8

"What do you think you're doing in our garden?" Margaret hiked up her skirt and climbed over the short chicken-wire fence, placed there to protect the garden from small pests, including a few displaced sand crabs. Her leg brushed against a sharp edge, cutting into her knee. She winced in pain and grabbed the wound, spilling her apronful of seeds in the process. She gritted her teeth, unable to determine if she was angrier at the seeds falling or at Thomas Murphy standing in their garden.

Thomas leaned against the hoe.

"You should not be here, Mr. Murphy. You need to return to your bedroom before someone sees you."

"It looks like ye might have hurt your leg, lass. Would ye like for me to take a look at it?" Thomas ignored her angry tone.

Margaret gasped and clapped her hands down onto her skirt. "You'll do no such thing."

"Yer papa gave me permission to work in the garden...said it would be a great help to him."

Margaret turned, irritated at how calm he appeared when she was madder than a wet hen. She dropped to the ground where the seeds had fallen.

Thomas knelt down beside her and helped gather them.

Margaret arose from the ground and dumped the seeds out onto Papa’s makeshift wooden table and began sorting, grudgingly acknowledging in her mind that he’d been most helpful, even though she still didn’t like him and had made that plain to him. She paused for a moment and glanced up.

Thomas had worked the soil, his hoed rows perfectly even. His tall, broad shoulders barely fit in one of Papa’s shirts. His dark hair was tied back with a string, accentuating his jawline. He was the epitome of manliness, not embarrassed to work the soil, as if firm in the conviction of where God placed him on this earth. He looked confident…the way a good husband should.

She turned back to the seed table, ashamed of gawking with the brazen desire of still wanting a husband, despite her Jeffrey now lying in the cold ground. Anger welled up against the object of her yearning. “Mr. Murphy…I rue the day I ever set eyes on you.” She didn’t raise her head from the pile of seeds.

Thomas stopped working the ground to rub his injured shoulder. The action of hoeing must be causing a great amount of pain.

“Does your shoulder hurt?” She looked at him. “I hope those soldiers’ bullets hurt you like your people have hurt our southern way of life.” She huffed out a breath. “You’re probably one of those fool Yankees who think the war is about freeing the slaves. For heaven’s sake, what’s it to you if a few southerners own slaves to help out with their farms?” Margaret completely abandoned the seeds and turned to face the man.

“Miss Margaret, I’ve felt my fair share of pain because of this war, but you know what, I’d do it all over again if it would help to free the slaves. Now there’s a people who have suffered a great deal more than you and I will ever know. Ye might know that if ye’d ever taken the chance to talk to one of them.”

Margaret felt her cheeks warm. “Do you really think those Negroes care one way or another? Besides, if they were given their freedom, they would probably run back to their masters lickety-split because they wouldn’t even know how to survive on their own.”

Thomas gave her a look of disdain and shook his head. “I know you only speak from ignorance, but if ye knew the truth about the Negro people, you would be telling a far different story, to be sure, lass.”

“If anyone around here is ignorant, it would be you, Mr. Murphy! If you had any sense at all, you would know that the North doesn’t care one bit about the Negroes. All they want is to lord their power over the South!” She clenched her fists on the seed table. “If anything, the North is using the slaves as an excuse to cover up their real agenda…tyranny.”

“Aye, yer Papa had much of the same opinions about the war. But no matter what ye think is the cause behind it, you’ve got to admit that owning another human being is not the Christian thing to do, lass.” Thomas’s eyes softened.

Margaret whipped her head back in astonishment that this man, a stranger, a foreigner…a Yankee, would dare question her Christian values. “Well. Why don’t you tell me, Mr. Murphy, if slavery is so bad, then why is it talked about between the pages of the Bible?”

Thomas paused. “Have ye ever sang the song ‘Amazing Grace’?”

“Of course I have! Before we moved to this godforsaken peninsula, my family belonged to one of the most respected Christian churches in New Orleans.”

“Did ye know the song was written by the captain of a slave ship?”

“No, I did not. But that just proves my point. Anyone who could write a song like ‘Amazing Grace’ had to be an upstanding Christian man.”

“Aye, he was, but not at the beginning. He was once a cruel, vile man who treated no one with respect, especially not the slaves in his care. The song tells a bit about his harrowing experience in a fierce storm and how God saw fit to deliver him through it. The verse says, ‘Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come; ’tis grace that brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.’”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. It sounds to me as if this great man of faith had no problem with the slave trade.”

“Well, lass, I don’t know why he didn’t immediately quit what he was doing, but I do know that many years after his conversion, he admitted to how sorry he was, and he supported the abolition of slavery in Great Britain.”

“That’s all well and good, but you still haven’t answered my question. If it was OK for the people in the Bible to own slaves, why is it wrong for the South to own them today?”

“Miss Margaret, surely ye remember the story of Moses delivering the children of Israel from the hands of the Egyptian pharaoh. God commanded him to do it because He’d heard the anguished cries of His people. They were sorely oppressed slaves under their masters and begged for deliverance. Don’t ye think the Negroes feel the same way?” Thomas’s words were spoken with peace.

Margaret was drawn into his way of thinking, to what he said. But she couldn’t give in quite yet. “But, that’s different! Those were God’s chosen people, and they didn’t deserve to be slaves to the pharaoh.”

“So yer saying the African people deserve to be slaves?”

“Why don’t you just mind your own business and go back inside the house before some foot soldier sees you and drags your Yankee tail end to the fort!”

Thomas put his hand over hers.

Margaret wanted to yank it away, but his touch was much too wonderful to resist.

“Miss Margaret, yer papa told me all the horrible things you’ve been through. I know all about how ye had to up and leave yer home in New Orleans. And I know about ye losing yer fiancé. I…I just want to tell you how very sorry I am for the pain my presence must be causin’ ye. I would do anything to ease yer burden.”

His lovely, lyrical voice, the way he spoke those words, was like a soothing balm to her heart and yet they also burned like salt in a fresh wound. Part of her wanted to fall into his warm embrace and sob for all she’d lost. But he was a Yankee, the cause of her loss. She jerked her hand away. “Mr. Murphy, you’ve never felt pain like I have.” Her voice sounded bitter, even to her.

“Aye, but I’ve felt plenty of pain in my life and…”

Tears welled up. Giving him the pleasure of seeing her cry wasn’t something she would allow. “I don’t want to hear anything more you have to say!” She hiked up her skirt and leapt over the fence, running down the long trail toward the bay.

“Miss Margaret, wait. I’m sorry. Please don’t run away!”

The sounds of the bay and a long walk would help soothe her bitter soul. She only hoped there weren’t any more injured Union soldiers to run into on her way. And he wouldn’t dare take the chance of following after her.