The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady

Charlie thought back to Deputy Springer’s comment that Captain Campbell, the commandant at Camp Briarwood, had his head screwed on straight. “I think we should take this to Captain Campbell,” he said. “I hear he’s a pretty good guy.”


And, he was thinking to himself, he would place a call to Lorena Hickok. Maybe, when this was all over, they would even get a visit from Eleanor Everywhere.





EIGHTEEN


The Dahlias Celebrate the Fourth



The storm that brushed past Darling during the weekend took off a few roofs, knocked down several chicken coops, disrupted the electricity and telephone, and rearranged the furniture on some lawns, but it wasn’t bad enough to wreck Darling’s big midweek celebration on the Fourth of July. By that time, the flooding had subsided, the fallen branches and trees had been cleared away, the electric and phone wires were repaired, and the people who had lost this and that were very glad they hadn’t lost the whole kit and caboodle. While some had been stranded by flooding and impassable roads (Alabama mud is reputed to be the gooiest mud on earth), most had simply hunkered down with families and neighbors and waited for the wind and rain to blow past. When the sun peered over the eastern horizon on the morning of the Fourth, it smiled down on a brave, resilient little town that had weathered yet another storm and was getting ready to celebrate the founding of the nation to which it proudly belonged.

After the War Between the States, many towns of the Confederacy debated whether to celebrate the Fourth or ignore it. To some, it felt like a Union holiday—a day that commemorated the birth of the government from which they had seceded. Others felt that the South should claim the Fourth, arguing that the Declaration of Independence was drafted by a Southerner (Thomas Jefferson) and defended by a Southerner (George Washington). Vicksburg, Mississippi, of course, had its own separate opinion, for the Fourth marked the town’s bitter surrender to Union general Ulysses S. Grant, who had besieged and bombarded Vicksburg for seven long weeks. To escape the shelling, the starving residents had lived in caves and were reduced to eating dogs and cats and even rats. Vicksburg had vowed it would never again celebrate the Fourth except as a day of mourning, and so far, the citizens had kept their vow.

Darling had compromised. It celebrated Confederate Day on the fourth Monday of April, a day set aside to mark the last major Confederate offensive of the war and the surrender of Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, on April 26, 1865. There was always a solemn parade and speeches and a town picnic at the cemetery, where Confederate flags were placed on soldiers’ graves. Many Darlingians (although perhaps fewer every year) felt that Confederate Day was the most patriotic day of the year.

But Darling had long ago decided that the Fourth should be celebrated as a Southern holiday, and it seemed that the event became larger and more exuberant with each passing year, with a jubilant parade through the town and around the square, speeches (and speeches and more speeches) on the courthouse steps, and a picnic, entertainment, and fireworks at the fairgrounds.

The parade was the main event of the morning. The storm had pretty well wrecked the flags and bunting that decorated the courthouse, so they had been replaced and a new banner hung over Robert E. Lee Street declaring, DARLING: THE BEST LITTLE TOWN IN THE SOUTH. The townspeople, cheering and waving flags, lined the streets for a full half hour before the parade began, and a great menagerie of small boys, dogs, cats, and chickens were caught up and moved along by the celebratory throng.