Homeland (33 page)

A blessing and a joy! When Papa came home last night, who should be with him but Brock! A sadly thin Brock, whose flesh hangs loose on his big frame and whose hands shake, for he is far from recovered from the malaria. My brother will, I fear, not be well for a long while. The week before last there was a great Review in Washington, all the armies of the Union marching past the White House for the new President—and I can scarcely believe that it is
our
Mr. Johnson!—to look upon, and thank, before they scatter again to their families and homes. Brock was not well enough to march. He tells me, though, that President Johnson has declared an amnesty, for all those who fought in the Armies of the South, with only a few exceptions.

There is no reason then, that Emory need fear to return. I feel as if I have seen the clouds break at last, upon blue sky.

Mother died, in great pain, late last night.

Dearest,

A brief note, to let you know that I am leaving Deer Isle. I have made arrangements with Abel Lufkin, to forward your letters to me at Willow House, Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut. This is the boarding-house where Papa has rooms, and where he has written to arrange a place for myself and Mercy. Peggie and Nollie will be moving into Uncle M’s house. If by any chance you should hear anything from Emory, please tell him to seek me there.

Papa has been so sunk beneath his grief that he has been able to do little towards the arrangement of Mother’s funeral, nor towards the closing up of the house. Brock, too, is quite ill, and I have surrendered my room to him and Betsy, and am sleeping—in a welter of children—in the summer kitchen. I tell them greatly embellished stories at night about knaves and thieves, and the wars between the Barn-Fairies and the Woods-Fairies.

I will write to you again, when we come to New Haven.

Dearest Susanna,

A strange and curious change of plan. Today a letter reached me from Eliza Johnson, to whom I wrote at the time of Mother’s death. Mrs. J is now in Washington, rather uncomfortably situated in a boarding-house because of the continued prostration of poor Mrs. Lincoln at the White House. She has asked me, Would I wish to come to her, as governess and tutor to her grandchildren? (Both daughters and their families, will be living with them: a total of five children, the oldest of whom is ten.)

Susanna, I will go! Papa expresses regret that he is unable himself to set up housekeeping—he will be supporting Peggie and Nollie at Uncle M’s, and helping Brock until he is well again—but it is clear to me that he looks forward to returning to his old boarding-house in New Haven. Nor do I wish to become my father’s housekeeper.

And to tell the truth, I know that Emory, when he returns, will fare better in Washington than he would in any New England town.

Last night I sat down and tallied up all those who had marched away from Deer Isle, never to come home. In 1861 there were 625 men of “military age” on our island; most of them with wives, and families already begun, or with parents to support. Of those, 277—just under half of the young men I’d grown up with—went into the service of their homeland.

One in seven of those men died, Susie. There were families in which two brothers entered together, like the Hendersons, and both young men killed. Others, like the Eaton girls, were split up and sent to different relatives—or, sometimes, strangers—because their mothers could not afford to keep them, once their fathers were dead.

Another 140 men—half as many as those who served—went into
hiding rather than leave their families destitute for life, gambling that after the War, they could return. Over 50—maybe as many as 80—paid $300 rather than risk death, and I can not come to any tally of the wounded, who will be no longer able to support themselves or their families.

The town is over $60,000 in debt, from bounties paid to the soldiers and their families. The fishing-fleet is crippled, for the expense of cordage, curing-salt, and mostly men. Many, many families have moved to the mainland, leaving their stony farms to be swallowed by the woods.

The Union has been preserved, and slavery abolished.

This is Victory.

My darling Mercy is three.

Brock, Betsy, and their children left yesterday for Boston. Peggie and Nollie have gone to Uncle M’s. The cows have gone there, too, and Uncle M will harvest the crop here when autumn comes, to pay in part for the expenses of Peggie and Nollie. On Friday, Papa and I will be gone. I grieve to lose this last sweet summer here in Maine, but Mrs. Johnson truly needs help, and I will linger in New Haven only long enough to make sure that Papa is comfortable.

Last week Mercy and I walked into the woods, where the wild-flowers bloom in their sweet profusion: steeplebush and meadowsweet, fragile trilliums and gorgeous Devil’s paintbrush, clouds of butterflies wafting around our heads. It will be long, I think, before I come to Maine again, so I picked some Devil’s paintbrush to press between the pages of
Pride and Prejudice
, to remember these years, this place, the things I found here and the things I lost. Three of these I enclose.

Needless to say, all of Mr. Poole’s books will ride with me, south to our new home, until he can come to claim them again.

Write to me, I beg you—how queer it sounds!—at The White House, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington—an address to make your sister snatch the hair off your head! And if—and when—Emory should communicate with you, tell him, this is where I am.

P.S. My best wishes to Julia for her birthday—if sending them will not bring trouble down on your head for writing to a Yankee!

[forwarded to Washington]

Dearest Miss Mercy Susanna Poole,

All my kindest salutations on this the occasion of your 3rd (!) birthday.

My dear friend,

The only comfort I can draw from your letter is the knowledge that by this time your pain will have lessened a little: that you are not going through the first awful hurt
now
. I am so sorry. I wish I could have been there with you; I wish I could be there with you now, to help in what I guess is a difficult process of packing things up—surely your Father will not remain on the island? I am so glad that he was there with you (he must have been, for summer had begun?), as well as your brother and, I hope, your brother’s excellent wife (who had the good sense to tell you, three years ago, what happens when babies are born)?

Please, please, let me know, what your plans will be now. Will you return to New Haven with your Papa? (All to the good for Miss Mercy, as one hopes that by the time she is eighteen—1880!—it will be possible for
her
to be admitted to Yale!)

Indeed,
our
Mr. Johnson is now President of the United States, and not a soul in the house has a good word to speak about him—not even Julia, who bore her baby under his roof. I’m sorry Brock wasn’t well enough to march. It would have been a splendid parade! Not a man in the militia would stoop to avail himself of Mr. J’s pardon: “They can keep their damn Reconstruction!” They have bush-whacked and hanged more than one official the government sent out to implement Reconstruction and more than one Union soldier who has returned home under the impression that the War is done. To be honest, the Unionist guerillas have hanged a number of returning Confederates, too, in retaliation for the hardships their families suffered at the hands of the Seceshes. Many people in this countryside are still sleeping in the woods. The local Army Commanders have declared that bush-whackers are to be shot on sight and given no quarter.

I would cheerfully shoot on sight the so-and-so’s who raided the corn out of
three
of my patches this week! It wasn’t quite ripe so I am
certain Nature will accomplish my revenge for me. But the rest of the patch will certainly be raided as the pumpkins and beans come ripe, so I might as well abandon work on them, and concentrate on hunting. I have been stretching and drying the skins, at one of my hiding-places in the laurel hell up behind the Holler. I hope to sell them in town.

Alas, generous girl, anything that you might send me would simply be confiscated by the militia. We do not do badly here. The one comfort about living in a camp of thieves is that we are unlikely to starve as long as
anyone
in the county has corn!

Thank you, for that image of your Mother as she was, and as she became in those last days of her life, united and at one. Strange to say, it helps me when the memory of what Bayberry was—of my childhood here—becomes too painful to bear. I tell myself, it is only the change of the season. That isn’t easy now, but I will summon it back, and try to accept.

Did you lead your tiny brother into danger, you horrid woman? Shame on you! It was Payne who was always daring
me
to do things like smoke Pa’s cigars or ride Caligula, Mr. Scanlon’s stud stallion, who was about twenty feet tall and mean as sin.

Dear friend, tell me as soon as you know, where you will go, and what you will do.

[not sent]

Dearest,

It seems that I am always asking, How can I help you? and you always reply, most generously, that my letters—little enough, and so much of it lies—suffice. I remember how awful it was, when I was five years old, and Ma died: that horrible feeling that no one would ever care for me again. For months I wondered what would happen if Pa died, too, and relatives would split up Payne and Julia and me. I didn’t think I could survive, if I had to live alone with strangers. I even planned how I would kill myself, by going up to Skull Cave and eating snakeberries, so I would be dead before anyone found me.

Julia comforted me, brushed my hair, promised me she’d never let anyone split us up. (I don’t know what she could have done about it, at age ten.) When Pa married Miss Delphine, and Miss D would whip us, or lock me in the attic with the rats, or burn my drawings, it was Julia who hugged me and brought me food. (And I now realize that Miss Delphine was scared, and humiliated to see Pa bulling the housemaids and buying them jewelry when he went to Nashville—and poor Delphine was only twenty when she died.) I was Julia’s Babygirl.

The militia is away—both Emory’s and Lyle’s—and the black woods and empty fields are terrifying, in this eerie peace. The moon’s barely a day old and already set, the stars like an ocean of fire but casting little light. Nights like this I wish we could go sleep in the woods, as so many do, but with Tommy and Adam, and Tom settled
in his chair, there’s no way we can. As bad as I’m afraid, I can’t leave them. The last time both bands were away like this, someone came into the house—several people, it sounded like—and slept in the parlor, and were gone by morning. I didn’t think anything in the world would make me want to have Lyle Gilkerson under the same roof, but that was it.

Oh, Cora—Emory is dead. Lyle brought word today.

I should write this down. Julia’s finally asleep. I feel worse than I ever thought it was possible to feel.

Lyle says Emory was shot in battle, but it’s pretty clear they were just stealing horses from a band of Tories over in Sullivan County. They buried him in the woods. Julia begged to be taken there and tried to walk there when Lyle refused to escort her. For two days, every time I’d move to leave she’d grab my wrist and plead with me: “Promise you won’t leave!” Well, I did sneak out the minute she slept and went up to the cave to feed the hens: so strange, walking back through the Holler, seeing what’s left of Justin’s home, just a tangle of wild grape and scuppernong. I could see the place where I used to sit reading, and where Emory and Payne would clean their guns. Then when I got back here Lyle wanted me.

[
I think I’d give anything, to be able to walk into the woods and
—crossed out]

My dearest friend,

So you will indeed go to New Haven with your Papa. I’m glad for you, more than I can say or even feel, just now.

Dearest,

A note, to let you know that Miss Mercy and I have arrived safe, and are ensconced, of all places, in a small attic chamber of the White House, which surely has the
largest
rats I have ever encountered, anywhere. I doubt that lodgings elsewhere in the house would improve the situation, as the whole place is very dirty, ramshackle, and—in spite of Mrs. Lincoln’s notorious “refurbishing” during the War—astonishingly ill-kept. However, lodgings elsewhere in the house are out of the question, as the entire Johnson clan is in residence, one family per bedroom, with the guest bedroom in which the Prince of Wales slept doing duty as family parlor, dominated by a splendid purple-and-gold-draped bed … On which I sit, with the children, to do lessons.