When Johnny Came Marching Home Read Online Free PDF Page A

uniform, the two medals he'd earned pinned to his breast. They were simple unit citations, but his parents were obviously proud he had received them and someone had taken care to polish them until they shined brightly.
    It was early evening and the oil lamps were already lit, giving the sitting room a hazy glow. I stood quietly before the bier. Josiah Flood stood beside me. Josiah had been with the three of us throughout the war, assigned as a litter-bearer for the medical unit that followed our regiment into battle. It was one of the more dangerous jobs. Litter-bearers were lightly armed, usually carrying only a pistol, and of necessity they often performed their duties out in the open where they were easy targets for the Rebs. Many Union officers preferred to use Negroes because they considered them expendable.
    After expressing our condolences to the Harris's, Josiah and I bypassed the food that had been laid out for guests and moved to the wide veranda that ran along three sides of the parsonage.
    "Johnny sure is lookin' like a reg'ler hero in his uniform," Josiah said, his words laden with sarcasm.
    I nodded, but said nothing. The air was crisp and cold and, as with any change in weather, I could feel a tingling that seemed centered in my missing arm. The doctors told me to expect it, warning I would even feel pain or muscle spasms where none could possibly exist. When this happened I rubbed the stump and it usually went away, although that was something I refused to do when anyone else was present.
    "There's been some talk about Johnny acting wild since he got back home," I said. "I know you hear things that are being said. You hear anything about that?"
    Josiah smiled and looked out into the night. "Those two years ya spent at the college done made ya sly, ya know that, Jubal?"
    With Doc Pierce's help I had gotten a scholarship to the University of Vermont and had attended for two years before the war broke out. When I returned, despite my father's and Doc Pierce's urging, I found I had little interest in going back.
    "Sly or not, tell me what you've heard."
    Josiah stared at me for several moments. He had grown into a tall, thin, wiry man, with a broad nose and heavy lips that broke into an easy smile whenever something pleased him. He had carried me to safety after a mortar shell had blown me halfway across a Virginia meadow, and I knew without question that I owed him my life. He was also a Negro, and as such someone the good white people of Jerusalem's Landing spoke in front of as though he did not exist.
    "What I heard, or what I seen?" he asked.
    I inclined my head to the side, questioning his response.
    "Ya tellin' me ya ain't heard 'bout Johnny an' my sister Heddy?"
    "Not a word."
    Josiah smiled at me. It was not a warm smile. "Well, maybe ya ain't as sly as I was thinkin'."
    Josiah's sister Heddy was seventeen years old, a plain but pleasant young girl who earned a living doing domestic chores for some of the town's more prosperous families. She was slightly dull-witted and Josiah provided her a room in his small cabin in exchange for some basic cooking and cleaning.
    "Why don't you tell me what you're talking about?" I said.
    Josiah drew a long breath. "It was 'bout two months ago, durin' tha' week when it gots so hot."
    I nodded, urging him to continue.
    "Well, I quit work early, the heat was so bad, and when I got ta my cabin I found Johnny forcin' hisself on my sister."
    "Raping her?" I asked.
    He studied his shoes, then looked up and shook his head. "Ya know Heddy's a bit slow, that it don' take much ta talk her inta anythin'. Well, Johnny, he done talked her inta takin' off her shirt, an' when I gots there he had her up against the back a my ol' shed an' he was runnin' his hands all over her. Weren't no question where he wanted ta go, an' woulda iffen I din' come home early."
    "So what did you do?"
    A slow, unhappy smile formed on Josiah's face. "I throwed his ass offen my sister an' my land."
    "Did you