Phoebe bent to crawl out of the Sibley tent at morning reveille and came upon a small surprise: three inches of fresh snow had blanketed the frozen ground during the night. A gray, icy haze hung over the camp, and the mess sergeant was chipping through a layer of ice in the frozen water barrel with an ax. Phoebe fastened all the buttons on her new winter overcoat and hunched her shoulders against the cold.
All around her, the other soldiers huddled together in their long overcoats as they tried to shake off their slumber. Some smoked cigarettes, while others cupped their hands and blew on their fingers to warm them. A few stood near the cook’s fire, waiting to fill their mugs with hot coffee. The snow crunched beneath their boots, and their breath fogged the air as they waited for morning roll call and breakfast.
The camp was starting to feel like home to Phoebe and to look like it, too. She and the other soldiers had fashioned tables and improvised other furnishings from whatever they could find—logs, empty crates, upturned barrels—to make the camp more comfortable. Near the door of her tent, her brand-new .58-caliber Springfield rifle was stacked teepee-style with five of her tentmates’ rifles. The army had finally issued the new weapons, and on this cold December morning the men were going to drill with them for the first time. Phoebe carefully separated hers from the others and brushed off the snow with her bare fingers, wiping it dry on the sleeve of her coat. She would have kept the gun inside the tent with her last night if she’d known it was going to snow.
When the metal was reasonably dry, she stuck the rifle under her arm and shoved her hands in her pockets to warm them. Ted had gone off toward the latrine earlier, and she gazed in that direction until she saw him striding back. He was easy to spot; the sleeves of his new greatcoat hung below his fingertips and the lower hem reached nearly to his ankles.
“Hey, our rifles aren’t going to get rusty sitting out here, are they?” he asked, pushing up his sleeves. “Maybe we should keep them inside with us.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.” She pulled her hands out of her pockets and helped Ted remove his rifle from the stack. He wiped off the snow, then slung the strap over his shoulder so the gun hung behind his back.
“You know, this blasted thing is heavy,” he said. “I’m going to wish I had my fence rail back if they expect us to march with these things all day.”
“You don’t really wish that,” she said, gently poking him in the ribs with her gun barrel. “Can’t shoot Rebels with a fence rail, you know.” She lifted the gun to her shoulder and sighted down its length, aiming into the distant woods and squeezing the trigger. “I can’t wait to try this thing out. How ’bout you?”
“It would be a real treat to shoot it—especially at Johnny Reb. But knowing the army, they’re just going to make us march around in circles with it until we’re too tired to stand up. I’ll bet it’ll be months before they even give us any ammunition.”
“Boy, I hope you’re wrong,” she said, lowering the rifle again.
So far, their schedule in this new camp varied only slightly from the one they’d followed in their first training camp in Pennsylvania. Phoebe and Ted drilled endlessly, sometimes eight hours a day. But now their company of recruits was part of a new regiment—which meant hundreds and hundreds of men marching together, with bands playing and drums pounding and regimental flags waving. Phoebe was starting to hear the tramp of marching feet in her dreams.
Here in their winter quarters inWashington, General McClellan was whipping them into fighting shape. Phoebe often saw him watching their dress parades, riding around on his big black horse or strutting around like he was cock of the roost. The men called him “Little Mac” or “the young Napoleon” because he wasn’t a very big fellow. But they loved their commander, and they were ready to follow General McClellan to the ends of the earth.
Phoebe and the others had learned to form a marching column of four men abreast, then change to two tightly packed battle lines on command. The way they all whirled and twirled at the same time, playing follow-the-leader, reminded Phoebe of a row of baby ducklings following the mama duck wherever she went. They had also learned to tell the difference between twenty-two different drum rolls and thirty-four different bugle calls.
“Once the battle starts,” their commanding officer had explained, “there’ll be so much noise you won’t hear me shouting orders anymore. You have to know what each drum roll and bugle call means and be able to respond to it right away.”
The new routine also included a daily sick call. Phoebe grew worried when hundreds of her fellow recruits took sick with silly kids’ diseases like measles and chicken pox. One of her biggest fears was that she would wind up in the hospital and her secret would get found out, so she kept to herself to make sure she wouldn’t catch anything. This morning there were two more suspected cases of measles, including a man from her own tent. Dozens of men were coughing. One recruit, who had a rag tied around his jaw because of a sore tooth, argued loudly with the sergeant who wanted him to report to the regimental physician.
“Nobody’s pulling my tooth!” he insisted. “We’re starting rifle and bayonet drills today, and I ain’t missing out.”
Ted was so eager to begin that he wolfed his breakfast, then stood beside Phoebe, nagging her to finish. But when they finally fell into formation and began the drills, Ted’s prediction proved all too true. To Phoebe’s great disappointment, they weren’t given any ammunition. All morning long, as the sun slowly burned away the haze and the blanket of snow melted beneath hundreds of trampling feet, the recruits practiced the nine steps required to load and fire their new weapons—with imaginary ammunition.
“Your goal,” Sergeant Anderson told them, “is to load, take aim, and fire three rounds a minute.”
By the time Phoebe marched back to camp for the noon meal, her feet were soaked and frozen. “I think the army’s trying to kill us off and save Johnny Reb the trouble,” she told Ted.
“You know what?” he said wearily. “I wish I’d joined the cavalry or the artillery instead of the infantry. This blasted gun is heavy!”
Sergeant Anderson had warned Phoebe not to ask questions, but when she saw him sitting on a tree stump eating his lunch all alone, she couldn’t help wandering over and asking just one more question.
“Sergeant Anderson? Um, I was just wondering …Please don’t yell, but …when are we gonna get us some target practice?”
“When you see the whites of the enemy’s eyes,” he said without looking up.
Phoebe thought he might be joking, but he bwasn’t smiling.“Won’t that be too late, sir?”
“Nope.” He looked up at her. “You’ll be motivated not to waste ammunition then, won’t you.”
“I guess so. But, sir…?What are we waiting for?”
His reply was one word: “Spring.”
As the calendar changed to a new year, 1862, Phoebe’s regiment crossed the Potomac River into Virginia and pitched their tents on the Rebel General Robert E. Lee’s estate in Arlington.
“Hey, let’s see how he likes that!” Ted said. “We’re camping right on his front lawn.”
“Maybe if he comes by to chase us off, the army will finally give us some ammunition,” Phoebe said.
In spite of all the waiting and drilling and more waiting, she was certain that life in the army beat chasing kids and slaving in a hot kitchen—even if she was right back home in Virginia again. Besides, the monthly wages the government gave her were a sight better than what Miz Haggerty would have paid her. It was kind of hard, sometimes, explaining why she didn’t use the public latrine alongside the others or bathe in the river on mild days, or why she always got up early every morning before anyone else and went off alone. Eventually Ted and her other tentmates got used to the notion that Ike Bigelow was a shy, quiet young fellow who liked his privacy.
In early February, Phoebe’s company was given four days’ rations of salt beef, hardtack, coffee, and sugar and was ordered out on a probing mission into Rebel-held territory. They filled their cartridge boxes with real live ammunition, too. Phoebe was so excited, it was all she could do to stay in formation and march instead of running on ahead to find some Rebels. But as the day wore on, her rifle grew heavier and heavier, her overcoat hotter and more cumbersome, her feet wetter and colder, and her knapsack and bedroll began to feel like someone had stuffed cannonballs inside when she wasn’t looking. What made it even worse, she didn’t see a single sign of the enemy all day.
The winter days were short, so the company halted before sunset to pitch camp in a small pine forest. They cut pine boughs for bedding and gathered wood to build a campfire in the middle of the clearing. By the time the fire was kindled and camp was made, everyone was starved. Phoebe sat down on a log beside Ted and watched as he tried to bite off a piece of hardtack.
“How do they expect us to keep all our teeth when they give us rations like these?” He banged the rock-hard cracker against his tin cup for emphasis, then tackled a piece of the tough dried beef, trying in vain to bite off a piece. “Argh! I think they gave us the hide instead of the meat!”
“I guess I’m gonna try cooking mine,” Phoebe decided. “Good thing I brought along your frypan.”
There had been times today when her pack had felt so heavy she’d wished she could fling the pan into the bushes. Now she was glad she hadn’t. She poured a little water into it from her canteen and set it on the coals to heat, then she took out her knife and began slicing her ration of salt beef into the pan. Ted watched her, licking his lips.
“Hey, Ike …um, do you think…?”
“Yeah, sure. Throw yours in here, too. It’s your frypan.” She handed him the knife when she was finished with it. “Here. Go on and slice the beef up in pieces.”
She could tell pretty quickly that Ted didn’t know what he was doing. When it started to look like he just might slice off one of his fingers, she took the knife back without a word and sliced his beef into the pan herself.
“Thanks,” he said sheepishly. “My mother did all the cooking back home. I never went near a kitchen.”
The meat began to smell pretty good as it cooked, and soon the other men started crowding around to watch. While Phoebe waited for the beef to get tender, she crumbled a piece of hardtack into powder in the bottom of her cup, then added it to the broth so it would thicken into gravy.
“I was thinking,” she told Ted, “maybe if we poured the gravy overtop the hardtack, like it was a biscuit, it might soften up and not taste half bad.”
The other men had grown very quiet. Phoebe finally looked up to see why. Every last one of them was watching her and licking his chops. “How’d you learn to cook like that?” one of them asked.
“Well, after my ma and pa died, it was just my three brothers and me. I either had to learn to cook or go hungry. So I learnt.”
“Do you suppose you’d be willing to cook my rations like that for me?” someone asked.
The last thing Phoebe wanted to do was slave over a hot fire all night cooking for everybody. That’s why she’d left the Haggertys.“Why should I?” she asked.
“I’ll pay you two bits.”
“Yeah, I’ll kick in two bits if you cook mine, too,” another soldier said.
Phoebe thought of all the fancy cakes and other sweets the sutlers sold when they drove around to the camps back in Washington. Ted said their fresh oysters were tasty, too. She just might like to try them.
“All right,” she said. “Two bits each. And whoever carries the frypan tomorrow gets his grub cooked for free.”
They all laughed, and someone gave her a friendly thump on the shoulder. She had let her guard down for once and learned that it was like opening a window just a crack to let in fresh air. By the time they’d eaten their fill, she’d earned everyone’s respect—and had gained new friends.
As night fell, they sat on logs around the campfire talking for a while, their faces bright in its glow. Pine needles sent a shower of sparks swirling upward whenever someone tossed in another branch. The freshly cut wood was damp and unseasoned, and Phoebe’s eyes stung from the smoky fire. Some of the men whittled, others smoked cigarettes; most of them talked about the wives or girlfriends who were waiting for them back home. Phoebe could only listen in silence, wondering what it would be like to have a sweetheart.
The men were all tired from the long first day’s march. After divvying up the sentry duties, everyone turned in for the night. Instead of Sibley tents, each soldier had been given a section of canvas sheeting to use any way he wanted. Some decided to sleep under it like a blanket, others made a lean-to out of it, but most of the men had chosen a partner and fastened two sheets together to make a pup tent.
“Hey, want to hook ours up and make a tent?” Ted had asked Phoebe when they’d set up camp earlier that evening. She had agreed, and together they’d cut two straight tree branches for poles and built a nice-looking little tent. The opening faced the campfire for warmth, and the pine boughs they’d cut made a soft, fragrant bed beneath them.
Now, as she crawled inside the snug little shelter, Phoebe discovered that the cozy space felt very different from sleeping in a big tent full of men. Ted was lying really close beside her, all rolled up tight in his blanket and overcoat. They were alone, just the two of them, and she realized with alarm that her heart was racing like a scared rabbit’s. Was something wrong with her? What if her heart wouldn’t stop pounding this way, and they had to send her back to Washington to see a doctor? What if her heart worked so hard it got all tuckered out and stopped?
As Phoebe’s imagination raced through the terrible possibilities, Ted suddenly gave a contented sigh. She could smell the coffee on his breath and a fresh whiff of pine every time he moved. “Isn’t this just the greatest life, Ike? Being out here, chasing Rebels all day? When I was working as a clerk back home, nothing exciting ever happened. I just sat inside all day, adding numbers.” He paused.“You know what? I don’t think I’ll ever go home.”
“Yeah …I know what you mean.” She felt so strangely breathless she could hardly reply. There was something wonderfully thrilling about the sound of Ted’s soft voice murmuring close beside her in the dark. She wanted him to keep talking like this all night.
“Now, if only I had a sweetheart waiting for me back home, my life would be just about perfect.” He rolled over onto his side to face her. They were inches apart. “Sometimes I can’t help thinking about what it would feel like to hold a pretty girl in my arms, maybe steal a little kiss. Do you ever think about that stuff, Ike?”
Phoebe swallowed. “You sure make it sound nice.”
Her heart was going to thump itself to death. For the first time in her life she wanted to be held by a man, to feel his arms around her. She had never wanted to think of herself as a girl before, had always tried to be just like her brothers. But Ted made her feel different— and very much aware that she was a woman. She didn’t understand it at all.
“Hey, if we get some time off back in Washington,” Ted said, “let’s you and me find us some pretty girls, okay?”
“I don’t know…”
“Why not?”
“I—I don’t think anybody could ever fall for someone like me. I’m such a homely cuss.”
“That’s not true. Whoever said you were homely, Ike?”
“Just about everybody in school back home.”
“Aw, don’t listen to them.” He rolled over again and stared up at the canvas above their heads. “They made fun of me, too.”
“Why would they pick on you? You’re good-looking.”
“No, I’m too short. And I’ve got beaver teeth. Be glad you’re tall. Lots of girls won’t fall for a man unless he’s taller than they are.”
“Well, there’s plenty of short girls in the world. One of them’s bound to fall for you.” She heard a tremor in her voice and wondered what was wrong with her now.
“I’ve made up my mind to come back from this war a hero,” he said, yawning. His voice was growing sluggish with sleep. “All the girls will think differently about me when I come home a hero. You wait and see.”
Ted fell asleep first. Phoebe heard his breathing grow slower and deeper. Milky blue moonlight washed through the open end of their tent, and she lay in the dark and watched him. Her heart finally slowed. Outside, the woods were quiet except for the occasional hiss and snap of the dying fire and the soft murmur of the sentries as they changed shifts. She listened to the rustling whispers of the forest, sounds she’d grown up with and loved. They reminded her of home.
But Phoebe didn’t want to go home. She didn’t have a good friend like Ted back home.
They marched for two days, stopping to camp at night, poking around in the woods during the day as if there might be Confederates nearby. Then, without sighting a single Rebel, they turned around and hiked back to Washington. As Sergeant Anderson had predicted, Phoebe never did find out what it was all about.
“That’s okay,” Ted said. “We got a taste of what war’s going to be like—tramping through the woods, sleeping under the stars at night—and I’m glad I joined up. Aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” she said, remembering how his face had looked in the moonlight. “Mighty glad.”
In the spring, rumors began circulating that General McClellan was going to march his huge army toward the Confederate capital of Richmond soon. Every soldier in Washington grew excited at the prospect. By the time they learned that Union forces had captured Nashville, the men in Phoebe’s company were spoiling for a fight. With spring fever in the air and no Rebels to scrap with, the men began scrapping amongst themselves.
Phoebe had gone off by herself for a walk one evening and was just returning to camp when she saw one of the Bailey brothers, the camp bullies, reach into Ted’s open knapsack when his back was turned and snatch his bottle of Dr. Barker’s Blood Tonic.
“Well, lookee here, Joe,” Luke Bailey said to his brother. “The little fella’s got some liquor he ain’t sharing with us.”
“Hey, that’s my tonic!” Ted said, making a grab for it. “Give it back!”
The Baileys were a beefy, bullnecked pair with a reputation for fighting dirty. Luke Bailey elbowed Ted in the gut, then pulled the cork out of the bottle. “Smells like booze to me.” He took a long swig and let out a hoot. “Tastes like a rusty nail melted down and put in a bottle.”
“Does it have a kick to it?” his brother asked.
“Oh yeah! And he’s got more of them bottles in his pack.”
“Toss me one of them,” Joe said. “I’m thinking I could use some medicine.”
Luke plugged the cork back in and threw the bottle to Joe. Ted tried to defend his belongings, but he was still winded and hurting from the jab to his stomach. Luke stomped his instep and snatched the knapsack from him.
“Give that back!” Phoebe shouted as she hurried over. The bullies had closed in on Ted so quickly that she felt like she was moving through waist-deep mud as she raced to help him.
“You stay out of this,” Luke warned her. “Ain’t none of your business.”
“And that ain’t your bottle or your knapsack. Give them back to him.”
“You gonna make me, big fella?” Luke took a threatening step toward Phoebe, his chin lifted in the air. He was shorter than she was but thickset and muscular. She didn’t like it that his brawny older brother was behind her, where she couldn’t see him.
“Look, I don’t want a fight,” she said.
“Aw, he don’t want a fight,” Luke said, mimicking her.
“We’re on the same side in this war, remember?”
“What war is that?” Luke said. “You seen a war yet, Joe?” The brothers laughed as if she’d told a hilarious joke.
“It ain’t right to go pawing through someone else’s things.” She wished her voice didn’t sound so high-pitched.
“You scared of a fight, big fella?”
“No, but I—”
“Okay, come here and get it, then.” Luke slowly backed away from her, taunting her, dangling the pack by its strap.
As she took a step, Phoebe heard Ted shout, “Ike, look out!”
The warning came too late. Joe Bailey tackled her from behind, slamming her to the ground and knocking the wind out of her. She heard both Baileys laughing as Joe rolled off her and sprang to his feet.
“You know what they say, ‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”’
Phoebe spit dirt from her mouth. Now she was mad. She scrambled up and charged into Luke, butting her head into his ribs like a bull. Surprised, he stumbled backward and fell on his rump, dropping the knapsack. Then she went after Joe with both fists flying. She landed two good blows before taking a punch to her own jaw that made her teeth rattle. That made her furious. If these roughnecks knocked her teeth out she’d be labeled 4-F and she never would get into the war.
Phoebe kept on swinging. She was going to ache all over tomorrow, but she would show these guys. She’d fought against bigger louts—her own brothers. And she’d also taken on all the boys at school who’d called her names and told her she was ugly. After she’d whipped them good they’d grown to fear her.
She gave it back to the Bailey brothers as good as she got it. But she was very surprised when Ted joined in, tackling the younger brother, Luke, slugging and punching him for all he was worth. Phoebe was vaguely aware that a circle of men had gathered around, watching and cheering, glad for a new diversion.
Phoebe heard someone shout, “I’ll bet a greenback on the big yellow-haired guy and his friend.”
“You mean Ike and the little runt?” someone challenged in disbelief. “Never happen. My money’s on the Baileys.”
“I’ll take that bet.”
“Put me down for two bucks on the Bailey brothers.”
“Five on Bigelow.”
She was tiring, but so was Joe Bailey. They pulled back and circled each other, panting. Phoebe waited until he threw a punch, ducked it, then went in fast and scored two punches to his gut that doubled him over. As he clutched his stomach, groaning, she showed no mercy, hitting him in the jaw as hard as she could.
Phoebe’s fists ached. Her knuckles were bleeding from where she’d split them open on Joe’s buttons. Her hand would be swollen tomorrow for sure. She charged forward to slug him again, but he’d had enough. He held up his hands in surrender.
She whirled around to look for his brother and saw him locked in a struggle with Ted. She grabbed Luke by the back of his shirt, peeled him off Ted, and wrestled him to the ground. A few minutes later, it was over. Phoebe had Luke facedown in the dirt with her knee in his back, bending his arm behind him the way her brother Junior had always pinned her.
“You gonna mess with other people’s things?” she asked, panting for breath.
“I reckon not,” he grunted.
She let him up. There was a chorus of groans and cheers from the crowd as money was collected and lost. Phoebe turned to Ted.
“Look at you!” she moaned. The front of his shirt was torn, and blood ran down his chin from a cut in his lip. His right eye was starting to swell, and he would have a shiner tomorrow for sure, but he grinned at Phoebe like he’d just whipped a whole trainload of Rebels. She was relieved to see that his teeth were still all there.
“Hey, that was fun, wasn’t it, Ike?” he said, wheezing. “I never won a fight in my whole life. We make a great team, don’t we?”
Truth was, the Baileys would have beat the pulp out of Ted if she hadn’t helped. But he hadn’t turned tail and run. Ted had jumped right into the thick of things, fighting seasoned brawlers who were a lot bigger than he was, so he had a right to be proud.
“Yeah,” she said with a smile that hurt her own swollen lip. “We make a great team.” Ted looked like he might fall over any minute, so she draped her arm around him to prop him up. They were still congratulating each other when she saw the company captain walking toward them. He was looking right at her.
“Can I talk to you, Bigelow?”
Phoebe suddenly felt more frightened than she had when fighting the Bailey brothers. In defending Ted she had drawn attention to herself—something she’d worked very hard never to do. She stared at the captain, too scared to speak.
“The Baileys started it,” Ted said. “We have witnesses.”
The captain didn’t reply. He motioned for Phoebe to follow him and turned to walk away from all the onlookers. She followed, her knees as weak and wobbly as a newborn calf ’s. When they’d gone a short way, he stopped.
“I was watching you just now, Bigelow. … ”
He knows! He knows I’m a girl!
“You did some mighty fine fighting. You ever do any competitive boxing before?”
“You—you mean a real match?”
He nodded.
“No, sir. Just messing around with my brothers and the kids at school.”
“I’d like you to consider becoming our company champion.”
Phoebe was dumbfounded. She had watched some of the boxing matches the different regiments held for entertainment. The men fought with their chests bared, wearing only trousers.
“Our company has never had a decent competitor to sponsor before. But I really think you have the makings of a champion. It would be great for company morale …and it might even earn you a promotion.”
“I won’t run from a fight, sir. But I don’t get any fun out of it.”
“I can give you a few pointers, help you improve. You’re quick on your feet and strong. You don’t weigh as much as some of the other boxers, but you’re taller and you know how to think on your feet.”
“To be honest, sir, I only got into it tonight because they were bullies. They were picking on someone smaller than themselves.”
“That’s very noble. But wouldn’t it be even more rewarding if there was money involved? You could always use some extra money, couldn’t you?”
“I don’t know. … Why don’t you ask the Bailey brothers? They like to fight.”
“The Baileys lost. To you. Will you at least think about it?”
Phoebe didn’t know how to say no to her commanding officer without making him mad—but she knew that she had to refuse. “I’m really sorry, sir. But I don’t want to fight fellas that are on my side of the war. I want to save all my fighting for the Rebels.”
“All right, Bigelow,” he said with a sigh. “But I think it’s a shame. I think you could be a first-rate champion.”
The ground felt harder and lumpier that night when Phoebe lay in her tent with a bunch of new aches and pains. But whenever she pictured Luke Bailey pawing through Ted’s stuff and the helpless look on Ted’s face, she knew she would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
She stuck close to Ted after that—not that the Bailey brothers would be fool enough to take her on again. But because …well, Phoebe didn’t quite understand the reason why. She thought about Ted all through the day and after lights-out at night in their tent full of snoring men. She wanted to eat all her meals with him and march beside him during drill and sit beside the campfire with him at night, listening to him talk about his family back home in Pennsylvania.
But when he asked her to go to Sunday services with him one spring morning, she stopped dead in her tracks. She sure didn’t like being away from Ted for very long, but the thought of going to church made Phoebe very uneasy, even if services were held in the open air.
“Some say the reason we lost Bull Run was because we fought on a Sunday,” Ted told her. “Now they’re giving us a day of rest, setting up chapels and such. Come with me, Ike. Everybody’s going.”
“Um …no thanks.” She picked up her tin cup and quickly gulped her coffee.
“Why not? You go to church back home, don’t you?”
“Well …not too much.”
Ted dropped his spoon onto his tin plate. “You’re not a believer?You never heard the Gospel?”
“Yeah, I heard it. We had Christmas programs at school with the baby Jesus and all the animals.” She quickly forked food into her mouth, hoping Ted would do the same and forget about all this. He didn’t.
“What about Easter? We’ll be celebrating that pretty soon. You know about Easter, don’t you?”
“Of course I know about Easter. I ain’t a heathen. It’s just …I don’t know.”
“Hey, you have to go to church, Ike. It says so in the Bible and everything.”
Phoebe stared down at her plate, idly tearing her bread into pieces and feeling just as torn. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was make Ted mad at her. But she had a bad feeling that God was already pretty mad at her, and she didn’t want to risk finding out by showing up at His church service. Phoebe knew she wasn’t supposed to tell a lie, yet she was lying every day when she pretended to be a man. Even if nobody else guessed her secret, she figured God knew. But how could she explain this to Ted?
“It was a long way into town from our farm,” she finally said. “And I never liked to go to church because I’d have to wear a—” Phoebe had almost said dress but stopped herself in time. “Uh …shoes …you know. Can’t go to church barefoot, can you? Everybody back home always wore nice Sunday clothes, and I didn’t have any.”
“You’ve got yourself a nice uniform and shoes now. Come with me, Ike. Please? Some fellow from the Christian Commission is preaching today, and I hear they’re giving out care packages afterward.”
Ted kept after her all the way through breakfast, slowly wearing Phoebe down with his nagging until she ran out of excuses. Before she even knew how it had happened, she was walking across the camp with him toward the outdoor chapel. Her uneasiness grew with every step she took.
“Let me ask you something, Ted,” she finally said. “You think it’s true that God reads folks’ minds and knows all their secrets?”
“Sure. And not just their minds, He sees what’s in their hearts, too.”
Phoebe froze.
“Hey, come on. What are you stopping for?” Ted pulled on her sleeve, tugging her forward. “Don’t you want to get a good seat?”
“The preacher back home was always saying ‘God told me this and that.’ Do you think it’s true? Would God tell the preacher all our secrets?”
Ted punched her arm playfully. “Why? You got a secret you’re worried about, Ike?”
Phoebe felt all the blood rush to her face. How had she ever gotten herself into this mess? Now the only way out was to tell more lies. And on a Sunday, no less.
“Naw, I ain’t got any secrets. Back home in Bone Hollow, the town was so small that everybody always knew everybody’s business. There was no such thing as keeping secrets. But sometimes I wondered if God was in on it. Maybe He was telling the preacher stuff about everybody.”
Ted laughed. “You sure get some funny notions. Come on.” He prodded her forward again.
Up ahead, Phoebe saw a little brush arbor with a rustic wooden cross and rows of benches. Beside the chapel was a tent with a sign on it—United States Christian Commission. Three men in civilian clothes were helping the preacher set up a pulpit made out of logs. The spring day was cool and breezy, but Phoebe felt trickles of sweat running down her neck. She halted.
“Now what?” Ted asked with a sigh.
“I’m too tall for them benches. Ain’t no place for my legs to go, and I just know they’re gonna start cramping on me before the time’s up. You go on. I’ll listen from here.”
Ted studied her for a moment. “You’re going to sneak on back to our tent when I’m not looking, aren’t you?” When she didn’t answer he said, “I’m worried about your eternal soul, Ike. You can’t go to heaven unless you know Jesus. Don’t you want to go to heaven?”
“Not until I’m dead. And I’m planning on staying alive for a while.”
Ted’s innocent, boyish expression creased into a frown. Phoebe wanted to take his face in her hands and smooth all the lines away and make him smile again. He had such a nice smile.
“I promise I’ll stand right here and listen to every single word,” she said. But her stomach made a nervous flip as she said it. Ted gave a reluctant nod, and Phoebe watched him saunter forward and sit down. He turned around once to see if she was still there and she gave a little wave.
Phoebe’s mind was a thousand miles away as the service started, and in spite of her promise, she didn’t hear a word the preacher said. She also didn’t notice that one of the men in civilian clothes had ambled up beside her, until he spoke.
“Don’t you want to join all the others, son?” Phoebe nearly jumped out of her skin. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“That’s okay. No, I don’t need to sit. I’m fine where I’m at.”
“I’m Nathaniel Greene,” the stranger said, extending his hand. It had freckles all over it. She looked up at his face and saw freckles there, too. It was a handsome, youthful face—one that every girl back home would probably sigh over. Then she noticed his collar.
“Are you a preacher?”
“I’m an ordained minister, yes.”
Phoebe didn’t like preachers. The one in Bone Hollow had taken her aside after school one day and hollered at her for getting into fistfights with the boys. She’d tried to tell him all the awful things they’d said to make her mad, but he didn’t listen. He’d told her that God had rules she needed to follow, like the rules in school. Then he’d admitted that he was in cahoots with Widow Garlock to get Phoebe out of overalls and into a dress.
Nathaniel Greene must have seen a change in Phoebe’s expression because he quickly added, “But I’m not here to preach. I’m here as a volunteer for the Christian Commission. What’s your name?”
“Ike Bigelow.”
“I just like to talk to people, Ike. Answer any questions they might have about God.”
“Well, I have a question.” Her heart galloped with fear but she needed to know if this man was going to give her away. “Does God ever tell preachers things—secret things—about us?”
“I’m not sure I understand. But if you mean does God talk to me the way you and I are talking, then no. The only way I can learn people’s secrets is if they tell me.”
The preacher probably saw her relief and could figure out that she had a real big secret, but Phoebe didn’t care. At least she could attend services with Ted from now on without worrying too much.
“I don’t hear ‘confession,”’ he continued. “I’m not a priest. But if you need someone to talk to, I’ll gladly listen and keep it confidential.” When she didn’t reply he asked, “Are you Catholic, by any chance? Because there is a priest—”
“I don’t belong to any church. I do believe in God, though,” she added quickly. “I just feel funny in church, that’s all. I don’t belong there.”
“Where do you like to go to be with God?”
Phoebe looked at him in surprise. His expression was kind, his voice gentle. How had he known that she had a special place?
“Well …there was this spot in the woods back home,” she said slowly. “I always used to go there when I felt bad. It was so pretty with the trees and the creek and all. And after a while I’d start to feel …I don’t know …like I wasn’t all alone. I mean, sure there’s animals and bugs and things, but not just them. Someone bigger than them. It was almost like the person who’d made it all was looking at it with me and enjoying all the pretty things He’d made.”
Greene smiled. “It was God.”
Phoebe shook her head. “Naw, the preacher told me that God lives in a church. That’s His house. He said there’s rules we need to follow or God gets real mad. But I don’t belong in a church. And folks in town didn’t much like me being there.”
“Jesus came down to earth for all the people who feel like they don’t belong anywhere,” the preacher said. “In fact, many of the church members of Jesus’ day refused to believe in Him. But He came to help all the outcasts.”
“How did He help them?”
“He loved them. And He died for them. And His death showed them that God loved them, too.”
Phoebe turned away so he wouldn’t see the tears that suddenly filled her eyes. The idea of love was still new to her, and she couldn’t talk about it, couldn’t even think about it. After feeling friendless and unloved for so long, even the feelings she had toward Ted threatened to overwhelm her most of the time.
“You don’t have to take my word for it,” the preacher said. He took out a pocket-sized Bible and paged through it as he talked. “Here’s a story about a man who didn’t belong. And Jesus shocked all the religious people by going to his house for dinner.” He folded down a corner of the page to mark the place, then handed the book to Phoebe. “You can read it on your own when you have time.”
“When do you need this back?”
“It’s yours. You may keep it.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I enjoyed talking with you, Ike. That’s my tent over there. If you have any more questions, you can come see me anytime.”
Phoebe watched Nathaniel Greene stride away, then looked down at the Bible in her hand. She couldn’t believe he had really given it to her to keep. It was the first book she’d ever owned in her life.