Olivia paced between the window and the Stevens’ cozy kitchen. “It’s been so cold lately,” she murmured. “I keep thinking of all those men out there. Louisa,” she turned to Mrs. Stevens, noting her serene face and the gray knob of hair on her neck, “why do men fight? I mean, they could just refuse to fight.”
Louisa Stevens shook her head as she turned the freshly baked bread out of the pan. “All the men I’ve known wouldn’t do otherwise.”
For a moment Olivia’s heavy spirit lifted and she laughed. “Oh, Louisa! How Southern you are, and how much I’ve forgotten. Of course, it’s male pride. But don’t you get extremely tired of it?”
“Don’t know anything else.” She looked at Olivia with serious eyes. “It’s hard on the folks around them. I’m right sick of duels and swords. For one thing, I don’t believe the Lord intends people to be living out the Old Testament nowadays, otherwise there’d be no need for a New Testament.”
“Love rather than fighting?” Olivia nodded. “Alex would say we’re to live the New Covenant; the Old is dead.”
“But love doesn’t seem to come natural. Guess a body’s forced to listen to the Lord before he’s willing to change his way of life.” Louisa wrapped a loaf of bread in a clean towel and added, “Now let’s walk this bread down to Lily Mae’s place. She’s in the dumps, too. Hope this war’s over before they start taking old men like mine.”
Olivia handed the shawl to Louisa, and together they left the house and turned down the path. “It’s only February; it’s going to be an early spring.” Olivia pointed to the dogwoods and willows with their beginning buds. The grass along the creek banks held nestling bunches of violets. The wild geraniums had unfolded their leaves, revealing a promise of buds.
Olivia sighed deeply. “It’s good to see nature responding just as it should. Everything else in life is starting to appear twisted and unreal. War, war, that’s all we hear.” Impulsively she turned to Mrs. Stevens. “How good of you to let me stay with you. I couldn’t bear going back to Pennsylvania without Alex.”
“He’s a dear lad; I’m glad to see you both so happy with each other,” Louisa said. There was a troubled frown on her face.
“What is it?” Olivia whispered.
“Wondering how you feel fighting against the South like this. Kentucky is my home, there’s no way I could ever see myself taking up arms and shooting my neighbors.”
“Alex says we aren’t fighting against the South, but against slavery. In addition, we fight for the liberation of the people.”
“You mean the slaves?”
“No, everyone. There’s a frightening feeling that until slavery goes, there’s little chance of growing up to be the nation we should be. Alex explained it by saying it’s like keeping a child forever a baby by depriving him of the opportunity to grow. A small stomach can’t eat bread and meat if we insist on giving the child only milk. A baby will never walk if we carry him constantly.”
“And you think the South is like that?”
“It seems there’s an unwillingness to grow beyond what they are. We heard a man talk about the lack of industry in the South. He also mentioned the lack of education for poor white people as well as for the slaves.”
“My children never had much of a school to attend,” Louisa said slowly. “I always thought it was just wishful thinking to want more. ’Specially since the slaves around us had nothing in the way of teaching. So you think the South needs to be forced to grow?”
“No, not forced. That goes against the grain. Alex says sometimes we have to feel pain before we want to learn a better way of living.”
“Do you regret that Lincoln didn’t just let the South go?”
Olivia sighed heavily. “I think I will before this is over. At times I think anything is better than war.”
Together they walked silently up the path to Lily Mae’s house. The woman who opened the door was red-eyed. She twisted her apron and stood back for them to enter. “Aw, this war,” she sniffled as they sat down at the kitchen table. “Why God doesn’t just blow the North off the earth, I’ll never know. Surely this war is judgment against them, but it’s hurting us all.”
Olivia winced as Louisa placed the bread on the table and asked, “What’s troubling you today?”
“The cow’s gone dry and I can’t get no one to plow for me. My pa would, but he’s just too old.”
“Why don’t you and the young’uns do it? I’ve handled the plow for Mr. Stevens. It’s hard work, but it’s better than going hungry.”
“How do you plow?” Both women turned to look at Olivia. Feeling foolish, she said, “I’ve never been around when there’s plowing going on. Seems it ought to be a thing for a woman to learn.”
“Well, it isn’t easy,” Lily Mae said shortly. “You’ve got to work the mule and that stubborn hunk of metal at the same time. Of the two, the plow’s more apt to take off in the wrong direction.”
“Well, let’s give it a try,” Olivia got to her feet. For a moment Louisa’s eyes sparkled, but with a sober face she stood up.
When the afternoon sun sloped toward the west, nearly three furrows had been plowed. Olivia surveyed her crooked furrow, looked at her blistered hands, and sighed wearily as she said, “Can’t you just plant corn where the plow did go?”
“Might,” Lily Mae admitted.
“No,” Louisa said. “We’ll be back tomorrow to help. And Lily Mae, if my man ends up going to battle, can I count on you to help me?”
When they entered the Stevens’ kitchen, Mr. Stevens looked up from his newspaper. “Saw you down the road. Most fun I’ve had for sometime.”
The merriment died out of his eyes as Louisa grabbed a spoon and shook it at him. “Harold Stevens, are you laughing at three helpless women plowing behind that lazy mule? I’m ashamed of you!”
“Louisa, might be it won’t hurt you women a bit. It’s better’n going hungry. Read in the newspaper where there’s shortages of food down in the cotton belt. Can’t get things moving smoothly enough to get crops in.” He paused. “’Tisn’t the women’s fault. Some of the farmers are still planting cotton when they should be planting corn, wheat, and ’taters.”
“Cotton brings more money, if they can sell it.” Louisa slowly put the skillet on the stove. “Are you saying that we need to learn to do for ourselves, because you men may not be around to do it? It’s that bad, huh?”
“It’s bad and getting worse.” His jaw tightened. “Might be when the South gets organized it won’t be, but right now—” He sighed and bent over the newspaper. “Last week we read that while General Grant was taking Fort Donelson, other Federal troops were moving against Bowling Green and then Fort Columbus. Now today’s paper says here that General Grant’s headed south. Next he’ll probably push into big places in Tennessee, like Nashville, Memphis, and Clarksville.”
“Why are you sighing like that?”
He looked up at his wife. “I was just thinking how much trouble we’d have saved ourselves if we’d been a little more outspoken when the matter of secession came up before the state legislature. You know it was like a stack of cards. One strong push from either direction would gain the vote. The Confederates pushed the hardest.”
“Why, Harold, do you mean to tell me that you honestly think we’d have gone Union that easy?”
“Certainly. I told myself it didn’t matter too much. Seems the idea of war wouldn’t linger too long. But I forgot one thing.”
“What was that?”
“Southerners aren’t known for giving up easy on anything. They’ve demanded their slaves, and they’re determined to keep them. Also, they’ve been pushing this idea of the North being a patsy. Wanted people up north to believe one hard threat with a few guns, and the North would give them slavery forever. Didn’t realize the North has a lot of the same kind of blood in their veins. It’s a hard-nosed bunch we’re up against. I’m thinking now that we’re going to be forced to fight until this problem is resolved once and for all.”
He paused for a moment, then continued. “I’ve been listening to the fellows talking around town; these aren’t my ideas. Might say I’m scared to admit it, but this is one of those situations where there’s no backing out of the situation we’ve helped cause.”
****
Each day Olivia and Louisa walked down to Lily Mae’s field and took their turn at the plow. Louisa said, “Olivia, we might as well look at this as a good opportunity. Never know when we’ll need the experience. Besides, it’s keeping you from wearing out my floor by pacing to the window to see if your man’s coming up the path.”
For a moment Olivia was embarrassed, and then she laughed. “I wasn’t aware of being so—silly.” She kept her voice light. “But if I’m able to plow a field all on my own, might be I’ll talk Alex out of being a lawyer so we can buy a farm instead.”
Unexpectedly Louisa hugged her. “You ought to learn to plow straight before you do much talking to Alex.”
On the first of March Lily Mae’s sister arrived from Nashville. On that same day Olivia and Louisa carried a sack of seed corn between them when they arrived at the farmhouse.
Louisa dropped the sack of corn just inside the door, out of the reach of persistent hens. Lily Mae, flanked by her children, pressed Louisa and Olivia into the kitchen. “This here is my sister, Hannah; she’s from Nashville, and she has the tales to tell! The Yanks have taken Nashville, and she’s escaped with her life!”
“Oh, Lily Mae!” Hannah turned from the stove with a wide, easy smile. “Don’t you believe half of what my sister says. I did not say that. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. They gave us a bow and said, ‘Pleased to meetcha, and please go back to doing what you were doing when we came.’ No, I’m serious. They were just as nice as they could be. See, we were shaking in our shoes when we heard the Yanks were coming. General Beauregard had said about those Yanks that ‘beauty and booty’ was their motto.”
She came to the table and sat down. “But it was a blow, I tell you. On Saturday night, pretty close around midnight, the word came that General Grant had been defeated and that General Pillow was victor. My, there were church bells ringing and people dancing in the streets. Never did we feel so confident and secure—then came Sunday morning.”
Hannah stopped to drink her coffee. Olivia eased forward on the bench. “Mind you, we were at church, celebrating the victory, when the blow fell. All peace and quiet one minute and the next, Governor Harris came galloping through town yelling that Fort Donelson had fallen, the army had been captured, and the Yanks were moving in on us. He gathered up the state legislature, jumped on a train, and headed for Memphis. And the confusion he left behind him!
“That was the end of church and rejoicing. Men were throwing bags and trunks out windows, while the womenfolk were walking up and down, wringing their hands and weeping. Johnston was telling us there’s not a way on earth Nashville can be held against the enemy. Down in Nashville, there’s hardly an anthill to hide behind. So he took off, and here came the Yanks.
“Sure, the Yanks would rise up and call us blessed for giving them the river and a bunch of good roads.” She twisted out a wry smile. “But after all the things Beauregard said about them, we didn’t want to stick around and greet them. But most of us realized there wasn’t any place we could go, so we might as well sit tight and hope for the best.
“My, those Yankee generals were something else. They were gentlemen. Came into town, and the first thing they did was to put down rules, saying the soldiers weren’t to enter any home without being sent out to do so. Then they all went and called on Mrs. Polk—you know, she’s the old lady whose husband was President of the United States.” She sipped her coffee and then added soberly, “It’s fearful how fast life can change. Last month the South was spreading out all over the place—half of Kentucky and all of the Tennessee was in their hands. Now every where you look there’s the Yanks.”
Olivia couldn’t control her sigh of relief. Hannah grinned at her. “I kinda feel the same way. Not much in favor of war in the first place. I guess at heart I’m really for the Union.”
The corn didn’t get planted that day. But when Olivia and Louisa left the house late in the afternoon, Lily Mae eyed the corn sitting just inside the door. “We could come back tomorrow morning and plant,” Louisa said. “We’ll have you a crop coming up before your husband gets home.”
When Louisa and Olivia turned into the Stevens’ lane, they saw a strange horse tied to the fence. A man on the porch got up from the rocking chair and Olivia recognized Alex.
She moved toward him, nearly doubting her eyes, as he came down off the porch with a leap. His arms were hard, warm and familiar. “Oh, Alex, you have a bump on your nose.”
“Olivia, let me see your hands. What have you been doing?”
She sighed happily. “Nothing, just waiting for you.”
“And I’ve come to take you home, back to Pennsylvania.”
“Alex, you don’t need to convince me. I’ve no desire to do more traveling except back to Pennsylvania. And we’ll stay there forever.”
She leaned back to look at him. He was pale, and his eyes seemed sunken, shadowed. She put her arms around him. “Oh, Alex, you don’t need to tell me,” she whispered. “I can see it was horrible.”