Yankee Belles in Dixie (3 page)

“No—” Royal shook his head “—I'll take the fish off, and
you
bait up. I don't want to get that bait all over me. It stinks too bad.”

Jeff laughed, “You Carters are mighty fine folks—can't get your hands in a little fish bait. Well, that's OK. Us working folks will take care of that.”

Leah got in the prow of the john boat, Royal positioned himself on the middle seat, and Jeff got in the stern.

“All right, Leah, haul us across,” Jeff said.

Leah took the line up and began to pull the boat across the river. She got to the first hook and said, “Something got the bait.”

“Rats,” Jeff said. “I hope it's not going to be nothing but a bunch of bait-stealers tonight.” He reached into his bucket, picked up a piece of bait, slipped it on the hook. “Let's go.”

The first three hooks were bare, and Royal and Jeff baited them again. And then Leah cried out, “There's something on this one!”

“Watch out now! Let me get him!” Royal yelled. He always got excited when a fish was on the line, and as Leah drew the boat past the fish, he pulled it up saying, “A good one! Must go three or four pounds!”

“What kind is it?” Jeff asked. “Bullhead or blue channel?”

“Bullhead. Still good to eat though.” Carefully Royal put his thumb in the fish's mouth, avoiding the spines that stuck out on each side of the broad head and out the top of the skull. The spines were poisonous and could cause painful wounds. He removed the hook, slipped the fish onto a stringer, and dropped it over the side. “OK, bait this one up.”

Jeff slipped the bait on the hook and complained, “All the fun in this is catching the fish. I get to do all the work, and you get all the fun.”

“When you get to be an old man like me, you can take the fish off,” Royal teased.

Jeff knew Royal felt a real affection for him though and was glad the two of them happened to be home at the same time.

They moved slowly across the line, taking four fish off, three or four pounds each. And then, when the hooks were all baited again, they went back to the fire.

Royal said, “We got to do better than this.” He sat down and reached into the sack. “Let's eat some more funnel cakes.”

They sat eating cakes and listening to the night sounds. It was August and hot, but the wind off the river was cool, and they enjoyed it. Three times they ran the trot line. In between times, they talked as they sat around the fire. Once Leah and Jeff stretched out and slept for an hour.

Finally, at three in the morning, Jeff said, “I guess we got enough fish. We better go in, I reckon.”

Royal, leaning back against a tree, said, “I wish Tom were here.”

Jeff looked at him quickly. “Me too. We've sat around lots of campfires, haven't we, Royal?”

“Sure have.” Royal stared into the fire thoughtfully.

Silence surrounded them, and they heard far away the sound of a coyote wailing at the moon. Finally Royal said, “He's all right, isn't he?”

“I guess so. He was when I left—but you know how it is, Royal.” There was fear in Jeff's voice, and uncertainty.

Royal said, “You worry about him, I know. I do too.”

* * *

   Back at the house, about dawn, Jeff and Leah went to an outside table to clean the fish. He was wearing a pair of old faded overalls, and a slouch hat was shoved back on his head.

“Royal's worried, isn't he?” she asked him. “I can tell.”

“I guess everybody is. This war's crazy—brothers shooting at brothers! There's Royal on one side and my brother on the other side. The best friends that ever were—and now they might have to kill each other.” He reached down, took the tow sack, and spilled the catfish into a pail. The fish thumped wildly about.

Jeff had dressed many catfish, and he did it quickly and efficiently, using a pair of pliers. When one was clean, he threw the trimmings into a small bucket and the pink body of the fine fish onto the table.

Then he said to Leah, “I can't seem to believe it's going to come out all right. There's my father in jail, and we hear the prisoners die by the hundreds in those prisons.”

“Jeff, you can't think like that,” Leah protested. She watched as he picked up another fish moodily and began cleaning it. “You've got to remember that God is going to answer our prayers. He'll take care of our men in His own way.”

“I don't know about God anymore.”

Leah reacted to his words as though struck. “Why, Jeff, you know God's good!”

He turned, holding the pliers in his left hand so tightly that his fingers were white. “If God's so good, why did He let this war happen? Why did He let my father be in prison? Why did He let that boy get killed who was about to get married? I don't see anything good about it.”

“But, Jeff, you can't talk like that!”

Jeff's face was pale, even in the dawn light. “Leah, my mother died. I don't have any home anymore. My father's in prison. Maybe my brother's
dead. What have I got to be happy about? Why should I trust God?”

He knew Leah had never heard him speak like this. He had always been a faithful attender at church.

She looked shaken. “Jeff,” she whispered, “we've got to trust God.” She moved to stand beside him. “We've got to remember things don't always go well, but God always does what is right. You know the Bible. Look at Daniel down in the lions' den. Why, things looked downright terrible for him! And the people of Israel, when they were caught and Pharaoh's army was about to kill them all. Think about them, what they must have felt—but Moses didn't doubt! He knew God was going to deliver them—in His own way. And He did.”

“That was in the Bible,” Jeff said. He turned and began skinning another fish. “But this is now, and somehow I just feel so—well, I don't know how to say it …”

Leah moved closer. She reached out and touched his arm. “Jeff, please don't talk like that! I know you feel bad, and I do too. But God wants us to trust Him. He's never failed anybody yet.”

Jeff continued cleaning the fish, and Leah kept talking quietly, trying to encourage him.

Finally, when all the fish were cleaned, he said, “Let's go to the pump and wash these off.”

She pumped while he washed the fish. When they turned to go to the house, he said, “I'll try to believe God will make things be right—but it sure is hard.”

“I know.” Leah's eyes were warm. “You and I, we're going to pray that your father will get out of
jail—unless God has something better in mind. That would be something, wouldn't it?”

Jeff blinked, then nodded firmly. “That would be a miracle, and I guess I need a miracle these days.” He looked at her and said, “Sorry to be such a crybaby. All of us need a miracle—you and your pa and mine, your whole family, all of us.”

“We'll see it,” Leah said confidently. “You wait and see!”

J
eff looked out the sutler's wagon where he sat beside Leah and said sharply, “And this is the capital of the United States? I sure don't think much of it!”

Mr. Carter, appearing rather pale and worn after the difficult ride all the way from Kentucky to Washington, turned to the boy. “Well, this is the worst part of it—the city, son.”

Leah had been pointing out the sights to Jeff all the way on the journey. Now she said, “This is what they call the Swampoodle District. It's not a good place, Jeff.”

Jeff could not help thinking that Washington was the worst looking town he had ever seen. They were passing along the Old City Canal, which was nothing but a swamp filled with all kinds of garbage and smelling like a hog pen. Cattle and sheep and geese and dozens of dogs ran everywhere. The smell was overwhelming, and he grunted. “I guess I'll take Richmond anytime.”

Leah's father grinned slightly. “Well, it don't smell too good,” he admitted. “What's happened is, the country had ideas a mite too big. They wanted to build the capital as a symbol, so they spent a bunch of money putting up public buildings.”

“Where are they?” Jeff demanded.

“Oh, they're spread out all over the place. There's the Capitol building and the Library of Congress
and the Senate and the Hall of Representatives—but they're so scattered out you can't ever see them all together. Guess the government bit off more than it could chew.”

“Don't look healthy to me.” Jeff shook his head. “Looks like a swamp. I'll bet there's fever here.”

“You're right about that,” Leah put in. “Even the president's house is right in the middle of low ground, and everybody in town has malaria at one time or another—even the troops on the other side.”

As the wagon rumbled over the cobblestone streets, Mr. Carter explained that they would have to pass through the center of town to get to the camp. Then he said, “Did you hear about the comet, Jeff?”

“Comet?” Jeff frowned. “No, what about it?”

“Oh, it come along last June, just before the big battle at Bull Run. It was something to see. The
New York Herald
wrote about it—said it was a celestial visitor that had sprung upon us.”

“I remember that,” Leah said. “It was just as clear as anything up there. It had a long tail, kind of a bright streamer, Jeff. Why, it seemed to light up the sky!”

“Lots of people thought it was come to warn us about something terrible, maybe from the Lord,” her father said.

“Well, maybe it was,” Jeff said. “The war came, didn't it?”

Mr. Carter nodded, then shouted at a flock of sheep that impeded the pathway of the horses. “Get out of there, you woollies!” he yelled, but the sheep, in the manner of such animals, took their time.

When they finally cleared the small flock, he muttered something about people who let their
stock run loose. Then he said, “You know, I heard there was a slave woman, close friend of Mrs. Lincoln and the president. Way I heard it, she could conjure spells—course I don't believe in
that!
They said when she saw the comet she said, ‘You see that great big fire sword blaze up in the sky? That mean there's a great war coming, and the handle's toward the North and the point's toward the South, and the North's gonna take that sword and cut the South's heart out. But that Lincoln man, if he takes the sword, he's gonna perish by it!”'

“I wonder if the president heard about that,” Leah said.

“They say his son, Tad, heard the story and went to tell his father. Mrs. Lincoln scolded him, but the way I heard it the president seemed interested.”

“Well, comet or no comet, there's a war,” Jeff said grimly.

“And it won't last forever,” Mr. Carter said. “Wars never do.”

Leah reached over and squeezed Jeff's arm. When he looked at her, she nodded slightly. He guessed she was thinking of his promise not to give up but to trust God. It had been hard, but he smiled back and said no more about his doubts.

Two hours later they arrived at a large cluster of buildings. “What's this?” Jeff asked.

“This is what they call the Mall. There's the Patent Office over there, and the Post Office. What we're looking for is the War Department.” Mr. Carter drove his team up to an imposing building and handed the lines to Leah. “You hold the horses. I'll see if we can find out about your pa, Jeff.”

He clambered down from the wagon and moved slowly toward the building.

When he'd gone, Jeff said in a worried tone, “Your pa seems to be ailing. He's not well, is he?”

“No, he's not. Ma worries about him a lot. She didn't want him to come back on this trip.”

Jeff turned and looked at her. “I think he came back just to help me. That's the idea I got.” He bit his lip. “I hate to have him do that. I hate to ask favors.”

Leah was wearing a light green dress that matched her eyes. She looked very pretty, he thought, even in such a plain outfit.

Now she put out her hand and touched his arm. “We're friends, aren't we? Friends do things for each other. Don't forget, we've asked God to get your father out, and we're going to trust Him to do what's best.”

“I—I guess so. I'll try anyway.”

They watched the traffic go by and the soldiers and the many civilians who bustled around to the different buildings. Finally Leah's father came back and climbed into the wagon.

“I couldn't get a permit for you to visit the prison, Jeff. The officer was gone who gives them out, but we'll try anyway.”

He turned the wagon around, and they made their way through the city. Men in uniform were everywhere.

Leah had learned to recognize some of the uniforms from her work with her father. “Look! That's the Seventh New York. Aren't they smart?” She pointed out a group of soldiers in spick-and-span gray uniforms with pipe-clay cross belts on their breasts.

“Don't hardly see how they could fight in such fancy uniforms as that,” Jeff mumbled. He took in
the other troops that Leah and her father pointed out to him, men from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Illinois, from all over the North.

At last they arrived at the camp itself, which seemed to Jeff to be an ocean of tents stretched out almost as far as he could see.

“We'll find our regiment and park the wagon. Maybe we'll have time to go in today, but I doubt it.”

Mr. Carter threaded the wagon through the myriad tents and finally arrived at a section where he was greeted by an officer.

“Well, it's you, Dan! Glad to see you back again.”

Pulling up the horses, Mr. Carter said, “Hello, Major Bates, good to see you. We've come back with a wagonload of supplies.”

Major Bates was a tall man with a powerful voice. He commanded the Washington Blues. “The boys just got paid, so I expect they'll be coming to see you. I suppose you got lots of those tracts and Bibles to give away again?”