Read Online My Brother's Keeper My America 1 by Mary Pope Osborne - Free Book Online Page B

music. I can almost hear her tinkling laughter and see her dark curls.
    15
    I think she will always be young and beautiful in Pa's mind. Whenever he speaks about her, he sounds like he's telling a fairy tale.
    If 1 told the Rebs such things about my mother, would they go away and leave our house alone?
    Late evening
    I saved our treasures!
    I went to our house before nightfall. I lit a candle and put Jed's books in a satchel, along with Pa's violin and my mother's pearl-handled hairbrush.
    1 confess 1 am now wearing her gold locket. Pa would never let me wear it before. But surely it is better for me to wear my mother's locket than have it stolen by the Rebs.
    Mrs. McCully praised my mission. She said
    16
    Pa and Jed would be proud of me. Then she hid the satchel in the cellar.
    All evening Jane Ellen kept asking, "Where is our army?" She wonders if President Lincoln himself even knows where our army is. If he does, why is he letting the Confederates ride around our countryside, doing as they please?
    I told Jane Ellen that President Lincoln is Jed's greatest hero in all the world. I told her that she mustn't speak ill of Mr. Lincoln when she is in my brother's presence.
    Do you know what she did then?
    She threw her hands across her heart and wailed, "I know. I love him, I love him desperately."
    Why, Jane Ellen! Did you mean President Lincoln? Or my brother Jed?
    17
    The Rebels rode through Gettysburg this very day! At about two o'clock, we heard their yells. We heard whistles and drums.
    When we peeked outside, what a sight we
    saw!
    A Rebel band was playing in the Center Square! Hundreds of Confederates were passing by our house!
    I could not look away, even when Jane Ellen urged me to close the shutters.
    First the Rebs came on horses. Then they passed on foot. Some waved red flags. But they made a pitiful sight in their dirty, gray uniforms.
    A man with his feet wrapped in rags called out howdy to me. Another asked how many Yankee soldiers were in town.
    I shouted it was none of his business.
    The Reb laughed a wild laugh. He told me
    18
    they were going to whip the Yankees no matter how many there were! Then he fired his pistol in the air and whooped.
    Jane Ellen slammed the shutters closed.
    Now it is raining hard. I am writing while Mrs. McCully and Jane Ellen bake bread.
    We can hear the Rebs firing their pistols in the Square and yelling their Rebel yells.
    If she were here right now, what would my mother feel? Her brothers could be part of that crowd. When I look at her picture in her locket, her tiny face seems sad.
    Later
    A little while ago, Mr. Hoke came by to make certain we were safe. He said the Confederates had met with the Gettysburg town council today. They demanded meat, shoes, and Yankee dollars. They threatened
    19
    to burn down the whole town if they did not get what they wanted.
    The council said they could go in the stores and take anything they could find, but they would not find much.
    The worse news from Mr. Hoke was this: Some free Negro people who had stayed in town have been caught and taken away.
    Mrs. McCully is worried sick that Becky Lee and her children might have been found in the woods. She says we must all pray for them.
    Late night
    We are in our beds now. We can still hear the Rebel yells coming from the square.
    Jane Ellen and I both said special prayers for Becky Lee and her children.
    Mrs. McCully told us that Becky Lee was
    20
    once a slave herself. She escaped from the South, and ever since then she has secretly helped other slaves escape. She slips over the Mason-Dixon line to Maryland and leads runaway slaves to freedom in the North.
    Jane Ellen said Becky Lee is the bravest person she's every heard of.
    Good night, Becky Lee. Good luck.
    June 27, 1863
    It is barely daylight, but Mrs. McCully is already baking bread.
    That woman bakes bread all the time. She gives it free to anyone who needs it. She even gave a loaf to a hungry Reb who knocked on our door late last