Last in a Long Line of Rebels Read Free Page B

about?” he whispered.
    I shook my head. I didn’t have a clue.
    â€œAre you sure Jimmy heard right?” Mama asked. “You know how things get twisted around in this town.”
    â€œNot this time. He was there when it went to the vote.” The couch groaned as Daddy moved again. “I hate to say it, Lily, but we have to face facts. If Pete Winningham gets his way, this house will be history before the summer’s out.”
    I gasped so loud I was afraid I’d given us away. Benzer nudged me with his elbow, his eyes wide in the flashlight’s glare.
    â€œI don’t understand. Jimmy said the majority were voting our way. He assured us!” My mother’s voice cracked on the last note.
    â€œI guess a couple of people must have changed their minds at the last second.”
    I could hear Mama start to cry. I turned the flashlight off and put my knuckle in my mouth. I was glad Benzer couldn’t see my face.
    â€œLily, please don’t worry,” I heard Daddy say. “We knew this might happen. That’s why I spoke with those Knoxville attorneys. They’ve already agreed to take the case if it comes down to it.”
    â€œBut they said there were no guarantees we’d win, and they won’t even start without the retainer. Where are we going to get twenty-five thousand dollars?”
    I fanned my face with one hand. The tiny room was getting hot.
    â€œI’ve got some things in the shop ready for the Nashville flea market,” Daddy said. “We’ll clean up the yard and sell everything that’s worth anything.”
    Mama was quiet. I guessed she was calculating what all those rusty refrigerators were really worth. We just sold Mr. Otto from Sparta three of the better ones for two hundred dollars, and that was a good deal. I must have been right, because a second later, she started crying again.
    â€œLily, you know we’ve been in tough spots before. We’ll figure something out. We always do.”
    Mama blew her nose. “I reckon you’re right. I still have some art to send out. Maybe I’ll find a rich buyer.”
    Daddy paused. Mama’s art sales had never even covered the cost of her paintbrushes. “We’ll talk about it tonight. Lou’s bound to be back soon.”
    â€œLord, don’t let her find out. She’d plan an assault on the county.”
    He laughed, a short, sharp bark. “That’ll be plan B. C’mon now. Is lunch ready? I’ve never had a problem that your chicken salad couldn’t fix.”
    We sat in the darkness, listening to them leave.
    â€œLou,” Benzer whispered, “we should get out while they’re in the kitchen.”
    I put a shaking hand on the bookcase and pushed it open. Light spilled in, and I saw Benzer’s face, serious and sad. I wondered if mine looked as bad as his.
    We closed the bookcase, and I put the Bible back on the shelf, then we tiptoed to the front door.
    I didn’t trust myself to speak until we’d cleared the porch and walked around the yard, through the wooden gate, and into the junkyard. Luckily, no customers were around. I stopped in the shade of the scrap metal pile.
    â€œLou? Are you okay?” Benzer asked.
    It suddenly occurred to me I should sit down before my legs gave way. I plopped in the dirt.
    â€œLou?” Benzer said again, softly. “What are you going to do?”
    I looked around me at the junk piled everywhere. The back of my house was visible over the wooden fence, and over the roof of my house the top of the old oak that brushed against my window and kept me up at night. I tried to imagine the house gone, knocked down and carted off in dump trucks like the one we owned.
    I shook my head and answered honestly. “I don’t know yet.” But one thing was for sure, I was not about to sit around and let this all become history.

From the diary of Louise Duncan Mayhew
January 1861
    Father has