The war was slow in coming to Union Parish. My memory of the first sign of trouble was when Mr. Carter began making a special effort to get copies of the weekly Farmerville newspapers. He was particularly curious about the election for president among John Breckenridge, Stephen Douglas, and Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln won, people said that a war would be fought, but none seemed to worry that it would reach into this place.
I read those newspapers. The war news was confusing. Most of the writers were mad about people in the North telling southern people how to live. Some of the stories were about slavery, and I did not then know much of the wickedness of this. The advertisements of booksellers and patent medicines were more interesting to me.
One Sunday afternoon the police juryman came to talk to Mr. Carter about having his hired men help with the parish roadwork. I churned butter in the breezeway as they sat on the other end of the porch in chairs turned from white oak and covered with deer hide. It was spring because coral honeysuckle was blooming on the side of the corncrib. The man said that the war had started, and there was a call for volunteers to fight the Yankees in Virginia. They talked about the price of cotton going down if it had to be shipped to mills in England and France instead of up north. As the man left, he told Mrs. Carter that he had heard her nephew would be coming home from school for safety reasons. She said she reckoned that was a good idea, and suddenly I did too.
In less than two weeks he rode back into my life on that same Claybank mare. The horse seemed smaller perhaps because Minor was now nearly six feet tall. Most of the boy was gone, and his movements were flowing and pleasing to watch. He still looked into me with eyes as dark as mine. I knew this to be a sign.
Mr. Carter had asked him to help with the lamb shearing on the day that he first touched me. I had been chopping and burning brush all week on the trail to the new springhouse. Smoke from poison vines caused the rash to break out on my arms, neck and face. I made a poultice of jewelweed and sat on an iron rock at the spring to daub at the welts with a piece of raw cotton. Minor came for a drink of water and looked at me with pity. He poured the tonic into his bare hands and skimmed my cheeks with his fingertips. Lanolin from the wool oiled his touch. He rubbed my forehead next, and then standing over me raised the hair from my shoulders to treat the back of my neck, but in a firmer manner. All of this and he left with barely a spoken word between us.
The next day Minor brought me a package of Frangipanni Toilet Powder. The label read, “A Necessity In The Toilet Of Every Lady – It is unrivalled for removing Chaps, Chafes, Blotches, Pimples and other impurities of the skin, rendering it Soft, Clear, Smooth and Beautiful. Price 25 cents.” Minor said that he had no intention of allowing a blemish to take up residence on my skin.
From that time on we each looked for chances to be together. The Carters did not forbid me from accompanying him unchaperoned. One night I heard them arguing about me riding horseback astride instead of sidesaddle. Mr. Carter was against it, but his wife expressed her trust in us. She calmed him, and nothing more was said of it.
We usually met on Sunday afternoons. He liked to ride out to the Carters’ to visit, and I wished to go into town with them to the Barretts’ house instead. The parlor there enchanted me. With the books could be found the latest paintings of Mrs. Barrett and even some by Minor, who had promised his mother to develop this talent. A telescope to pull the moon closer and crystals that turned sunlight into rainbows were placed before a window with one hundred twenty panes, each as large as a writing slate. For hours I would question Minor about these things and the world that he had seen in his travels.
Minor was different from me. His choice was to pace the mare up to the chopping block in the back yard so I could swing up behind him. We would ride for miles along the bayou to discover beautiful places that we called our own. His favorite was the Buffalo Hole, a wide spot of open water on the l’Outre. In most places the bayou was choked all the way across with buttonbush and passable only in pirogues or small skiffs. It was a cabahannosse or duck roost in fall and winter when thousands of squealer ducks poured into the thickets for safety just as the sun set. The Buffalo Hole was named not for the beast but for the giant bottom fish that could be caught on strong silk line and hooks baited with dough balls. The lake was an emerald pool ringed by columns of ageless cypress trees. Wild canaries darted among the ribbons of hanging moss. Here we would walk out over the water on a certain fallen log to sit and talk. The hobbled horse would snort and stomp at deer flies as Minor reached for my feelings. He sought to understand life’s passions and looked to me for answers deeper than my learning. I only know that he stirred in me a hunger for him that could not be satisfied on Sunday afternoons. And so we continued in this way throughout the summer and fall.
As months passed there came news of battles to the east. Men from parishes along the Mississippi River hurried to join the South’s new army. They were from plantations with slaves, and Lincoln’s words threatened them from afar.
The police jury did raise two companies of soldiers in our parish, the Pelican Greys and the Independent Rangers, but just a few boys from Iron Branch left. Most people here were small farmers, and slaves worked only six large plantations. Those that did go early went for adventure and to escape farm labors.
In spite of people’s wishes to see the troubles pass them by, we all eventually began to feel the roots of war grow into our lives. The Yankees blockaded the Mississippi River below New Orleans and threatened to capture that great city. Cotton shipments were uncertain, and goods from the North began to get scarce. People in Farmerville held a small “gunboat fair.” They gave jewelry, quilts, and silverware to sell at the fair, and the proceeds were sent to New Orleans to help build a gunboat for the Confederate navy. Still people thought the war would not last long.
When I came to, Lemuel was kneeling beside me with a look of panic about him. Mrs. Carter sponged my face with a wet towel.
“Oh Abita, I did not mean to alarm you so. You scared me to death. I thought your heart stopped forever,” he said.
On the porch I threw questions at him like a handful of pea gravel. I snatched at his every remembrance of Minor and burned his recollection into my mind.
Finally he said, “That is all I know, Abita. I am sorry.”
Mrs. Carter fed him fried ham, squash and eggplant. He would not wait for a ride with Mr. Carter, who was in the back field with the wagon.
“I have walked this broken foot from Mississippi, and it will surely carry me on to Iron Branch and my mother. I am finished with this war.”
At the gate he motioned me to walk with him.
“You know that I must tell her as soon as I get to town,” he told me almost as an apology.
I knew those words long before he spoke them. Already I was trying to sort the whirling thoughts in my head into an urgent plan.
The Bible says snakes are evil creatures, but I think King James’ preachers were wrong on that account. Snakes are a part of the natural world, and only those things beyond pure nature can bear wickedness. In my life I have only known humans to be capable of black-hearted deeds. The first was Anatilda Tubbs.
Her family was the richest in the community and with seventy slaves farmed eight hundred acres along the bayou on the edge of Iron Branch. The house sat on a ridge overlooking the fields and village. Minor said there was a room for Sawyer and Grace Tubbs and each of their five sons and three daughters with others left over for the many guests. I only saw it from a distance—gray slate roof and wide porches all around, more than I could sweep in a day.
Anatilda was about four years older than me. I met her at the Scholar’s Competition when she was eighteen. It was the last year that she could enter, and she had won second place four times but never first. Even then there was talk that she was too old to compete fairly—most girls her age were already married. Others, mostly her friends, said to leave her alone, that she had been a sickly child with hot measles and deserved to win.
The competition was held a few days before Christmas when the boys and girls who went to boarding schools were home for the holidays. All the people in the contest except me had formal schooling. Mrs. Carter talked for hours to convince me to enter. She insisted that I could do well. As much as I loved her though, I knew I was in-between and not as smart as the town people.
Dew formed on the inside of the windows of the schoolhouse that night and ran down the ledges in trickles. It was warm and muggy for December. A low ground fog hollowed the street voices and split candlelight into circles of rainbows.
Mr. Laran who owned the Farmerville Democrat was in charge. In front of the crowded room he clutched to his breast a leather case containing the questions. A company in Louisville that printed books sponsored the contest across the country every year and made the questions. Mr. Laran said that he had to swear in writing to be honest in running the contest. He said more times than was necessary how great an honor it was for the book company to pick him. I always figured he had the easiest part.
Judge Hezekia Thacker, the district judge with a good name for a judge, sat on the front row with some other important men from Farmerville. The Scholar’s Competition was an important social event in this part of the parish, an occasion to drum up business, and for the judge decorated with an explosion of gray whiskers a place to harvest votes for future elections. I chose the judge’s unusual face upon which to focus my gaze in order to blur the daunting crowd.
There were two groups of competitors—those under twelve years old, and children twelve and older. Miss McMurray, the Iron Branch schoolteacher, chose her ten best students for the younger group. Few older children went to school and only eight including me showed up to enter that night.
Miss McMurray had a linen bag that held fifty numbered walnuts. Mr. Laran had two question booklets that each had fifty numbered questions. One of the booklets had easier questions for the smaller children. Each person drew a nut and had to answer the question with the matching number. It was like a spelling bee except it took two wrong answers to be eliminated. The younger children went first.
Mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters cheered and groaned as one by one the contestants hung their heads and walked from the arena. Mr. Laran sat on a tall stool and passed judgment like a scarecrow king until only one red-haired boy was left. Then it was our turn.
The schoolhouse was so full that one person had to leave before another could come in. It seemed to me that most of them were Anatilda’s kinfolks the way they hollered for her and one of her brothers. He was younger than her and looked as scared as me. One other boy and four more girls crowded into a line with us across the front of the room like a row of baby jaybirds on a sweetgum limb. Mr. and Mrs. Carter sat in the back of the room. I wanted to run into their arms and out of this people place, but Mr. Laran coughed, rapped his gold-headed cane on the floor, and tried to begin the contest with educated words.
Four people went out at the end of the second round, and of the four remaining, all girls, only Anatilda had not missed a question. My first drawing required me to spell the word “pernicious,” which was easy for me. Hope quickly dimmed though when next I was asked to name the first postmaster general of America. I could only mumble that I did not know.
At the end of the sixth round only Anatilda and I remained standing, and she still had a perfect score. Miss McMurray motioned for us to move closer together at the front of the room, and there for the first time I sensed the disgust that Anatilda had for me. She scowled and pointed her chin at the rafters as if to signal that standing too close to me would somehow soil her and her New Orleans dress.
Mr. Laran turned to Anatilda and continued, “According to Greek legend, who was the goddess of war and wisdom?”
In a quick voice she answered, “Helen, of course.”
Mr. Laran raised his eyebrows and looked surprised.
“I’m afraid that is incorrect Miss Tubbs.”
Some of the air went out of her crop then but only for a moment as her friends cheered to encourage her.
Suddenly Mr. Laran seemed anxious to finish this matter. He hopped down from the stool in the corner and stood behind the big teacher desk.
“What body of water divides the sands of Egypt and those of Arabia?” he asked loudly.
Mrs. Carter’s book of colored map plates appeared clearly in my mind. I shut my eyes and turned the pages until the one with the words “Holy Land” lay open in my lap. When I gave Red Sea as the answer I could have just as easily named a dozen towns on its salty shores.
People in the room did not cheer. Their murmurs seemed to say that something was happening here that they could not understand—perhaps that was not supposed to happen.
Anatilda reached into the bag again and Mr. Laran read, “What famous Indian fighter later became the seventh president of our country?”
She adjusted her Grenadine shawl, turned to glare at me, and spit out the reply to the only question in the contest that most of the people in the room could answer.
“General Andrew Jackson,” and then looking out over the room she said, “He put those savage heathens in their proper places.”
Judge Thacker slapped his own knee and slapped it again for good measure. His eyes narrowed to show that there was no mirth in this spontaneous gesture. A raw nerve had been poked.
Today I cannot remember the next question. Mrs. Carter said that I gave the answer “William Shakespeare” and that it was correct. I know that for long minutes I could only hear the rushing sound of blood deep in my ears. And in my young throat for a brief moment I tasted the hatred in which Anatilda swam.
She calmly handed Mr. Laran another walnut.
“The Bastille played a critical role in the late French Revolution. What was its original intended function?”
She cleared her throat to announce the answer that would surely and finally prove her station in this village—but it would not come. For long seconds it would not come and a breeze seemed to blow the spreading fear from the faces of her friends across the room and over her. It showed in her eyes and drifted to Mr. Laran, who almost begged for the answer.
“Miss Tubbs?”
Anatilda did not know the answer, and in her way she tried to force one.
“It was the king’s castle.”
Mr. Laran removed his too-big hat and confessed, “It served as a prison, I’m afraid,” and quickly added, “but this competition is not decided until the other contestant successfully completes the round.”
I chose a walnut from the bottom of the sack. It was painted with the number four. Mrs. Carter stood up at the back of the room and clasped her hands to her lips. I looked into Judge Thacker’s eyes, but in my side vision I clearly saw Mr. Laran turn to the back of the booklet, far past where question number four should be. The judge caught his own hand in mid-air just in time to prevent another knee slapping.
“This is a two-part question. Who is the author of Twice Told Tales and who wrote the novel The House of Seven Gables?” he demanded.
I felt free, free to leave this place at last. I had never read the books but saw them often. With The Scarlet Letter and bound in red leather they sat to the left of Dr. Barrett’s sun window on the third shelf from the floor.
“Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote them both, sir.”
Before that night I was but a grass sparrow to Anatilda. I lived in the corners of her vision flushing in a blur from the roadside as she traveled through life. It was unthinkable to her that anyone lacking bright feathers could have a song.
When Mr. Laran handed me the prize pewter cup in disgust, I became to Anatilda the snake of the Bible. From that time on I was vermin and was treated as such.