Free Hear the Wind Blow by Mary Downing Hahn

we leave Mama behind?
    By the time Rachel woke up, I'd decided what to do.
    My sister looked at Mama and started crying again. "Oh, Haswell," she sobbed, "I was hoping it was just a bad dream."
    I stroked her hair. Rachel had never looked so pitiful. Mama had kept her neat and clean, her dresses fresh, her hair combed. Now she looked like the orphan she was, her dress torn and dirty, her face and hands grimy, her un-braided hair a tangled mop.
    "What are we going to do?" she asked. "What will become of us?"
    "We have to go to Grandma Colby's, like Mama said."
    "And leave Mama here?" Rachel stared at me, her face pale under the soot and dirt.
    "We'll carry her to the springhouse. She'll be safe there."
    Rachel thought about my idea and sighed a deep sigh.
    "We can't stay here," I said softly.
    Slowly Rachel nodded her head. "But what if Avery comes home? He won't know where Mama is. Or us, either."
    "When we get to Grandma Colby's, I'll write him a letter. Or maybe I'll go find him myself and bring him home. Where he ought to be. We need him." Once again my anger grew. What did the army want with a boy like Avery? He should have stayed with us. He should have helped us. He should be here right now telling me what to do.

    "You can't go off looking for Avery," Rachel said. "I need you." She started crying again. I put my arms around her and she clung to me, her head pressed against my chest.
    Though I said nothing more to my sister, I decided then and there to leave Rachel with Grandma Colby and set out to find Avery. The biggest problem would be getting from here to Petersburg. It was a long way, almost two hundred miles, even farther than Richmond. I'd been to the capital many times to see Papa's relatives. Once I got near the city, I'd keep going south, following signposts to Petersburg. I had a good horse to ride and I was sure I could do it.
    Gently I freed myself from my sister's arms. "Help me wrap Mama in her blanket, Rachel."
    "We should wash her first," Rachel said softly. "And comb her hair. That's what Mama did when Grandma Magruder died."
    Rachel tore off part of her slip and dipped it in the bucket of water I'd brought from the springhouse. Carefully she washed the soot and dirt from Mama's face and did her best to tidy her hair. By the time she was done, Mama looked more like herself. But her face was sad.
    I hoped someday I'd remember Mama's smile and her laugh, the bedtime stories she told and the songs she sang. But at that moment I couldn't picture her any way but the way she was now.
    Without saying a word to each other, Rachel and I wrapped Mama in the blanket. Somehow we got her up the steps and across the yard. Gently we laid her on the stone floor next to James Marshall. The cold had kept him well. I hoped it wouldn't warm up till Grandma Colby sent someone to bury the two of them properly.

    Rachel and I knelt together. When we'd said all the prayers we knew, we kissed Mama and James Marshall good-bye and left the springhouse. After I shut the wooden door tight, Rachel helped me gather stones to heap in front of it to make certain Mama and James Marshall would be safe.
    While Rachel watched, I used my pocket knife to carve Mama's and James Marshall's names, followed by "Rest in Piece," on a charred board from the house. I wanted anyone who passed this way to know the springhouse was now a tomb, not a place to seek drinking water. I wished I had flowers or something pretty to place there, but all I saw was patches of snow and ice, gray and ugly under the cloudy winter sky, bare trees and bushes, and what was left of our house.
    "We've got nothing now," Rachel said in low voice. "Nothing." She pawed at her runny nose with the back of one hand and clutched Sophia to her chest with the other. "We're orphans, Haswell."
    "There's still Avery," I said. "When he comes home, he'll take care of us."
    "Avery's our brother, not our parents. Besides, he's an orphan, too." Rachel sniffed and turned away to study the