Sarah's Ground (9781439115855) Read Free Page A

that moment there was a commotion in theroom. Whisperings, which quickly became an excited buzz.
    All started by the waitress. “Oh dear,” said one young woman, who let her cup clatter into her saucer. She looked at us and said loudly, “The waitress says Virginia has seceded! Oh, we are from Virginia. We must go home! Where is my husband? Oh, I am in a foreign country!”
    And she knocked her teacup off the table in her rush to stand.
    I went to help her. She looked about to faint. I succeeded in quieting her. There were tears in her eyes. “I no longer belong here now,” she said sadly. “Oh, I have never been to a foreign country!”
    When I got back to our table, Miss Cunningham looked at me. “I suppose I don’t belong here either,” she said. “We will leave first thing tomorrow.”
    â€œTomorrow?” I asked.
    â€œWe must shop first. So many things are needed for the house. Why, it doesn’t even have kitchen utensils! And we need curtains for the parlor and library. I was thinking red. What do you think, dear?”
    â€œCurtains?” I was starting to sound like the village idiot. Shop? Virginia had just seceded and people would be wild on the streets outside, and this lady wanted to shop for red curtains!
    And then I pulled myself together and looked the problem in the eye. Miss Semple would have been proud of me. “Of course,” I said, “I think red will be fine.”

    You could see the flowering Judas trees along the riverbanks from the street outside, and because it was spring, there were vendors selling fresh shad from wagons. Everywhere you looked there were soldiers and people scurrying to and fro. Newspaper boys shouted the headlines about Virginia seceding, so the papers must have printed extra editions. There seemed to be a buzz of excitement on the street. The militia was drilling in open spaces. A man in ragged clothes was playing “Listen to the Mockingbird” on a flute. Everything had about it a sense of unreality.
    I wondered if people would take Miss Cunningham for a South Carolinian because of her accent. I worried for her. Then I saw two baggage wagons, piled high with trunks and boxes, rumbling through the street. “Virginians are already leaving,” Miss Cunningham said. But she was not worried.
    With a hand wearing a white kid glove she hailed a hack and we got in. She knew where to go. Our trip took us past the Capitol park, where the horse chestnut blossoms gave out a fragrance, where more militia drilled and regiments of soldiers lounged around on the grass as if no one had ever heard the word
secession
. Another regiment, whose banner said RHODE ISLAND , was watching a wedding.
    â€œThe
Star
wrote about it,” our driver said, slowing downto get a good look. “Says the bride refused to be left at home and came along with the regiment, so they’re getting hitched.”
    The girl wore a cherry-colored satin blouse, blue pants like the rest of the regiment, and a felt hat turned up on one side with a white plume.
    â€œThe world has gone mad,” Miss Cunningham said. “Driver, take the next left. The shop I want is right down that street.”
    The shop had a lot of wares on the walk outside. Some people were buying with a haste that bespoke panic, as if there would be no more goods left when this day was over. We found the red curtains we wanted, and the kitchen utensils, and then Miss Cunningham got some worsted fabric, and the owner told us the store down the street was selling Brussels carpets for a dollar a yard and ingrain carpeting at seventy-five cents. So we went down the street, and she ordered the carpets and had them shipped to Mount Vernon.
    â€œImmediately,” she said, “lest traffic become dangerous on the river. Or they stop the boat to Mount Vernon.”
    There was about the whole affair an air of Christmas. We shopped all afternoon, taking the smaller