Sunday, April 14, late afternoon
One of the first changes because of the war was that schools were to be closed on Monday. No one questioned the decision. This week families felt a need to stay close. Talk of the war was on everyone’s lips as Owen and Charlie and I walked from home to home late Sunday afternoon, selling our one-page bulletin announcing the fall of Fort Sumter and Major Anderson’s surrender.
Most people in town bought a copy.
“I’ll be saving this,” said old Mrs. Dunham. “I’ll put it with my Bible. I suspect I’ll be doing a lot of praying from now on—praying for all of us, and for our nation. For what’ll be coming next.” She reached out and hugged both Charlie and me, to our surprise and embarrassment.
“She didn’t hug me,” said Owen as we left her house.
“You’re lucky. She smelled of salt pork and rancid whale oil,” I told him as we headed for the next house.
“You’re too young to be a soldier,” said Charlie. “She hugged Joe and me because she thinks we might die in the war.”
“Charlie! How can you think such things?” I said, glancing at Owen. He looked as though he was about to burst into tears.
“It’s true,” said Charlie. “We’re not children. Owen’s still a little boy.”
Mrs. Dunham wasn’t the last, either. Mrs. Chase and Mr. Young both advised Charlie and me not to join up until the situation was clearer. Mr. Giles, on the other hand, came to the door, rifle in hand, asking if we’d heard yet where a man could go to enlist.
“Haven’t heard nothin’ about that, sir,” I told him.
“You will soon,” Mr. Giles answered grimly. “And when you do, I’ll be there. Those Southerners aren’t going to mess with my country and get away with it. Not likely. And any man who’s a patriot will be right there with me. You remember that, boys.”
Trusty trotted along with us, occasionally barking at a passing horse or a darting squirrel. Everywhere there were exciting smells. He sniffed hay dropped from a rumbling farm wagon and ran after a barn cat, until I called him back.
“Maybe Dr. Cushman would like a broadside,” said Owen. “He’s a good doctor. Mr. Dana pulled out my Pa’s tooth when it hurt real bad, and left part of the tooth behind. Dr. Cushman pulled out the rest of the tooth, and there was hardly any blood.”
“We’ll go to his office next,” I agreed.
Dr. Cushman’s office was in his home on High Street, near the church and the courthouse.
Most folks who lived in big houses on High Street were like Captain Tucker, and made their living from the sea. They’d built their homes where they could watch the ships in Wiscasset Harbor coming and going, their fortunes ebbing and flowing with the tides.
A few of the boys who’d been playing soldier that morning were still chasing each other from one side of the Green to the other.
“Don’t you want to be playing with the others, Owen?” Charlie asked as we walked up the hill. “We can carry the rest of the bulletins. You don’t need to stay with us when you could be having fun.”
“I am having fun,” Owen said. “I’m not little, like those boys. I can help you and Joe.”
Trusty returned from investigating a trail that looked as though a rabbit had briefly emerged and then gone back to his lair.
“Owen, you’re only nine. Some of those boys are older than you are. You can’t just follow us around all the time,” said Charlie.
Owen’s smile vanished.
“You’ve been a big help today,” I added quickly. “Charlie just wants to be sure we aren’t keepin’ you from your friends.”
“They’re not my friends,” said Owen. “They’re just boys.” He looked away from the Green. “What did you and the spiritual lady talk about, Joe? When you met her on the street.”
“We talked of the fog, and the black ice.” Would I betray Nell if I told Owen and Charlie she’d fallen? “She wasn’t dressed for Maine weather. We talked about that, and Trusty, and I walked with her back to the Mansion House. I wasn’t with her long.”
“Did you tell her your father’d been at one of her sessions?” Charlie asked.
“She remembered him. She said spirits came to her when they had important messages to give to people left behind. She said she’d been hearing spirits since she was very young—that talking with them was tiring, and she often had headaches.”
“Could she talk with my brother, do you think?” asked Owen.
“I don’t know. I don’t think she can talk with everyone who’s died. It has to be someone who needs to contact someone still living.”
“I’d like to get a message from my brother,” said Owen. “But he was so little. He didn’t even talk much when he was alive. He probably doesn’t have anything to say now.”
“He’s probably happy in Heaven,” agreed Charlie. “And if he’s happy, he doesn’t need to reach anyone here.”
Owen nodded.
Dr. Cushman’s office was on the first floor of his grand, three-story house.
“Dr. Cushman, sir, would you like to buy a one-page bulletin with news about Fort Sumter?” I asked when he opened the door. Dr. Cushman’s office was the only one like it in town. Stuffed robins and egrets and puffins and gulls and passenger pigeons and eagles, and even a large snowy owl that the doctor had shot, hung on the walls.
Owen shivered. “The birds all have eyes,” he whispered to Charlie. “They’re looking at me.”
Dr. Cushman took a copy of the paper and handed me a penny. “Thank you. I’m impressed with how well you’ve been running that newspaper of yours.”
“There’s bound to be a lot of news now,” Charlie put in, “with the war and all, and with Nell Gramercy in town, making predictions. We have an exclusive interview with her tomorrow.”
Dr. Cushman frowned. “That young woman’s presence in Wiscasset is an unfortunate folly. She’s encouraging people to think they can contact the dead.” He shook his head. “I have the sad job of ministering to people who are leaving us for the hereafter, and I have to say, I’ve never seen any of them return.”
“They don’t return. They just leave messages with Nell for people who loved them,” I said. “She got a message from my brother Ethan, for my father.”
The doctor looked at me. “I heard that, Joe. My wife was over to your family’s store yesterday. She said your father was helping put merchandise out, and was feeling much better.”
“He is,” I replied, nodding.
“Sometimes recovery comes in strange ways,” Dr. Cushman said. “But people need to understand that there’s a line between the world of the living and the world of the dead.” He looked out into the empty street. “Although you can’t know the number of times I’ve wished I could make that line disappear, or at least change the moment it comes to one of my patients.”
“I hope I never have to go to that doctor,” said Owen, as we headed back down the hill. “When he fixed my father’s tooth he came to our house. We don’t have dead birds.” He looked up at me. “Dr. Cushman won’t shoot Gilthead, will he?”
“I’m sure he won’t,” I assured him. “Everyone in town knows Gilt-head’s a pet.”
But I wondered whether Dr. Cushman would pay the Bascomb family a visit should Gilthead ever die of natural causes. I hadn’t seen any parrots in Dr. Cushman’s collection.