One of General Meade’s aides rode back. Hepulled his horse up short and removed his hat. Working by rote, sheheld the cup up to him when he stopped in front of her.
“No, thank you.” He put his hand up, palmout. “The general wishes me to inform you that you need to getunder cover now, miss. He thanks you kindly for your ministrationof water, but he fears the situation is becoming dangerous.” Herode away.
All around her the steady tramp, tramp ofmarching feet, the clanking of bullet pouches and eating utensilsbouncing against men’s bodies, mixed with the dust of the road fromthe dried mud, hanging at knee level. In the distance, men shoutedand horses neighed. The low rumble of distant guns carried on thebreeze. The sun shone from a clear, blue summer sky. She didn’tsense imminent danger, but dropped the cups into the bucket andreturned them to the barn. She hung the pail and proceeded acrossthe farmyard. As she walked, the hair on her neck rose, and despitethe heat, her skin goose pimpled. Remnants of her dream slippedthrough her consciousness. A feeling someone watched her make herway across the farmyard crept over her. She placed one foot infront of the other and steeled herself not to run.
Tillie entered the kitchen. “You’ll neverguess what happened to me just now.”
Beckie stood at a waist high baking table,mixing dough, her hands squeezing and pushing. Flour streaked hernose and cheeks, and bread dough splotched her apron. “Whathappened to you?”
“Well,” Tillie waved a hand toward the road,“three officers stopped at the gate, and one of them asked for adrink of water. General Meade!”
“How do you know? You’ve met the manbefore?”
Tillie stared at her. What had she done todeserve such a nasty response?
“Beckie.” Mrs. Schriver’s brows drewtogether. “What’s the matter with you?”
Beckie shrugged and continued to knead thedough.
Tillie’s gaze went from Beckie to Mrs.Schriver and back again. “Nooo.” Her shoulders drooped. “Thesoldiers told me.” None of the women reacted. She studied eachwoman in the room. “Should I be working in here?”
“There’s no room for you, child.” Mrs.Weikert slapped some dough into a loaf pan to bake. “Hettie andBeckie know what needs doing and what we keep where. You’re betteroff doing what you’re doing.”
“General Meade told me to come inside. Isthere another task I can do?”
They turned at a loud knock on the door.Three officers removed their hats when the women acknowledgedthem.
“Are you the lady of the house?” The leaderentered the kitchen, stopping in front of Tillie.
She giggled.
“I am.” Mrs. Weikert wiped her hands on herapron and stepped from behind the table. “What can I do foryou?”
He turned to her and addressed her with ashort bow. “If you please, ma’am.” He gestured toward thestaircase. “We’d like permission to go up to your roof and take alook around.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Weikert gestured to Tillie.“Take them upstairs and show them where the trap door is.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
They thanked Mrs. Weikert, and then followedTillie to the highest level of the house.
On the third floor, she stopped below thetrap door. She found the pole with which to grab the handle in Mr.and Mrs. Weikert’s bedroom. When the door came down, a ladder slidfrom its mooring. The men scrambled to the roof, pulled out theirfield glasses, and turned in every direction.
Tillie stood at the base of the steps. One ofthem beckoned. “Would you like to join us?”
“Oh, may I?”
“Come on up.”
She climbed the ladder, and when she grabbedtheir proffered hands, they lifted her to the roof. She held tightto their hands until she steadied herself enough to let go. Evenso, her stomach lurched at the dizzying height.
“Don’t look down.” They laughed.
The soldier on her left handed her his fieldglasses. “Tell me what you see.”
She accepted the glasses and put them to hereyes. “How astonishing!” She lowered the glasses and gazed at thefield. She raised them again, took them away, and held them to hereyes again, marveling at the change in perspective. “It’s as if Ican almost reach out and touch things that are, in reality, so faraway.” She put her hand out as if expecting to touch the mangalloping across a field more than a half mile away.
While the men chuckled over her wonderment,Tillie played with the glasses for a long time, fascinated. Shetrained the glasses on one group of men out near Mr. Codori’s wheatfield, adjacent to Mr. Weikert’s property. Uniformed men filled thecountry for miles around. Horses and men hauled artillery piecesfrom one place to another as infantry support formed into a line.Men on horseback rode back and forth gesturing. “What are theydoing?” She focused the glasses toward Mr. Sherfy’s peach orchard,where men in blue formed up and adjusted their weapons.
“Well, they are forming up, preparing forbattle.” One of the observers held his glasses to his eyes andturned in the direction Tillie pointed.
Her smile disappeared, and she removed theglasses from her eyes. “Where are the Rebs?” She raised themagain.
“That’s what we came up here to ascertain.”The officer stood next to her, his glasses trained on the trees,across Emmitsburg Road, on a low ridge to the west. “Can you detectmovement behind those trees?” He faced her in the direction of thestand of trees on a low ridge about a mile away.
“That’s Mr. Pitzer’s property,” she toldthem, as if imparting important information. “Mr. Pitzer won’t likerebel soldiers in his woods.”
“We don’t either,” they teased.
Heat crept up her neck and face. Chastisingherself for saying something stupid, she focused the glasses inanother direction. “And what are those men doing in Mr. Sherfy’speach orchard? Why are they out so far in front of the others?” Shepointed northwest where Mr. Sherfy’s property also bounded Mr.Weikert’s beside the Emmitsburg Road. A solid, straight formationof Union soldiers had advanced from the wheat field and moved intothe orchard, leaving a yawning gap on either side.
The two other men jumped at her question andturned toward the area she indicated. She handed her glasses backto the soldier who loaned them to her and stepped aside.
He put
