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puzzled about it. Rocks weren't common in the Low Country.
    She brushed soil from it. It was yellowish, with tan streaks, and looked porous. With a little effort, she broke it in half. Rock didn't shatter so easily. But if it wasn't rock, what was it?
    She brought both halves up to her face. As she grew older, her eyes were increasingly failing. Since she'd never broken open one of the peculiar rocks, she was unprepared for the fetid odor. It made her gag. She threw the broken pieces away and hurried back to the pine house, her shadow flying ahead of her over ground as deeply red as spilled blood.
    / wish I could believe with Gen. H. that our people will recognize the wisdom and practical importance of fair play toward the freed blacks. I wish I could believe that Carolinians will be reasonable about the defeat and its consequences. I cannot. Some kind of dark mood is on me again.
    It came this evening when I cracked open one of those strange rocks you pointed out once before the war. The stench--/ Even our land is sour and rotten. I took it as a sign. I saw a future flowing with bile and poison.
    Forgive me, Orry; I must write no more of this.
    A twilight on the day of Hampton's visit to Mont Royal, a young woman dashed around a corner into Chambers Street, in New York City. One hand held her bonnet in place. The other held sheets of paper covered with signatures.
    A misty rain was beginning to fall. She hastily tucked the papers under her arm to protect them. Ahead loomed the marquee of Wood's Page 32

    New Knickerbocker Theater, her destination. The theater was temporarily closed, between productions, and she was late for a special rehearsal called by the owner for half after seven o'clock.
    Late in a good cause, though. She always had a cause, and it was always as important as her profession. Her father had raised her that way. She'd been an active worker for abolition since she was fifteen; she was nineteen now. She proselytized for equal rights for women, and the vote, and for fairer divorce laws, although she had never been married.
    Her current cause, for which she'd been collecting signatures from the theatrical community all afternoon, was the Indian--specifically the Cheyenne nation, victimized last year by the Sand Creek massacre. The petition, a memorial to be sent to Congress and the Indian Bureau of the Interior Department, demanded reparations for Sand Creek and permanent repudiation of "the Chivington process."
    She turned left into the dim passage leading to the stage door. She had worked for Claudius Wood only a week and a half, but she'd already found that he had a fearful temper. And he drank. She smelled it
    °n him at nearly every rehearsal.
    Wood had seen her play Rosalind at the Arch Street Theater in Philadelphia and had offered her a great deal of money. He was about thirty-five, and he'd charmed her with his fine manners and marvelous v°ice and raffish, worldly air. Still, she was beginning to regret her
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    30 ' HEAVEN AND HELL
    decision to leave Mrs. Drew's company and sign with Wood for a full season.
    Louisa Drew had urged her to accept, saying it would be a great step forward. "You're a mature and capable young woman, Willa. But remember that New York is full of rough men. Do you have any friends there? Someone you could turn to if necessary?"
    She thought a moment. "Eddie Booth."
    "You know Edwin Booth?"
    "Oh, yes. He and my father trouped together in the gold fields when I was little and we lived in St. Louis. I've seen Eddie several times over the years. But he's been in seclusion ever since his brother Johnny killed the President. I would never bother him with anything trivial."
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    "No, but he's there in an emergency." Mrs. Drew hesitated. "Do mind yourself with Mr. Wood, Willa."
    Questioned, the older woman would not elaborate beyond saying,
    "You'll discover what I mean. I don't like to speak ill of anyone in the profession. But some actresses--the prettier ones--have trouble