Homeland (27 page)

“If there is anything I can do to help you, just name it …” Except tell the truth, my dearest friend.

Emory is back in the district. He shakes his head like a disappointed brother over my “affection,” as he calls it, for Lyle, but he is careful not to ask about it. The last thing he and his militia need is a war with Lyle’s bush-whackers. And from the first day that Lyle rode up to the house—with his men—after the rape, Julia has believed Lyle’s story of “guarding those who’re loyal to the South.” Like Emory, Julia finds her life easier, with Lyle on good terms with us. Sometimes I still think about killing him, but I have only to look at that stinking cousin of his who’d inherit his command, to put that idea away.

I spoke of you to Julia, just after your April letter came, and she sneered, “What does she know about hardship?” and told me to tear it up. I said I wanted to keep it to draw on, though in fact I don’t draw anymore. There seems no reason to do so.

I pray you’ll write again soon.

Dearest Friend,

You are alive! When I saw your handwriting on the envelope, I can not describe what I felt. So good to know that you are well—that, first of all. I do not know whether that joy was greater, or only just
slightly less, than knowing that you will write again when you can. Thank you, and bless you.

Your comfort and cheer came at a good time. The season of preserving and pickling, boiling and brining, is at its height. Papa does what he can, chopping firewood and keeping the stove fed, and I live in hourly terror that he will sever his own hand in the process, or burn down the house. The anniversary of my poor brother’s death has thrown Peggie into a deeper darkness of anger and resentment, and even her help detracts from rather than assists the process: I pray God to remove my anger and resentment towards her. Why were we not all created with mild and forgiving temperaments?

Her anxiety—and mine—exacerbated by the news of the War, bloody carnage both in Virginia and in Georgia, where last week thousands of men were slain at Kennesaw Mountain before Atlanta.

Cucumbers and peaches, although with sugar costing
fifty cents
a pound!—when Lufkin’s store has it at all—most of the peaches, instead of being preserved as usual, I slice and dry for “leather.” I slice my fingers, as well, and my wrist is so stiff that I can barely wield the pen. Silence has fallen on the house again, save for the crickets, and the whining of mosquitoes around the candle. I should go to bed, for we begin to harvest the corn tomorrow, yet, I greedily seek the pleasure of your almost-company.

I am horrified to learn that you were indeed at Vicksburg through the siege. Will you understand if I say, I am glad that at the time I was under the comforting delusion that your Aunt Sally had removed you elsewhere? The newspapers claim that the civilian casualties there were relatively slight—is this in fact the case? I am glad that you—and Julia—survived.

Thank you—bless you—my dearest, for your kind words about
my illness. Indeed, my foremost concern was for Mother, and Mercy. And oh, my friend, I am so sorry, if I read aright the circumstances of your own illness. There is literally nothing that I can think of to write, that would fully express my concern—or be of any help. Are you well now? I pray that your family was able to support you in this, at least. Thank you for your understanding—and for understanding that Mother and Mercy were not the only reasons, for my decision.

All day at Uncle M’s. The fleet goes out again tomorrow, sadly reduced, due to the sheer expense of cordage, and of salt to put down the catch, and mostly to the dearth of men. Many of the salt-sheds in Southeast Harbor are closed and empty. All about the island, one sees houses closed up, too, as women and children go to mainland families, only to survive. Mother was very bad with a headache this morning, so Peggie remained home with her and both babies, which made me deeply uneasy. I do not suspect her of wilfully harming a child, but often I have thought that, when left in charge of Mother, she doses her with laudanum simply so that she will sleep and not trouble her. There have been times when I was almost certain that she doses poor little Nollie, as well. He is fretful, and cries easily and for no reason, yet when I spoke of it to Peggie, she retorted, “So now you’re accusing me of poisoning my own child?” I do not know what to do. Yet, when I have taken Mercy to the gatherings which I would fain avoid, she is often teased and tormented by the other children, while I am left, by their elders, strictly alone.

Forgive me for troubling you with these mundane conflicts, like the dreary
Iliads
of snails. They are only the marks that I make on my prison-wall. It is good to know that you will know of them, and of me. A window, as you once wrote me, into the light. I have put a little oil on my chapped and aching hands, and will occupy myself
with something frivolous and trivial, like
Les Trois Mousquetaires
, until Papa and Peggie return home.

P.S. I enclose Justin’s three letters. The latest is dated from early March; I have had none since then.

P.P.S. Shocking news of a Confederate raid towards Washington; yet I find it harder and harder to bring myself to read the papers at all. I only feel helpless, and very angry.

Dearest Cora,

How I wish I could say, “How I wish you were here!” But I care too much for you to even think it. On the walk into town early this morning I thought it, with the countryside so silent and literally drenched in dew, and all the birds singing, and later, as I worked my way from patch to patch of my little gardens in the woods. (Someone had gotten to two of them—every ripe ear gone. I hope they
choke?)
These woods are still so beautiful, each leaf and flower perfect, and as I walked back to Bayberry (after picking and hiding almost a bushel of corn, hurrah!) the fireflies were just beginning to come out. Do you have fireflies in Maine? I wish I could show you how beautiful the summers here are. The summers that don’t include watching every second for bush-whackers, that is, and having the
mountain picked so clean of game that you can’t even trap chipmunks, and being down to the last needle at home and no thread and not knowing what you’re going to find to trade for another one if it breaks. At least the rumble of evening thunder on the mountains is the same, and the scent of the rain.

It’s so good to hear from you. I read your letter sitting outside the store in town, and again in the woods after I’d tended a couple of my little gardens. Thank you for your comfort and concern. I could not tell Julia of what had happened, and I’m glad that you know, and understand. You have to take care of your Mother—and your Papa, it sounds like—as I must take care of Julia and Tom: such are our lives now. Tom was crippled at Vicksburg, and is able to do little. And Pa, of course, went off to Richmond ten months ago. In February Julia got a letter from him, saying that (a) he was going to be back soon with lots of money; (b) President Davis was going to send him on a Mission to France unless (c) he decided to go to Mexico and work out some marvelous trading arrangement which would make us all very rich. Or maybe we could all come to Richmond and keep house for him. Heaven only knows whether he’s there now, but my guess is, he’s not. Pa is always very good at avoiding real trouble. Some people make it more difficult than others, don’t they, for their children to obey the Fifth Commandment?

On the other hand, there’s no Commandment about strangling your sister-in-law and I’m afraid I’d do it, if I even
suspected
she was dosing my child with laudanum to keep her quiet. I will say this for Julia, much as she exasperates me, she is a wonderful mother, patient and kindly, and Tom—though the only painkiller he has is moonshine and he sometimes takes too much of that—looks after Tommy like a gentle grandmother.

Thank you, by the way, for news, of which we have almost none. I guess tho’ if the Confederate raiders had actually burned Washington, we would have heard.

Evening again. The militia boys are all out “patrolling”—that is, riding around the countryside to steal whatever they can—so we did wash today: did I mention we use soapweed and chimney pink for lather? It works fairly well. I dry fruit, too, if I can get it—the peach orchard at the old Scanlon place produced handsomely, but it’s a long walk. There isn’t enough sugar to be had in Greene County to sweeten a cup of tea (if anybody had tea). (Or a cup.)

“The dreary little
Iliads
of snails …” I like that. I wonder what the War in Troy looked like to the camp slaves? You know there had to be hundreds. Probably pretty much like Don Quixote’s adventures looked to Sancho Panza. But I remember what you wrote to me a long time ago, about catastrophes not being like falling over a cliff. That they could be dealt with by climbing down, one hand-hold at a time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought of that, and how it’s helped me.

I’m walking to town tomorrow, to see what I’ll need to trade for a pair of shoes. There’s a fellow who “buys” them from the Army. I’ll mail this then. (It costs me an egg, to send it.) Julia of course hasn’t been into town since the Federals arrived, and would rather go barefoot than wear “their” shoes.

You’ll always be worth an egg to me!

P.S. The Northern newspapers for once told some truth: there were very few civilian casualties during the shelling of Vicksburg. Some people didn’t even move into caves, just lived in their houses, which took more nerve than
I
had. The seige didn’t last really long enough for people to starve to death, though we ate some fairly strange things.

[not sent]

Dearest Cora,

Three letters from Justin. He was at Vicksburg, as I’d thought. Everyone on the mountain always said Justin has second sight: Did he know I was there, too? Or Emory?

The house is deathly silent tonight, worse than any Gothic castle in any book. There’s no way of locking up the downstairs anymore—too many shutters have been broken, and the window-glass was all shot out over a year ago. So all we can do is shove the bed up against the bedroom door, and hope that if anybody prowls in, they’ll leave by morning. Julia and baby Adam are asleep, as I sit here trying to make out the paper by the flickery light of a stick of kindling, burning like a torch in a hole I drilled in the wall. Usually Lyle’s boys come in and camp when Emory and his troop are out “on patrol,” but tonight—thank God!—there are neither.

Julia is used to me writing to you like this—to the Pretend-Cora—but since I’ve started actually getting letters from you again, I’ve noticed she watches me carefully. I know she’s searched this room. She didn’t find your letters—the loose board is under the leg of the old armoire—but I now keep them up at Skull Cave, in one of the boxes with Justin’s books, except for your latest, which I carry with me, with my paper. More than once, she’s taken away my paper, innocently claiming the need to use it for kindling, or cleaning the kitchen pot. I don’t know what she’s said of you, or me, to Emory, but I also notice that she takes care never to let me be alone with him.

I manage to snare woodchucks and squirrels now and then, and the hens are laying well. I’ve seen wild hog tracks, but even if I shot one, I couldn’t butcher it out myself, and the men would take it, if I asked for help. I tell Julia I know of nests where stray hens sometimes lay out, but not that I’m keeping four of them up in Skull Cave. That way, I can trade the eggs if I need something (like postage to you), or, I’m sorry to say, eat them myself, when I go out to forage. I know if she knew of them, she’d only tell Emory, as she did with the pig, and they’d be gone. Trout are running well, too, and I never bring home all I spear. I dry one or two in the woods, and hide them. We’ll make it through the winter somehow. I’m glad you get to keep all your corn.

P.S. They said in town today that Lucas Reynolds was shot as he rode back from Knoxville, because of his sons being in the Union Army.

Dearest Susanna,

Thank you for your letter. Simple words, to embody the peace I feel, at knowing that there is someone, with whom I can share my heart. Papa tries so very hard to relieve me of some of the burden of looking after Mother, but he searches so desperately for crumbs of evidence that she is still as she was—or even that she is getting
better—that every hour is to him a source of pain. If my words to you about climbing down that cliff in the darkness were of help—though at the time I wrote them I don’t think either of us realized how deep that chasm is, or how appalling some of those tiny hand-holds—I come back, again and again, to the words you wrote me about your home: that you are reminded of that species of dream, where people around you insist that someone you know and love is indeed that person … only you know in your heart that they are not. I do not know which of my parents I pity more.

If there is any way to convey to Julia how deeply I feel for her situation, please do so. I only met Tom once, on the occasion of their wedding, but I liked him very much. How could I not, when I saw him and Emory together, shoving and joking like brothers?
The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David …
Do you know, whether Emory was at Vicksburg or not? Or whether he knows of Tom’s injury?