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diff --git a/old/65782-0.txt b/old/65782-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 22f68eb..0000000 --- a/old/65782-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2173 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Her Christmas at the Hermitage, by -Helen Topping Miller - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Her Christmas at the Hermitage - A Tale About Rachel and Andrew Jackson - -Author: Helen Topping Miller - -Release Date: July 6, 2021 [eBook #65782] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, Stephen Hutcheson, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - produced from images made available by the HathiTrust - Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HER CHRISTMAS AT THE -HERMITAGE *** - - - - - - HER CHRISTMAS - AT THE - HERMITAGE - - - A Tale about Rachel and Andrew Jackson - - BY - HELEN TOPPING MILLER - - - LONGMANS, GREEN AND COMPANY - NEW YORK · LONDON · TORONTO - 1955 - - LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., INC. - 55 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 3 - - LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. Ltd. - 6 & 7 CLIFFORD STREET, LONDON W 1 - - LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. - 20 CRANFIELD ROAD, TORONTO 16 - - HER CHRISTMAS AT THE HERMITAGE - - COPYRIGHT · 1955 - BY LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., INC. -ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK, OR ANY - PORTION THEREOF, IN ANY FORM - - PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA BY - LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., TORONTO - - FIRST EDITION - - LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 55-9896 - - Printed in the United States of America - - - - - HER CHRISTMAS - AT THE HERMITAGE - - - - - 1 - - -Hannah was fat and her knees were getting stiff. When she had a chance -to rest on the well-polished stool before the fireplace, it was a -groaning misery for her to get up again. Her head, wrapped in a starched -white turban, thrust forward followed by a lunge of her shoulders till -finally her legs could be persuaded to lift her erect. But once on foot -she glared at the black women who giggled in corners, and at toothless -old Moll. Moll had come all the way from Virginia. She remembered the -long terrifying journey down the river to the Cumberland, the Indians, -the hardships. She was privileged. She had no work to do now. - -“You black trash better stir your stumps,” Hannah snapped, “Heap of -company comin’. You, Betty, you put more sage in that dressin’. I raised -them turkeys. Ain’t goin’ to have ’em ruint. Mis’ Jackson, she like her -turkey seasoned high.” - -Betty, narrow-faced and thin-lipped, gave an irritated shrug. But she -did not look about for sympathetic support from the others, from the -heckling tyranny of old Hannah, knowing that it would be nonexistent. -Betty was a pariah on the plantation, holding her place only because she -was the best cook in the county. Last year she had been sent back from -Pensacola for rebellious behavior. It was whispered that she had been -ordered whipped by General Jackson, had escaped that bitter disgrace -because the General’s lady had a heart as soft as butter. No other house -servant at the Hermitage had ever been ordered whipped and the stigma of -her disgrace lay now over Betty’s peaked brows, her bitter mouth. Nobody -ever talked to her, they all shied away from her aura of wickedness. All -but Emily Donelson, Rachel Jackson’s favorite niece. - -“You let Betty alone,” Emily ordered now, looking up from counting out -silver on a long table. “Dilsey, you see that Simmy rubs all these -spoons with fuller’s earth and soda. Let’s see—I count fifty-two. -There’ll be Hutchingses and Hayses, Eastins, Donelsons—we’ll have to set -two tables and the children may have to wait. Has Sary got the napkins -ironed good and stiff?” - -“Sary ironin’ in the washhouse now, Young Miss. She just yelled for Goby -fetch her more charcoal to hot her irons up good.” - -“Hannah, you come along with me while I ask aunt Rachel to unlock the -press. We’ll need all the long tablecloths and they’ll have to be -pressed. I’ll need four more spoons. These are those lovely French ones -uncle Jackson brought from New Orleans. You tell Simmy to be mighty -careful with them, Dilsey. Come along, Hannah. People may begin coming -in today. There’s a lot to do.” - -“Young Master Jack, he comin’?” asked Hannah boldly, grinning at the -bright flush that warmed the young girl’s face. - -Emily, fifteen, imperiously lovely, red-haired, shook her head sadly. -“Uncle Jackson won’t let him come. I think it’s mean. He’s making Jack -stay on in that old law school when he wants to be at home for -Christmas.” - -“Learnin’,” commented Hannah. “It mighty fine. Do Mis’ Rachel read to me -outen her Bible, glory just shine around. And when the General spout big -words out of books I gits shivers up my back.” - -Emily hurried along the bricked way that set the kitchen apart from the -big house. The wind was fresh and keen off the Tennessee hills and she -drew her shawl close around her slender shoulders. In the house huge -wood fires burned in three fireplaces but the hall where the curving -stairs came down was chilly. She opened the dining room door and slipped -inside quickly. - -Rachel Jackson, with a Negro woman helping and a half-grown boy up on a -stool, was getting china down from a high corner cupboard. - -Aunt Rachel was getting heavy, Emily noted, and her breath quick and -short. She gasped occasionally as she bent over the table, counting the -plates the Negress set down, laughing a little as she straightened and -drew a long breath. - -“Law, I must be getting old, Emily. I get so short-winded every time I -exert myself the least bit. I declare these china plates are still the -prettiest ones I’ve got. Not a nick in one of them. That’s because I’ve -always washed them myself. These came all the way from Pittsburgh by -boat. My gracious, that was twenty-seven years ago! Brother Samuel went -all the way up into Kentucky some place with the wagon to meet the boat -and bring the goods to Nashville to your uncle Jackson’s store. Indians -were everywhere too, those days. I was so nervous I couldn’t sleep till -Brother Sam got back and my husband too—he was away off to Philadelphia. -Sam was gone forty six days and my husband gone for two months.” - -“You’ve been alone so much, aunt Rachel. If ever I get a husband I won’t -let him leave me for even one day.” - -Rachel let her breath out slowly. There was that little pain again, that -came sometimes. She used Magic Sanitive Salve faithfully as her husband -directed but it didn’t seem to do much good. - -“When you get a husband he’ll go where duty calls him and you won’t be -able to hold him back any more than any other woman. But it does look as -though duty called Andrew Jackson more than most men and into more -dangerous places. I declare I still like these old plates best of all. -Maybe it’s because they were the first nice things ever I owned.” - -“Uncle Jackson likes the dangerous places,” Emily said. “He wouldn’t -have missed all that Indian fighting and defeating the British at New -Orleans for anything.” - -Rachel pursed her lips. “He didn’t like that business of being governor -of Florida any better than I did. Thank the Lord we got away from that -place! So hot there in Pensacola and all that babble-gabble around you, -all Spanish so you couldn’t tell if they were calling you names or not. -I was mighty thankful to turn my face back towards Tennessee and poor -little Andy was sick every minute we were there.” - -“It was the mosquitoes,” declared Andrew Jackson, Junior, from his high -perch on the stool. “They poisoned me. I can’t help it if my hide is -thin. And all that pepper in the victuals—onions too, and I never could -bear onions. What else do you want from up here, Mama? Nothing left but -soup tureens and teapots.” - -“We’ll need two tureens. Your Papa thinks he hasn’t had anything to eat -unless he has soup. Count those plates again, will you, Emily? My head’s -all in a swivet. As many crowds of people as I’ve fed on this place -you’d think I’d get used to it but I always forget something.” - -Hannah came in then for the tablecloths that Sary would press. Little -Negroes would hold the corners and edges high so that they would not -touch the floor and when the five-yard lengths of damask were glistening -smooth they would be carried in ceremoniously and spread over a spare -bed till Christmas morning. - -Rachel Jackson liked to be proud of her table, and this was Christmas, -the first Christmas that she had had her husband at home with her for -more years than she liked to remember. She walked through the rooms of -her beautiful, new brick house trying not to feel too sinfully proud. -Her new, lovely Hermitage, built under the huge trees exactly where she -had wished it to be looked out upon the fields of the plantation through -windows that in the parlors were curtained with lace. - -Upstairs and in her own big bedroom below were the fine French beds the -General had bought in New Orleans. Seven crates of beautiful furniture -on which the freight bill alone had been two hundred and seventy-three -dollars. Her own bed was elegantly fluted, of mahogany, with high posts, -a mosquito canopy of the finest muslin and a knotted Marseilles -counterpane. - -There was the new sideboard in the dining room too, and in the cellar -gallons of the best brandy, old Madeira, claret and porter, bottles of -bitters in green glass and boxes of candied fruit. The turkeys and -chickens old Hannah had raised so faithfully were fat, and five turkeys -were being readied for roasting now in the kitchen. Rachel paused at a -south window and looked out across the wide lawn, a bit bleak now that -the trees were bare and all the flowers of her garden brown and dead -from frost. The pillared portico made her heart expand with pride. - -A far cry, this palace of a house from the old log blockhouse in which -they had lived for so many years, where she had lain alone for so many -desolate nights, thinking of that audacious firebrand of a man she had -married, that Andrew Jackson who had spent so much of a long life -fighting enemies, red and white. Fighting the Creek and the Cherokee, -fighting the British. Fighting Jesse Benton and young Charles Dickinson, -who had died after that grim, dreadful duel in Kentucky. - -Rachel shut her lips tight, remembering. All for her, that hot-headed -encounter. All for her the bullet Andrew Jackson still carried so -dangerously near to his heart that it could not be removed. Jesse -Benton’s bullet had shattered the General’s arm too, so that he had -carried the arm in a sling through all the Indian war in Alabama. The -arm still ached at night when a cold wind blew. - -A fighting man whose eyes too quickly kindled to blue lightnings, whose -reddish hair seemed to burn with some flame within him that was never -cooled. Her own gentle counsel could damper it down now and then, but -only briefly. Given the provocation, his temper leaped alive like a -drawn sword and he became then, his wife was thinking sadly, as -dangerous and unpredictable as one of those wild stallions that snorted -and charged about the Hermitage meadows. - -The amazing contradiction about him was that in his letters, in their -quiet conversations in the big bright bedroom, he voiced only one -passionate desire: to be able to live on here quietly for the rest of -his days in this home he had built. He yearned, so he had written her so -many times, to be free of wars and politics, answerable to no one but -the call of his heart. Not to Madison nor Monroe nor any other -president. Not to Sam Houston nor Governor Billy Carroll of Tennessee, -nor even to Major John Eaton who seemed, in Rachel’s mind, to be forever -grooming Andrew Jackson for some job or other, always important, always -controversial and inevitably always far from the Hermitage. - -She saw them now, riding up the drive from the muddy road, the General -and John Eaton. Her husband sat very tall and a little gaunt on the -saddle and his gray horse seemed always to sense the mood of his master -and hold his head very high. Andrew Jackson’s hair, graying a little -now, blew wildly over his ears under his beaver hat. His high collar and -stock hid the thinness of his throat. - - * * * * * * * * - -He had been such a skinny lad, Rachel Jackson remembered, when John -Overton had brought him, a stripling lawyer, to her mother’s house on -the Cumberland, in that spring of 1789. And now it was 1823! Where had -the years gone? The Widow Donelson had taken him in, and there in the -house had been Rachel, Rachel Robards then, reconciled briefly to her -violent, unpredictable husband, Lewis Robards, after a separation that -had seen Rachel vilified, discarded, and abused. - -The widow had tried hard to put some meat on that lanky young lawyer’s -frame, but now, thirty-four years and four wars later, he was still too -thin, still coughed too much and was weakened by digestive distresses -from living too long on parched corn and other scanty fare. - -Philip, the horse handler, came running out to take the bridles of the -mounts and even through the windowpanes Rachel could hear her husband -giving Philip orders in his high, arresting voice, the same voice that -had commanded the defeat of General Pakenham at New Orleans, shouted -defiance at Red Feather at Tohopeka and the Spanish governor at -Pensacola. - -Now he came shouting into the house. “Mrs. Jackson! Mrs. Jackson! Where -are you?” - -Never had they called each other by their Christian names. In letters -they wrote, “My dearest.” At home he was the General, to her, or simply -Husband. She was Mrs. Jackson, the woman he honored, adored, had fought -for and would defend fiercely till her last breath. - -“Here, Husband!” She hurried out into the hall where the two men were -handing their damp cloaks to a servant. “Mr. Eaton, you are welcome as -always here. Come in to the fire.” - -“Feels like snow.” John Eaton slapped his gloves against his knee, shook -moisture from his high-crowned hat. “Misting now, but it’s getting -colder. Miss Emily,”—he made a courtly bow as they entered the warm -parlor—“you grow more beautiful every day. How any young man can stay -away from you is a puzzle in my mind.” - -Emily made her curtsy. “You flatter me, sir.” - -“All our girls are pretty,” stated the General, moving a chair near to -the fire for his wife. “It’s the air here on this hill. We keep ’em here -as long as we can, then sometimes we have to let ’em go home to their -mothers, but not for long. Be seated, Mrs. Jackson. You look weary, my -dear.” - -“She is tired,” Emily said. “She’s been putting out dishes and silver -all day, attending to the Christmas dinner. Uncle Jackson,” she began -timidly, “if Jack should ride home for Christmas—” - -“He won’t,” declared the General testily, getting down his long clay -pipe from the mantelpiece. “He won’t because I wrote and gave him his -orders not to come. I told him that the important thing for him now is -to finish his schooling and get admitted to the bar. I’ve raised that -boy.” He filled the pipe and handed it to Eaton. “You smoke that, John. -I like my old corncob best. I raised that boy, Andrew Jackson Donelson. -Going to make a gentleman and a scholar out of him. He’ll have the -chance I never had, he and young Andy.” - -“Jack Donelson is your nephew, Mrs. Jackson?” Eaton drew on the pipe to -which Emily held a spill she had lighted at the fire. - -“My brother’s son. But we’ve had him here with us since he was four -years old. Andy, our adopted son, is my brother Severn’s boy. We took -him four days after he was born.” - -“Twins,” remarked the General. “Severn’s wife was mighty frail and one -baby was all she could nurse. So we took Andy off her hands. All named -after me,” he grinned, “a whole covey of ’em, Donelsons, Hutchingses and -Hayeses.” - -“I must see about supper, Mr. Jackson. You gentlemen will excuse me?” -Rachel got up too quickly and the little pain caught at her and she put -a quick hand to her breast. - -“I’ll go, aunt Rachel, you sit still and rest,” Emily volunteered -quickly. - -“I want her to sit here and listen to my news,” said the General, -thumbing down his pipe. “You too, Emily. Let the women attend to the -supper. About a dozen of ’em around, ought to be able to manage to feed -us.” - -Rachel had turned pale. “Oh, no!” she cried. “Not Pensacola again! Not -another war. I can’t bear it. You said we’d stay at home. Mr. Jackson, -you swore we’d live here in peace in our new Hermitage.” Distress -sharpened her voice, her eyes dimmed, and she dabbed at them nervously -with a corner of her white shawl. - -“Compose yourself, my dear,” comforted her husband. “This news I’ve -brought is exciting. You’ll be pleased. You’re being offered an -opportunity to go where few women have ever gone—American women, -anyway.” - -“But I don’t want to go anywhere,” Rachel almost wailed. “I’ve been to -Kentucky and Florida and Washington and Natchez and New Orleans and I -hated all those places. I just want to stay in my home and I want you to -stay in it with me. Mr. Eaton, we’ve been separated more than we have -been together all these years we’ve been married, Mr. Jackson and I, and -now were both getting old.” - -“Old? You call yourself old, dear lady?” protested Eaton. “Why, the best -part of your life is ahead of you.” - -“It could be,” she sighed, pressing her hands together, strong, -sun-browned hands that had helped to steer a heavy boat down the Ohio -River, that had gripped the rein on many a weary ride through the -wilderness, poured lead into bullet molds when savage enemies howled -outside the stockades, spun thread, planted rosebushes, tenderly -comforted many a child. “It could be,” she repeated, “if only I could -have those years in my home with my husband.” - -The General’s eyes twinkled. He rapped out his pipe on an andiron, -brushed tobacco from his tight, snuff-colored trousers. - -“I’m disappointed in you, my dear,” he bantered. “Here I bring you news -that you could have a chance to cross an ocean and see a new, strange, -fascinating world, and you don’t even want to hear about it.” - -“The ocean?” gasped Emily. “Oh, no, uncle Jackson!” - -Rachel’s face had drained gray. She pressed both hands hard on her chest -where the pain sprang alive, shutting off her breath, making her ears -throb. Eaton half rose from his chair, looking at her uneasily. - -“Stop teasing her, General,” he warned. “Tell her about President -Monroe’s magnificent offer—which you don’t mean to accept.” - -Andrew Jackson took a pose on the hearth, a boyish grin lightening his -long face. Emily drew a breath of relief, laid her hand against Rachel’s -cold cheek. - -“It’s all right. Uncle Jackson is just having one of his jokes.” - -Rachel relaxed a little. “I don’t like jokes,” she sighed. “Not when -they scare me half to death.” - -“But this is a splendid joke, my dear,” insisted her husband. “John and -I laughed about it all the way home—especially we laughed at what -Secretary Adams said about it. President Monroe has offered to send me -as ambassador to Russia.” - -“Russia!” both women cried at once. - -“But you aren’t going, uncle Jackson?” Emily asked when the silence had -stretched too long. “Why, it’s thousands and thousands of miles away! -They have wolves there and snow all the year—I read it in a book.” - -Rachel had never had time to read many books. There had always been too -much to do. Russia was as vague, as far, and as uncivilized as China or -Africa in her gentle mind. She sat rigidly waiting. - -“I am not going to Russia,” announced the General finally. - -“What was it Secretary Adams said?” Emily asked. - -Jackson’s laughter pealed. “When the idea was talked about in Washington -and Monroe proposed to the cabinet to send me over there—to get me out -of the country, my love. That’s his motive and I’m not at all deceived -by the flattering language of the letter of invitation. I know what -James Monroe had in mind. Your husband is a disturbing influence in -these United States. Mrs. Jackson,”—he leaned over and gave her a tweak -on her soft arm—“your husband stirs up fights.” - -“Marches an army in Florida and sets the governor back on his haunches,” -put in Eaton. “Beats a British army with a little handful of farmers and -hunters. And pirates! A dangerous man, Mrs. Jackson. He licked the -Creeks and the Cherokee and made this southwest safe to live in. And -there are some people who are talking around among themselves that -Andrew Jackson ought to be President of the United States.” - -“Well, he can’t be!” said Rachel firmly. “I won’t hear of it. He’s not -strong nor well, you know that, John Eaton. He can’t even eat plain -victuals half the time, and he coughs at night no matter how much salve -I rub on his chest. Besides,”—she got to her feet, smoothing out her -black silk skirt—“I don’t want to live in any palace—anywhere! Not in -Russia. Not in Washington. I’d rather be a doorkeeper in the house of -the Lord than to live in the finest palace ever was.” - -“You haven’t told us what Secretary Adams said,” persisted Emily. - -“It was really a compliment,” Eaton told them, “though I doubt if Adams -intended it that way. He listened to the president’s proposal and -snorted. He snorts very eloquently, the little man. ‘Send Andrew Jackson -to represent this country in the court of the Czar,’ said he, ‘and that -would be the end of peace with Russia!’” - -The girl’s laughter rippled. She flew across the room and kissed the -General’s chin. “You quarrelsome old thing! What a pity they don’t know -you as we know you, that soft heart you carry around under all those -medals—and bristles!” - -He kissed her, then pushed her away, his mouth set firmly. “Flattery -will get you nothing, young woman! I am not going to let Jack Donelson -come home for Christmas. A long trip for a few days’ visit. He spends -too much now, the young rascal. All these youngsters,” he told Eaton, -“think the old man is made of money. Thirteen-cent cotton and shippers -take more than half of that. Sell a fine colt and you get less than the -worth of the hay to raise him.” - -“You shouldn’t have bought all that expensive furniture, Mr. Jackson,” -worried Rachel. “We could have got along with what we had.” - -“We lived in a log blockhouse then. Haven’t you earned a decent bed to -sleep in, my dear, after thirty-two years of putting up with me?” - -“But if the children need the money—” Rachel always spoke of her -numerous nieces and nephews who considered the Hermitage their part-time -home as “the children.” - -“They just think they need it. Including you, my spoiled pet.” He gave -Emily a pinch, ignoring her downcast face. “All spoiled, the whole pack -of you. Young Andy worst of all. Where is that scalawag, anyway? And -where’s supper? Are we supposed to fast till Christmas? I’ve smelled -cakes baking around this place for days and get set down to boiled meat -and hominy. Right now I could eat a hog, tail, squeal, and all.” - -“I’ll see if it’s ready, Uncle.” Emily hurried out. - -The General looked sharply at his wife. “Don’t encourage this -foolishness, my dear! That boy has got to buckle down to his law. Andy -too, as soon as he’s old enough.” - -“Those two—Miss Emily and your nephew—are in love?” asked Eaton. - -“I hope not. After all, they are first cousins.” - -Rachel said nothing. Her gentle face, with the round, firm chin, the -dark eyes that held too often a brooding look under arched brows, grew -thoughtful. Young love could be so beautiful! Oh, she knew! She knew! -Never through all these years of struggle and anxiety and separation had -her own love faltered for this stormy, dynamic, explosive man who was -her husband. His word was law, but even a just law could be harsh when -it bruised what was young and sweet and trusting. - -She went quietly out of the room and John Eaton watched her go, saw a -troubled look darken the General’s long face. A face hewn from a hickory -log, General Coffee had said once, at New Orleans. Only the eyes could -tolerate pain and now they darkened with hurt, following Rachel. - -“A sorrow—a great sorrow that she has no children of her own,” he said. -“All her family—prolific all of them. Her mother bore ten children but -her daughter has none. So she has to mother a whole tribe and suffer -every small disappointment with them. These lads—Andrew Jackson -Donelson, young Andy and Andrew Hutchings are sons to her—to me too. The -problem is that I have to hurt her with my firmness to make men out of -them. Too much softness in the Donelson strain. I have been blessed by -it, but now I must fight against it and defeat it in those boys. It’s -not easy to do, John, not for a man who loves his wife as I love Rachel -Jackson.” - -“You did not tell all your news, General.” - -Andrew Jackson shook his head. “Let her enjoy her Christmas. We’ve had -mighty few of them together.” - -A bell rang outside, and the General looked in dismay at his hands. -“Supper’s ready and I forgot to wash. Come along with me, John. You, -George!” He raised his voice in a shout. “Come here and mend this fire. -Feels like snow!” - - - - - 2 - - -Her room under the eaves of the Hermitage was big and bright. The walls -were covered with paper in a small, gay design; there were ruffled -curtains at the windows. They looked down on the meadow where even on -this chilly morning Andrew Jackson’s mares and colts picked at the -frosty grass, lifting their heads now and then to watch for Philip to -come trudging down from the stables to pour buckets of water and grain -into the feeding troughs. - -Later, Emily knew, every animal would be led back to the barns to be -brushed and polished ready to meet the General’s critical eye. - -The room was chilly. She had not bothered to light the fire laid on the -hearth. She had delayed too long sitting up in her warm feather bed, a -shawl around her shoulders, reading and rereading the letter. It made -her heart beat quickly and her cheeks burn to read it, and when she -pressed it against her heart it seemed to glow there, warming her all -over. - -He loved her! In stiff, formal, slightly legal language he had written -it, plain to see, and the words danced before her eyes and got into her -blood and did pirouettes there like little live things with silver bells -on their feet. Lovely words! She kissed the letter now and then hid it -inside her Bible that lay on the table beside the bed. What a pity that -so much that was beautiful and wonderful must be hidden or face the -chilly breath of adult disapproval! - -“If you marry your own cousin all your children will be idiots,” the -older people said, looking sombre, so desperately certain that they were -right. They were the elders and knew the truth as young people could not -be assumed to know it, not having lived long enough for experience to -lay its cold blight upon them. - -“I gave Andrew Jackson Donelson orders not to come home,” her uncle -Jackson had said. The thrill in Emily’s heart was touched by panic now -as she hurried into her clothes. Her chemise, chilly and crisp, the -cramping stays, the long white ruffled drawers and petticoats. Her -fingers were clumsy with cold and dread as she struggled with the -fastenings. For Jack was coming! Already he was on the way. He must be -riding southward on that road from Kentucky this minute, school left -behind him—forever, the letter said. - -He knew where he was needed, he had written. Aunt Jackson needed him. So -would the General. - -“Circumstances have arisen that will make it needful for our uncle to -have assistance,” ran the letter. “So I shall return to offer my aid and -I hope at that time that it will be proper for me to make my addresses -to your family, my dear Emily, and request your hand in marriage. -Farewell, then, my love, till I enter the gate at the Hermitage.” - -There would be some kind of furious explosion of displeasure from uncle -Jackson, she knew. He would be wrathy at being disobeyed, but her -experience with the tempestuous old warrior led Emily to hope faintly -that eventually he would give in. Especially if aunt Rachel should shed -a few tears. That was his history, storming, shouting orders and -blasting somebody with angry words, then softening instantly if he saw a -look of hurt in Rachel Jackson’s eyes. - -Breakfast, when the General was away, was usually a quiet meal at the -Hermitage. Rachel never slept very well and rose, still and determined, -setting about the multitude of tasks before her, level-eyed and grave. -But when Andrew Jackson was at home there was hubbub. He was always -noisy and impatient in the mornings, eating rapidly, summoning one -servant after another to give orders about the cattle, the horses, the -winter plowing. Negroes hurried in, stood hat in hand listening -obediently. There was bedlam in the dining room when Emily went down on -this morning of Christmas Eve. - -“Mix some bran with the oats for those nursing mares,” uncle Jackson was -barking at Philip. - -“Yes, sah, Mista Jackson. That Truxton filly, she got sore foots. You -want me to put tar and grease on her foots, sah?” - -“Don’t get it too hot. You blistered all the hair off last time. Here!” -Jackson slapped a piece of ham between the halves of a huge biscuit and -handed it to the slave. “Eat that and get moving.” - -“Yes, sah. Thank you, sah.” - -“I need somebody around this place to take some of these chores off me,” -grumbled the General. “You, boy!” He glared at Andrew, Junior, who was -wolfing down a plateful of egg. “You go see to that filly’s feet. Got to -learn. Got to learn some time.” - -Young Andrew’s sensitive mouth jerked and his great eyes looked uneasy. -“It’s raining, Papa,” he protested. - -“It may turn to snow. It felt very raw to me when I went out to the -dairy this morning,” Rachel put in gently. - -“It rained on me at Fort Mimms and Chalmette,” snapped Andrew Jackson. -“You have ridden miles in the rain, my love—so has this fellow! What are -you, son, a lump of salt that a little rain can dissolve you? Or are you -a paper man cut out to dance on a string while somebody picks a banjo?” - -“No, Papa, I’ll go.” The boy hastily wiped his lips. “But Philip won’t -pay any attention to me. He’ll just tell me to keep out of the way of -that mare’s heels.” - -“Make him obey you! How are you going to be master of this place when -I’m gone if you can’t win the respect of the people? I may not be here -much longer. I never thought to live long enough to sleep under this -roof. Put that stuff on your wrist and be sure it’s not too hot.” - -“You’ve been going to die before spring ever since I can remember, uncle -Jackson,” teased Emily, when the boy had gone out. - -“It’s that cold he gets in his chest every time he gets wet,” Rachel -said. “And you get it too and so does Andy.” - -“Let him get toughened up then,” growled the General. “You spoil all -these young ones, my dear. Andy will have heavy responsibilities when -I’m gone. He has to be trained to meet them. I’ve done fairly well with -Andrew Jackson Donelson for all you women trying continually to soften -him up. He’ll make a man.” - -Emily’s heart was a bit happier. Uncle Jackson did need someone to help -him, as Jack had written. She hoped that when Jack arrived, when the -storm of her uncle’s ire had subsided, that the General would welcome -young Jack’s assistance. Inevitably, it was certain, the General would -be off again on some public service or other. He protested, he fumed, -but always, when he was convinced that the call came from the people, he -obeyed, and Rachel would be left alone again with the burden of this big -plantation. - -The slaves were willing but aunt Rachel was too soft with them, as she -was too gentle, by the General’s standards, with the young people who -surrounded her. She was continually protesting the overseer’s decisions, -protecting shirkers and malcontents from punishment. She was too -indulgent with young Andy—a spoiled boy already who, his cousin was -convinced, was never going to learn the value of money. - -Rachel excused herself now and hurried out—to see that the boy was -adequately protected from the weather, Emily suspected. She would wrap -him in coats and scarfs and when he returned from the pasture or the -stable he would be put to bed, his feet soaked in hot mustard water and -a plaster of goose grease and pepper on his chest if he so much as -sneezed. Jack would be out there, seeing to the mares, without being -told, his sweetheart believed worshipfully. Jack would be a great help -to aunt Rachel. - -“I’ll do my own room, aunt Rachel,” she called, as she went back through -the house. “The girls have so much to do today.” - -In the big buttery Rachel turned the keys in her hands anxiously. “I -declare I keep forgetting how many people you counted, Emily.” - -“I counted fifty-two, but with the weather so bad some of them might not -get here. You know how awful the roads get when it rains very long. I -wish it hadn’t rained today. I was going to have the boys cut some -greens for me and decorate the house. There’s a big holly tree out there -beyond the tulip grove covered with red berries.” - -“Send George,” her aunt suggested. “Mr. Jackson gave George his old -oilskin coat and a pair of boots. You could put holly on the -mantelpieces. It would look right pretty but it would dry out mighty -quick, I’m afraid. Emily, do you reckon Mr. Jackson has any idea of -going to Russia? My patience, that would be a terrible place to go!” - -“He said he had refused the appointment, aunt Rachel.” - -“I know. But he refused to be governor of Florida too, and first thing I -knew here I was packing to go to Pensacola. Emily, all I ask is so -little—just to be allowed to stay in my home with my husband and my -family. I don’t suit proud places. Sometimes I feel that Mr. Jackson -must be ashamed of me.” - -“Nonsense, aunt Rachel!” Emily gave the quivering figure a quick hug. -“Uncle Jackson thinks you are perfect.” - -“I wish I wasn’t getting so fat! It shortens my breath so.” - -In her own room Emily quickly made her bed and hung her clothes away in -the big wardrobe. Then she sat at the window again to read her letter. -Words she had passed over lightly before in her happy daze now leaped -out to trouble her. “Circumstances that have arisen,” Jack had written. -A cold kind of prescience oppressed the girl, shot through with a -breathless excitement, as though she had heard a trumpet blow. - -It had come to her that there was always about Andrew Jackson that -atmosphere of great events impending. Always when he seemed most -intimate, familiar and dear, there was a cloak of aloofness shutting him -in, a remote and dedicated sort of mystery. As though even when he was -thinking homely thoughts—a lame mare, a fire that needed replenishing—he -was listening to some far, calling drum. As though never could he belong -entirely to this Hermitage, this woman that he loved, the young people -he scolded and indulged impartially. Emily was very young and a trifle -naïve, but there was a wisdom deep in her that recognized the destiny -that cloaked this man she loved like a garment of silver, and her young -mind dreaded it even while it thrilled her. - -She remembered John Eaton’s words, that people were saying that Andrew -Jackson should be President of the United States. She remembered, too, -aunt Rachel’s positive declaration that this he could not be! No palaces -for her, she had announced—but had there been a tinge of desperation in -that declaration? Did aunt Rachel feel the pressure of destiny too, that -remote glory that invested her man on horseback? - -It would be exciting, Emily was thinking, to live in that new -president’s palace in Washington. The British had burned it in -retaliation for the sack of Toronto by the American forces, but it had -been rebuilt, finer than ever, she had heard, and now it was as -important as Buckingham Palace. Aunt Rachel had no wish to be a queen in -a palace. Only too well Emily knew that aunt Rachel would be an unhappy -queen. - -“But I would love it!” she said suddenly aloud. - -Silks and satins, servants bowing, diplomats with medals and ribbons on -their gleaming shirt bosoms, sentries and bands playing, her thoughts -raced and thrilled. - -If only she and Jack could be guests in that palace! It was wonderful -even to think about. She sat in a roseate dream for a chilly half hour, -while her own fate hovered near, unfathomed. The fate that would make -her, Emily Donelson, a young queen in a palace—and an unhappy queen! - - - - - 3 - - -On Christmas Eve the servants all grew tense and garrulous with -excitement. The field workers, freed from toil for three days, were in -and out of their cabins, hanging around the kitchen door till Betty’s -sharp tongue sent them packing. The rain had ended but the day was bleak -and cloudy with the air bringing a threat of snow. But a wind rose and -though it whined in the great chimneys and sent whorls of smoke and -ashes drifting out into the rooms, Rachel was grateful for the wind. - -At least it would dry up the mud so that the rutted, marshy road out to -the Hermitage would be passable for the carriages and wagons of the -Christmas guests. Some who had a long way to come would arrive before -night, and there was a frantic activity of black women airing blankets, -ironing the stored dampness out of bed linen, making down pallets in the -upper rooms and even in the hall. George lugged in ticks freshly stuffed -with hay and these were beaten flat with whacking brooms before feather -beds and quilts were spread over them. - -The long tables in the dining room were set with the second-best linen -and china. The ceremonial draping with the finest cloths would wait for -Christmas morning. In the cellar the General and black Joey counted -bottles of Madeira, of good Jamaica rum and peach brandy, broached -charred kegs of whisky pounding in spigots, filling jugs that would be -set out for the holiday “dram” for every slave on the plantation. - -In the smokehouse Rachel directed the slicing of the heavy slabs of fat -middling that would go, one to every cabin. There would be a chicken for -each family too, and this year every hand on the place would be measured -for a new pair of shoes. The shoemaker would come and stay for weeks and -the smell of the cured hides would be heavy on the air, but at least -every one of the more than a hundred black feet would be shod. That was -the big worry for Rachel, shoes. In summer the field hands preferred to -trudge behind a plow or drag a cotton sack barefooted, but in winter the -frosty ground brought chills and lung fevers and there was an endless -sound of coughing in the quarters and inevitably some of the people -died. - -A fearful responsibility, all these black souls, but today they were all -happy and noisy, adding to the confusion in the house by their laughter -and singing—singing hushed whenever the voice of the master was heard -belowstairs but begun again as soon as a door slammed on him. - -In her room Emily lovingly folded the Christmas gift she had knitted for -Jack Donelson. A crimson muffler with stripes and a fringe of bright -blue at either end. It narrowed a little in the middle where she had -knitted a bit too tight, but she stretched it to make it even before she -wrapped it in a square of white paper and tied it with a ribbon bow, -sticking a tiny bunch of holly jauntily on top. She had gifts for aunt -Rachel and uncle Jackson too, linen handkerchiefs she had hemstitched -with neat, tiny stitches, then washed and bleached and ironed, with Sary -standing around to keep the irons hot. She wrapped these too, along with -the gifts for her own family, aware of the curious eyes of the two girls -who were making an extra bed in the corner of the room. Some of the -cousins would sleep in here, likely enough two of them with her in her -own bed. - -They would giggle and whisper about their beaus half the night and ply -her with questions that she would evade, quite certain that she was -fooling no one. She and Jack were a family anxiety, she knew. It was all -part of that silly old superstition that cousins should not marry. Jack -had more brains than all his relatives put together, she was fiercely -certain; he was the cleverest and steadiest of all the Donelson clan; he -was almost as smart as uncle Jackson. How could a brilliant young man -like Jack have children that were idiots? - -“And I’m not a stupid fool either!” she said suddenly, aloud. - -The women, shaking out quilts, broke into delighted laughter. “No, Miss -Emily, you sho’ ain’t no fool,” cried the older one, “You about the -smartest white Miss we got, savin’ Mis’ Rachel herself.” - -“Thank you, ’Relia. Don’t use that pillowcase. It’s got a rip in the -seam.” - -“Hit the very las’ one, Miss Emily. Done use every pillowcase Mis’ -Jackson got.” - -“Give it to me then. I’ll mend it. We can’t have guests sleeping on -rags.” - -“Not Miss Mary Eastin, no ways. She want everything mighty fine. Best we -got ain’t none too good for Miss Mary.” - -“Oh, Mary will sleep with me. She always does.” - -“Her hair mighty pretty. Smooth and shiny as a new colt. Got a nice long -nose too.” - -“We’ve all got long noses. It’s the Donelson curse. Mine’s longest of -all. All of us but aunt Rachel. Somehow it passed her by,” sighed Emily, -threading a needle. - -“Ain’t flat like mine, anyhow,” ’Relia echoed the sigh. “If the good -Lord was to give me my dearest wish it would be to have a nice long nose -like you got, Miss Emily.” - -“Ain’t nobody satisfy,” stated Becky, the other maid. “White folks all -wantin’ hair be curly. Colored folks all putting grease on they hair, -make it straight. You reckon we be white when we git to Heaven, Miss -Emily?” - -“Law, we be angels with big white wings,” declared ’Relia. “Lord don’t -want no black angels around, he got to make us white. I wants me a pyure -white robe, white as Mis’ Rachel’s tablecloth. I goin’ put on my robe -and sing praises to the Throne, day and night.” - -“Are you going to sing tonight, Becky—all of you? It wouldn’t be -Christmas if you people didn’t build a big fire out there behind the -smokehouse and all gather round and sing.” - -“Look a little like snow,” said Becky, peering out the window. Becky -hated the cold. She burned more wood in her cabin than any other servant -on the place, Emily had heard her aunt complain. From the window now she -could see the wagon coming down the lane loaded with firewood, George -walking beside the team, cracking his whip and shouting. Great fires -would roar in every fireplace in the house, over the holidays. Rachel -Jackson was nervous about fire. Someday the General was going to burn -the Hermitage to the ground, she was always prophesying.[1] - -A carriageload of cousins and aunts arrived shortly after the family had -finished dinner, and there was a confusion of greetings, band boxes and -parcels to be carried in, shawls, bonnets and cloaks laid off to be hung -up by maids, cold hands and feet to be warmed by the fires, the scurry -of excited children. Then all the food had to be warmed up and brought -in again and the guests fed. - -Emily hurried about, setting out plates, getting down glasses for the -General, who insisted that everyone must have a tot of hot spiced rum to -ward off a chill. She had little chance to slip to the front of the -house to watch the drive from the windows, but while the company were -eating, with Rachel hovering around and the General being the affable -host, she did steal away to stand behind the long curtains, searching -the approaching avenue anxiously. - -Dusk was beginning to gather under the great trees. The smoke from the -many chimneys eddied and settled to the ground. A few thin snowflakes -drifted by on the wind, then drops of rain spattered the windowpanes. -Bad weather for a young man riding alone. So many things could happen on -a long journey. A horse stumbling at a ford, footpads on the road lying -in wait for a solitary traveler, even the danger from Indians was not -ended. - -She was growing more tense with anxiety by the minute but she must not -betray her unease, must keep her demeanor calm and be most surprised of -all when Jack came riding in, or her uncle would never forgive her for -hiding her letter. She had let the curtains fall when Andrew, Junior, -came up behind her. - -“Who you watching for, Emmy?” - -She managed a light laugh. “Anybody! I hope if more are coming tonight -they’ll get here before dark. We’d better light the candles. It’s going -to be a gloomy night.” - -“George is getting his fire going,” Andy looked from the window. “I -suppose I’ll have to go out and help Papa dole out the Christmas Eve -gifts all around. Looky yonder, the people are coming out with their -cups and mugs and sacks already! You’ll have to light the candles, -Emily. I’ve got to go out and be Young Marse Jackson.” - -“It’s an honor, Andy. There are a lot of Donelson boys. You were the one -chosen.” - -“I know. It’s hard to live up to sometimes, ’specially when Jack’s -around. I know he’s smarter than I am and Jack’s a fool for work and -duty as I get reminded all the time.” - -“You mustn’t be jealous. After all, they did pick you to be their son -and heir. You’ll have everything, being Andrew Jackson’s son.” - -“You have to admit, though, that Papa’s a hard man to follow. Came up -from the direst kind of poverty, made it all for himself. I hear that -too. And how he got thrown into that prison where his brother died, -because he wouldn’t black some British officer’s boots.” - -“He was no older than you are now, then, Andy. He’s just trying to -inspire you. You’d better hurry. I hear the cellar door slamming. That -means uncle Jackson and Joey are fetching out the jugs. Oh, Heaven, -there’s aunt Rachel out there without her cloak! I’ll get it before she -takes a chill. Run, Andy!” - -Under the big trees all the Negroes on the place were gathering. George -had persuaded the big bonfire to burn in spite of the thin, misting -rain. Children, black and white, crowded close to it, their voices -shrill with excitement. Little Negro boys poked sticks into the blazing -fire, waved them smoking in air, dancing about till Betty laid about her -with a switch, ordering the brands extinguished. - -“You set the young Misses’ dresses afire,” she screamed at them. - -On long trestles the parcels of meat were laid out and the chickens, -tied by the feet and squawking, were brought from the chicken house and -handed around, one hen or rooster to a family. Instantly there was a -bedlam of screaming joy, chickens’ necks being wrung, cries of, “Thank -you, Massa, thank you, Mist’iss!” The General with Andy beside him and -Joey at hand to lift a jug stood at the end of the table. A line formed, -cups in hand. - -“No crowding now—and no sneaking back to the end of the line for a -second drink!” warned Andrew Jackson. - -Headless chickens flopped on the ground, prodded by shrieking little -Negroes with sticks. Emily wrapped a heavy cloak around her aunt’s -shoulders, pulled her own shawl tighter as they watched the line of -people file by to receive their portion of Christmas cheer. Even the -small ones got a tot, weakened with water, and as each child passed -Andrew Jackson tweaked a lock of kinky hair or pulled an ear, sending -the small black person off into a hysteria of shrieks and giggles. - -George had put a great washpot over the flames and when the water was -hot the women would douse their fowls in the steaming cauldron and there -would be a great chattering and ripping off of feathers, but before that -all the people would gather in a phalanx to sing. - -“We must go in and light all the candles,” Emily told a group of women. -“The house must be bright when they sing.” - -“You go, Emily,” Rachel said. “I ought to stay here. Becky and Dilsey -both wanted that white rooster and they’re sure to get into a fight.” - -“Let Mr. Field attend to it. It’s his business to keep the people in -order, aunt Rachel. You are a hostess with a houseful of guests, you -have enough to worry you.” - -Rachel went reluctantly into the house, and presently every room was -ablaze with firelight and candlelight. The other women and children -drifted in, and Andy came too, standing before the fire balancing -uneasily on first one foot, then the other. - -“Mama,” he began abruptly, “you know Papa said he was going to give me -that chestnut colt. Why can’t he give it to me for Christmas? He gave -Jack the sorrel and promised the chestnut to me when it was grown. Now -every time I speak to Philip about it he says it’s not old enough to -break yet. A two-year-old colt ought to be old enough to break to the -saddle. You know that, Mama.” - -Rachel looked harassed. “Son, Philip knows about the horses more than I. -Your Papa has every confidence in Philip’s judgment. You have horses to -ride. Good safe horses too. And that new saddle and bridle and -everything. Goodness knows they cost plenty.” - -“You’re too young to ride a stallion colt, Andy,” put in one of his -Donelson aunts. - -“I should ride some old bag of bones like Duke, I suppose?” flared the -boy. - -“Duke is a noble old horse,” stated Rachel sternly. “He carried your -Papa through two wars. He’s earned his rest and feed.” - -“And he still pays for his keep by dancing on three feet whenever -anybody whistles ‘Yankee Doodle’,” laughed Emily. “Andy, you’re only -fourteen. Plenty of time for you to wrestle fractious stallion colts.” - -“You could be killed,” worried his mother, “and you’ve got to live to -comfort me in my old age. Sometimes I feel like it’s coming on mighty -fast.” - -“Nonsense, Rachel, you’ve got twenty good years ahead of you,” argued -one of her sisters-in-law, “and all the struggle is behind. This fine -house now—and everything fine in it and all the worry behind you.” - -“If only they don’t decide that Mr. Jackson has to save the country in -some other awful place far from home!” sighed Rachel. “I declare, with -millions of men now in this country there ought to be enough to keep it -going peacefully without Mr. Jackson being dragged away from this place -again.” - -“The trouble is,” remarked the other woman, “that Andrew Jackson was -never born for peace. Not that he starts any trouble but the minute -anything does start Andrew is the man they look for to put an end to -it.” - -“He’d start a fight soon enough if anybody picked on Mama,” declared -Andy. “He’s done that already. That’s why he’s carrying that bullet -around right close to his heart.” - -“Andy!” protested Emily, shocked at the quick whitening of Rachel’s -face. - -The Dickinson duel was never spoken of in her presence. - -“That was very bad taste, Andy,” reproved his aunt, “and you should know -better.” - -“But it’s true!” protested the boy, his voice breaking in a contralto -tremolo. “Even when I was little, boys used to yell at me that my father -had killed a man—on account of Mama.” - -Rachel walked away quickly and they heard the door of her room close. - -“Andy, how dreadful—on Christmas Eve!” scolded an aunt, “I’ll go—” - -“No,” urged Emily, “she’ll want to be alone, aunt Mary. But I’m ashamed -of Andy.” - -“Everybody picks on me,” mourned the boy. - -“Go outside and help your father. And remember that there are things -never mentioned in your mother’s presence. One of them is Charles -Dickinson and that tragic duel that happened before you were ever born.” - -“Papa did kill him!” - -“My boy, I hope that when you are grown a man you will find a woman as -fine and faithful as Rachel Jackson,” said the older woman gravely. “If -you are so fortunate as to win a wife like that and a man cast slurs on -her in public, I think you will be moved to kill him too. Now go on out -of here before I get the itch to box your ears, big as you are!” - - - - - 4 - - -In her room Rachel stood before her tall chest, her hands shaking, her -throat cramping with an agonizing pain. Always in spring, when all about -was new growth and beauty burgeoning the old terror twenty years past -came back for a little to haunt her. Now Andy’s callous taunts had -brought it again out of its grave to tear at her tender heart. - -Always it was the same. She saw herself again sitting in the carriage -beside that race track where the General’s fine horse Truxton, and a -horse called Ploughboy owned by Charles Dickinson and his father were -running a race. Gathered around the course was an enormous concourse of -people: the women in carriages and on horseback wearing their new spring -bonnets gay with flowers and ribbons, or flowing habits of bright -velvet; the men jaunty in tight breeches strapped under their ankles, -ruffled shirts and tall beaver hats. An April wind was blowing sweet off -the fields. - -It was all as sharply clear to Rachel, here in her big room dimly -lighted by one candle, as it had been on that fateful day when Truxton -had gone lame in the third heat of the race. - -She could even hear again her own voice saying naïvely and more loudly -than she had intended, “If Truxton hadn’t gone lame he would have left -Ploughboy out of sight.” - -She could hear too that loud, sneering voice that still crackled in her -ears though the young man who had spoken had lain twenty years in his -grave. Angry and raucous from a bit too much drink, Charles Dickinson -had shouted, “About as far out of sight as Mrs. Jackson left her first -husband when she ran off with the General!” - -It comforted her still to remember that she had not been the one who -repeated that jeering insult to Andrew Jackson. But there had been many -ready to turn the knife in an old wound, to drag out again and bandy -about the old, sordid story of Lewis Robards, who had married Rachel and -discarded her, of the aborted divorce that had clouded Rachel Robards -Jackson’s second marriage. - -A chill ran over her body now as she remembered the furious, insulting -letters that had been written, the General’s cold terrible rage, the -town and county taking sides, eventually the irrevocable challenge. Her -hands shook as she opened a drawer in the chest. Well hidden there under -lavender-scented linen lay the browning copy of a paper that Andrew -Jackson would have destroyed instantly, had he known that she still -hoarded it. It was dated on the 23rd of May, 1806, and the lines that -were hastily scrawled upon it were burned on Rachel Jackson’s heart. - -_On Friday, the 30th. Inst, we agree to meet at Harrison’s Mills, in Red -River County, State of Kentucky for the Purpose of settling an Affair of -Honor, between Andrew Jackson and_ _Charles Dickinson, Esq. Further -arrangements to be made. It is understood that the Meeting will be held -at seven o’clock in the morning._ - -It was signed with the General’s familiar scrawl and the neater hand of -young Dickinson. - -Charles Dickinson had been so young! Rachel ached now with remembering -the anguish of dread for her own beloved and for the young wife and baby -of the youth Andrew Jackson had set out across the Kentucky line that -May morning to kill, if he could—if he were not himself slain by a youth -known to be one of the most famous shots in Tennessee. - -Duels were illegal in Tennessee so Jackson had started the day before -with his friend, John Overton, for the long ride into Kentucky. He had -tried to slip away without Rachel’s knowledge, tried to belittle the -danger. And he had come home with a bullet close to his heart, too near -to be safely removed by the surgeons, and that bullet he carried yet. -But Charles Dickinson had been brought home dead and for a year the town -had seethed with furious criticism of the man who had survived that -duel, Andrew Jackson. The affair had almost ended his public career. -Rachel had known some moments when she wished that the tragedy had made -it impossible for Andrew Jackson ever to be chosen for any high emprise -again. - -It had weighed heavily on her heart for years that the affair had been -on her account, and there had been a long, unspoken family pact that the -duel was never to be mentioned. She had nursed her husband for weeks -through that hot summer, and he had hated the inactivity while Rachel -was grateful that the spring ran cool and deep and the great trees gave -comforting shade, and that she had her husband, wounded and restless as -he was, by her side. He had not desired that tragic engagement, she -knew. Faced with no honorable means of evading it, he had fought fairly -according to the rules and borne his wound without capitalizing upon it. - -She put away the old agreement, smoothed her hair and the lace of her -collar, rubbed a bit of cotton dipped in rice powder over her swollen -eyelids. This was Christmas Eve, the past was past, though Truxton’s -colts still ambled over the meadows, some of them growing old as the -Jacksons were growing old. Perhaps they would have no more Christmas -Eves under this roof, this proud house that they loved. Nothing must mar -this holiday. She would hurry out and tell Andy that he was forgiven. -The boy was impulsive and thoughtless. He had not meant to wound her. - -The house was full of voices; children being led upstairs to bed -reluctant and protesting, but outside were voices too, the songs of the -black people gathered to sing to their master and mistress. Rachel -snatched up a shawl, wrapped her head and shoulders in it and went out -to stand and listen. - -“_Christmas is a-comin’, the goose is getting fat._ - -“_Please to put a penny in the ole man’s hat_,” caroled the slaves. - -She saw her husband standing bareheaded near the fire, his hair blowing -in the winter wind, the firelight casting deep shadows under his eyes. -He had a hand on Andy’s shoulder, an arm around Emily. No one heeded the -mist that blew on the wind. Some of the older women were already picking -their chickens on the lee side of the smokehouse. - -“_Go down, Moses, ’way down in Egypt’s lan’_,” trilled a high voice, -Becky’s. The humming chorus swelled, burst into tremendous melody. -“_Tell ole Phar’oh,—let my people go!_” - -Go down, Moses! Go down, Andrew Jackson! To Tohopeka, to Mobile, to New -Orleans, to Pensacola. Go down, Andrew Jackson, and set a people free! -No, no, moaned the heart of Rachel. Never any more. This was home, this -was their Hermitage, this was Christmas Eve. Her eyes searched the air, -challenged the air, the Heavens, as though somewhere out there in the -murky dark lurked fate in wait for them, a prescience that would not -lift. - -Was it a charm or a curse that invested her man on horseback? What dark -Nemesis had hovered over that little cabin back in the North Carolina -sandhills where he had been born? What strange power had preserved him -when all his family succumbed to the hardships of that time of bitter -war? What power of destiny had brought him up, an orphaned waif, led him -through so many conflicts, made him a firebrand and a leader whom men -would follow as they followed a flag? - -Sick and coughing, his frail health her constant anxiety, he inspired -strong men. Something was brewing now. Rachel felt it, but she must hold -her tongue and quiet her unease with the drug of hope. - -A horse came trotting up the drive and Rachel saw Emily start forward -eagerly. Then the girl stopped as a slim figure in oilskin slid from the -saddle. - -“It’s Ralph!” Rachel hurried forward to greet the young artist, Ralph -Earl. Off and on, for many years, the portrait painter had made his home -at the Hermitage. He had done a fine portrait of the General, wooed and -won Jane Caffrey, Rachel’s niece. There had been a fine wedding in the -old log house that still stood there in the yard, but gentle Jane had -lived only a year. Now Earl was a saddened and lonely man and Rachel -mothered him after her habit with all young, unmothered creatures. “How -fine that you got back from the East for Christmas, Ralph!” she cried, -taking his hand. - -“I came to paint your picture,” he said. “The General will never give me -any peace till I do your portrait, aunt Rachel.” - -“Fiddlesticks!” She led him into the house. “You come get warm and dry -this minute before you take a ptisic. I’ll make a hot toddy for you, -myself. And you don’t want to paint a picture of a fat old woman like -me. Nobody would look at it. We’d have to hang it in the wash-house.” - -“A portrait of you might be hung on the walls of some very splendid -place, aunt Rachel,” Earl argued, handing his damp garments to a -servant. - -She looked at him in sudden alarm. “Now whatever do you mean by that?” - -“Oh—just an idea I had,” he soothed, seeing her perturbation. “People -keep getting notions about what Andrew Jackson could do for this -country. I hear about them—traveling around.” - -She clutched at his arm. “No, Ralph—whatever their notions are, he’s not -going to go dashing off again on some wild adventure or other. He’s not -strong, you know that. He’ll get that lung fever again and it almost -caused his death last winter. And besides,”—her eyes misted and her -voice croaked—“he’d have to leave our home! Our Hermitage!” - -“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. - -Then he discovered that she was already gone from the bed, her full -ruffled night rail was spread out neatly to air, her cap perched on the -post of the bed. Instantly his voice rose in the familiar falsetto -shout. - -“You, George! Get in here and mend this fire!” - -The alacrity with which the man appeared, loaded to the chin with -lightwood, betrayed that he had been waiting near for a summons. “Yes, -sah, Gin’ral Jackson! Christmas gif’, sah!” - -“Christmas gift! I’ll gift you with my boot if you don’t stir yourself.” - -“Yes, sah!” George burst into delighted chuckles. He knew his master -well. “Mist’iss say, don’t disturb Marse Jackson, she say, let Marse -Jackson git he rest. I git a fine fire here toreckly.” - -The embers stirred, the lightwood crackled and flamed. Andrew Jackson -liked fire to roar as he liked horses to gallop and men to spring into -action when he shouted an order. George swept the hearth and set the -fire tools in order. - -“Christmas gif’, Gin’ral,” he repeated meekly. - -“Here!” Jackson tossed a two-shilling piece. George caught it in midair, -grinned and bowed elaborately. - -“Thankee, sah! Thankee! Does you go to town I git you to buy me some -store galluses, please, sah? I like some red galluses, wid big brass -buckles.” - -“Keep your money. Buy candy with it. I’ll get you some red galluses. How -you hitch your britches up now?” - -“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!” - -He planted a spank on each of two small rears. “There’s your Christmas -gift. Now go and get your clothes on. When you come down properly -dressed you’ll get your Christmas gift.” - -“Mother’s asleep, we don’t know where our clothes are,” protested a -little boy. - -“Wake her up. Wake everybody up. It’s Christmas morning.” - -“Yes, sir!” The two obeyed with alacrity, rushing out shrieking, “Wake -up! Wake up! Christmas gift!” - -“We have to get breakfast over so we can set the tables for dinner,” -said Rachel, “and all the people are slow and lazy this morning. Betty -says the oven won’t get hot for her spoon bread and Dilsey cut the bacon -too thick and then went off in a sulk when I scolded her.” - -“I’ll get them all up,” threatened the General. He strode out through -the house to the bricked passage to the kitchen, pulled on a rope -dangling from a pole. The slave bell clanged loud and long. - -“My patience,” Rachel exclaimed, “the neighbors will think the house is -afire!” - -“Git them triflin’ niggers stirrin’, anyways,” said Hannah. - -“Get the mugs for the children, Hannah, and tell ’Relia to get herself -upstairs to help the young ladies. And I want every bed made up right -away.” - -Hannah said, “Yas’m.” She loved ordering the other maids around, being -middle-aged, faithful and privileged. - -Breakfast was a gay and noisy meal. Emily was happy with a new gold -chain and locket, kissing everybody impartially as she danced around the -table. Rachel had a pearl brooch with a small blue stone in the center -and yards of white satin for caps and collars. One little boy pushed his -toy monkey around the table, perched it on people’s shoulders till -Andrew, Junior, said impatiently, “Oh, quit it, boy!” - -“What are you so excited about?” the General asked Emily, when he had -followed her into the parlor. - -“Why, uncle Jackson, it’s Christmas! And my lovely locket. You shouldn’t -have given me anything so fine. I’ll put a lock of your hair in it.” - -“Put some young fellow’s hair in it—the right fellow, mind you! And were -you looking down that road to see if Christmas was coming?” - -“Oh, no. Just more company. Aunt Rachel says there should be ten more. -Thank goodness the rain stopped.” - -“Froze a little.” He took his pipe from the mantel, and the deep tobacco -jar. “Kill hogs next week if the cold weather holds. Emily, get your -aunt out of that dining room. Make her rest if you can.” - -“I’ll try, but you know aunt Rachel. She won’t believe the Christmas -dinner is fit to eat unless she has dipped a spoon in every dish. I -promised to oversee setting the tables as soon as the girls have cleared -away. They’re all excited and they’ll get all the forks crooked.” - -“In some ways it will be good for Rachel to get away for a while,” he -mused, half to himself, as he lifted the coal from the fire. - -“Away—where?” Emily stiffened. - -“Why, I shall have to return to the Senate, my dear. Have you forgotten -that I have been elected United States Senator from Tennessee? Of -course, when I go back I shall want my wife to go with me.” - -“Uncle Jackson, Jack wrote me—” - -“And what,” he interrupted, “did Mister Andrew Jackson Donelson write to -you?” - -_That he loved me_ leaped like a lovely tongue of fairy flame into her -mind. She blinked very fast to keep uncle Jackson from reading it in her -eyes. - -“He said something about circumstances—about a ground swell in -Kentucky—he was rather vague—” - -He frowned, then his face lightened and his mouth quirked up at one -corner in a halfway impish grin. “So young Andrew has been hearing -rumblings in Kentucky.” Always he had refused to call his nephew by the -family nickname of Jack. “Why didn’t he write to me? Kentucky is the -fighting ground of our friend Henry Clay. If there are any honors to be -handed out, the Speaker of the House would like them for himself, no -doubt? I will tell you this much, Emily, and you will keep it to -yourself. In spite of all I can do, I have friends determined to push me -into the forefront again. Now, they are talking about running me for the -highest office in this land.” - -“But that would be a great honor, uncle Jackson. Why must we keep it a -secret?” - -“I don’t want to spoil her Christmas. Some women would be elated at a -chance to spend a winter in Washington, move in important circles, -perhaps be elevated to the highest position in this land. But not your -aunt Rachel. I want to talk her into the right mood, or she might refuse -to leave here and then I’d be separated from her again for a long time.” - -“But she must go! I won’t let her refuse,” argued Emily. “We’ll buy her -some beautiful clothes. She can be a fine lady.” - -“She’s already a fine lady,” he sighed, “but she’d rather go on here -dosing the bellyache of the most worthless hand I own than to be invited -to dinner in the proudest house in the country. I love her for her -simplicity, and I want her to enjoy peace as long as she can, so say -nothing about any plans, Emily.” - -“Yes, uncle Jackson, but you could be wrong about aunt Rachel. The thing -she wants more than anything is to be with you.” - -“And what I most desire is to be with her. I am singularly blessed. It -troubles me now that I grow old that the people will not let me rest.” - -“You could say no. You could refuse when they thrust these -responsibilities upon you,” she reminded him, grave beyond her years. - -He lifted his gaunt shoulders in a ponderous sigh. “This is a great -country, Emily, my child. Where else could a gangling, country boy with -no fortune and little education fight his way up to where he is honored -as I have been honored by my countrymen? I owe America a debt. Speaking -of debts,” his mood changed, his face grew into a sardonic grimace, “the -question is—where is the money coming from to pay for all this pride and -eminence? It costs like the devil to live in Washington and the crops -this year were disappointing. As things stand now I owe about twice as -much as I’m worth. Of course there are a lot of people who owe me—” - -“Then make them pay,” she counseled. “And you should never have spent so -much money for this locket, uncle Jackson. I love you without gifts.” - -“When I can’t buy a present for a pretty girl, I’ll let them cart me off -to a debtor’s prison!” he declared. “As for asking my friends to repay -money I’ve loaned them, that’s something a gentleman can’t do, Emily.” - -“Then don’t be a gentleman,” she suggested boldly. “Be a politician. -They seem to be able to ask for anything they want without any qualms -whatever.” - -He laughed so loudly that some of the guests came hurrying in to hear -the joke. “When James Monroe makes me ambassador to Mexico or Russia or -some other heathen spot on this globe, I’m going to make Emily Donelson -my prime counselor,” he said. “This gal has brains.” - -Emily laughed and hurried out to help her aunt. She was feeling easier -in her mind. If uncle Jackson was harassed about money, he might be -relieved at hearing that Jack was not going back to school. There was -young Andy coming along to be educated and Andrew Hutchings, also a ward -of the Jacksons, and it must cost a tremendous lot to run this huge -plantation and care for all the people, white and black. And anything -aunt Rachel wanted she had, whether it was a pair of silk mitts, a -ten-dollar hat or an expensive suite of furniture shipped in at enormous -expense from halfway across the country. Somewhere Andrew Jackson found -the money to gratify Rachel’s every desire. - -That expensive saddle for Andy—and her locket—and it was very certain in -her mind that there were some things that the General needed for -himself. He needed new clothes anyway. She had noted the shabbiness of -his braided coat, shiny at the elbows, and all his waistcoats were worn -on the edges. - -Destiny might have planned great things for Andrew Jackson through his -lifetime, decided his niece, but fate had certainly been stingy with the -practical rewards. - - - - - 6 - - -The heavy damask cloths had been spread. Another carriage full of -cousins and aunts and uncles arrived to fill the house with more -confusion. Mary Eastin and some of the other girls came to help Emily -direct the placing of the great piles of china plates, the gleaming -goblets and compotes that would be filled with uncle Jackson’s wine and -aunt Rachel’s preserves and relishes. The heavy soup ladle was rubbed -till it glittered, a mound of apples and nuts was heaped on a tray which -Emily edged with holly. - -Mary Eastin, very young and eager, had a cameo face and a lilting laugh. -Life would always be gay for Mary. A president’s nephew would one day -find her irresistible, but now she was a dancing sprite, doing -pirouettes with a vinegar cruet for a partner, getting in everybody’s -way. - -“You’ll break something, Mary. Do go and coax uncle Jackson to tootle on -his new flute,” urged Emily. - -“He makes such silly noises on it,” protested Mary, “and he screws up -his face till I’m scared to death I’ll laugh and offend him.” - -“But he loves it and it gets politics out of his mind.” - -Mary grabbed Emily’s arm. “Emmy, he’s coming isn’t he? I can see it -sticking out all over you. Emmy, I think all these stuffy old people are -crazy. If I had a boy in love with me, I’d have him, no matter if every -Donelson alive croaked themselves to death.” - -“Mary, for Heavens’ sake, hush! Things are going to be bad enough—I’m -just holding my breath.” - -“I think it’s wonderful!” Mary’s eyes were full of stars. “Let me tell -you something though—don’t you start out being a dutiful wife like aunt -Rachel. A woman can get herself simply _subjugated_ by being so -worshipful. I mean to keep my spirit and my personality, whoever I -marry. Aunt Rachel’s kind of wife is going out of fashion.” - -Emily bent her brows together. Of course Jack would expect a dutiful -wife. Hadn’t he been trained by uncle Jackson, who had never known any -other mode of life except to be master in his house? Jack would expect -his wife to be a gracious copy of aunt Rachel—with a bit more style -perhaps, and more ease in company, Emily amended, with no disloyalty. -Aunt Rachel was good. She did not need a flair for clever conversation -or the sly, pretty arts by which some women kept men enthralled, but as -Mary had said, times were changing. Women even went to colleges now and -read deep books. - -Rachel came in then, followed by Hannah and the maids, all carrying -steaming dishes. - -“What are you moppets whispering about?” she asked. “Beaus, I’ll wager.” - -“Oh, we’re far too young, aunt Rachel. And too utterly well bred,” Mary -replied saucily. - -“Plotting against the whites,” evaded Emily. “What’s in that dish, -Dilsey? It smells wonderful.” - -“Dilsey’s candied yams are always perfect,” Rachel said. “Mary, you run -and fetch all the boys and tell them to carry in every extra chair. And -tell Andy to have George ring the bell. Your uncle and the other men -have likely wandered off to the stables. I never have put a meal on the -table yet that didn’t have to compete for their concern with some colt. -Hannah, we’ll set the ham at this end, and the turkeys at the other. -Levin can carve at this other table and Mr. Jackson here, and you and -Dilsey can serve the children their plates. That small table makes it -crowded, but I couldn’t bear to make the little ones wait. I like all my -family together at Christmas.” - -Her family, all the Donelsons, whom the General, having no kin of his -own, had taken to his heart generously, as he had taken John Eaton and -John Overton, Ralph, the young painter, and, twenty years ago, Aaron -Burr—too bad that charming man had come to be in bad repute!—even Sam -Houston! Rachel glowed with happiness as the clan came noisily into the -room. This was as things should be. She took the chair Ralph pulled out -for her, bent her head in a little prayer of thankfulness, of entreaty -to God that things would go on like this forever, so long as they lived, -in peace here at their Hermitage. - -Then there was the sudden crash of a door at the rear of the house, a -chilly gust blew into the room and from the pantry there were squeals of -delighted welcome from the waiting servants. The inner door was flung -back and a travel-stained figure strode into the room. - -“Christmas gift, everybody!” shouted Andrew Jackson Donelson. - -Emily upset her glass as she half rose from her chair. Carving knife -poised, Andrew Jackson stood drawn back sternly at the head of the -table. - -“Sir!” he barked in a military tone, “you have disobeyed me!” - -Andrew Jackson Donelson made a little bow, while the others held their -breath. - -“Uncle, I admit my disobedience,” Jack said humbly. “I have come home -because now you will have need of me. I have come home to help you win -the nomination for the office of President of the United States.” - -Rachel’s little cry of protest was lost in the gasps of the uninformed -around the tables. A few of the men looked wise and complacent and Emily -noted that John Eaton wore a smug grin. - -Andrew Jackson made a slashing motion with the knife as though he -flourished a defiant sword. - -“Young man, I have no intention of seeking the nomination for the office -of President of the United States!” he shouted. - -“I should say not!” put in Rachel’s small, shaken voice. - -Jack’s laughter echoed John Eaton’s grin. “You may not be seeking the -nomination, sir, but that nomination is certainly out gunning for you! -All over Kentucky they’re talking of nothing else—Jackson for President, -in 1824—right under Henry Clay’s nose! They say Clay is looking for a -ground-hog hole to crawl into dragging his whisky barrel after him. And -look at this!” He pulled the ragged page of a newspaper from his pocket, -marched to the head of the table and spread it before his uncle’s eyes. -“I picked it up in Transylvania, brought it along—thought you might not -have seen it.” - -John Eaton sprang to study the paper. “The _New York Post_!” he -exclaimed. “We missed that one. Let’s see what they say.” - -“What they say,” reported Jack, while the General still glowered at the -paper, “is that if the country was under martial law Andrew Jackson -would be the proper choice for president. That not being the case, the -_Post_ will continue their support of Secretary of the Navy, Smith -Thompson, for the nomination in 1824.” - -“Smith Thompson—about as much chance for him as for me!” snorted one of -the Donelson clan. - -“Crawford will be in the running too,” remarked Ralph Earl. “Not a man -in the Cabinet who doesn’t believe he would be a better president than -John Quincy Adams, who is certain he’ll be elected president.” - -“Nobody told me—nobody said a word!” mourned Rachel, looking stunned. “I -knew he’d been elected senator—but president!” - -Jack went to her quickly, put his hands on her quivering shoulders. -“We’ll make you a queen, aunt Rachel. We’ll make you the grandest lady -in the land!” - -“And I’ll have to live in Washington—when I want to stay at home!” she -protested. “I don’t want to be a queen. Jack, wash yourself and come and -eat your dinner. Mr. Jackson, do serve the children! Hannah, pass the -vegetables. All of you, eat your dinner—your Christmas dinner.” - -Obediently, Andrew Jackson made wooden motions of slicing at the turkey. -John Eaton took the knife from his hand. - -“Sit and eat, sir. Let me finish this business. He’s bound to be -nominated, you know,” he addressed the whole group. “It’s a ground -swell, stirring all over the country. Why, just yesterday the _Nashville -Clarion_ stated that the General was unquestionably the choice of the -people, in justice to themselves! Here, Hannah, here’s a fine drumstick -for some hungry boy. Wait, you haven’t any gravy.” - -Andrew Jackson looked down the long table at his wife with a look of -humble pleading in his eyes that she had never seen there before. - -“I was going to tell you tomorrow, my love,” he said meekly. “I had -warned them all. But that young scoundrel ruined everything.” He glared -at Jack Donelson who patted his aunt’s cheek unperturbed. - -“He’s going to need me, aunt Rachel,” he said gleefully. “I deserve the -rough edge of his tongue now, he thinks, maybe even his riding crop on -my breeches. But he knows he’s going to be needing all the help he can -get, and you too! You’ll need a strong, smart boy around here when all -the furor starts, and I’m that boy. Just one more statement, sir.” Jack -looked at his uncle, his chin high and firm. “I have a further -announcement to make. I came home because I saw your situation and your -need for assistance. Also I came home to marry Emily Donelson, if so be -she will have me—with or without the consent of this assembled family, I -mean to marry Emily.” - -“And that,” shouted the General, rapping the table with his glass, “I -will not countenance!” - -Rachel got to her feet, startling them all a little. - -“Then I will countenance it,” she said, in a tone few of them had ever -heard her use before. “When young people are in love, that’s the -important thing. Maybe you think I don’t know what it is to be in love, -Mr. Jackson—but unless your memory is very short, you do! There was a -time when you trampled all the difficulties down with fine scorn—and if -Jack hasn’t the courage to do as we did, then he’s no nephew of mine!” - -“My dear—” began Jackson, uncertainly, “I had no idea you felt this -way!” - -“Well, I do feel that way. And I say it’s fine and beautiful for these -children who love each other to marry—and I say that nobody is going to -oppose it.” - -Jackson rose, smiling ruefully, and laid a hand on Emily’s cheek. “I -seem to be outvoted,” he remarked. - -“Sorry, sir.” Jack’s grin did not quiver. “You are outvoted. I vote -against you—and aunt Rachel—and Emily too, I hope? My dear, are you -standing with me against all these frowning elders?” - -She sprang up and ran to stand beside him. “Oh—I am, I am!” - -“The matter is now settled.” Jack kissed her gravely while all the -children screamed their delight and some of the women began to cry, -then, still jauntily, Jack picked up the glass of wine before his aunt’s -plate. “A toast to the bride! And to the next President of the United -States, Andrew Jackson!” - -Chairs fell backward as the company got to their feet. The servants all -shrilled approving cries. The hubbub and chatter drowned out Rachel’s -admonishing voice, begging everybody to be quiet and eat before -everything got cold. Somehow the dinner was finished. The General sat in -silence through the rest of the meal, and aunt Rachel was still too, -Emily observed, her fingers shaking as she handled her fork and spoon. -Emily went quickly and kissed her on the cheek. - -“You’ll have me beside you always, aunt Rachel,” she whispered. -“Always!” - -“I’ll need you, Emily,” Rachel whispered hoarsely. “I’ll need -everybody.” - -Her eyes looked far and strained as though she saw before her those next -five stormy years. The year that would see Andrew Jackson defeated for -the office of president when the election was carried into the Senate of -the United States by the failure of any of the seven candidates to win a -majority in the electoral college, defeated by the trades and connivings -of Henry Clay and by the one vote in the New York delegation of a -tremulous, undecided man named Van Rensselaer. - -And after that the terrible years when the power and strength of Andrew -Jackson would mount in an invincible tide, when her own name would be -pilloried and long-buried agonies she had tried to forget dragged from -their graves and published abroad to discredit her and her man on -horseback. The years that would be too much for the faithful, failing -heart of Rachel Jackson. - -She would never be a queen in that palace in Washington. But she had no -wish to be a queen. As the day darkened into dusk and the candles were -lighted, she stood alone at her window looking out upon her quiet -garden, sleeping its winter sleep that promised the wakening of beauty -in the springtime. - -It would be a pleasant place to sleep, she was thinking. But at least, -at long last, she had had her Christmas at the Hermitage. - - - - - Footnotes - - -[1]Young Andrew was the master of the Hermitage when eventually that - tragedy did occur, and Rachel Jackson had lain for eight years under - the roses of her garden. - - - - - Transcriber’s Notes - - -—Silently corrected a few typos. - -—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook - is public-domain in the country of publication. - -—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by - _underscores_. - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HER CHRISTMAS AT THE -HERMITAGE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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