Chapter 4
“You are really quiet, poppet, is there something wrong?” Meggie O’Hara asked her son as they dressed Eli and Samuel.

“Nothing is wrong, Ma,” Charlie said as he pulled the nightshirt over Eli’s head and then grabbed his younger brother’s shirt.

Meggie knew better. She knew something happened at Windham Manor. She just couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Did Mrs. Windham hurt you?” she asked. “Was she mean to you?”

Charlie shook his head no.

“She’s been good to me, Ma,” Charlie said.

Meggie did not want to pry. She knew Charlie would eventually open up. It wasn’t like him to keep a secret from her.

“We need to put the food up before your father comes home,” she said. “We’ll have to make him and Lucas something to eat or they’ll be grumpy. Robert, will you watch your younger brothers while Charlie helps me in the kitchen?”

Charlie hoped his father wouldn’t come home drunk. He also hoped Lucas wasn’t going to be bossy like Pa now that he was working at the mill.

His greatest fears were realized when he heard singing coming from outside. Suddenly the door burst open.

“Have the women of the house made us anything to eat?” Walter O’Hara said with the smell of whisky on his breath.

“What have you made us, little Charlotte?” Lucas said. He was almost as drunk as his father.

It was too much for Charlie to bear. He lunged at Lucas and landed on top of him. He pinned his older brother down and started swinging. He hit his brother in the face several times.

“That’s it Charlie!” his father yelled. “We’ll make a man out of you yet!”

Lucas was a little too strong for his young brother. He flung Charlie off his chest and lunged at him and punched him a few times in retaliation.

“Walter O’Hara, aren’t you going to do anything to stop them?” Meggie O’Hara cried.

“Absolutely not, woman!” Walter O’Hara said. “This is the first time I’ve seen Charlie act like a boy. He needs to act like a man and come to work with us at the mill!”

“He’ll do no such thing!” she yelled back. “He already has a job. He makes more than you two combined.”

“As what?” Walter O’Hara said. “As Mrs. Windham’s maid? I swear you are making a woman out of him, Meggie!”

He then pushed his wife against the wall and told her to stay out of the fight between their two sons.

Charlie managed to free himself from Lucas and flung himself at his father.

“Don’t you ever do that to Ma again!” he shouted.

Old Walter, all he did was laughed. He was a strong man and flung his son easily across the room.

“That’s it Charlie,” he said. “I’ll make a man out of you yet! You’ll be a regular fightin’ Irishman.”

“I don’t want to be a man like you!” Charlie shouted, and ran out the door.

Meggie went running after her son. She found him sitting down by the chicken coop weeping.

“Why does he have to be that way?” he asked his mother.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He’s not the man I married, anymore. He used to be kind and gentle.”

She pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away the tears and the blood.

*****

Charlie hoped Mrs. Windham wouldn’t notice the fat lip or the little black eye as he walked onto the porch and into the parlor at Windham Manor.

“Madame wants you to get dressed in the sailor suit this morning,” Mirilla said as she led him to Emily’s room.

On the bed was the sailor suit with a pair of pantaloons…or was it pantalettes? He forgot what Mirilla called them.

He put them on, curious as to why. They weren’t going to be doing any serious work in the garden, not with him dressed like that.

“Well, don’t you look nice?” Mrs. Windham said. “What’s wrong with your face? It looks like you’ve been in a brawl.”

Charlie remained silent. He wasn’t about to tell her about the fight he had with his brother or his father.

“Come here,” she said as she grabbed his hand. She led him to her room.

“This should cover it up,” she said as she put a little makeup over his eye. “There’s nothing I can do about the fat lip.”

“So what are we doing, today, Madame?” Charlie asked.

“We are going to do some traveling today,” Mrs. Windham replied. It had been since Emily died since she really had been away from Windham Manor. “I have some men working on the gazebo in the garden, getting it ready for a Fourth of July celebration. We can’t do any work there until they are through.”

“I’m glad she’s getting out of the house,” Mirilla told Charlie as Myron helped Mrs. Windham into the carriage.

After everything that had happened — being caught in the dress, getting in a fight with his brother and father — Charlie was actually glad to be getting out of the house as well.

It was a very nice day for a carriage ride. They rode through a part of town Charlie had never seen before. It came to a stop at very nice house.

Myron helped Mrs. Windham and Charlie out of the carriage. They were greeted on the porch by a woman who appeared to be the maid.

“The other ladies are already in the parlor,” the woman said.

The women in the parlor were all knitting. Some were knitting blankets. Others were making bandages. Others were knitting socks.

They were part of the “Sanitary Society”, if Charlie remembered the name correctly. Madame Windham said they made blankets, socks and medical supplies to send south to Union troops fighting the Confederacy.

“Mary, it is so good to see you!” a woman said. “We’ve been so worried about you since Emily died. And who is this young lady with you?”

“Young lady?” Charlie thought. He knew the sailor suit wasn’t the most “manly” clothes to wear, but he didn’t think he looked too much like a girl.

He gave Mrs. Windham a curious look. He wondered what she would say. He didn’t know what would be worse: having to make everyone believe he was a girl…or being embarrassed if Mrs. Windham announced that he wasn’t.

She winked at him and smiled.

“Thanks for the welcome, Lydia,” she said, winking again to Charlie. “This is my little niece….Claire. You’re going to have to excuse her. She’s a little unrefined. But she’s an excellent knitter.”

“Splendid!” the woman named Lydia said. “She can sit with Rebecca, so she’ll have company her age.”

Rebecca was Lydia’s daughter. Everyone else there were either Mrs. Windham’s age or older.

“You can call me Becky,” the young girl said to Charlie. “We’re working on a blanket for a soldier.”

“Nice to meet you, Becky!” Charlie said, trying not to over do it as a girl, but not act like a boy, either.

He sat down in a rocker by his new friend and went straight to work. He was fascinated by the discussions going on in the room. Some of the women had actually gone down south to deliver supplies.

Some also worked as nurses with a woman named Clara Barton. He couldn’t believe the horrible tales some of them were telling.

“I have an uncle in the army,” he whispered to Becky.

“I hope he’s okay,” she whispered back to him.

A woman named Helen read accounts from the latest battle from the New York Times. It was about a battle called Chancellorsville.

“That’s in Virginia, isn’t it?” one woman asked.

“Yes it is,” Mrs. Windham said. “I heard Myron tell one of our workers that our soldiers were humiliated by General Lee and Stonewall Jackson.”

The Times story mentioned that the Stonewall person had been wounded. His arm had been amputed.

“Eww..!” Becky said.

“Rebecca would not make a very good nurse,” Lydia laughed.

Charlie was fascinated that women took an interest in war. He and his brothers used to play “war” outside of their apartment in the slums. He never really thought it was very much fun.

*****

“So what did you think of Rebecca?” Mrs. Windham asked Charlie as the carriage took them to their next destination.

“She’s really nice,” Charlie said. “She’s really funny, too. And really beautiful.”

“Yes, she is,” Mrs. Windham said. “Lydia’s done a good job raising her. Her father has been away at war, so it’s just been the two of them. Lydia wants to bring her over to play with you. Would you like that?”

Charlie was stunned. Yes he’d like that, he thought. But there was one really big problem. She thought he was a girl.

“Of course, that would mean you would have to be Claire, again,” Mrs. Windham said.

Deep down, Charlie wanted to be Claire again. He just didn’t want to admit it.

“Well…if I must,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Mrs. Windham laughed at him.

“You can be so funny sometimes, Charlie O’Hara!,” she said…”or is it Claire Windham?”

Charlie acted really feminine in a funny way…”Why it’s Claire, of course.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Windham said.

“Can I ask you a question, Madame?” Charlie said.

“Why of course,” Mrs. Windham replied.

“Why the name Claire?” Charlie asked.

“Well, I named Emily for my mother,” Mrs. Windham said. “Her sister, my aunt, was named Claire. I’ve always said I’d name my next daughter Claire if I ever had one again.”

If I ever had one again were words that suddenly rattled in Charlie’s head.

Their next stop wasn’t too as pleasant of a place. The Plainview Orphanage was appropriately named. It was a very plain place, if not somber.

Mrs. Windham, Charlie and Myron gathered the fruit, vegetables and clothing from the carriage and took them inside.

“Why Mary Windham! What a surprise!,” a gray haired woman said. “We haven’t seen you in ages.”

The woman, Charlie was told, ran the orphanage.

“If I had known you were coming, we would have really cleaned the place up,” the woman told Mrs. Windham.

“That’s okay,” Mrs. Windham said. “I know you have a lot to do here without having to get the place looking nice for me.”

Myron explained to Charlie that before Emily’s death that Mrs. Windham was known for her charity work. She worked with the Sanitary Society. She donated food and clothing to the orphanage.

She helped out with the war wounded at the town hospital. She even took supplies and food to the prison camp up the road for the poor unfortunate Southerners captured in battle.

“She is a remarkable woman, Charlie,” Myron said. “It was like someone ripped apart her soul when Emily died. You’ve seem to be the magician that’s brought her back.”

“Oh no, I’m not a magician,” Charlie said. “I’m just a boy…”

Or a girl. Charlie admitted he was becoming a bit confused these days.

Charlie thought he had it rough living in the slums. Just a walk around the orphanage made him feel very fortunate. He at least had a mother — or now it seemed two mothers — looking after him. He also had his brothers.

Most of the children at the orphanage didn’t have anyone. Most had clothes worse than his. Very few had toys.

He was in for a little surprise. There was a little girl, who couldn’t have been as old as six, who had a doll that looked just like Beatrice.

“I had a doll just like that one when I was your age,” he told the girl.

She smiled.

“You had one like Molly when you were a little girl?” the girl asked.

He looked at Mrs. Windham and nodded his head yes.

He found out that he and the little girl had more in common than just the doll. Her parents came over from Ireland as well. Her father, like his uncle, had been in the Irish Brigade, but was killed at a place called Fredericksburg, Her mother died of a sickness over the winter.

It was a sad story. But it was one of many sad stories at the orphanage.

*****

There was one final stop to make. Mrs. Windham was planning a trip to Europe and wanted to pick out a nice dress to carry with her.

They stopped at the nicest dress shop in town. Charlie knew it was the nicest because he and his mother walked by there one day a couple of years before on a rare day away from the slums.

He saw his mother look at the dresses in the window with envy. He thought they were pretty, too, but didn’t venture the thought about wanting one.

“Well Mrs. Windham, here is the one you picked out last year,” the woman in the shop said. “We need to make some alterations. Come with us.”

“Come along, Claire!” Mrs. Windham said as they went into a back room.

Charlie didn’t know what to say. He knew she would be changing. Perhaps she forgot that he was a boy.

But amazingly, he wasn’t embarrassed as she stripped down to her undergarments and put the dress on. They made quite a few alterations.

“That is so beautiful,” Charlie whispered to her.

“Would you like to pick one out for your daughter?,” the young woman said. She was new in town. She did not know about Emily’s death.

Charlie had a really embarrassed look on his face. He wondered what Mrs. Windham’s reply was going to be.

Mrs. Windham smiled.

“Yes, bring her some,” she said winking at Charlie. “I believe her clothes are getting a little ragged. She may be in the need for some new ones.”

Charlie — or is it Claire now? — laughed. He dropped his guard. He enjoyed being Claire and relished every moment in every dress.

“Oh my, that one would look very good on you in Paris,” Mrs. Windham said of one that was of a French design. “We’ll take that one!”

Look good in Paris? Charlie wondered if she were serious.