The Totally Made-up Civil War Diary of Amanda MacLeish

by Claudia Mills

  “Okay!” their dad announced heartily. “We’re not going to spend this whole visit watching TV. I’m going to be away next weekend on a business trip. So today we’re going to have a father-daughter outing.”

  Amanda stood up. Steffi stayed seated.

  “Come on, Steffi, honey, you can catch the show later.”

  “What kind of outing?” Steffi sounded so hostile, even for Steffi, that Amanda was taken aback. Had Steffi really tuned out the whole conversation about the crab sandwiches?

  “Too bad you didn’t bring umbrellas. We could take a walk in the rain. I remember when you girls thought it was the most fun thing in the whole world to put up your little Barney umbrellas and go out stomping in every puddle.”

  “We did bring umbrellas. They’re in the car,” Amanda said.

  His face lit up. “Great!”

  “Things have changed, Dad,” Steffi said coldly. “For your information, we’re not five years old anymore. We don’t have Barney umbrellas. We don’t stomp in puddles.”

  His smile faded. “I’m aware of that, Steffi. I know things have changed. Believe me, I know.”

  “Should I go get the umbrellas?” Amanda asked.

  “No,” Steffi said.

  “I guess not,” her dad said in a low, defeated tone.

  Amanda couldn’t bear it. She wasn’t going to let Steffi ruin everything. “I want to walk in the rain.”

  This time Steffi included Amanda in her glare. Amanda’s chin lifted.

  Their dad looked from one daughter to the other. “Okay,” he finally said. “Steffi, you can stay here and finish watching your show. Amanda and I won’t be gone long.”

  It was raining harder now than when they had arrived. Amanda didn’t care. Her shoes were soaked by the time they reached the tennis courts at the edge of Georgetown Meadows, but the red and yellow leaves starting to turn on the overhanging oak and maple trees shone in the soft lamplight. No, not red and yellow—scarlet and golden.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes, Mandy?”

  “Do you know when telegrams were invented?”

  He chuckled, obviously having expected a different kind of question. “They’ve been around for a long time. I think they date back to the early 1800s.”

  “So they were around during the Civil War?”

  “I’m sure they were.”

  That was okay. Amanda wouldn’t have to go back and change her last diary entry, the one with the telegram in it. And Polly could still have a reason to go looking for Jeb, even if telegrams had been invented. There could be lots of reasons why a telegram about Jeb wouldn’t have come to the Mason family. Maybe Jeb had amnesia and couldn’t remember his name. Maybe there was no telegram-sending machine at a makeshift army hospital during wartime.

  They kept on walking. Autumn was her favorite time of year, Amanda decided. And walking in the rain with her father, on a gray and gloomy, sodden and sopping October afternoon had just become Amanda’s favorite thing in the world to do.

  July 29, 1861

  Dear Diary,

  The sky was growing pink when I reached the village, but no one was awake to see me slip down Main Street past the general store. I kept on walking south, toward Washington. That was the only idea I had so far.

  The next village was four miles away. I stopped there to pump myself some water from the village well and eat my breakfast. A lady at the well said, “Good morning, young man,” and at first I didn’t know she was talking to me! Then I jumped up to curtsy and remembered in time to bow instead. I couldn’t take off my hat because it hid my hair. I’m sure the lady thought me very rude.

  What if she had asked my name and I had said Polly Mason? I hadn’t thought of what my new name should be. Since Paul sounds a bit like Polly, I decided to be Paul Mason.

  By the next town, my feet were tired. I like to walk but not for hour after hour in the hot July sun. I had to sit and rest under a tree. I wondered if Mother and Father had found my note yet. Maybe Father would come after me in the wagon. I half wanted him to come so I wouldn’t have to walk anymore. But if he came, I wouldn’t find Jeb.

  I started walking again. A farmer’s wagon pulled up, not Father’s. “Do you want a ride, young man?” the farmer asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I told him, trying to make my voice deeper. “I’m going to Washington.”

  “Why are you going there?” he asked.

  I couldn’t think of a good lie. Jeb was always better at lying than I was. “I’m going to find my brother. He’s been wounded in the war.”

  “Where is he?” the farmer asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Then, Diary—oh, I am ashamed to write this—I started to cry. Imagine Paul Mason there by the side of the road crying! With no handkerchief, either!

  “Now, now, laddie,” the man said. “I’ll take you to the army hospital in Washington.”

  “My aunt already went there and she couldn’t find him.”

  “Is your brother Union or Rebel?” the man asked.

  I told him Rebel.

  Then the man looked angry, like Master Taylor about to whip Peter Partridge for wanting to sing “Dixie.”

  “Are you a Rebel, too, lad?” he asked me in a harsh voice.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what I am. My brother Thomas is for the North, and my brother Jeb is for the South, but I’m not for either side. I just want to find my brother.”

  Then the man smiled.

  “There’s a Rebel hospital in Virginia,” he said. “I will take you there.”

  I climbed into his wagon, in the back on top of his hay. Or maybe it is alfalfa. I am sitting there now, dear Diary, writing to you.

  I don’t know where Jeb is, but I have to believe I’m going to find him.

  Sometimes you just have to believe.

  9

  On Thursday, Mrs. Angelino told Amanda’s class that they were going to be learning a new Civil War song called “Goober Peas.”

  “Does anyone know what goober peas are?” she asked.

  Amanda didn’t. She wondered if Polly did.

  Without raising his hand, Ricky called out, “Boogers?” He and Lance started laughing so hard they almost fell off the music room risers.

  “No,” Mrs. Angelino said pleasantly, as if Ricky had offered a sensible, but unfortunately mistaken, answer. “Lance, why don’t you come stand over here by me.”

  Every class Lance and Ricky started out standing next to each other, and every class Mrs. Angelino decided that they needed to be separated. At least this time Amanda was safe, sandwiched between Beth and Meghan.

  “Goober peas are peanuts,” Mrs. Angelino explained, apparently deciding against asking for any more guesses from the class. “Peanuts were a popular crop in the South, and the Confederate soldiers liked to eat them as a healthy snack. The great African American scientist George Washington Carver found three hundred different uses for peanuts. Isn’t that amazing?”

  She beamed at James, as if George Washington Carver had been his great-grandfather.

  “How many uses for peanuts can you think of, boys and girls?”

  “Putting them up your nose!” Ricky suggested.

  Everybody laughed, except for Mrs. Angelino. “Peanut oil is one,” she said. “And of course peanut butter. So every time you eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you have a wonderful African American scientist to thank.” She smiled at James again.

  “But all that happened long after the Civil War. During the Civil War, what the soldiers did with peanuts, or goober peas, was eat them. And that’s what we’re going to be singing about now.”

  Mrs. Angelino pointed to the words of the song, written up on the chalkboard. “Sitting by the roadside, on a summer’s day. Chatting with my messmates, passing time away. Lying in the shadows, underneath the trees. Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas.”

  Amanda thought of Polly, stretched out on the fresh alfalfa, or hay, in the back of the f
armer’s wagon. “Goober Peas” was good music for a long lazy day with nothing to do.

  Amanda’s class had plenty to do, however. Mrs. Angelino proceeded to show them the motions for each line. For “Sitting by the roadside,” they plunked their arms down as if seating themselves in a chair. For “Chatting with my messmates,” they turned to the person next to them and moved their hands like talking puppets. For “Lying in the shadows,” they placed both hands, like a pillow, on the right side of their heads. For the last line they pantomimed putting peanuts into their mouths.

  Or, in Ricky’s case, into his nose. Amanda could hear that he was singing “booger peas” instead of “goober peas.” She smothered a giggle.

  After three times through the song, Mrs. Angelino was flushed from her enthusiastic pretend-devouring of goober peas. Signaling to the class to sit down on the risers, she lowered herself heavily into her chair.

  “For our concert,” Mrs. Angelino said, “I want to add some variety to the program. So in addition to our Civil War songs, I’m inviting all of you to contribute some numbers of your own. If you play an instrument, like piano or violin, I have sheet music for Civil War tunes that you can play for us. Any dancers in the class could do a Civil War dance. And someone could recite a Civil War poem, or Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.”

  Ricky called out, “Lance plays the violin.”

  Amanda knew that James played the violin, too. She had seen him carrying a violin case to school on instrumental music days.

  “Meghan and I can do an Irish dance,” Beth offered. She leaned over Amanda to flash Meghan a confident smile.

  Amanda didn’t play an instrument or dance. No one in their family was musical, except for her father, and until recently he hadn’t touched his saxophone in years. Her mother always used to make sarcastic comments when he played it. Amanda wouldn’t mind reciting a poem for the concert. She wondered if Mrs. Angelino would let her write her own poem, or if she had to use an old-time poem from an anthology.

  “You’ll have one week to work on your numbers. Then we’ll have auditions. I know it will be hard for me to make my selections with so much talent in this class! But we’ll want to pick only the very best numbers to perform for your parents.”

  If Amanda were picking the very best music for the program, she’d leave out “Goober Peas.” Or at least she’d put Ricky in the back row, behind someone very tall.

  After school, Amanda met Beth by the coatracks so they could start walking home to Beth’s house together. Beth was busy talking to Meghan, probably about their Civil War dance.

  “Meghan’s coming with us today,” Beth told Amanda. She didn’t add, “Okay?” If she had, of course Amanda would have said, “Sure.” What else could she have said, with Meghan standing right there? But it would have been polite at least to ask.

  “Wait! I have an idea!” Meghan said as they headed out the door.

  “What?” Amanda asked.

  “The O’Reilly jig. The one we did last year, for the April recital?”

  Amanda felt foolish for having thought Meghan had been speaking to both of them.

  “It’s pretty long,” Beth said. “I think Mrs. Angelino’s going to pick short pieces, to get more people on the program.”

  “How about—what was the name of that one? The one that goes like this?” Meghan started dancing right in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the school.

  Amanda tried to catch Beth’s eye, to see if Beth was as irritated as she was, but Beth shrugged off her backpack, dropped it on the sidewalk, and started dancing, too. Amanda was getting her own private Irish jig concert, for an audience of one. Except that she didn’t think Beth and Meghan even remembered she was there.

  Finally the dance was over. Amanda thought of clapping, but she knew it would seem sarcastic.

  “That’s it!” Beth said. “It’s perfect.”

  “Did people do Irish dancing during the Civil War?” Amanda couldn’t resist asking.

  Beth shrugged. “Probably.”

  “It’s not like Mrs. Angelino is going to check,” Meghan said.

  Didn’t they want to check? Amanda had checked whether people sent telegrams during the Civil War. She had researched the picnicking during the First Battle of Bull Run. She still hadn’t checked about hay versus alfalfa, but she would.

  “We can practice it more when we get home,” Beth said. “I have the DVD of the concert. We can watch it to make sure we have all the steps right.”

  So first Amanda had to watch Beth and Meghan dancing; now she’d have to watch them watching a DVD of themselves dancing.

  “What about the math homework?” Amanda asked.

  Meghan rolled her eyes at Beth. Even though Amanda had tried to roll her own eyes at Beth a few minutes ago, she felt her cheeks flush with anger.

  “We only have ten problems,” Meghan said. “It’ll take five minutes, tops.”

  Five minutes for Meghan, maybe. Not five minutes for Amanda. Amanda couldn’t do the math homework without Beth’s help. But she wasn’t going to ask for it in front of Meghan.

  Her eyes sent a pleading signal to Beth.

  Beth looked away.

  “Actually,” Amanda said, trying to keep her voice steady, “I just remembered that my mother told me to come home right away after school today.” She tried to think of a plausible reason to add, but couldn’t come up with one.

  There was a long pause. Amanda knew that Beth knew that she was lying. She knew that Meghan didn’t care whether she was lying or not.

  “Okay,” Beth said.

  “See you tomorrow!” Meghan called out cheerfully.

  Amanda gave a weak smile. Then she turned and walked toward home, alone.

  On the computer in her mother’s basement office, Amanda searched for “Irish dancing” and “Civil War.” Right away she found a Web site about an Irish brigade celebrating Christmas during the Civil War by doing Irish jigs and reels. Then she searched for “hay” and “alfalfa” and found out that alfalfa was actually a kind of hay, and it was indeed grown in Maryland; there were whole Web sites for buying and selling it.

  Should she call Beth and Meghan to tell them that they were right, after all? Maybe they had been secretly worried about whether their dance was historically accurate, and would appreciate the reassurance. And maybe the kind thoughtfulness of the call would make them feel sorry that they had gone off together without her.

  Beth picked up the phone. At least she wasn’t too busy jigging with Meghan to hear the phone ring.

  “Hi, Beth, it’s Amanda.”

  “Hi.” Beth didn’t sound particularly friendly.

  “I just want to let you and Meghan know that I checked on the Internet about Irish dancing during the Civil War, and it’s fine, they did have Irish dancing back then.”

  “You checked on the Internet?” Beth sounded suspicious rather than grateful, as if Amanda had been trying to prove them wrong instead of right.

  “Well, I was checking some other stuff, for my Polly diary. I just thought you and Meghan would want to know.”

  “Sure,” Beth said. “Thanks.”

  Amanda waited to see if Beth would ask her if she could come over now to join them. Beth didn’t.

  “So, bye,” Amanda said.

  “Bye,” Beth said. And that was that.

  Annoyed with herself for calling, Amanda dragged out her math homework. Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she called James.

  “Hi, James. It’s Amanda. MacLeish. From school.” As if he knew lots of different Amanda MacLeishes with high, nervous voices.

  “Hey,” James said. His hello sounded a lot friendlier than Beth’s.

  Amanda hesitated. Then James said, “Math homework, right?”

  “Well … do you mind?”

  “No, it’s fine. Let me get my book.”

  As before, James was better at explaining the problems than even Beth or Mr. Abrams.

  “You should be a math teacher,�
� Amanda told him.

  “I want to be a scientist.”

  “Like Albert Einstein,” Amanda said.

  “That’s right,” James said. “Just call me Al, for short.” Amanda could hear the grin in his voice.

  “Are you going to play the violin for the concert?” Amanda asked.

  “I’m going to audition.”

  “How long have you been playing violin?”

  “Since first grade. I take lessons at the Arts Center. What about you? Are you going to try out for the concert? Aren’t you a dancer?”

  “No, that’s Beth.” And her new best friend, Meghan.

  “You could read one of your Polly entries.”

  “Everybody has Civil War diary entries.”

  “Not as good as yours.”

  Amanda wondered if James could hear her own grin in the moment of pleased, shy silence before she said, “Thanks.”

  “Gotta go,” James said.

  When Amanda hung up, her heart felt less bruised and sore than it had all day. And now it was time to visit Polly.

  July 29, 1861

  Dear Diary,

  I fell asleep in the alfalfa, and when I woke up, the wagon had stopped, and the farmer, Mr. Porter, was offering me some water from his earthenware jug and a handful of goober peas from a burlap sack.

  “Have some,” he said.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. “Goober peas are delicious.”

  We both sat eating them for a while, tossing the shells into the grass by the side of the dusty road.

  “You don’t sound like a boy,” Mr. Porter said.

  I had forgotten to make my voice low when I thanked him for the goober peas. Quickly I reached up to make sure my cap was still on my head, covering my hair. I could feel a few strands falling down in back and tried to stuff them up under the cap again without being too obvious.