The Curse of the Buttons (6 page)

“And farther by now,” said Susannah.

The girls started chattering.

“Quiet!” said Aunt Sue. “There’s more, there’s more. Read on, dear.”

“Thank you, Sue,” said Mother, managing a smile. She held the letter out and stood taller.

“We have joined up with General Lyon, who leads us on our next —”

“Lion!” gasped LouLou.

“Quiet!” everyone shouted. LouLou ran to Ike. He pushed her away.
Leon and Jim with a general?

“. . . our next journey, which is by rail.”

“Rail!” Ike shouted, and no one shushed him. None of them had yet ridden a train.

“. . . which is by rail,”
his mother repeated, and continued.
“Yes, your men will travel deep into Missouri on the railroad. With love and devotion.”

She turned the letter over. She shook the envelope.

“General Lyon?” Aunt Sue said, grabbing the letter and reading it for herself. She handed it back to Ike’s mother and hurried inside, returning with a newspaper.

“
General Lyon landed four miles below Booneville and opened a heavy cannonade against the rebels, who retreated and dispersed into the adjacent woods, from whence, hidden behind bushes and trees, they opened a brisk fire upon our troops.

“
General Lyon then ordered a hasty retreat to the boats . . .
”
She paused, skimming, then continued.
“. . .
faced his troops about, bringing the whole force of his artillery to bear, opened a murderous fire on the rebels . . . then moved forward and took possession of Booneville.”

No one spoke.

“What else did our men say?” asked Aunt Betsy. “There must be more to the letter.”

“Nothing else!” Mother said. “We don’t even know which one wrote it!”

“
Our next journey
. . . Unsatisfactory. Grace Gorman had a
very
newsy note including stories of a Missouri woman shaking her fist and spitting at the soldiers, and another gifting them with cake the moment they stepped off the
Jeannie Deans.
Also, flags of enormous proportion. None of their men said anything about brisk or murderous fire. We don’t know it was our men with General Lyon.”

“Brisk fire,” said Ike. “What if they were shot?”

“Whose handwriting does it look like?” Aunt Betsy asked, reaching for the letter. But Mother held it closer and studied it.

“I don’t know. I don’t know! They’ve never written to us before!” She dropped the letter, burst into tears, and ran inside.

Ike picked up the letter and put it in his pocket.

“Who’s for pie?” asked Aunt Betsy. “Time for pie if ever there was one.”

She cut two thick slabs and handed both to Ike.

“One for you, and one for your trusty steed.”

“I’m taking Barfoot out for a ride,” Ike said after supper, which they were eating tonight in Aunt Betsy’s dining room. He went to the sideboard for another bite of potatoes as Susannah cleared the dishes.

“Not now,” said Aunt Betsy. “Now we write letters.”

“But I take Barfoot out every night.” Ike nabbed a biscuit as Jane took the plate.

“Not now,” said Aunt Sue. “Our men need our support.”

“Albirdie will be expecting me for checkers.” He watched LouLou wrestle with the milk pitcher.

“Not now, Ike!” snapped Aunt Betsy. Ike looked up. Aunt Betsy didn’t snap.

“OK,” he mumbled.

“OK,” Aunt Betsy said. She wiped down the long table and put out a stack of paper. The younger girls took their paper to the floor, where they lay on their stomachs and drew pictures with stubby pencils. The babies slept on the sofa.

Susannah sat at the table next to Ike. “Baking pies, sweeping the carpet, all these ordinary chores. All this
waiting
. What is there to write about?”

Aunt Betsy unfurled a brand-new map and tacked it to the wall.

“We can keep track of the Iowa First on this map. Ike, make a mark on Hannibal.” She put her thick thumb on the word.

Ike ran his hand over the map. He traced the Mississippi from Keokuk to Hannibal. It was barely a pinky finger’s distance. How hard would it be to go that far? He drew an
X
on Hannibal. “Should I add Booneville?” he asked.

“No,” said Aunt Betsy firmly. “We’ll only record what we know for sure.”

Ike looked for Booneville, pressed his finger on it, then went back to his blank paper.

“Do we have to write to all of them?” he asked.

“No,” said his mother. “Just write to who you want to write to.” She sat up taller in her chair as she said this.

Dear Leon and Jim,
Ike wrote. He held his pencil above the paper for a long time. What would his brothers want to hear? They wouldn’t want to hear about Mother crying for them or about Jane and LouLou fighting.

“Can we tell about the house?”

“No!” said all the mothers at once.

Ike studied the page for a long time. . . .
hidden behind bushes and trees.
He doodled around the edges. He wanted to say something to impress his brothers, to make them wish they’d brought him along. But all he’d done so far was bring water in for dishes, watch the babies for Aunt Betsy, ride downtown on Barfoot to watch the new soldiers come into town, meet Junior at the river to shoot rocks with slingshots, and lose several dozen checkers games to Albirdie. Three wins.

He set the pencil down and drummed his fingers on the table. He should be in Missouri, too. He should be on that train. He should be wherever they were right now.

“Quit that drumming, Ike!” Susannah said. “You’re interrupting my concentration.”

Ike looked at his restless fingers. He looked around the room. Three women. Eight girls. He longed for one of Leon’s belches or for Jim to sock him on the arm. He tapped out a quick rhythm on the table with his index fingers.

I have taken up drumming for real,
Ike wrote. It was sort of true — he’d tried to get a drumstick from Milton and Morris. It was true in the way that the great traverse from the east was true. Their horses had been stolen, but Palmer had had the fortitude to continue anyhow.

If Palmer didn’t need his own horse to set off for the west, why would Ike need a steamer to go south?

He used his pencil to drum another rhythm. There must be a way. Other boats. Ike stood suddenly. He ran to the door and looked across the alley at the Hinman house.

In fact, there were other boats. In fact, a river captain lived very close by with two clever sons. Sons who knew how to get what they wanted.

Maybe soon I will join you. Your brother, Ike.

“There,” he said, folding his paper. Everyone else was still writing. His mother let out a loud sniffle now and again. Susannah finished writing and stormed back to her house.

He paused. Reading over his letter again, he saw he sounded like a child, not a soldier. He crouched down and surreptitiously stuck it under the rug with the straw padding. He’d try again when he had something better to say.

“I’m going out,” he said quietly, and no one looked up as he made his way out the door, past Barfoot, who snorted noisily, and into the unfamiliar territory of the Hinmans’ yard.

Ike stood at the Hinmans’ back door for a long moment, Goldenrod and Marigold at his side, yapping.
Why would a Hinman help a Button,
he wondered. Well, he’d just have to make Milton and Morris want to go south, too. He took a deep breath and knocked.

“Myrtle!” Old Man Hinman called to his daughter. “Door!”

“Morris!” Mrs. Hinman called. “Door!”

“Milton!” Morris called from upstairs. “You’re supposed to get the door.”

Ike knocked again.

“Banker, robber, friend, or foe?” called Mrs. Hinman in a singsong voice.

“Ike Button,” Ike shouted.

“Oh, a
Button
knocks on our door,” called Mrs. Hinman. “Well, now, these must be wartimes indeed. Come in,
Mister
Button.”

The Hinman house was laid out much like Ike’s and the other Button houses. But the families hadn’t spoken since Ike could remember. Some mess with money. He hadn’t been in their house since he was young. Milton and Morris had knocked him off the lean-to roof when he was seven and he’d given them a wide berth since.

Ike followed Mrs. Hinman’s voice through the kitchen to the front room. Old Mr. Hinman was holding his arms straight out with yarn stretched between them, which Mrs. Hinman was rolling into a ball.

“Isaac Button. In my very front room. I guess now that the men are gone, no telling what all is going to change.

“And speaking of change, I saw out our upstairs window
much
ado at Button Row some days back.
Much
carrying on of personal items from one door to the next. What on earth?”

“Con-con-consolidation,” Ike stammered. “Twenty-one people, three houses . . . eleven . . . It’s just that . . . What are you doing with all that yarn?” Why didn’t Milton and Morris come downstairs and rescue him?

“Blame rubbish, ask me,” Old Man Hinman snapped with a furious glance at his daughter that she didn’t see.

“There is no call for such a tone, Daddy,” Mrs. Hinman said. “Isaac had no choice about being born a Button, now, did you?”

“I meant this darned string,” the old man muttered.

Mrs. Hinman ignored him and kept winding the yarn at a dizzying speed.

“Socks,” she said. “Our boys are going to need socks. Even the Button boys. This scuffle is going to last longer than a pair of stockings per man, you take it from Myrtle Hinman, river captain’s wife. River captains, unlike mere lounge-abouts, need respectable socks on a regular basis.” She came to the end of the skein and plopped the ball into a waiting basket with a satisfied
humph.

“Are the Button women doing their knitting?” she asked, holding up a stocking, then picking away at the stitches. “And you? Boys can knit, too, you know. My Morris and Milton are doing their part, I don’t mind telling you. They’re upstairs stitching woollies right now. Not only for their own people, but also for whoever may be in need. Are you knitting?”

“I, um, I . . .”

“Tsk-tsk,” said Mrs. Hinman. “Rolling bandages? Picking lint?”

Ike shook his head.

“Just as I thought. Though, it isn’t really your fault no one has instilled these values in you. We have to
pull
together, Isaac. Despite that anti-slave nonsense, we are a nation. And a nation is like a family. And family sticks together. Our nation must
pull
together. Isn’t that right, Daddy?”

Old Man Hinman picked up a newspaper and held it in front of his face. He grunted noncommittally.

“Daddy would have gone to war, too, even at his advanced age, if it weren’t for his afflicted lungs.”

Old Man Hinman mustered a hearty cough.

“As it is, my sister’s family sent eight boys all told. I don’t mind telling you that their regimental leader says they’re gifted at the drums and fife. Rhythm. They got that from my people. They are an asset to the Union, and they shall have dry feet.”

Mrs. Hinman set down her needles. “But I can’t do it all myself, Isaac. I was just saying to Daddy, I says,
What this neighborhood needs is a Soldiers’ Aid Society.
Didn’t I say just that, Daddy? I’d host it here, heaven knows, but look around you, Isaac. There isn’t a whit of room in here, what with Daddy’s books and newspapers and what have you. A
globe,
for the love of Pete. Now, if we had resources from out west, like
some people,
resources that are quite due us, this might well be Hinman Row instead of just the Hinman house, and we’d have plenty of room to share with the community.”

She picked up her needles and knit with a fury.

“But that’s water under the bridge, isn’t it? Captain Hinman said to me last time he was home, he says,
Water under the bridge, dearest. Let it be water under the bridge.
And I must let it be. What we need is a generous space that could be used at any hour. A place for neighbor women to gather. To store our supplies. To come
together
in community to
aid
our men in battle.”

“I just came to see . . .” Ike started. How could he ask her to let him see Milton and Morris?