Read Online Suspension by Richard E. Crabbe - Free Book Online Page B

watched the Second Corps go by, with the Irish Brigade in ranks. He realized he must have seen Terence among those ranks years ago. He had a new respect for the man. Tom looked closer at the picture, noticing the new Springfield musket, its barrel polished, bayonet fixed. Tom thought he saw the look that he had seen in his own mirror long ago. He felt a certain kinship with the man in the tintype, a bond and an obligation. Tom took his obligations seriously.
    Patricia and Eamon Bucklin sat in their tiny kitchen and, over the next hour or so, told Tom Braddock the story of their lives in America. They had come to New York when the “bloody-handed British” raised the taxes on their land and the rent on their house.
    â€œEamon’s family,” Patricia had said, “worked that land for near one hundred twenty years, and they threw us off like so much boot scrapin’s.”
    â€œThe children screaming hungry, an’ the bastards drive us out our own home. The shame of it is they had Irish constables to back ’em up,” Eamon said, shaking his gray head. They had borrowed money from relatives, sold what possessions they could, and took ship for New York. Their oldest, a girl named Shannon, had taken sick on the voyage. By the time they reached New York and went through Castle Garden, she was so weak she could barely stand.
    â€œShe had the look o’ sickness about her, so they quarantined her and there she died. Had to bury me darlin’ in Potter’s Field ’cause there wasn’t a penny to be had for a proper burial,” Patricia said softly, opening an old wound. “Swore some day we’d bury her proper,” she whispered.
    In spite of their tragic start, Eamon had managed to find work and things got better.
    â€œAlways been good wi’ me hands,” Eamon had wheezed from the edge of his bed. He had found work at a cooperage on Canal Street. He made foreman and earned enough for them to live on with an occasional luxury. They had found two airy rooms on Spring Street, with morning sun pouring in the high windows and a bathroom they shared with only one other family. Life was good. They put away the troubles of the past.

    Patricia made tea for Tom and Eamon on a tiny cast-iron stove. She wept silently as she stood with her back to them, her shoulders shaking. Tom heard the hiss of a tear as it sizzled on the hot iron. He pretended to study Terrence’s picture. Looking around the room, he noticed that what little furniture they had was of mahogany, and the fabrics were fine—not like the stuff he usually saw in the tenements. She turned with the teakettle in her left hand and dabbed at her red eyes with the corner of her apron. “Terry used to love his tea,” she said.
    They told him of how, just short of Terry’s seventeenth birthday, the troubles started at Fort Sumter.
    â€œTerry was always one to do his duty. Brought him up to see the right of things and do what was expected of a man. Didn’t know about seceding from the Union, or the legal mumbo jumbo about the territories, or Kansas and Nebraska or any such.” Eamon paused for a moment, then, drawing a long watery breath, continued, “Never knew a black man in his life, but he knew that slavin’s a curse on the land. He could see what the slavery was doin’ to this country.”
    â€œWe were never prouder of him than when he joined the Sixty-ninth,” Patricia added, her head held high.
    â€œWe went over to Broadway to watch him march off with the regiment. What a day that was: the flags, an’ the crowds, an’ the bands. I cried to see him go, but I could’ve burst with the pride I had in him for goin’.”
    They told him of the war years, and Terry’s letters home, and the tintype he had sent them. He had been in many famous battles, they assured him, coming through it all with barely a couple of scratches. Lots of his mates in the