Sarah's Ground (9781439115855)

Sarah's Ground

O'Lanso Gabbidon

SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

Sarah's Ground

Also available by A
NN
R
INALDI
:

Taking Liberty

ANN RINALDI

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OOKS FOR
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SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2004 by Ann Rinaldi

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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OOKS FOR
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Book design by O'Lanso Gabbidon

The text for this book is set in New Caledonia.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rinaldi, Ann.

Sarah's ground / Ann Rinaldi.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: In 1861, eighteen-year-old Sarah Tracy, from New York state, comes to work at Mount Vernon, the historic Virginia home of George Washington, where she tries to protect the safety and neutrality of the site during the Civil War, and where she encounters her future husband, Upton Herbert.

Includes historical notes.

ISBN 0-689-85924-4
ISBN 13: 978-0-689-85924-3
eISBN 13: 978-1-439-11585-5

1. Mount Vernon (Va. : Estate)—Juvenile fiction. 2. Tracy, Sarah—Juvenile fiction. 3. Herbert, Upton—Juvenile fiction. 4. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Juvenile fiction. [1. Mount Vernon (Va. : Estate)—Fiction. 2. Tracy, Sarah—Fiction. 3. Herbert, Upton—Fiction. 4. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Fiction. 5. Diaries—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.R459 Sar 2004

[Fic]—dc22   2003018334

To Gina and Roger, who will always have wit and wisdom

Sarah's Ground

M
y older sister, Fanny, put me in a closet once when we were children. She, being the elder, had her reasons, I suppose. I can think of half a dozen reasons right now why she may have done it. I was always a plague to Fanny. Like the time I stole her pearl hair comb when she was going to a party where Herman Melville was to be guest of honor. Mr. Melville came from Troy, New York, where I come from.

We have both a small farm and a town house in Troy, across from the Hart-Cluett mansion. Life there was not dull. But it was confining. Before I made the decision to come to Washington City, my life was like I was in a closet.

Always I was watched. Always I was under someone else's supervision. If it wasn't Fanny's, it was that of one of my older brothers or sisters-in-law, who were, in their own words, “taking the problem away from my parents.”

Or it was the teachers at Troy Female Seminary. That was on Mount Ida, above the city, where in the ratified air I learned how to stand straight, play the pianoforte, and stitch a fine seam, to say nothing of science, mathematics, French and philosophy, deportment and dancing.

Always I failed deportment.

“Face your problems head-on, girls. Stare them in the eye,” Miss Semple used to say. She was the headmistress, and when she was not telling us to face our problems, she was telling us to express our opinions, but never to be pushy. Pushy girls were the worst sinners in her book. They were to be abhorred. She would not tolerate pushy girls at Troy Female Seminary.

She never explained to us how we were supposed to face our problems head-on without being pushy. I supposed it was a secret we would all learn someday.

Oh, how often I wanted to run away! If it had been sixty years earlier, I might have dressed like a man and run for a pirate ship. In George Washington's time I'd have donned breeches and a rifle frock, taken up a musket, and joined a regiment to fight the British. Or gone west, over the Shenandoahs, to face the Indians. Where indeed I would have been pushy.

But somehow I finished Troy Female Seminary, if only to keep from breaking my parents' hearts. They are considerably older than most parents are with a daughter my age. And being so, it is to be expected that their hearts are very fragile. I was reminded of that constantly by my older brothers, George and Albert.

All my life I have done what my family wanted. I have performed and made them happy. Until now. Now I have broken out on my own. I have applied for a position at Mr.
Washington's home as a sort of live-in caretaker. When I told my parents that it was backed by honorable people, they consented. And I got their friends the Maxwells and the Goodriches, who have money and influence, to write me letters of recommendation.

Oh, I won't exactly be a caretaker. I will have servants and won't have to clean or scrub or even cook. But I will be making decisions about the house, which has long been neglected. Not alone, of course. Miss Cunningham, who is to interview me today, will be there.

And a man called Mr. Upton Herbert. He is the superintendent. At least that's the way it was when I first wrote the letter to Miss Cunningham. But now things have changed.

It is spring of 1861 as I sit here in my room of the Willard Hotel and write this. And South Carolina has seceded from the Union since I wrote that first letter. And war is coming. Things couldn't have changed more than that. But I feel safe here, as if things will turn out well.

Even if Miss Cunningham is from South Carolina. And already she has written to me that she fears she may be needed at home. As if South Carolina has actually broken off from the continent and is about to float out into the Atlantic Ocean.

But she has been honest with me. She has told me that Mount Vernon is in a dilapidated state. That General Washington's great-great-grandnephew, or whatever Mr.
John Augustine Washington is, has left Mount Vernon by now, being the last Washington to have residence there, with all those children of his. Six, I think.

She has told me she is not well, so likely it will be up to me to try to bring to the place some semblance of what it once was.

But that is not what worries me. What worries me is that I have not been honest with her.

And I am afraid she will find me out.

I told her I was twenty-two in my letter. And I am only eighteen, going on nineteen. The Maxwells didn't mention my age in their letter. I know because I read it. Neither did the Goodriches. Not that they were conspiring. They just didn't. And my parents know nothing about the deception. No, the lie is all my own.

So I sit here in my room and worry the matter. But I wouldn't stand a chance at getting the position if I hadn't lied. Oh well, it will all be over soon, and I will either shortly be hired or leave here in disgrace. And, as Miss Semple said, I must face up to the problem.

Within the hour I am to meet with Miss Cunningham.

I sit here writing in my journal. I think I shall try to keep a journal. After all, it isn't every day one gets invited to live in the home of the father of one's country. Something important may happen. And if it doesn't, then I must learn to make important the little things that do happen every day. I must learn that I am important.

If I had learned that a long time ago, I wouldn't be living
like a gypsy, getting shipped place to place by my family. But more about that later.

Here at Willard's I have stayed in my room, fearful of taking to the streets, of even going into the lobby, advised against it by the concierge.

“Congress is in session, miss. The halls, parlors, and dining room are loud and crowded. The din is frightful. We can deliver meals to your room.”

They say that to be seen here at Willard's marks one as important. They say they serve fifteen hundred of a Sunday when Congress is in session. But I keep to my room. I don't particularly want to be seen. I want to stay right here, away from it all.

The Federal City is a bedlam. Everybody expects war to happen soon, and the streets are filled with office seekers, soldiers, plug-uglies, hangers-on, and if all that were not bad enough, the elite who have come to see and criticize our backwoods president.

If Miss Cunningham does not approve of me, what shall I do? Go home to Troy to help Father plant the spring corn? Go back to Mount Savage in Maryland to be a governess for the Maxwell children?

I suppose I could stay with my friend Mary McMakin in Philadelphia for a while.

Mayhap if Miss Cunningham doesn't like me, I'll run away to sea.

It is terrible being the youngest in the family. I was never spoiled. I was admonished, preached to, and told by my much older siblings that I was the blessing of my parents' old age. And constantly reminded to act like a blessing. But being a blessing can be a tiresome business. My older siblings—George, Albert, and Fanny—raised me for the most part. When home from school, I mostly stayed at one of their houses or the other. Mother's heart really is weak. And Father lost his arm in the Mexican War. Still, he manages to be a gentleman farmer who owns the largest mercantile in Troy. My brothers run it for him. I think my older siblings put this burden of being a blessing on me so I wouldn't be a worry to them, or my parents. And never, never was I taken seriously about anything.

I think that is why I am doing this. To be taken seriously. To have a part in what is going on around me.