The Mockingbird's Ballad

The Louisville - Nashville Railroad depot was busy when Solon's train from Cincinnati pulled into Nashville at 2:33PM, April 22, 1869. The former "hell for leather" warrior appeared different from what he had three years ago. His Fort Delaware pallor was gone and his weight was back to 160. His hair was thinner and grayer. His oversized black three-piece suit, white cavet and boiled shirt and wide brimmed black hat made him look like what he was, a preacher. Any comparison with an officer of the Confederate cavalry would be difficult. His appearance was that of a well-scrubbed agent of God, not bringer of death and destruction. A transformation had occurred in Amos Solon Stevenson. Still light hearted, the destructive fire in his soul was converted to a passion for ideas, sermons, celebrations and sharing the tonic that restored his being - God's love.

Walking through the bustling lobby, he smelled cooking food. Finding the source of the temptation, he entered the depot's well-appointed café. The lean years of the war and hunger of Fort Delaware had left him always with an appetite, yet his weight was the same as when he joined the Confederate army in Mobile in the summer of 1861. He had the look of a six-foot-two sturdy, slim, proportioned and purposeful man in his forties. He was forty-three.

He found a two-seated empty booth midway down the wall opposite the ornate mirrored bar and took a seat. An alert waiter took his order and he was soon partaking of a thick roast beef sandwich with tart German mustard. The coffee tasted as fine as he'd ever had.

Finishing his meal, he found his way to an empty bench in the large lobby. As he took his place, a tall, thin dark woman/girl passed him and took a seat a little way down the bench. She clutched a ragged, dirty bundle that Solon at first thought was her clothing, but when she held it away from her breast, he saw the face of a tiny pale baby.

The mother saw him looking at her and her child, she blushed, diverting her dark eyes down and then anxiously turned away to nurse the child with her back towards Solon and the busy lobby. The look moved Solon, disturbed his thoughts, judgments and attitudes about pity. The look was not of some beaten spirit. There was fire in the eyes and strength of defiance. As those realizations assaulted his assumptions, he saw again Lou's eyes that time in the creek in Georgia five years ago. This memory and the feelings invoked were alive. He thought he could again smell the heat of that August morning, the dust, the cedar freshness, the honeysuckle and musk of the woods.