FREEDOM
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
August 1856
There was a palpable silence in the room when Wes’ brother, Will, finished speaking. It seemed for a moment as if time had stopped and rendered those around the table incapable of movement. The carefully prepared Sunday ham sat untouched at the head of the table. Wes, afraid to break the stillness with the smallest gesture, scanned the faces across from him without turning his head. Julia and his older sister, Annie, sat with their hands in their laps, their eyes fixed on their father. He sat stoically at the head of the table, his weathered skin and sunken eyes inscrutable in the light of the flickering gas lamps. Wes watched him out of the corner of his eye, dreading his father’s response to the idea of his sons leaving Gettysburg.
The rumors had been whispered around the carriage shop for over a month. Mr. Hoffman had for some time been making arrangements to move his company south, and it was only a matter of time before word began to trickle out to the community. The majority of Mr. Hoffman’s customers lived in the south, and thus the move was logical. When Hoffman finally made the news public, there was turmoil in Gettysburg since almost fifty wage earners were faced with the loss of their jobs. Hoffman, however, gave his workers the option of moving to Virginia if they wanted to retain their positions. While some refused to move away from family and friends, for Wes it was just the chance he had longed for. Virginia was the very place he most wanted to be in order to build a new future for himself…and Ginnie. He had waited patiently while his older brother made up his mind. Will had a wife and child to consider and the thought of not being able to support them had finally forced him to agree to the move.
The elder Culp had assumed that his sons would quit their jobs to work for him, and Will’s announcement that he had decided to join the migration south had caught Jesse off guard. Now, as their father pursed his lips and glowered at the ham, they watched in silence, waiting for his tirade to begin. The quiet was shattered by a hacking cough from Wes’ mother, which served to heighten the tension at the table. For the past few weeks, they had listened as she struggled to catch her breath between the wracking fits of coughing that came more and more frequently.
Jesse, raising his eyes for the first time, took a deep breath. Wes tried to keep from wincing as he anticipated the angry words that were certain to follow. But his father simply looked at Will for a long moment and then nodded his head, a motion so slight that it was almost lost in the gray shadows of the flickering lamps. But Will and Wes both saw the sign of assent and stiffened in surprise. When their father finally spoke, his voice was breathy and hoarse, sounding infinitely tired.
“Of course, I knew that this day would come sooner or later. You’re grown now and you have a family to look after, a wife and a three-year-old son. I don’t like the thought of you being far away. Your mother will miss you. But you have a good job, and you must do what you think is right.”
Never once did Wes’ father take his eyes from Will’s face. He had made a point of not including Wes in any of his words, and Wes’ anxiety continued to rise. When his father paused, Wes could resist no longer.
“Father, can I go, too?” Immediately, he chided himself for interrupting his father, and for the childish sound of his request. He did his best to maintain a positive expression on his face, but the look faltered when the old man turned his gaze toward Wes.
“Of course not.” His father’s lips barely moved when he spoke, and the words came out sounding sarcastic and condescending. Anger poured into Wes’ body, building into rage at being treated like a child. But all of his carefully thought out arguments failed him when he looked into his father’s scornful eyes. He stuttered for a moment in one final attempt to argue his case, but all that came out was a whimpering “W…why not?”
There was a moment’s pause before his father spoke again. The old man’s voice was steady and even, but what Wes heard was pure contempt.
“Because you still act like a little boy. Because you’re too young to go off by yourself. Because your mother needs you here, and God knows you need a mother to look after you. And because I wouldn’t burden Will with the responsibility of looking after you. He’s got enough to worry about with his wife and child to care for in a town full of strangers. You can just start looking for work right here in Gettysburg. And in the meantime, I’ll see to it that you’re not idle.”
Wes had prepared a hundred things to say in support of his case. But as he opened his mouth to say them, the words ran out of his head before they could reach his lips. He could think of nothing that would soften the granite face at the end of the table. And so he deliberately pushed his chair back from the table, stood without looking at anyone and walked toward the door.
“Come back here!” his father’s voice boomed after him. Wes could imagine the old man’s face flushing red. “I didn’t excuse you from this table!” But Wes willed his feet to keep moving and stepped though the door into the kitchen, then opened the back door and escaped into the warm afternoon. Before he pulled the door closed, he heard his father mumble, “See? It just proves my point. The boy is just a stubborn child.” Wes heard the sound of his mother weeping and slammed the door before he could give way to his own tears.
As the time for the move approached at the end of September, life dissolved into a flurry of preparations. It became harder and harder for Wes to drag himself out of bed each day to get to work, which now involved crating up all the various materials and machines used in manufacturing the Hoffman carriages.
The more vacant the once-crowded shop became, the more Wes’ co-workers were filled with excitement. With few friends in the shop, he hung around his brother and his brother’s friends, Ed Skelly and Billy Holtzworth, who chattered non-stop about the big move and all the novel sights that would await them in Virginia. Nearly half of the employees were going, and it was all they seemed able to talk about. Wes could do nothing but stand back and listen to the enthusiasm of the others, each day hoping that his father would change his mind, and each day being more certain that he would not.
Even Will was caught up in the excitement. “I’ve never been out of Gettysburg,” he mused one evening as they walked back toward the house. “I wonder if it’ll be much different. It’ll be so nice not living with Ma and Papa. Do you think the people will be much different?” It was an endless stream of random thoughts, each biting deeper into Wes’ resentment. He could not remember seeing his brother so worked up about anything before. But Wes held his tongue, preferring to keep Ginnie’s and his dreams to himself. And his jealousy was tempered to some extent by happiness for his brother because, as Wes listened to him talk, he understood Will’s excitement better than anyone knew.
To Wes, Will had always been the lucky one. He was tall and ruggedly handsome, but there was a gentleness to him which made him easy to like. He had a talent for making difficult things look simple. As a child he could throw a rock further than anyone else; as an adult he could shoe a horse or fix a machine without effort. His easy nature had won him many admirers, and the young ladies in town had fought fiercely over him. That contest had been won by Salome Sheads, who was not only beautiful but talented and gracious as well. The couple – everyone agreed they were a perfect match – were soon married, producing a son and a daughter in quick succession. Will’s luck had failed him only briefly when a fever had struck the year before and carried their daughter away. Her death pulled the small family more tightly together and made their son, Willbertus – “Bertie” – even more precious to them.
Wes, studying Will out of the corner of his eye, admitted to himself that it was hard not to like him. But Wes had good reason to resent his brother. Will was everything that Wes could never be and everyone knew it, especially their father. To the elder Culp, Wes was a poor imitation tagging along in the wake of a perfect original. And so Wes listened in silence as Will talked about the future, a future which for Wes was becoming more distant and unreachable.
At the end of September, just before Hoffman’s shop was to move, the foreman told Wes that he no longer had a job. That same week his mother took a serious turn for the worse, and since he was no longer working, Wes spent much of his time with her. The doctor had ordered her to bed, and while Annie and Julia took care of her needs and ran the house, Wes stayed by her side.
At night he would sit for hours holding her hand and listening to her labored breathing. Sometimes he would read to her in the late hours when she couldn’t sleep, struggling to make out the words in her battered copies of Elia’s essays and Donne’s poetry, two of her favorites. Most of the time they sat in silence, Wes watching her struggle with pain and with the knowledge that she was dying. The sorrow he experienced at the thought of losing his mother merged with the loneliness of being left behind. It created a dull, black hopelessness that constantly tugged at him, sucking his spirit down into a deepening depression.
He blamed his misery on the hostile relationship he had with his father. Only death could end the fierce despair into which he was falling. Perhaps when he died of a broken spirit, his father would finally feel some remorse for his attitude.
It grew worse in the following weeks. Will and his family left with the others for Virginia. The summer heat was gone, replaced by the relative cool of fall. All around, the green foliage ignited in a blaze of red, yellow and orange as the leaves burned their lives away. But Wes saw none of it. Without a job to go to in the morning, he spent more time in his room or beside his mother. He could see her condition deteriorating, and regardless of how many visits the doctor made, she slipped a little farther away from him each day. Wes felt himself slipping away with her, cut off from any kind of meaningful life. Ginnie came with Julia after school one day to visit, but Wes would not see her. His plans for them had been defeated and he was too ashamed to face her and confess his impotence.
As the weeks wore on, his father repeatedly demanded that he go out to look for work. But he continued his vigil at his mother’s bedside since she was now in a coma from which the doctor said she would not recover. Wes felt as if he was peering at life down a long, empty hallway filled with distant echoing sounds. There were only scattered moments of clarity in his days. He remembered once seeing Julia standing on the other side of the bed, caressing their mother’s head lovingly and then looking with a strange and worried expression at him. He remembered looking through the window and seeing people proceed in a kind of slow motion to destinations that had nothing to do with him. He remembered studying the big oak tree visible from his mother’s bed, watching the leaves fall one at a time, certain that when the last one finally let go both he and his mother would depart with it.
Then one morning he woke to find his mother looking at him, her eyes focused and clear, a smile on her face once again. After a week of senseless babbling while racked with fever, her sudden clarity startled Wes. He got up, knelt by her bed and took her hand.
Her voice sounded high and frail, but it was clear. “Wesley. Why are you here?”
He was surprised by the question, wondering whether she was looking for someone else. “Do you want me to get Annie or Julia?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been lying here looking at you.” She paused, trying to catch her breath. When she spoke, the words came out in short gasps.
“When you were young, I remember how different you were from your brother. Will and your father were so practical. But you were a dreamer. Like me.” She smiled softly, sadly. “Promise me something.” Wes nodded, carried away by her intimate words. “Don’t let them stop your dreams. I’ve had my life and it’s been a good life. I wanted lots of things that never happened. But my dreams held me up and kept me going. You fight for your dreams because without them you’ll be lost.”
She slid off into silence and closed her eyes. Wes thought she had fallen back to sleep. But a moment later she looked at him again. “I always knew that, of all my children, you were special. There is so much promise in you. I have a feeling that you’ll do great things. I only wish I could be here to see them.” After another silence she fell asleep again, a peaceful smile on her face. Eventually, Wes moved back to his chair. He stared out the window for a long time.
She died the next morning, never having wakened again. There was a flurry of activity in the house as friends and neighbors stopped to offer condolences, bringing food and wreaths. The casket maker came to take the measurements and returned later with the casket. Julia and Annie were constantly busy cooking, cleaning and entertaining visitors who thought it proper to make sympathy calls. The family dressed in mourning and there was an oppressive silence in the house, a cloud of sadness that obscured their perceptions and muffled their words. Wes’ father seemed to carry on as usual, rejecting any show of emotion.
Wes felt distanced from everyone, as if he was watching them all act out their parts in some strange play for which he was the only audience. Aunts and uncles, cousins and children of all ages constantly filled the sitting room, talking, moving about, creating a quiet commotion. He tried to stay to himself, to avoid having to deal with any of them.
But when Will came home, everything changed. With a few words, he rekindled the hope which Wes had thought was lost forever.
Wes suddenly became eager to see Ginnie, but the funeral and other family duties prevented him from going to her. On the third day after his mother’s death, Ginnie appeared nervously at the door to pay her respects. Overjoyed to see her and grateful for the opportunity to escape his gloomy family, he quickly accompanied her outside.
Ginnie’s face mirrored an inner uncertainty and after a few steps she turned to him. Hesitantly she said, “I was afraid you didn’t want to see me anymore.” Wes realized how he had neglected Ginnie in the past weeks and how differently he felt from the last time he had talked to her.
“It’s been very difficult,” he said. “I’m sorry I wouldn’t see you that day. It was just t-t-too hard. But I’m glad you came today. I’ve missed seeing you. I was going to come to your house as soon as the family left so I could t-t-tell you the news.”
“News?”
“I’m leaving Gettysburg. I’m going south to work with Mr. Hoffman, like I wanted to in the first place.”
Ginnie’s face fell for a second before she recovered, feigning excitement. “Oh, that’s wonderful. But I thought your father said you couldn’t go.”
He smiled confidently. “I’m old enough to make my own decisions now. I’ve been t-t-talking a lot to Will since he came home for the funeral. He’s given me the money for a ticket and told me that Mr. Hoffman will hire me if I go down. My father doesn’t have any say in the matter anymore.”
Ginnie accepted this pronouncement in silence as they continued their walk out past the family farm to the foot of Culp’s Hill. Finally, when the silence had become awkward, Wes turned to Ginnie.
“This doesn’t change anything between us. I still want to come back for you, Ginnie.”
The hopelessness which had been his constant companion for the past weeks had magically departed, replaced by a new confidence in their dreams. His mother’s words sounded inside his head, leaving him nearly dizzy with elation. Her death had not signaled the end of his life, but had brought into being a whole new future. His sorrow was mitigated by an overwhelming sense of freedom. He no longer felt tied to his father, and Will’s simple words, asking him to come south with him, had released the final bond and freed him to pursue his goals.
He took Ginnie’s hand and led her up the slope to the familiar grove of trees that stood as sentinels toward the top. The trees were naked, but the breeze still held a bit of the autumn softness. Below, the town began to twinkle as the street lamps came on one at a time.
He turned to her at length and asked, “Do you ever wonder if you’re meant for greatness?” Her blank look revealed her confusion at the question. “I mean, we’re all here for some reason, right? But some of us are here to be a part of something bigger. The people in this town are so shortsighted. They only see who you are now, they only know where you came from. Tomorrow I could be a great man. But they wouldn’t understand how it happened because they knew me when I was a boy, when I was nothing, and they thought I would always be nothing. That’s why I have to leave here. Do you see that?” She paused in contemplation, then nodded with bright eyes. Wes sighed, looking down at the town again. “Don’t you ever think that when you get older you’ll be a great person?”
Ginnie looked out on the town and said softly, “I never really thought about it much. But I guess I’d rather have a family and happiness and health than fame. I mean, when you’re great you don’t have time for your family, and everyone is jealous of you. They resent you and say mean things about you.”
“They say mean things about me now,” Wes responded. “But if I was someone important, they would look up to me. When I get to the South, I’ll save up all my money and buy lots of land. Then I’ll be making enough money to build a big mansion on a hill somewhere, a hill just like this one, where we can look down on the town. And then I’ll come back to Gettysburg in one of the fine big carriages that Mr. Hoffman makes, and I’ll pick you up in it and take you away with me.”
“It sounds like a fairytale,” she said.
“But it’ll come true. I just know it will. Everything will be better when I get away from here.” He grasped her hands again and pulled her closer. “You will wait for me, won’t you?”
Startled to be so near to him, she looked into his face, her eyes wide. He could smell her hair and see her face coloring with excitement. “Yes, of course I’ll wait for you. And I do believe you’ll be a great man someday, Mr. Culp.”
He laughed, then suddenly leaned closer and kissed her lightly on the lips. She tensed at first, then relaxed and kissed him back. When he drew away to gaze at her, he saw that tears of joy sparkled in her eyes.
“And you will be the wife of a famous man, Miss Wade, or should I say ‘Mrs. Culp’?”
They laughed at the thought, then melted together in a gentle embrace, holding each other close. The touch of her hair on his face, of his breath on her cheek, joined with the caress of the wind to complete the enchantment. Then, reluctantly, they began their descent back down into the real world, to the place of relatives and noise, of death and rejection. But their hands were joined and their hearts united in a vision of the future that the others could not see.