When I ran the kitchen at the Pavilion Hotel, Rob Johnson delivered fresh vegetables and milk from his family’s farm. His ornery pa usually collected the payment, which I knew went straight to drink. Mrs. Johnson had been a good, God-fearing woman, but after she died the old man drank even more. The older son joined the Rebel Army, so young Rob took on all the work.
I left the Pavillion under a cloud when I was suspected of stealing Union papers from a guest. I went to work at O’Ferrall’s Coffee House and got room and board, but little pay. As Rebel sympathizers, the O’Ferrall’s custom had fallen off and they lived mainly by bartering. I knew the O’Ferrall women would know how to get my stolen Union Army reports to the Rebs.
Young Rob hung around the coffee house, mooning after Miss Mary and her red-haired hellion friend, Fannie Swann. They paid him no mind until they found that he could be useful in spying on the Yankees. This was dangerous business and I told them so.
Later, Rob joined the Confederates. The Yankees captured him in 1863 and sent him to Point Lookout Prison in Maryland. When he returned, he was a hardened rail-thin stranger, determined to hang onto his land at any cost. The Union folks running the county were out for revenge against their Rebel neighbors and Rob’s farm was taken away. I told him I had never seen such crookery blessed by the law. He was back from the war with no land, no woman and no money. Praise God he was good-looking.
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