The Deserter by Jane Langton Page A

three-quarter mile, and there’s a track to the right. You turn there and pass the schoolhouse. It was a hospital, but not the one you want, missus, so you keep on and pretty soon there’s a turnoff and you go right again. From there it’s another mile or so, and after a while you’ll see Mr. George Bushman’s barn. That’s the one for the Twelfth Corps.”
    â€œThe right fork,” repeated Ida. “Then left, then right and right again. Thank you.”
    â€œYou’ll wait till morning, won’t you, missus? It’ll be dark soon and you shouldn’t be out there, not now, not all by yourself.” When Ida merely smiled and turned away, his conscience must have bothered him because he said, “You’re staying someplace, missus?”
    â€œOh, yes,” said Ida.
    â€œWell, good night then, ma’am.”
    The Taneytown Road was just where he had said it would be. Ida walked quickly. There was still plenty of light, but she must hurry because by the time she reached the hospital the sky would be dark.
    She had no question about what she should do. Turning onto the Taneytown Road and tramping along in her sturdy boots, she felt no doubt at all. Ida was a tall, big-boned woman, and carrying the child seemed to have made her stronger. She felt well, rather than sickly like poor cousin Cornelia, back there in Philadelphia.
    But Ida blessed Cornelia’s lying-in. It was providential that Ida had taken the cars from Boston to be at her cousin’s side just at this time, because no sooner had Cornelia been brought to bed than the Philadelphia paper had come out with the terrifying news of the battle. If Ida had been at home in Concord when she saw Seth’s name among the missing, she might have despaired of making the long journey south to look for him. And her mother would never have let her go.
    But in Philadelphia she was her own woman. Ida had dropped the newspaper, pinned on her money belt, packed her valise, embraced Cornelia, kissed the baby and set off. Now, by hook or by crook, by horsecar and railroad and a coach from the town of Westminster, she had found her way to Gettysburg. She was here, calmly purposeful, serenely resolved to search anywhere and everywhere. She would find him, she knew she would, she was certain sure, because it was just a matter of not giving up.
    Stepping down from the coach and walking along the main street of Gettysburg, Ida had perceived at once that the entire town was a hospital. She had seen litters carried into the Express Office and a dead man carted off from the Eagle Hotel. Ambulances swayed along the main street, their horses pulling up at house doors. Ida had felt the urgency all around her. Men and women were hurrying up and down the street and in and out of dwellings—on desperate errands, guessed Ida. Even a boy driving a cow along the street looked careworn and harassed.
    Surely a missing man might be overlooked in this confusion, wounded perhaps and not yet recorded, his name not written down.
    Ida asked the first person she met, a woman in a blood-spattered apron, where she should begin to look, but the woman merely shook her head and walked rapidly away with her tray of rolled-up lint. When Ida saw the open door of a store with all its merchandise painted on the side— DRY GOODS, NOTIONS, CARPETS, OILCLOTHS, HARDWARE, IRON NAILS —she walked in. No dry goods or carpets were visible anywhere, only boxes and barrels stamped SANITARY COMISSION .
    From somewhere in the back came the shriek of nails being clawed up from the lids of boxes. Ida sought out the man with the crowbar and found him opening crates of clothing. She wondered if any of the shirts in the crates had been made by Concord women.
    â€œPlease, sir,” said Ida, “I’m trying to find my husband. Can you tell me where I should look?”
    The man put down his crowbar and wiped his forehead. “Good heavens, ma’am, you