The Healer's Heart by Diane Komp

Author:Diane Komp [Komp, Diane M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-55100-9
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2013-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

Consider the plight of a gentle Quaker schooled in the ways of peace. War has broken out around him, North against South, abolitionists against slave owners. Glory hallelujah. Lucas Tayspill thought truth was on his side. However the only way Lucas knew how to fight for truth was with love.

If I had been a pacifist in 1862, I would rather have lived in Pennsylvania than any other state in the fractious Union. Founded by the Quaker conscience, the Pennsylvania militia understood that Friends weren’t cowards because they chose not to fight. As I’ve reported, Lucas had a possible way out. If in obedience to a higher power than the State he refused to bear arms, he could pay another to take his place. The struggling sailmaker didn’t have the cash, but he did have friends.

When he heard a knock on his door, Lucas opened to find a visitor. “Friend Margaretta, how are thee this glorious day the Lord has made?”

“I am always touched when you greet me as a Friend, dear Lucas.”

The sailmaker laughed and cleared a place for Margaretta Forten to sit. Then he placed a kettle on the fire to make tea for one of the city’s most prominent freedwomen.

“Friend Margaretta, my father spoke so often of thy father’s kindness.”

“God was good to take my father home before the steamer replaced schooners.” Miss Forten took something out of her basket wrapped in a checkered cloth. “These were his favorite at teatime. I made them myself.”

“I am twice blessed, then, Friend Margaretta—thy dear presence and thy dear corn bread. How blessed can a man be?”

He opened the fragrant bundle and saw something besides the corn bread. “What is this?” he asked, picking up a thick wad of bills.

“A gift to a Quaker to render to Caesar,” she answered. He counted the money. “The price of my freedom.” “If your conscience allows friends to help a Friend.”

“Some of us say that a Friend cannot assist Caesar by providing another warrior.”

“And what says your inward light?” she asked.

“My inward Light says that I must thank thee with all my heart but say no.”

Margaretta left the money on the table. “Did our president grant your cousin Eliza an audience?”

Lucas nodded. “He saw her on behalf of all Friends, here and in England. She said he listened with his heart as well as his head. Abraham Lincoln was not certain what he would decide should there be a national conscription, but he is sympathetic to our plight.”

“The Confederates have already passed a conscription bill. With the exception of schoolteachers and a few other professions, all able men will be mustered into their ranks.”

Lucas looked grim. “Friends from Massachusetts bring us dark news from their commonwealth. Men of conscience are treated as traitors and no better than the slaves the militias would fight to free.”

“These are treacherous times, my friend, but stirring ones as well.”

Lucas nodded. “So they are, Friend Margaretta. So they are.”

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