Andersonville

by MacKinlay Kantor

  ...These were Early York cabbages. Ira was choice of the delicate seedlings, he would not permit Jem, Jonas or Coffee to remove them from the glass frames where they’d stood over the winter. This task he must perform himself. Each time he touched one of the pale immature plants with its sheen, its blush of frost and dust, he thought of the mature plant which it might come to be in time: an oval head slightly heart-shaped, a short stem, all very firm and with a flavor to remember. If the cutworms didn’t devour it first.

  ...Salt should have been sown in the prospective cabbage patch last autumn, but salt was hard to come by, like so many other things; it would have taken perhaps ten bushels or even more. But there was another way of guarding against cutworms; Old Leander taught it to Ira some twenty years before. Ira had had two of the hands at work on a dry day, throwing the ground into ridges and trenches: he’d cut some sticks to the exact length for them to measure with. The ridges were sixteen inches apart, the trenches seven inches deep. In the bottom of these furrows tender flaky young cabbages should be transplanted now—it was a moist day, a perfect day for the job. He would set the plants a foot apart. As soon as they were well rooted he would have the soil stirred gently about them; but the trenches should never be filled until all danger of worms was past.

  ...A benefit to have Cousin Harry at the plantation; his presence aided in exercise of Ira’s own intelligence and Lucy’s . . . Veronica was becoming a pale spectre who stalked, only a spectre. The horticulture which claimed Ira throughout his days could not occupy his thoughts at mealtime, his attention during evenings.

  Except for the old wound, life had been good to Ira’s body; he had treated his body sanely, had not drunk or eaten to excess, had been scrupulous about not over-indulging at the greasy banquets which many others of his persuasion fancied. He cherished still the sensual appetite of a much younger person, but there was left in the small circle of existence no object to serve as partner in his sporadic but tempting lusts. There had been two experiences wherein he sought to seduce Veronica into rapture; the first time, she repelled him by saying, I cannot, I cannot. Never in her life had she demonstrated refusal, even after her change occurred. (Ira thought that her change came about earlier than in most cases, and with fewer of the unpleasant symptoms, and was more abrupt.) But there must have been some dread protraction; not all the substance of her cold mania could be charged sensibly to the recurrent losses.

  Still, a nail of anguish had been driven through her coil of white-blonde hair and into her skull, each time a child died. The four small children died; each time, that nail hammered in. Then the pause, then in rapid succession the great spikes marked Crampton’s Gap, Gettysburg, Chickamauga. In delusion her husband turned his sad eye upon her and saw the seven nails bristled out like quills. No wonder that her expression was glazed, her tongue lying silent! Oh, my Veronica, such joy we manufactured between us, divine joy, brutal joy, every variety. It was a charm, and now it is gone, now it is gone.

  The second time, he tried to persuade her with tender courting, but she lay like marble under his touch.

  I cannot.

  Don’t say that again.

  Because it is grief.

  For God’s sake, woman! It’s not a grief, and never was.

  Isn’t that the way we begat our children?

  Yes, but—

  Our children are a grief. All but Lucy. Doubtless something will befall her too. You’ll see.

  Don’t say it, Veronica. For God’s sake don’t speak the thought! We must think of Lucy as having a good life, a long life.

  If I let— If I let you do It now, it would be as if— As if we were doing It again to get Suthy. To get poor little Arwood. To get Badge. Poor little Peggy. Moses. Lucy. Poor little—

  Cease naming those names! You heard me! His coarse whisper was intense and frightening as a roar. Veronica sobbed, but she went on and spoke the other poor little names: Sally, Courtenay.

  I’ll leave you now. You want peace, and you want to be left alone. By God I’ll leave you alone. You want to wallow amid the graves; go lie in them. You want to remain in love with the dead, you forget the living, you forget your own living.

  I loved my children, Ira. Now all are dead except Lucy. Do you not pity me? Does the Creator not pity me? Perhaps—neither of you! The boys are gone, claimed by the earth. The boys—

  Ira flew to his own room, he would not attempt this thing again. Let the juice dry in his body, let the green go from it as it went from cactus growing in unkempt untillable portions of the landscape. When cactus slabs died they turned disgustingly red, like rotten fruit. In extinction they were dry, papery, thin, discarded, bleached snakeskin. So let him, Ira Claffey, bleach.

  But body and spirit refused to accept this dictum without a struggle, so at times he rolled sleeplessly, or put on his clothes at some unseemly hour and went pacing out of doors. The hoary Deuce rose from his deep drugged sleep of infirmity and, blinder each week than the week before, came nosing to Ira in the dark, cursed by imaginary sand-spurs. Ira knew that he should shoot Deuce, or perhaps put him to sleep with chloroform; still, there was no chloroform to be had, and as for the rifle—

  Death, withdraw, cease reminding me that you are.

  On one of these disconsolate strolls, at perhaps three o’clock of a cold morning, Ira went wrapped in the cape which had belonged to his father; his father had died in 1842, but the cape was still warm and wearable. Like some sad romantic being stepped from the tumult of Shakespeare he went cape-wrapped along the lane and came at length to the railroad, and the spot where ruts led to the house of the Widow Tebbs.

  Poor Mag . . . even thought of her could come fairly to Ira in his extremity.

  Fair, fair, she was more than fair; why, consider her: she was a glutton for It. What would she be like under the husks of her clothing, once those limp husks were removed? Why, she would be a pet, an adoring partner in the gayest crime of all: adultery.

  She would be his fleshy little plaything—the welter of ruddy hair, the weak mouth wide with pleasure, the soft arms around him, thighs squeezing his own thighs.

  Ira dropped his cape to the ground; too hot, too hot. Ah, could he ever permit himself to go up that doleful road, even sneaking in darkness? He picked up the cape once more, shook it, folded it across his arm, the while he was torn between seeking forgiveness and prayer and considering the spasm of excited debauchery which Mag might afford. Touch of his father’s cape suggested the press where it had hung long among scent of camphor contained heavily by other garments there. There was his own military jacket with its epaulets turned dull by time, there were gowns of another day in which little Lucy had loved to swathe herself and then mince about with a fan. There was— He started, to think of it. A red silk wrapper which had belonged to an aunt. Veronica never chose to wear it, she did not approve of herself in red. What might not the gift of this wrapper to the Widow Tebbs provide for him? A devilish boy in Americus had made a rhyme about, Old Mag Lumpkin, I think she’s nice, I gave her a ribband, she did It twice; that dull rhyme was recited in Ira’s hearing years before, and he rejected it as unworthy of being blamed even on a child. He had not thought of it consciously since, but here it was, he thought of it.

  If secretly he took the silk wrapper from the press no one would be the wiser. He could hide it somewhere—as he hid the cups from Veronica’s grim collecting. And, when whips of ardor drove him at last to the Widow Tebbs’ door, he’d have a present for her . . . am I weaker than old Deuce? Why dwell on this, why countenance the savage lurid yielding? I’m not twenty. I’m fifty. I’m old. I should be old. . . . I must be demented. What would Lucy think of me if she learned of the depravity of my plan? She would grow pale with the knowledge. What would Harrell Elkins think? He respects me sincerely; would I still command respect? Cato Dillard would mourn for me. My sons— If they saw, if they could see, if they do see and know—


  At this moment of private torment, wavering still in the dull darkness of that road, Ira saw prickles of light ahead and across the tracks. Somebody opened a door, somebody came out. Later, as the muffled approach of feet grew louder, he realized that at least two somebodies were coming. He withdrew past the edge of the road and seated himself; he could not be observed against a mat of vines overhanging the fence and small trees there. Two shapes, men’s shapes, formed in the road. Ira smelled tobacco.

  She give you good treatment? Sounded like it.

  I hope to shout. What did you pay?

  She wanted a dollar, wanted a greenback sure enough. I says, Honey, I got nary a greenback, so she up and settled for five dollars Confed.

  Identical what I give her. She sure did take the blaze out of my breeches.

  Oh, she ripped and she tore—

  They went on, singing not too loudly. Military personnel from the stockade camp. So this is the depth to which your passion has sunk you. You’d share with them, stand in line as men stood in line outside those squalid huts at Matamoras, you’d mingle yourself with hogs.

  Are they more swinish than I? Where does the man end and the brute begin? Whom do I hear saying, Brute? Is it my own voice?

  He returned to his house, petted Deuce, allowed the wheezing setter to climb the stair. This was a rare award and brought forth a wild waving of the rusty tail. Ira lifted Deuce to the high bed, Badger’s old bed. At the foot of the bed Deuce curled gratefully, glorying in close contact with his master. With care Ira kept his feet to the left side, that he might not disturb the dog on top of the covers. Deuce went to rest in the early morning hours. When Ira awakened belatedly after seven o’clock, roused by sounds from below, the old dog was still curled as he had been hours before. Perhaps the heartworms had reached his gentle heart at last; he was fourteen. Ira had bought the pup especially for Suthy when the boy was ten, but forever Deuce regarded Ira as his one-and-only. Ira Claffey dressed quietly, in respect to the friend who lay upon his bed. Strangely he found a sweetness and warmth in this death, in the manner of its coming. Had he cried, Death, withdraw? It did not seem possible now, when one considered the gift and its healing permanent perfection. He carried the friend down to the library and placed him on the couch, covered with the old cloak; then he went to tell the others. Harrell Elkins said, Poor creature. He must have perished of pure happiness at being allowed to sleep with you. Lucy went to the library and cried softly, lifting the cloak to stroke Deuce’s white hair, thinking of her brothers as she did it. Poppy, maybe he can hunt with them now. In the Hereafter. He’ll be so happy to have someone shoot over him again, to be able to go for birds. I declare, I love to think of it.

  Of course you do, you dear sweet girl, girl with the tender heart, blithe spirit.

  Veronica said, So he’s gone too. I ask you to save his collar for me. I wish to put it with the other things.

  Jem dug a grave in the pet cemetery not far from the family cemetery where a number of dogs, a parrot, a pony, and three especially favored cats were already ensconced. Ira and Lucy bore Deuce to his place, after they had breakfasted, and after Elkins was gone to the stockade; they were attended also by the three black children. Bun whispered to the others, Seed Old Mastah cry. Big tear on he face.

  Harrell Elkins could not stand smiling tenderly through specs at the funeral scene. He thought that he should be on duty in the stockade region. He wriggled guiltily inside himself at realization that he was extending that duty beyond its demand. The task to which he had been ordered was vague but loaded with responsibility to the future.

  Elkins was selected because he had two years of experience in the field as well as a medical degree. His orders read that he should examine carefully the new prison site, and set forth recommendations as to hospital facilities for an expected ratio of sick among a maximum of ten thousand prisoners. This entailed a study of climatic conditions, water, transportation, shelter. The diet of the prisoners was an unknown quantity; Harry assumed that they would receive the ordinary field ration of the Confederate soldier.

  He applied himself seriously to the work, but by his third night in the Anderson community he recognized that there was little excuse for staying longer. At Milledgeville he had secured what crop and weather reports were available; from other sources he had scraped together figures on British campaigns in the Crimea and on illness incident to given numbers of troops in the Italian wars. He possessed also a lengthy report on hospitalization and the diet of prisoners at Dartmoor prison in England.

  Superimposing this technical information on the structure of a firsthand study of a not-yet-completed-and-unoccupied stockade, he hoped to present a coherent report with attendant recommendations. Surgeon H. Elkins will proceed to Camp Sumter, at the village of Anderson, in Sumter County— No time limit was mentioned in his orders; paper work at most headquarters was performed sketchily these days. Harrell knew that he was naughty in drawing out his stay; this was the eighth morning he had risen at the Claffeys’.

  XI

  Veronica locked herself in her own room, to examine minutely a collection of beetles which Badger had gotten together when he was twelve or thereabouts. The beetles had been discovered atop a huge wardrobe in the boy’s old room; wenches never dusted that surface—it was beyond their reach—and apparently the collection had been forgotten by Badger when he went away to college and later to the army. Beetles of various sizes and shapes were impaled on pins and the pins were thrust into a thin planed board. There were no differences in their coloration now: time and heat and tinier insects had had their way with the creatures. They were shells of shapes, more brittle than straw. Dead as he is dead, said Veronica to herself, playing over that dirge. Creatures smaller than they have long since made dust of their insides. So must similar creatures have made ruin of Badger’s body e’er now.

  At times she journeyed through her past—a limited past, on the whole, circumscribed by her own limitations as an individual. For years her body and her affection had been able to accompany Ira’s, but never her mind. Intrinsically she was a selfish creature, not sufficiently elastic to examine herself; but taught the habit of kindliness toward others in her rearing and by example. In wartime the suffering of the South as a whole she deplored; never had it wounded her truly. She was not aware that in loving her offspring with such abandon she was loving herself. Her children, living, were important to her mainly because they were hers. Her children, dead, were a woe greater than the accumulated woes of all tribes, nations, peoples, places, centuries.

  She thought, But I cannot leave them on this board. The pins will come loose. But if I should remove them—each beetle, singly, pin and all—I should be destroying the collection per se, as Badge put it together. So must it be wrapped for storage with everything else, but how, how, how? Cloth will not protect the delicate dry bugs. Jem is fair to middling as a carpenter; might I not have him build a little box? I shall try to make him understand. . . .

  She saw seven children, assorted as to sex and age, set on pins in a row and labeled much as Badger had labeled these creatures—not Order, Family, Sub-family, Genus— But labeled with the names and pet names her children had worn. There was an empty pin, waiting for Lucy. I have a collection also, she told herself.

  But the assemblage must be put away, it must be kept, retained in private, guarded. It will be— What is the term? I recall Doctor Kennebrew lecturing to us when I was at Miss Benham’s. A study collection. Not displayed to the common view.

  Secret, smelling of camphor, the more fragile things smelling of lavender amid camphor.

  What is a scarab? A kind of beetle, to be sure. There is some association with mummies—

  Instantly there rose before her the picture of seven mummies large and small, spaced in their colored coffins. There was a vacant mummy-case awaiting Lucy.

  Doctor Kennebrew did not lecture about mummies. His bent was for zoology
and botany. Someone else— It could have been Miss Benham herself who gave the lectures.

  The pages of the Southern Recorder rustled at an 1830 breakfast table. It was always quiet at the Arwoods’. The servants were made to wear felt slippers as they moved about. In some slovenly households servants walked with their feet bare, but never at the Arwoods’. Bare feet made a slap-slap on the painted boards, slippers made a gliding sound.

  Mr. Arwood. So Veronica’s mother addressed her husband.

  My dear.

  Possibly have you discovered some notices concerning schools? As to the subject of our discussion on Sunday evening—

  Ah, yes. One moment, my dear. Here it is. The issue of January second. Miss Benham, late Principal in several distinguished Female Institutions at the North, will reopen her Select School for Young Ladies in Milledgeville. . . .

  Veronica was close to fourteen years in age. It was high time.

  She remembered the winter school dress, the very next winter when she was close to fifteen. Miss Benham required her students to appear in what she termed Livery. The gown was of brown Circassian material, with a belt and tippet of the same. With these brown dresses the girls wore aprons of either black silk or of Holland cloth (Veronica’s was of silk) and black leather shoes. They walked out as a troop of young Quakeresses.

  Orthography. She remembered: the very name terrified her. So did Civic Knowledge and Statecraft. Some parents grumbled, that Miss Benham should instruct young ladies in such subjects. One would think, said old Judge Beatenbough at a dinner, that young ladies might be bound for the Senate.

  Perhaps, said a lady timidly, Miss Benham is ahead of her time.

  Ahead, Mrs. Rutland? Behind, by gracious! Portia’s been gone some centuries, has she not? Or, more likely, she never existed!