Boys of Wartime: Will at the Battle of Gettysburg Read Online Free PDF Page B

prison.
    â€œWe’ve got no call to go in there,” Abel said.
    â€œWhere’s your unit?” I asked. “Won’t they be looking for you?”
    He shrugged. “Not before dark.”
    I expected him to take his leave of me, but he stayed at my side. I didn’t know how to ditch him. For all my high talk, I think he may have saved my life. Then I imagined what Grace’s face would look like when I showed up at home with a filthy, smelly Reb drummer boy. I smiled for the first time since the Rebels rode into town.
    Abel took my smile as an invitation to ask more questions. “Do you live with your ma?”
    I nodded. “My mother and three sisters, one of whom thinks she’s the Queen of Sheba.”
    Abel sighed. “I have two sisters myself, and a little brother. I ain’t seen them but once since the war started up.”
    I didn’t know what to say to that. He got that queer faraway look again.
    â€œMy school is up this way, too,” I told him. “It’s vacation time, though.”
    â€œWe was studying mathematics when the war broke out,” he said. “And I was working on my spelling. Never could spell worth a darn.”
    Should I tell him about my spelling medal? I eyed him for a moment, happy to have something to make me feel superior. But he was so friendly that I didn’t. “Spelling’s a nuisance,” I said. “Too many rules.”
    â€œOne of the fellows in our unit was a teacher before the war. He helped me some. He gave me this.” Abel pulled a small book out of his haversack. Shakespeare’s Sonnets .
    I didn’t ask why the fellow didn’t help him any more. I suspected he was dead, too, like Abel’s father.
    â€œI aim to go back and finish my schooling,” he said firmly. “When the war’s won.”
    I was tempted to ask, won by whom, but I didn’t. I noticed Mrs. Buehler sitting on her front stoop chatting with a couple of the Rebels. Some folks were even feeding the soldiers. Everyone appeared to be downright chummy. But they were the enemy. It made my blood burn, but at the same time I was enjoying talking to Abel. Things were getting awfully confusing.
    I guess Abel could see that. “We’re not going to fight the people here,” he said. “We’re here to fight the Bluebellies. We’ve got no quarrel with you.”
    But I was for the Union. Jacob was in a Reb prison because he was for the Union. Father was in Washington for the same reason. And Abel’s father was dead because he thought the South was right. So we did have a quarrel, didn’t we? The whole business puzzled me to no end.
    I thought about it as we walked up Baltimore Street. Albertus McCreary saw us together as we crossed High Street, and his eyes nearly fell out of his head. He watched me point out the Presbyterian Church as if I was giving a tour of the town. We passed the Pierce house and I showed Abel the tenpin alley in the back of the Shriver house. Ours was just beyond.
    â€œThat’s my house,” I said.
    Abel’s smile disappeared. He looked at the house and then away, shuffling his feet in the dirt again. His shoulders slumped over his drum, and I could see his shoulder blades sticking out like skinny twigs.
    Abel was my enemy. So the next words that came out of my mouth puzzled me more than anything. “Want to stay for supper?”

CHAPTER SIX
    A Rebel at the Supper Table
    W ant to stay for supper?
    The words were hanging in the air, and I half hoped Abel would say no. That he had to get back to his unit.
    â€œMuch obliged,” he said. There was a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.
    I took him through the side yard to the back of the house. Not the thing to do with company, but I didn’t think Mother or Grace would look too kindly on the dirt we’d trek through the parlor. We washed up a bit at the well, but even I could see it would take a