Due North to Freedom Read online

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  Later that day, Ryan’s mother moved quickly through the kitchen, holding a platter of freshly sliced cucumbers in one hand and a jug of water in the other.

  “Ryan, where’s your brother? Landsakes, that boy is never around when you want him!” said Mrs. O’Toole.

  Ryan looked up from his book. “He told me that he was going to go down and watch Samuel, the smithy, for a while.”

  “That’s your little brother all over,” said Mrs. O’Toole, shaking her head, “spending half his life in some sweaty, dirty old blacksmith shop. What on earth does he find so fascinating about a blacksmith shop?”

  “I think he like to see the men work with the fire, Mother,” said Ryan.

  “On a day like today? He’ll be coming home all filthy as usual, I expect, if he comes home on time for supper at all. Well, Ryan, you’ve got to go on out and find that boy. I suppose you’ll have to lead him by the hand all the way home just to get him away from that terrible place.”

  “He’ll come all right, Mother,” replied Ryan. “It’s just that he loses track of time and forgets all about us.”

  Mrs. O’Toole smiled weakly. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. But that boy would forget to eat for days at a time if somebody wasn’t leading him by the hand and sitting him down at the table.”

  Just then there was a clatter at the back door and Matthew, breathless, his blonde curly hair in disarray, charged in. He wheeled around quickly, the long, blackened slab of metal in his hands bumping against one of the kitchen cabinets.

  “Am I in time for supper?” he cried, a hint of anguish in his voice.

  “You’re just in time,” replied his mother curtly. As she turned toward her younger son, she eyed the blacken slab of metal, now sitting on the kitchen table. “And what on earth is that?”

  “Why, it’s a sword, of course. Or at least part of a sword. Old Samuel Hayes said I could have it. Said it wasn’t good for nothing,” replied Matthew jauntily.

  “Good for anything, not good for nothing,” corrected his mother. “What will people think of your father if his own sons can’t speak God’s English?”

  “I can speak English,” replied Matthew with a shrug. “It’s just that Samuel said…”

  “I’m sure that Samuel is a perfectly fine blacksmith,” interrupted Mrs. O’Toole, “but that doesn’t mean I want my sons talking like him. And I hope you don’t think for one minute that I will be letting you keep that awful instrument of war in this house!”

  “Oh, mother,” protested Matthew. “It’s not a real sword…I mean, I don’t think anyone’s ever been stabbed with it. It’s just an old broken blade. Samuel says it can’t be fixed.”

  Ryan had been reading, not paying much attention to the conversation, but now he perked up. “Mother, what do you think about the war?”

  “Heavens! Don’t we hear enough about the war? I am certainly not going to be talking about the war all of the time, especially with my own children at the dinner table.”

  “But mother,” protested Ryan, “two officers came to the house today and asked father where he stood on the war. It was like they were trying to get him to say something that he didn’t want to say.”

  “Yes, I heard about that little bit of eavesdropping, young man, and I think you should be ashamed of yourself, carrying on as if you were some sort of sneak thief in the night.”

  “I just thought I should find out what’s going on,” said Ryan. “I thought that maybe father was in some trouble.”

  “Your father is not in any trouble, Ryan,” Mrs. O’Toole replied stiffly. “I can assure you that a vice president of one of the largest banks in Richmond does not get into any trouble.”

  “But the two soldiers kept asking whose side father was on,” pleaded Ryan.

  “What a silly question that is!” his mother responded. “It’s obvious what side your father is on!”

  “It’s not obvious to me,” said Ryan. “What side are you on, Mother?”

  Matthew, who had picked up the sword and was preparing to take it outside, stopped to listen.

  “I’m against all wars, Ryan. You know that. I just wish the Yankees would go home.”

  “But what about slavery, mother?” Matthew chimed in quickly.

  “Matthew O’Toole,” his mother said angrily, “you know that we don’t approve of slavery. Your father is an educated man who is well respected in the community. We’re not plantation owners who have to grow cotton to make a living.”

  “But it’s not just cotton growers who have slaves, mother,” said Ryan. “Mr. Stinson has some slaves working down at the mill, down by the river.”

  “I don’t care what Mr. Stinson does, Ryan,” she insisted. “We don’t own slaves and we never will. Why, way back when I was a child, living not forty miles from here, my family never had slaves.”

  “So you want the Yankees to win the war, mother?” Ryan peered at his mother intently.

  “I want the Yankees to go back where they came from and leave us alone. We have God-fearing people here in Virginia…civilized people…people with a level of refinement that puts the North to shame. I just want the Yankees to go back home.”