Chapter 20

Monday evening, April 25

Kate wondered why she’d picked up this book from the box. She was replacing the Bible after having looked at the sketch again, and instead of just closing the carton, she’d lifted this book out instead and opened it up. It was only four inches by six, the dark leather cover worn and stained, and inside rough, thick pages covered with small hand print.

There was no last name in the front pages, just a first name, Louiza, and “Mama’s Receipts.” Some passages were penned in ink, others scribbled in pencil, and in between quite a few of the pages there were bits of other paper, newspaper accounts or handwritten notes. I wonder who Louiza was, and who was her “mama.” Must have been someone in the Elliott family, perhaps Louiza was Jim’s grandmother…

Kate smiled as she studied several scrawled notes in the margin; “bess’s calf arrived this day” and “sophie’s first tooth drawn” but no date beside either note. Must have been connected to the recipes on these pages, she thought — one was for toothache, no doubt referring to Sophie. “Pulverize and mix equal quantities of alum and salt, apply to hollow in a ply of cotton.”

Alongside a recipe for fever Kate found the notation, “darling passed in the dark of the night afore break of dawn, sister poorly, remedy applied hourly,” and then on the following page, “no avail, sister passed early daybreak.” How sad, she thought. Were these children, or adults, or who?

Kate cautiously turned the pages, careful for the brittle paper. Recipes varied from roasting cuts of meat to making poultices. Included were instructions for repairing leather harnesses, making dye for home-sewed clothing, and boiling unrecognizable ingredients for soap. Instructions on everyday household tasks, such as a mother might give to a young daughter, were intermixed with cures for common ailments.

Towards the back of the book, it seemed to become a diary, rather than recipes. Laying the book down, Kate went into the kitchen to prepare a cup of tea, then came back and sat in the armchair to continue reading. The recipes had been interesting, but the diary was more so.

The handwriting in this back section was small and cramped, but surprisingly readable. This part seemed to be a record of major events in the household and the family.

Here were also a few last names. Lucas. Moore. Sims. Anderson. McNeill… That’s my name, McNeill.

Kate slowly read the account of a Lieut. Joshua McNeill, who had come to visit from Charlestowne and brought news of the day. He had stayed with the Lucas family. He had applied for a grant of land just “over t’other side of the creek,” and had come to oversee the surveying of it. He had been a soldier it seemed, involved in the war since a young man, afterward helping his elderly father provide for the remaining family in Charlestowne.

Louiza “held in admiration” this young Lieut. McNeill and was in hopes he would visit her own home before returning to Charlestowne. No other mention of him appeared in the ensuing few pages, however.

Almost at the end of the book Kate found a fascinating passage. “Mama allowed as how she’d prefer us not to retain the blade, wanted it put down with her when it was time, prayed as how her wishes would be agreed to, never been parted from it. Pledged to keep her wish, signed the pledge.”

Several names were listed below this passage: John Patrick Elliott, Helen Sims Elliott, Joshua Martin McNeill, Louiza’s full name, Mary Louiza Elliott McNeill, and finally a date, November 3, 1821.

The hair on Kate’s arms stood up as she stared at the date. This book was older than she had first thought. Those first notes must have been written years earlier than 1821. Louiza’s mother was probably elderly and anticipating her own death, making her wishes known regarding this blade, whatever it was. It was a serious request to be recorded this way and agreed to by all the family in writing. Louiza had apparently married her young lieutenant, and John Patrick was probably her brother, married to Helen Sims.

Kate carefully laid the book down on the table beside her. She hugged herself as though chilled, and gave this some thought. Who could I ask about these people, and who would know what the blade was? She thought of the names in the old Bible — that’s a starting place, at least.

She sipped her lukewarm tea and leaned back, letting her mind wander a bit. First the gravesite, then the altered deed, now this.

Well, let’s compare some names. Kate rose from the chair and went into her office for a notepad and pen. Maybe the Bible will have similar, or the same names, and maybe some dates to go with them.

Opening the Bible to the pages where family names and events were recorded, Kate began making a chronological list of marriages, births, christenings, deaths, and any other information. There were quite a few Elliotts.

As she copied, a pattern fell into place, and she figured out who Martha Katharine Elliott was. She was the daughter of the original John Elliott, the great-great, etc. grandfather of Jim. She was married to Jonathan W. Sims in 1803. And young John Elliott was her brother. This was probably the John Patrick Elliott who signed the pledge.

But who was Louiza, married to the Lieutenant?

Kate learned that Martha Katharine and Jonathan Sims had “homesteaded in Alabama, joined wagons on trail, April 12, 1810,” no doubt explaining why their signatures didn’t appear with the list of pledges about that blade. Kate kept on with her list.

And finally there it was, Louiza’s name. Her obituary was recorded on one of the later pages in the family section. From the date of her birth, March 1, 1784, it was clear that Louiza had been the youngest child of John and Sarah Katharine Elliott, born after the death of her revolutionary war soldier father.

Kate looked at the dates, and tears came to her eyes. That little girl never knew her father either, she thought, feeling a tug of kinship to Mary Louiza McNeill, daughter of Sarah Katharine and sister of Martha Katharine, over the time span of several centuries.

Chapter 19

Monday, April 25

“How’re things going, Danny?” Hunched over the keyboard, Danny glanced up at Mark, then waved his brother into the room.

“It’s going pretty good, actually. I ought to be finished in another few hours. This is going to help you out a lot, soon as I teach somebody else how to use it.”

Danny had finished installing the main program after a slow start and was trying to make the features as easy to learn as possible by jotting down his thoughts on paper as he went. The computer Mark had purchased for the business turned out to need upgrading to handle the new program, which meant placing an order and waiting for new hard drives to arrive. The so-called user’s manual had been a little too complicated for a beginner, so Danny was creating his own.

Danny had graduated from technical college with a CAD (computer assisted drafting) degree in Raleigh, gone to work immediately with a large firm, and six months later been laid off when the company lost a state contract. He came for a visit while sending out resumes, and Mark had found an immediate use for Danny’s ‘spare time.’ He needed someone with computer expertise to bring his company up to date.

Danny didn’t have to be asked twice; he packed up his few belongings in the back of his pickup truck, and made the move over a weekend into one of Mark’s construction trailers in back of the office complex.

His new quarters had been cleaned, rearranged several times to make the best use of the small amount of space, and Danny had made several trips to the mall for various items — most importantly, a coffee maker, mugs and the fixings for morning coffee.

He needed a short, quiet wake-up time with his coffee before he was ready to face the day, but now he felt pretty much at home in the trailer. He preferred to get his bacon and eggs at the Downtown Diner across from the courthouse. Occasionally Mark would join him for a second or third cup of coffee.

As they had talked over the ins and outs of the construction business, Danny asked good questions, getting the general idea of how things worked on a daily, weekly and monthly basis down at the office. That way he could tailor the company’s new computer program to the actual work that Mark and his staff did.

During the day he shadowed Mark on the job sites where building projects were underway, meeting the subcontractors and running errands whenever possible. After hours he made notes of whatever he had learned during the day.

Danny had an orderly way of looking at things and kept an orderly outline in his head of what he knew, what he needed to learn, and what he needed to do tomorrow. He was determined to earn his keep. So far, he’d gotten no firm job offers from the multiple resumes he’d mailed.

“Danny, I’m going out to the Elliott property this morning, I’d like you to come along. There’s something we — ought to talk about.”

“Sure, just let me cut the computer off. Something important?” Danny was caught off guard by Mark’s lowered tone of voice on the ‘ought to talk about.’

“Could be. We’ll talk about it out there.” The two men grabbed their windbreakers from the coat rack and stopped by the break room to fill their coffee mugs to take with them.

“A little problem has come up you need to know about, Danny. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention it to anyone else.”

“Now I’m really curious. What’s so serious?”

It only took a few minutes to reach the outskirts of town, heading towards the Elliott Pointe property. Mark was quiet as he drove, trying to formulate his thoughts in such a way as to convey the right message to Danny.

The main entrance to the project was still just a rough dirt track. They left the truck and started making their way down into the center of the property. The track meandered quite a bit before ending at Jensen’s Creek. The main entrance would start further west, but this narrow road was parallel to where Mark had walked before. He began to describe his last visit to the property but as he got to the place in his narrative about the stone, he hesitated.

“What is it, Mark? Something got you spooked?”

“Well, the best thing is probably show you, Danny.” He angled off to the right into the woods, and in a few more minutes they were there.

“Humh.” Danny squatted down on his heels, staring at the broken marker and the lettering carved into it.

“Yeah.” Mark was taking deep breaths intermittently.

“Well, what’s this going to mean, Mark? I mean, is this going to…” Danny knew this stone might throw a monkey-wrench into development plans for the Elliott land.

“That’s what we need to discuss.” Mark sat down on an old fallen pine tree, his hands dangling loose between his knees.

“You know who that marker is for? See that line?”

With his forefinger Mark traced the mildew-stained letters — ‘LT SC LINE’ and ‘REV WAR’ below the carved name ‘JOHN ELLIOTT’ and the dates underneath, ‘1755 1783.’

Danny knew something about historic sites, the law and land development. He frowned as he spoke.

“You didn’t know about this when you bought the place, Mark? Any other old grave stones out here?”

“I don’t know. We need to find out. No, I didn’t know about this place when I took over this property. At least, not exactly. Pop never mentioned it. I don’t think he knew about it or he would’ve told us some time or other.”

Mark rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. A nagging headache was starting up.

“The thing is, Stuart knew about some kind of restriction on the deed, but he was sure any graves out here were moved a long time ago. So he said. Anyway, he didn’t copy the restriction over to my deed, and I don’t know what we’re going to do about that, either.”

He rose to his feet and twisted his neck back and forth, trying to ease out the tension.

Danny rose to his feet. “Well, let’s start looking. You look around any more when you found this stone?”

“Not that day. I just wanted to get out of here and do some thinking. You head towards the creek and I’ll go south. Holler if you find anything. And be careful, there could be a few snakes out here, specially close to the creek…”

They split up and slowly edged their way through the brush at right angles to each other, pulling apart small trees and bushes, trying to keep to fairly straight lines as they went. They had only gone a short distance when Danny called out.

“Mark!” He was close enough to the creek to hear the gurgle of water running. Kneeling down, he was examining another grave stone when Mark reached him.

Chewing his lip, Mark helped Danny strip away the tendrils of vine clinging to the surface and read ‘SARAH ELLIOTT’ followed by ‘BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER’ on the line below, and the dates ‘1758 1821″ below that.

“I guess these two markers go together,” Mark thought out loud. This stone leaned forward at an angle. “Let’s see where the other one was supposed to be.” As they pulled away the matted ground cover, it didn’t take long to find the broken base of the first grave stone.

“See any more, Danny?” Mark turned in place and kicked at the ground around him.

“Not so far.” Danny moved away several feet and also slowly turned. For the next thirty minutes they searched back and forth, making sure those two graves were the only ones.

“What you want to do, Mark?”

“For now, let’s put that first marker back where it belongs.” It took both of them to get it off the ground. Carefully they propped the broken stone against its base, and Mark debated his next step.

He recognized this area, close to the creek. It was more or less where Donna wanted to put her new house.

Chapter 18

Saturday evening, April 23, 1988

“J & E Hardware is a flourishing business these days, if I do say so myself,” thought Ellison Jones. “This sure turned out to be a good investment.”

He was reluctant to lock the front door, even though it was 6:00 PM Saturday. Officially the store closed at 5:00 but there was always someone hurrying in at the last minute looking for nails, or paint, or plumbing supplies, something they just had to have over the weekend.

The gate was closed to the lawn and garden shop beside the main store, the sprinklers off, the yard tools and wheelbarrows back inside the store. Of course, there was still trash to empty and the floors needed sweeping, but he’d tend to those himself.

Elly was a ‘medium’ man, at least that’s how he usually thought of himself. Medium height, medium build, medium brown hair generously threaded with gray.

But his heart was big, and thoughtful, and courteous, so when elderly Minnie Hamilton, needing just the right washer for her kitchen sink came in just before closing time, he’d been glad to help her.

Actually, Miss Minnie didn’t need a washer, she needed a whole new sink, new faucets and a plumber to install them, but she couldn’t afford it. He and Dot would drop by and help her put in her new washer after church Sunday afternoon, he promised. She was thrilled. She was lonely, and friendship was her primary need.

The washer was just the latest in a long list of last-minute shopping items for Miss Minnie. Dot would contribute some of her left-over pot roast and they would stay for a while to visit. Elly smiled he thought about their customers. Good people, he thought. Best in the world. He was so glad they’d taken this step.

Ellison and Dorothy Jones had already retired from one career, he from a local textile plant after twenty-five years, and she from teaching geography to elementary schoolers. They had initially planned to stay busy with their grandchildren and hobbies, puttering around their house and yard.

After only a few months, their daughter Julianne and her husband announced a move to Alabama, a good offer for Bob with better pay, better position, all that stuff. Within several weeks they were gone to Birmingham, taking their two sons with them. Bobby Jr. and Stevie were only ten and twelve, and excited about moving to a house with a real yard, close to a park with a real pool, in a real city.

Their eagerness was a little disappointing to the grandparents, who hugged them tight, gave them some spending money ‘for the road,’ and waved a tearful goodbye.

Suddenly retirement didn’t look quite so attractive. Oh, they could afford to travel to Birmingham several times a year, and the kids promised to come visit in the summers. Still, when the hardware store came up for sale, Elly was interested almost immediately.

Ellison Jones had been a good department head at the mill. He’d learned the textile plant business from the ground floor up, regularly being promoted. He knew how to run a ‘tight ship’ when it came to profit and loss, managing people, all those things that easily transferred to a sole proprietorship.

After a long discussion about finances and taxes, a trip to the bank and a visit to the hardware store accompanied by Wilbur, Elly and Dot had closed the deal.

The name had been J & E Hardware as long as anyone could remember. They kept the name. Gradually they increased the inventory to include small household appliances, and within a year, the lawn and garden shop.

Most days Dot worked in the afternoons, doing the bookkeeping and waiting on some of the customers during busy times. Elly and the part-time staff kept up with the inventory, helped customers with their purchases, carried items to cars or trucks, and cleaned up the premises. Except for the back room…

Whit Elliott’s storeroom, repair room, junk room, break room, back room was a mess. Wilbur hadn’t even tried to do anything with it after Whit died. Anything that wasn’t sold in a reasonable time found a spot in that room. Several times a year they would have a ‘junk sale,’ but many things were just too old, too rusty, and too inaccessible among the crates and boxes, the broken machinery and just plain junk.

The center section of the store had originally been one of the old Elliott Plantation buildings, a combination work house, mill store, and storage building.

Some of the lumber came from pine trees grown nearby several hundred years ago. Those rafters and beams would probably go up in a flash if a fire broke out, which was why Elly had taken the trouble and expense of having a sprinkler system installed. The exposed pipes overhead added to the cluttered look.

Some things in that room had been there since the original building was constructed in the 1800’s, folks said. There were fittings for wagons, harnesses for plow mules, and rusty blades for scythes.

There were handles for various implements, lengths of leather cords, and boxes full of nails, screws, washers and other small odds and ends used around a farm — none of which had been sold in many years. They were just too much trouble to throw away. There were wooden boxes of varied sizes and shapes, cardboard boxes, empty and half-full crates. No-one remembered what they contained.

Elly glanced down the pathway through the store-room to be sure he had bolted the back door, turned out the last light and pulled the main door closed behind him. He was tired, but it had been a good day. “A good, satisfying day,” he thought as he made his way home to Dot and his easy chair.

Chapter 17

Mid-day, April 23

Donna had never been so angry in her life, and she’d been angry plenty of times. That slimy little creep! And on top of that, she’d ruined her clothes. And her shoes!

She threw the grass-stained pumps into her closet and pulled off her slacks.They had irreparable picks in the expensive fabric where she’d brushed against thorny vines.She tossed them atop the shoes.

My plans are too important, the money is too much, he’ll just come back for more, he’ll ruin everything! Her thoughts went back and forth with her pacing footsteps. What on earth am I going to do. Bath. I need a bath.

Running hot water to fill the tub, Donna poured in her favorite lavender-scented bath oil. I’ve always been able to take care of myself, she figured, and I can take care of this. I will take care of this.

She slipped down into the water, leaned back on the foam headrest, and stared at the bathroom wall.

As she saw again the smirk on J.J.’s face as he made his polite ‘request’ for money, she repetitively squeezed her bath sponge dry with both hands. Oh yes, I will take care of this.