I Was a Revolutionary by Andrew Malan Milward Page B

shoulder with the vouchers, smiling, proud of himself.
    â€œTime is it?” CK said.
    â€œBefore dawn yet. What you wondering after time for? I’m telling you we need to go. We leave for Kansas today.”
    â€œWhat you doing in the street before dawn?” CK said.
    People were rousing from sleep around them.
    â€œYou want to stay, fine,” Dulcet said. “Me, I gon catch that boat.”
    Talmen and Rawl gathered up all the dried manure they could find, trying to keep as much of that prairie coal on hand so the fire stayed stoked. Eugenia and Jesse Mae took turns holding little Isaiah close, hoping the warmth of the dugout would sweat the cold from his lungs. Folks came bringing what food they could manage, to ask what could be done, but there was little to do beyond praying for the child.
    Back in Kentucky they’d lost three children before their second birthdays, so Talmen was no stranger to death. Sometimes he felt as if it followed him, a constant specter. Death, stay away , he told the shadowy haunt. Get behind me, Death . Talmen needed the boy to survive. Born together, his son and the town seemed connected, their fates intertwined, and in the same way the town needed to survive through difficulty so too did the boy. Talmen tried to stay with Eugenia, but she said the best thing he could do was to make sure the wheat crop delivered on time. So during the days, Talmen and Rawl tended to plowing and sowing the wheat, trying to do the impossible: to drive away thoughts of the sick child, to keep their hands and minds on the plow as it burst through the earth and scattered the loose layers of topsoil.
    The only time they took Isaiah out of the dugout all week was to go to a meeting so the sick child could receive his blessings. There were three churches in town, one African Methodist Episcopal and two Baptist, all of which met in dugouts except their own Mount Olive, which had recently built a sod house that sat fifty. As they took their seats in church, a neighbor in their pew, Mrs. Baldwin, leaned over and whispered to be sure to come to her place afterward. The Baldwins’ large stone house hosted the after-church potluck that had become a weekly tradition. These were crowded affairs with people filling the house so far to excess that oftentimes the gathering extended out the front door to the porch and into the yard. For Talmen the kindness of the gesture was always tarnished by its reminder that most everyone else was still living in the ground. He didn’t much care for Thomas Baldwin anyway, a loudmouthed man full of brag, who thought his money turned conjecture into fact. Talmen usually preferred to go straight home after church, but then again, Eugenia and Jesse Mae had been cooped up inside the dugout all week with Isaiah, and his and Rawl’s only reprieve was long days in the field.
    â€œCan’t we just stay a bit?” said Jesse Mae, who was friends with the Baldwins’ youngest daughter, Mercy.
    â€œMight be good for the boy, some fresh air,” added Rawl.
    Eugenia looked at Talmen, awaiting his verdict. They were all itching to escape that dugout, Talmen included.
    And so they went to the stone house and said grace before victuals and sang a few hymns on a well-tuned piano Mercyhad just about mastered. Afterward, people sipped coffee and milled around, catching up on farming and family. Talmen had to admit, it felt good to have a nice meal and spend a few hours outside the oppressive dugout. He wasn’t much for talking, so he relieved Isaiah from Eugenia’s arms and carried him to the kitchen, keeping his boy close to the stove, an unpopular spot in the April warmth that left him eavesdropping on conversations in the other room and trading an occasional word or two with someone sneaking back for seconds or thirds.
    Beyond the usual pleasantries of planting and the weather, most of the talk that night was about the exodusters. A few months back, a