Gallant Boys of Gettysburg (14 page)

Then Leah burst out of the house and came off the porch, skipping all the steps.

“Jeff! Jeff!”

When she got to him, he stuck his hand out, but she ignored it and threw her arms around him. The force of her greeting drove him backward, and he protested, “Hey, watch out, Leah—” But her arms were encircling him, and he had to hold her to support them both.

Leah squeezed him, then looked up into his face. Tears glimmered in her eyes. “Jeff, I’m so glad! I thought maybe you’d been hurt.”

“Why, shoot! I’m all right,” he said. He was embarrassed by the warmth of her greeting—but liked it very much. “Are you gonna hug me the rest of the day?” he asked with a grin. “Not that I mind.”

He saw that Leah had grown up a little more. It seemed she grew every time he saw her. She was now fifteen and considered almost a woman in the
Southern culture. Many girls her age were already married. She was wearing a light green dress, her favorite color, and it set off her blue-green eyes very well. She did not seem much taller, but her figure was more mature now, and Jeff said without thinking, “You sure look pretty. I’ve missed you.”

Leah turned red and dropped her head for a moment. Then her good humor took over. “You look pretty too, Jeff!” She looked at his tattered clothes, his dusty face, then burst into laughter. “We’re the best-looking couple around here.”

Sarah watched the two meet, and a smile was on her lips. She leaned over and whispered, “Isn’t that sweet, Tom?”

She didn’t wait for his answer but turned to meet her mother. She saw her father coming from around the barn. He started running toward them too.

Dan Carter was thin and had the look of a chronically ill person, but there was a happy look in his faded blue eyes. He embraced her. “I’m glad to see you, daughter.” Then he looked up and said, “I see you picked up some strays on the way.”

“Tom got wounded at Gettysburg,” she said and then got the worst of it out. “He lost a foot, but he’s alive. We had to smuggle him back under the very eyes of the Union Army.”

Tom sat on the wagon seat stiffly—she knew that he hated to have his injury mentioned. His lips were tight as he said, “Hello, Mr. Carter—Mrs. Carter.”

Mary Carter had the same blonde hair and blue-green eyes as Leah. “Well, God be praised that
you’re both safe. And we’ve heard from Royal. He’s safe too. He’s on his way to Tennessee with Grant.”

Sarah exclaimed, “I’m so glad he’s all right! I think about him all the time.”

“Well, come on. We’ll see what we can do in the way of cooking up a meal.”

There was a little embarrassment. Tom obviously did not want them to see his maimed leg. He scooted across the seat, and Jeff came around to give him a hand. Tom hated to take help, but there was no other way. He eased himself to the ground, balanced on his right leg, and Sarah handed him his crutch.

“I’m OK,” he said shortly. They were all deliberately not looking at him, but he was embarrassed all the same.

“Well, come along,” Mr. Carter said. “Leah, go tell Ezra we’ve got company. Kill the biggest chicken we’ve got—maybe two of them.”

“Come on, Jeff,” Leah said. “You can go with me.”

As Jeff and Leah ran toward the big barn, Dan Carter and his wife turned and walked toward the house. They walked at their normal pace and were inside before Sarah and Tom had covered the distance.

“Tom’s in poor shape, Dan,” Mrs. Carter said. “He’s ashamed of losing his leg.”

Dan nodded in agreement. “I’ve seen it before. We’ll just have to pray he’ll realize that life’s not over for him yet. It’ll take a lot of patience, I think.”

Sarah was walking extra slow across the yard, but Tom’s leg throbbed as he limped beside her.

She said, “It’s good to be home, isn’t it, Tom?”

“I guess so.”

Tom wanted to say more. Deep down there was the knowledge that he was behaving badly, but he was a cripple. He could not see any way he could ever pick up his life and make anything of it. Now as he hobbled to the house and struggled up the steps, he thought,
I’ll never be any good again. Not ever
!

Y
ou’ve got a bite, Jeff!”

Jeff and Leah were seated on the grassy bank of the creek that wound in serpentine fashion half a mile from her house. It was midafternoon, and Jeff was so tired from his journey that he had lain back and simply dropped off to sleep.

The sound of Leah’s voice awoke him, and he sat up abruptly, staring around wildly. For an instant he couldn’t remember where he was. And then he looked down and saw his red and white cork racing madly around in the water and his fishing pole—which he had braced against a rock—bending almost double.

Jeff grabbed the pole and tried to pull the fish in. He came to his feet, his blood pounding with excitement. For one moment all the problems of the war and of his brother and what would happen in the future left him. This always happened when he got a big fish. He seemed to go a little crazy. As he moved down the bank, trying to land the fish, he vaguely heard Leah calling instructions.

“Be quiet,” he snapped irritably. “You think I don’t know how to catch a fish?” His big worry was that the line would break. He had not expected to catch this big a fish. They had been fishing with crickets for bream—but this was no bream!

“It might be Old Napoleon,” Leah cried excitedly, jumping around as Jeff struggled with the fish. “Don’t lose him, Jeff!”

Jeff growled, “I won’t lose him. When did you ever see me lose a fish?”

The fish broke water, and his heart seemed to stop. It was a huge bass—as big as Old Napoleon. Maybe it
was
him. However, Old Napoleon was the bass that lived in a creek far away, and Jeff knew that this could not be the same fish.

Finally he worked the fish in close and, keeping the tension with his right hand, reached out with his left. He clamped his thumb inside the fish’s gaping jaws, which closed on him at once. It hurt, but he didn’t care.

With a yell, Jeff slung the bass over his head. It fell to the grass, flopping and twisting wildly, the sun glinting on its silvery scales. Then he pulled the fish along far enough so that it couldn’t get back into the water. Finally he reached down and picked it up.

“Look at that!” he said almost reverently. “Why, he must weigh at least five pounds!”

“He’s a beauty, Jeff! I wish you could stuff him and put him up over the mantle.”

“I think I might do that. He’s the biggest bass I ever caught! Look, I’m too excited to fish anymore. You grab those bream we caught, and we’ll go on back.”

“Do you know how to stuff a fish?” Leah asked curiously.

“No, but you remember Old Man Taylor who lives down the road? He knows how. I think he worked at a taxidermy place for a while. We’ll get
Mr. Bass there as quick as we can—before he spoils.”

Leah scrambled to get the stringer. “This’ll be plenty for all of us,” she said, “even without that big bass.”

They started back across the field, and as they walked along Jeff looked down at Leah. She was not wearing a dress today but a pair of her brother Royal’s old overalls.
She even looks good in those
, he thought.
Sure has growed up pretty
.

He wanted to tell her so but couldn’t find exactly the right way to do it. Instead he asked her about what had been taking place on the farm while he was gone, about his sister Esther, and about Morena.

Leah was happier than she had been in a long time. She had been terribly worried about Jeff and his family, knowing that they were going into battle—along with knowing her brother would probably be fighting also. Now the sun was bright, the July breeze was delightfully warm and fresh, and the boys were all right except for Tom’s wound—and Jeff was back.

She glanced over at him, admiring as she always did his rugged good looks. His hair, which stuck out from under a slouch hat, was black as a crow’s wing. He was tall for sixteen and looked maybe even eighteen or nineteen. He was huskier now too. He had been very thin when the war started, but now he was filling out, and his bare arms were brown and corded with new muscle.

“I wonder how many fish we’ve caught out of that creek, Jeff?”

“Aplenty.” He nodded with satisfaction and smiled at her. “If you keep on taking lessons from me, you’ll be the best fisherman in these hills.”

Leah knew that he was teasing, but she pretended to be angry. “I caught more of these fish than you did! I caught eight, and you didn’t catch but six!”

“But I caught this big bass, and he weighs more than all those little bream put together.”

They argued playfully as they made their way along the path. The sun threw brilliant fragments of light on the pine needles, which had fallen for years, making a soft carpet. Their feet made no noise at all.

When they came out into the clearing and saw the house across the field, Jeff said rather shyly, “You’ve sure grown up, Leah. You were just a little girl when I left to go to Virginia. Now you’re—well, you’re a young lady.”

Leah might have been a young lady, but she was still easily embarrassed. She felt her face grow pink, and she did not know what to say. “I guess we’re both growing up, Jeff. You must have grown an inch since the last time you were here. I bet you’ll be taller than your father, and he’s one of the tallest men I know.”

“Reckon I’ll be good-looking like him?” Jeff asked with a straight face.

Leah opened her mouth with surprise, then saw that he was teasing again. “No, I don’t think you ever will,” she said. This may not have been true, but she didn’t want him to grow conceited.

“Maybe I’ll be good-looking, and that Helen Wagner will pay some attention to me now.” Helen Wagner was the local beauty. She was about the age
of Jeff and Leah, and he had felt himself madly in love with her when he was thirteen. “She’s still around, I suppose?”

“Yes, she is—and still flirting with everything that wears pants!”

“Well—” Jeff looked down “—I guess I qualify, then. I guess I’d better run over and do a little courting before I go back.”

“You stay away from that—that flirt!” Leah burst out. She was not sure he was teasing this time, and she had a vision of Jeff making a fool of himself over Helen the way every other young man in the valley did.

He laughed aloud. “Good to see you’re jealous, Leah.”

“Jealous?” Leah’s eyes suddenly flashed, and she swung the string of fish. “I’ll show you jealous.”

“Oof!” The fish caught Jeff in the stomach, and the blow startled him.

He looked at Leah—lips drawn together tightly and eyes flashing green fire. “Oh, I was just teasing,” he said quickly. “I don’t care anything about Helen.”

“You followed her around like a sick puppy all the time before you left,” she said. She sniffed then, saying, “I trust you’ve got more sense than that now.”

They walked on, silent for a while.

Then Jeff said, “I’m worried about Tom.”

“I know. Sarah and I talked about it.”

“He’s just not himself. I wish he hadn’t lost that foot. If it had just been a wound that had healed up, that’d be different.”

“He could have gotten killed …”

“I know. That’s what I tell him—and I guess Sarah tells him the same thing. He just doesn’t feel that way about it.”

When they had walked halfway across the field, Leah said suddenly, “They’re having a dance at the schoolhouse day after tomorrow.”

Jeff perked up. “A dance! You remember they had one of those when Fort Sumter was fired on. We were just kids then.”

“I remember I had to make you dance with me,” she said. She smiled and looked very pretty in the bright sunlight. “This time I think
you
ought to ask
me!”

“All right,” he said, “I will.” Then apparently a thought came to him. “That’s another thing. Tom was a good dancer.”

“If he gets a wooden leg maybe he can learn to dance again.”

“I don’t think he’d even try. Tom always had to be the best at things. He might dance, but he couldn’t be the best.”

Leah abruptly reached over with her free hand and took his. “It’ll be all right, Jeff. Tom’ll come out of it.”

He squeezed her hand. “I hope you’re right,” he murmured, and the two held hands until they got close to the house.

Jeff and Leah showed their catch of fish to the family, and Jeff took the bass down to the neighbor to be stuffed. Leah was in the backyard, cleaning the bream for supper.

In the kitchen Sarah and her mother talked as they mixed bread dough and prepared the rest of supper. Sarah had been strangely quiet since she
got home, and now her mother looked over at her and said, “You’re worried about Tom, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am, Ma. He’s—he’s just not himself.”

“Well, I can see that, but it’ll take a little time.”

“I know.” Sarah opened a jar of pickles and sniffed them. “These smell good. I remember when we put them up last fall.” She took out one, bit the end off it, and smiled. “They
are
good. I love pickles, Ma, always have. I believe I could make a meal on ’em.”

“You stop that, Sarah,” her mother said. “You’ll spoil your supper.”

Sarah said calmly, “I’ll just finish this one. It’s only a little one.” Then she looked out to where Leah was cleaning fish. “Leah’s growing up, Ma.”

“Yes, she is. She’s always been such a tomboy. Look at her! Cleaning those fish as well as Jeff could do it.”

“Jeff’s growing up too. Almost a man now.”

“Yes, and I can remember when they were knee high, out playing together in the dirt, fighting over something half the time.” A tender smile lifted the corner of her lips. “Sometimes I think of those good times before the war. You and Tom were always playing together, and Leah and Jeff. It’s a shame, I think. Of course, we all have to grow up.”

Sarah said quietly after a while, “I wonder if all this will make any difference in the way Tom thinks about me.”

Mrs. Carter looked at her daughter quickly, her face filled with surprise. “Why should it?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Ma. He’s just so—so
different
. I try to be just the same, but it’s like he’s built a wall. He won’t let anybody get close. Not even me.”