Chapter 4

The Old Tent

     The smell of supper wafts through the screen door as I sweep the back porch.

Grandpa comes by with a roll of dirty canvas. “It’s my tent from the war. Me and Fred shared it.” His eye candles gleam. “We kin sleep in it on our way ta Gettysburg.”

     He unfastens a tattered strap and unrolls the canvas. The sickening smell of mold jolts our noses, and fifty years of dust fills the air and settles on the porch I just swept. I cover my mouth to keep from coughing, while Grandpa’s face drops quicker than the dust. The tent has a long, frayed rip down its middle.

Grandpa scurries back to his house.

     Without touching it, I pick up the ragged tent with the broomstick and carry it to the ash pit. As I sweep the dust from the porch, Grandpa hurries back with the catalogue from Sears, Roebuck, and Company.

     “Here’s a tent we kin order.” He points to the sketch of it. “It don’t weigh much. I kin tote it easy.” His eye candles have been relit.

     After I set the supper table, I go outside, excited to the bone. If I mind my druthers and don’t get on Mama’s sour side, I’ll be in Gettysburg come June. I jump off the porch step like a young’un, fixing to romp and leap with my arms outstretched.

     But I stop quick-like. Grandpa is on his knees beside the ash pit. He strokes that moldy old piece of canvas as though it’s fine silk. He buries his face in it, the back of his shirt quaking. I slink back against the house. When I peek around the corner, he sets a match to that old tent.