The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [86]
Lawrence was busy with warlike preparations. When we came along Massachusetts Street, we could see groups of men lit by long wood fires. Some had shovels and were digging and mounding up fortifications, while others had guns and were watching over the guns of those who were digging. As I noticed this, Frank crawled into the back of the wagon and brought out our guns, my Sharps rifle and the rifle his father had given him. I tried to discern the figure of Thomas, but there were so many men and they were so busy and ill lit that I couldn’t make him out. I wondered, with a pang, when I might see him. When we were driving along with Mr. Bisket, it seemed a matter of course that I would see my husband practically as soon as I arrived in Lawrence, but now I saw the real state of things, and I had misgivings about leaving our claim—at least if I were there he would know where to find me. The horses were tired, but I urged them more quickly to the hay house, eager though I was to see my husband. This was the first thing I learned about war—that it makes the briefest parting almost too painful to bear.
The hay house was considerably deteriorated. The thatching that had looked so neat in the summer was now partially fallen out and patchily replaced with hay, sticks, cloths. One end of the house had slumped. My misgivings about leaving our claim swelled, and then swelled again with the revelation that in fact, in K.T., there was no place of refuge now. And then I called out, and Mrs. Bush came bustling out of the house with a light, and she looked excited and happy!
"My dear!" she said. "I’ve been looking for you all evening! Thomas was here for his supper, and he was most anxious for your arrival—we hear Ruffians from Lecompton were all along the road to the north, and I so feared you’d be turned back, or worse! And Frank—"
Frank jumped down. "I told them she was deaf and dumb, and then I lied about everything else, too. Is supper over?"
I said, "He talked their ears off, till they were too cold to listen and let us go on. But we lost Mr. Bisket...."
Frank took the horses and wagon down the street, where Mrs. Bush said Thomas had found a place for the horses to be fed and the wagon goods to be stowed for the time being.
Inside, sitting around the stove with Mrs. Bush, were some new people—the hay house was never too ramshackle to hold a good set of visitors, and these were the famous Laceys from Massachusetts. Mrs. Lacey was a round, fresh-faced woman of maybe thirty-five, I guessed, from the size of her sons, who were fourteen, twelve, and eleven, and all big, stocky boys, still dressed in their New England clothes. Consciousness of our women’s gossip about the Laceys had rendered me both disapproving of Mr. Lacey and a little ashamed of how we discussed him. I said, "You’ve waited so long to come, and now there’s a war—"
"But I wouldn’t have missed it!" "Oh, my land of mercy," said Mrs. Bush. "I am happy to miss any war going, but now that they’ve carried it to us, well, then, we must see it through! But I am all for Dr. Robinson. Tonight, at the Free State Hotel, he said to the men that if the Ruffians attack us, then all of the north will rise up in a rage; and if they go off without attacking, then they’ll be simply a laughingstock; and so we can’t lose, if you ask me, but of course the poor men are out there in the cold, drilling and digging—"
"And we have to sleep with our rifles on our pillows!" said Mrs. Lacey, apparently invigorated by it all.
I said, "Do you really think all of the north would rise up in a rage? They seem so far away and intent on their own business."
"You may mark my words, my dear," said Mrs. Bush happily, "the slave power is driving them into our arms one by one, every day. If you lived in Lawrence, you would