“Wish I were fighting with them,” Franklin said as he and Bebe pitched a load of newly cut hay into the barn loft.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Sure do.”
Bebe paused to lean against her pitchfork. “Aren’t you reading their letters, Franklin? All they do is complain about the rain and the mud and the mosquitoes. The food is bad, everyone has a fever, and the Rebels have real bullets in their guns. Why would you want to be a part of that?”
“At least it’s something new. I don’t want to stay here, pitching hay and milking cows forever. Don’t you ever get sick of this place?”
She could only stare at him. Why would he want to go anyplace else?
“Oh, that’s right, you’re a girl,” he said after a moment. “I keep forgetting. Girls can’t move around from place to place whenever they feel like it.”
Bebe lifted her pitchfork and stabbed it deeper into the hay.
“Can to! I just don’t feel like it, that’s all.”
Franklin shook his head. “That’s not how it works for women. First you need to find a husband. Then you have to move to wherever he wants to live.”
“Who says?”
“Everyone says! That’s just the way the world is. Don’t you ever pay attention to these things?”
She returned to her work with a fury she didn’t understand, stabbing the hay and hurling it aloft. Stubble rained down on her, sticking in her hair and dropping down the neck of her blouse until her body felt as prickly as her mood.
When the last of the hay was loaded off the flatbed wagon, Franklin grabbed Bebe’s pitchfork and leaned it against the barn wall beside his. “Come on, let’s go jump in the river and cool off.”
“But Papa said—”
“He won’t know we’re finished. Come on! One quick swim before dinner.”
Franklin shed his scratchy shirt, shoes, and socks on the way to the tree swing, dumping them in a heap beside the path. With a whoop of pure joy, he swung out over the river and dropped into the water below.
“Come on in, Bebe! It feels great!” he hollered up to her.
Bebe hadn’t felt so hot and itchy since she’d had the chicken pox. She caught the dangling rope in her hand and sat down on the board. She was finally tall enough for her feet to touch the ground. But even though she longed for the cooling relief of the water, she simply couldn’t bring herself to leap from the swing and drop all that way down into the river. She twirled in halfhearted circles for a few minutes, then got off the swing and picked her way carefully down the path to the river, still wearing her shoes in case of snakes.
“Why don’t you jump in?” Franklin called to her. He floated on his back a few feet away, his bare toes sticking out of the water.
“I can’t swim.” Nor could she take off her clothes as Franklin had done. She was a girl.
Bebe sat down on the riverbank and dribbled water through her fingers, splashing it on her face and neck, aware for the first time of her limitations. She was still hot and prickly, while Franklin floated with the current, cool and refreshed. Bebe was forced to do the same work as a boy, but she couldn’t have fun like a boy or travel wherever she wanted. It didn’t seem fair. She stood and started hiking up the path away from the river, back toward home.
By the time summer ended, her brothers had marched close enough to Richmond to hear the church bells tolling, but the Union generals made them turn around and march all the way back down the Virginia peninsula to where they’d started. Bebe couldn’t believe it. It seemed like the war was going to go on forever. She helped her father and Franklin bring in the harvest and slaughter the hogs. Winter came again.
Bebe rose before dawn on a frigid Sunday morning in 1863 and put on an overcoat that Franklin had outgrown and a pair of his worn-out boots and followed him and her father out to the barn through fresh shin-deep snow. The farmyard looked beautiful in the predawn light, buried beneath a sparkling blanket of pristine snow, unmarred by footprints or wagon tracks. Her breath hung in the air in front of her, as if she could grab it and put it in her pocket.
Warmth from the cows raised the temperature in the barn a few degrees, but by the time Bebe finished her chores and returned to the house, she felt as cold and stiff as a brass weather vane. She had often complained while scrubbing laundry and washing dishes with her mother, but she wished she were helping in the warm, cozy kitchen again. She missed her quiet conversations with Hannah.
“Can you stoke the fire a little hotter, Mama?” she asked as she dumped an extra armload of firewood into the kitchen woodbox. “I’m so frozen I can barely move.” Her hair crackled and sparked as she pulled off her woolen hat and shook her long braids free.
Franklin tromped through the door behind her and snatched up his plate, piling on eggs and bacon and biscuits from the warming oven. He was taking more than his fair share, from what Bebe could see. She quickly grabbed her own plate and shoved Franklin aside with her hip.
“Hey, move over. Some of this food is for me, you know.”
Franklin laughed and shoved her in return, tussling with her the way her brothers used to wrestle with each other, even though the top of Bebe’s head barely reached Franklin’s shoulders. At fourteen, she was still as tiny as a ten-year-old, although her back had grown strong during the past two years and her rock-rough hands were callused from wielding pitchforks and shovels and scythes.
“I’m not only frozen, I’m starved!” she said, shoving a warm biscuit into her mouth. Any ladylike manners she once might have possessed had deteriorated significantly since the war began. She didn’t care.
“I can’t help thinking of James and William and Joseph,” Hannah said as she put more wood in the stove. “Imagine eating hardtack and sleeping outside in tents on the cold, hard ground . . . I hope they’ve found someplace to attend church this morning.”
The thought of going outside again made Bebe shiver. “Do we have to go to church?” she asked. “Can’t we just stay home and read the Bible here, for once? It’s too cold to ride all the way into town—and I could use a rest. Papa thinks we’re his slaves.”
“You don’t know what slavery is,” Hannah said gently. “You should thank God every day that you don’t have an evil overseer standing behind you with a whip like those poor slaves down South do. And thank God we have the freedom to attend church.”
“Well, I’m going to pray that this war ends soon so the boys can come home and do their own work.”
Franklin nudged her with his elbow, frowning. “Don’t do that. I don’t want the war to end yet. I want my turn to fight.”
Bebe stared at her brother. His cheeks were still red from the cold, his sweaty hair mashed flat from his stocking cap. She suddenly realized how much she would miss Franklin if he went off to war, too. The bond between them had grown strong as they’d worked together every day, and Franklin no longer treated her like a pesky little sister the way her other brothers had. She didn’t know what she would do if she ever saw his name on the list posted at the general store of all the local boys who had been killed or wounded in battle. But Bebe didn’t know how to explain her reasons to Franklin. Instead, she slid the rest of her bacon onto his plate.
“Here . . . I took too much.” She lifted one of her biscuits onto his plate, too.
The kitchen door opened and their father came inside, trailing powdery snow from his boots and sending a shiver of cold air down Bebe’s neck. “Which one of you boys left my axe lying on the ground?”
“I guess I did,” Bebe said meekly. “Sorry . . . I had to use it to chop the ice out of the watering troughs.”
“I’ve told you boys a hundred times to take care of my tools. That axe will be no good to anyone if it rusts.”
“Sorry . . . And I’m a girl, Papa, not a boy.” Henry didn’t acknowledge the correction.
Bebe gulped down the rest of her food and quickly changed into her Sunday clothes, tying a bonnet over her unruly hair. Hannah had warmed bricks in the oven so Bebe could thaw out her frozen feet on the trip to town. She still felt grumpy as she sat down in the church pew between Franklin and her father, fuming about the endless war that might take Franklin away from her, and certain that she smelled as strongly of manure as they did, even though she had washed and changed her clothes and shoes. She barely paid attention to Reverend Webster’s sermon until she noticed that an unusual hush had fallen over the congregation. She uncrossed her arms and sat up to listen.
“And so our prayers have been answered,” he was saying. “According to the latest news, President Lincoln has signed an Emancipation Proclamation, which means that every slave in every rebellious state is now a free man!”
For a moment, the silence in the church was absolute. Bebe tried to imagine what it would feel like to suddenly be granted her freedom after a lifetime of slavery. Probably even better than if her brothers came home. Then one of the elders began to sing the doxology in a wavering baritone, and one by one the other members of the congregation joined in.
Praise God from Whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all creatures here below
Praise Him above ye Heavenly Host.
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost . . . Amen.
Bebe recalled the feeling of joy and relief she’d felt on that long-ago day when the bounty hunters had turned their horses around and trotted away from the farm wagon, and she felt guilty for complaining about the farm work. She had read the tattered copy of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
with its pages falling out and its back cover missing, and she felt the rightness of the abolition movement with every ounce of her strength.
“God heard the slaves’ groaning,” Pastor Webster continued, “just as He once heard the cries of the slaves in Egypt. He heard our congregation’s prayers, and now He has answered them. But the slaves will still be in bondage until the war is over and liberation comes—which is all the more reason for us to keep praying for our soldiers and leaders, keep praying for the war to end soon. And when peace returns to our land once again, imagine all the other things we can accomplish if we continue to work together as God’s people to further His kingdom.”
Bebe was quiet for most of the ride home until the wagon reached the fork in the road, reminding her as it always did of the day she and her mother had helped Mary and Katie escape. “Wasn’t that wonderful news we heard today about the slaves?” she asked.
“God is so good,” Hannah murmured.
Bebe glanced down the other road and remembered the bounty hunters sitting astride their powerful horses. She remembered their hunting dogs jostling and sniffing as they approached the wagon. And she remembered the two brave women huddled beneath the firewood, holding their breath. That’s why her brothers were fighting this war. Sometimes it was so hard to take her mind off the daily aches and pains and so easy to lose sight of the bigger goal.
As her farmhouse came into view beyond the turn in the road, Bebe vowed to pray every day for the war to end. And though she knew it was selfish of her, she wanted it to end for her own freedom as much as for the slaves.
Morning comes very early when you’re locked in a jail cell. The high, barred windows had no curtains, so I awakened with the sunrise. I sat up, rubbing my eyes with my fists to get out the jail dust, then smoothed my hair off my face. The cell had no mirror, so I could only imagine how disheveled I must look.
Even in the best of times I was never fastidious with my hair and clothing. I had much more important things to attend to than brushing my hair for one hundred strokes or taking hours to pin it up in a fashionable Gibson girl style or applying layers of cosmetics to my cheeks. I wore my hair bobbed, and I purchased clothing that was “serviceable,” much to my mother’s dismay. I couldn’t be bothered with lace that could be torn or silk that would catch and shred easily.
After my wild car ride last evening, and a long uncomfortable night on a lumpy mattress, I figured I must look like Longfellow’s
The Wreck of the Hesperus
. I found myself wishing for a hairbrush. And a toothbrush. Never in my life have I slept in my clothes. Mother would be appalled, I’m sure.
There is an old adage that says, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” but that didn’t stop my mother from trying hard over the years, to transform me into a silk purse. As I lay down on my jailhouse bunk again, trying in vain to go back to sleep, I recalled one of her more memorable attempts. It was during the summer of 1910, when I was a wild and wiry child with scrawny legs and a rat’s nest of brown hair . . .
“Harriet, it’s time you learned to be more ladylike.” My mother made the pronouncement with a firm voice and a determined nod of her stately blond head.
“But I’m not a lady,” I argued. “I’m only ten!” I rose from my seat at the breakfast table and began backing slowly from the room, trying to make my escape.
“Halt!” Mother said. “I mean it, Harriet. Your manners are atrocious, and I don’t know where to begin to describe your lack of concern for your appearance.”
In truth, my appearance was hopeless, so why be concerned? I was mousy and plain, and no amount of wishing would ever transform me into a beauty like my sister, Alice. Or my mother for that matter, who was an older, more elegant version of my sister. God had abundantly blessed both of them with delicate features, golden hair, and alabaster skin. Both had the dainty upturned nose, pointed chin, and mysterious, haughty demeanor of a Gibson girl. Men’s heads turned when Mother and Alice sashayed past. Men probably averted their gazes when I did.
“I’ve let you run wild for much too long,” Mother continued. “But starting today that’s all going to change.”
I gulped. I glanced at Alice and saw her nodding in agreement. I was doomed.
“Mother and I have decided to plan a garden luncheon,” Alice said gleefully. “We’re going to invite all of our friends—and yours too, Harriet. Won’t it be fun?”
“I would sooner be stuck on a spit and roasted over a fire.”
“Why must you say such outrageous things?” Mother asked. “Honestly, I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth. Perhaps that should be our first task, Alice, teaching the girl to hold her tongue.”