"One Man Saw" before rewrite

The woman got out of the sedan and walked up to the porch. She saw that her grandmother was sitting in her usual spot there on the side away from the evening sun, where the occasional gentle breeze could be caught also. Aunt Mandy, as everyone in the Mt. Vernon community referred to Amanda Davis Lee, put down her book of adventures on top of the croquet cabinet that hugged the wall beneath the area where that mysterious one-man saw of hers was still mounted and on display. Aunt Mandy had been eagerly awaiting her expected company. The elderly judge looked at her granddaughter as she climbed the porch steps and motioned to a cushioned hickory rocking chair beside her own and said, “It’s good to finally see you after all these years Amy, give me a hug and have a seat her with me, there is a nice wisp of wind stirring that will ease you from the heat.”
The long separated kinfolk embraced and Amy, smiling broadly now, took her seat. “I am so very glad to see you again granny, I hope that I never see an army base again. Dad can have them as far as I am concerned. Now that I am 21, I’m back in Tennessee for good!”
Aunt Mandy looked at Amy and without pause gave her the keys to the cabin by the river, the old hut as the old-timers all called it. A plain and rustic structure on the outside, built from Tennessee trees cut, split, planked and planed right there on the bend on the Tellico river. That was the great illusion about this ancient shelter because once inside, there was nothing but poplar, plaster, plushness, and paduasoy. Mt. Versailles, as it was called by the Lee family, had its secrets, just as most places do. Amy swooned in her chair, overcome with joy.
“Just remember our bargain young lady, do you hear me?” asked Aunt Mandy in a spritely manner.
Amy nodded. She cleared her throat and started to speak, then hesitated. She dropped the keys and for a moment the inlaid emerald caught a stray ray of the bright sunshine and directed it forth in a line that resembled a bolt of lightning loosed from an angry Jove which reflected gaily on that one-man saw on the wall. Amy and Aunt Mandy both looked at the magical glow that was gone in the blink of an eye, yet this fleeting image now had made a new page in their memories because of the sheer uniqueness and beauty of the moment they had shared.
Amy screwed her courage to the sticking place now and found her voice again as she said to Aunt Mandy, “Granny, in return for my promise, I want to use the second of my Lee legacy questions.”
“Are you absolutely certain of that Amy Davis?” asked Aunt Mandy, now looking again at the one-man saw. “You know that each grandchild gets to ask only three questions about the old days that no one else in Mt. Vernon knows or remembers any longer.”
“Yes, I am Granny, I know that will just leave me one more, but it would mean the world to me to have this one answered to me by you. I have thought about this long and hard.”
Aunt Mandy nodded to Amy as she handed her favorite granddaughter her book of adventures, the personal journal she had been keeping for the last 87 years now. Amy opened it and found the center section, where all the pictures were, and there it was – the one-man saw! Up in the top right hand corner was a number, placed much the same way as an identifier in a research paper in school would be. This number read 411 and that was the key Amy needed. She used it now as she looked at her grandma and spoke softly “411.”
Aunt Mandy smiled like a banker on Election Day. She mused a few seconds before she said, “Amy, I always thought you were the smartest of all the grandchildren, and now I know it for a fact!” Getting up now, Aunt Mandy pointed to the one-man saw, a tear forming in the corner of her eye. Composing herself, Aunt Mandy continued by saying, “All the grandchildren know that 1864 was the year that my husband, and your grandfather, Jefferson Davis Lee died. They know that I had just given birth to the quiet daughter, your Aunt Dixie, and that Jefferson Davis and I had been living at Mt. Versailles since he had built it after our return to Tennessee from California. Word had gotten to us that the Union army was coming to Tellico Plains and everyone in Mt.Vernon was taking to the woods and mountains to hide. Your grandfather would have none of that though. He sent me and the children off to Sweet Fannie Adams farm, but I slipped back to the cabin and saw what happened first hand. The line of infantry had passed us by without a sideways glance and a good part of the cavalry had as well, when suddenly a five horse group approached and were reined into the yard path and headed to the river to give the horses drink. Your grandfather had been finishing up on the gazebo and walked around to the men and informed them that Jefferson Davis Lee didn’t take to strangers cutting through on his property to go to the river. The tallest soldier replied that they weren’t strangers; they were the aide-de-camps to General William Tecumseh Sherman and that the General himself wanted a word with Jefferson Davis. J.D. looked away and spit and then shouted loudly, ‘I won’t abide any God-forsaken Yankees on my place, leave now or get ready for a whipping. If your general wants to talk he can come to me.’ A shorter, plain looking man in a fancy uniform emerged from behind and made it know that he was General Sherman and he wasn’t in the mood for any sass from a sodbuster. He looked at the outside of Mt. Versailles and asked J.D. if he had built this primitive looking house. J.D. nodded to the general, then turned his head and spat again. The General saw the one-man saw and dismounted and went over and picked it up. ‘This is a fine saw, commented the warlord, I am going to seize in the name of the Union Army.’ J.D. took a half-step and swung a hard blow with his right arm that struck the general on his undecorated jaw. He was ready to land a second blow when a shot rang out from behind. Your grandfather was dead before he hit the ground. I ran out and grabbed the one-man saw from General Sherman’s grasp, giving his trousers a good tear in the process, and held J.D.’s peacemaker right between the general’s eyes and told him to either leave right now or meet his maker. He chose the former. They went on up to Tellico and razed the foundry, then left out from there going down the Old Federal Road towards Georgia. I took the saw and nailed it up here on the wall beside us. I never forgot that day, as you will never forget it now dear Amy.”
Amy handed the book of adventures back to Aunt Mandy. They stood together a long time holding each other close, mourning in the stately fashion which only true women of the south can demonstrate.