by Janet Lunn
“For heaven’s sake, Nan,” said Uncle Bob, “why can’t you let sleeping dogs lie?” which made George snort loudly. Uncle Bob put his foot firmly on the accelerator and they were off.
Rose crouched under the blankets and raincoats, beside the strong smell of chopped egg sandwiches, while George talked, Sam played his harmonica, and Uncle Bob drove silently along winding roads and on and off ferries. At the border into New York State a gruff-voiced customs man asked if they had anything in the car to declare. Uncle Bob assured him they hadn’t.
“You want to open up the back?” said the voice.
Rose stopped breathing. She had forgotten about customs. She had not even remembered to bring her passport. She heard Uncle Bob’s voice as he lifted the tailgate. “It’s our lunch and our fishing gear in case we get a chance.” He laughed and told the customs official about the trip. A hand gave Rose a good punch. She was sure the blankets were going to be yanked from her. But they weren’t.
“Have a good day then,” the voice said cheerfully, and the tailgate was slammed down. The front door closed, and they were off. They drove along more winding roads, until the blankets, the raincoats, and the smell of chopped eggs were too much for Rose. She sat up.
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Good God!” shouted Uncle Bob, and the station wagon swerved dangerously.
“I am going to be sick,” said Rose.
Uncle Bob pulled over to the side of the road. Sam jumped out and threw open the tailgate. Rose crept out of the car and all but fell into the ditch beside the road where she vomited noisily while the others talked angrily among themselves.
“What I’d really like to do,” snapped Uncle Bob, when Rose had recovered sufficiently to listen to him, “is leave you right here, but there’s probably a law against it. What do you suppose would have happened to me, young lady, if the customs and immigration people at the border had found you?”
“We would have said, ‘That’s our picnic and that’s our cousin,’ ” said Sam.
“And how do you think I would have felt,” continued Uncle Bob, ignoring Sam, “and what would you have done?”
“I have my passport at home,” said Rose.
“What on earth good would that be? I—oh, never mind. Get in the back seat. We’ll have to find a place where we can call your Aunt Nan. She might be worrying about you, though right now I can’t imagine why.”
Rose got into the back seat—as far from the egg sandwiches as she could—and they drove in silence until they came to a village where there was a store with a sign over the door that read Telephone.
“You wait here,” said Uncle Bob shortly, and he and George went inside.
Rose sat very still, feeling ill but triumphant. Sam played his mouth organ. Uncle Bob and George came back with bottles of pop.
“Here.” Uncle Bob handed her a bottle. “Aunt Nan is very unhappy about you.” No one said anything else to her for the whole three hours it took to get to Oswego.
At the motel, Uncle Bob asked for an extra room for Rose.
“I’ll pay,” said Rose.
“Don’t be foolish,” Uncle Bob said curtly. Meekly Rose followed him along the corridor and up the elevator.
Upstairs in her room she could hear the voices of her cousins through the wall, exploding in wrath against her. She could not distinguish their words. All she could hear were angry tones swelling and falling like a stormy sea.
“I did it!” She smiled jubilantly at herself in the mirror. “I did it and I don’t care how angry they are!”
At supper she was content to sit in the silence the boys maintained toward her. The motel stood beside the river near the harbor mouth, and through the window she watched a few small fishing boats coming in and a sailboat unfurling its sails in the setting sun.
After supper Uncle Bob insisted that they get some exercise. The boys wouldn’t walk with Rose, but Uncle Bob had recovered from his anger and he walked beside her and talked about clearing the lake of chemicals and making the waters of Ontario and New York safe for wildlife. He said nothing about her being a stowaway.
The river that flowed into the harbor just beyond their motel appeared to divide the town in half. They walked up the hill to the east along wide streets lined with trees and big old houses. It was a pleasant, sleepy-looking town. Rose could not imagine Will going off to war in this quiet place.
“That must be Fort Ontario.” Uncle Bob pointed downhill toward the harbor where a few even rooftops showed over a square embankment. “The brochure about the town that came in my conference kit said that it was used as a recruiting center during the Civil War. That should interest you, Rose. Weren’t you asking about the Civil War the other night? The fort is still in use, but it’s a museum and an archives now, too.”
The next morning after breakfast Uncle Bob said, “You’re on your own now, kids. Anyone who wants to come and listen to the lectures is welcome. George, the one you want is this afternoon.” He was so obviously pleased by the way things were going, basking in the pleasure of the company of the people he had already met on his way for his morning paper, that he beamed at the three of them before he left the room.
As soon as he had gone, George turned on Rose. “Don’t think you’re going to tag after us all day. Boy, I can’t see why you had to come. Don’t you know when you’re not wanted?” He loped out of the dining room, turning once to assure himself that she wasn’t following. Sam stood up, hesitated as if he might be going to say something, but did not and followed George out of the room.
Rose waited for them both to be out of sight. Then she headed for the fort. It was a bright morning and so unseasonably warm that she did not need a coat. Indian summer, Uncle Bob called it. The fort, when she reached it, was like a hollowed-out square on a hill overlooking the harbor. There were two-story square stone buildings set around it like soldiers on permanent guard. The grounds were neatly clipped and even in November still green. At the entrance a man was selling tickets. Rose paid her money and asked to see the person in charge.
“You can’t bother Mr. Ancaster. He’s a very busy man.” The ticket seller was shocked. Rose stood very straight. “I’m Rose Larkin and I have to see Mr. Ancaster. I’m doing some research for my aunt who’s writing a book. She can’t travel just now because she’s going to have a baby soon.” She said it with such assurance that the ticket seller went off, shaking his head, muttering.
In a very few minutes he was back.
“Come on,” he said curtly, and led the way into the nearest building, upstairs to a small, dusty office cluttered with old books and documents. A tall, thin, gray-haired man got up from his chair and introduced himself.
“I’m, Charles Ancaster, the curator here. What can I do for you?” He was clearly amused.
Rose told him where she came from and that Aunt Nan was writing a true story about a Canadian boy who had joined the army in Oswego during the Civil War. “She needs a list of the boys who went from the island.”
“My dear child,” said Mr. Ancaster, “there were over twelve thousand men from Oswego County who fought in that war and they were all mustered in the city of Oswego. Some of them were from across the lake, but they didn’t all say so. Can you be more specific? Do you know the name of the boy you’re looking for? Which recruiting station he might have gone to? Exactly when he joined up? What his regiment was?”
“His name was William Morrissay and he joined in 1864,” said Rose, catching her breath. It upset her to be talking about Will like this. It made such a stranger of him.
“Well, we can get out the lists and have a look.” Mr. Ancaster looked dubious, but he went over to a cupboard and brought out three huge old leather record books and put them on the table that stood by the room’s only window. For a long while Rose and Mr. Ancaster scanned the lists of the names of the men and boys who had enlisted to fight in the Union army in 1864. The only sound in the room was the turning of the stiff old pages.
Then they found it. In the beautiful script that lists were written in in the 1860s, the ink brown with age, was the name William Morrissay, age fifteen, fifer, 81st Infantry. Just above it was Stephen Jerue, age fourteen, and the place of residence, for both of them, was given as the city of Oswego. Rose felt sudden sharp tears. There he was. There was Will. And Stephen Jerue must be cousin Steve.
“Isn’t that interesting,” said Mr. Ancaster. “William Morrissay. You say he came from across the lake. Of course a lot of them did and didn’t want it known in case their relatives might make a fuss about it. Not all Canadians were sympathetic toward our cause. After all, those people across the lake were refugees from the American Revolution and that was only eighty-five years before the Civil War. I’ll just note that name.” Mr. Ancaster got out a notebook and quickly wrote down the information Rose gave him.
“He was Steve’s cousin.”
“Stephen Jerue,” Mr. Ancaster read, “a drummer and a fifer.”
“Will played the flute.” Rose suspected the curator would not especially want to know that, but she was so eager to share with someone the knowledge that Will had really been there that she had to say it.
“Well, I suppose they would have been glad of a boy who had some knowledge of an instrument, although playing the flute and playing the fife are two very different things, you know. I see they both went with the 81st.”
“The 81st?”
“The 81st regiment. The regiment was home on leave in January of ’64. They’d been through some rough battles. They had first formed up in January of ’62, and they’d seen action pretty steadily right from the start—Bottom’s Ridge, Seven Pines, Malvern’s Hill. They came home for a rest and to gather recruits, so I suppose that’s when your fellow joined up.”
“Oh, no! It was later because there were buds on the trees—”
Mr. Ancaster chuckled. “You sound as though you’d been there.”
Rose nearly said, “I was,” but she recovered herself. “We read it in a diary.”
“I’d like to see that diary. It might be helpful, fill in some of the blanks in our records.”
“Er … um.…” Rose shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “You see, it was Susan’s diary, really, and it doesn’t say anything else about the war. Are there any lists that would say when Will came home?”
They looked through three more books of lists and did not find either Steve’s or Will’s name.
“Does that mean they were killed?” asked Rose in a small voice.
“Not necessarily. The lists are incomplete. In fact, if you or your aunt are researching this boy, I’d appreciate finding out for our records what did happen to him. All this means is that they didn’t muster out here when most of the regiment did.”
“What does muster mean?”
“It’s a military word. Means to gather troops. They’re mustered when they’re formed and they’re mustered for pay, sick call, and when they’re disbanded. Your boy might possibly have run off, too … skedaddled was the word used for that”—Rose did not think Will would have skedaddled—“but they may have been ill or wounded and, of course, they may have been killed. The 81st fought in some of the war’s worst battles after February ’64. They were at Cold Harbor and lost two-thirds of their number there. They were at Petersburg, Chaffin’s Bluff, and the siege of the Confederate capital at Richmond. They took a terrible beating. Your aunt can find the details of those battles in any history of the Civil War, but you can give her this.” He handed Rose a booklet titled Oswego County in the Civil War. “There’s a lot of useful information in it. And tell her to get in touch with me if she needs anything more. Would you like to take along a photocopy of the names?”
She left Mr. Ancaster’s office, her head full of the things he had told her, with the photocopy that said Will Morrissay had joined the Union Army in Oswego in 1864 held tight in her hand. She walked for some time, trying to imagine the town as it had been for Will. She sat down on a low stone wall and looked at the photocopy with Will’s name. Then she took the scrap of a song out of her pocket. She unwrapped it carefully, studying the notes she could not read.
“What’s that song?”
Rose went cold and crammed the song back in her pocket. Sam was standing in front of her, his hands behind his back.
“I didn’t see you.” Rose swallowed hard, trying not to show her nervousness.
“Can I sit down?”
“It’s not my wall.”
Sam didn’t move. “I’m sorry,” he said abruptly.
“What for? That this isn’t my wall?”
“No, I’m sorry I’ve been such a pig to you.”
Rose looked up at him for a second. His face was almost as red as his hair and he was gazing steadfastly at his feet.
“Oh, well, I.…” Rose was trying to say with careless disdain, “I haven’t noticed that you’ve been a pig,” but her voice started to croak and she couldn’t get the words out. Sam’s apology was so unexpected.
“This is what happened,” said Sam, still not looking at her. “Mother and I were going to Italy—to Florence—so I could look at paintings and sculpture. She promised me we could go, ages ago, one time when I won a prize for a painting. She said if she ever got a big chunk of money all at once she’d take me, and ever since then I’ve read all sorts of books about Florence. Then this spring she won a prize and some money for a book she wrote, and she said we could go in the fall. She said it would be the best time, when all the other tourists were back home. I could stay out of school and we could go for a month. On purpose she didn’t start another book. Then your grandmother died and your aunt what’s-her-name phoned and said could you come and live with us, and Mom said, yes, of course. She said she couldn’t very well say you could come, then take right off for Florence. So we used the money to fix up the kitchen and some other things—and I was mad. I guess I’ve been really rotten. Yesterday when you threw up in the ditch, first I thought you were awful then I thought, what if it was me? So I started thinking about how mean I’d been to say those things. And anyway, I didn’t mean to say them where you could hear and … well, I’m sorry, that’s all.”
Rose had never before been the cause of someone having to do without something really important. For her, going to Italy wasn’t anything special, but she could see that for Sam it was a dream. Having been kept for three weeks from going back to Will and Susan, she knew the pain of that kind of disappointment.
“I can see why you hate me,” she said. “I’d hate me if I really wanted to go some place and I came along and wouldn’t let me.”
“I don’t hate you. Not anymore anyhow.”
“It’s all right. I mean, I’m glad if you don’t hate me anymore, but I know you can’t like me either. I don’t mind.”
“What do you mean? Why can’t I like you?”
“Nobody does.”
“That’s dumb. People like you.”
“No, they don’t.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I don’t?”
“No. Nobody does. It’s because I don’t belong here.”
“Don’t belong here? What do you mean?” Sam had got over his awkwardness. He sat down on the stone wall beside Rose.
“I don’t belong here,” she repeated. “I figured it out a long time ago. I.…” She stopped and looked down at her hands, her fingers nervously entwined. Sam’s sudden, unexpected offer of friendship had filled her with an overpowering rush of gratitude and an immediate urge to confide in him—to give him something in return. “I … Sam, if I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone else?”
“Sure.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
Rose told him the story of Mrs. Morrissay, the root cellar, and Susan and Will. Then she showed him the photocopy of Will’s name and took the crumpled song out of her pocket and showed him that.
Sam got up. He paced
back and forth in front of her, his hands first swinging wildly at his sides, then pushing through his hair until it stood on end like the quills of a porcupine. Finally he stopped in front of her. “Okay,” he said, “I admit I thought I saw a ghost that one morning and I admit it did look like an old lady”—he swallowed—“in fact, sort of like the old lady you’re talking about, and it wasn’t just a silhouette. I only said that to steer Mom off. It was a face and everything, but it could have been shadows and so could yours. All that other stuff about the root cellar and going back in time—that’s crazy. But even if it were absolutely true, it wouldn’t mean you belonged there. You belong here. You belong with us. You’re our cousin. Even if you are an American.” Sam grinned. “But that’s okay. My mother’s an American too, remember? Your father was my mother’s brother. His name was David Larkin, and there’s a picture of him on my mother’s dresser. I’ll show you when we get home. I don’t know why you think people don’t like you. Why shouldn’t they, unless”—Sam came to a halt in front of Rose—“unless it’s because you don’t like the rest of us very much. You’re not exactly the friendliest person in the world, you know.”
Sam stopped. Rose said nothing. She was too stunned. David Larkin—she had never thought about her father as a real person, someone who might even be in a photograph, someone other people knew about. She felt a curious sense of shock. “Come on,” she heard Sam saying, “it’s getting cold. Let’s go find something to eat. How much money have you got?”
Rose searched her pockets and found a couple of dollars and some change. She got up from the wall and together they walked down the hill. Sam asked if she would show him Will’s song, and he played it on his harmonica as they walked.
Prickles stood out on the back of Rose’s neck and along her arms, listening to Sam play Will’s song. She stopped and closed her eyes and put her hands tightly to her face, trying to hold the world still, so swiftly did it seem to spin and whirl. Through the notes Rose heard again in her head the sharp, sweet tones of the wood thrush. Sam stopped and looked at her in alarm. “Your face is white as paper. Are you okay?”
