The Roswell Women Read online

  "No. Not that he doesn't have just cause. It's about two new workers he's hired. We're to train them tomorrow, and I want you to help me."

  "Not if one of 'em is Puckka Knox's little sister. I refuse to have anything to do with that family."

  "No, Caddie is still too young. But you'd never guess in a month of Sundays. One of 'em is Mrs. Forsyth's Rebecca."

  "So what's so special about her? It's not like she's the first black woman at the mill. Hettie's been there as long as I have."

  "But you didn't let me tell you who the other one is."

  "Who?"

  "Mrs. Forsyth, herself."

  "I don't believe it."

  "Neither did I, until Mr. Roche told me for truth."

  Madrigal stared at the woman whose parents had named her for the disaster that had taken place on the day she was born. "I hope this doesn't mean that I'll have to stay any later than usual, Flood. I promised Ellie we'd pick blackberries right after work."

  "That depends on how good a teacher you are, Madrigal."

  "Then let me take Rebecca. At least she's used to workin'. That Mrs. Forsyth will probably ruin the heddles first thing."

  "No, Madrigal. I'm givin' Rebecca to Hettie. You're to help Mrs. Forsyth at the loom. I've made up my mind. And it won't hurt you none when Mr. Roche finds out I've selected you for the job. That might put you back in his good graces."

  "What a merry-go-sorry bit of luck."

  Flood ignored the face Madrigal made. "Be sure you're on time in the mornin'," she warned. "Good night, Madrigal."

  "Good night, Flood."

  The candle sputtered, and Madrigal hurried to get her supper so that she could go to bed on time. If Flood had appointed her as a nursemaid to the mistress of Rose Mallow, then she would have to get plenty of rest for the difficult task ahead.

  Chapter 4

  Like the glow of fireflies caught at twilight, the rare piece of phosphorus took on its magical power as Allison carefully inserted it onto a piece of cotton in the small glass flask. Just as suddenly, the light vanished when she screwed the lid tight and dropped the bottle into the pocket of her dress. She would have need of its light once she reached the bluff along the creek.

  Allison had slept little, but that was not surprising. She was nervous and unsure of herself despite her confidant avowal to Mr. Roche the previous day. Spinning and weaving at home were not the same as working on the water-powered looms in the mill. But she was determined to learn as quickly as possible so that the Frenchman would have no regret in hiring her.

  "Rebecca, are you ready?" Allison asked.

  The woman at the other end of the kitchen looked up from her chore. The beehive oven was still aglow with embers as she opened the lid wide and removed the freshly baked bread with a long-handled spatula.

  "Just as soon as I wrap the hot bread in the napkins, Miss Allison. Then the basket will be ready for you to tote."

  "You're sure you don't mind carrying the baby?"

  "No'm. I'd rather you go first with the light, and I'll follow behind."

  They left Rose Mallow by the same route Allison had traveled the previous day, going past the orchard and walking through the wooded area to the bluffs of the creek. Allison stopped and took the bottle from her pocket. The phosphorus began to glow, making a faint light for the two women with their burdens—the basket containing their food supply for the day and the heavier one holding the sleeping baby.

  They had not gone far when the darkness vanished with a tremendous roar and whistle. The ground shook in protest as the sky lit up with fireworks exploding into exotic designs, their beauty denying the inherent danger of each shell burst. Allison, clutching the small glass flask, hurriedly returned it to her pocket. There was no need now for the dim light provided by the phosphorus. The guns on the mountain had started their onslaught for the day, lighting up the entire path along Vickery Creek.

  "Lord, have mercy," Rebecca murmured, defending the basket containing Morrow as if the guns might snatch the baby from her. "You think we'd better go on back home?"

  Allison stopped and turned her head. "Sherman isn't interested in this little town, Rebecca. He's headed for Atlanta. And he might even bypass Roswell completely. Let's keep going."

  A wary Rebecca followed her mistress through the dense growth, past the road leading into the mill village. Then, they reached the property of the woolen mill, where the women workers were already congregating to wait for the mill doors to open.

  Conscious of the hush that greeted their arrival and the open, curious stares of the workers, Allison searched for some sign of Théophile Roche. But he was nowhere to be seen.

  Finally, a large, heavyset woman stepped forward from the crowd. "Mrs. Forsyth?"

  "Yes?"

  "I'm Flood Tompkins. Mr. Roche told me to look out for you today."

  "Thank you, Mrs. Tompkins. And this is Rebecca Smiley. We'll both be grateful for your guidance."

  "Forget the 'Mrs.' ," the woman said. "Nobody calls me anything but Flood." She frowned as she spoke. But the frown disappeared when Madrigal, late as usual, came into view, sauntering down the trail with a basket swinging from her arm. Flood waited until an unrepentant Madrigal stood before her.

  "Well, here I am, Flood."

  Flood nodded and again faced Allison. "I'm turnin' you over to Madrigal O'Laney here, Mrs. Forsyth. She'll show you how to operate the loom." Then she motioned to the black woman standing a few feet away. "Hettie, take Rebecca. It's time for the mill to start up."

  Walking beside Allison, who now carried the basket containing the baby, Madrigal said, "Flood didn't tell me you were bringin' a brat with you."

  Allison's voice was defensive. "Mr. Roche is aware of her." Then, with a slight smile, she added, "Her name is Morrow."

  The morning's work began, with Allison initiated into the mystery of operating the loom.

  "You got to watch the tension of the warp, Mrs. Forsyth," Madrigal reminded her.

  Allison nodded, throwing the shuttle across and beating it. She watched the even threads, and then the odd lifting up, and kept her eyes on the tension to make sure that the selvages remained even. She continued working, to the steady accompaniment of the guns in the distance. Women stared openly at Allison until Flood forced them to return their attention to their own work.

  At Kennesaw Mountain, where Angus Smithwick of the Georgia Militia had been hidden behind the breastworks for the past two weeks, the Union troops were in a dilemma. The flanking movements, to draw the Johnny Rebs into the open, had met with little success; for they were like foxes in a secure den, protected by an abatis of pines sharpened to prevent anyone from scaling the mountain. But on this day, Sherman had decided to change the battle plans.

  At first, Private Smithwick was not alarmed when he awoke to the reveille of Union guns. He was used to the constant bombardment, to eating his one meal of bacon and hardtack to the midday noise, and to going to sleep at night with the strident lullaby of shells still ringing in his ears. So the morning appeared no different from any other of the past two weeks except that the rain had finally stopped.

  Then in the light of the shellbursts, he saw a solid line of blue running at a steady pace. He couldn't believe his eyes. Sherman's soldiers were advancing straight toward the Confederate lines, jumping over the rifle pits of their own forward line.

  "Jeb, wake up," he yelled to the friend beside him. "The Feds are headin' straight toward us." He grabbed his musket and scampered through the small hole in the abatis to alert the other troops.

  They took up their positions and began to fire, hitting one blue uniform after another. Still, the enemy kept coming, closing up the gaps in the line, taking a few hundred yards at a time, while Angus and the other Confederate troops fought to keep the high ground.

  In a steady advance up the foothill, Federal troops fell right and left. For two solid hours, column after column of soldiers appeared and rushed upward, tearing through the twisted vines and u
ndergrowth that clothed the mountainside, but never reaching their goal.

  "Poor devils," Angus murmured, loading his rifle and firing at will. It didn't seem to matter in which direction he aimed his rifle. The soldiers in blue were like a covey of quails flying straight in front of the hunter's blind.

  In the past few weeks, during the brief lulls when the men, themselves, decided they'd had enough fighting, the forward pickets had gone in for a bit of swapping with the other side. Angus couldn't help but remember his own conversation with a Yank picket just two nights before.

  "Hey, Butternut, you got any tobacco?"

  "And if I do, what'll you give for it?" Angus had asked, used to the name the Feds called him because of the color of his homespun.

  "How about some real Lincoln coffee?"

  "Fair enough."

  Angus had put down his rifle, crawled out of his hole to leave the tobacco and claim his coffee, and then fallen back into his fox's den.

  Now the truce was over. The war had begun again in earnest with three early morning volleys and a constant stream of blue-uniformed men running, falling to the ground, with their places taken up by others to maintain the line. They kept coming, then falling, with the senseless carnage that made Angus sick to his stomach.

  But Sherman was determined to cross the Chattahoochee River, the primary obstacle keeping him from Atlanta. And if he had to sacrifice some of his men, so be it. His armies would not stop except to bury the dead.

  By nightfall, the pendulum had swung in favor of the Union troops. McPherson, one of Sherman's generals, found another way to the Chattahoochee via Marietta, and Johnston's troops, who had fought so well, were forced to evacuate their stronghold on the mountaintop or risk being trapped from the south.

  Interspersed with the retreating troops were groups of civilians using any type of conveyance they could find to transport their few goods acoss the Chattahoochee River. Most of the wealthier families from the area had already gone, removing the bulk of their fine furniture from the mansions and hiding it in small, unpretentious houses that offered no temptation to conquerors interested only in ransacking the finer homes.

  Along the creek, where the giant looms of the mill hummed, a worried Théophile Roche forgot about the two new workers, Allison Forsyth and her servant, Rebecca.

  His mind was on the retreating Confederate soldiers passing through the town. If there were no one left to defend Roswell, then saving the mill from destruction was entirely in his hands. And he couldn't wait any longer to run the French flag up over the woolen mill.

  The whistle signaled the midday break, and a relieved Madrigal turned to Allison. "You can go on outside and eat your lunch now, Mrs. Forsyth. When you come back inside, you'll be on your own."

  Allison was already tired, but she forced herself to smile. "Thank you, Madrigal, for helping me this morning."

  Her words went unheeded. Madrigal had already vanished down the aisle. Walking over to the place where the fretful Morrow lay in her basket, Allison lifted the baby and followed the other workers out of the mill.

  The women congregated under the trees in small, intimate groups to laugh and chat as they ate. Allison searched for a place to herself, secluded from the others, where she could attend to Morrow, who was ravenously hungry and extremely wet.

  It was by the creek, not far from the mill wheel, that Rebecca found her. "I'll take the baby now, so you can eat, Miss Allison. Hettie says we don’t get much time."

  Allison did not hesitate. And she needed no prompting to eat; for like Morrow, she was hungry.

  "Are you getting along well, Rebecca?" she asked as she opened her jar containing the soup.

  "I'd rather be workin' on a loom than carding wool," she admitted, brushing away the lint from her hair and dress. "But what about you? That Miss Madrigal doesn't look like she'd be much interested in helpin' anybody but herself."

  "She evidently thinks I've learned enough to be on my own this afternoon."

  "Well, be real careful, Miss Allison. Those wool threads make your fingers awful sore."

  "I've found that out, Rebecca, And, heaven knows, my hand is sore enough from the thorn," Allison acknowledged.

  As Allison began to eat, Théophile Roche returned to the mill from the office. In his hand, he carried the French flag and, walking by his side was twelve-year-old Puckka Knox, who also worked in the mill.

  "Look, Miss Allison. They're takin' down the Confederate flag," Rebecca said.

  The two watched uneasily as one flag was replaced by another. "That's the French flag," Allison said, recognizing the tricolor of red, white, and blue. "I suppose Mr. Roche is taking precautions in case the enemy tries to burn down the mill."

  A great silence fell over the area along the creek. Only the water rushing over the falls seemed the same. A cloud passed over the noonday sun, an omen that caused Rebecca to mutter under her breath and to hold the baby closer to her breast.

  "If the soldiers do come," the black woman said, "a little piece of cloth flappin' in the breeze ain't gonna protect the mill."

  "But it might stir up an international incident since Mr. Roche is still a citizen of France."

  The whistle blew again, indicating that the short lunch break was over and it was time to start work again. Hurriedly, Allison returned the half-empty jar to the basket and stood up. "I'll wait for you at the footbridge, Rebecca, after work."

  "I wish I could look after the baby this afternoon."

  "No. It's best if I keep her near me. We'll be all right, Rebecca. Truly we will."

  The two rejoined the crowd, while the French flag, with no breeze stirring, hung limply above the Roswell woolen mill.

  Chapter 5

  An uneasiness swept through the air and settled into the low places along the river like haunted, wild mallards searching for evening sanctuary.

  Through the fog, a curious Madrigal O'Laney stood by the covered bridge and watched for some sign of the Confederate rearguard retreating from the mountain. All she heard was the murmuring of water dashing against the rocks off the northern bank of the Chattahoochee River. By placing her ear to the ground, she felt a vibration that signaled that an army might be approaching.

  A few minutes before, she had waved to a man fleeing in a wagon with his life's goods. He was as old as his mules, and a stranger, too. Where he had come from, she had no idea. But one thing was certain. He was headed south, in front of the Army of the Tennessee.

  "I want to go home, Madrigal," Ellie said, tugging at her friend's arm. "It's gettin' dark, and I'm scared."

  "You're as safe here as you are in the village. Safer, maybe. But if you want to go back, it's all right with me."

  "Will you come with me?"

  "No. I want to stay and watch the soldiers go by." Madrigal stood up and reached for her basket of blackberries. As she popped a ripe berry into her mouth, she added, "Mr. Rowdybush said the soldiers in the rear-guard are goin' to burn the bridge after they get across, so the Union troops can't follow."

  "But how will the enemy know that? I mean, they could still come this way."

  "Then they'll have to swim across the river. Or build a new bridge. And you know how long that would take."

  "But—"

  "Quick, Ellie, I think I see someone comin'. We've got to hide." Madrigal ran to a small group of laurel bushes on the bank with Ellie following immediately behind her. "Keep your head down and don’t move."

  Ellie did as she was told, not even scratching where the chiggers had burrowed into her skin, although the itching was something fierce. She shut her eyes, but Madrigal pushed back a small branch of the laurel bush to get a better view.

  Through the mist, the Confederate soldiers appeared in small groups, not at all like an army marching in step to martial music. At first, Madrigal was disappointed; for they were a motley crew dressed in homespun, tattered and mud-stained. A few wore enemy tunics, with the collar and cuffs edged in sky blue, the color signifying the infantry th
ey had just faced at the mountain. Some of the men wore shoes, but most were barefooted. Madrigal didn't see a single foot soldier with boots on; for the lesson had been learned early in the war. Boots were for the cavalry, not for men who marched on foot.

  "Oh, no," Madrigal said, releasing the branch with a snap.

  "What is it?" Ellie whispered.

  "A soldier's headin' straight toward us. He'll find us for sure."

  A terrified Ellie opened her eyes. She saw a soldier with his bayonet probing the nearby bushes. "Please don't shoot," she called out.

  In surprise, Angus Smithwick halted. "Identify yourself," he ordered, peering through the fog and aiming his rifle in the direction of the voice.

  Slowly, Madrigal and Ellie stood up.

  "What are you two doin' here?" he asked in a gruff voice. "You coulda been shot."

  "We were…" Ellie stopped. She looked to Madrigal to finish the sentence for her.

  Eyeing the soldier, who was handsome despite his ragged appearance, Madrigal smiled. "Why we were pickin' blackberries along the riverbank. And when we heard somethin', we thought it might be some of those Yankees comin' down the road, so we hid."

  Angus laughed and lowered his rifle.

  "What is it, Private?" a voice called out to him.

  Angus suddenly turned. "Two young ladies, sir, from the village."

  "Well, tell them to get home immediately."

  "Yes, sir."

  A regretful Angus looked at Madrigal again. "What's your name, ma'am?"

  "Madrigal O'Laney. What's yours?"

  "Angus. Private Angus Smithwick from Resaca." He stared back in the direction of the bridge. "You'd better get goin'. You heard the sergeant."

  "Want some blackberries, Angus?" Madrigal asked, holding out the basket.

  Again he looked in the direction of the sergeant before grabbing a handful. "You think you could bring me somethin' more rib-stickin' to eat in about two hours?" he inquired, wolfing down the berries. "I got to guard the bridge and then set fire to it after everybody has crossed over."

  "We'd be too scared," Ellie replied, "to come back."