On the Drive

“Well, Dad,” Laura took a deep breath and exhaled. “What do you want to talk about now?”

I liked going to Civil War living history events with my daughter. She’d started at an encampment at Fort Scott earlier that year, and by now, we’d accumulated a number of authentic items or replicas. A pink-print dress with some growing room, important for a child of 10, stockings, shoes and, one of her favorite items, a crocheted hairnet, or “snood.”

Many women participated in the Civil War. Some were nurses, a very few fought in disguise alongside the men, but most were camp followers who provided essential services like laundry, along with mending, but included wives and sweethearts with nowhere else to go.

A living history event wouldn’t be complete without women, and the Ladies Union Aid Society accepted her as one of their own. Laura took to it like print to paper, coming to me between my martial activities with bread flour up to her elbows, or breathlessly telling me of her etiquette class, “elegant class,” as she called it. Of course, Laura’s uncanny ability to ferret out porcelain facilities at remote event sites only endeared her to the adult women.

This trip, however, she spoke almost nonstop until she asked of our next topic, and inspired in me a mischievous thought. “I’m a little tired. I think I’ll take a nap.” I lowered my head, knowing she couldn’t see my eyes behind the wraparound sunglasses, but kept my focus on the road.

“Dad?”

I said nothing.“Dad?” Her voice took an urgent note.

I snored.

“Da-ad!”

I raised my head, lifted my shades and gave her a quick wink.

“For a minute, there you scared me.” She remained quiet for almost seven seconds. “So, what do you want to talk about now?”

William R. Bartlett lives in Belton with his family.