The Soldier's Lady (22 page)

S
TORIES
, D
ANCES, AND
M
EMORIES

20

S
omething about the rainstorm and everybody sharing about their lives seemed to fill us all with good feelings and happiness from realizing how good our lives were at Rosewood. A few nights later, we gathered in the living room after supper like we usually did.

“You gwine read ter us, Miz Katie?” asked Emma.

“If you'd like,” Katie replied.

“I wish you wud. I likes it when you reads.”

“I've been waiting to hear something from that book we got in Charlotte that you've had your nose in ever since,” said my papa.

“The Grimm's Fairy Tales?” said Katie.

“Read us something from it, Katie,” I said.

Katie got up, went to the bookshelf and got the book. She sat back down and thumbed through it a minute.

“Here's one,” she said, “that I just read last night.
It's called ‘The Town Musicians of Bremen.' It's about a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster.”

“What's Bremen?” asked Micah.

“It's a town in Europe,” said Katie. “It was known for its freedom, so the four animals left their masters and went to Bremen to live together without having any owners. They came to a house with thieves inside and they drove them out of the house at first by making a terrible racket. That's why they were called musicians. Then they frightened them so much that the thieves fled, and the animals took their house for themselves.”

“Just like us, ain't it?” said Jeremiah. “We ain't slaves no more either.”

Laughter broke out over the room. Gradually it quieted and Katie began to read.

“Once upon a time,” she began, “a man had a donkey which for many years carried sacks to the mill without tiring. At last, however, its strength was worn out. It was no longer of any use for work. Accordingly its master began to ponder as to how best to cut down its keep. But the donkey, seeing there was mischief in the air, ran away and started on the road to Bremen. . . .”

All around the room the rest of us listened. Even William was caught up in the story and he sat on Emma's lap, eyes wide open, without making so much as a peep.

“Finding all quiet, the thief went into the kitchen to kindle a light, and taking the cat's glowing, fiery eyes for live coals, he held a match close to them so
as to light it. But the cat would stand no nonsense. It flew at his face, spat and scratched. He was terribly frightened and ran away.

“He tried to get out by the back door, but the dog, who was lying there, jumped up and bit his leg. As he ran across the manure heap in front of the house, the donkey gave him a good sound kick with his hind legs, while the rooster, who had awoken at the uproar quite fresh and gay, cried out from his perch: ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo.' Thereupon the robber ran back as fast as he could to his chief, and said: ‘There is a gruesome witch in the house, who breathed on me and scratched me with her long fingers. Behind the door there stands a man with a knife who stabbed me,while in the yard lies a black monster,who hit me with a club, and upon the roof the judge is seated, and he called out, “Bring the rogue here,” so I hurried away as fast as I could.'

“Thenceforward the robbers did not venture again to the house, which, however, pleased the four Bremen musicians so much that they never wished to leave it again.”

Katie stopped and we all sat a few seconds.

“Dat's jes' like you done wif dem bad men, ain't it?” said Emma after a minute. “You an' Mayme fooled dem an' chased dem away, din't you, an' dey neber knowed who you really wuz.”

Katie and I looked at each other and began to smile.

“You're right, Emma,” said Katie.

“That was some pumpkins!” I laughed. “I'd
almost forgotten. How did we ever get away with it!”

“But we did fool them,” said Katie.

“What is all this?” now said Micah, looking back and forth between us with an expression of humorous bewilderment on his face. “This sounds better than the fairy tale.”

“Oh, it is, Mister Duff!” said Emma excitedly. “Mayme an' Miz Katie wuz so smart an' so brave. Dey shot guns an' everythin'.”

“Hardly brave, Emma!” laughed Katie. “I was scared out of my wits. I'm afraid Mayme was the only brave one.”

“I wasn't brave either,” I said. “It all happened so fast, we just did what we had to.”

“So what happened?” asked Micah.

“There were some bad men who came to Rosewood,” said Katie. “They were looking for Uncle Ward's gold.”

“Gold!” said Micah, looking at Uncle Ward. “There really was gold?”

“But we didn't know it at first,” said Katie. “It was down in the cellar. We didn't find it till later. So when the men first came, we had to chase them off, just like the four animals.”

“But Mayme and Miz Katie, dey did it wiff guns!” said Emma. “Dey shot at doze men!”

By now Micah's curiosity had spread to everyone else, and they wouldn't stop their questions until we told the whole story.

“It was before Emma came,” said Katie, “though we told her about it afterward. And it was before our
idea of pretending that the plantation was still operating normally so that no one would know we were just two girls by ourselves. Chasing off those men helped put the idea into my head. The bad men had already come by once asking questions, and then Mayme got the idea of trying to pretend there were more of us.

“Mayme was out in the barn cleaning up when I saw them coming. I hurried out to tell her, but I was shaking so bad I could hardly get the words out.

“Mayme snuck to the door of the barn and peeked out. There were three men on horseback coming up to the house. We kept out of sight as they dismounted and looked around. A minute or two later we heard the barn door creak open and the sound of boots coming across the wood floor. I was sitting huddled up close to Mayme. Suddenly a man called out, ‘Anybody there?' ”

“He stood looking around for five or ten seconds. Then he walked back outside. We heard another man call out, ‘Ain't nobody inside.' ”

“The one who'd been in the barn asked, ‘Where are they? From the looks of it, there's folks about.' ”

“ ‘We'll just wait and kill 'em when they come back,' said the other man.”

As Josepha listened, she shook her head in disbelief.

“That was all we needed to hear!” Katie added. “Mayme whispered for me to follow her, and we crept out of the barn on the opposite side where they wouldn't see us, made a dash for the woods, then
made a great big wide circle back toward the house from the opposite side where the men couldn't see us. As soon as we were back to the house and crouching low, Mayme asked me about the guns. I asked her what she wanted with my daddy's guns and she said, ‘We're gonna try to scare those men away.' ”

“ ‘But how?' I asked. Back then I was pretty dense. Mayme had to tell me what to do. She told me to sneak around the side of the house and when I got to the corner, to get some rocks and throw them at their horses.”

“What wuz da rocks fo?” Emma asked.

“To startle their horses,” I answered. “I figured when the men ran outside to see what was wrong, I'd dash in and grab the guns.”

“But I was so scared,” Katie went on, picking up where she'd left off. “I didn't want those men coming after me. I asked Mayme what I should do after I threw the rocks. She told me to stay hidden, then get back out to the woods. She'd meet me there with the guns.”

By then everyone was listening as attentively as they had when Katie had read the story from the book of fairy tales.

“Well, we did it,” Katie went on. “I threw some rocks to distract them, and Mayme snuck in and got the guns, and we ran back to the woods. I don't know how we did it, especially with Mayme lugging two heavy rifles, but we did. I asked Mayme, ‘What are we going to do now?' ”

Katie looked over at me expectantly. “You'll never guess what she said.”

All eyes in the room turned in my direction. I bit back a smile and answered, “I told her, ‘We're gonna shoot 'em.' ”

“Yeah!” Little William cheered, forming his hand into a “gun” and making explosion noises with his mouth. Emma quickly shushed him up.

“I had never held a gun in my life,” Katie said. “Mayme told me there was nothing to it and showed me how to hold it against my shoulder and aim. I was terrified. I said, ‘Mayme, you don't mean . . . we're not going to try to shoot those men!' ‘No, silly,' she said, ‘just scare them away.' ”

“So that's what we did. Mayme showed me how to load the rifle, gave me a box of bullets, and told me what to do. Then Mayme took the shotgun and went back to the barn. I was so scared.
. . .”

“I was too!” I chimed in. “But I knew we had to get rid of those men.”

“You were so brave, Mayme,” said Katie, smiling at me. She turned back to the others. “First Mayme snuck back and swiped the men's rifles off their horses,” she went on. “Then she disappeared into the barn. She had told me to count three minutes and then start shooting—up in the air or over the fields someplace. But I was so nervous that I counted way too fast. When I thought it was time, I picked up the gun and pointed it off toward the fields and held on real tight. Then I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. The sound scared me more than anything, but it
didn't knock me over like I was afraid it would. When the sound died away I shot again, and then again.

“By this time there was yelling from the house because the men didn't know who was shooting at them. And it's a good thing they didn't! I fired the six shots and started fumbling to reload like Mayme had shown me.

“The men ran for their guns, but Mayme had taken them and now she was shooting at them too from the barn. I managed to get the rifle loaded and started shooting again. I accidentally shot one of the windows in the house!”

Papa and Uncle Ward burst out laughing.

“The men were yelling and swearing,” Katie went on. “But their guns were gone and they were getting shot at from two directions at once. So they mounted their horses and rode away, with Mayme still shooting after them.”

By the time Katie was finished telling what had happened, everyone was laughing.

“That is unbelievable!” said Micah. “I can hardly imagine it.”

“An' den right after dat is when I came,” said Emma. “An' den Mayme an' Miz Katie an' Miz Aleta, we done jes' like dem animals, din't we, Miz Katie? Wheneber folks'd come, we'd make noises an' fool dem so dey'd neber know who we really wuz.”

Again Micah laughed and asked what it was all about.

“That was Katie's scheme,” I said. “We lit fires in
the empty cabins and had Aleta pound on the anvil with a hammer in the blacksmith's shop and did whatever we could to make Rosewood look normal.”

“I've got to admit,” laughed my papa. “They almost fooled me!”

“Did the men ever come back?” asked Micah.

Gradually the room got quiet.

“Actually . . . yes, they did,” said Katie.

“What happened?”

Katie glanced at the three older men. But none of them said a word.

“By then Uncle Templeton was here,” Katie said. “He was shot saving my life and almost died. The leader of the gang of men was killed. His name was Bilsby. He's the one who killed our families.”

Katie stopped. I saw Jeremiah glance at Henry, who was looking down at the floor. But neither of them said anything. Even Emma seemed to sense that Henry's role in what had happened was not for any of the rest of us to tell about.

Katie got up and put the book back in the bookcase.

We sat in silence for a few minutes. Finally Josepha got up.

“I's gwine put on a pot er tea,” she said. “Who wants a cup?”

“That sounds fine, Josepha,” said my papa. “Count me in.”