By Lisa Brewer Buffaloe
The boy dodged through trees, running at top speed until he reached Mrs. Walden’s house. The Civil war had left many women and children alone; he couldn’t bear to think of something happening to Mrs. Walden and her daughter. He banged on the back door and through gasping breath warned his neighbor, the bushwhackers were coming.
Praying fervently, Mrs. Walden set her plan in motion. She and her daughter gathered their meager possessions and guns and placed them under the feather bed. She dusted her young daughters face with flour and circled her eyes with soot. Laying the frail girl in the bed, Mrs. Walden told her daughter not to move, no matter what happened.
Mrs. Walden took the rocking chair onto the front porch, sat down, placed a shawl on her lap and opened the family Bible. Four men rode into the yard, one circling to the back. Before the men could dismount, she stood and holding the Bible to her breast, called them to hurry and see about her daughter. The men paused.
She beckoned to the leader. “Thank you, doctor, for coming. Oh, thank you for coming all of this way.”
The men obviously baffled and concerned, drew their guns, and with wary eyes scanned the house and yard. Slowly, they approached the porch.
Grabbing the leader’s arm, she pulled him onward. “Oh, hurry sir; it could be the dreaded fever that has taken so many of our neighbors.”
The man stopped and glanced through the screen door. She pushed him through with orders to stand still so she could get rags soaked in coal oil to put over their mouths to keep out the “bad air.” The man tried to back up and bumped into those behind. Again, she prodded the man forward begging for his help. She nudged him to the bedside where the small girl was laying down, her face white as snow, the black circles around closed eyes.
The little girl’s eyes flew wide open and a scream of quivering terror filled the room. The lead man wrenched his arm from Mrs. Walden’s grasp, and the men jammed through the doorway, leaped over the front steps, mounted their horses, and disappeared in a cloud of dust, leaving Mrs. Walden, her daughter, and their belongings safe.
This story is true and special, handed down through generations. That frail little girl was my great-great-grandmother. “So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’ (Hebrews 13:6 NIV.)”
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