James sat beneath the oak on a cool September evening in 1877. Reconstruction was over, they said. The soldiers had gone home, North and South. He looked up at the crooked branches, the new limb, the initials S.C. + M.P. still visible in the bark.
James, Samuel’s son, went to war wearing a blue uniform. He wrote letters home: myworld interactive american history beginnings to 1877 pdf
One hundred years. A planting. A revolution. A broken Union. A mending. James sat beneath the oak on a cool
Samuel shook his head. “We fought for one nation at the bridge. Not thirteen arguing cousins.” He looked up at the crooked branches, the
“Don’t carve the tree,” Elias grumbled. “That tree saw the Redcoats.”
“One tree,” he whispered.
The oak was massive now, its roots buckling the cart path. Elias, sixty-one, watched his grandson, Samuel, carve initials into the bark: S.C. + M.P. Mary Prentiss was the blacksmith’s daughter, and Samuel was in love.