Yankee Belles in Dixie (12 page)

Leah had heard about slave auctions, of course. The abolitionists preached loudly about the evils of selling human beings, and she agreed with them, although she disliked some of their manners.

Now, as she looked around, she saw that there were two classes of people at the auction, and they might have belonged to separate worlds. Many men were dressed in dark suits and wore broad-brimmed hats and smoked so many cigars that the air was blue. The second group was the blacks, who were either standing along a wall or sitting on benches.

Leah looked closely at one young girl no older than she and saw the fear in her large brown eyes. Pity welled up in her, and she wondered,
What would I be feeling if I were going to be sold and be made into somebody's slave?

The room was noisy with the talk of the auctioneer, the sellers, and the buyers. At the front was a small, raised platform. As Leah watched, the auctioneer called up one of the black women, wearing a red dress with a white apron.

The auctioneer began to speak. “Now look here, gentlemen, this is a prime specimen. Only nineteen years old, never had a sick day. She's healthy and ready to breed, so what am I offered?”

The bidding started at $1,500 but rose rapidly. The young woman was a mulatto—part white—and very pretty. She dropped her head as the bidding went on, and once a man stepped up on the platform and grasped her jaw. He forced her to open her mouth and examined her teeth. He ran his hand
over her body and then stepped down and raised the bid.

The woman was sold for $4,200, and Sarah heard a man nearby say, “That's Thomas from New Orleans. He buys all the pretty ones for his saloons there.”

Leah had a sickening feeling in her stomach, and she glanced at Sarah, who nodded.

They both stood it for a while longer, but then a mother was sold to one buyer and fought to keep her little girl with her. As the mother was cuffed into submission, the little girl was picked up bodily by a rough-looking man and carried out of the building, screaming.

Sarah said, “Take us out of here, Captain. I've had enough of this.”

When they were in the carriage, Sarah said, “I think I'd like to go home now.”

Captain Lyons gave her a surprised look. “Why? Aren't you feeling well?”

Sarah hesitated, then said, “I've never seen a slave auction before. It—it's very disturbing.”

“Now you must remember they're not like us,” Lyons said. He shrugged his shoulders indifferently. “You can't make anything out of a black but a slave. They don't have souls, you know.”

“They do so!” Leah piped up. “I looked into that little girl's eyes, and she was scared, just like I'd be.”

Lyons was obviously displeased. “Don't go comparing yourself to them, Leah,” he said. “I tell you, they don't know any better, and they're happy enough as they are.”

Afterward when Sarah and Leah were alone in their room, they talked about it. “I can't believe anyone could be as blind as that man. To say that those
poor people don't know any better. They know they're slaves, all right. Did you see the hopelessness in their eyes?” Sarah spoke angrily.

“Well,” Leah said slowly, “I guess that's partly what this war is all about. They talk about states' rights—” she hesitated “—but I think most of our men are fighting to see that nobody belongs to anybody else.”

L
ieutenant Wesley Lyons was not accustomed to being rejected by young women. His wealth, if not his good looks, would have assured his success with many. Perhaps this was why he saw as a challenge Sarah Carter's refusal to accept him as a suitor. Also he took considerable ribbing from his fellow officers over the young woman's failure to fall under his advances.

“I think she's just got good sense, Wes,” Major Rhodes said. He had watched the pursuit of Sarah Carter by his younger junior officer. He had little use for Lyons, and it delighted him that the captain had fallen flat on his face. “I think you'd better give up and find another target for your love affairs,” he gibed. “Miss Carter, obviously, wants nothing to do with you.”

A flush came to Lyons's cheeks. Angrily he said, “You just wait, Major. I haven't begun to court that girl yet. You'll see! I'll have her or die trying.”

It appeared that he might do the latter. Day after day he besieged Sarah with notes, sent flowers, stopped by the house at least three or four times a week, and did everything a young man could do. Still, as polite as Sarah was, she showed no signs of falling under his spell.

* * *

   Silas Carter watched the courtship with interest.

He'd become genuinely fond of his two nieces and had grown stronger under their fine nursing. They were both good cooks, and there was something highly satisfying about the way they fussed over him. Silas had been a widower for many years. He had missed his wife terribly. They had not had children, so he was alone in the world. Now his house, instead of being plagued by the two ogres he had hired as nurses, was cheerful. Every day the shades were open, allowing the sun to come in. Leah, somehow, found fresh flowers that brightened the room. There was always the sound of laughter and happy talk.

“By gum,” Silas muttered to himself one day as he sat nibbling a piece of Leah's gingerbread, “I didn't know how good life could be! I'd have gotten sick before this if I'd known I'd get such good care.”

A little later he said as much to Leah, who reached over and pinched his arm. “You're just trying to get more sympathy, Uncle Silas.” She grinned at him. “I never did see a man that didn't like being made over.”

“I guess you're right.” Silas helped himself to another piece of gingerbread. Then, after swallowing hugely, he said, “You two girls have made a big difference to me. I think I'd have been pushing up daisies now if I'd had to put up with those two monsters any longer.”

“Well, I'm glad you're better, but you're a long way from well yet. So you're going to have to put up with us for a while.”

“That's fine with me.” Uncle Silas nodded vigorously. Then he looked out the window and saw Sarah coming, carrying a basket. She had gone to the store to buy some groceries, and now, as she approached, she had her head down, apparently studying the sidewalk.

Silas asked, “How's that romance coming along between Sarah and that captain?”

“Oh, he's going to pester her to death!” Leah's lips turned down in a frown. “I wish he'd go away and leave her alone. She's done everything but hit him with a stick.”

“I reckon he's just not used to girls who don't fall over themselves for him. Spoiled like a pup, ain't he now?”

“I think that's right, Uncle Silas.”

“She's right took with Tom Majors. I could see that right off.”

Leah sighed heavily and reached for a piece of gingerbread. She chewed on it thoughtfully. “I expect they'd be married by now if the war hadn't come along. She says it would just be too hard to be married to anybody in the Confederate army—with our brother in the Union army. I expect right now he's with McClellan, coming up to fight.”

“You still keeping up writing a letter every day to Nelson Majors in that hospital in Washington?”

“Well, he gets so lonesome up there. I know a letter means a lot to him. He can't write too much to me. They don't care much about sending letters from Confederate prisoners, I guess, but my pa tells me he went by every day until he left with the army.”

“Your pa's following after the Union army as a sutler.”

“Yes, and I'd be with him, if I weren't here to help you. Pa feels like the Lord's told him to be a sutler. And it
is
nice, because the soldiers are always so grateful when we give them the Scripture and tracts. Seems like they read everything. Some of them are so young. They don't seem much older than I am—though they are, of course.”

When Sarah came in and started to put the groceries away, Leah left her uncle and went in to help. “Did you get everything on the list?”

“No, the stores are out of some things already, and the prices are terrible. Confederate money is already going down in value, and it's going to go down more. It's a good thing we brought plenty of greenbacks with us. They fight over them, you know. I'm getting to where I won't take the change in Confederate. I just get more supplies to use it up. One of our dollars is worth twenty of theirs already.”

It was as though the Federal government had thrown a massive wall around the South. By sea they formed a blockade of ships. But the Federal navy was small, and there were plenty of blockade runners. These little boats would scoot out after dark, make a run to one of the islands where they would receive stores of all sorts, then dodge back in. They were light craft that drew less water than the Federal gunboats and could easily outrun them. However, every day more gunboats arrived, and the blockade runners were finding it more difficult. And since the fall of Fort Henry, supplies were not coming in from Tennessee and the northern part of the Confederacy.

Sarah put the last of the food on the shelves. “At the beginning of the war, General Scott said the
North would have to have a plan to strangle the South—and it looks like that's what we're doing.”

“Was there any word about where the Federal army is?”

“No, just that they're on their way and coming very slowly. Everybody says McClellan's a very cautious general, so General Johnson and the other Southern generals are having plenty of time to put up a good defense. Still, they say the Army of the Potomac has over a hundred thousand men—more than twice what the Confederates have.”

The two talked for a while and then were delightfully surprised when Jeff and Tom arrived unexpectedly.

“We begged off for leave in town for a day,” Jeff said to Leah as they came into the house. “We'll have to do extra duty for it, but I don't care. Come on, let's go out and see if we can find a place to fish. We can go down to the James River maybe.”

When they told Silas their plan, he said, “You'll find some fishing poles and lines out in the storage house. Used to go myself quite a bit. A mess of fish wouldn't go bad.”

Jeff and Leah made their way to the James, a stream that wound around like a snake. When they got under the shade of a huge hickory, they baited up with the big night crawlers they had found in Uncle Silas's backyard.

Jeff watched Sarah put the hook through a worm, ignoring its squirming. He grinned at her. “I remember when you nearly fainted when you baited a hook. I think you're getting callous now that you're an older woman.”

Leah was wearing a plain brown dress, but the sun had given her cheeks an attractive, golden glow.
She made a face at him. “I can put a worm on a hook as good as you can, Jeff Majors! I can catch more fish too.”

“We'll see about that! I never saw the day a girl could beat me at anything.”

They fished for three hours, and at the end of that time Jeff was rather embarrassed.

“I've got six. How many do you have, Jeff?” she asked mischievously.

“Well, I've been fishing in the wrong place. You got where they all are,” he grumbled.

“Never mind that. How many did you get?”

“Actually, when I get this one and the next one, I'll have two.” Jeff grinned. He lifted out her stringer and shook his head. “What did you do to catch these fish?”

“I always spit on the bait.” Leah laughed. “I bet you forgot that, didn't you?”

“Sure did. Well, anyhow, we've got enough here to feed all of us. Let's get on home.”

As they walked homeward they talked about the days when they'd hunted and fished together back in Kentucky. And Jeff spoke of his father. He still hadn't quite given up hope, although he was despondent.

When they got near the house, Leah said, “Oh, rats!”

“What's the matter?”

“Look! He's here again!”

“Who's here again?”

“Oh, that Wesley Lyons. He keeps trying to court Sarah.”

“I know,” Jeff said. “And he'd better be careful. Tom's about ready to stop his clock.”

“He can't do that! If he hit an officer, he'd go to jail, or wherever they put soldiers that hit officers.”

“Well, he's pretty hot tempered, Tom is. Come on, we'd better get inside, because I might have to pull him off.”

When they got into the house, they found Sarah on the couch, wedged firmly between the two young men. The captain seemed stiff, and Leah sensed at once that he was incensed at having to compete with a mere sergeant.

Quickly she said, “We caught enough fish for supper.” Then she glanced at the captain. “But no extra, I guess. Just enough for the five of us.”

She was inviting him not to stay for supper. He tried to ignore her.

Then Jeff said, “Miss Sarah, you want to come out and see these fish? Your sister caught them all. I couldn't do a thing today.”

Sarah had been very uncomfortable.

When the captain arrived, he had tried to intimidate Tom, using his rank. Tom, however, had gritted his teeth and kept a pleasant expression on his face. He had not, however, offered to leave.

By now Sarah was almost at her wit's end. She had shown them the pictures in the family album. They had carried on such small talk as they could, but she was glad now to rise and say, “Oh, yes! Come along, we'll all go see them.”

When they got outside, Leah held up the string of fish, all fine, blue channel cat, weighing anywhere from a pound and a half to two pounds. “I like to eat these,” she said, “but they sure are a pain to clean.” She looked over at the captain mischievously. “Would you like to help us clean the fish? You can gut 'em, and I'll skin 'em.”

“No, thank you,” Captain Lyons said. Clearly he was seething inwardly and could not take teasing at all. Finally he said, “I'll stop by and see you later. It seems to be a little crowded right now.” He strode off toward the front yard.