Susanna, don't you cry.”
--Stephen Collins Foster
O Susanna, 1848
* * *
April 1, 1865
Central Alabama
The bright morning sun felt warm on the back of Thomas Wiley Lovejoy’s neck as he walked the last five miles of his two year journey from Pennsylvania. One of those years was spent in a Yankee prison camp before he escaped. This last leg he’d walked all night, too restless to sleep, too eager to return. The road was muddy and rutted from a recent hard rain, but the storm clouds had departed, leaving a downpour of sunshine and a gentle breeze to “breathe encouragement and hope back into all of God’s creatures,” as his grandmother used to say. He even saw a faint rainbow in the sky which left him thinking about the Flood and the Promise. The Great Rescue.
He could hear the gleeful chirping of birds and the gentle lowing of cattle coming from some distant field. No, not some distant field--William Moxley’s place. He knew exactly whose cattle he now heard. His journey had taken him so far away, past so many strange fields filled with strange cattle. He had seen far more in these past two years than in all his twenty-nine years combined. He longed to be back on his tiny farm in Montevallo.
As he walked along he was relieved to see the familiar roads and houses: the broken fence at the Johnson place, the Allbright house, the Stephensen house. He listened contently to the birds singing, feeling the sun's comforting warmth on his neck and back as the chill of the night’s journey lifted from him. He occasionally eyed the beautiful rainbow and was so thankful to finally be home that he thought he might be dead. “This must be heaven,” he thought. “If heaven ain’t like this, well… I just… don’t know.” He stopped short of the thought, lest he risk blaspheming the holy realm of Almighty God and let the thought go like the half-drowned little bird he found on the road through northern Georgia five days ago. “Fly away from here,” he had whispered to it as it left his cupped hands.
Another half hour and he came to the path to the creek; the border to his own small parcel of land. He guessed the time to be around eight a.m. and concluded that Susanna would have been awake since around dawn, so the morning water would have been drawn and the breakfast cooked and eaten. Perhaps there would still be a biscuit for him. Young Thomas would be in school and little Sarah would be scurrying about her mother's flowing skirts, pulling at her apron, begging to be held.
No. That was wrong. That was the family he left two years ago. Young Thomas would not be attending school, but rather attending to the small farm. How he longed to teach his son the family trade and watch as he eventually surpassed his father as a blacksmith. Sarah would now be old enough to feed the chickens and slop the hogs and perhaps sweep with a small broom.
He came to the crossing point. The forrest was dense and dark, illuminated only by the millions of white-and-blood dogwood blossoms, but he found the rains had swollen the creek. He would have to follow the path further to the covered bridge that connected to the main road.
"Maybe breakfast was late today?" he said to no one. He smelled smoke as he continued down the creek path. Maybe he would walk in and surprise his beautiful family as they gathered around the table. What a homecoming! Father walking through the door and the whole lot of them joyously rising from the table and embracing him with open arms and sonorous praise!
He crossed the bridge with a slight trot, then a jog, the sound of his worn boots densely echoing off the wooden sides and roof. By the end of the bridge he was at full speed, rounding the curve and leaping the fence one-handed.
Thomas burst through the overgrown shrubbery and wisteria-covered saplings and came to a full stop. His breathing was already hard from the run, but the sight he now beheld took his breath completely. The house was burnt to the ground.
He stood there unable to fully respond, unable to decide whether it was even true, hoping that this was just another part of the nightmare he had been walking through these last two years. This could not happen! His home was of no use to them. He had no cattle or horses, save the old mare which was of not much use beyond pulling the surrey. She could not bear his beautiful young wife’s weight upon her sagging back anymore, much less bear him colts.
Black smoke continued to rise from the charred remains. He quickly forgot the house; he’d build another. He began to shout her name, but stopped short. They might still be near; might hear him and complete the chase. He returned quietly to the shady thicket and watched, listened, and prayed. The sun continued to grow in intensity and he absently knew this would be a hot day.
Ten minutes and he could wait no more. He did not feel them; could not see any sign of their presence and risked walking out into the hot patch of sun that now framed his destroyed home.
The barn. Maybe they are in the barn, the only other structure on his property. He could see it was still standing, although the hogs were now gone. A couple of chickens continued to walk about, searching for some insect or seed. The silence was eerie, and he knew what he missed; the rooster. His prized rooster that crowed so loudly the neighbors would remark how they had no need of their own with the Lovejoy’s “crower”. He approached the barn and stopped mid-step.
He saw them. He saw them.
On the shaded side of the barn, he saw them: two freshly dug graves, one a little larger than the other, both unmarked. But he knew. He needed no markings for Susanna and Young Thomas. Acid filled his throat and his eyes swelled with tears, the warm fluid streaking down into his beard. His breath left him and he strangled on his cry. His heart was pierced, as sharp and painful and hot as the Yankee round that struck him in Pennsylvania so long ago. A thin stream of saliva escaped his quivering, gaping mouth and his eyes burned from the gray smoke drifting over him in the gentle breeze that caressed his still burning home.
“Sarah,” his mind spoke. But there were two graves. It could be that the small girl was there, buried with her mother, held as closely in death as she was in life, protected from any harm. But he did not feel it. She was alive, somewhere. Somewhere.
He could hear the gleeful chirping of birds and the gentle lowing of cattle coming from some distant field. No, not some distant field--William Moxley’s place. He knew exactly whose cattle he now heard. His journey had taken him so far away, past so many strange fields filled with strange cattle. He had seen far more in these past two years than in all his twenty-nine years combined. He longed to be back on his tiny farm in Montevallo.
As he walked along he was relieved to see the familiar roads and houses: the broken fence at the Johnson place, the Allbright house, the Stephensen house. He listened contently to the birds singing, feeling the sun's comforting warmth on his neck and back as the chill of the night’s journey lifted from him. He occasionally eyed the beautiful rainbow and was so thankful to finally be home that he thought he might be dead. “This must be heaven,” he thought. “If heaven ain’t like this, well… I just… don’t know.” He stopped short of the thought, lest he risk blaspheming the holy realm of Almighty God and let the thought go like the half-drowned little bird he found on the road through northern Georgia five days ago. “Fly away from here,” he had whispered to it as it left his cupped hands.
Another half hour and he came to the path to the creek; the border to his own small parcel of land. He guessed the time to be around eight a.m. and concluded that Susanna would have been awake since around dawn, so the morning water would have been drawn and the breakfast cooked and eaten. Perhaps there would still be a biscuit for him. Young Thomas would be in school and little Sarah would be scurrying about her mother's flowing skirts, pulling at her apron, begging to be held.
No. That was wrong. That was the family he left two years ago. Young Thomas would not be attending school, but rather attending to the small farm. How he longed to teach his son the family trade and watch as he eventually surpassed his father as a blacksmith. Sarah would now be old enough to feed the chickens and slop the hogs and perhaps sweep with a small broom.
He came to the crossing point. The forrest was dense and dark, illuminated only by the millions of white-and-blood dogwood blossoms, but he found the rains had swollen the creek. He would have to follow the path further to the covered bridge that connected to the main road.
"Maybe breakfast was late today?" he said to no one. He smelled smoke as he continued down the creek path. Maybe he would walk in and surprise his beautiful family as they gathered around the table. What a homecoming! Father walking through the door and the whole lot of them joyously rising from the table and embracing him with open arms and sonorous praise!
He crossed the bridge with a slight trot, then a jog, the sound of his worn boots densely echoing off the wooden sides and roof. By the end of the bridge he was at full speed, rounding the curve and leaping the fence one-handed.
Thomas burst through the overgrown shrubbery and wisteria-covered saplings and came to a full stop. His breathing was already hard from the run, but the sight he now beheld took his breath completely. The house was burnt to the ground.
He stood there unable to fully respond, unable to decide whether it was even true, hoping that this was just another part of the nightmare he had been walking through these last two years. This could not happen! His home was of no use to them. He had no cattle or horses, save the old mare which was of not much use beyond pulling the surrey. She could not bear his beautiful young wife’s weight upon her sagging back anymore, much less bear him colts.
Black smoke continued to rise from the charred remains. He quickly forgot the house; he’d build another. He began to shout her name, but stopped short. They might still be near; might hear him and complete the chase. He returned quietly to the shady thicket and watched, listened, and prayed. The sun continued to grow in intensity and he absently knew this would be a hot day.
Ten minutes and he could wait no more. He did not feel them; could not see any sign of their presence and risked walking out into the hot patch of sun that now framed his destroyed home.
The barn. Maybe they are in the barn, the only other structure on his property. He could see it was still standing, although the hogs were now gone. A couple of chickens continued to walk about, searching for some insect or seed. The silence was eerie, and he knew what he missed; the rooster. His prized rooster that crowed so loudly the neighbors would remark how they had no need of their own with the Lovejoy’s “crower”. He approached the barn and stopped mid-step.
He saw them. He saw them.
On the shaded side of the barn, he saw them: two freshly dug graves, one a little larger than the other, both unmarked. But he knew. He needed no markings for Susanna and Young Thomas. Acid filled his throat and his eyes swelled with tears, the warm fluid streaking down into his beard. His breath left him and he strangled on his cry. His heart was pierced, as sharp and painful and hot as the Yankee round that struck him in Pennsylvania so long ago. A thin stream of saliva escaped his quivering, gaping mouth and his eyes burned from the gray smoke drifting over him in the gentle breeze that caressed his still burning home.
“Sarah,” his mind spoke. But there were two graves. It could be that the small girl was there, buried with her mother, held as closely in death as she was in life, protected from any harm. But he did not feel it. She was alive, somewhere. Somewhere.
