Lincoln in the Basement Chapter Forty-Three


Previously in the novel: War Secretary Edwin Stanton holds President and Mrs. Lincoln captive under guard in basement of the White House. Janitor Gabby Zook by accident must stay in the basement too. Guard Adam Christy reports on his condition each evening to his sister Cordie and fellow hospital volunteer Jessie Home.
Adam thought he was falling in love as he walked briskly from Jessie’s boardinghouse. A few minutes with her each evening made cleaning chamber pots bearable. His eyes widened when he thought of chamber pots which should have been emptied already. Fear of another scolding from Mrs. Lincoln hastened him down H Street. He counted down the intersections—Tenth Street, Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, and then New York Avenue. By the time he headed toward the Executive Mansion, Adam was in full gait, and breathing heavily. He stopped at the bottom of the mansion steps to catch his breath. Nodding curtly to John Parker at the door, Adam went straight to the service stairs, trounced the straw mats as he raced down, passed the kitchen, and reached the billiards room door. Again he paused to catch his breath and fish the keys from his pocket. Steeling himself against Mrs. Lincoln’s fury, he unlocked the door.
Inside, Mrs. Lincoln sat under the lamp which hung over the billiards table with the sewing kit and the ripped quilt. She looked up and smiled at Adam.
“Thank you so much for bringing the needle and thread. I’d forgotten how soothing mending can be.”
“I’m sorry for being late to empty the chamber pots,” he said.
“Oh, are you late? I hadn’t noticed.”
“I heard you come in,” Lincoln said as he walked through the curtain carrying one of the pots, “so I thought I’d help out.”
“Thank you, sir.” Adam retrieved the second one and headed for the door as Gabby appeared from behind his curtain, carrying his chamber pot. Adam’s hands were trembling as he unlocked the door.
“I finally had a bowel movement. It’s been two weeks. I think I’m finally getting used to living down here, and my bowels are loosening.” Gabby looked at Adam’s hands. “Are you nervous about something? My hands shake sometimes when I’m nervous. I hope you don’t get nervous like me, or the generals won’t let you stay in the army anymore.”
“It’s nothing. I thought Mrs. Lincoln might be upset with me for being late.”
“That’s all right, young man,” Lincoln said, patting him on the back. “She makes me nervous sometimes too.”
Adam left one pot outside the billiards room door and carried the other two through the kitchen to the service entrance door. He wondered if the architect had ever thought full chamber pots would come so close to the food prepared for the president.
“Do you want me to get the third pot?” Phebe asked, looking up from the stove.
“No, thanks,” he replied, quickening his step to the door to the driveway beneath the north portico. “I can get it.”
“It won’t kill you to accept help,” she said with humor as she went into the hall to pick up the third pot. As she walked, Phebe looked down at its contents. “This man must have been constipated for weeks.”
“You shouldn’t talk about that,” Adam muttered as he walked out the door and down the driveway to the deep gutter, where he emptied the two pots. Phebe joined him and dumped the third.
“I know they’re top-secret helpers with the war, and I haven’t said anything to anyone else, only to you.”
“I’d feel better if we didn’t talk about them at all.”
“Why? Aren’t they doing a good job? They never come out. Never get any fresh air.”
“I said, I don’t talk about it,” he said sharply as he picked up the pots to carry them to the water trough.
“Suit yourself,” Phebe said. She marched past Adam and plopped the third pot into the trough, splashing water on him.
Shaking his head, Adam washed out the pots and berated himself for not answering Phebe’s questions any better, but every time he was around her he was in awe of her dark, smooth skin, her full lips and slender torso flaring into ample hips. Stacking the three pots, he carried them back through the kitchen to the hall.
“The boy is still bilious,” Neal told Phebe outside her bedroom.
“Poor child,” Phebe replied. “I suppose Mrs. Lincoln is fretting over him.”
“Yes, but she’s not as nervous about it as she used to be.”
Adam’s breath quickened as he realized what they were talking about, and he walked to them.
“Tad’s not feeling well?” he asked.
“His mama’s trying to make him puke,” Neal replied.
“He was off his feed earlier today, and about an hour ago he started moaning with the bellyache,” Phebe explained.
“He’ll be all right, won’t he?” Adam shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as it gradually dawned on him: a moral dilemma was about to loom over him.
“I don’t know,” Neal said. “I never heard such moaning in my life.”
“I’m sure Mrs. Lincoln knows what to do,” Phebe said.

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