Homeland by Barbara Hambly Read Free Book Online Page A

eyes, as surely as mine were opened by
Uncle Tom’s Cabin]
    It has been brought home to me how few places there are to go, if one is a woman, and with child. I am glad and grateful that my family has welcomed me, but I am aware—with the wave of patriotic feeling now sweeping the land—of how few here would welcome aRebel soldier’s wife. I shiver to think of what my lot, and my child’s, might so easily be! As I grow weary of pointing out to Peggie, when I married Emory he was
not
a Rebel soldier, nor did he have any intention of so being! On her most recent visit, Elinor did not scruple to repeat to me what Deborah said to her:
Every time I look into her
(that is, my)
face I wonder if she prayed this morning, that my Charles would be killed
. I cannot tell you, how ill this makes me feel. I could only be glad that a snowstorm prevented me from attending this month’s meeting of the Daughters of the Union! I am grateful that by next month, snowstorm or not, I shall be too far advanced in my condition to be out in public.
    Nor do I find comfort in the single newspaper that comes from the mainland once each week, with its squabbles over whether Southern slaves “deserve” freedom, and its dreadful cartoons of “Rebel ladies” collecting the skulls of slain Federal soldiers, and wearing shawls wrought of those soldiers’ scalps and beards.
    Mother counsels Bible reading, for she has never approved of my addiction to newspapers. I do find comfort in the Psalms, and the Book of Job. At least I am not the only person in the Universe, who has been
full of tossings to and fro, unto the dawning of the day
. Mother firmly agrees with the ancient destroyers of the Library of Alexandria: “Whatever was true in those books is also in the Scripture; whatever in them was not also in the Scripture, is better consigned to the flames.” Yet my heart finds a gentler refuge in Mr. Dickens’s
Bleak House
. And since I am not yet reduced to sitting on a dung-heap covered with sores, I find in its heroine’s philosophy of helpful cheer a clearer road-map to guide me day to day, and, I blush to admit, in the horrendous Mr. Tulkinghorn an outlet for the pent-up malice in my soul: I can wish
him
all the ill in the world, and savagely rejoice when it finds him.
S ATURDAY , J ANUARY 18
    Wash-day today. Please excuse the awkward penmanship. I managed to burn my hand, raking out the ashes from the stove. Because of the cold we only black-lead it once a week, early on Monday mornings, when it has been cold over Sunday. Raking of ashes on other days is a trick for which I never acquired the knack. The latest nor’-easter has at last ceased blowing. Yesterday was spent hauling snow and boiling water to soak everything overnight for washing today. Despite the bandage, my hand smarts from the lye, and I face a day of pouring yet more lye, hauling yet more snow, and boiling yet more water. We hope to have a few days’ drying-time before another storm. With good reason do Deer Isle girls bring to their marriages wedding-chests brimming with sheets, chemises, towels, stockings to last through winter if possible. Since Peggie proves indeed to be with child, I can only contemplate what wash-days will be like next winter, with
two
infants in diapers under this roof.
    All my affectionate wishes and prayers to your sister, who must be coming close to her own confinement.
N IGHT
    I feel as if
I
had gone through the mangle, not the sheets. Yes, I long to see whatever drawings you care to send, Susie. Please send them, if you can. You are quite right, that no one in America paints like the Europeans—I
adore
Mrs. Acklen’s little dog. I will not tell you of the little portfolio I’ve started of your sketches, lest you become conceited, but your sketches put me instantly at your side. If I cannot speak to you, I can see what you are seeing, and I treasure that.
    Your friend,
Cora
    Cora Poole, Southeast Harbor
Deer Isle, Maine
To
Susanna Ashford,