The Deserter (32 page)

But that was impossible, of course, because if their ancestors had not died in the Civil War, the building itself would not be there at all. That colossal building, that massive displacer of air and sky, would never have occupied the triangle of land bounded by Kirkland Street, Cambridge and Quincy
.

And therefore the banquet for all the unborn descendants would have to take place somewhere else. They would have to hire a hall
.

THE HORRID BANG

S
o it was all over, except for one small detail.

Mary came upon it while clearing up everything, inserting new folders in her file cabinet, packing a box with the child's nightdress, the Shaker bonnet, the bloodstained coat and the two little cases of photographs.

Only the handkerchiefs remained to be put away. And it was while she was tucking them back in their silken envelope that the delicate fabric of the lining gave way, releasing a wrinkled sheet of lavender paper. It was another letter from Lily LeBeau.

Mary unfolded it, expecting another piece of foolish silliness.

Lily's letter was silly all right, and foolish in the extreme, but it delivered a blow.

21 April '65

Darling Ida
,

Tho not in touch these 2 yrs this is to inform you unfettred by any restraynt that we are safe and sownd. Such ecsitment! We were backstage at the time but when we heard the HORRID BANG we were AGAST as you can immagin but we wayted not a moment. We galoped awy on our trustie steed well acshully a hack with an old nag
!

S. wore a grey wig and my black mantua and bonnet you remember the one with yellow posys and fethers and by good luck his whiskers was all shaved off beforehand so as to look like ancient Grease so we were 2 RISPETABLE LADEYS! Because he was always talking about the old days in that club when they dressed up like girls! How I laffed! We were so quik we got across the Chayn bridge altho I heard they baricaded it soon therafter to prevent excape of You Know Who, but one of the gards was a gentelman friend of mine so I really had to laff!! We gave the hack man $50!!!

The theatre here is more of a tavern not ezactly what we are accostomed to. For yr sake I hope the baby was a boy, tho prefering girls myself
.

Yr loving Lily

Mary pushed open the door to the porch and shouted at Homer. He was banging out a dent in the aluminum canoe, making such a din that he didn't hear. But when she screamed at the top of her lungs, he put down his hammer and followed her indoors.

“Look at this, Homer,” she said, thrusting the letter at him. “It's a bombshell.”

“Another letter?” Homer's attention had drifted far away from the problems of his wife's remote ancestor. He glanced at Lily's letter. “What on earth is she talking about?”

“Oh, Homer, don't you know? Can't you see?” Mary ran to her file cabinet, wrenched open a drawer, and jerked out the folder for Ida Morgan. “Look at the playbills,” she said, rattling them under his nose.

“Well, of course I remember the playbills. They're all cut up with scissors.”

“Exactly. Ida did it. She cut out a name from all of them. The same name, one of the actors.”

“One of the actors?” Homer gaped at her stupidly. “You mean Seth Morgan? Otis Pike?”

“No, no, of course not. Homer, just look at her letter. There was
a horrid bang
, and then Lily and Otis escaped from the theater and ran away. It was April 1865, and only a week later they were safely across the border in Canada.”

Homer understood at last. He said, “My God.”

“So that's what the family was so ashamed of. Oh, poor Ida, if only she could have known that it wasn't Seth who was mixed up with all those people, it was Otis Pike. No wonder they kept it hushed up, all my ancestors, generation after generation.”

“Of course,” agreed Homer. “What could have been worse? The truth at last.”

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets
,

Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land
,

With the pomp of the inloop 'd flags with the cities draped in black
,

With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd women standing
,

With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night
,

With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads
,

With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the somber faces
,

With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn
,

With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd around the coffin
,

The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs
.

—Walt Whitman

VARIOUS PATRIOTIC
REMARKS

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just
.

—T
HOMAS
J
EFFERSON,

Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781

“
The good Lord have pity on us!” said Aunt Chloe. “O! it don't seem as it was true! What has he done, that Mas'r should sell him!”…

He leaned over the back of the chair, and covered his face with his large hands. Sobs, heavy, hoarse, and loud, shook the chair, and great tears fell through the fingers on the floor: just such tears, sir, as you dropped into the coffin where lay your first-born son; such tears, woman, as you shed when you heard the cries of your dying babe. For, sir, he was a man, and you are but another man. And, woman, though dressed in silk and jewels, you are but a woman, and, in life's great straits and mighty griefs, ye feel but one sorrow
!

—H
ARRIET
B
EECHER
S
TOWE,

Uncle Tom's Cabin
, 1852

I hear another ask, Yankee-like, “What will he gain by it?” … Well, no, I don't suppose he could get four-and-sixpence a day for being hung, take the year round; but then he stands a chance to save a considerable part of his soul … No doubt you can get more in your market for a quart of milk than for a quart of blood, but that is not the market that heroes carry their blood to
.

—H
ENRY
T
HOREAU,

“A Plea for Captain John Brown,” 1859

Those of us whose fortunate lot it was to enlist in the army, during that magic epoch of adventure which has just passed by, will never again find in life a day of such strange excitement as that when they first put on uniform and went into camp … the transformation seemed as perfect as if, by some suddenly revealed process, one had learned to swim in air, and were striking out for some new planet.… Now … already its memories grow dim … The aureole is vanished from their lives
.

—T
HOMAS
W
ENTWORTH
H
IGGINSON

Captain, 51st Mass. V. M., 25 September, 1862: Colonel, 1st S. C. Vols. (33rd U. S. Colored Troops), 10 Nov., 1862; discharged, for disability, 27 Oct., 1864.

… if you have been in the picket-line at night in a black and unknown wood, have heard the splat of bullets upon the trees, and … felt your foot slip upon a dead man's body, if you have had a blind fierce gallop against the enemy, with your blood up and a pace that left no time for fear … you know that man has in him that unspeakable somewhat which makes him … able to lift himself by the might of his own soul …

As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust … I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt … the passion of life at its top
.

—O
LIVER
W
ENDELL
H
OLMES,
J
R.

Private, 4th Battery Mass. V. M., April, Vols., 10 July, 1861: Captain, 23 March, 1861: First Lieutenant, 20th Mass. 1862: Lt. Colonel 5 July, 1863 …

mustered out, 17 July, 1864.

The men were brought down from the field and laid on the ground beside the train and so back up the hill ‘till they covered acres.… By midnight there must have been three thousand helpless men lying in that hay.… All night we made compresses and slings—and bound up and wet wounds, when we could get water, fed what we could, travelled miles in that dark over these poor helpless wretches, in terror lest some one's candle fall into the hay and consume them all
.

—C
LARA
B
ARTON

Second Bull Run,

4 September, 1862

We heard all through the war that the army “was eager to be led against the enemy.” It must have been so, for truthful correspondents said so, and editors confirmed it. But when you came to hunt for this particular itch, it was always the next regiment that had it. The truth is, when bullets are whacking against tree-trunks and solid shot are cracking skulls like egg-shells, the consuming passion in the breast of the average man is to get out of the way
.

—D
AVID
T
HOMPSON

9th New York Volunteers, at Antietam