Across Five Aprils

by Irene Hunt

  “Ma would let her git married to you, Shad. But Pa—sometimes Pa kin be so good, and then agin, he kin be awful strict.”

  Shadrach stared gloomily at Jethro’s foot, which he still held in his hands.

  “I respect him so much,” he said after a while, “and I owe him so much, but I think he’s overshooting the mark when he sets himself up as knowing exactly what is right or wrong for two other people. I think he’s being tyrannical and—” he stopped himself abruptly.

  Jethro felt a twinge of loyalty for his father in the face of Shadrach’s obvious anger.

  “Of course Jenny is real young, Shad,” he said, with the gravity of a small parson.

  Shadrach raised a black eyebrow. “Thou too, Brutus?” he asked, grinning a little sourly.

  Jethro did not understand the allusion, and Shadrach seemed to be in no mood for explanations.

  “There wouldn’t be any question about it if it weren’t for this war,” he said, after a moment with his own thoughts. “I’d be willing to wait years for Jenny, but when I think of leaving her, maybe for—a long time—I guess panic hits me a little.”

  “When do you go, Shad?”

  “Next week—John and I. He’ll go as far as Chicago with me; I’ll go back to Philadelphia.”

  “Seems like I can’t face up to yore goin’.”

  “I’m not eager for it either, Jeth, not by a long way. I’ve got a lot of plans for the next forty or fifty years of my life, and being a soldier is not a part of any single one of them.”

  “Do you hev to do it then?”

  “I guess I do. There’s been a long chain of events leading up to this time; the dreams of men in my generation are as insignificant as that—” he snapped his fingers sharply. “We were foolish enough to reach manhood just when the long fizzling turned into an explosion.”

  “Maybe—maybe it will be over soon. I know Pa don’t think so, but people in Newton was sayin’ that it would, and Jenny even read it in the paper.”

  “What is that saying of your mother’s—about hope making a fool out of reason? We finally—finally, mind you—have a victory at Forts Henry and Donelson. Then—hooray! The end of the war is in sight for the optimists. I’m afraid not, Jeth.”

  The mention of Forts Henry and Donelson made Jethro remember the letter. He hastily unpinned it from the inside of his shirt and gave it to Shadrach.

  “I fergot this—it’s from Tom. Ma wanted you to read it.”

  Shadrach took the letter eagerly and held it so that it was lighted by the fire as he read. When he had finished, he folded it slowly and looked into the flames.

  Jethro sat quietly watching his teacher’s sober face. He thought of boys frozen under the snow at Donelson, he remembered that he had not loved Tom as he had Bill and Shadrach, and suddenly the warm, firelit room, the smell of food, the shelves of books, all wakened a feeling of guilt in his mind. He wondered if Tom had a coat and blanket; he thought of the bitter cold outside and shuddered involuntarily.

  Shadrach looked up at him. “Still cold, Jeth?”

  “Nothin’ to speak of.”

  “You were thinking of the letter?”

  “I guess so.”

  Shadrach shook his head. “It’s all a brutal business. There are going to be a lot of letters—worse than this one.”

  “If this victory wasn’t so much, Shad, why was people in Newton yellin’ so and sayin’, ‘God bless Grant’?”

  “It was an important victory, Jeth; don’t misunderstand me. Look, I’m going to show you something....” Shadrach got to his feet and brought pencil and a piece of rough paper from the bookshelves. He drew the paisley-covered table up closer to the fire and motioned Jethro to join him beside it. “Come here. We’ll have a little lesson together.”

  He was sketching rapidly, first the outline of a block of states, then lines to represent rivers and railroads and small squares for towns. His eyes began to shine with interest in his project as he worked.

  “Now, this is the Confederate line, Jeth, beginning over here in eastern Kentucky.” Shadrach studied his sketch and added a row of x’s to represent the Confederates. “Here it comes across the Blue Grass country; then it crosses the Mississippi about here; on it stretches across Missouri and on over here into Indian Territory—a line several hundred miles long. Now, all of this is under the command of a Confederate general named Albert Sidney Johnston—you’ve heard of him, maybe?”

  “I think I’ve heered Pa speak the name.” Jethro was seeing in his mind’s eye gray-clad men standing side by side, forming a single line across miles of fields, hills, and rivers; grim, forbidding men except for one familiar face. He wondered if Bill could feel comfortable in that long gray line of strangers. Then he pulled himself back to Shadrach’s running explanation, which accompanied his sketching.

  “Here are two rivers, the Tennessee and the Cumberland. See how they run side by side and only a few miles apart as they come up toward the Ohio, and notice that they are crossed by the Confederate line. Now, over here on the Ohio our gunboats have been lying, some at the mouth of the Cumberland, some at the mouth of the Tennessee—a threat to this Confederate line, you see.”

  Jethro shook his head. “What if they did threaten it? Gunboats couldn’t lick that long line of Rebs stretchin’ across the map, could they?”

  “No, but look what they could do—what, in fact, they’ve already done. Notice how the Cumberland dips down into Tennessee and flows past these towns—Clarksville here and Nashville here. It’s from these towns that the Confederates have been getting their supplies; this line can’t move far or fight our armies if it doesn’t have food, guns, ammunition. These things have been coming up the river and this—” Shadrach made a small square on the line representing the Cumberland and labelled it “Donelson”—“this is the fort that the Confederates thought would be enough to keep our gunboats from controlling their supply line.”

  “And was it the same on the other river?”

  “In a way. See, this line represents a railroad; it comes up here from Memphis and crosses the Tennessee just below Fort Henry. Supplies have been coming up here by rail, probably every day—no doubt soldiers too, as reinforcements for Johnston. Now, do you see why Grant and Admiral Foote struck at these forts?”

  “Yes, I see it now.” Jethro felt a great satisfaction, which came from his new understanding. He studied the map thoughtfully. “That was a wonderful thing Tom helped to do, wasn’t it, Shad?”

  “Yes, it was, Jeth. We needed a victory—how we needed one—and Tom helped to give the Confederates a big set-back. Things have been going their way all these months, but not now. This victory has clinched Kentucky to the Union side; that’s a big thing in itself.”

  “But it ain’t enough. Is that what you meant a while ago, Shad?”

  “Well, think for yourself, Jeth. Our armies in the West have a part of the Union’s plans to carry out, just one part, and let’s see what it is. Have a look at old Mississippi here. If we can control this river, we can cut the Confederacy right in two. That’s not saying we can win the war out here, but it would be a big step, because any Confederate army west of the river would be just about powerless to do anything. Here in Kentucky we’re in control now; Johnston’s men can’t get supplies, so they have to withdraw or surrender. But down here, look how the Mississippi stretches through the states of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana—all enemy territory. And think how hard the fighting was at this little place on the map called Donelson. Does this make you want to throw up your hat and say that it’s all about over?”

  The log in the fireplace fell apart, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. Outside across the prairie the shadows were almost black. Jethro and young Yale were silent, a part of the great dread that spread in all directions over the land that night, a dread that all the cheers over Fort Henry and Donelson couldn’t dispel; it reached from the White House to the cities and towns—north and south, to the lonely places in the fa
rmlands, one of which was this long log room adjoining a country schoolhouse.

  Finally Jethro spoke softly. “Anyway, we’ve got Grant. That’s good, ain’t it, Shad?”

  “It appears so.” Shadrach’s tone lacked the enthusiasm Jethro would like to have heard. “It’s strange,” he added. “I’d have sworn that General McClellan was worth a dozen Grants, and yet, what do we have? McClellan in the East still waiting, week after week, while Grant strikes out here and strikes successfully. I wonder what the President is thinking.”

  Jethro had forgotten for a while the sad-eyed President, whose pictures had been in the papers only days before, above the story of his own son’s death. Willie Lincoln, the eleven-year-old boy in the White House, had died that same month.

  “I guess Ol’Abe has troubles over and above any of us,” Jethro said, his large eyes grave with sympathy.

  “Mr. Lincoln, Jeth.”

  He would remember the rebuke to the end of his days. He would remember, and he would feel ashamed at the memory, but still, he would wonder. People—smart people, one would suppose since they printed newspapers and drew pictures for them—many of these people spoke of the President as “the baboon,” “the ugly, ignorant, backwoods Lincoln,” and other names as vicious and expressive of hate. To say, “Old Abe” was not mean or vicious; people from all around called Matthew Creighton “Old Matt.” They meant no disrespect. Under no circumstance would he, Jethro Creighton, show disrespect to the President.

  “I think a lot of Mr. Lincoln,” he stated in quiet self-defense after a while.

  “I know you do, Jeth.”

  “Lots of people don’t. I could name you people in this neighborhood that hate him like poison.”

  “Not only in this neighborhood—not only in the South, either. It seems that people everywhere are criticizing him. The abolitionists hate him as much as the sympathizers of the South do. People blame him for the mistakes of his generals; and they’re just as bitter about his grammar, his appearance, his family.” Shadrach took a poker and stirred it thoughtfully among the red coals. “I’m not wise enough to measure Mr. Lincoln, Jeth; I just don’t know. But I have a feeling of confidence and faith in him that I can’t always justify. Sometimes I’m angered with him as others are; sometimes I can’t understand him. But somehow my faith in him always comes back.”

  “I wish I could see him. Sometimes I want to talk to him so bad; I want to explain to him about Bill—”

  “He has to consider men by the thousands who think the way Bill does.”

  “Bill was jest tryin’ to git at the truth, Shad. You know that.”

  “Yes, I know it very well, Jeth.”

  “But he didn‘t, did he? Bill wasn’t right in his thinkin’, was he?”

  “He acted according to what he thought was right. Your father and John, you and I, none of us sees the ‘right’ as he sees it. But that doesn’t make Bill all wrong. You’re going to hear some harsh things said about him; but you remember, Jeth, that it took far more courage for Bill to do what he did than it does for John and me to carry out our plans next week.”

  Jethro studied the rough-hewn floor. “I set such great store by him,” he said finally.

  “I know,” Shadrach answered. “So do I.”

  He put his hand on Jethro’s knee. “We’re letting ourselves get too sad, Jeth. We’d better think about supper. How’s your appetite?”

  “Seems like it’s always in pretty fair shape.”

  “Well, put a couple of potatoes in that bed of coals, and I’ll set out our plates and mugs. I think we’ll have some of Jenny’s peach preserves by way of celebration.”

  His host commenced preparations for their supper with a lively cheerfulness that swept Jethro away from his troubled thoughts and back to the immediate satisfactions of the evening. Shadrach had a flair for mimicry and while he cut long slices of meat from the roasted chicken, he took in turn the role of a classroom bully, an angry woman who had descended upon the school in defense of her dull son’s intellectual attainments, and a pompous director of the school who, at the beginning of Shadrach’s first term, had advised the young teacher before the entire school as to what was and was not acceptable in his position.

  “It’s larnin’ we want in this here school, young feller,” Shadrach drawled, glaring balefully at his delighted guest. “It’s larnin’ and none of yore fine-haired gimcracks.”

  Jethro laughed then, a clear child’s laugh, freed momentarily from the heaviness of the times. He took his place at the table beside the fireplace and, swayed happily by his teacher’s mood, savored the flavor of the food, the beauty of candle and firelight, the joy of close companionship.

  “I’m goin’ to remember this night fer a long while, Shad,” he said, smiling.

  Shadrach put his hand to his throat as if some constriction had suddenly tightened it, but he answered the smile.

  “Sometime, when I come back, you and Jenny and I are going to have evenings like this together. We’ve decided that you’ll live with us and go to school, maybe to one of the fine universities in the East when you’re old enough.”

  Jethro shook his head. “I don’t know how I kin learn enough to be able to go to one of those schools, Shad.”

  “I’m going to leave my books with you. Some of them will be too difficult for a while, but many of them you can read, and you’ll grow into the others. Jenny will help you; I’m setting her the task of reading a lot of them too.”

  “Jenny would copy them all out with a pencil if you was to ask her to do it.”

  “Don’t be too sure. Jenny has a mind of her own; she sees through nonsense like a flash.” He sat quietly, thinking of Jenny for a while. “I hope she doesn’t make up that independent mind of hers to grow to like some other fellow when I’m gone away.”

  “She wouldn’t do that,” Jethro protested angrily. “Jenny’d hev more sense than that.”

  “I hope so. You watch out for me, will you?”

  “Of course.” Both Jenny and Shad embarrassed him a little with their talk of love; he turned his eyes to the bookshelves and tried not to be too obvious in his maneuvering of the conversation. “If it wasn’t fer yore leavin’, I’d be real proud about keepin’ yore books, Shad.”

  “Well, read all you can. And newspapers, Jeth—study them. I know they’re a little difficult, but you’re a bright boy; you can get something out of them. The accounts you read in newspapers today will fill the pages of history by the time you’re a man.”

  When the supper dishes were out of the way, Shadrach took the guitar down from the wall, and as Jethro sang the folk songs that his mother had brought with her from the hills of Kentucky, Shadrach worked out accompaniments for them on the strings. It was something they had often done together, and Jethro loved it.

  “ ‘Seven stars are in the sky,’ ” he sang softly, and Shadrach nodded, pleased with the choice. It was a song without a definite beginning or end, full of distortions acquired as it passed by word of mouth from generation to generation; but it had a pleasing melody which wailed over some secret that lay under the unintelligible patter of words.

  Seven stars are in the sky,

  Six and six go equal,

  Five’s the rambeau in his boat,

  Four score’s an acre;

  Three is a driver,

  Two shall be the Lily o’ the Day,

  Dressed in scarl’t and green-o,

  The one, the one, that’s left alone

  It no more shall be alone—1

  It stopped, but did not end. Shadrach sang the last lines over again as if searching for a completion.

  “Those words must have had a meaning to someone at some time or other,” he mused.

  “Ma says that old people in Kaintuck thought it was witch-talk to the Devil, talk they didn’t want Christians to understand.” Jethro shifted a little uneasily. “I doubt if there’s anything to it, though,” he added, conscious of the look of skepticism on Shadrach’s face.
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  “Anyway, the witch theory was always a convenient one for something they didn’t understand, wasn’t it?”

  “You don’t believe in witches at all, do you, Shad?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “And yet you’ve told me that we ain’t got a right to say fer sure that a thing is true or not true ’less we kin prove we’re right.”

  Shadrach struck a few chords on the guitar and seemed to study their harmony closely before he replied.

  “You’re right, Jeth. I can’t offer positive proof that there are no witches. And my anger is not with people who believe that witches actually lived back in the mountains where your mother was a girl. They have a right to their belief—as I have to mine. But I’m scornful of people who are so sure of something they can’t prove that they’ll torture or kill anyone who is accused, the ones who would have been in a hurry to cry ‘Witch’ to an odd old woman if they heard that she’d been humming ‘Seven Stars’ on the day their best cow died.”

  Jethro nodded and sat quietly staring into the fire for a long time, listening to the music of the strings until his eyes grew heavy and his shoulders began to droop. Then Shadrach turned the covers of the bed back and smiled as he watched his guest burrow under the quilts and curl up into a small, relaxed spiral in one corner. ,

  “I’m going to keep the fire going for a while, Jeth, and do a little writing. Sleep well.” He stood for a minute looking down at Jethro and then went to sit at the table beside the fire, busying himself with pen and paper.

  Jethro lay awake for a few minutes; snatches of conversation, flashes of things remembered from the day, raced through his mind. There was a war somewhere outside, and it was bitter cold; there was a sad-eyed President, and one should always call him Mr. Lincoln; there was Jenny, who was not too young to be in love, and Tom somewhere with Grant’s army, and Bill standing in a straight, gray line that stretched across the country until it was broken at Donelson. Donelson was a square on Shad’s map, and there was a long, wavy line that stood for a river. And boys had thrown away their coats and blankets before they reached Donelson; but now the fort was taken, and supplies for the Confederates could no longer be brought in either by railroad or by river. It was a fine thing that Tom had helped to do. Well, he would read Shad’s books with Jenny, and he would try to understand the newspapers—Shad thought that he was bright enough. The chicken had been good—and his mother’s white bread. It had been a fine meal for two bachelors. The candlelight was like pure gold, and his teacher’s shadow against the wall was like a picture.