Trail Of Dreams

March 1865 – Philadelphia

“Mama, what is it? What’s wrong?” Melissa Whitaker cried as she burst into the parlor and ran to kneel before her weeping mother.
“ Oh, Lissa, what are we going to do?”
Sobs shook her mother Elizabeth’s frail body as tears slid over her cheeks and darkened spots on her blue homespun blouse. Cook stood beside her mistress, patting her shoulder ineffectually. Her eyes wide with fright, she looked to Lissa in an unspoken appeal to do something—anything—to calm her mother.
“ Mama? Please, tell me what’s happened,” Lissa said firmly, taking her mother’s hand.
“ Tell her. You gotta tell her that her papa’s workshop’s on fire!” Cook cried out when the older woman failed to respond.
Lissa jumped to her feet and grabbed Cook’s thick arm. “Papa’s business? On fire?”
“ Yes, Miss Lissa. The man what come here tell us he fears all is lost,” Cook elaborated in a rush. She fanned her own face with the bottom of her apron stretched taut between her hands.
“ Mama, I’m going down there. There must be something I can do.”
“ Wally was driving the delivery wagon today, Miss Lissa,” Cook told her over her mother’s objections to her leaving. “But we ain’t heard a word about him.”
Lissa’s mother sobbed more loudly.
“ Don’t worry, Mama. I’m sure to see him,” she promised as she pulled on her blue bonnet and tied it snugly to control her long raven-colored curls.
“ Don’t you fret none about your mama,” Cook called out. “I stay here ’til you gets home.”
“ Thank you.” Her navy wool cape wrapped around her shoulders, Lissa pulled on her matching gloves and walked out the door. Folding her cape double over her chest against the cold, she raced down the road toward her father’s furniture workshop. The flames and smoke lit the darkening late afternoon sky as she lifted the front of her skirts and ran as fast as she could, mindless of the stones jabbing her feet through the soft leather soles of her shoes.
Near to the fire, the heat and smell from the acrid smoke stung her eyes, but she could see the fire was well beyond stopping. The crackling roar thundered in her ears. The warehouse next door to the furniture shop was engulfed in flames too. Her papa’s livery behind them with its straw must have been quick to go. Its walls had already collapsed and burned into a pile of glowing embers. Lissa hoped the horses were safe with her brother Wally. The pair of grays had been faithful workers for many years.
Men, women, and children fled up the hill in their flight from the fire. They carried all they could away from the flames that threatened their homes and businesses.
“ Good thing the wind is dying down,” she heard one man say. “Maybe it won’t take the whole town now.”
“ I surely do hope so, ’cause my Jake is down there manning a bucket,” a woman replied.
But judging by the sparks that rose high in the air and danced in every direction above the flames, Lissa could not agree. She hurried closer, making her way against the tide of refugees.
A tall bearded man in a knit cap directed a bucket brigade that snaked up from the river. The men were all in their shirtsleeves despite the winter-like March day. Their bodies were blackened with soot and streaked with sweat from their exertion as they wet down nearby shops and row houses. Lissa strained to see her father and her brother among them but could not.
A man passed, pulling a handcart piled high with furniture and possessions wrapped in bed sheets. A woman walked beside him, her arms full of dishes and a candlestick she must have grabbed off a table as they ran out. Cutting across the flow of people to the corner, she caught sight of her brother driving the delivery wagon up the road from the fire. People clutching their belongings filled the open-top wagon, while others hurried along behind. Wally, his feet braced against the front of the wagon, struggled to control the panicking horses.
“ Lissa, I’ll be right back for more,” he shouted as the horses passed her.
Not bothering to reply over the roar of the fire, Lissa ran to help a mother who was carrying a small child on her hip and a large bag over her opposite shoulder.
“ My Harry. I can’t find my Harry. Please, mistress, find my little Harry. I thought he was next to me and now he’s gone. And I can’t go back with the babe.”
Lissa looked at the tide of humanity flowing past them. “I’ll find him,” she vowed as she ran toward the fire.
Calling out the child’s name, she had not yet spotted him when Wally and the now empty wagon pulled up beside her. Their father ran to meet him, and Lissa mumbled a prayer of thanks that he wasn’t hurt.
“ We can’t stop until everyone is out!” He seized the lead gray’s bridle to turn the team.
“ I came to help,” Lissa shouted.
“ Get soaked down first,” Wally ordered before her father could object. In a short detour to a horse trough, she dipped her hat and used it to pour water over her cape. She shivered in the cold shower.
Once the horses were turned, Wally set the wagon brake and jumped down to hold them. As Lissa approached the wagon to help load goods, the tall man she had seen directing the bucket brigade ran over and helped load people. His muscles rolled under his homespun shirt as he lifted them onto the wagon bed. As he looked around, his gaze met hers, and in two long strides he stood before her. Without a word, he placed his hands on her waist, lifted her into the air, and turned toward the wagon.
She pounded on his hard upper arms. “No, stop! Put me down. I’m here to help, not to escape the flames.” She didn’t recognize him, but with ash and soot smudged over his face and beard, and his hair covered with a knit cap, it was hard to tell who he was.
He paused, holding her in the air as if she weighed nothing, and then lowered her to the ground. For the few moments their gazes locked, Lissa noticed his blue eyes. A strange new fire licked at her belly. She’d never seen eyes so pale a blue before. A small smile curled the edges of his full lips, and then he turned away to help others in need.
A small voice crying, “Mama!” jerked Lissa’s attention from the strong man’s back to the reality of what she was doing there.
“ Harry! Harry, is that you?” She wove her way through the crowd toward the child’s cries. “Harry? Are you Harry?”
The tearful child nodded. “I can’t find my mama.”
“ I know where your mama is. She’s up the hill with the baby and asked me to find you. Come on. I’ll take you to her.”
The child’s face brightened a little and he allowed Lissa to pick him up.
“ Look out! Run for it!” several people nearby shouted at once.
Lissa wrapped her wet cape around the child as she ran. Behind them, the burning two-story wall of a seedy inn fell onto the road at the edge of the fire. Flaming shards shot like arrows in every direction. The bucket brigade changed direction to wet them down. Water hissed and steam rose with the smoke and heat.
“ You found him. Harry, oh, my Harry,” the child’s mother exclaimed as she dropped her bag and clutched the boy, kissing him over and over.
“ You can manage from here?” Lissa asked.
“ Yes, and thank you. Bless you.” She grabbed her bag and made sure Harry was in front of her as she continued up the hill to safety. Lissa dashed back where they were still evacuating the able-bodied and the injured.