Blockade Runner

  
1. A Grown-up Party

  
2. Belle Gives Some Advice

  
3. “You’re Acting Like a Spoiled Brat!”

  
4. Alarm at Midnight

  
5. Desperate Journey

  
6. Trap for a Spy

  
7. On to Bermuda

  
8. A Birthday Party

  
9. The USS Connecticut

10. A Gallant Officer

11. Love Is a Funny Thing

12. Boston

13. Captain Bier

14. End of the Venture

15. Kentucky Home

16. Last Ride

O
h, no, Leah, I think your dress is much prettier than mine!” Lucy Driscoll turned her head to one side, touched her dimple with a forefinger, and nodded with a smile. “That green matches your eyes exactly.”

Leah Carter flushed with pleasure and examined herself in the mirror. She was wearing a muslin dress printed in a paisley pattern of coral and white with green trim on the collar and sleeves. Her skirt was in three tiers and very full.

She touched her honey-colored hair, which was done up in the newest fashion, and her eyes glowed with excitement. Nevertheless, she quickly said, “Well, I don’t think it’s as pretty as yours, Lucy.”

She was accustomed to being second in any competition regarding clothing, for Lucy Driscoll was the daughter of John and Edith Driscoll, one of the wealthiest planter families in the Richmond area. Lucy
was
a beautiful girl—small, well-shaped, and her blonde hair and blue eyes exactly what they should be. The dress she wore was more ornate than most grown women wore and was made of green silk with pink lace flounces.

Leah had come to pay Lucy a weeklong visit. As the two girls giggled and dressed and arranged each other’s hair, Leah thought how strange it was that they had become friends, for they had not always been on such good terms.

Lucy Driscoll was a Rebel to the core, believing in the Southern Confederacy with all her heart. Leah, on the other hand, came from Kentucky, a border state. Her brother was in the Union army, and her father was a sutler, serving the Union troops. The two girls had not been at all friendly at first, but Lucy had changed greatly, Leah thought, smiling.

“It’s so nice that you invited me to stay with you, Lucy.” Leah smiled. “Do you think we dare wear some of that rice powder you found?”

Lucy giggled. “I don’t see why not. After all, we’re practically grown up. I mean, after all, we’re fourteen years old, going on fifteen.”

The two girls delved into the cosmetics that had belonged to Lucy’s sister, and finally Lucy exclaimed, “We’d better go down! I think I hear the music already.”

“I wouldn’t want to be late,” Leah said.

Lucy’s eyes gleamed. “I would!” she exclaimed. “If you go to a party early, nobody notices you—but when you go in late like this, everybody stops to stare.” She laughed and took Leah by the arm. “I’m just joking, but I’m so excited—our first grown-up ball! And some of the young officers will ask us to dance.”

“I’m more excited about meeting Belle Boyd than any officers,” Leah said. “I mean, she’s the most famous Confederate spy in the whole South. She’s a real celebrity.”

“Oh, it’ll be fun meeting her all right.”

Lucy was rather spoiled with meeting celebrities. She had met Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jeb Stuart. They had all been at her parents’ home at one time or another.

“I’m more excited about this dance card,” she said. Lucy held up her card, and her eyes sparkled. “How many dances are you going to give Cecil?”

Leah flushed slightly. “Oh, I don’t know,” she muttered. She was much shyer than Lucy, having grown up on a farm. She’d had no experience in ballroom dancing at all until she came to take care of her Uncle Silas here in Virginia. Trying now to look casual about the whole thing, she said, “He probably won’t even ask me—not with you around in that dress.”

“Oh, yes, he will. He’s crazy about you, Leah.” Lucy nodded. She was a Southern belle to the bone, having grown up with beaus and parties and balls. Her older sister had been the most beautiful eligible belle in Richmond, so Lucy was fully aware of all the ways of flirting with young men.

They went down the beautiful curving staircase where they encountered a couple who had just entered.

“I don’t believe you’ve met Mr. and Mrs. Pollard, have you, Leah?” Lucy said. “Mr. Pollard is the editor of the
Richmond Examiner.”
She reached over and patted the big man’s hand. “He’s not only the best-looking editor in the South but the most important.”

John Pollard was a tall, portly man with longish gray hair and brown, friendly eyes. “Now, don’t you start flirting with me,” he teased Lucy. “My wife will be jealous.”

Mrs. Pollard was a small woman with carefully dressed reddish hair and very light blue eyes. She smiled. “If he were a few years younger, I’d take him away right now.” She turned to Leah and said, “I’ve
heard so much about you from your Uncle Silas. How is your family in Kentucky?”

“Oh, they’re fine. I miss them a great deal, of course.”

“I’m sure you do. Well—”

Mrs. Pollard was interrupted when a tall young man with the blackest possible hair, black as a crow’s wing, joined them. He had well-set black eyes and was tanned in a very attractive fashion so that his teeth shone when he smiled.

“Why, hello, Jeff!” Lucy said quickly. “Have you met Mr. and Mrs. Pollard?”

The introductions were made, and Mr. Pollard examined Jeff’s uniform. It was ash gray with brass buttons and looked very good on him. “What’s your unit, soldier?”

“I’m in the Stonewall Brigade,” Jeff Majors said proudly.

“You look so young!” Mrs. Pollard said.

“I’m almost sixteen,” Jeff said quickly. “I’m a drummer boy right now, but it won’t be long before I’ll be in the regular army.”

He turned to the two girls. “I’ve come to get my name on your programs before those other fellows get all the dances.” He grinned. “Put me down for half of them.”

Lucy laughed. “Why, you bold thing! I won’t do any such thing as that—but you can have two.”

Jeff winked at her, then turned to Leah. The two had grown up together, and their families were closely intertwined. As a matter of fact, Leah’s family was keeping Jeff’s baby sister, Esther. Since Jeff’s mother had died and there had been no one else to care for the baby, the Carter family had generously volunteered.

“Well, I’ll have all of yours then, Leah.”

“No, you won’t.”

Another young man, dressed in a beautifully tailored brown suit, shoved his way in front of Jeff. “I’m having the dances with Leah. You may be in the army, but you can’t hog all the good-looking girls.”

Cecil Taylor was the same age as Jeff. He was rather thin with chestnut hair and bright blue eyes. His parents were almost as wealthy as Lucy’s, and of course the two sets of parents had often whispered about how nice it would be if Cecil and Lucy fell in love and got married. Then, together they would have the biggest plantation in the South.

Mr. and Mrs. Pollard drifted away, and the two boys began to argue over dances. But they were soon swamped by soldiers. The two girls were young, but girls in the South matured early, and the young lieutenants themselves were mostly not over seventeen or eighteen.

Lucy had her arm seized by Jeff, who led her off to the dance floor. She looked back over her shoulder and smiled at Cecil, whereupon Jeff said sharply, “You watch out for that Cecil. He’s not always a gentleman such as a young man should be.”

“Don’t you worry,” Cecil retorted. “Jeff’s the one to look out for.” Turning to Leah, he said, “There’s the music. I’ve got me the prettiest girl in Richmond, and I propose to have her all to myself as much as possible.”

It was a beautiful experience for Leah. As she whirled around the floor, her hoop skirt swinging, she remembered that the first time she had come to this place it had not been so. She had come wearing
rather plain clothes, and Lucy had cruelly interrogated her about her Northern sympathies.

Now, however, she was having a wonderful time. The oak floor was polished, and lights glistened from the chandeliers. At the sides of the room, silver trays and crystal glasses were lined up on a snow-white tablecloth along with all sorts of refreshment.

“You’d never know a war was going on, would you?” Cecil murmured.

Leah thought of the wounded soldiers she had visited in the hospital at Chimborazo. They had been so pathetic that sometimes she had to leave so that they could not see the tears that came to her eyes.

Looking around the ballroom, she thought about how, even on the streets of Richmond, clothes were wearing thin, groceries were nonexistent in some cases, and the Confederacy was slowly being squeezed to death by the blockade that the Union had thrown along the coastline. Only a few swift-sailing blockade runners dared brave the Yankee gunboats to carry cotton for sale in England, returning with the precious commodities that kept the South alive.

“No, you wouldn’t know there’s a war. This is very nice.” She looked over to where Jeff was dancing with Lucy. He was very tall, and Lucy was so small that she had to look up at him. “I wish I were tiny like Lucy,” Leah said suddenly. “I feel like a big old cow!”

Cecil stared at her in surprise, “What makes you think such a thing?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I just feel that way.”

“Well,” Cecil said, “stop thinking that way.” He glanced over and said, “They do make a nice-looking couple, don’t they? Wouldn’t be surprised but what Jeff didn’t fall in love with her. Most fellows do. I did!”

“Oh, you two were just childhood playmates.”

“Well, that’s true enough, and I guess people don’t often fall in love with people they grew up next door to.”