Free The Last Full Measure by Ann Rinaldi Page A

friends so far in this war. The girl stays."
    I jumped up on my toes. I put my hands over my mouth so I would not scream.
    "Call her over here," he said.
    I did so. He gestured she should come to him. When she did, he said to her, "You are free, Marvelous. And you will stay here and stay free. You are not, and never will be, up for grabs."
    Marvelous gave him a curtsy. "Thank you, sir." She ran around the table to me and we hugged.
    Then Lieutenant Gregory Lewis Marshall of the Forty-fifth Georgia stood up and looked at his men. "Let's go," he ordered.
    They got to their feet, looking rather shamefaced.
    The lieutenant came over and extended his hand. Thinking he wanted to shake hands, I gave him mine. He bowed and kissed it. "Thank you for the excellent breakfast. We Southerners are not all savages. I don't want you to think of us all that way."
    "I won't, sir."
    He nodded to me, then went out.
    "Oh, Marvelous," I said as we danced around the kitchen, "they're not all bad, after all. They aren't."
    I don't know why it took something like this to make me realize that perhaps they weren't. To understand that perhaps they might be people just like the rest of us, dragged into this war without wanting to be. But I did know that I would remember Lieutenant Gregory Lewis Marshall of the Forty-fifth Georgia all of my life. I never knew if he survived the war. But I always hoped he did.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    M IRACULOUSLY, NONE OF this had woken Mama. Marvelous and I cleaned up the kitchen and before another hour had passed, David came riding into the backyard, leading Daisy by a rope.
    Across his saddle, in front of him, he had something. Something wounded. At first glance I thought it might be a human being. At second glance, a baby calf. And then, I saw it was a dog. A wounded and frightened dog. I looked at Marvelous and she at me, and I grabbed a towel and we both ran outside.
    "What do you have there?" I demanded of my brother. I never demanded things of my brother, but this time the occasion warranted it.
    He slid off his horse, grabbed the towel from me, and carefully wrapped the dog in it. It was medium-size, black and white, and it was bleeding from its side. But its eyes were open and it was whimpering.
    "Where's Mama?" he asked.
    "She's upstairs sleeping. She's got a bad headache."
    "All right. Here, you take it." He handed the poor thing over to me as if it were a bag of potatoes. And of a sudden I had the weight of it in my arms. "Take it in the kitchen. Marvelous, help her. Get an old blanket and put it on the floor. I'll be right in. Got to take care of Daisy here first. Get her in the barn and feed her. Go on, do as I say."
    "Is Daisy well?"
    "Middling well. Go."
    Marvelous and I managed to do as he said. The dog, bless her, was docile and, beyond a little whimpering, gave us no trouble. It was Marvelous who started cleaning her wound, who pronounced it just surface deep, who didn't mind the blood, so that by the time David came in to take over, all the blood was gone, not only from the wound but from the fur.
    "If women could be doctors, I'd say you should go to medical school," David told her, and I was surprised to feel jealous.
    We gave the dog some warm milk with bread in it and she soon fell asleep.
    Then David bade me go upstairs and get him a clean shirt, and when I came down he grabbed a towel and a bar of soap and went outside.
    He may have a twisted leg
, I thought, watching through the window,
but I know now why Josie is smitten with him
. She'd seen him many times like this, washing up at the pump in the yard, half naked. Often she'd made it her business to be there with him to hand him the towel. I'd thought nothing of it before. But now I did.
    Now I saw why.
    David lacked nothing in masculinity. He was broad shouldered, had muscles as well formed as Joel's and Brandon's, was browned and handsome. I wondered if he carried any feelings inside him for Josie.
    Then, turning, I told Marvelous to put on a pot of