All Through the Night by Tara Johnson

Author:Tara Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Christian / Historical, FICTION / Romance / Historical / General
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2021-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

JULY 1862

WASHINGTON, DC

Cadence directed the stewards carrying in yet another wounded soldier. She pointed to one of the few spots left in Judiciary Square Hospital’s overcrowded rooms.

“There. That corner will hold three more men before we’ll be forced to start lining them up in the hallway.”

“Yes, ma’am.” They obeyed, and she paused only long enough to wipe a trickle of sweat from her flushed skin. She’d prayed Washington would be cooler than Oak Grove had been, but when she’d stepped foot on the dock two hours ago, her hopes had been dashed. The heat was enough to nearly make her dive into the Potomac.

Tonight. Tonight she would bathe at her own home and sleep in her bed. A real bed. Not a lumpy bedroll or the unforgiving ground. The past fortnight at Oak Grove had been grueling. Far more taxing than she’d dreamed possible.

She’d just stepped outside the hospital doors to gauge how many more soldiers needed admittance amid the flurry of bustling nurses and stewards when she was suddenly surrounded by a flock of men in suits, all of them brandishing small journals and sharpened pencil stubs.

“Miss Piper? Are you Miss Piper?”

“I am.” She drew back at their inquisitive stares and loud voices.

Yet they pressed in all the more eagerly, circling, their smiles wide, eyes bulging as they scribbled.

“Miss Piper, when did you return to Washington?”

“How long have you been a nurse?”

“What songs do you most often sing to the soldiers?”

She couldn’t breathe. They surrounded her like a pack of wolves. She stepped back and bumped into a warm body.

“Easy now. You’re scaring the young miss.”

She looked up to see Steward Swindle glaring at the lot of them. He tugged his cap low. “What’s all the fuss about?”

A young man with pomaded blond hair and a thick mustache pushed his way forward. “I’m a reporter with Harper’s Weekly. Miss Piper, one of our sketch artists was at Oak Grove and caught you singing to one of the wounded soldiers. He captured your likeness and printed up the story. Here.” He tugged a copy of the periodical from his jacket pocket and thrust it into her hands. “The entire town went wild over it. Rumors have abounded over the woman dubbed the Songbird of the North.”

Mouth dry, Cadence scanned the oily newsprint. Sure enough, there in the middle of the page was her likeness, sketched in pencil as she wept over a dead soldier. Her throat constricted. It was him. The young man who had cried out for his mother, who had rent her heart open with his pleas.

“Don’t you know?” The reporter’s breathless voice startled her back to the present. His eyes were bright. “You’re famous, hailed as a beacon of hope amid the ashes.”

She lowered the paper. “I—I don’t know what to say.”

“Will you answer a few questions?”

The reporters collectively held their breath, pencils poised and ready.

“What would you like to know?”

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