by Ann Rinaldi
"Pa, you're making yourself sick."
"Don't talk to me like that. Impudence. You've always been impudent. You're spoiled. Those brothers of yours spoiled you."
He mumbled some things that didn't make any sense. "Get me some rum," he said.
"Pa, Mama says you shouldn't."
"I'll tell you what, little girl. I know what I should and shouldn't do. Did those Yankees leave me any rum?"
"Yes, Pa."
"Then get me some. Now."
I did so, and I stayed with him while he drank it. I can't do this alone, I thought. What would Gabe do? Well, I know what he wouldn't do; he wouldn't go and worry Mama. I'll write to him, I told myself. Tonight. And I think we ought to send a rider to get Doctor Curley. I think Pa needs him.
***
DOCTOR CURLEY was the one Pa sent for when a slave was really sick or dying. Scarce ever for anyone in the house. Mama knew her tried-and-true remedies.
Doctor Curley lived about an hour away on a small plantation with less than ten slaves. And we hadn't seen him since Christmas.
But he came for Pa. Like everyone in the region he had great respect for Pa, who, by that same evening, couldn't move his left arm or leg. And talked with a slur.
Pa wanted only Mercy Love, who had her own collection of remedies, and on whom he'd depended in the past. But Mama said no, she was taking charge and it would be Doctor Curley.
He told us Pa had had a stroke. "Something greatly disturbed him," he said, "and upset the natural balance of things. Must be the Yankees. That'd stick in anybody's craw."
He prescribed rest and no excitement. "I hate to make calls anymore," he said. "I haven't had any opium, turpentine, quinine, or calomel since spring of '64. Malnutrition, diarrhea, digestive disorders, and smallpox are widespread. Don't let your pa have any bad news," he said, looking at me. "When are the boys coming home?"
"Gabe will be here soon," Mama said. "Luli will write to him."
"Do you know anything special that upset him?" Doctor Curley asked.
Sis Goose, I decided; she greatly upset his natural balance. She broke his heart. But I didn't say anything.
I WROTE TO Gabe, telling him about Pa and his stroke. I used the same overland mail rider we'd used all through the war and even gave him an extra Yankee dollar. Pa had them. Again, I didn't ask from where he'd gotten them. They accomplished wonders, that's all I knew.
I didn't tell Gabe about Sis Goose and how she'd upset Pa. I did tell him, "Don't come tearing through the gates with your rifle at the ready. The Yankees are an ugly lot. Pa says we have to cooperate with them or possibly lose a lot more.
"We need you home," I told him. "Just between us, I think Pa is dying. And I can't be you, no matter how I try."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NO MATTER WHAT, life on the ranch had to go on. As July approached, there were crops to bring in. Burs had to be picked off the sheep so they could be sheared for their wool. There was corn to be harvested, and it was time to plant the second round of crops: vegetables and black-eyed peas. It was also time to cut the grains: the barley, oats, and wheat. Which meant that the negroes who had stayed with us had to be managed under the new scheme of things.
Sam the faithful overseer, who'd always reported directly to Mama and taken his orders from her, managed the negros, now called freedmen.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, as the case may be, the men the Confederacy took from Pa's fields to dig trenches in Galveston were now coming home and must be cared for and fed. And every day the needs of the Yankees in our house had to be attended to. They liked roasted meats and would consume a whole side of beef in two days. They had first pickings at the fresh fruit from Mama's trees, the tender new vegetables. They drank plenty of rum and wine.
As we aired our log house out, swept it clean, replaced bed tickings and mosquito netting, the Yankees demanded the same services. Slavery was over, but they made us their slaves. And our needs were put in the background.
We accepted that, were even ready for it. What we were not ready for was the Fourth of July.
A WEEK BEFORE, Colonel Heffernan called us together. We stood in front of him like the negroes used to stand in front of Pa to hear his pronouncements.
"The Fourth of July is next week," Heffernan told us. "You all might remember the Fourth? It's a little holiday we like to celebrate up North. From what I understand you people had a lovers' quarrel with the North and what it stands for, several years before the war, and so decided to do away with the Fourth.
"Well, I'll miss it if we don't celebrate it here. Now I want all of you to put together a good, old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration for yourselves and for me and my men. I mean ham, fowls, and a pig with an apple in its mouth. I want chicken pies, sugar cakes, and the whole yard here lighted with pine-knot torches. I want plenty of the best preserves and jellies and cake and rum and the whole kit and caboodle. Somebody told me that the negroes here sing spirituals. That true?"
"Yeah," came a negro voice from outside the circle of whites. "We sings 'em."
"Then I want that, too. Along with 'Hail, Columbia' and 'Dixie'! Yes, 'Dixie'. Now get to work and no excuses."
Across the yard I met Sis Goose's eyes. She was standing next to Heffernan and I saw she was staring up at him, her mouth part open. I turned away, near tears.
"MAMA, DID we ever celebrate the Fourth of July?"
"Yes. Surely, you remember. We used to have all Heffernan mentioned and more."
"I don't remember."
"You mean you don't recollect your brothers pouring black powder into the bottom of an anvil and firing it off? Every year I couldn't keep you away from them doing it."
"Oh. Yes. So that's what that was for."
I was almost fifteen by now and yet it seemed as if my whole childhood had been outlined and defined by the war. Before that I couldn't recollect much, had even blocked some things out.
War had seemed the natural way of things. What human beings did. Now it was over, and I didn't know how to act, though I was ashamed to admit it.
I was helping Mama make some loaf cakes for the Fourth of July celebration. In a corner of the kitchen, Molly was churning butter. Once it was solid she would make fairy-tale figures from it, to set on the table, packed in ice.
"Mama," I said softly, so Molly couldn't hear, "I don't know how I feel about this Fourth of July. Isn't it for Yankees?"
She stopped beating the cake batter. "No. It's for you, too, Luli. Oh dear." And she wiped her hands on her apron. "I'm afraid that with all the attention we've paid to Sis Goose, we've neglected you. Just left you to grow up yourself, didn't we?"
"I had Gabe and Granville."
She came over to give me a hug. "And riding astride and camping out and firing guns at deadly creatures and bringing home deer and possum and such."
"I'm fine, Mama. It's just that I don't know what I'm supposed to feel. I hate the Yankees, the way they sit up there in our house and eat and destroy everything. Does that make them right and me wrong?"
"We can only pray all of them aren't like Heffernan," she told me. "I sense they aren't. But as far as hating them, you have every right."
"Can I still be a Southerner, and love the Confederacy, even though we lost the war?"
Tears came into Mama's eyes. "You be whatever you want to be, Luli. You are a good person. We're all good people. Because we lost the war doesn't make us otherwise."
"Then how can I celebrate the Fourth of July?"
"The same way you do everything else Heffernan says we have to do. Don't put your heart in it if you don't feel it. Only remember what your pa says. It's your country as much as Heffernan's now. You have to have some allegiance to it. And learn to be an American all over again. The laws work for you as well as for him."
"And Sis Goose?" I asked. "What do you think she's feeling?"
"God knows," Mama said. "Maybe we will know when Gabe comes home. I only pray he doesn't come home until after the Fourth."<
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THE FOURTH dawned clear and blue. And everything was done by the servants, exactly as every Fourth Mama ever remembered. Under the brush arbor in back of the house the long tables were set up, heavy with food.
The day before, pits for barbecuing sheep and beef, deer and wild turkey, were dug. I helped Mama make fruit pies. There was a pyramid cake made by Molly.
On the top layer, she placed a small American flag.
Heffernan had the flags, small ones and big ones, all over the place, and the red-white-and-blue bunting.
The morning of the Fourth he called me over to him at the foot of the steps to the house. Under his arm he had the bunting.
"Here." He gave it to me. "Drape it around the table. And don't let it touch the ground. I know it's not a flag, but if I see it touching the ground, I'll confine you to the house for the day."
Nothing would make me happier. I could spend the day with Pa. But Mama scowled, overhearing him. "Do as he says," she advised, "or he'll find other ways to punish us."
At high noon we had to stand at attention while Heffernan's men lined up and fired off their guns in the air in salute to the occasion. Then the dancing began, and the former slaves were allowed as much rum as they wanted.
Half in their cups, they sang for Heffernan, and we were made to stand and listen as they sang "Hail, Columbia" and "Yankee Doodle."
As it was, Heffernan punished us anyway. After Mama and I had worked all morning he would not allow us near the table until all the negro servants had come up and taken their fill. The table was near stripped bare by the time we got there.
"I'm not hungry anyway," Mama told me. "But I'll take a dish to Pa. You take one to Edom."
Mama and I took the plates of food into the cool log house to Pa and Edom. Pa ate little but snoozed away in beat with the songs in the distance. Mama sat doing some needlework. I fell asleep in the chair to the drone of Edom's voice telling how the Indians were always afraid of the negroes on those trips south that he and Grandpa made to take the cotton to the river.
We didn't see Sis Goose all night. She stayed under the brush arbor with Heffernan and his men, serving them cool drinks and listening to the songs of the negroes.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THOSE SONGS, which eventually turned into mournful spirituals that most white folks seem to love so, nearly drowned out the booted footsteps on the wide-plank floors.
Two men appeared in the doorway of Pa's study, one holding a lantern so the other could see. The lantern holder was Cochran and the other man was Colonel Heffernan.
"Excuse me," Heffernan said.
In his bed, Pa's eyes flew open. "Gabe?" he asked. "Is it Gabe?"
"No, Mr. Holcomb, it's only me, Colonel Heffernan. I heard you were ailing and thought I'd come pay my respects."
Respects? I thought. Not this man. He doesn't know the meaning of the word. I didn't trust him.
He took the lantern from Cochran and set it down on a small table. "I have an offer to make to you, Mr. Holcomb. Is now not a good time?"
Pa made a gesture with his good hand that the man should sit. Mama and I didn't offer to leave and nobody asked us to.
"It has come to my attention, Mr. Holcomb, that President Johnson is issuing pardons to Confederates who waged war against the Union. A pardon will entail taking an oath of allegiance to the Union and will entitle you to retain your lands and holdings after we leave."
Pa coughed.
"In your case, sir, a special pardon is needed since you own more than twenty thousand dollars in property. It should be personally applied for. But given the circumstances of your health I am in a position to recommend you as a good candidate for a pardon. The president hopes that with this pardon you and others like you will look upon him as your ally and protector."
"You mean people of sizeable means," Mama put in. Good for you, I thought. Stay one step ahead of him.
"All right, all right, Luanne," Pa slurred. "Let the man talk."
"Thank you," said Heffernan. "Well, I am in the happy position to be able to offer you that pardon, here and now, providing you take the oath."
Pa looked at Mama with some meaning in the look I could not discern. She nodded her head yes, ever so slightly. Then he closed his eyes and sighed. Candlelight in the room flickered. The negroes were singing about going home in a sweet chariot.
Heffernan shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then spoke. "Perhaps this is not a good time," he said.
"No," Pa said. "But not for the reason you think. You come back tomorrow. I have to be dressed up to take an oath."
I heard myself gasp but said nothing.
"Come by nine in the morning," Mama told him. "He's most alert then."
"He doesn't have to dress up," Heffernan said.
"Yes I do!" Pa said with as much anger as he could muster. "Don't know how you been raised, young man, but here in the South we do things right."
He propped himself up on his good right elbow to say this. Now he sank back down and waved Heffernan off.
The colonel picked up his lantern, started to say something, then stopped. It was clear that Pa bewildered him. So he said nothing and left, Cochran following behind.
I WAS WITH Mama the next day when she helped Pa tie his cravat. Edom had already shaved him and gotten him into his best and whitest ruffled shirt and black trousers. He insisted on his wool suit because the wool had all been grown on his own sheep, spun and woven by his slaves, sewn by Mama. The jacket had swallowtails, and he insisted on wearing his planter's hat on his head.
Mama handed him his gold-headed cane and he sat on the edge of his bed while Edom put on his freshly polished boots.
Heffernan and Cochran came in, and the colonel stared at Pa in amazement.
"You wait a second, young man," Pa said, his voice sounding better than last night. "I want to stand and do this thing."
Edom and Mama helped him to his feet. He reached out and took a small flag from Cochran's hand and handed it to me.
I hesitated, just a moment, and looked into his eyes.
They were pleading with me, not angry. So I took the flag and held it.
And there, in that makeshift study of Pa's, surrounded by his books, in the house his father had built in order to start the ranch, Pa took the oath of allegiance to the United States.
Heffernan said the words first. Pa followed, slowly and surely. We all held our breath.
When it was over it was clear that even stone-hearted Heffernan was moved. He cleared his throat and did not know what to say.
"You've seen the Southern training here at work, Colonel," my mama said. "But you've also seen something else."
"What is that, ma'am?"
"You've seen a man, who loves his country, embrace it unashamedly. And give good example to his children."
When she said that, Mama looked right at me. And I knew then what this was all about, really. It was about Pa's wanting to be an American again, yes, but more it was because Mama had likely told him of the trouble I'd had in knowing which was my country. And how to feel about it.
I hugged Pa and helped him sit down on the bed. He stamped his cane on the floor. "Coffee," he said, "I'll have coffee with rum in it."
"Granville, you shouldn't," Mama said.
"Lots of things I shouldn't do. Now leave me, all of you, and let Edom and me have our coffee with rum in it."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A NOTE CAME to me right after that from Mercy Love down in the quarters:
"Child. Cast an eye in the direcshun of Sis Goose and that Kernal man in your old house. I hear tell from Old Pepper Apron that he has got his hands all over her. You must protect her somehow. My owl has refused to hoot for two days. He sees bad omens on this place. And I hear she carried out ashes on a Friday and this bodes no good for anyone. Come see me before you see the Kernal man and I will give you some protection. Elst wash in basil leaves to protect yourself."
AT THE SAME time came a letter from G
abe, wishing his best for Pa and telling us he'd be home directly.
During the war, it took a letter a month to travel 200 miles. Now, with the fighting ceased, it was a little better. Now the overland stage did not have to worry about being sniped at, so Pa still employed their riders to get and receive our mail.
It was one of these ragged riders who rode up to the gates that day with the letter from Gabe saying he'd be home directly. We paid him, offered him food and drink, but no, he had to get on. He had other missives to deliver.
I didn't tell Ma about Mercy Love's concerns about Sis Goose. Not with the temper I'd discovered in her. I was afraid she'd go storming into the house to ream out the colonel. I didn't care about him, but I did care that I might have another sick parent, and for that I would most certainly shoot Heffernan.
Which reminded me. Guns.
Naturally Heffernan thought he had collected all of them when he arrived, but he hadn't.
When Granville had taken all Mama and Pa's good belongings off to Mexico in the wagon, he had buried some guns out beyond the corncrib. If my recollection was correct, there was a perfectly good double-barreled shotgun buried there, and a Colt revolver. It was time to sneak out in the dark of night and retrieve them.
I WAS HAVING trouble sleeping anyway. The hot weather had brought, for me, a cold and a cough, and I had taken Mama's evil-tasting herbal medicine, boneset, to no avail. I had the fever, like Pa got off and on. But I didn't complain because then Mama would have me housebound. Still, at night I'd wake up, feverish and tossing and turning, only to find it impossible to go back to sleep again.
