Ballad 10 King's Mountain by Sharyn McCrumb

Author:Sharyn McCrumb [McCrumb, Sharyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction & Literature, Family Life
ISBN: 9781250022707
Google: -dPEZUQPePsC
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2013-09-23T21:00:00+00:00

VIRGINIA SAL

“If this is war, I believe I could get used to it,” I said, downing the last of my wine.

In the major’s tent, we had dined upon confiscated beef and roast corn, and I was thinking that this life was a deal better than the one I had left behind. For a servant girl, the work had been hard and the victuals meager. Here, instead of scrubbing and mopping, and helping cook, and doing everybody’s bidding the livelong day, I had only to do a bit of washing, and sewing, which is no more than a fine lady does, for many’s the night back at the plantation, I had caught a glimpse of the mistress, sitting in her chair up close to the fireplace, plying her needle on silks and linens that gleamed in the firelight.

Of course, now I was a mistress, too, but of quite another kind than the planter’s lady.

I don’t say that I loved the major, for I knew myself to be no more to him than his white horse or his china plates—something useful for serving his needs, but otherwise of no account, and easy to replace. Still he didn’t stink, like the cowherds do, nor hit me when he drank, and he was kind to me, when he thought of it. I didn’t mind him, and sometimes I got to thinking I was fond of him, for I knew I’d never have a man like him again, and I resolved to make the most of my days as almost-a-lady. That would end when this war was over, I reckoned, for then he would be posted somewhere else for some other war, but, in spite of all the killing and the laying waste of people’s farms, I wished this war would go on and on.

The major was in a jaunty mood tonight. The men had raided a Whig plantation that afternoon, and, while he said he cared nothing for the spoils of war, he pronounced himself cheered by the thought of having deprived an enemy of his goods.

“I have something for you, Sal,” he told me, when his officers had left us alone in the tent. “One of the men took it from the daughter of the house this afternoon, for he said she was too plain and stout to wear such a thing. He gave it to me, and I suppose it will do for you, my girl, for you are neither stout nor plain.”

He reached into his pocket and drew out a string of green glass beads that glistened in the lamplight like the jewels of a queen.

I reckon I liked him better then.

He fastened the string around my neck, and held up a silver dish so that I could admire my reflection. I squealed with delight at the sight of myself in such finery, for I had never had such a thing before. Then I threw my arms around his neck and declared him the most gallant soldier in all the world.

A

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