BooksBarbecue
Back Long Remember Save as PDF
Chapters (56)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Notice
  4. Dedication
  5. Note
  6. Introduction
  7. Book One: The Woman and the Buzzards
  8. Chapter 1
  9. Chapter 2
  10. Chapter 3
  11. Chapter 4
  12. Chapter 5
  13. Chapter 6
  14. Chapter 7
  15. Book Two: Elijah’s Army
  16. Chapter 1
  17. Chapter 2
  18. Chapter 3
  19. Chapter 4
  20. Chapter 5
  21. Chapter 6
  22. Chapter 7
  23. Chapter 8
  24. Book Three: The Chambersburg Pike
  25. Chapter 1
  26. Chapter 2
  27. Chapter 3
  28. Chapter 4
  29. Chapter 5
  30. Chapter 6
  31. Chapter 7
  32. Book Four: July First
  33. Chapter 1
  34. Chapter 2
  35. Chapter 3
  36. Chapter 4
  37. Chapter 5
  38. Chapter 6
  39. Chapter 7
  40. Chapter 8
  41. Book Five: Stars Cease to Shine on the Brave
  42. Chapter 1
  43. Chapter 2
  44. Chapter 3
  45. Chapter 4
  46. Chapter 5
  47. Chapter 6
  48. Chapter 7
  49. Chapter 8
  50. Chapter 9
  51. Chapter 10
  52. Chapter 11
  53. Chapter 12
  54. Chapter 13
  55. Bibliography
  56. About the Author

Tyler’s father said, “Yes, lads, he is a captain. Maybe Milo will be a captain some day, if he conducts himself properly.” They began to titter at the Vandercook boy. I bet you never get to be a captain, Milo. I bet you never seen a rebel, Captain Vandercook.

Milo threw a handful of gravel at them. His face was very red. They galloped off, howling. Mr. Fanning put his handkerchief back into his coat pocket—the handkerchief which he had been waving at the receding train. He came over to the carriage. “He is gone, my child,” he said. “We will pray today that no ill may overtake him. And Reverend Solt is going to eat dinner with us.” He climbed wearily into his seat. “They should have let Tyler remain for the duration of his furlough, as promised. This is all a tempest in a teapot. The very thought of an invasion is ridiculous, newspaper twaddle, all of it.”

Irene kept wondering if she had not looked at Ty for the last time. She felt a growing unsteadiness in her throat. He would be killed. She knew it. She was certain. He would be killed. She wondered whether she would marry a second time … Oh, Heavenly Father, she thought suddenly, I am a wicked woman. I am wicked, wicked and evil and heartless. Her hands lay in her lap, weak and cold.

Chapter 2

2.

The wistaria vine hung close to her window. She had loved to think that it was tropical, a female cat-creature more animal than vegetable, holding some watery mystery in its pointed little leaves. All the pendulous orchid tufts were long gone, and now it was a clambering jungle of solid green. The gray snakes of its trunk were hidden below the porch roof; the vine came up without reason or support, the only daring thing which could put its soft paws near Irene Fanning’s window.

It was not like the rest of Pennsylvania, she knew. Not like a small, tight town with good people doing good things, and a very few bad people doing bad things. Nothing was compact or regular or disciplined in its nature … All about her was an oppressive, interlocking existence, and so she loved the vine more than she could say.