John Brown's Women: A Novel by Susan Higginbotham

Author:Susan Higginbotham [Higginbotham, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Susan Higginbotham
Published: 2021-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

13

July 1856 to October 1856

There were worse places one could be in Kansas than in Camp Sackett, Wealthy had to admit. Captain Sackett was a kind man, and although there was an ongoing debate between various governmental officials as to which was obliged to pay for the prisoners’ board, no one went hungry. Friends and sympathizers regularly sent in provisions, so the real danger was that the inmates, with very little to do in the way of physical exertion, might grow plump. Wealthy was spared only because she resumed her school habit of doing calisthenics, much to the amazement of those around her, and because, more conventionally, she suffered another attack of the ague. Each day the shivers came on like a bothersome visitor who hadn’t figured out he was unwelcome.

The treason prisoners had real visitors as well. They fell into roughly three categories: friends and well-wishers, Border Ruffians, and gawkers. The first, naturally, were quite welcome, while the second seldom made it into the camp but were chased off by the captain and his men. The third group came merely to gaze at the traitors, especially the hard-shell abolitionist variety, who in their captive state could be observed with perfect safety to the beholder. John, who had actually stolen a man’s slaves and was said to be crazy to boot, was a particular favorite. Captain Sackett apologized for letting in the gawkers but said that it was necessary in order to appease those who would have kept the prisoners’ friends away as well.

Disagreeable and zoo-like as such visitors’ presence could be, it did provide some diversion. Though the ladies, of course, were not prisoners, they could not escape being seen other than by retreating into their tents, which they scorned to do. Instead, they coolly went around their business. If Wealthy was cooking or working in the little garden she and Johnny had planted, she would don her bloomers, which added to the enjoyment of the guests. At least they weren’t interested in the ladies’ sanitary arrangements, which featured a series of sheets strung between some accommodating trees. Mrs. Robinson had made that her particular concern.

As for John, under Wealthy’s care, he had rapidly regained his physical health, although Governor Robinson, who had been a physician, opined that the injury to his wrists would leave permanent scars. But he still had days when he was listless and despondent, and others on which he was anxious and overtalkative. Still, at other times, he was nearly his old self, and if he was particularly John-like, he would exert himself to argue with the gawkers about the institution of slavery. He even offered to read Mrs. Jenkins’s head.

John and Wealthy fell into the habit of taking a walk to the creek each afternoon. Although it was an undertaking which required an armed sentry to trail along behind them, Captain Sackett allowed them this daily excursion for the sake of Johnny, whom most of the soldiers were inclined to indulge. There, under the

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