‘Yes, Mother. We must.'
Speaking of prison cells, Pixel has just arrived in mine, with a present for me. A mouse. A dead mouse. Still warm. He is so pleased with himself and clearly he expects me to eat it. He is waiting for me to eat it.
How am I going to get out of this?
Chapter 6 - ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home...'
The rest of 1898 was one long bad dream. Our men had gone to war but it was difficult to find out what was happening. I remember a time, sixty-odd years later, when the malevolent eye of television turned war into a spectator sport, even to the extent (I hope that this is not true!) that attacks were timed so that the action could be shown live on the evening news. Can you imagine a more ironically horrible way to die than to have one's death timed to allow an anchor man to comment on it just before turning the screen over to the beer ads?
In 1898 the fighting was not brought live into our livingrooms; we had trouble finding out what had happened even long after the fact. Was our Navy guarding the east coast (as eastern politicians were demanding), or was it somewhere in the Caribbean? Had the Oregon rounded the Horn and would it reach the Fleet in time? Why was there a second battle at Manila? Hadn't we won the battle of Manila Bay weeks ago?
In 1898 I knew so little about military matters that I did not realise that civilians should not know the location of a fleet or the planned movements of an army. I did not know that anything known to an outsider will be known by enemy agents just minutes later. I had never heard of the public's ‘right to know', a right that cannot be found in the Constitution but was sacrosanct in the second half of the twentieth century. This so-called ‘right' meant that tr was satisfactory (regrettable perhaps but necessary) for soldiers and sailors and airmen to die in order to preserve unblemished that sacred ‘right to know'.
I had still to learn that neither Congressmen nor newsmen could be trusted with the lives of our men.
Let me try to be fair. Let us assume that over ninety per cent of Congressmen and newsmen are honest and honourable men. In that case, less than ten per cent need be murderous fools indifferent to the deaths of heroes for that minority to destroy lives, lose battles, turn the course of a war.
I did not have these grim thoughts in 1898; it would take the War of 1898 and two world wars and two undeclared wars (‘police actions' for God's sake!) to make me realise that neither our government nor our press could be trusted with human lives.
‘A democracy works well only when the common man is an aristocrat. But God must hate the common man; He has made him so dadblamed common! Does your common man understand chivalry? Noblesse oblige? Aristocratic rules of conduct? Personal responsibility for the welfare of the State? One may as well search for fur on a frog.' Is that something I heard my father say? No. Well, not exactly. It is something I recall from about two o'clock in the morning in the Oyster Bar of the Renton House in Kansas City after Mr Clemens' lecture in January 1898. Maybe my father said part of it; perhaps Mr Clemens said all of it, or perhaps they shared it - my memory is not perfect after so many years.
Mr Clemens and my father were indulging in raw oysters, philosophy, and brandy. I had a small glass of port. Both port and raw oysters were new to me; I disliked both... not helped by the odour of Mr Clemens' cigar.
(I had assured Mr Clemens that I enjoyed the aroma of a good cigar; please do smoke. A mistake.)
But I would have endured more than cigar smoke and raw oysters to be present that night. On the platform Mr Clemens had looked just like his pictures: a jovial Satan with a halo of white hair, in a beautifully tailored white suit. In person he was a foot shorter, warmly charming, and he made an even more fervent admirer of me by treating me as a grown lady.
I was up hours past my bedtime and had to keep pinching myself not to fall asleep. What I remember best was Mr Clemens' discourse on the subject of cats and redheads ....omposed on the spot for my benefit, I think - it does not appear anywhere in his published works, not even those released by the University of California fifty years after his death.
Did you know that Mr Clemens was a redhead? But that must wait.
News of the signing of the peace protocol reached Thebes on 12 August, a Friday. Mr Barnaby, our principal, called us all into the lecture hall and told us, then dismissed school. I ran home, found that Mother already knew. We cried on each other a little while Beth and Lucille were noisy around us, then Mother and I started in on a complete, unseasonal spring cleaning so that we would be ready when Father and Tom (and Mr Smith? - I did not voice it) got Nome sometime next week. Frank was told to cut the grass and to do anything else that needed doing outdoors - don't ask; just do it.
Church on Sunday was a happy Praise-the-Lord occasion, with Reverend Timberly being even more long-windedly stupid than usual but nobody minded, least of all me.
After church Mother said, ‘Maureen, are you going to school tomorrow?'
I had not thought about it. The Thebes school board bad decided to offer summer high school (in addition to the usual make-up session for grammar school dullards) as a patriotic act to permit older boys to graduate early and enlist. I had signed up for summer school both to add to my education (since I had given up the idea of college) and to fill that aching emptiness caused by Father and Tom (and Mr Smith) being away at war.
(I have spent the longest years of my life waiting for men to come back from war. And for some who did not come back.)
‘Mother, I had not thought about it. Do you really think there will be school as usual tomorrow?'
‘There will be. Have you studied?'
(She knew I hadn't. You can't do much with Greek irregular verbs when you are down on your knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor.) ‘No, Ma'am.'
‘Well? What would your father expect of you?'
I sighed. ‘Yes, Ma'am'
‘Don't feel sorry for yourself. Summer school was your idea. You should not waste that extra tuition. Now git! I will get supper by myself tonight.'
They did not come home that week.
They did not come home the following week.
They did not come home that fall.
They did not come home that year.
(Chuck's body came home. The GAR provided a firing squad and I attended my first military funeral and cried and cried. A bugler with white hair played for Charles: ‘- sleep in peace, soldier brave, God is nigh.' If I ever come close to believing, it is when I hear ‘Taps'. Even today.)
After that summer session in 1898, when September carne it was necessary to make a choice; go to school or not, and if so, where? I did not want to remain home, doing little but play nursemaid to George. Since I could not go to Columbia, I wanted to go to Butler Academy, a two-gear private school that offered a liberal arts course acceptable at Columbia or at Lawrence in lieu of lower division. I pointed out to Mother that I had saved Christmas and birthday presents and ‘egg money' (‘egg money' was any earned money - taking care of neighbours' children, minding a stand at the county fair, and so forth - not much and quite seldom) - I had saved enough for my tuition and books.
Mother said, ‘How will you get back and forth?'
I answered, ‘How does Tom get back and forth?'
‘Don't answer a question with a question, young lady. We both know how your brother did it: by buggy in good weather, on horseback in bad weather... and he stayed home in the very worst weather. But your brother is a grown man. Tell me how you will do it.'
I thought about it. A buggy was no problem; the Academy had a barn for horses awaiting their masters. Horseback? I could ride almost as well as my brothers... but girls do not arrive at school wearing overalls, and lide-saddle was not a good idea for weather not suited to a buggy. But even good weather and a buggy... From late in October to early in March I would have to leave home before daylight and return home after dark.