On Christmas morning, Joybell got up first, although Annie was so excited that I believe she nudged the little girl to wake her. When Joybell climbed down from the loft, she stopped, like a deer smelling the wind, and said she thought a tree had grown up through the floorboards.
“Why, there never was such a clever girl,” Nealie cries as she and Annie took Joybell’s hands and led her to the tree. Joybell touched the needles, then Annie put a gingerbread man into her hands, and she squealed and called for Piecake, who toddled out from my room. Piecake is Joybell’s eyes, and those eyes were big enough for the both of them as she stared at the tree. Nealie held it steady for her whilst Piecake snatched herself three or two pieces of gingerbread. The girls stuffed themselves with the treats; then Nealie and Annie and I handed around the presents—rag dolls and cloaks with plaid lining (cut from Mother Bullock’s cape) for Joybell and Piecake. Annie made each one a quilt of what she calls “diaments.” Piecake’s is quilted in Ostrich Feather, which Annie calls Oyster Feather, but Joybell’s had an odd meandering shape that I did not recognize.
“It’s a cat,” Annie says.
“A cat?” I asks, for it looked more like the outline of milk spilt upon the floor.
“I drawed around a real one,” Annie says.
“I never saw a cat shaped like that.”
“Oh, it was wild and wiggled some.” She frowned. “Ain’t it all right?”
“It’s perfect,” Nealie tells her. And she is right, for any finished quilt is a perfect quilt.
Nealie’s baby received knitted caps and bootees. Nealie gave Annie a bonnet, and I presented her with a pair of all-but-new slippers that I had found in Mother Bullock’s trunk. Annie put them on at once and pronounced, “They fit my feet easiest.” But, Lizzie, Annie’s favorite present was the primer you sent her. There never was such a successful gift. Straight away, Annie began to read the book, paying no mind to the rest of us.
Here are the other presents: Annie gave Nealie a butter paddle and me a stirring stick, which is too large for a kettle, so I think it must be for stirring up trouble. Well, I have no need of a stick for that. Nealie presented me a five-pound cone of sugar and a length of cloth. I gave her four large Snowflake quilt blocks, with a promise of four more to come. I think myself highly favored in the gifts I received, most especially the pair of boots from you. The old ones are worn through and can no longer be patched, so I am in great need of the ones you sent. And oh, Lizzie, I shall be the most fashionable woman in Slatyfork, thanks to the copy of Godey’s Lady’s Book. The red leather binding is nicer than Mother Bullock’s Bible, and I think Godey’s will prove more popular reading.
Since it was too cold to take the little ones to church, even if we had wanted to (which I did not, but Nealie felt the need of it, and Annie is sociable), so Annie read aloud from her new primer as Nealie and I prepared a dinner of boiled pork, boiled cabbage, and apple dumplings. After our dinner, the girls played with their dolls, and Annie continued to read, so Nealie and I played games of euchre and checkers. It seemed as if we were all of us girls together, with neither adults nor boys to bother us.
Late in the day came a knock on the door, and I felt a chill on my back, for I had heard no one ride up. Nealie and I looked at each other, whilst Joybell hid behind Annie’s back.
“It must be Christmas callers,” I say, remembering how Nealie and hers came calling on Christmas past.
Still, we did not hurry to open the door, until there was further pounding and a voice cries, “Nealie!”
“It’s Frank,” Nealie says, rushing to the door and throwing it open.
He stepped inside, covered in snow, and grabbed Nealie up, and I felt the slightest bit of sadness, wishing Charlie were there to do the same with me. But I could not begrudge Nealie her good fortune. While I welcomed him, Annie put her arm around Joybell, who had cried out at the sound of Mr. Smead’s voice. She is afraid of men, which is no surprise, I suppose, after the terrible way she and Annie suffered under the Rebs. She hid her face in Annie’s apron, until Annie explained the caller was Nealie’s husband and that he was a good man. “You’ns must not be afraid,” she says.
I rushed into Mother Bullock’s room and brought out the baby, for he and Mr. Frank Smead had yet to make each other’s acquaintance. Annie and I busied ourselves by putting the girls to bed, giving the little family time to itself. Then we encouraged Mr. Smead to stay the night and go home in the morning, but he was anxious to have his wife and babe—whom he promptly named Thomas—to himself. So we bundled them up and saw them to the cutter. After he had tucked blankets around Nealie and put hot bricks at her feet, Mr. Smead came back to me at the door and thanked me. “I shall satisfy you for it,” he says.
“Our hospitality is not for sale,” I says, “especially to a friend at Christmas.”
“Then I have the best of presents for you. I have just got back from Arkansas. The South is done for. They say the war will be over by spring.” That news is especially dear, coming as it does on Christmas, and I will not even question that the source of it is a copperhead.
As soon as Nealie was away, Annie and I moved her things into Mother Bullock’s bedchamber, and she and Joybell will sleep there. The house was quiet last night, but peaceful, I think, and that is a very nice thing on Christmas night.
With love for you in this best of seasons,
Alice Bullock
December 31, 1864
Sister dear,
I shall not keep you in suspense. I have heard from Charlie, and he says he is doing as finely as could be expected. The letter is recent, scarcely two weeks old, and it arrived in better condition than those Charlie sent from the battlefield. Several times have I sat down to write to you, but have been compelled to stop so that I can read his letter once again. I have committed most of it to memory, although it arrived just today. As I cannot bear to part with it (did I sound like Mother Bullock just now?), I will copy down the whole for you:
December 15, 1864
Dearest Companion,
I have received three letters from you since I arrived at Andersonville and believe you have wrote more, but they were lost or thrown away, for there is men here mean enough to burn a dying man’s testament. In one that went astray, I think you have wrote that Mother passed on, because in the last I received, you said you had finished her marker. Well, Alice, I am sorry for that and hope you do not grieve too much. She was a stern mother but a good woman, and I guess you two got on right well. She had wrote long ago that she was sick and not to expect her to be there when I returned, so I am not surprised. But I had myself a good cry over it when I read the letter. It is sad to think of the old home without her.
Since Mother is gone, I have determined me to tell you what to do if I go beyond the veil. Since the Andersonville jail is not a very dependable mail route—you have not mentioned receiving a single letter from me, except the first, although I have sent two more—I made a bargain with a guard, who gave me paper, although it is only a bit of wallpaper, and a promise to mail this letter. (If you receive it, don’t mention it, but only mark an X in the corner of your letters so I will know. The guard is a butternut boy of fourteen, and I don’t want to get him into trouble. Also, Alice, don’t mail me food or blankets or comfort bags, for nothing sent to the soldier ever arrives and you will only be supplying the enemy. Most of them have no mercy on a Yankee.) In exchange for the favor, I will give the little Reb my watch. I value it, but think you would value a letter from me more. I told the boy if he can find a key for the watch, I will teach him to tell time.
I never expected to see such hard times when I enlisted. Andersonville is not a very good place, and we are treated worse than goats. Alice, I am not a grunter; I think you and anybody else who knows me should learn the truth. The story must get out so that when the Yanks are the victors in this war, the Union will hang those who put us in this godforsaken place. The camp is filthy and the graybacks as thick as flies on a blackberry pie. T
here is a great deal of sickness in the stockade, and the coughing never lets up, night or day. The smallpox are not so bad, but I have seen a thousand or two die of scurvy, and I thank the Lord I have no signs of it. One of my pards in the shebang died from it last week. Another is sick with dysentery. While many are content to live as filthy as pigs, I wash every day and brush my clothes. I exercise by walking around the camp on days when my leg doesn’t trouble me. You musn’t worry, for I think it is getting better and will be ready for dancing when I get home. The food is of poor quality and not much of it, and we have to protect what we get, even from our friends, for a hungry soldier will steal anything. So it is root hog or die.
I try to keep busy. I have the pocket Bible Mother gave me, which I did not care for much at first, but now I read it as regular as a preacher. I have become a passable sewer, for I made a needle out of a long nail, doubled over one end for an eye, and sharpened the other between two rocks, which served as grindstones. Now I sew up the rips for other prisoners, who offer to pay as they can, but I will not charge the poor soldier who wants to stay warm. We scratch out a board in the dirt to play draughts, and when not planning escapes—many here dig tunnels, although they are not succesful, and the punishment for the diggers is fierce—the prisoners talk about food. I myself have planned a grand dinner for my homecoming, with stewed chicken, pickled beets, coleslaw, apple butter, preserved peaches, sponge cake, and buttermilk pie—and maybe fricasseed hardtack, for old time’s sake. I shall have to eat it on the ground, I think, for I have forgot how to sit at table. It has been more than two years since I did so. At night when I look up at the stars, I think about you and your blue doll-baby eyes and the skin on your breast as white as a china plate. Oh, Alice, I hope you think about me, too. Sometimes you seem so far away, even when I am looking at your likeness. In here, we measure distance in time, not miles, and it has been more than two years since I saw you. Now, don’t tell me you have got old and fat and are in love with the hired man.
Here is what I mean to say about the farm. I want you to keep hold of it until the war is over, for it comforts me to think that I can come home to the old place. But if I do not make it through this war, then whatever you want to do with the farm is all right with me, for our days together on it will be gone by and past. I know you never liked farming much, but Mother said you were first-rate at it, so maybe you have changed. Even so, farming is a hard life for the widow. Aunt Darnell will find a buyer if you want to sell. She is worse than Mother ever was in driving a bargain. The two of them did not like each other, but you can trust her, for she is fond of me. If I return, what would you think if we sold the place? There is a soldier here from Colorado, who says fortune can be made there easy, not from gold but from supplying the needs of the gold seekers. Since I had experience as a merchant in Fort Madison, I think I could do right well in that regard.
Well, think on it, and we will decide when I get home. I would give all I have in this world for one sweet kiss from your sweet lips. If I get home, we will make up for lost time, won’t we? I try to live right, so that if I fall, I will fall Zionward and meet you one day in heaven. Still, I am not gone up by a long shot. I expect to come home, and me and you will stay together the rest of our days and call each other “Old Boy” and “Old Girl.”
Pray for me, Doll Baby, and keep a look out, for someday your soldier boy will come whistling down the road.
To my ever-loving wife from her ever-true husband,
Charles K. Bullock.
Lizzie, there is nothing for me to say, because you know how full my heart is. I have been told the worst thing for a prisoner is to give up hope, for then he will surely die. I truly believe that Charlie will come home. This is a capital way to start the new year.
May you and yours start your new year in happiness,
too, is the wish of your ever-loving and ever-true sister,
Alice Bullock
January 20, 1865
Dear Lizzie,
The weather is so bad that we have been snowbound these last three weeks. But several days ago, the cold broke, and at noon, we heard the sound of sleigh bells. Then came Nealie in her cutter. She was off to town, with baby Tom bundled up beside her, and begged me to go along. As I was tired of being housebound, I agreed.
After completing our errands, we stopped at the post office, and who should be there but Aunt Darnell, who is still as mad as an old biddy hen that she had not been informed Mother Bullock was dying. She was away in Quincy when Mother Bullock passed, and had not seen fit to call on me since her return. “Well, miss, I expect you did not want me there, for I would have seen through Sister Serena’s confession,” she said in way of greeting.
I wanted to reply that I did not think that as she ignored Mother Bullock in life, she would care to be with her at death, but before I could, I was defended—by none other than Mrs. Kittie!
“Thunderation, old Darnell!” says she. “You are the only woman in Slatyfork who would be stingy enough to withhold the truth on your deathbed. Mrs. Bullock chose to cleanse her soul. That’s all.” Then she turns to me and adds, “Pay your aunt no attention, Alice. This is only her idea of mail time conversation. She must always have something unpleasant to tell. I believe Mrs. Bullock’s dying words, and think she should have spoke sooner, for withholding the truth was the worst disservice to you.” Then, gathering up Nealie and me, she says, “Kind ladies, you must come to tea, for I am longing for your company. We are behind in our quilting for the soldier boys.”
“Behind?” I mutter, although after her defense just then, I could not point out that I had been shut out of the sewing group. Nor could I say no to her invitation. Mrs. Kittie has always had the choicest cakes and candies, and I was tired of plain cooking. So, gladly did we follow along behind her.
“I expect you have heard the scandal about me,” she says, after baby Tom was put to sleep in a chair and we had seated ourselves at the tea table. “I am a fool when it comes to men, now more than ever. Sugar?”
Nealie and I smiled sympathetically as Mrs. Kittie handed around the teacups. Her cook brought in a pretty plate of tarts, and Mrs. Kittie waited until she had retired to the kitchen to continue. “Mr. Howard was a deserter, a fraud, and a rascal, and he has not used me fair, just as you warned me, Alice. He hired a pettifogger in Hannibal and has tried to cheat me of my fortune. But my representative there grew suspicious, and Mr. Howard was found out.” She stopped to study the plate of cakes. “Try the raspberry, please. They are delicious, but the seeds stick in my teeth, so I shall have the lemon.” She helped herself to three, popping the first one whole into her mouth. “Now here is the worst of it,” says she with her mouth full. She dusted the crumbs off her lips with a linen square and leaned forward over the table, lowering her voice, although no one was about to overhear. Besides, her story was already well known in Slatyfork. “He has himself a wife already—a redheaded one.” She leaned back and raised an eyebrow.
“The wretch,” says Nealie.
“How could you have known?” I asks.
“I could not, of course. It was clear to me he was a puffer, but now he has dropped pretty low. The wife was charged with an illegal act, although for his sake, I am glad it was not proven.” She leaned forward, her eyes glowing. “Well, to tell you the truth, she is a woman of the streets and had set herself up in a Hannibal establishment while he was living in Slatyfork.”
“Lucky you did not get a disease,” I say, whilst Nealie covered her mouth with her napkin to keep from laughing. “Did he get his hands on your fortune?”
Nealie glanced up at me, surprised that I would ask such a delicate question, but she was dying to know the truth, too.
“Not at all, sis,” Mrs. Kittie says cheerfully. “A suit of clothes, some gloves, a diamond stickpin. Oh, I am not such a simpleton as some might think, for he did not get my spondulicks. That’s what my first husband called his money. I like the sound of that, don’t you? Spondulicks. I am sorry thing
s did not work out with Mr. Howard, for I liked him very well, but he did not care a pin for me.” She touched a napkin to her eyes, although they were as dry as mine. Then she laughed and says, “But I am not in the least sorry. Can you imagine a better way for a rich old woman to enjoy herself than in dalliance with a young husband. You see, he will go to jail for bigamy, whilst I”—she put her hand on her breast—“I will simply be an object for sympathy.”
“You should have a stayed a maiden lady,” says Nealie, helping herself to a raspberry tart, then pushing the plate to me before Mrs. Kittie could claim the last one.
“No such thing, sis.”
“Have you heard from him?” I asks, handing Mrs. Kittie my cup for more tea.
“Indeed. He writes that it is all a misunderstanding, and that he is sick to dying with missing me. Hannibal is a poor place to be sick,” she replies, pouring the tea. “He has fever and was taken with the shakes from noon until sundown. It is lovesickness, he claims, but I wrote back, ‘Good morning, Mr. Ague.’ ” She chuckled. “Oh, it is capital how I have used him. Don’t you see?”
And I suppose we did. Except for being the object of conversation, which Mrs. Kittie does not seem to mind, she has had herself a good time, and no harm done—to her, at any rate. She disremembers all the trouble her foolishness caused me. But her cheerful nature and her raspberry tarts encourage my forgiveness.
Alice's Tulips: A Novel Page 22
