Story: Follow The Drinking Gourd II

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 23 Oct 01 - 02:00 PM

Tom grabbed his rifle at the sound of the shotgun, saying "Gerald, scout ahead on the trail, quickly! If the way is clear, fire one shot! Adam, we'll hold them here. Everyone else, get ready to run at Gerald's signal!" Tom took cover behind a henhouse that gave him a wide field of fire down the trail. Adam crouched behind a stack of firewood fifty feet away. Tom was surprised to find Willis right behind him. "Willis! What are you doing?" Willis said "I'm staying to fight. It ain't right for me to jus run fo my freedom. I got to fight fo it!" Tom said "Have you ever fired a gun?" Willis shook his head and siad "but I seen you all. Besides, Mr Gerald done give me this scatter-gun and showed me how to load it!" Willis held up the smoothbore percussion rifle. "He says just point at the target and pull th trigger's all I need to do." Tom clapped him on the arm and said "very well then. Take cover behind that fallen tree on our right. That should give good flanking fire. Don't let them sneak around on your right, though." Willis nodded and ran to his post.

A shot was heard from up the trail, Gerald's signal, and Tom motioned to Elizabeth to go. The horses and mules of the little party started at a run up the trail, just at the moment a rifle report was heard, and a shot from down the trail whistled above Tom's head, dropping a clump of leaves on the ground behind him.

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: Peter T.
Date: 23 Oct 01 - 03:28 PM

There was a spray of shots, and Tom and Adam exchanged nods, and returned the fire. After a few minutes of desultory firing, Tom realized that something was wrong, that this situation was too simple, and he saw they were being set up, and he yelled at Willis: "Here, I have just filled this. You have six shots, shoot three when I start to move, wait for the reply, and then shoot the other three, and then run after me." He handed him the rifle.

"Ready" he said, and then ran to where Adam was firing as well. Willis did an admirable job of cover fire.

"Adam," he said, "There must be more of them. I only count two, and that must mean they were flushing us out, there must be some kind of trouble ahead. You have to go after the party, Gerald and Samuel won't be able to handle it if there are a lot of them."

Adam looked as if he was about to argue, but nodded, and zigzagged for his horse, made it, and headed north along the trail as fast as he could ride.

"Hey, Willis," Tom said, when Willis slid behind the wall. "Give me my gun back, it is new, I don't care what happens to you, I want to make sure my gun is o.k."

"Shuah, Mistah Eaton, I took good care of it, smooth gun shure enough."

"We get out of this alive Willis, and I will buy you one." The firing kept up, and Tom answered, beginning to fret at being held down. Two? One?

Ahead, the party, with Gerald in the lead, Elizabeth in the middle, and Samuel at the rear, raced on, and found themselves funnelled into a narrows along the river, the sound of shooting fading behind them. Up ahead two hills beckoned, just before a turn in the river. They slowed, struggling along some of the broken timber, and then they heard a horse coming up behind them, and at that instant, Gerald had a flash of intuition, spinning his horse around: "It's a trap, it's a trap, back, back!"

Gerald was punched from behind by gunfire from up ahead, and twisted off his horse, tumbling down the river bank to the river's edge. Samuel turned, and a hail of gunfire from out of nowhere cut him down as well. Elizabeth cried out, and the rest of the party reeled around the tight space, and, as the bullets kept coming, raced back towards a clump of trees that they almost made when three men came out of the trees, the ones who had shot Samuel and prepared to close the trap. Desperately, as he raced towards them Adam fired, killing one of them, and the other two leapt back into the clump, and returned fire as Adam raced past them on the narrow road. Adam jumped off his horse, and, firing his revolver, made it to an overhang, but was cut off from the party, milling around in between the firing, horses rearing and plunging, as Elizabeth desperately sized up the situation.

From up ahead, Montgomery and the rest of the men filtered out of the ambush up ahead they didn't have to use, and they came forward at the run, rifles at the ready. "Halt, or you are dead. All dead", he yelled.

"Break for the river," she cried, and they went over the bank, horses and all, into the rushing water. One of the two remaining men from the clump of trees moved to intercept them, and headed into the river, where he was set upon by Gus, who wrestled him down into the onrush and in the course of which Elizabeth tumbled past, and set upon him as well, stabbing him with her knife, and the three of them rolled bloodily downriver, as Millie and Lucius scrambled into the woods on the opposite side. Montgomery and the rest of his men fanned out in a semicircle, some taking on Adam, and others heading down towards the water side of the clump of trees. Adam being pinned down, the remaining man in the trees now ran obliquely to the river and cut Elizabeth and Gus off. He aimed at her, and was about to fire, when Montgomery yelled, "No, no, you idiot, we need her."

Instead, the man simply fired above her head, and she stopped, trapped in the water, Gus by her feet, the other body weltering away downriver.

"Stop firing, Mr. Goodenough," ordered Montgomery, "Or we kill Mrs. Miller, here and now."

There was a silence. "Come out, Mr. Goodenough, that's a good boy." Adam came out.

There was silence, except for the rushing of the river, for a few moments. And then Montgomery and his remaining seven men closed the circle around Adam, Gus and Elizabeth.

"Well," said Montgomery, "Is this any welcome for your old friends far from home?"

"Damn you all to hell, Montgomery," said Elizabeth, desperately gulping breaths, "you and the rest of your scummy murderers."

"I would speak sweetly to us, Mrs. Miller, as we have not decided yet whether to kill you all, or keep some of the niggers for sale. Some say yes; some say no. You could beg for their lives, you nigger loving bitch."

"Would it matter?"

"I don't know. It would be a nice picture though, you on your knees. You we have to kill, sorry."

One of the gang said: "All this playacting is fine, but we still have two of them on the loose, Montgomery, and them other niggers are on the run."

Montgomery cocked his head in the air. "I don't hear any gunfire. I trust Hartung. There is only the Eaton fellow and a nigger left. He put his revolver to Elizabeth's head. "Come on, beg, now!"

There was a shout from behind him, and Tom walked casually up the road. "Over here, Montgomery, I'm the one you want. Hartung is dead." Montogomery wheeled around, and at that moment he was hit in the head by a shot from behind, and a second shot felled the man who had spoken a few seconds earlier. Someone screamed: "They're behind us!!" Elizabeth and Gus rolled once again into the dirt, and this time she came up with Montgomery's gun and shot a fleeing man. The remnant hunters scattered, and another was hit from behind, and another. Two men went down into the river and got away, running and swimming downstream.

Montogomery was shrieking in a kind of last demented fury, and then he died. Bodies lay scattered all over the roadside. Adam ran back to where Samuel lay, and Elizabeth raced ahead to where Gerald lay, bobbing, circling, trapped in a side current.

Tom signalled, and down from the hills, behind the ambush, came the longforgotten Hezekiah and Theo. Tom pointed back down the road, and then ran forward to where Adam crouched over Samuel, but he was dead; and then he ran to where Elizabeth had started to fish Gerald's body out of the water. She was grappling with his body, half of which was still dragging in the river, and Tom leapt down the river bank and helped her pull the body up, and they got it up onto the road, and they kept crying, hugging his body, and eventually, Adam and Gus joined them carrying Samuel's body, and a few minutes later Millie and Lucius came across from the other side of the river, and then, some time later, much later, Hezekiah came up the road with Theo, bearing Willis' body, and there was no comfort for any of them anywhere.

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Oct 01 - 04:10 PM

She hated the far-seeing sometimes, times when she couldn't do no good, but watch it unfold. Now they's dead ones and wounded ones and the ones who were so wounded in their hearts and spirits, only time could begin to heal. Still, she was put here to help and help she would. Abigail Tingsley, put on her black cape and bonnet, grabbed her stout walking stick, and motioned to the Indian boy and his mother to bring the baskets of food, bandages, salves and the like.

"Alright then, we go," she said as they followed her out the door of her cabin. All morning she'd sat and watched the awful battle in her mind, heard the shots ring out. She'd known almost exactly what was going to happen, but ike Cassandra of old, none would have believed her. Except for Samuel, and here a small tear ran down her cheek, the men just thought she was full of mumbo-jumbo as they put it and the women were too busy to notice much.

She and her helpers started up the trail, up where the narrows and the ambush had been; a couple more Indians joined them and in the shadows of the forest could be seen flits here and there of others who followed and guarded with close eyes. Abigail Tingsley was born to heal and knew of no other way to be. Thus she put one foot in front of the other, walking stick digging purchase in the forest ground and they made their way to Elizabeth and the others. "Wasn't no good come of that one, no Lord, or show me the way of thy goodness, My Lady," she mumbled, then broke into a song of healing,

"bring this, o'light
near thee and me
Bind up thy wounds
for all to see

Mother and Father
Light of our hearts
Keep us together
and never apart...."

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: Peter T.
Date: 24 Oct 01 - 11:51 AM

On the road to Chattanooga, October 27, 1863

Dearest:

We are on the march in Tennessee, following the disastrous battle fought by Rosecrans (of whom you have heard me speak disparagingly before) at Chickamauga last month. The men are pleased to be on the march, though they are terribly under supplied, the country hereabouts having been long relieved of most material of war and peace. "General," said Lucius to me on the first day of the march, "Anything to be out of Vicksburg".

I wish to speak of what you know I pledged to accomplish, if the manoeuvres allowed, and God be praised, I was able to route our march along the road of indelible memory. I was unable to recognise any landmarks until we passed by the Indian camp that you may remember, long abandoned; and Lucius went off in search of the old woman's house, but either our memories were askew, or – and you will not laugh, I know – perhaps one day she simply raised it up into the air and moved it to some other location.

We came along the road, past where Willis and I had that horrible death struggle with Hartung, that ended that valiant friend's life. Lucius and I were quite overcome, and we ordered a rest on the march, and the two of us went forward with the sentries along the road. I had not noticed at the time what beautiful country it was, though I remember that at the brief service we held that Gus said something about the view. I did not have the heart this time to take out my pencils, nor do I need to, for the scene is burned into my brain. We passed the places where so many died in defence of liberty – it is strange to say this now, when I have seen so many thousands die, to say such a thing as "so many", but they were the earliest glimmers of this terrible blood red dawn, and I think of them, Gerald, Samuel, and Willis, as a host, a holy host, morning stars.

We came up to the hill where we so hastily buried them, still fearful of what might happen, not knowing that the rest of the journey would be so uneventful (except for that last night over the Ohio). We unpacked the stones, and cleaned the wild ground around them, plucking the weeds that had grown over them. As I had pledged in that wild moment, I then buried the rifle I had promised Willis . My adjutant smiled, as he had often wondered why I carried two rifles about with me; and now he was answered. I also buried the piece of paper Millie gave me, with the drawing of the angel, the Christmas tree, and the Big Dipper, so long a symbol of hopes -- some realized, some left here along the river. I also buried your letter and ribbon for Samuel beneath his mound; and you will smile to know that I wthe shoes found a blessed rest at last. They were in better shape than those some of my men are wearing.

Eventually I waved them all away, and I sat and spoke with Gerald. I thanked him, as I have done every day since then, for you, and for showing me what I should do with my life – can there be greater gifts? – and my sorrow that his guidance should also have been entangled with his death. I told him about the war, about the dark days, and of the glimmers of light at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and my belief that we are at last coming to grips seriously, no more playacting, with the evil that has cost so many their lives, and my belief that we will win in the end – though when that end will come, only God knows, and He is, as usual, being irritatingly opaque.

It is a fine spot, and I watched as our troops began to march up that cursed road by the river – how we could have used them then – but that is passed. I got up, and we moved off, and as always, I carry Gerald's memory with me.
Your most recent letter to me (he does take his sweet time getting to my letters, I hear you remarking) fills me full of concern, and happiness, both at the same time, but such is the way with old married couples, I suppose. I hope and pray that Bessie is over her fever; heaven knows it must have been trying for you, with so little help. She is so tough (like her mother) I cannot imagine any fever that would not abandon the assault on her fortifications after the first attempt. I laugh at your suggestions for bringing peace on the other home front. How can I adjudicate between two such fighting youth as William and Gerald, if you cannot? They will be at each other – I am only glad that they are still too young to be part of this war: I pray that it will end before either are old enough. Of course, that is selfish of me: they would terrify the enemy off the battlefield in the first day. I leave them to you.
The happiness, of course, is the deeply selfish pleasure of your news about the selling of my picture at the Exhibition. I can only hope that it was sold to the nation not because I am a General, but because of its artistic merit. They little know what a wrench it is to sell such a talisman, even if we do need the money so desperately. I know how sad it was for you to have to take it off the walls. Is it any comfort to say that you are more beautiful now that you were when I painted it, so long ago? I ride along, and even the memory of it, how fine the tints and forms coalesced as if by magic – and only you know what magic I speak of – fades before more recent memories of your flesh.
I particularly recall that last afternoon in Baltimore, after we met Adam and Harriet, before I set out once more on this cursed war, little expecting it would be so long that we are apart; in that hotel, where you looked out at a passing troop marshalling towards the railway, and you firmly closed the curtains and turned to me and said: "Enough of that." At which point, I firmly close the curtains.
I will write to you from Northern Tennessee. As ever, Lucius and I send our love to Millie and Gus, and Lucius, as ever, reminds me to send his undying troth to his beloved damson, and you can assure Esther that you are the only other woman in his life.
For me, may God bless you and the children, and when you see Mr. Lincoln again next week, be more gentle with him, though I know you will not cease to press him for the good cause. Mr. Douglass and you are formidable generals in your own right, but remember he is only a mere President, and where would we be without him! And where would I be without you,
my beloved Elizabeth,

your Tom

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 24 Oct 01 - 01:24 PM

vOctober, 1864

Lucius Miller felt his heart beat rapidly now, for here was the site of Adam's mill. The six men under his command stirred restlessly, and Brooks said "c'mon Corporal. Ain't no forage round here." Lucius remounted, and they started off down the river, the territory becoming more and more familiar. Near the graves at the site of Miller's farm, they found a flock of chickens, and one of the men chased them down and caged them in the back of the wagon. Lucius said a prayer over the graves, and he thought of all the losses they had suffered, and of Elizabeth's baby. "This way, " said Lucius, and Brooks began grousing again. "Damn, Corp Miller, we ain't doin nothin but gettin deeper in Reb territory and farther from Sherman goin on this way!"

The bridge was still standing, and the foragers crossed there. They came to a small farmhouse, and Lucius drew up his mount. His troop waited restlessly as Lucius walked out to the one-armed man who stopped in the act of harvesting a tiny crop of peanuts. The man was dressed in the ragged outfit of the Confederacy, his right sleeve tied in a knot below the shoulder. He did not know Lucius, and he feared that he would lose what little food he had scrounged and sweat for to these Northern soldiers. He was a bit surprised that they were negroes, but then the world had turned upside down in the last four years, and surprise was an emotion he had grown quite used to. He was a bit surprised also to see that this man wore a warm smile, and that he doffed his kepi hat as he approached.

Lucius held his hand out to the man, awkwardly switching hands then when he realized he must shake the man's left hand. The white man hesitated. This was the enemy, and a black one at that. At last he thought "a first time for everything" and extended his left arm. "Corporal Lucius Miller, Twelfth Minnesota Regiment Colored Volunteers, Sherman's Army of the West." The man smiled and said "Private Stephen Bradley, lately of the Fifth Alabama Infantry. I was mustered out after I was wounded at Chickamauga." Lucius smiled and said "it can't make farming easy." Stephen cast his eyes down and said "I got a three year old boy and another child on the way. This crop is keepin us alive." Lucius glanced at the little farmhouse and saw the woman standing in the door, thin and frail but with the bulge of pregnancy, the little boy sheltering behind her apron. "Wait," said Lucius, and he walked to the wagon. He grabbed a 50 pound sack of cornmeal and told Brooks "bring that salt pork!" Brooks gaped at him and he said "that's an order private!" Brooks, grumbling, placed the pork shank on his shoulder and followed Lucius to the cabin, where they lay the provisions on the porch. Lucius smiled at the woman, who continued to eye him with suspicion, and then he walked out to Bradley. The farmer said "what's this all about?"

Lucius said "about fourteen years ago, in the middle of the night, you caught some black folks sneakin through your yard. Do you remember?" And Stephen did. It had always been a source of confusion to him. He knew that he should have done the lawful thing and raised the alarm, but he couldn't. Something in his soul told him the right thing was not the lawful thing, and he let them go. "I was one of them folks," said Lucius. "I never forgot what you done for us." Stephen looked into the man's eyes and saw tears gathering there, and he looked away. "Thanks Corporal," was all he could say.

The foragers road slowly up the road toward Locke Plantation and Brooks continued to bellyache. "That there pork was the best damn thing we found, and he gives it to the god damn rebel scum. Wonder what the Captain would say." Lucius dropped his horse back alongside Brooks and stabbed him with a glance. "The General's orders are to gather forage wherever we may find it, but to try at all costs not to increase the misery of the sick or starving. You have a problem with that, Brooks?" Brooks kept his mouth shut, and Lucius said "Very good, then, Private. Not another word about it out of you."

Lucius could not have mustered words to describe his feelings when the Locke House came into few, when he glimpsed the row of slave cabins and the farmyard. The fields were barren now, except for the small crops of peanuts, sweet potatoes and corn that grew quite near the Plantation House. That house was not what he remembered, but a much smaller version, and as he rode up to the porch, a large black woman with gray hair emerged, a little white boy of seven by her side. She held a frying pan in her hand and, as he approached, she held it up threateningly. "Don't you come around here! I'll beat yo head like a broken banjo!" she said. Lucius sat his horse and said "Judy...don't you know me? It's Lucius!" She stared, then dropped then pan with a clatter. "Lord Christ Jesus!" she said. He dismounted and she ran to him, clutching him to her. "My boy done come back a handsome soldier!" She held him away for a second. "Even if a Yankee one!" And they both laughed. He looked over her shoulder at the little blond boy, so much like that little boy so long ago, the one who had nagged him to go fishing, the one who had died in the great fire. "Who's this?" said Lucius. Cook turned and said "why this Marcus. He Miz Mason's son." He smiled, and Judy said "Miz Locke, you know? She done married again after ol Marse died, but she more sorrow. She married Major Will Mason who was kilt at Trench Mills."

"What is it you men want?" The voice was familiar to him, although the weathered skin and faded calico dress seemed out of place. Judy said "Miz Mason, this be Lucius! Gus and Millie's boy!" Patience stood still in the little field of corn, then slowly put down the basket of ears she held, her hands covering her eyes as she began to sob. He went to her then and lay his hand upon her graying hair. Through tears she looked up at him and said "welcome home, soldier."

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: Amos
Date: 24 Oct 01 - 05:57 PM

Amen to all. What a wonderful story, and a wonderful ending, and a wonderful wonderful job, LEJ, Jen, Kat and Peter T. You leave me now wishing I could have had time to add more, but it would not have improved your excellent product, so no loss. But you leave me with just one question....

Who the hell is HARRIET?

Fond regards,

A.

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Oct 01 - 07:53 PM

Ahem, Amos-jump-the-gun...I think Miz Abigail had a few words to say a litte later on. She's a little slow these days, coming from way down yonder on the other side. With Samhain drawing nigh, i expect she'll make a final appearance, soon.:-)

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: Amos
Date: 24 Oct 01 - 09:56 PM

JUMP the gun??? You telling me tears-in-eyes and "Welcome home, soldier" isn't the all-encapsulating summating feather-in-your-capstone of end lines? Huh? Shore it is!! I reckon what we have is a dither, a dother, a ten-o'clock author. However even the Bard was wont to have some laggardly character come traipsing on after the end of the show to tell people the show had ended, as though they didn't see that, and add a pretty fillip or so.

Let you make free, then, fair Abigail -- and scoff not that I may call thee so; for eyes that have seen this far see further still, beyond the rags of woe and time's temperament, into the deepest wells of ever-springing youth below, where fair alone is fair and all is fair, and fairness, all.

Don't even guess whose lines THOSE are, milady!!!

Regards,

A.

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Oct 01 - 11:53 PM

The gauntlet has been tossed, a challenge at the end...portends a grand eloquence or a fall face-flat in the mud. Dear readers here we but see, one more glimpse, hurried forward if you will, of the Maddie but once seen, and now seen again!

*****

It was a beautiful spring day. Laying aside her Great-grandma Elizabeth's memoir, Maddie whistled for her dog and started towards the woods "Mama! I'm taking Talula for a wa-a-lk," she sang out over her shoulder. "Back soon!"

Talula came bounding by her side, nose in the air. Maddie knew these woods like the back of her hand. She'd wandered them almost since she could walk. Coming up to and going around one of her favourite boulders, she made her way down a small incline, full of small rocks and last year's dead leaves, to the creek which trickled by. Talula went ahead of her, already wading in the water, lapping it up, then looking back at her girl, dripping water from both sides of her very wide grin. "Silly girl, do you know how funny you look?" Maddie chided her, trying very hard not to burst out laughing.

"Silly girl, indeed," she heard behind her. Quickly turning, with Talula instantly by her side, Maddie saw a very tiny old lady with white eyes and hair, holding a stout walking stick in a very gnarled old hand.

"W-w-who are you?" she blurted out.

The old woman chuckled, "As I said, silly girl. Know you not who I am? Did they not seek me, but disbelieving found me not? Ah, but you believe, don't you? Just like your great-gran did."

"But, you can't be, I mean that was over a hundred years ago, you're not real. C'mon Talula, let's go!" But, Talula, being a canny creature already acquainted with the ways of the old lady, just nuzzled Maddie's hand as if to urge her on.

"Oh, do sit down, child. I am neither here nor there, nor ever was, but was, as those who saw me will tell you, have told you in your gran's book. T'is true, every bit of it. Now, I will tell you my bit after your folk had all gone.

You will be the keeper of my memories and dreams, for after this last telling, that is all they will be and they will be yours for the keeping, but only yours. And, if someday, you should come by it, my little place, whe'ere it may be, why you will know to open those dreams and watch them unfold, just as I was charged to do one hundred years ago when I opened up my ancestress' book of dreams."

And, with that, the old woman wove dreams upon dreams, filling them with her memories, too, with brightness and darkness, dreams of forest, creatures, men, women, and children, she spun and spun and as she did, Maddie fell into a deep sleep.

______________________________________________________

"Maddie! Maddie! Where are you?"

"Over here, Mama, coming! Oh, Mama, have you ever met the old woman who lives in the woods? She's just like the witch in Gran's book and she tells the most wonderful stories!"

"Maddie? Are you feeling alright? Come in and lie down, my sweet."

"But, Mam, I'm fine. I've never felt better. Talula knows her. Have you met her?"

"Maddie, now listen to me, you've been reading too much lately. There is no old woman in those woods, there never has been. Nobody knows what happened to Abigail Tingsley, but she was close to one hundred years old back when your Gran knew her. You just had a bad dream out there and I want you to rest."

Watching from the woods and listening, the old woman turned away, shoulders hunched over, with tears in her eyes. Slowly making her way, she faded like the mist until she was gone.

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 12:05 AM

Beautifully done all! Thanks for the adventure.

LEJ

PS Harriet?!

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: JenEllen
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 12:08 AM

Do none of you remember Gerald's love? The darling Harriet floucning down the stairs and stealing hearts left and right?? Of course Adam would have been swept away....jeez....

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 12:26 AM

OK!! OK!!! I promise not to be jealous of Tom, if Elizabeth can keep from writhing with jealousy of Harriet. I yield!!

LOL!!

Thanks again, guys. This was a real winner.

Adam

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 12:26 AM

Thought maybe it was Harriet Tubman. I was going to name Talula after her, but figured it might add to the confusion about young Harriet.**BG**

Bravo/a for everyone!!

Subject: RE: Story:Follow The Drinking Gourd II
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Oct 01 - 08:29 AM

I did not say that they were married, simply that Tom and Elizabeth saw Adam and Harriet. It could have been sequentially. Tom and Elizabeth had other things on their mind....Neverthless, I think they make a great couple.

yours, Peter T.