My Vicksburg by Ann Rinaldi Read Free Book Online

Everything all right at your house? Here, what have you got, a note from your mother? Sashee," he said to the nigra nurse, "I think I'll take a few minutes. Clean up the table and get me a fresh basin of hot water and soap." He read the note in a second and looked beyond me and extended his hand. "You don't need any introduction, son," he said to Lan-don. "I've known you since you were knee-high."
    The two of them embraced.
    "So," Dr. Balfour said, "your father told me you went and joined the Yanks. Tore him up quite a bit, it did, in the beginning, didn't it?"
    "Yes, sir," Landon answered.
    Dr. Balfour found three chairs in a corner and gestured we should sit. "So how's business with the Yankees these days?"
    "I think you hold the record for cutting off a leg in three minutes," Landon said, "anyways, that's what Pa told me."
    "You didn't take your life in your hands and cross Confederate lines to congratulate me on that, did you, Captain?"
    "No, sir," Landon blushed.
    But Dr. Balfour knew. "Claire Louise," he said, "you
know that young soldier who asked you to write a letter home for him before?"
    "Yessir."
    "Well, if Sashee here gives you pen and paper, how about you do it for him?"
    I was shocked. I never would have thought of it. "Can I?" I asked Landon.
    "I think it'd be a good idea," he said softly.
    So I went with Sashee, the slim young colored girl, who took me through the lines of cots and found me a chair.
    Before I sat down, I looked back at Landon and the doctor. Landon was leaning over in his chair, his elbows on his knees, as if he was confiding in Dr. Balfour. The doctor was listening intently.
    And I knew, in those places in your bones where you know such things, that Landon was telling Balfour about Robert. And asking advice about him. It was that serious. Landon was up a tree right now and his conscience was throwing stones at him and he had to figure out how to get down because the tree was soon going to be cut into pieces.
    With him in it.
    "Claire Louise, this is Bobby Joe," Sashee said.
    We said hello.
    He was young, not more than sixteen. He had only one leg, the other long since taken off, and he was here now for his right arm, which had been hit by a minie ball.
He was handsome with thick curly brown hair, blue eyes, and a freckled face. "I got to write to my mama," he said. "She must know I'm still livin' though I may not be alive much longer. Will you take down my words?"
    I said I would, and I did.
    His words were polite and concerned. He inquired about everyone in his family. He came from a farm family in Tennessee and he apologized for not being able to carry his weight when he made it home.
    "Mama," he said, "I think that on Judgment Day there's gonna be such a scramblin' for arms and legs as you never did see. Why, look at me alone. I'll have to go to Antietam to get my leg, then back here to Vicksburg for my arm. 'Cause the doctor ain't seen it yet this mornin', Mama, but it's all swollen and red and I'll likely have to be shed of it. The Lord'll just have to have patience with me."
    I could scarce see the finishing lines for my tears, which I fought to keep back. And I kissed his forehead when I said good-bye. "You'll make it, Bobby Joe," I said as I left him there.
    Landon and I both had our spirits on the floor when we left the hospital. Neither one of us asked the other why. I suppose it's why we get along so well. We respect each other's feelings.

Chapter Eight
    We stopped at our house on the way home, joyous to find it had not yet been shelled or destroyed in any way. Landon said he thought Mama ought to offer it for a residence hospital, that he'd talk to her about it.
    Andy and Clothilda were there, and since the shelling had commenced Landon said we should go into the cellar to wait it out.
    "No," I said, "not the cellar."
    He had taken a letter out of his pocket. I'd seen Dr. Balfour give it to him, heard him say that the Confederate dispatch rider had been through this morning,