes were gay and their cheeks ruddy: the surviving children . . . again Suthy broke his arm in falling from a chinaberry tree when he was four; again Badger shot his turkey through the head at one hundred yards at least—oh, lucky shot, and how he swelled about it . . . again Ira had a slave whipped—which one? was it that expensive sullen blacksmith called Caliph?—for beating his wife . . . again he persuaded Veronica to indulge in brandy—the only time; he could never persuade her to touch brandy again—and he seduced her accordingly, and what a seduction: he remembered her frenzy and bleatings; but the next day she was pickled in remorse perhaps because she had been pickled in brandy, more likely because of what she’d done in bed; twas often so; no wonder that the first thing she put aside, as she went into lunacy, was lust . . . again, in somber and quieter illusion, he chipped the stones for his babies’ graves, so little time elapsing between the making of those small slabs. . . .