Across Five Aprils Read Online Free PDF

inevitably the troubles of the nation began to move into the crowded little kitchen.
    “Will Kaintuck go secesh, Wilse?” Matthew Creighton asked finally, his eyes on his plate.
    “Maybe, Uncle Matt, maybe it will. And how will southern Illinois feel about it in case that happens?”
    No one answered. Wilse took a drink of water, and then setting the glass down, twirled it a few times between his thumb and fingers.
    “It will come hard fer the river states if Missouri and Kaintuck join up with the Confederacy. Ol’ Mississipp’ won’t be the safest place fer north shippin’ down to the Gulf.”
    “That’s true, Wilse. That’s in the minds of a lot of us,” Matthew said quietly. Bill’s eyes were fixed on the yellow light around the lamp chimney; John was studying his cousin’s face.
    “As fer southern Illinois,” Wilse continued, “you folks air closer by a lot to the folks in Missouri and Kaintuck than you are to the bigwigs up in Chicago and northern Illinois. You’re southern folks down here.”
    “We’re from Kaintuck as you well know, Wilse; our roots air in that state. I’d say that eighty percent of the folks in this part of the country count Missouri or Kaintuck or Tennessee as somehow bein’ their own. But this separation, Wilse, it won’t do. We’re a union; separate, we’re jest two weakened, puny pieces, each needin’ the other.”
    “We was a weak and puny country eighty odd years ago when the great-granddaddy of us young’uns got mixed up in a rebel’s fight. Since then we’ve growed like weeds in the spring, and what’s happened? Well, I’ll tell you: a half of the country has growed rich, favored by Providence, but still jealous and fearful that the other half is apt to find good fortune too. Face it, Uncle Matt; the North has become arrogant toward the South. The high-tariff industrialists would sooner hev the South starve than give an inch that might cost them a penny.”
    Then Ellen’s voice was heard, timid and a little tremulous; farm women didn’t enter often into man-talk of politics or national affairs.
    “But what about the downtrodden people, Wilse? Ain’t slavery becomin’ more of a festerin’ hurt each year? Don’t we hev to make a move against it?”
    “Yore own Ol’ Abe from this fair state of Illinois is talkin’ out of both sides of his mouth—fer the time bein’ anyway.” Wilse brought his hand down sharply on the table. “What the South wants is the right to live as it sees fit to live without interference. And it kin live! Do you think England won’t come breakin’ her neck to help the South in case of war? She ain’t goin’ to see her looms starve fer cotton because the northern industrialists see fit to butt in on a way of life that the South has found good. Believe me, Uncle Matt; the South kin fight fer years if need be—till this boy here is a man growed with boys of his own.”
    Young Tom’s face was red with anger, but a warning look from his mother kept him quiet. From the far end of the table, however, John’s voice came, strained and a little unnatural.
    “You hev hedged Ma’s question, Cousin Wilse. What about the right and wrong of one man ownin’ the body—and sometimes it looks as if the soul, too—of another man?”
    Wilse hesitated a moment, his eyes on the plate of food, which he had barely touched during the last few minutes.
    “I’ll say this to you, Cousin John,” he said finally. “I own a few slaves, and if I stood before my Maker alongside one of ’em, I’d hev no way to justify the fact that I was master and he was slave. But leavin’ that final reckonin’ fer the time, let me ask you this: ain’t there been slavery from the beginnin’ of history? Didn’t the men that we give honor to, the men that shaped up the Constitution of our country, didn’t they recognize slavery? Did they see it as a festerin’ hurt?”
    “Some of ‘em did, I reckon,” John answered gravely. “I can’t help but believe