Chapter 3: A Visitor

For what seemed like a long time there was no sound in the dining room of the Williams's farmhouse except for the ticking of the clock, the flutter of the curtains and the whirr of insects.

"Yes, I recognize him," Mrs. Williams said to Seth, her face white but her voice steady, and then to the soldier, "How may we help you, sir?"

The man stood in the doorway with his weapon held loosely in his right hand, pointed more or les at the floor. Seth noted with some pride that it was a Sharps carbine just as he had thought. "I need to talk with Seth there," he said, nodding at the boy.

"We are at dinner, as you can see," began Mrs. Williams.

"Yes'm, I surely can. Smells powerful fine, too."

Mrs. Williams looked around at her children, perplexed. Seth did not think he had ever seen his mother look so confused. Charity and good manners were high on her list of cardinal virtues. This was something of a dilemma. Here was an armed man in her house, on the Sabbath, very likely an enemy of her older son, assuming what he told Seth was so. Seth's mother smiled, satisfied that she had weighed the alternatives and their merits and made the proper choice.

"We just started, really, and there's a plenty. Won't you come in and join us? Nothing fancy, my daughter will set you a place, won't you, Annie?"

The girl jiggled back to life, "Oh, yes, yes," and scrambled out to fetch a fork, spoon and knife. Seth found another napkin in the sideboard as the man removed his hat and rolled its soft brim in his free hand.

"That's right kindly of you, ma'm. I surely won't say no. Been I-don't-know how-long since I et a good meal or even set at a table like a civilized human being. Mostly been cooking for myself lately." He looked down at his carbine as if he had just noticed it in his hand. "I, uh, need a place to put this here, an' I should wash up a bit, if you don't mind."

He stammers like I do sometimes, Seth thought. Wonder how old he is. About the same as Robert maybe. Hard to tell with the straggly beard.

"Yes, of course." Seth heard his mother's voice return to its quiet normal and saw the blotches fading from her face. She edged past the soldier and into her kitchen. "The basin's right in here. There's fresh water, if the children didn't use it all, and good soap. I'm sure you can see the towel there. You may put your weapon right in that corner. I assure you that neither Seth nor Annie will touch it." She glanced back into the dining room to make sure she had been heard and found her children crowding the doorway to watch the soldier wash his hands and splash water on his reddened face. He used the towel and then leaned his weapon carefully by the back door after flipping open the breech with a metallic click.

Mrs. Williams shooed her children away. "Goodness, you know that's not polite. Annie, finish laying that place, and Seth, fetch a chair." She brought the soldier a plate of stew and gestured for him to take his seat and not wait for her to resume hers. "I do hope you like dumplings." She served Annie another despite the pile of carrots in her bowl.

"I'm very partial to them, ma'm." The soldier raked his fingers through his long hair, ignored his napkin and dug in. He sat across from Annie, in what had been Seth's place before Robert went into the army. He ate hungrily, grinning at Annie between bites and dripping gravy from one corner of his mouth. Everyone concentrated on eating for a while.

"Seth," he said finally, cleaning his bowl with a piece of bread while the others were still less than half finished, "I really came back here to see you."

"Me? Why me?" The boy had been thinking about the last time he had seen a Sharps close up. The summer he was twelve, men from a New York company called Scott's 900 came to the farm and took away their workhorse, Nell, and their old mule, Charlie. Profane men who did a lot of cursing and spitting, men who had carried carbines and left his trembling mother holding a sheet of paper from the quartermaster.

"Well," the soldier was saying, "I need a little favor, and my ole daddy always tole me if'n you want a favor, ast the feller who already done you one." He smiled, showing that one of his teeth had gold in it.

Seth recognized that his manner of talking seemed to go back and forth between country and town, schooled and illiterate and wondered why it should. Maybe he's play acting.

"Help yourself to bread and butter," Seth's mother offered, as a deep line of worry developed between her eyebrows.

"Kind of you, ma'm, very kind. Men in my squad ain't much good as cooks, an' lately what we had to work with weren't nothin' to write home about neither. Fact is, I fear Marse Robert's boys ain't eating very high on the hog these days."

"Would you care for a cup of coffee? I made some for myself."

"Oh, yes'm. That would be fine. You wouldn't believe what we've been tryin' to make coffee out'a. An' could I have a spoon more of that good stew and perhaps another dumplin'?" He held up his empty plate.

Mrs. Williams brought the coffee, served the soldier's food and then offered more to Seth. Annie sat with her mouth open until her mother nudged her, and even though she started eating again, her eyes never left the cavalryman's bearded face. She even ate some carrots. Finally, looking ready to burst with curiosity, she asked, "Are you really a soldier, like my brother?"

"Be dogged, I didn't know ole Seth were a soldier." The man winked at Seth and spooned up half a dumpling.

"No," Annie squealed. "Not Seth. My big brother, Robert."

"Yep, I'm a soldier all right, God's truth."

"He was here this morning, Annie, but I reckon you were out by the chicken coop or someplace," Seth said in his patient, older-brother voice.

"Annie, is it? I've got a girl called Annie down around Danville way, but she's not as pretty as you. Mite older though. That kind'a makes up for it." He winked at Seth again and again reminded the boy of the New Yorkers who made jokes while stealing the Williams's livestock.

Annie looked away and then worked on her dumpling with the edge of her spoon.

"Sir," said Seth's mother into the silence that followed, "you have us at a disadvantage. You know us, but we do not know you." Seth noticed that his mother's hand shook a bit when she passed the jelly.

"Quite true, ma'am, quite true. Don't know what has become of my manners. It's the war what's done it, I'm sure. My sainted mother would surely be ashamed of me. Allow me, ma'm," he stood and bowed from the waist, and Seth thought, put on yet a third way of speaking, "allow me to introduce myself. I am Charles Mason Wainder of Tolliver, Commonwealth of Virginia, at your service and your humble servant, ma'm." His voice rose at the end of his small speech and he made a sweeping gesture with his hand as if he held a plumed hat and, with a smile, resumed his seat and his meal.