Miss Katie's Rosewood Read Free

man also had a gun. On this particular night, no one had been invited along who wasn’t prepared to use it.

T RAGEDY
    2

    A S THE YOUNG WHITE MAN WITH PISTOL IN HAND hurried through the night with his black companion, though he was a newcomer to this place, he knew as well as any of them that the danger approaching was real. He had been in enough tense situations to recognize the urgency and fear in the man Watson’s voice, even though he had never seen him before in his life.
    He had faced danger before. He knew that sometimes danger brought tragic endings. He also knew that out of tragedy unexpected life could blossom. He had experienced such life, yet the path toward it had been a road marked with suffering, pain, and personal grief.
    The very fact that he now carried a gun in his hand was one of the unexpected results of that road of suffering, as well as that unexpected blossoming of life. A gun was the last thing he had expected to become the tool of his chosen profession. For him, his gun was an instrument of peace, to be used if possible for the preservation rather than the taking of life.
    He hoped on this night that he would not have to use it. But if he did, he would be ready to do so to protect this family he had grown to love.
    The road that had led him here had been one he could not have foreseen, would never have chosen, but one for which he had grown quietly thankful. As they ran toward the new house in the darkness, for some reason his sister came to mind and how he and she used to run and play and chase each other long after night had fallen.
    With the image of her face, memories of the past flooded in upon him. . . .
    â€œJane . . . Robert . . .” called his mother from the porch. “It’s dark outside. It’s time to come in.”
    But the twin brother and sister ran on. Jane, older by twenty minutes and the acknowledged leader, raced after her brother along the wide city street where their home was located next to the church. Children will turn any place into a world of play, whether country farm or town, whether house of wealth or squalor. And for these two youngsters, twins and best friends, the crowded city, with its rows of houses, church basement next door, and attic of their own house, was a world of endless delight and adventure.
    â€œJane, Robert!” their mother called again.
    Gradually the chase ended, with Jane the victor as usual. The two ran laughing and perspiring with the jubilation of childhood back to the bright warmth of the parsonage.
    How quickly the years went by.
    Though the two were the same age, by the time they were thirteen, Jane seemed fifteen and Robert eleven. Both were approaching the outer reaches of adulthood. Their oldest sister, Rachel, was already a young woman, being courted by an army officer. In their youthful way, Robert and Jane knew that conflict was engulfing the nation. But they were still too young to realize the implications, or the political ramifications, when their father took to his pulpit in 1860 and preached the sermon that was destined to change their lives four years later.
    That Maryland was almost in the North, and the northernmost Southern state, mattered nothing. It was still a slave state and pro-slavery sentiment was strong. Response had not been altogether favorable among his congregation when their minister took his stand with but a handful of Southern evangelical ministers to denounce the institution of slavery in the strongest of terms. A move had been initiated in the week following the fateful sermon to oust the pastor from his position. But it had not gained much momentum, for he was generally highly thought of, respected, and loved even by those who disagreed with him.
    At thirteen, Robert was old enough to admire his father for his courage. Several days later when the hubbub within the congregation was reaching its height, he announced his intention to follow his father’s footsteps into the