“Let them eat and drink, by all means,” Bradford responded. “They’ll be more ready to volunteer on full stomachs. While they’re doing that, there’s a matter of firearms I’d like to discuss with you, Mr. Rocklin—an idea that I’ve been toying with.”
“Certainly, sir.” Stephen went to the raised platform and called for quiet, and as soon as the talk ceased, he said loudly, “Men, there’s plenty of food and refreshments. Eat hearty, and when you’ve finished, we’ll hear a word from Colonel Bradford and my son, Major Rocklin. But now let’s enjoy the food. Rev. Stoneman, will you ask the blessing?”
After a tall minister said a prayer, the men moved at once to the long tables laden with sandwiches of all kinds, barbecued beef, fresh pork, and vegetables of all sorts. The men ate and drank, talking at the top of their lungs and enjoying the break from the hard labor of the foundry.
Colonel Bradford took the mill owner off to one side, speaking in an animated fashion, and Deborah’s uncle said, “Come along, Deborah. Let’s get something to eat.”
He led the way to one of the tables, and when the roughly dressed working men saw them approach, they stood back, making a place for them. A short, thickly built man with a pair of sharp dark eyes was serving the men, but he paused long enough to say, “Right here, Major Rocklin. Let me fix you and Miss Steele a plate.” This was John Novak, Stephen Rocklin’s secretary and second in command. Piling the plates high with food, he smiled fondly at Deborah, whom he knew well from her visits to the foundry. “If you give me another smile like that, Miss Deborah, I may forget myself and be one of the first to enlist as a soldier.”
“Why don’t you, Mr. Novak?” Deborah dimpled at him. “It would do you good to get away from your dusty old books. And Caroline would marry you if you came home with a chestful of medals!”
Major Rocklin laughed with delight, for John Novak’s pursuit of Miss Caroline DeForest was one of the longest-lasting on record. “Better do it, John,” he said, taking his plate.
“No woman can resist a uniform!”
The men around the table were taking in their conversation, and as soon as Gideon got his food, one of them began to question him. “Think it’ll be a hard fight, Major?”
Gideon began to speak, and for a time Deborah stood there awkwardly balancing her plate. It was impossible to eat with a plate in one hand and a glass of tea in another. The men were managing, some of them, by placing the glasses of beer provided for them on the ground and swooping to pick them up to wash the food down from time to time—but that would not do for her.
She moved away from the table, threading her way through the men, but found no place to sit. Most of the men were gathered into small groups, enjoying their food as they talked, but she could not join any of those groups. Finally she saw a lone figure sitting on the low platform that had been built especially for the speakers. It was located on the far end of the open space, far from the tables, and the man looked isolated and somehow a little lonely. Balancing the glass, she walked toward the platform. As she approached, he looked up with a startled glance, then came to his feet.
“Hello,” Deborah said with a smile. “I can’t seem to manage all this food standing up. May I join you?”
“Oh—yes, miss!” He was, she saw, a young man with a round face and a pair of large gray eyes. He glanced at the seat. “It’s a little dusty, I’m afraid. Let me clean it for you.” He whipped out a handkerchief that was none too clean and used it to remove most of the dust. “That’s about the best I can do, miss.”
“Thank you. That’s very nice.” Deborah sat down, put her glass down, then started to eat, only to notice that the young workingman was still standing, staring at her uneasily. “Oh, do sit down!” she urged. “My name is Miss Steele. What’s yours?”
“I’m Noel Kojak.” He sat down gingerly, then picked up his plate and began to eat.
“Have you worked here long, Mr. Kojak?” Deborah asked. She did not see his reaction, nor would she have understood it. In all of his twenty years of life, nobody had ever called Noel mister, and he could not believe that this beautiful young woman would do so. He felt more uncomfortable sitting there than he had ever felt in his life! He had never been in the presence of anyone from the upper class, much less in the company of a beautiful and wealthy young woman. He had read about such women, but now that he was in the presence of one, he had the strange feeling that he had stepped out of the real world and into one of the romances he had read.
Belatedly he realized that he had not answered her question. “Oh, I’ve been working here for eight years, miss.”
Deborah turned to look at him more closely. “Why, you must be much older than you look!”
“I’m twenty, ma’am.”
“But—” Deborah did some quick arithmetic, then said with some surprise, “You can’t have come to work when you were twelve years old, surely!”
“Oh yes, miss! That’s what I was, twelve.”
Deborah had never spoken with a workingman of Noel Kojak’s class before. She had read of some of the abuses of the working class and had been indignant over them. But those were stories; this young man was flesh and blood. Forgetting her food, she stared at him—which made him more nervous than ever. “You were only a child! What could a child do at an ironworks?”
“Oh, there’s plenty to do, Miss Steele,” Noel replied. “I was a wiper when I first come to Rocklin’s. I cleaned the machinery and oiled it.”
“Isn’t that a little dangerous?”
“Oh, a little, I suppose. Fellow has to watch what he’s up to.” Noel paused, and a thought came to him, making his face serious. “My best friend, Charlie Mack, he got caught up in a crane when he was only ten. Pulled his arm off right at the shoulder.”
A vivid picture of what the young man had just related flashed before Deborah’s mind, which caused her to put down her sandwich suddenly. “I see,” she said evenly. “So you didn’t get to finish school?”
“Finish?” Noel smiled for the first time. “Bless you, miss, I never even got to start!” Then he saw the look of dismay in the strange violet eyes of the girl and said hastily, “But I learned to read and write. My mother taught me. She’s a fine scholar, my mother!”
Deborah was intrigued by Noel. She would never have noticed him in a crowd, and without meaning to, she pictured the young workingman with his shabby clothing and hard, calloused hands beside Dent Rocklin. At once she told herself she was a fool. Dent was one of the most handsome men she had ever met, and it was foolish to put this young man who had had no advantages alongside the Southern aristocrat. It was a bad habit she’d fallen into, thinking of Dent too much, and she grew angry with herself. “What do you do at the mill now?” she asked quickly.
Noel was ordinarily a quiet young fellow. He lived a secret life through his books, and no one except his mother had ever shown any interest in hearing about what he did. At first he spoke in monosyllables, but Deborah had learned much from her father on their trips to meetings around the country, and she was very good at drawing people out. Now she began to encourage the young man, and as he got over his hesitancy and began to speak, she found a picture beginning to form in her mind. A picture that, had it been put on a daguerreotype by the photographer Matthew Brady, might have been titled “Portrait of a Poor Workingman.”
Noel painted a vivid picture of poverty, of the everlasting battle for enough bread to live on and for keeping some sort of roof overhead. His words showed Deborah the lack of anything more than the bare necessities of life, the starchy diet and the hunger for something sweet and rich to break the monotony. He opened her eyes to long, weary days of standing at a machine and working until dusk, only to plod home to a shack without any conveniences whatsoever. As he talked, she envisioned life without the finer things to which she had become so accustomed, things that she accepted as thoughtlessly as the air she breathed.
It was a disturbing picture, and when Noel’s voice trailed off, Deborah did no
t know how to respond. To gain time she asked, “What do you think about this war, Mr. Kojak?”
“I–I’d like it better if you’d call me Noel, Miss Steele,” he said nervously. Then he thought of her question, and his answer surprised her. “Well, I don’t know much about it, of course. But I don’t think it’s right for one man to own another. I guess if it takes a war to stop that …”
Deborah stared at him speechlessly. This was the philosophy she and her family had struggled so to share, yet it was brought down to the simplest statement. This crude young man had said more than all the speeches and books; his simple words had eloquently framed what she believed.
“And you’d risk your life for that cause?”
Noel hesitated. He had never seriously considered going into the army—he bore such a heavy responsibility at home—but the woman’s words stirred something in his spirit. An awareness that he had long ago buried began to rise and became a fervent desire to do something that mattered, something with color and life and excitement!
“If it wasn’t for my mother, I’d go in a minute,” he said, his eyes steady. “She’d—she’d have a hard time without me.”
Deborah waited, and he spoke of the hard, bitter life his mother endured. He said nothing about his father, but the girl could guess what the woman’s life was like. As he spoke, something came to her—an idea that she tried to ignore but that kept returning. Finally Noel said hopelessly, “I’d enlist right off, but my family would go hungry without my wages.”
Deborah hesitated, then suggested carefully, “Noel, if you really want to go, I’d be glad to help your mother with expenses.” She saw the shock and refusal in his face, then added quickly, “It’s not so much to do. I have an income, and what I want most is for men and women to be free. I can’t fight as a soldier, but I’d feel like I was doing my duty if I made it possible for a man to do so.”
Noel was dumbfounded. This conversation was stranger than anything he had ever read in fiction! He sat there thinking hard and slowly began to discover that the desire to enlist had been deep inside of him. He longed to do something worthwhile, to be a soldier, to fight for what was right!
“I’ll do it, Miss Steele!” he said suddenly, his lips pressed together firmly. “It’s only for three months, and if you can help my mother until I get back—”
“Oh, Noel, are you sure?” Deborah asked at once. “It might seem romantic, but you could be killed or maimed!”
Such things were far from Noel’s mind. The decision had come so suddenly that he scarcely believed what was happening, but he knew that it was going to happen. “I know, but some have to risk that,” he said simply.
A rush of excitement swept over Deborah, and she stood up. Noel rose with her, and she put out her hands. As he took them, she felt the hard calluses and the strength of his hands. “I’ll pray for you every day, Noel, and I’ll write you, too—and you won’t have to worry about your family! I’ll see after them!”
Noel had never felt anything like Deborah’s hands. They were softer than he had known hands could be. As he held them and looked into her violet eyes, he could not speak for a moment. Then he said huskily, “I’ll do my best, Miss Steele. I won’t let you down, nor the army either!”
They stood there, two people so far apart in birth and breeding and every circumstance that it would have been difficult to picture them ever having anything in common. But somehow Deborah knew that this young man was tied to her from that very moment on!
CHAPTER 3
THE WASHINGTON BLUES
I think it’s about time to make our appeal, Colonel.”
The rally had been a tremendous success. At least, the men had eaten and drunk incredible amounts of food and beer, and Gideon felt that it was time to get on with the matter. “Some of them have drunk so much beer they’d volunteer for a trip to the moon,” he commented dryly to Bradford.
“All the better, Major,” Bradford said cheerfully. He was in excellent spirits, having gotten what he considered to be a good response from Stephen Rocklin. Looking over the milling crowd, he nodded confidently. “Suppose you say a few words first. Being the son of the owner, you should have some influence. Then I’ll come on and make the appeal.”
“Very well, Colonel.” Gideon and Bradford made their way to the platform, where they found Deborah talking with a young worker. “Come on up here, Deborah,” Gideon said. “Time to get this thing moving.” He helped her up onto the low platform, then turned and held his hands up, calling in his best parade-ground voice, “Attention! Will you all move in toward the platform, please.” When the crowd had moved forward and was standing quietly, he said in a more moderate voice that carried easily to the outer edges of the crowd, “Have you enjoyed the refreshment?” When they roared back, “Yes!” he grinned and glanced at his father, who had remained on the ground. “You can thank my father for that, and for the time off from work. Let’s give him a round of applause, for Colonel Bradford and I are grateful, as well.”
The crowd was feeling expansive, and they lifted a cheer for the owner.
“Fine!” Gideon said, then began his remarks. He spoke simply, reminding the men that the country was facing a crisis and that it would take a sacrifice from all its citizens to meet it. There were no promises. Gideon made it clear that the life of a soldier was not an easy one.
Finally he said, “Men all over the North are rising up to meet this crisis, and none has done so with more honor or spirit than the man I introduce to you now.” He sketched Laurence Bradford’s career as a successful businessman and politician, then said, “It would have been easy for this man to just sit back and let others do the job, but he did not. He left the profitable world of business and, out of his own pocket, is raising a regiment, the Washington Blues. It gives me great pride to introduce my commanding officer, Colonel Laurence Bradford. Will you give him a warm greeting and listen carefully to what he has to say? I know you will!”
The men burst into hearty applause as the tall officer stepped forward, but quieted down as he began to speak. “Men, the country needs you!” he began, then swept into a passionate appeal. Deborah stood there beside her father, listening carefully. She had heard many fine speakers in the abolitionist movement—from the fiery Lloyd Garrison to the famous black orator Frederick Douglass—so she was a good judge of speakers. Bradford was quite good, she decided. He had been a man of power for a long time and had learned how to move the minds of men. Now he proved that he also knew how to stir their emotions.
He had, she knew, been listening to the opponents of slavery, for he used some of the more graphic examples of the evils of that system. After he gave several classic examples of terrible beatings, of families being torn apart and sold to different owners, of the misuse of black women by white owners, the crowd responded as Bradford expected: They grew angry and restless. Then he began to outline the future of the Washington Blues, and what a rosy picture he painted! Beautiful uniforms, marches in parades, comradeship with other good men, a military life that was colorful and exciting—all these things Colonel Bradford set forth in glowing terms.
Gideon leaned forward and whispered to Deborah, “Sounds sort of like a summer picnic, doesn’t it? Makes me want to enlist myself!”
Deborah shushed him quickly, for she was caught up in the colonel’s rhetoric. From time to time she let her eyes fall on Noel Kojak, who stood far off to one side of the crowd. He was listening carefully to the speech, his eyes glowing with an inner desire. Deborah thought of their talk, and a feeling of pride came to her that she had been able to do something to help the cause.
Finally Bradford said passionately, “I call upon you to follow the flag of your beloved country. And I promise you, men, that as the flag goes forward against the enemies of our nation, I will be with you! I will be in the first line, and if necessary, I will shed my blood to defend this great nation of ours!” He looked around with flashing eyes, then lifted his voice, crying out, “Are you with me? W
ill you help me put down this terrible rebellion?”
A shout went up, and at once Bradford said, “Fine! You are heroes! Now my sergeants have a table over there, and the papers are all ready. If you’ll go there, you can enlist right now.”
The ranks of the workmen broke, and many headed for the table, where the trimly dressed sergeants waited. Bradford turned to say, “Well, it looks as though it went very well, doesn’t it, Rocklin?”
“Yes, I think we’ll get some good men,” Gideon agreed. “I think I’ll go over and help the sergeants, if you don’t mind.”
“Certainly! I’ll be here with Deborah if you need me.” Bradford waited until Rocklin left, then turned to say, “Well, you didn’t get to make your speech, did you?”
“Oh, I didn’t really expect to. The men need to hear from soldiers, not from women.”
“I disagree,” Bradford said as he shook his head. He was still heady with excitement from the speech and put his hand on her arm, saying, “A man needs a woman to fight for, Deborah. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? When you strip everything else away, what’s left is what men and women feel for each other. Isn’t that true?”
“The war is over slavery, Colonel, not love.”
“Why, Deborah, don’t you think that men and women should be free to love where they will?”
“Why—of course, but—”
“And slaves are not free, are they?”
“Well, no, they’re not.”
“So the war is about love!” He pressed her arm, adding, “I’m just a businessman turned soldier, Deborah, but what I need most in the world is a woman’s love. All men need that, and I think you know it.”
Deborah found herself unable to answer. He was, she realized, a clever man, as well as a most attractive one. She smiled faintly but said only, “Love is important, Colonel. All women will admit that.” Then because she felt he was in some way pressing her, she said, “Let’s go down where the men are signing up, Colonel.”
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