Next morning I awakened knowing that it might be too late. Dressing quickly, I opened the kitchen door to hear all the street sounds, waiting for one that might sound like a clattering peddler’s wagon. Pulling down a large basket nailed to a beam overhead, I then found the note that I’d written under a crock on the kitchen table. Hoping that Sarah would receive it and pass it on, I read it once again:
Add white bricks to chimney tops for visitors to see.
Blue army at Richmond awaiting many more to be.
Now’s time to move in by foot and cart. No time to waste.
Make haste, make haste.
Troupe abandoned this little port.
Now —alone —of sort.
Plan to aid the captured dear,
Spring is arriving with gardens here.
She would translate it and know that the white bricks signaled to traveling spies certain safe houses as they had done before for runaway slaves, also that the Union would more than likely be taking Richmond and that although the acting troupe had left town, I was staying on to aid prisoners – my new plan for the duration. I’d have to first work at the adjacent hospital and then make my way without raising suspicions to the Union prisoners next door.
The kitchen’s trap door led to a cold cellar below. There I found a clump of carrots, a few onions, parsley, other herbs, and half dozen new potatoes. Placing the note in a small green bottle and putting it at the bottom of the basket, I covered it with the vegetables and herbs along with a loaf of bread wrapped in a piece of cloth. In a cupboard I found a pot with a detached handle and placed it over the top of the basket. It served as a decoy to get the peddler’s attention, lest anyone be watching us. With the preparation completed, I was ready for a cup of tea.
After filling the kettle and feeding the wood stove, I heard a tinkling sound, matched by a heavy creak of a wooden wagon. A horse neighed indignantly as it meandered up the road, its rider, no doubt, giving it a crop or two on its backside. Several people were up and out early, walking into town, to find their day’s business as the train arrived and left again .
Opening the screen door, I saw a peddler’s wagon approaching. Perching the basket on my hip, I quietly swung open the outer gate as the old wagon slowed down and came to a complete stop. Reigning in two mules, the thick wooden wheels of the tarp-covered cart looked like it had already traveled the Oregon Trail and returned. Pots and pans hung from its sides, and were still swinging from the suddenness of the stop. The mules twitched and chewed at their bits, as if to communicate their dissatisfaction with the whole arrangement.
“Hello mister,” I called to the driver. “I’ve been trying to find someone to fix this old thing,” I said holding up the broken pot. “Could you do that for me or just make a trade perhaps?”
“Just you wait, little missy,” said the driver climbing off his platform. “Let’s go see what I have in the back here.”
The old man hobbled from side to side walking like a rocking horse that had gone askew. His short bowed legs carried him to the back of the wagon that was designed with a hinged plank opening outward. As he passed me, I noticed the large wad of tobacco in his cheeks that bulged up and down as he chewed. Out of his gray stubble on his face, pouches of lined skin framed large brown eyes. I followed him and waited as he initiated the ritual of entering his shop on wheels. Just inside the wagon was a stool that the old man put down on the ground creating a step with which to enter the back of the weathered coach. He pulled himself up with a curved tree branch crudely mounted as a handle to the side of the wagon. A faded red cloth provided the canopy for the cart, which was dark inside except near the back entrance that allowed outside light to enter.
Bending over to take my basket, he offered me his rough hand and helped me up. While my eyes adjusted from the bright morning light outside, I saw that the old man was motioning to me to move farther into the wagon, where there was barely room to stand.
“Here, I’m supposed to give this to you,” he said in a hushed voice, handing me a green bottle, sealed at the top with wax. “This one is for you,” then pulling out a brown bottle he said, “And this one is for the town grocer.”
I thought to myself as a way to remember, brown for Bean. The green bottles were for personal information, the brown for the government’s information. Accepting it, I shook the container and nodded.
Patting the basket I made a request of the peddler. “Please make sure everything gets to the next stop. They’ll move it on to my sister, the small bottle, I mean. The bread and vegetables are a decoy, of course, but you may want them to eat only the way,” I said in a hushed tone.
At the mention of food, a sound came from the wall just ahead of me; a thumping sound, and then, silence. The old man pulled aside a shabby blanket and opened a hatch in a false wall. Just on the other side of the wall I barely made out two black faces, appearing to be a mother and her son.
“I had no idea you were there,” I whispered. I moved a little closer in the darkness and handed the loaf of bread to the woman who nodded.
She whispered, “Thank you ma’am.”
“Are you getting enough air?” the wagon driver asked quietly. With a nod his two secret passengers nodded their heads up and down. “Fine then,” was his reply. Closing the panel, he whispered “We put air holes at the back of my platform. No one could ever find ‘em unless the wagon was torn apart by a cannon.”
Then clanging about with other pots and pans he found an old pot to make the trade look complete and handed it to me just in case someone had been watching us as we climbed out again. In minutes, the covered cart was creaking off. The mules clambered on, resigned to their fate as their master clacked the tight reins against their hides.
With the bottles tucked back in the basket, I returned to the house letting the screen door slam behind me. I shook the bottle again and looked through the glass. Sure enough there was a notes inside. Turning my head, I smashed the bottle in the kindling box and carefully extracted the note. It was in Sarah’s hand. The note read:
Fine here but haven’t heard
Good or ill, please send word.
Must know soon
As I’ll see you when the roses bloom.
Sarah was planning to visit me! She was worried. She hadn’t heard from me and wondered why. But she planned to leave her post and move south to see me sometime in early summer, the blooming time of northern roses. For her, planning a visit must also mean that she had to have practiced away her New England accent. For her sake and that of the rest of us, I hoped so. I certainly hoped so.