Shades of Gray

Will goes the next day to check the traps and finds a rabbit in one of them, but he has never killed anything with his hands, only with a weapon. When he tries to get the rabbit out, it scratches him and gets away. He is ashamed to think what his uncle will say, and his aunt puts some kerosene on the wound so it will not get infected. He learns that Meg killed a rabbit that she found in the garden, so the family has rabbit stew, but not because of him. The letter from the twins that they have been waiting for does not arrive.

Uncle Jed blames himself for Will’s injury because he never taught him how to get the rabbit out, but he thinks Will got the rabbit in the stew. Will explains that it was Meg who caught the rabbit. Uncle Jed explains the technique to remove a rabbit from the trap and kill it quickly. A few days later, when Will brings home two, Aunt Ella asks him to bring one to Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins. Meg does not want to go to the house because last fall, she heard Mr. Jenkins—whose two sons died in the war—say that he did not think it was right “for young men to die protecting the rights of people who wouldn’t fight for themselves” (49). Will agrees with this sentiment, so he remains silent. Uncle Jed agreed with Mr. Jenkins and added that he didn’t need anyone to fight for his rights because he was perfectly able to do so. When the old man challenged Uncle Jed to a fight, Uncle Jed declined, saying that it takes more bravery to turn down a fight you can win than to issue a challenge you know will not be accepted. Will starts to feel a bit of respect for Jed after hearing this.

Mr. Jenkins has not spoken to the family since, but Aunt Ella wants to send the rabbit because Mr. Jenkins only has one leg, and she assumes they have not had meat in a long time. The Jenkinses accept the rabbit, and Mr. Jenkins tells Will he understands why he would not want to associate with his uncle. Will does not want to defend Uncle Jed, but he tells Mr. Jenkins that he does not agree with his uncle about the war but that his uncle has treated him well. Mrs. Jenkins gives the two children some chicks to take home.

Uncle Jed asks Will to go to the millpond to catch some fish for dinner. Meg suggests the river, although she does not say that the reason for this is that she wants to avoid the three boys. Uncle Jed reluctantly agrees. Will senses that his uncle knows the reason they want to avoid the millpond. To avoid looking or acting like a coward, he says he will go to the millpond anyway, which makes his uncle happy. Will is upset that his uncle did not seem surprised when he thought Will was afraid. Will says, “One coward in the house was enough” (55). Meg goes with Will so that if the boys start to beat him up, she can run to Hank’s father to get help. Will does not know if that is any better than getting beaten.

When Meg and Will come across the boys, Hank asks Will if he knows Charlie Page. This is Will’s brother, who died at the hands of the Yankees, but Meg says that Will’s brother was Peter and he died from drowning at eight years old. Hank explains that his brother was in Winchester, Will’s hometown, and he saw a boy taunting Yankee soldiers from behind a tree when he got shot and killed. Will asks Hank how they knew the boy’s name was Charlie, and Hank says two men who knew Charlie saw his body and kept screaming his name and that his death was going to kill his mother.

Will tells them that he has never heard that story. As Will catches fish, he tells the boys about how the Yankees would damage properties and crops and how they would see dead Yankee soldiers lying on the ground after battles. Will explains that while most of the fighting was not in the actual town, they were still close enough to hear the noise of the weapons. He explains that while he went on battlefields, Southerners usually were not allowed on the fields until upward of a week after the battle and after the Yankees gathered all their injured and dead. Will and his friend went into the fields and collected buttons from the uniforms. Hank starts calling him Will instead of Will-yum and asks him to bring some buttons for them to see. When Hank disparagingly talks about Uncle Jed, Will tells him not to talk about his uncle.

On the way home, Meg tells Will that she already knew the story of his brother from her parents. Will is happy to not be in his hometown, where everybody knows what happened to Charlie and treats Will differently because of it. Meg assures Will that Charlie’s death is not what killed his mother. She tells him that she was sick and may not have wanted to live all that much but that is not the same as wanting to die. She reassures him that his mother still had him.