of strangers upset members of the Musgrove family, and they tried to remove the image from the stone. But though they scoured and rubbed and scrubbed, the image would not come off. Finally they sent to Birmingham for a stonemason to sandblast the figure from the granite.
With the image gone, the unwelcome visitors stopped coming to the cemetery, and talk in the community turned to other things.
But the image returned, as plain as ever. Again the story of the lover’s promise was told, and again the throngs of strangers came to look and wonder.
The stonemason returned to clean the stone. When he left, the tall marker was as white and unsullied as the day it was put in place.
With the figure gone from tombstone, the crowds again lost interest in the grave and in its link to the supernatural.
But, they say, the likeness of the grieving sweetheart slowly returned on the surface of the tombstone until, once again, it was as well defined as it had been the day it first appeared.
“She loved Robert very much,” the tellers of the story say. “Her love was as strong as her promise, ‘Robert, I’ll never leave you.’”
2
Renfroe (Talladega County), Alabama
None of his descendants now knows why Jacob Hammer left his native Indiana and moved to Alabama. They do know from records in family Bibles that Jacob Hammer was living in Talladega County when he married Martha Louisa Hicks of Renfroe on December 1, 1887. He was thirty-four at the time of their marriage, and his bride was twenty-one.
Mr. Hammer had taught school and had been engaged in merchandising in Indiana, and family tradition says he taught school, ran a store, and farmed after he came to Alabama.
In the first six years of their marriage, five children were born to the couple: Cassandra, William Benjamin, Emma Everett, Diana, and Dixie Homer. Some of the children’s names, family members point out, reflect Mr. Hammer’s interest in Greek and Roman mythology. He was interested in many things. He wanted to call his first child by her full name, Cassandra, but his wife, who cared little for the classics, insisted on calling her Cassie, and Cassie she became.
Cassie was nine years old when her baby brother, Harvey, was born. She was a “big girl” then, old enough and responsible enough to take over much of the care of the new baby. Being the oldest in the family—and being a girl—Cassie at nine knew how to cook, clean house, wash clothes, iron, milk the cow, kill and dress a chicken, sew, mend and darn, and take care of the younger children.
They were living in the community of Stemley, near the Coosa River, in Talladega County then. All the children from Cassie to Harvey were born there, but the town has now dwindled into nothingness, and only a few older people remember where it was.
Cassie Hammer was likely too busy helping her mother care for the younger children, especially the baby, to have much time to play, but she really didn’t mind. There was something different about taking care of Harvey, something that soothed her resentment over having the responsibilities of a grown-up forced so early upon her.
Harvey was a good baby. And he was beautiful.
“Look, Mama,” Cassie would say after she had bathed and dressed him. “Look how beautiful Harvey is! I wish I had curly hair like he has. Look how it shines in the sunlight. And look how big his eyes are. Sometimes I think he sees things we can’t see. What do you suppose he sees, Mama?”
Mrs. Hammer, being a sensible woman, replied, “Don’t be silly, Cassie. He sees just what we see. Nothing else.” She paused. “But he is a beautiful baby. I wish I could have his picture made, looking just the way he looks now: all clean and shining and happy.”
She took the baby in her arms and kissed him. It was not easy for Mrs. Hammer to show affection, it wasn’t her nature, but Harvey had a quality, an elusive quality that even his mother couldn’t define, that called her to hug him and to cuddle him and to call him “my precious baby.”
Everybody loved Harvey. They loved him not merely because he was the youngest in the family, but because Harvey himself was so loving. His arms went out to everyone who came near, his smile had a radiance of pure joy, and his laughter was as musical and refreshing as snatches of dancing tunes.
Even Jacob Hammer, usually too busy earning a living for his growing family to squander time in play, would bounce his baby on his knee and sing to him some half-forgotten songs from his Indiana boyhood, and talk to him about matters only the two of them understood.
“You know what?” Jacob asked his wife. “This son of ours will grow up to see flying machines carrying passengers and mail from city to city. And he’ll ride on wide thoroughfares connecting the cities. Big changes are coming in this world—and Harvey will be part of them.”
“Oh, Jacob!” Mrs. Hammer replied. “What a wild imagination you have! How do you ever think of such foolish things?”
“They’re not foolish,” Jacob stated firmly. “They’ll come true. You’ll see—if you live long enough. Harvey believes what I’m telling you. Don’t you, Harvey?”
The baby smiled, and his eyes shone as though he did indeed understand, as though he shared with his father an exciting look into the future.
Harvey was walking and beginning to talk a little when the family moved to Renfroe, a community some six miles west of Talladega. At that time, Mr. Hammer was devoting most of his energies to farming.
Cassie continued to be Harvey’s loving protector, and the toddler adored her. Mrs. Hammer may have been a little jealous, but she tried not to show it.
“I hope your own babies will love you as much as Harvey does,” she said to Cassie one day.
“He loves you, too, Mama,” Cassie replied. “He loves everybody—but you most of all. Sometimes,” she added, “I think it’s not me but my gold locket that Harvey loves. He plays with it every time I wear it, and I believe he wants to wear it himself!”
Cassie’s locket, her only piece of jewelry had been a gift from her father. It was heart shaped and hung on a slender gold chain.
“It looks like you,” Jacob Hammer had said as he fastened it around her neck. “It looks like my Cassandra.”
Even then Harvey reached out to get the shining locket.
“No, Harvey,” Cassie said gently. “Boys don’t wear lockets. This is mine. Maybe some time I’ll let you try it on. But not now!”
One stormy night in late September 1898 Cassie woke up and heard Harvey crying in her parents’ bedroom. She ran across the hall and found her mother holding Harvey in her lap while Mr. Hammer rubbed the little boy’s chest with melted tallow and wrapped a flannel cloth around him.
“It’s the croup,” Mrs. Hammer told Cassie. “He’s real sick.” She held the baby close and rocked him.
Harvey was limp and listless, and his breathing was raspy.
“What can I do?” Cassie asked.
“Nothing,”
