The Bacon

I knew it was too early to sneak out of camp, but no one hardly paid me any mind anyway. I was just the drummer boy… or at least they all thought I was a boy. I wasn’t, but that didn’t matter so long as no one found out. I didn’t want to be a boy, but I sure did want to fight in that war… and I liked pants. I liked pants even better than the split riding skirt my aunt Josephine had sent me once, though I liked that pretty well.

Well anyway, it was early, but I wanted to make good time, and hope that I could get what I wanted in time for breakfast. Bacon sure did sound good. We hadn’t had bacon in camp for weeks. It was a cold, hungry winter, and I was about to shrivel up to nothing with the strict rations we got. I wasn’t getting any nice, homey packages either, no one knew where I was and if they had they’d have come and tanned my hide and told on me, and taken me off home, and probably sent me straight to France to some kind of girl’s school or something. So I went without the jams and jellies and just let my mouth water when some of the boys popped open the jars and cans of goods from home. Tonight though, I was going to get me a pig. For sure I had seen that old run down barn, and not a man among the marchers thought it even worth looting. I didn’t either, ‘til I saw the rooting around the side, no mistaking that, it was pigs, and it was fresh. We marched on a mile or so and made camp, and as soon as I was given the signal to drum the end beats I was scheming about going back to that old beat up barn and getting me one of those pigs. Bacon… oh! How I wanted some bacon! There I was walking out of camp just as high and mighty as you please, I had the run of the place, and everyone thought I was on some errand to the back of the line. Soon as I thought it was safe, I took a good look around, searching for spies, and then ducked off the road, and cut across the field to the barn. It was too light out to run straight for it, so I crouched like in the tall grass. It was achy work, especially after a long day of marching and drumming, but I got there as it got just dark enough for me to feel comfortable that no one was going to spot me from a distance.

I heard them rustling around in there, rooting and making ready for bed, I knew there must have been at least three of them. The old barn door was hanging sidewise on one hinge, but I slipped through, without opening it any further. I could smell the rancid stench of hogs, and as much as I hated that smell, I wanted that bacon, and I was going to get it. As I straightened up from ducking into the door I came face to face with a man… well, not exactly a man, by Southern standards (that’s what went through my head right away). A negro, taller than me by a good six inches, but looking down into my face as bold as brass. The first thing I wanted to do was square my shoulders and tell him he didn’t dare look me in the eye! But I didn’t, ‘cause he caught my arm with one hand, and put a finger to his lips with the other, shushing my quietly.

“They’s in the back corner,” he hissed, bending down close to my ear. “Got to shut this door up so’s they don’ ‘scape.”

Well that did it for me, whatever else he might be, he was an accomplice now, and knew his stuff. I could lure him back to camp with me, and bring bacon and a prisoner, I’d be the talk of the whole company. Besides, he looked like an able bodied one, and he might come in handy in the camp. He let go my arm and stepping behind me gently pulled the door up from the angle it hung at. However gentle he was it still creaked something awful! There was a scuffling in the far corner, and some squeals, and I knew the pigs were on to us. Pigs are smart. In the dim light I couldn’t see if the far door was closed off or not.

“What about the far door?” I whispered.

“Closed that’un off just afore you sneaked in,” he whispered back. “Now,” he went on, with his face close to mine. “There’s three big’uns and a heap o’ little’uns. ‘Nuff fer both of us I reckon. I’ll help you, an’ you help me. We’ll go our separate ways an’ say nothin’ about it. Fair?”

“Fair,” I said, still trying to decide how to take him prisoner once I had my bacon.

Catching those pigs was more work than I had bargained for. We snuck across the barn, and just about the time my eyes were adjusted enough to see which one I wanted off they go squealing across the barn to the other side. That black man made a grab for one and ended up on his stomach in the dirt on the floor. I giggled, then caught myself, he can’t know I’m not a boy! Then one skirted passed me and I reached out for it, but there isn’t anything to grab on a pig, and I missed. Before long we had both ended up on the floor a time or two, he laughed, and I laughed, and then we got up and dove all over again. Finally he sat up, chuckling from another failed dive, and I stood brushing debris off my coat.

“This ain’t never goin’ to work,” he said. “I got an idea. Let’s both take hold of a side of this here plank, we’ll run’em into a corner and take our pick from there.”

Well I picked up that plank, and the trick worked real slick, before any time at all we each had ourselves a nice size pig. Before I could stop myself, I looked up at him and smiled, held out my hand, and said,

“Thank you!” Then I gasped. In the dark, between the laughter, and the working together I had forgotten this negro wasn’t a man, not an equal, not a… human…. He took my hand before I could draw it back. He held it, and wrapped his other big hand around it too.

“My name’s Jeremiah,” he said quietly. “And I’m much obliged for your help. I reckon you weren’t plannin’ on helping no negro tonight. Judging by your uniform, you ain’t never plannin’ on helping no negroes. We’re people though, and tonight you found out that skin color don’t matter when it comes to working together… and I found out that women folk, even white women folk, is good for more than sewin’ an’ cookin’.”

Before I could say another word he had picked up his bag with his pig, slung it over his shoulder and leapt out of the far door. There I sat, on the floor with my dripping bag of stolen pig beside me, and had the worst kind of a moment. Negroes weren’t equals in my world, they were slaves, and I was fighting and drumming to keep them that way. Then along comes this one and I know, suddenly and without question, I know he’s a man, and an equal human in every way. He has a right to all the things I have, and to choose how his life plays out, just as I did when I ran away to the war. This negro and I had more in common than I had with my own brothers. I sat there in that old run-down barn, and I cried… I cried, and I cried, and I cried. Then I got up, wiped my eyes and knew what I had to do. I went back to camp, I took my pig, and I had my bacon for breakfast, and it tasted better than I could have imagined. Then I snuck out that next night, I went straight into the enemy camp, and I told them all I knew about our camp. I told them I wanted to be a spy, and I would keep my job as a drummer and get word out to them as often as I could. When I first went over I told myself I was on the side of the negro; but it turns out I was on the side of humanity.