Andersonville (76 page)

Thus he returned in thought to Americus. At least a portion of its inhabitants were not uncomprehending, unaware of that grotesque pen yonder and the pathetic bounty being assembled for its occupants . . . Dennards, McCrarys, Lindsays: there were many on the hill. The hill was shaded by oaks and cedars, and the monument of young Mr. Hudson, with its fine urn atop, was easily the handsomest.
In Memory of Leander M. Hudson. Born Feb. 22nd 1823. Died Nov. 21st 1851. A native Georgian and a resident of the town of Oglethorpe. He breathed his last among strangers where he now lies. Habitually active and energetic, he sprang to the duties of life, but looked beyond them to the rewards of Heaven.
Well, well, so should we all; and a year ago I would have sworn that I was serene in considering the rewards of Heaven; but what is this shaft sticking out from my breastplate? has an arrow come through? and what is the name upon it? Damnable stockade—you’ve taken my belief from me—

Oh, not yet, not yet; but the struggle is on—

Jem.

Yas, Mastah.

That end’s not braced properly; those small stones will roll in the first freshet. Coffee, come to help. Do the two of you work that stump beneath the cross-piece to support it whilst you remove the stones. . . . Now then, see that boulder over there? Go dig it out, and roll it here to hold the cross-piece. Twill last out a hundred storms.

To the junior members of an orphaned family, he was a noble, generous and devoted brother, and to the suffering poor a prompt, liberal and benevolent benefactor.

Take lesson from the existence of young Mr. Hudson, and let us at once be prompt, liberal and benevolent. Indeed we are so. This bridge has been unsteady since the great rain of a week or two ago, and only carts could cross it safely. That wagon of Mr. Stancil’s would have gone through it like a hog through a cucumber frame. And tomorrow is Friday, and if the fair weather holds, the wagon will come creaking this way with its freight of kindliness; and we must haste, haste to assemble the baskets of our own contribution. Turn out, all hands, to feed the guests; there are grown to be some thirty-two thousand of them. How many might Mr. Stancil’s wagon feed?

Ira stood, overseeing the Negroes as they toiled in the gush and mud of Little Sweetwater; he stood muddied, and nursing one finger which had been squeezed between logs of the bridge; he stood stricken out of all reverie by recognition of the futility of this enterprise. Let the loaves remain in the baskets, tell the little boy to run away home with his fishes. Cato Dillard, you wear no beard, you were not born in Bethlehem, there is no Aura about you. . . . But, stay. Tis a gesture, but not idle. If a single Yankee Moses is kept from starvation, the deed is worth the doing.

Returned to the plantation, he gave the hands a brief recess and urged them to put on dry things. Still wishing to avoid Lucy, he went to the burying ground and sat for a while beside the freshest grave. Several weeks had passed . . . he did not like to think of what was happening to the body packed in that homemade coffin; yet more dreadful was the recalling of what had happened to the mind and body when they were extant. The war killed her, Ira thought, as surely as if a Union sharpshooter squeezed his trigger.

And she was far out of his life before she died; so that was tragedy piled upon tragedy. He wondered if ever he would marry again, he wondered even if he would lie with a woman, ever again. He thought of Mrs. Lou Ella Mickley, often he thought of her. When Ira was much younger he had served two terms in the Legislature, but refused to run for a third term. He refused also to be a candidate for Congress; he’d found that honestly he loathed the trading, back-biting and double-dealing upon which many politicians thrived. It was during his freshman season at Milledgeville that he met Mrs. Mickley at a dinner. She had been widowed at twenty-one, and was a woman of means—chubby, brown-eyed, curly of hair—who kept no maiden aunt or other relative dwelling in chaperonage, and was completely oblivious to gossip which shafted around her until even the gossipers wearied of it, and selected other targets. Soon she and Ira became lovers. His relations with Veronica were unfavorable during much of that period, for he found himself aggravated by Veronica’s selfishness and indrawn, Arwoodish ways. Not yet had he adjusted himself to the fact that she lacked certain virtues which in blindness and early passion he had awarded her. Never was there the delighted madness in his coming together with Lou Ella Mickley which ruled him when he was with his wife; yet they had their raptures, he profited from her serenity, they built pleasant childish humors between them, he thought her sage and valuable in most opinion about State and National affairs. The inevitable quarrel occurred when Ira announced that he would not run for a third term. She asked him why; he said honestly and artlessly that he did not wish to spend so much time away from his family. Family, family, family—you think nothing of
me
, care nothing for me—who am
I
?
I’m
a Nobody—I have cast aside all thought of womanly reputation because of
you
— She became the complete picture of the Other Woman Who Loves the Married Man, through all ages, nationalities, codes. . . . It seemed that the bruising of her reputation was less than fatal to Lou Ella Mickley. Within two years she married a vigorous bachelor senator, a rice-grower from the tidewater region; his name was Febresen, and he went off in 1862 to command a brigade. Promptly he was shot dead at Second Manassas. Ira had seen the lovely Widow Febresen just once since then; it was in the spring of 1863, when last he was in Milledgeville. He stopped at a crossing to let a carriage pass; he was looking, not at the lady who drove, but at the rubbery little groom in patched livery, sitting pompously up behind; and then the carriage slowed, he heard his name spoken. Ira, was all she said. Her hair was almost white—prematurely so, for she could not be much past forty. The bright brown eyes shone at him, then filled with tears. Ira had removed his hat, he was bowing, he moved toward the vehicle; then she had spoken to her horse and was driving rapidly away. She left an impression of daintiness and vivacity, as always. She left a memory, but it was not enough for him, probably not enough for her. He tried to envision Lou Ella as living here with him at the plantation, war or no war. He could not see her so.

...What if the malignant miracle should occur, and Sherman should take Atlanta? Any disaster might follow; blue columns might sweep even to Milledgeville. Possibly I’d best persuade Lucy to invite the widowed Mrs. Febresen to come to us, here and now. . . .

Wretched fellow! Sitting by your wife’s grave, her frail unhappy mortality gone so recently into seclusion— Gad, man, what ails you?

Tis that monstrosity past the lane and fort and pits and barricades. It unsettles us all, unsteadies the world.

Now he resolved to make some sort of explanation to Lucy for his churlishness of the morning, perhaps to comfort her by finding the specific source of complaint, by offering a balm—he did not know what unguent it would be. Ira set the men to searching corn-rows for those ears which were still in the milk. He hunted through the house for Lucy, and found her at last below the front gallery. Little Gracious, the five-year-old daughter of Jonas and Extra, was propped against a pillar. The child’s brown foot extended over the porch’s edge; there was a basin in which the foot had been washed. Lucy stood in the lily bed, holding Gracious’s tiny ankle in one hand while probing with a needle. The child made not a sound though her cheeks were varnished with tears.

She has picked up a sliver, said Lucy.

Shall I aid you?

I’ve most of it out, now. Gracious is being a soldier, and naturally soldiers do not shriek or squirm. And she is to receive a pink ribbon for her hair.

The last of the splinter was drawn out, the wound anointed with salve; Gracious had her pink ribbon, and went hopping off to parade it before her mother. Dear Lucy, said Ira gently. The girl looked up at him, then turned away blinded. Ira slumped on the step, and opened his arms. Lucy fell against him and sobbed for a time, she made inarticulate sounds in weeping, as if she were trying to tell a lonely story and could not.

You’ll get no pink ribbon from me, Florence Nightmare.

Gggive it to little Gggracious, she gasped in the hysteria of laughter accompanying her wail.

No, to the Widow Tebbs!

...She could laugh more authentically at last, and sat away from her father. He offered his handkerchief, she mopped her flushed face with it, he suggested that she blow her nose, she blew her nose loudly. Her fine-spun hair was straggling. Ira brought a square mirror from the hall, that she might see to bind her hair properly again. They sat together on the gallery stair with the Andersonville smell intense, the Andersonville hum rising like the buzz of a rookery.

Twas here, Poppy.

Here?

On these steps, after he’d breakfasted. Just as he was leaving. I followed him here, I kissed him, I was the aggressor.

And—he—?

She said that her life was become a forlorn trial. She had not expected it to be such a trial, once her mother was relieved from the confusion which ruled her and ruled them all.

Is it right to wish people dead, Lucy asked. Is it ever right? For I wished her dead, I did, I did.

Good God, girl, so did I.

And I’d thought there would be some— Some peace in existence, some comfort for us, even in this ghastly war and with this ghastly pen— But no, no; twas worse than ever. He returned here, he shouldn’t have returned. He says nothing at all. He comes home with that hospital stench hanging about him, he sleeps so long and with such exhaustion. He’s thinner by far. His jacket fell open this morning; I saw the holes in his old belt, where the tongue of the buckle went through. There was the deep crease in the—the shabby leather, where he used to wear his buckle. I could see it, that little old crease. And now he wears it two holes farther along. And he wasn’t plump to begin with, Poppy, truly I’ve never seen him plump. And such little bits of food he eats. Grief! And his abstraction is so intense—it’s as if he were off in Macon or some such place. But I know where he dwells in his fancy, and always. It’s over there. Oh, Poppy! No longer do we play our game—not even when Harry is supposed to be taking his ease. Ease? Grief, he knows not the word! One night we sat here on the gallery, and you were abed; you said you wished to read, but I know your notion was to leave us alone, and I—I did appreciate it, darling Poppy. But he would say nothing, do nothing! I gave a quote or two, to tempt him on. And silence, always silence. I fetched a pitcher of our nectar, and offered it, and he— He said, the folks in the hospital have no nectar. I bristled up and said I knew that well enough—I said they came to fight us, to invade, and this was the fate they found— And that—that Southern boys died at the North, as well— He drank the nectar then, but not as if he liked it. And then Colonel Chandler came, so I trotted off. But in the hall I heard them speaking. And Harry said a few words about, twas scarcely the proper time for romantic chit-chat; that was what he said, I’ll never forget it. Romantic chit-chat! And I was only trying to be kind to him, to—to aid him—trying to make him rest his bones and—and his soul. I teased him about the vinegar, Poppy. Was that wrong of me? And then I fled after him, and kissed him; I’d never done such a thing before—not even to poor Rob—though law knows that
he
was forever after me, pursuing, trying to snatch a kiss—

Do you love Cousin Harry as much as you loved Rob, my dear?

Much—much—what is much? How much love is there in the world, how much can a girl give? How would I know? How would any girl know, any woman? Cause I’m a woman, now, Poppy—I was scarcely a woman then. At least—before Rob died. And—and all the boys. But we’ve had this dreadful thing come upon us, and then— Mother— Sakes, I know I’m speaking mighty disjointedly, scarcely making any sense at all, perhaps making no sense! But this is a different kind of love I feel now, because I’m older, and we’ve been through
plain hell
— Oh, I know I shouldn’t mention the Bad Place—just like a man might— Scarcely ladylike! If the folks at the Institute could hear me now!

Ira asked softly, How did Coz behave when you kissed him?

Just stood here like a stick, just like a plain old stick! Then he says, Do you mean love? My goodness, what did he think I meant? Oh, I told him he had such a great heart and—and I could understand why Suthy was fond of him. And then he says something about himself being an old critter, or something. And I said I reckoned my kisses didn’t amount to much. And then he gave me a shove, Poppy—he just shunted me away from him. He just as much as told me there could be no love in his life, no love for me, not with that awful stockade and hospital around!

Poppy, she said much more quietly a little later. I don’t believe he’s right. Do you? Shouldn’t love be bigger than—? And embrace more than just—? I mean, whether there were a stockade and a hospital or not? Or even a war. Seems like there’ve always been wars going on, one place or another. And boys dying in them. But people still managed to love one another.

A time to mourn and a time to dance. . . .

I wonder, Poppy.

You see, Lucy, men don’t love as women love, my dear child; and the sooner you get that into your pretty little head, the better. But you never will, because you’re a woman. And women go on forever, trying to see— It’s like that looking glass in your lap. Women look into the glass and expect to find their own love mirrored; sometimes they delude themselves into thinking that they do see it; but actually they never do, never do. Men aren’t capable of giving Woman Love—they can give but Man Love. And tis never enough, Lucy, never enough. Especially in the sensitive.

She muttered, Heavens knows I’m sensitive enough. I’m just a little old sensitive plant.

Forever, Ira told her, people speak of woman’s intuition. But men have intuition also; perhaps they may call it by another name. They say that they observe, evaluate, study the evidence, arrive at conclusions—and half the time tis only intuition! And I’m equally as sensitive as you.