The Union Quilters (43 page)

“I’m sure Lydia sees you riding as your father holds the bridle and wishes she were old enough to do that,” remarked Anneke.

Albert considered. “Maybe,” he said, then turned and ran back to the corral, shouting, “Is it my turn yet?”

Be patient, Anneke wanted to call after him, but she smiled as she watched him run through the snow to his father and brother and beloved horses. She understood his eagerness. Like Albert and Hans, she too believed that the family’s best days yet awaited them.

Constance stood on her front porch, wrapped in her shawl, listening to the welcome sound of the icicles dripping as they melted. At last, spring was coming. There was a hint of warmth in the air, and the daffodils she had planted around the house had poked their yellow heads through the last lingering patches of snow. Soon she could put in her kitchen garden. She smiled, thinking of the smell of rich, freshly turned soil and the taste of sweet snap peas and new potatoes. She was tired of turnips stored all winter long in the cellar. She had run out of ways to dress them up, and she wished she had something more appealing to put on the table, especially when company called, but turnips would have to do for a while longer.

Her eldest son, George, was the only member of the family who was sorry to see the winter end. He was smitten with a pretty girl from Grangerville he had met at the Harvest Dance the previous autumn at Union Hall, and every Sunday he had taken her riding in the cutter he and Abel had built. The Wrights had no buggy, and George could not take a young lady riding in their old wagon, so the coming of spring meant the end of George’s courting for the duration of fair weather. Abel teased that he would be too busy on the farm to squire young ladies around the valley anyway, and George glumly agreed. He loved the farm, but he was surely thinking of other young men nearby whose parents did own buggies and who might begin calling on the girl in his absence. Constance figured if the girl in question couldn’t wait for George one summer, she wasn’t likely to stick with him for a lifetime, and it would be best to find out sooner rather than later.

Joseph didn’t have time for courtship, nor did Constance believe he was old enough for it, although girls certainly caught his eye at school and at church. When he turned fourteen, he had begun an apprenticeship with Dr. Granger, accompanying him on his calls and assisting him on simple procedures. After two years, he was certain that he wanted to become a doctor, and Jonathan confirmed that he had the aptitude and the perseverance necessary for the profession. Jonathan had promised to write letters of recommendation and call on all his professional contacts to ensure Joseph’s admittance to a prestigious medical school when he turned eighteen. When Constance expressed skepticism that a place like Harvard Medical School, Jonathan’s alma mater, would allow a colored man to enroll, Jonathan assured her that a few colored men were studying there at that very moment, and that her only concern should be to encourage Joseph in his studies and begin saving for his tuition. It would not be easy, and Joseph was all but certain to encounter objections and hostility along the way, but if he wanted it badly enough, it would be possible.

Constance was not worried about either of her sons. The death of slavery had not brought about immediate equality and acceptance for people of color, but their time was coming. She knew it, and her sons knew it, and they had learned what good things came from faith, determination, and perseverance. They had their fatherʹs example to thank for everything they knew about persisting when almost all hope was gone and the obstacles seemed insurmountable.

The Wright family was truly blessed. Constance had lost neither husband nor sons to the war, and even Ephraim, Abel’s brother-in-law captured during the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania, had returned home safely after the war. His nearly two years in slavery had scarred him, but he had lived, just as Abel had survived his own more grievous, more visible wounds. With the help and advice of other wounded veterans, Abel had adapted tools and learned his chores anew so he could run the dairy farm almost as he always had. Thanks to George, the farm was more prosperous than ever, the herd healthy and prolific, the customers for their cheese, butter, and milk steadily increasing.

Another man might have been content with that, but Abel, always eager for a challenge, found inspiration in the pages of the
Soldier’s Friend
, a magazine whose purpose was to help veterans adapt to civilian life. Even before the war ended, the editor, concerned with the plight of soldiers whose amputations prevented them from finding lucrative work, sponsored a penmanship contest for “the Left-Armed Soldiers of the Union.” Members of this Left-Armed Corps were invited to submit a manuscript, either original compositions or copies of other authors’ works such as poetry or political speeches. Cash prizes would be awarded for the finest penmanship, but the ultimate goal was for the winning manuscripts to attract the attention of potential employers.

Constance watched Abel as he mulled over the contest, and she was not at all surprised when, a few days later, he took out pen, ink, and paper and began practicing writing with his left hand, copying over proverbs and psalms. His first attempts were barely legible, but as the weeks passed, his shaky letters grew steadier, his spidery words more solid. Within a few months, his left-handed writing was as clear and precise as his right-handed penmanship had once been, but he would not be satisfied until it surpassed his right-handed writing to become as fluid and elegant as what he figured would be necessary to win the contest. When the time came to create his manuscript, he set the Bible verses aside and wrote a simple but eloquent account of his travails as he tried to enlist in the Union Army. The final sentences, in which he proudly described his first days as a member of the 6th USCT, brought tears to Constance’s eyes. She hoped the judges would be similarly moved.

She should have known better. Within two weeks, the manuscript was returned with a letter expressing the judges’ regrets that Abel had been disqualified from the contest. As the purpose of the contest was to help veteran amputees obtain gainful employment, the organizers were obliged to limit it to veterans who could be hired for clerical positions, and as a man of color, Abel was unlikely to be considered for such work.

Abel had the farm and his carpentry. He had not entered the contest in hopes of finding clerical work but for the prize money, which he could certainly put to good use, and for the challenge of improving himself. Though disgusted by his exclusion, he took heart from another letter that arrived a day later, a personal note from one of the judges condemning the decision to disqualify him, which the judge declared was by no means unanimous. “Your penmanship was as fine as any of the submissions we received,” he wrote, “but if the purpose of the contest was to discover the best example of Prose rather than Penmanship, your manuscript would have ranked among the very best. Your account of your patriotic determination to serve your country was powerful and inspiring, and I would greatly desire to read more of your work if you are inclined to put pen to paper again.”

Abel chuckled and put the letter away, but when Constance mentioned it to Dorothea a few days later to amuse her bookish friend, Dorothea’s eyes widened. The man who had written to Abel was a renowned editor and abolitionist, and if he said Abel’s writing was good, it surely was. “If Abel has any inclination whatsoever to pen his memoirs,” Dorothea said, “he should send the finished manuscript to this gentleman as soon as the ink dries.”

Constance repeated Dorothea’s message to her husband, who laughed and shook his head and said that he was a farmer, not a writer. So Constance enlisted the help of her sons, who urged their father to write down his memories of the war, if for no one else but his family and descendants. Constance reminded him of Frederick Douglass’s narrative and how it had inspired countless thousands of people, white and colored alike, to fight for the abolitionist cause. She reminded him of the battles that remained to be won—not the least of which was securing the right to vote and all the other privileges soldiers like Abel had earned through their service to the country. “Your story could inspire change just as Mr. Douglass’s did,” she told him. “Think of what that would mean to people of color everywhere. Think of what it would mean for our sons.”

Eventually, they won him over. Every evening after supper, and earlier in the afternoon if he finished his chores in good time, he could be found at the desk in the front room, writing, refreshing his memory by perusing letters he had sent home from the front, or staring off into space, lost in reflection. Six months after the war ended, he finished his manuscript and sent it off to the editor in New York. For weeks he heard nothing, and then on one fortuitous day, a telegram arrived with an offer to publish his book.

Recalling that blessed day, Constance watched from the front porch and smiled as she spotted Abel emerging from the barn, the three reporters from
Harper’s Weekly
in his wake. It was his own private joke to show unsuspecting admirers from the cities how the Hero of Wright’s Pass and the Sage of the 6th Colored really spent his days—not at his desk contemplating political and social theory but milking cows and making cheese. Too many white intellectuals emphasized how Abel differed from other colored men, how his newly discovered literary gifts set him apart, but Abel was wary of the dangers that could come from perceiving him as an anomaly among his race. He wanted everyone to know that he was like every other colored man—a husband, a father, a man desiring to use his God-given talents to support his family, improve himself, and contribute to his community—or rather, that every other colored man was like him. The rights and privileges he had earned, they too deserved.

A few months earlier, an article in
The New York Times
had lauded Abel’s second book, an account of his Underground Railroad years, as “astonishing and riveting.” These reporters looked rather astonished, Constance thought, as the celebrated writer introduced them to his favorite cows, and they seemed riveted by the desire to scrape the questionable muck from their fine shoes.

She smothered a laugh and waved to her husband, summoning him and their guests in for supper.

 

Gerda drove the chaise into Waterʹs Ford and stopped by Prudence’s seamstress shop for a chat before making her customary visit to the post office. The postmaster smiled when he saw her enter, but she lingered near the front window until his other customers departed. Then she approached, took two jars of blackberry jam from her basket, and set them on the counter. “Good afternoon, Henry,” she said. “Here’s the delivery I promised, and right on time.”

“Early, in fact,” he said, holding up one of the jars to the light streaming in through the windows, and admiring the color. “My sons will be delighted. Thank you, Gerda.”

“You’re quite welcome.” Gerda liked Henry’s sons very much, and his daughter, Harriet, had become a dear friend, especially after she joined the Union Quilters. Gerda would be the first to admit that she was quite susceptible to flattery, and when his sons had proclaimed that her jam was the best they had ever tasted, they had won themselves a regular supply.

“I have something for you too,” the postmaster said, reaching beneath the counter. “Something I think you’ve wanted for a long time.”

“The vote for women?”

“No, I’m sorry. That’s not within my power to provide.” He set a letter on the counter before her. “This came from Virginia this morning.”

“A letter from Miss Van Lew?” Gerda’s longtime correspondent had fallen on difficult times since the end of the war. After it came out that she had not only cared for the Union prisoners at Libby but had also spied for General Grant throughout the war, the entire city of Richmond had ostracized her. Gerda hoped that if General Grant won the presidential election in the fall, he would find some way to help the brave woman. In Gerda’s opinion, it was an outrage that a good, loyal woman like Miss Van Lew could suffer in the wake of a Union victory, and a cowardly Copperhead like Peter Gray Meek could be rewarded by being elected to the Pennsylvania state assembly even after being arrested five times during the war and accused of disloyalty, running the gamut from publishing improper political statements to high treason. Sometimes justice eluded the just.

Henry shook his head. “See for yourself, my dear. This letter didn’t come from Richmond.”

Gerda glanced at the postmark—and gasped to see that the letter had been sent from Wentworth County, Virginia. Astonished, she looked up at Henry, who seemed almost as eager to learn the letterʹs contents as she was. Quickly she opened the envelope, withdrew a single page, and read it aloud.