Marmee, p.1
Marmee, page 1
Dedication
To Mom and Dad
Epigraph
You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.
~John Bunyan
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Part First
Part Second
Author’s Note
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Part First
December 24, 1861
All day long, Amos’s letter waited in my pocket—the most perfect of Christmas gifts. If not for Isobel Carter, I might have stolen a peek.
But the Carter boy, missing since the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, is reported fallen today. The strands of hope, stretched so bravely across these last eight weeks, are cut. Thin as those threads had become, the severance is no less abrupt than if the news had come the very morning after the battle.
How bravely Mrs. Carter carried on with her duty after the telegram came! It wrung my heart to see the tender way she packed the Christmas boxes, as if each article of comfort was her own boy, being gently laid to sleep.
Nineteen years old. Drowned in retreating across the Potomac, his body swept downstream into an abandoned canal at Goose Creek. How it sickens me to think of that bright boy floating there all this time with the minnows feasting on a mind worthy of Harvard. If not for the engraving on his school ring, his family would never have known his fate.
For myself, I can only be thankful that the families who receive the boxes I filled after the news arrived will not perceive the fury that vibrated in the hands that packed them. It is not the first time my mind has railed at the folly of that battle. One thousand and two men, killed, wounded, or captured, raiding a Confederate camp that did not exist. Noah Carter’s was no kind of sacrifice, only a waste. What pride is there for his family in such a death?
We delude ourselves, I suppose, if we imagine all our brave boys dying valiantly on the field. Perhaps their true courage is not in being willing to fight, but in their willingness to face the likelihood of such an ignominious end.
Which is harsher, I wonder—to lose a son this way, in the prime of youth, or as I did, before he ever drew breath? I think of that beautiful stillborn infant, with his blue-gray skin and deep red lips, and wonder, had he lived, would he be fighting now? I doubt if I would possess the strength to endure sending both a husband and a son off to war.
With Mrs. Carter grieving silently beside me I did not dare pull my husband’s letter out of my pocket, nor even reach in to touch it. On the way to the relief rooms I had only the time to look at the date, to know when he was last safe, and see the salutation that brought a happy lump to my throat: My dear sturdy Peg.
It is more than four months now since I have heard his voice calling me Peg. No one but Amos uses that name. Always reaching out, he says, sturdy as a peg, to help. It is such a balm, to ease the burdens of a fellow being. That is what I must remember—that, and Amos’s fingertip poised at his lips when he sees my anger rising up to overtake me.
For Mrs. Carter’s sake, I redoubled my efforts. With her zeal fueled by sorrow, and mine by sympathy, we finished all the boxes in time. Work soothes more than words.
The sound of my girls’ merriment reached me before my hand touched the front-door latch. What a wealth I have in daughters! They are a richness and a comfort beyond measure. Sometimes I think it is the way they flutter around me each night that renews my vigor to return to the relief rooms each day. Cold, sickness, hunger, and deprivation, all of it accompanied by some mix of shame and indignity, anger and bitterness, dominate my daylight hours. To be pampered so after being immersed in the misfortunes of others reminds me that the burdens others carry do not belong to me, no matter how heavily they sit upon my mind.
Aside from my time with my diary each evening, the moments that most soothe me are those, like tonight, when I can gather my girls around me and feast on one of Amos’s letters. When I read his words aloud it is easy to imagine we are together again. This one affected us all more than usual. Christmas, no doubt. A week of ordinary days without him is easier to bear than a single night and day that happens to be marked December 24 and 25 on the calendar.
Still, there is more to it than that. The urge to do and be our best in the face of Amos’s daily sacrifice is irrepressible. I am thankful my girls’ burdens are still so light, that they do not have to bear the added weight I do. Vanity, shyness, and selfishness are all worthy dragons to conquer. Only Jo does not recognize her true burden. The fire in her, what she calls being rough and wild, is not what worries me. I would not tame her of that. The way she flares, though, when something ignites her anger, makes me wince. I have singed too many of the people I love with the sparks of my own temper. Sometimes I believe the flames that burned my face and hand as an infant took up permanent residence within me.
The money I had hoped would arrive in time for the girls’ Christmas was not enclosed in Amos’s letter, but that is of no consequence compared with the gift of his safety. The little books I slipped under the girls’ pillows tonight dovetailed so smoothly with their father’s words that it is as if he and I had chosen them together. It is a comfort to think that our thoughts remain united even with all these miles between us. Nevertheless, I cannot help wishing I could give Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy a brighter Christmas, with treats and baubles that have no other purpose but pleasure. Frivolity is such a lovely decadence, but the rag money goes only so far.
Every day I spend helping the destitute reminds me how fortunate our Family is. We have wants, but no needs. It is hard to find contentment in that, though, when you are as young as my girls are and have never known real need. Especially at Christmas, when the shop windows are filled with all manner of delectable things. My own eyes cannot resist the displays of linen handkerchiefs ringed in whole inches of Brussels lace. Someday, perhaps, there will be time and money for pretty things again.
Tonight, I pray Amos is safe, and that the Lord may spare him a little merriment this Christmas.
December 25, 1861
A day of perfect generosity.
A knock came at the back door while the sky was still gray. A big boy of nine or ten years, yet before I could help myself, I was crouched before him with my handkerchief, wiping the yellow trickle from his nose that had half frozen to his upper lip. “Please, ma’am,” he said, “have you any milk? Mutti can’t get out of bed and the baby is shrieking.”
“On Christmas Day, the baby shall have cream,” I told him, and poured a little pitcher full. His fingers were so stiff and purple that they fumbled as he threaded them through the handle.
“Have you a fire on the hearth to warm that?” I asked. He bit his lip and shook his head.
I whisked my wrap from its peg and put my woolen mitts on his brittle fingers. “I’d like to wish your Mutti a Merry Christmas,” I said, “and bring her some firewood for a present.”
Onto a sledge went half a dozen stout logs and two handfuls of kindling. The boy (his name is Karl Hummel) refused to let me pull it, and shouldered the rope with both hands. A child so gaunt ought to have had the luxury of riding the sledge rather than pulling it, but pride is a precious thing when one has little else, and I would not take that from him.
His feet must have been as stiff as his fingers, the way he shuffled through the snow beside me. As we walked he told me how he had found his way to my door. His mother’s cousin is Mrs. Vogel, who received a Christmas basket this year after the influenza nearly carried off her husband and left him too weak to work. She had two slices of bread to spare for the children, but no milk for the infant. “And how many brothers and sisters do you have, Karl?” I interrupted.
“Five. No, six now.”
Stupid of me not to think to ask while we still stood in my kitchen. Two slices among six children, and what for the mother? His voice drifted almost dreamily as he spoke of the bread, just as Amy’s does when she talks of new drawing pencils or hair ribbons. “You gave your share to the little ones, didn’t you?”
He looked at me as though I were a prophet. “How did you know?”
“A boy who would not let me pull a sledge of firewood is surely generous in other ways, too.”
A little color came into Karl’s face at that. “Frau Vogel said to knock at the back door of the house next to the big stone one,” he said. “She told me the lady there would help.”
“Frau Vogel was wrong to tell you that.”
He stopped so fast, the sledge skidded forward and barked his heels. “But you did help. And you didn’t even ask why the baby is hungry.”
“You are good enough to knock at the front door. Not just mine, but anyone’s.”
He had nothing to say to that, though I could see it affected him. We walked in silence several paces, until I couldn’t help but sing. The sky had turned from gray to silver, with a pale wash of blue spreading upward.
“Ave Maria, Gratia plena
Maria, Gratia plena . . . ”
And then Karl’s voice was alongside mine, reedy and tentative. His German wove in, under, and through the Latin. Together we serenaded the sky and the snow, until our lungs burned and tingled with cold. He smiled then, for the first time.
When we reached his front door, he sobered. He looked at me with a sort of pity, as though he knew that what waited inside would blot out the beauty we had made of the
The dimness made the room feel every bit as cold as the bright outdoors. For a moment I could perceive nothing but the shrieking of the baby. When my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I nearly cried out myself at the sight of the place. It was a scene the likes of which I have only encountered within the pages of Mr. Dickens’s novels. Everything bare and gray, without so much as an ember in the fireplace. Five children, clustered under coats and blankets in a single bed beneath a broken windowpane. Mrs. Hummel in bed, too weak to do anything but cry, and even that she could barely manage. The tears, so thin they could not roll, drizzled down her cheeks. An unmistakable smell pricked at my nose. A glance toward the hearth revealed the culprit—a basket of diapers, unlaundered for several days by the height of the pile.
I crouched down beside the bed, putting one hand on her forehead, the other on the newborn. Her face crumpled in on itself at my touch. She is young—at least ten years younger than I, if not more. Her voice was so weak, so punctuated with sobs, I don’t know whether I would have understood her if she’d spoken in English. Then and there, I resolved to learn a bit of German. French and Latin served me well enough in the classroom, but they have been of no use whatever in the relief rooms. I knew only that Mrs. Hummel was apologizing. Explaining. Pleading with me not to think badly of her. I have seen all kinds of begging, and this is the sort that most distresses me. Of all the many forms of starvation, the hunger for respect is hardest to cure.
The heat of her forehead raised my alarm. If childbed fever had set in, I would soon have seven orphans on my hands. “How long since the baby has fed?”
Karl translated. “Yesterday,” he answered. “She says it hurts too much.” Mrs. Hummel indicated the yoke of her nightdress. I asked with lifted eyebrows, and when she nodded, lowered the neck. Both breasts were hard and distended, with pink swollen patches. That eased the worst of my fears. I had the same, though not half so severely, after Amy was born. My relief needed no translation. I showed Mrs. Hummel the pitcher of cream, and she wept with gratitude.
“I’ll come right back,” I promised her. “Tell her, Karl. Please. With food, and enough firewood to see you through the night.”
Tears scalded my cheeks as I hurried back home. It is perfectly plain that the Hummels have needed help for days, if not weeks. If I could only teach people not to be ashamed of asking for what they need! Every belly deserves to be filled, no matter what sin or folly or misfortune has caused it to be empty.
The smell of frying buckwheat cakes on Hannah’s griddle brought my mind fully out of the Hummels’ house and into my own again. I had walked the whole way home without seeing anything but the inside of my mind. My fists and shoulders unclenched, and I inhaled deeply, unlocking the knot in my stomach. With an effort, I funneled my anger into action. The relief rooms are closed until after the new year; anything I could give to the Hummels had to come from our own larder.
There was easily enough in our stores to cobble together a box of mismatched provisions, but what I wanted was to set those hungry children before a tower of Hannah’s piping hot buckwheats, to see the melted butter and honey dripping from their chins. I could not hope to enjoy my own portion after what I had seen, but mine alone would not suffice for a family of eight.
My girls were all around the table, their faces nothing but eagerness and merriment. Their dresses, which only yesterday seemed on the verge of shabbiness, had become a veritable kaleidoscope of brightness to my eyes.
As I described the state of the Hummels’ home, hope and remorse warred within me. It felt wrong—selfish, almost—to quash my daughters’ gaiety when they bear their own small sacrifices with so little complaint. I knew full well that with every pitiful detail I shared I was making it less and less possible for them to enjoy the meal they had waited for so patiently—not just all morning, but all year. At the same time the desire to show Karl and his family that they are as deserving as we fairly scalded my conscience. After all, if the Hummels were guests at our table we would not serve them what would be least missed from the back of the pantry.
I took a breath and finished in a rush, “My girls, will you give them your breakfast as a Christmas present?”
A wordless cyclone of sympathy and disappointment whirled over them. They would not—could not—say no, I knew that. I had lain a trap they could not wriggle free of. I myself had to repress the urge to squirm as their faces clouded. The only question in my mind was whether they would do it cheerfully, or whether they would silently begrudge me for asking this of them, and the Hummels for needing it.
I had expected Beth’s tender heart to yield first, or Meg’s, but it was Jo who took the lead. Once she did, the others followed as if it were a parade. To see them struggle and overcome it so quickly warmed me through. It warms me still.
To the breakfast basket I added half a dozen jars of broth, the last of the strawberry preserves, a few pounds of potatoes, and a pint of milk. Another load of firewood, heavier this time, was piled upon the sled. My spirits were so buoyed by my girls’ sacrifice, I could not help but sing again as we crossed the snowy fields, and their voices joined mine.
Their jollity flagged in the Hummels’ doorway, just as mine had. We fancy ourselves poor, but this is the first my daughters have seen of true destitution. Meg gave a gasp. Amy needed a nudge to cross the threshold. Jo set her jaw and advanced like a soldier into battle. Beth, for all her shyness, made right for the bed of shivering children as if they were her cradle full of broken dolls.
Soon the children were scrubbed and the diapers were boiling in a great pot over the fire. The little ones looked every bit as delighted by the breakfast as I had hoped.
“Promise me, Karl,” I said as we prepared to go, “that you won’t wait so long to ask for help. Come before your stomach roars and your fingers won’t bend.” He promised. “I will be back every day until the relief rooms open. Come knocking if there is anything you need.”
“At the front door,” he said, with such a roguish little smile that had he been mine, I would have slapped a kiss onto his cheek. Instead I put out my hand for him to shake. He did so with a solemnity that told me he is far older than his years.
Back home, I went upstairs to see what of our cast-off clothing could be spared for the Hummels while the girls prepared for their Christmas play. There isn’t much. By the time a dress makes its way from Meg to Amy, it’s fit only for the ragbag. What I had, left over from better times, would do only for the littlest girls. It tugged at me a bit to take those dainty gowns from the cedar chest, for the ones I had kept back from the ragbag had been my favorites. Nothing at all is suitable for Karl or his brother. They are small enough that perhaps I may be able to patch together a few shirts and pairs of drawers from the set of threadbare sheets I have not made time to tear into scraps.
As I came down the stairs there was a flurry of whispers and shushings, then the piano sang out and four voices cried, “Three cheers for Marmee!”
Their glee came at me so unexpectedly and with such force that I staggered back a step. Meg linked her arm through mine and escorted me to the armchair before I had found my voice. On the table stood a vase of red and white flowers, encircled by green vines and a pile of bundles wrapped in colored tissue paper and bound with hair ribbons. Such a bounty found its way into my lap as I undid the little packages! My speechlessness, which grew with the unveiling of each gift, delighted all four of them. Handkerchiefs, gloves, slippers, and cologne, and not one thing for themselves.
What a roil of emotions came over me then. Amy said it best, clapping her hands victoriously: “Marmee is positively stufipied!” I had not realized all my girls had already given when I prevailed upon them to give up their breakfast. Any one of these presents would have left me stunned with gratitude.
Such generosity gives me hope that they would not begrudge me for all that I have caused them to do without these last ten years. Perhaps they are old enough now to know the truth. If they understood what their small daily sacrifices truly meant, it might be easier for them to bear. My courage always fails me, though. I want so much to be the kind of woman they believe me to be!
