“But think of what great things could happen to you, aunt Rachel! Someday you might be one of the greatest ladies in the land.”
“I don’t want to be a great lady.” She held tight to the cold hand he had laid upon her cheek. “I want to stay here and raise young Andy and Andrew Hutchings. I want to see Emily well married and all our people taken care of. I never want to have to go dragging out again to make calls and leave cards and smile till my face aches. I have had enough of that.”
“Just the same I’m going to paint your portrait,” he insisted.
“You paint Emily. She’s filling out, she’s going to be a beauty. The General’s got that little picture of me that Anna Peale painted the year of that New Orleans battle. He carries it around with him all the time, though he wrote to me once and said he didn’t need it, that he had my picture engraved on his heart. Nobody could ask for anything more beautiful than that, Ralph, no woman alive. He wouldn’t engrave a picture of me as I am now, on his heart—an old lady getting fat and out of breath!”
“I think he would,” said Earl. “I think he would prize any picture of you, aunt Rachel, more than his life.”
“He’s coming in,” she whispered. “I must get his bed warm so he won’t cough all night. You’ll have to sleep with Andy tonight. We’ve got a houseful already and more coming. And Ralph, don’t you let the General get notions about rushing off to be somebody important. It’s time he took care of himself.”
“I’ll tell him, aunt Rachel. But you know Andrew Jackson. If any call came from the people to serve anywhere, no one could hold him.”
“No,” she said sadly. “Not even I!”
5
Bugles and drums before dawn had trained Andrew Jackson to waken early. He tiptoed about in the dark, cracking a toe and muttering in irritation, fumbled into his clothes by the lingering glow of a dying fire, not wanting to light a candle and wake Rachel.