The Attic Diary

by Derek Miller

  “Hi, my name is John, and I’ll be helping you from this point on,” he said as he helped Moses and family out of the wagon. “Quick, into my house. “

  We all walked in. I did not notice it earlier, but John had placed cloth over the window and kept his lantern low.

  “In about two hours somebody is coming to pick you up. They have a secret compartment in one of their wagons. It will be tight but the three of you should fit just fine. You two rest and my wife and I will play with the baby to try and make it as tired as possible so he will sleep most of the way, which will reduce the chance of noise.”

  I watched as Pansy once again handed her baby to a complete stranger. What trust!

  Daniel’s wife held the little boy against her and kept saying “you are just the cutest thing.” There was a break in her voice that made my heart ache. We all knew that her and Daniel’s greatest sorrow was the fact that they could not have children.

  John said, “Come with me, Lyle. Time for you to head back home.”

  We walked outside together. John shook my hand. “You did a good thing tonight.”

  “All I did was feed them and drive a short way. I’ve done more for less deserving people.” I said.

  “I know,” John said. “But you would be surprised at how many people are not willing to do even that.”

  “When will I know they are safe?” I asked. “ Will I hear from them again?”

  “That’s not how it works, we don’t always know who is next in line to help them further north. It makes things less dangerous that way. For them and for us.”

  “Well,” I said. ““If you need help again, just let me know. We will always have food and blankets ready.”

  John smiled, “Thanks, Lyle. Truth is we never know how many or when, but I’m fairly certain there will be many more before this is all settled.”

  Chapter Five

  Helping Hands

  Hannah noticed that Lyle had written something along the side of the book in different colored ink. It said,

  “John was wrong about one thing, I would hear from Nathan again years later.”

  In a world where you could fast forward to the end of any movie, song, or TV show, this was the first time Hannah could remember of truly savoring a book. This was the most interesting thing she’d read in, like, forever. But even more importantly, this was real life. The last book she read was a love story with vampires. How stupid that story line felt to her now!

  “Watcha doing?”

  Hannah gasped. It was her bratty cousin, Mary Jane. Coming up the stairs. Why couldn’t these people just leave her alone! Quickly, she stuffed the journal behind the wall board again.

  “Just dragging out boxes,” she said.

  “I’m bored,” Mary Jane said. “I need something to do. What are you working at up here? Just dragging down boxes? Have you found anything interesting? Can I help?”

  Hannah thought fast. The last thing on earth she wanted was Mary Jane’s help right now.

  “Sometimes it takes me a few minutes to get them out without having something fall on my head.” Hannah made her eyes all round and innocent. “There’s a lot of wasps up here, and I’m about half afraid there might be mice, too, and my dad says that where there’s mice, snakes will follow. It’s a mess. You want to help?”

  “Ewww! No!” Mary Jane said. “I’m not that bored!”

  She flounced back down the stairs.

  Hannah grabbed two boxes and followed her downstairs. She glanced into a mirror on the main floor and noted with satisfaction that she had a small spider web in her hair. All the better. Even her aunts wouldn’t want to help if they thought there were spiders in the attic.

  Nope—for now, the attic was all hers!

  She went back to the attic and brought down two more boxes just to be on the safe side. That ought to buy her some reading time! She could not wait to get back into the diary. Who knew the eighteen-hundreds could be so interesting!

  Feb 14, 1853

  I had not heard from preacher John, other than at church, where we both pretended that nothing unusual had happened.

  Nor had anyone else appeared in my barn since Christmas day. I had wondered if perhaps word would get out that the barn was a safe place to go, but evidently not.

  Today was Valentine ’s Day, and I snuck into to town to buy Milly some candy as a surprise. It had been a long time since we had anything sweet, so I splurged.

  Later that afternoon, Preacher John came knocking on the door. “Lyle, can you help me out tonight?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Be at the river edge tonight near where Rocky Fork Creek empties in the Ohio. I will find you. Have your wagon ready.”

  “Sure thing,” I said. “Do I need to bring anything?”

  “As a preacher, I will say just bring some blankets. As a man, I will say, bring your gun.”

  He did not smile when he said this. It was then I knew that, like he’d said before, there truly was no going back. This was not a church picnic. This was not a barn raising. This was war between good and evil.

  “I’ll go tell Milly.”

  “I don’t think you have to.” John smiled. “She’s standing right behind you.”

  I turned around, and there stood Milly with her brother Henry’s rifle in her hand.

  “I guess that answers that.” I laughed and started to reach for the gun, but my bride was full of surprises.

  She pulled it away. “Get your own gun, Lyle. This one is mine for this run. It’s more accurate than anything we own. That’s why I asked my brother if I could borrow it.”

  Hannah looked up from the book. Who was this woman Milly? Didn’t those old timey woman just milk cows, have babies, and plant gardens?

  She found herself wanting to know more about this woman who without stopping to count the cost just grabbed her gun and was ready to go to war to help some unknown slaves.

  This book was getting even more exciting than those vampire stories. This wasn’t made up. This was for real! And these were her relatives! A feeling of pride welled up in her chest.

  Hannah grabbed another box and headed downstairs to take it to her mom and aunts.

  “I know it was like a million zillion years ago when dinosaurs still were around.” She sat the box down in front of them. “But who was Milly Franklin and do you know any stories about her?”

  Aunt Phyllis, the mischievous one of the sisters grinned and said, “Wouldn’t you rather hear another Lawrence Welk story?”

  Hannah gave an evil stare at her mother. Had she blabbed on her?

  “I’m innocent!” Mom put her hands up like she’d been arrested. “I didn’t say a word!”

  “We don’t know that much about her,” Aunt Phyllis said. “Other than a few stories handed down from generation to generation but there was one thing she was famous for.”

  “What was that?” Hannah was thrilled to learn more about this ancestor. She and Milly were blood- related. Maybe some of Milly had been handed down to her.

  “Milly Franklin could outshoot any man in the county and probably the state for all we know. “

  Hannah’s little brother was running through the house, being chased by another boy cousin, but he came to a sudden stop at the word “outshoot.” He flopped down on the couch beside of Hannah.

  “What?” he asked. “Who are you talking about?”

  Aunt Phyllis grinned from ear to ear at having caught both children’s attention. Then she launched off into a story about their ancestor, Milly, shooting flies off a fence rail.

  Hannah’s mom and her mom’s sisters got into a heated discussion over how far away Milly had been standing. The longer they talked, the farther the distance grew.

  Hannah slipped away upstairs and left her little brother behind to hear the rest of the story of Milly’s expertise. She smiled to herself, wondering how much of the sisters’ story was fact or fiction.

  She didn’t need fiction right now—the facts p
resented in the old diary was more interesting than any fiction she’d ever read.

  Chapter Six

  Breakfast

  Hannah was unable to dip back into the diary right away. Her little brother and the cousin decided it would be fun to come up and “help” her. This was not something she welcomed, but since they were boys, her attempts to scare them away like she had Mary Jane, were unsuccessful. The minute she mentioned the possibilities of spiders, mice and snakes—they were ready to explore!

  She decided to put all the excess energy they had been expending running around the house whooping and hollering and squirting each other with squirt guns to good purpose. She convinced them that they would be more likely to run into interesting creepy crawlers if they helped her carry more of the boxes. And then there was all kinds of century-old paraphernalia not in boxes, but laying loose on the floor.

  All of it needed to go downstairs for processing.

  They were only nine and ten, and couldn’t manage the heavier things, but still, they made a major dent on the piles and piles of family artifacts—until they realized that apart from a few spider webs, there wasn’t anything all that interesting creeping around in the attic for them to catch.

  A box of old toys caught their attention—which she carried downstairs for them—just as her mother declared that it was bedtime.

  This morning, knowing she still had pages and pages of diary to read—she couldn’t wait to get up. Unfortunately, she was starved, and she wasn’t in the mood for grabbing a carton of yogurt from her grandmother’s refrigerator. She yearned for real food. Something like the breakfast that Milly had made for Moses and Pansy was what she wanted.

  She went into the kitchen to investigate, and was thrilled when she found a package of bacon and a couple dozen eggs. She started to cook a few slices of bacon and an egg for herself and then stopped. She stared at the pound of bacon and the carton of eggs.

  Her dad had come in from California in the middle of the night last night. He only had the weekend off work, but her Mom had told her he had missed them all so much, he’d caught a flight out of as soon as he got off work so he could spend a couple days with them.

  He’d been quiet, trying not to awaken her and her brother, but she’d heard his voice talking to her mom for a few minutes before she drifted off to sleep again. It had given her a good feeling to have him here. Everything was always better when Dad was around. Before she fell asleep, it had occurred to her how terrible it must have been for those slaves who had risked their lives trying to escape, just to keep their family together.

  Being together as a family was something she had always taken for granted. Her mother and father had been the air that she breathed from day one. Families being forcibly torn apart was almost beyond her imagination.

  She decided that as enticing as the diary was, it could wait. It would be even more fun to surprise her family by making breakfast for them.

  A few minute later, as the bacon sizzled and the eggs were frying nicely in some butter she’d melted in her grandmother’s old cast-iron skillet, her little brother came out rubbing his eyes.

  “You in trouble or something having to make breakfast?” he said.

  His hair was standing straight up, he was rubbing his eyes and his pajama bottoms were dragging the ground. Something about his skinny little body, clad only in baggy p.j.’s wrapped its way around her heart. What would it be like to have someone try to tear him away from her?

  She felt a savage love for him envelop her. He might be her bratty little brother—but he was hers, and she’d claw the eyes out of anyone who tried to take him away from her!

  “Nope, just felt like making breakfast.”

  About that time, her mom and dad wandered out of the bedroom.

  “What in the world?” Her dad pretended to have a heart attack. “Heart can’t…..take it…..Hannah out of bed on her own before noon……cooking breakfast…..heart skipping beats…..world must be coming to an end”

  “Laugh all you want, dad, don’t expect me to tell you which piece of bacon dropped on the ground!” Hannah shook her fork at him.

  He smiled big and gave her a hug. “I’ve missed you, pumpkin.”

  She’d never especially liked his nickname for her—but today it sounded just fine.

  As they sat down to the breakfast table together, he reached both hands out and they created a family circle as he said a blessing on the food and on each of them.

  This felt nice. With her head bowed, Hannah made a promise to herself. School day mornings were hectic, but when they got back to California, she thought she might start cooking a simple breakfast for the family on Saturday mornings—just for the sheer pleasure of it.

  “I think this might be the best bacon I’ve ever eaten,” her mother said later, dreamily.

  “Why?” Hannah asked.

  Her mom laughed. “Because I didn’t have to cook it!”

  When they were finished eating and getting caught up on what had been going on, her dad pushed back from the table. “Come on, son, we’ll do the dishes while your sister and mom get their showers.”

  “Thanks dad” Hannah said. It occurred to her that her dad always seemed to do the dishes. She wondered why.

  A half-hour later, with her brother and dad looking through the box of old toys, and her mom busy sorting through a trunk of old doilies, Hannah went back up to the attic. With any luck, she’d have a few minutes to read further in the diary. When she opened it up at the place where she’d had to leave off, she was startled at the word written at the top of the next page.

  Chapter Seven

  Death

  Feb 20, 1853

  “I finally have a chance to write what happened the night that Milly and I sat in the wagon—the night the preacher asked us for help.

  We didn’t know what to expect. It was very cold and we had blankets on us. We were both jumpy. Even a small twig falling to the ground would make me twitch and whirl around.

  I had thrown in some lumber and tools in the back to give an appearance of having business in town. What business I had to conduct in town at ten o’clock at night, I hadn’t the faintest idea. I had not yet learned to have a plausible explanation at the ready for everything I did.

  Milly could tell I was tense, and she held my hand under the blanket. I hate to admit that my wife was braver than me—but sometimes it seemed that way.

  About a half hour later I heard it. Gunshots across the river in Kentucky. Milly and I both jumped.

  “Probably just a night hunter out” I said, but I knew my voice sounded as unconvinced as I felt.

  Then we heard more shouts, yelling and gun fire coming across the water. We then heard a splash. We kept peering into the darkness and I heard the unmistakable rowing sound.

  Friend or foe? There was no way to tell.

  I heard the reassuring click of Milly’s gun beside me. At least I wasn’t alone.

  There was another shout, and another splash!

  “They must have put another boat in the water.” I whispered to Milly.

  I hoped and prayed that the first boat we’d heard was what I was there for and they had enough lead on what was sounding like a pursuit boat. I saw a lantern light flash on, which illuminated the second boat. It had about three men in it. They were shooting in the dark at the other boat which was coming straight toward us.

  “Come on!” I grabbed Milly’s hand and pulled her off the wagon toward a thick tree. The shots might not be deliberately aimed at us, but we were in the path, anyway. I heard a bullet tear into the trunk of the tree that was now shielding us.

  A second later I could hear someone wheezing. It was whoever was rowing the boat. The second boat continued to take pot shots into the dark. Our horse took off down the lane at a fast clip, pulling the wagon behind it. There was nothing I could do. I just hoped it got away without getting hurt.

  Every few seconds, a second boat would fire another shot and Milly and I would hear the zing
through the trees. We plastered ourselves against that giant oak, looking at one another with frightened eyes, wondering if this was our last minutes on earth together.

  I heard the first boat bottom drag against the pebbles of the shore and knew it had landed.

  “Lyle, you there?” I heard the voice of Preacher John. “Come help me. Quick!”

  I ran down the few yards to the boat. It was John and four slaves that looked like it might be a family. A husband, a wife and two kids.

  “The man’s been shot,” John said. “Help me carry him up.”

  So me, John, and the mother dragged the man up the bank behind a tree. The second boat was coming closer and closer. The shouts were getting louder and then more shots flew at us.

  Way too close.

  I look back now and wonder if the Lord was protecting us, or if the men in the boat were too drunk to shoot straight. It has always seemed miraculous to me that we weren’t all killed.

  And then there was Milly. If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would have not believed it.

  Without missing a beat I saw Milly step from behind the tree, take aim, and take three shots in less than 2 seconds. Pow, click, Pow, click, Pow, In those two seconds she shot each man in the hand they were using to shoot their guns and the man’s hand holding the lantern.

  If I had not had an injured man in my arms, and if the situation had not been so dangerous, I might have laughed at the screams and cussing from those three men. They cussed liked I had never heard before. Saying things about a missing finger, their expensive guns that had dropped in the water, and the one guy who had dropped his lantern was dancing around in the middle of the boat trying to put the flames out.

  “This is Ohio!” Milly yelled. “You better row back across the river before your boat sinks!”

  She took two more shots, deliberately putting a couple of holes in their boat. “If any of you places one boot on Ohio soil, I promise you won’t go home alive.”