Читать книгу Confederate Money - Paul Varnes - Страница 8

What stirred Henry from a deep sleep was the sound of a large number of people trying to move quietly. His step-pa was already up and had thrown back the canvas that served as a front for the lean-to in which they were sleeping. The old man’s quiet movement didn’t awaken Henry. Familiar sounds or movements never did.

Outlined by the light from the still burning campfire, Henry’s step-pa was standing in front of the lean-to with his rifle in hand. Since there wasn’t much the old man couldn’t handle, Henry wasn’t fully awake until the guns started going off. There were several shots, five of which hit his step-pa. There was no reason to shoot the old man. He was standing without raising his rifle.

Leaping from the lean-to, Henry grabbed his step-pa’s rifle and was in full flight to the cover of darkness when something slammed into his left shoulder, knocking him to the ground. There was a flash of light and he was unconscious for three days.

That they were in Cedar Key, Florida, at the time of the Yankee raid was a coincidence. Henry and his step-pa had only gone there to get salt and smoked fish. All the other supplies they needed were available in Archer. The truth be known, they could have gotten salt and smoked fish in Archer too. Their trip was mostly so they could ride the train and let Henry see Cedar Key, a booming town of a hundred people. Although they had seen the train several times, neither had ever ridden one.

Cedar Key, prior to the Yankee raid, was one of the chief suppliers of salt to the Confederate Army. One hundred fifty bushels of salt were produced there every week. Salt being the main way of preserving meat, that small town was a mighty important place. Transporting salt and the supplies brought in by Southern blockade-runners were the main reasons that rail tracks had been laid from Cedar Key to Archer.

Henry’s family hadn’t always lived in the North Florida palmetto scrub. They had been well off until his natural pa died of consumption in 1851. The farm they lived on before his pa died wasn’t paid for and his ma couldn’t keep it. They then lived pretty much with anyone who would have them until his ma married the old man in 1857. That was when they grubbed out their five-acre farm and built on it.

Although they didn’t have much, Henry’s ma saw to it that he was well educated. In 1850, the year Henry became old enough to go to school, not many Florida residents could read. Not many people got to go to school back then. The thirty-seat public school in Gainesville, the only public school in the county, was only open three months a year. Living fifteen miles from the school, Henry didn’t get to attend. In spite of never attending a school, Henry was, and still is, the best reader that I’ve ever met. He can also use words and numbers in the smoothest way I ever saw. Henry’s ma kept lots of books around and encouraged him. She sat him down to read, write, and do numbers for two hours every day of the year since he can remember.