Alice's Tulips: A Novel by Sandra Dallas Read Free Book Online Page B

had gone after what Charlie calls “slow deer.” The soldiers aren’t supposed to shoot cattle on the Rebel farms, but they may take all the deer they can find. So they call cattle slow deer, and take them easily because they are so weak that it takes two men to hold up a cow for the third man to shoot it. Charlie and his pards weren’t even thinking about Rebels, when, of a sudden,they caught sight of forty or fifty of them on up ahead. Because they were only a handful, Charlie and the others decided to hightail it out of there, but then they saw more Rebs right behind them. They were caught in the middle, so what could they do but take a stand?
    Charlie saved the day! He told the boys to spread out and pretend they were a big company, and to shoot first, before the Rebs discovered them. So the Yanks lined up along a little draw, each one aiming at a Johnny, and they fired. Charlie’s Rebel jumped right up in the air, then fell down dead. Charlie loaded and drew a bead on another Secesh, and down he went, too. Our boys, all of them good Iowa shooters, slaughtered a goodly number of the Rebs, and the others didn’t stay around long enough to get off but one shot apiece before they ran like the cowards they are. After they were gone, Charlie turned to the soldier next to him and discovered the poor man staring at his arm—which had been shot off and was lying on the ground. Even that didn’t dampen Charlie’s spirits. He writes he had been afraid that when he got into battle, he would show the white feather and run off. Of course, I know that any man who stood up to Papa the way Charlie did when he asked for my hand is no coward. But Charlie was not so sure. Now he has met the challenge and turned into as true a soldier as ever was. Charlie carried the wounded bluecoat all the way back to camp, where he was turned over to a surgeon, and Charlie believes he will live. I think it is a pity that Charlie was not in a famous fight, like Vicksburg, so everybody could have heard of him. It is unlikely the Battle of the Slow Deer will get wrote up in the newspapers.
    Lizzie, would you send me your white silk ruffle so that I can sew it onto my ball gown. When the story of Charlie gets out, every man at the fair will want to dance with the wife of a hero.
    I am going to write Papa and tell him he was wrong all along about Charlie. I never wrote a letter to Papa before.
Your soon-to-be-famous sister,
    Mrs. Charlie Bullock
     
    July 26, 1863
    Dear Lizzie,
    I am sorry about the ruffle, which you probably have received, since I mailed it back the day after the fair, and I haven’t had time to write till now. That ruffle is spoilt for sure. I didn’t see it come loose until it got trampled and tore to pieces. Well, it couldn’t be helped. I would make you a new one, but there is no white satin to be found this side of Keokuk. The ruffle was a victim of the war, plain and simple. I feel bad, of course, but I think you won’t mind so much when I tell you that my dancing raised more than a dollar for the Soldiers Relief Fair.
    On the morning of the fair, we got up in the dark to do the chores and left for town at sunup. By then, the pike was crowded with wagons and riders, and it took us two hours just to reach town. Lucky stayed behind and agreed to do the evening chores, so we did not have to hurry home. He is scared to stay on the farm because night riders have been about and it looks like things at Bramble Farm, such as a fat shoat, are getting took. Lucky’s just as scared to go to town. I says to Mother Bullock, “As long as he’s scared both ways, he might as well stay to home and be useful.” For once, she agreed with me.
    As our donations to the fair, Mother Bullock and I took a pan of gingerbread, a basket of the prettiest peaches you ever saw, and an Iowa Four-Patch quilt that was worked up by the quilt group. All of it was sold, with the money going to the Soldiers Relief fund. The quilt brought more than twenty