‘Amen,' Mother said firmly. ‘Franklin, will you carve?'

Father and Tom returned the next day, late in the afternoon.

Beth and Lucille threw themselves on Tom and Father, and I wanted to, but could not, as I was carrying George and he had picked that moment to wet a nappy. But I just held him and let him wait, so that I wouldn't miss any news - a spare nappy under him; I knew George. That baby peed more than all the rest put together.

Beth demanded, ‘Did you do it, Tommy, did you do it, did you do it, did you?'

‘Of course he did,' Father answered. ‘He's Private Johnson now; next week he'll be a general.'

‘He will?'

‘Well, maybe not that fast' Father stopped to kiss Lucile and Beth. ‘But they do promote them fast in wartime. Take me, for example. I'm a captain:

‘Doctor Johnson!'

Father straightened up. ‘Captain Johnson, Madam. Both of us enlisted. I am now Acting Surgeon, Medical Detachment, Second Missouri Regiment, with assigned rank of captain.'

At this point I ought to say something about the families of my parents, especially Father's brothers and sisters, as what happened that week in April 1898 in Thebes had its roots a century earlier.

Father's grandparents were:

George Edward Johnson (1795-1897) and Amanda Lou Fredericks johnson (1798-1899);

Terence McFee (1796-1900) and Rose Wilhelmina Brandt McFee (1798-1899).

Both George Johnson and Terence McFee served in the War of 1812.

Father's parents were:

Asa Edward Johnson (1813-1918) and Rose Altheda McFee Johnson (1814-1918).

Asa johnson served in the War with Mexico, a sergeant in the Illinois Militia.

Mother's grandparents were:

Robert Pfeiffer (1809-1909) and Heidi Schmidt Pfeiffer (1810-1913);

Ole Larsen (1805-1809) and Anna Kristina H Larsen (1810-1912);

and her parents were:

Richard Pfeiffer (1830-1932) and Kristina Larsen Pfeifer (1834-1940)

Father was born on his grandfather Johnson's farm in Minnesota, in Freeborn County, near Albert, on Monday August 1852, the youngest of four boys and three girls. His grandfather George Edward Johnson (my great-grandfather) was born in 1795, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He died in a nursing home in Minneapolis in December 1897, and newspapers made a to-do over the fact that George Washington was still alive when he was born. (We had nothing to with this publicity. While I was not aware of the policy until I was married, even at that time Howard Foundation family avoided public mention of ages.)

George Edward Johnson married Amanda Lou Fredericks (1798-1899) in 1813 and took her to Illinois, where she had her first child, Asa Edward Johnson, my grandfather, that same year. It seems likely that Grampaw Acey was the sort of ‘premature' baby as my eldest brother, Edward. After the war with Mexico the Johnson family migrated west homesteaded in Minnesota.

There was no Howard Foundation in those days, but all my ancestors appeared to have started breeding young, had lots of children, were healthy despite the uncontrolled diseases of those times, and lived long lives, mostly to hundred and more.

Asa Edward johnson (1813-1918) married Rose Alth McFee (1814-1918) in 1831. They had seven children:

1. Samantha Jane Johnson 1831-1915 (died injuries suffered while breaking a horse.)

2. James Ewing Johnson 1833-1884 (killed attempting to ford the Osage during spring flood. I bare remember him. He married Aunt Carole Pelletier of New Orleans.)

3. Walter Raleigh Johnson 1838-1862 (killed at Shiloh.)

4. Alice Irene Johnson 1840-? (I don't know what became of Aunt Alice. She married back east.)

5. Edward McFee Johnson 1844-1884 (killed in a train wreck.)

6. Aurora Johnson 1850-? (last heard of in California circa 1930. Married several times.)

7 Ira Johnson 2 August 1852-1941 (reported missing in the Battle of Britain.)

When Fort Sumter fell in April 1861, Mr Lincoln asked for volunteers from the militias of the several states (just as Mr McKinley would do in a later April). On the Johnson farm in Freeborn County, Minnesota, the call was answered by Ewing (28), Walter (23), Edward (17)- and Grampaw Acey, at that time forty-eight years old, thus producing a situation that utterly humiliated Ira Johnson, nine years old and a grown man in his own estimation. He was going to be left home to do chores, while all the other men went to war. His sister Samantha (whose, husband had volunteered) and his mother would run the farm.

Small comfort to him that his father returned home almost at once, turned down for something, I do not know what.

Father endured this humiliation for three long years... and at twelve ran away from home to enlist as a drummer boy.

He found his way down the Mississippi on a barge, managed to locate the encampment of the 2^nd Minnesota before it joined Sherman's drive to the sea. His cousin Jules vouched for him and he was tentatively accepted (subject to training; he knew nothing of drums, or of bugles) and was assigned quarters and rations with headquarters company.

Then his father showed up and fetched him home.

So Father's service in the War was about three weeks and he was never in combat. He was not credited even with those three weeks... as he learned to his dismay when he attempted to join the Union veterans organisation, the Grand Army of the Republic.

There was no record of his service, as the regimental adjutant had ‘discharged' him and let Grampaw Acey take him home simply by destroying the paper work.

I think it is necessary to assume that Father was marked life.

During the nine days that Father and Tom waited at home before they could be inducted into army life I saw no indication that Mother disapproved (other than her first expression of surprise). But she never smiled. One could the tension between our parents... but they did not let it be seen.

Father did say something to me that, I think, had bearing on this tension. We were in his clinic and I was helping him to thin out and update his patients records so that he could turn them over to Dr Chadwick for duration of the war. He said to me, ‘Why no smiles, Turkey Egg? Worried about your young man?'

‘No,' I lied. ‘He had to go; I know that. But I wish you weren't going. Selfish, I guess. But I'll miss you, cher papa.'

‘I'll miss you, too. All of you.' He was silent for several minutes, then he added, ‘Maureen, someday you may faced - will be faced, I think - with the same thing: your husband going off to war. Some people say - I've heard talke that married men should not go. Because of their families.

‘But this involves a contradiction, a fatal one. The family man dare not hang back and expect the bachelor to do fighting for him. It is manifestly unfair for me to expect a bachelor to die for my children if I am unwilling to die for them myself. Enough of that attitude on the part of married men and the bachelor will refuse to fight if the married man stays safe at home... and the Republic is doomed. The barbarian will walk in unopposed.'

Father looked at me - looked worried. ‘Do you see?' I think he was honestly seeking my opinion, my approval.

‘I - ‘I stopped and sighed. ‘Father, I think I see. But at times like these I am forced to realise that I am not very experienced. I just want this war to be over so that you can come home and Tom will come home... and -‘

‘And Brian Smith? I agree.'

‘Well, yes. But I was thinking of Chuck, too. Chuck Perkins.'

‘Chuck is going? Good lad!'

‘Yes, he told me today. His father has agreed and is going to Joplin with him tomorrow.' I sniffed back a tear. ‘I don't love Chuck but I do feel sort of sentimental about him.'

‘That's understandable.'

Later that day I let Chuck take me up on Marston Hill and defied chiggers and Mrs Grundy and told Chuck I was proud of him and demonstrated it the very best I knew how. (I did use a sheath; I had promised Father.) And an amazing thing happened. I had gone up there simply intending to run through some female calesthenics to demonstrate to Chuck that I was proud of him and appreciated his willingness to fight for us. And the miracle happened. Fireworks, big ones! I got all blurry and my eyes squinched shut and I found I was making loud noises.