News of the World: A Novel by Paulette Jiles Page B

the sign for “poison.”
    He said, Eat half of it, Mrs. Gannet.
    She understood immediately and bit half of the white candy and said, Mmmmm!
    Johanna reached up and took the other half from her in a glacially slow movement and bit down on the taste of vanilla and sugar and egg white, felt the light crinkling of divinity shell in her mouth. She ate it unsmiling. The Captain knew Mrs. Gannet had made it that afternoon, for Johanna. Divinity was very difficult to make. He backed out slowly and heard the lock click to.
    The walls of the hotel were made of cheap deal board and he could hear everything from the room next door and wished he could not. He sat down to outline his articles in ink, his pen nib scratching across the rough newsprint with a noise like avaricious mice. He blew on the ink and then laid the newspapers aside and took up the letter paper to write to his daughters in Georgia. The room smelled of new, raw lumber and the harsh soap they had used to wash the quilts and sheets.
    My dearest daughters Olympia and Elizabeth, he wrote.
    Kep-dun! Johanna banged on the wall. She was sobbing.
    He banged back. Cho-henna, he said.
My greetings and constant love to Emory and my grandchildren. I am well and continue to make my rounds with the news of the day and as always am well-received in the towns of which we have more than a few now as the Century grows older and the population increases so that large crowds come to hear reportage of distant places as well as those nearby. I enjoy good health as always and hope that Emory is doing well using his left hand now and look forward to an example of his handwriting. It is true what Elizabeth has said about employment for a one-armed man but that concerns manual labor only and at any rate there should be some consideration for a man who has lost a limb in the war. As soon as he is adept with his left I am sure he will consider Typesetting, Accounting, Etc. & Etc. Olympia is I am sure a steady rock to you all.
    Olympia’s husband, Mason, had been killed at Adairsville, during Johnston’s retreat toward Atlanta. The man was too big to be a human being and too small to be a locomotive. He had been shot out of the tower of the Bardsley mansion and when he fell three stories and struck the ground he probably made a hole big enough to bury a hog in. The Captain’s younger daughter, Olympia, was in reality a woman who affected helplessness and refinement and had never been able to pull a turnip from the garden without weeping over the poor, dear thing. She fluttered and gasped and incessantly tried to demonstrate how sensitiveshe was. Mason was a perfect foil and then the Yankees went and killed him.
    Olympia was now living with Elizabeth and Emory in the remains of their farm in New Hope Church, Georgia, and was quite likely a heavy weight. He put one hand to his forehead. My youngest daughter is in reality a bore.
    There was a pounding on the wall: Kep-dun! Kep-dun!
    He got up and pounded back. Cho-henna! he said. Go to sleep!
    The Captain heard a soothing voice on the other side of the wall. The way one spoke to restless horses: firm, low-voiced. Commands that were somehow gentle. Earlier he had heard Mrs. Gannet and the girl going down the hall to the bathroom. A small shriek of fear as the toilet flushed. You could hear everything in this hotel. He wished he had spent more money and had taken rooms in one of the big stone hotels where one’s privacy was assured.
. . . your husbands having been both of old Georgia State regiments would be true to their comrades and so it was fate and the Will of the Almighty had led you all to go back to Georgia to fight in the War and thus into the heart of the Burning but considering what has occurred to other families we return thanks for our dear ones who are still with us. I know travel is extremely difficult at present but once you are here things will be better.
    He paused, went back, and blotted it out from “and thus” to