My Vicksburg Read Online Free Page B

Yankees, ma'am," he said. "We'll get 'em there safe. And we'll be back soon's we're finished."
    I begged to be allowed to go. Mama said no. I begged to be allowed to at least say good-bye to Jewel. Mama said no to that, too. I was sent to bed with warm milk, and Mama put something in it to make me sleep. I dreamed it was Sunday morning and Pa and I were riding out early down to the river and the sun was shining and the sky was blue and he was telling me about how it was when he was in Harvard.

Chapter Five
    It was Sammy the cat who woke me the next morning before the dark had even lifted. He climbed on my bed and rubbed his face against mine and purred. Which meant he wanted to go out.
    "Out" from the cave meant he had to be accompanied. I blinked my eyes and sat up to light the candle beside my bed. The cave was filled with the sound of breathing, mixed with the sound I'd heard in my sleep all night, the sound of musket and cannon fire, which I'd become used to by now as one becomes accustomed to the chiming of a grandfather clock in one's own house.
    The shelling is always the most fierce at dawn, Andy had told us. One battery after another opens up. I patted Sammy's black, glossy fur. He was kneading my blanket with his white paws now. Sometimes I thought Sammy was just too smart for his own good. It seemed he had a vocabulary.
    "All right, all right," I told him. "Let me get dressed."
    Quickly I put on my clothes. I'd wear the same dress as yesterday. Amy's mother had told mine that prices were
already outlandish, that a simple calico dress was forty dollars. Mama said we had to ration everything.
    As I laced up my boots I tried to figure out why I had such a thread of deep sadness running through me. What had happened yesterday to make me mourn so? And then, in a flash, it came back.
    Jewel. Gone. The full thrust of it washed over me. Where was she now? Being given breakfast by some Yankee officer? I hoped he would pat her nose and find out how she loved carrots. Oh, I mustn't think of her now. Where would I go this morning with Sammy? And how would I get there? Yes, I'd think of that.
    It came to me then. Thinking of Jewel made me remember it.
    We'd go down to the stream where I used to ride with Pa of a Sunday morning. Why, the blackberries would be out in great plenty by now. I'd pick some. We needed a treat. I know we had enough flour for Mama to make some biscuits. Then, just as I was plotting what I was going to do, a strange thing happened.
    The shelling stopped.
    An eerie silence set in. And then I remembered. Yesterday our General Pemberton had sent out a flag of truce so the Yankees would have a chance to bury their dead soldiers. This must be the agreed-upon time to do the sad task. Good. Sammy and I wouldn't have to worry about the shells for at least three or four hours.
    I told Sammy to come along, and we crept out the
main hall and into the kitchen, where I took up a two-quart pail and then went to the main entrance as quietly as I could, only to see Chip lying there on his back. He was fast asleep, with a pistol that Mama had given him clutched in his hand, which lay across his breast.
    It was an unwritten rule in Vicksburg: People did not give their nigras guns. But somehow, in the face of the siege and living in caves and Pa being gone and everything being turned upside down, the rules didn't stand anymore. So Mama had given Chip a revolver. She and I both had been surprised to see that he knew how to use it.
    He'd told Mama yesterday, "Nobody gonna get in this cave, not while I gots breath left in my body."
    I stepped over him carefully and Sammy jumped over him lightly. And then I picked Sammy up, and taking the same path as Pa and I had taken, we entered the woods and headed down toward the stream.
    And then I saw that something else was going on, something more that qualified under rules that didn't stand anymore. I would not have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes. Something I knew I