She was a tall, slender, rather plain-looking woman, perhaps twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age and easily thirty years younger than her husband. She wore a checked gingham dress and her dull brown hair was pulled back in a severe bun; her eyes were the washed-out blue of someone who had seen their share of pain, and as I rummaged among the winter wool shirts those eyes kept glancing back at me. When the customer she'd been waiting on paid for her goods and left I walked to the front counter. "Hello Mrs. Johnson," I began. "I wonder if I could speak to you for a moment." "Of course, Jubal, but please call me Mary, or you'll make me feel very old. Is it something about the shirts you were looking at?" "No, Mary. I want to talk to you about Johnny Harris." She shifted her weight, nervously. "What about Johnny?" "How well did you know him?" I asked. "Not well, really. Walter and I only married a short time ago. My first husband—he was killed during the first year of the war, you know—well, he and I lived in Richmond before he died, so I'm afraid I never met many people from Jerusalem's Landing." "Rebecca mentioned that Johnny came into the store quite a lot over the past few months, so I wondered if you or Mr.
What do You think about When Johnny Came Marching Home?
