“Honey,” Mrs. May went on earnestly, “I want to prepare you for what is coming. Remember how rapidly our resources are dwindling and—”
“Our soldiers are the bravest in the world,” April broke in vehemently. “The Yankees can never beat them!”
“That may be true,” her mother admitted, “but they cannot fight without powder for their guns. Think of the shifts we are already put to. Your father has just written me to have the smoke-house floor dug up and boiled for the salt that may be obtained. There is talk of sacrificing the tobacco crop to get the niter in it. Wool is so precious that it is against the law to kill a sheep—and look!” she went on, holding out her slender hands stained with dyes. “In order to barely clothe our people I must work as I never expected to in my life. Of that I do not complain, but do you not see that this cannot go on indefinitely? For a year or two we may manage to exist; but the end is certain. I want you to realize it, my child.”
April trembled for a moment and then with a brave toss of her head she lifted her eyes to her mother’s.
“I’m going to a party and I shan’t cry,” she insisted, struggling with the emotions that threatened to bring hot tears. “We’re obliged to win! We just must! I’ll wear Georgia jeans—I’ll starve for the cause. I would die for it, mother, if it would help us to win!”
It was not sheer bravado that had brought forth this explosion. April was quite sincere in what she said. The cause of the South was right and holy in her eyes and she was ready to meet, with cheerfulness, any sacrifice that might be demanded of her. To doubt for a moment a successful issue of the struggle seemed to her like a confession of disloyalty.
This her mother well understood, but she also had a fuller realization of the issues at stake and the resources of the contending forces.
“My darling April,” she said gently, “I don’t want to spoil your party but it is better that you should learn from me what this proclamation means to the South. You will surely hear more of it tonight, but now it will not come to you as a bitter surprise. Let us drop the matter for the present and I’ll help you into this,” she continued, picking up from the bed a skirt of ruffled pink tarleton. “Harry, light more candles. We’ll be extravagant for once and take a good look at sister in all her finery. It may be the last to run the blockade.”
Harriot sprang to her feet to light an improvised candle which consisted of a corncob wrapped with a twisted wick dipped in resin and wax. As there were no matches to be had she was forced to kindle it from the small fire burning on the hearth.
But, as she stooped, April shook her head decidedly.