“Dis yere piece of rope. But it mighty near wore out and Mister Field say he goin’ beat the next nigger cut off any his rope. Thankee, sah.”
“Now I reckon every hand on the place will have to have red galluses with brass buckles,” snorted the General. “You’re getting measured for shoes tomorrow, George. You wash your feet.”
“Yes, sah, sho will!”
Christmas morning! How few Christmas Days he had ever spent in his own home, Andrew Jackson was thinking. On the march, in cheerless camps with lonely men, in that strange mansion in Pensacola, riding eastward roads through Tennessee to Philadelphia, to Washington. And now perhaps the road eastward lay ahead of him again. He dreaded telling Rachel, rooted as she was to this hillside, fixed as one of the old trees and removed with almost as much agony. She might even refuse to take the road again. He might face more endless months of loneliness. He looked at the little gold-framed miniature that had never been far from his gaze since it had been painted so many years ago.
Rachel’s direct eyes looked from it, her strong mouth was relaxed in a little smile, the lace cap and fichu she wore softened her high brow, where the dark hair curled, her rounded chin. Long earrings gave her an effect of gayety that always made him happy when he studied the picture. She had looked like that once—in Natchez where he had married her, believing her divorced from sadistic Lewis Robards. She needed gayety. She had had too much of responsibility, she had seen too much of sorrow.
Today should be gay. He would have fiddlers in and let the young folks dance. He would open the best wine and make a big bowl of punch. He jabbed his feet into his boots hurriedly, rejecting the heavy braided coat for a lighter hunting jacket of leather.
The house was fragrant with the evergreen Emily had hung about, and there was a comfortable odor of coffee. In the dining room Rachel was bustling about a long table following Hannah who puffed and sputtered at two children who kept diving, squealing, under the table to peer out from beneath the cloth and pinch Hannah’s fat legs.
“Here—here!” barked the General. “You tads leave Hannah alone. Come out of there.”
Instantly the pair, in nightgowns and barefooted, swarmed up his long legs like squirrels.
“Christmas gift, uncle Jackson! Christmas gift!”