The spring house, I must explain, was the home freezer of that day, and kept things just about as fresh as our modern electric coffins.
First Mr. Kimmil (Major Kimmil, Bull Run, Gettysburg, and Cold Harbor with Cramp) brought up two bottles of wine.
“Never mind that French stuff,” he said, “the last of the real good Rheingau wines, Spatlese. And here, look at this, Captain.”
Gramp nodded, “Beerenauslese … it can't be! And the vintage year 1907.” Yep, the real McCoy, from Riidesheim.“ He saluted.
Gramp saluted and opened the bottle and poured. I had two drops in a big glass of water. By this time two colored boys had set a table, and a chicken broth with rice was steaming. We attacked it. and in came a roast chicken with bread sauce. Then followed a huge platter of Wiener Schuritzel garnirt, with Nockerl dumplings that I still dream about, and a Haeuptel Salat, the famous wilted lettuce salad that was a treat in a day before people ate salads. Except for my eating a pepper gherkin, which I shouldn't have, and Mama's getting a caraway seed stuck between her beautiful little teeth, the dinner went off well, finished off with an Austrian Gebäck that Mr. Kimmil had taught the boys to make. Mr. Kimmil said he was sorry the ten story Dobosch Torse wasn't ready bur he did have a Sacber Torte, that wonderful chocolate cake.
There wasn't much use trying to stay awake after that, and Mama and I retired to our room, the one with the stuffed wildcat with real teeth on the wall. Downstairs we could hear Gramp and Mr. Kimmil over the Munich Bier relighting Little Round Top and recalling how the dead piled up in the peach orchard so long ago.
Morning came cold and too early. and Mama washed us both in bottled mineral water. I remember breakfast as being Indianer Krapfen, a kind of cruller filled with custard and vanilla and covered with chocolate. When we were finished and Gramp and Mr. Kimmil had exchanged a last round of brandies, we went out and had relays of colored boys work to crank Emma into life. It took twenty minutes and only worked after Gramp jacked up a back wheel (a starting trick of the early Model T days), and we were off, Mr. Kimmil waving and weaving.
We drove in the direction of Philadelphia. and Mania moaned and kept her feet on two hot bricks wrapped in a blanket. I had out my air rifle and banged away at fence posts and Bull Durham signs, a sign, by the way, of a well-hung bull stallion that was the pride of any farmer who could get it on his barn wall. Gramp sang questionable ditties in the remains of a flawed voice. but loud.
“Gramp! Little pitchers.”
“Let's find the Delaware River.” said Gramp, scowling at Mama. “If Washington could, so can we.”
We found the river at last, and a ferry to carry us across, and on the other side was Philadelphia all right, but Emma had a flat tire. We were no place near those signs reading Free Air (a novelty just then), so Cramp got out the hand pump and we both took turns putting air into the tire. But it was no use so we got out iron ham bono and husked the tire off the wheel ( no demountable rims on this car; the iron ham bones were the only tools for this work) and found a Philadelphia nail in the inner tube. Gramp patched it and pressed it tight from a smelling tube of repair parts, and we got it on and pumped …
We got to Gettysburg late in the afternoon and stopped Emma on a high ridge. Gramp got out and shouldered his cane like a gun and looked across at another ridge.
“Here I was on the ridge here, looking down and across. Fifty thousand butternut rebels hell for leather, firing, firing … down there are the peach orchards, and Meade rides up and he says who the devil is in those peach orchards … Rebels, I say … Git cm out. he yells, yes sir, I say, and I wave my sword and I start running and the boys start running after me and it's bayonets in the peach orchard and the second day at Gettysburg …”
“Were you brave, Gramp?”
“We were all brave. Americans on both sides …, even across there. I know every foot of this battlefield …”
An old man with a cap labeled GUlDE came up to us. Gramp waved him off, “Don't need a guide. Fought on this Yankee ridge myself.”
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