1692

2nd Day

I was searching through Genesis early this morning when one of Charles Spearmint’s apprentice boys came to the house to return my pattens. He was very polite.

And now I have found the text I was looking for and will copy it out here.

And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.

And yet how deceiv’d was Jacob, to be so trick’d that after his Servitude he must have Leah!

I watch Ashes from out the corner of my eye, and I am fill’d with wonder at her dark skin and her dark eyes and her pock-mocked face. And O! the love she has engender’d!

3rd Day

In the afternoon I was coming out of Samuel Judah’s shop just as Edward Swift was going in. We were each of us affrighted and confus’d and we could do nothing but stand and speak most awkward to one another! We could neither address what was between us, nor simply say a good day as we might have before. Finally he ask’d might he not come to speak to me later that Afternoon. I said he might.

And now he is just gone. It was a most awkward Interview. I kept Dorcas in the room with us, and had Ashes stay about the kitchen. After some fitful topics, and his mentioning of Father, and the great sorrowful loss of my Mother, he said how much he Admir’d me, that in my Loss and Sorrow I had shown myself an Able young woman. And more of the like. He was most stiff as he spoke, rather as if he were reciting something conn’d and not of the Heart, tho’ it may be uncharitable of me to say so, for one may be awkward tho’ one goes feelingly. He said he had wanted to come to me before, but he was Advis’d against it, and truly he did not wish to press me in this difficult time. He only wish’d me to know that he Awaited me.

I did my best to answer him. I told him I was but fifteen years of age and did not know whether I was prepared to take on what he would have me take on. I told him I was not yet convinc’d that Father would not return. I told him I awaited Light on the matter, that I could only wait further.

As he rose to leave he ask’d did I want anything? Did the house need any repair that he might send over one of his sons?

He is a good man. I do heartily believe that. Yes, as Jane Beecher says, he may see my house and land and my Chattels and think it a wise action to unite those to his, but what of that? Would not Father think alike were he in Edward Swift’s place?

As indeed he is, if he be still alive.

Oh, must my Life go this way?

4th Day

I have finally work’d up the nerve and have ask’d Ashes about Charles Spearmint. She says she knows of his proposal. She says she has told him he may try to earn her if he so wishes, but that she cannot Promise herself to him, for she believes one night she will be taken back to Africa and will return to Newport no more. He will find himself Indentur’d and no wife, she says.

She cannot truly believe this. It is but more of her ill will.

5th Day

Yesterday I felt so cast down, and the World seem’d so gray, and there being nothing but want of Hope, I threw everything down and went out of the house. I knew not where I was going, at first toward Mother’s grave, then toward Spearmint’s to settle with him, then without intending it onto Spring Street where John Pettibone’s family has their house. And was not that the most foolish Fool thing to do? He is but fifteen years himself, and he has a Mother and Father and no need of me tho’ I know he did like me once. Oh, I pray he did not see me! Passing his house in the falling Dusk like a Wraith!

But my Heart would not be still, and my thoughts would not rest. So I then went out Jews Street and further until I had gone past the boundaries of the town and come upon the new Ropewalks. They are such low-slung, long, worm-like buildings! Yet the workers were quit for the day so I went out amongst them, and then through the snow to the land beyond where I had never before gone, where there are no houses or paths. And there I stopp’d. And I remember’d Jane Beecher’s fancy of going away, of living alone in the Wildernesse where no one might have her. How I understood her then! and chaf’d and long’d to have the wings of a Dove, as it says in the Psalms, that I might fly away!

Yet I am back now, for there is nowhere to go. Neither inland (belike into the hands of Indians). Nor seaward to the strange Islands, nor beyond to far-away England. There is no place but the place I find myself in.

3rd Day

Before I spent any more of my Heart upon this matter of Ashes and Spearmint, I thought it wise to go to see John Peele. He is accounted a kind of Magistrate among the Friends, and it would be he who I would have draw up the Articles with Spearmint, should it go that way. I wanted to understand what laws of our Province might bear upon what Spearmint proposes. For setting the unusual Circumstances aside, do I even have the lawful right to sell Ashes?

We sat in his front Parlour with its fine paneling and brass Betty lamps and I acquainted him with Spearmint’s proposal, laying it before him as clearly and simply as I could. He was much taken aback by it, more than I had entertain’d he would be. At first I thought he merely wish’d not to entertain the Notion of a Friend, a member of our Meeting, selling himself into such Bondage, and that may indeed be a good part of what disturb’d him. But it struck me too, and strikes me so now as I write, that he found it unnatural that one African might own another. For that, he pointed out firstly, is what Spearmint propos’d. Once the seven years was up, he ask’d, would Spearmint not own Ashes, even tho’ she be made his Wife in that time? I had to say that I had not consider’d of the question in that way. To which he responded, as if discovering the matter at its root, that with his Indentures the joiner was buying the servant. He would have paid for her and would own her.

To this I said that I could not believe that that was Spearmint’s Intention. And if it were not, would he not agree to an Article in the Contract that would make it out as such? I meant to say, could we not so write the Articles that they would make it binding upon both Parties that the weekly Payments were to be put toward the purchase of Ashes’ Freedom, not her further Bondage, and that at the end of the seven years’ term, both she and Spearmint would be free?

Mr. Peele then rose from where he was sitting and with a thoughtful air went and stood at the window. After a time of Reflection he said without turning back to me that he understood the great Difficulty I found myself in, and that he was perhaps remiss in not taking that into consideration. He then said in the kindly Manner I know him for, that we would put our heads together and think this through, and he came back and sat beside me again.

So we talk’d a good deal, first of how such an Arrangement might be made, whether it were necessary that Spearmint live in the house, what Benefits there might be to me in his doing so. There were also Matters I had only dimly thought on, such as the unusual status of Spearmint’s apprentices being Freemen apprentic’d to an indentur’d Servant, and then, delicately, the question of a child. For if Ashes and Spearmint were to have issue, by the laws of the Colony, Mr. Peele pointed out, the child would be a slave and would belong to me. For all of these matters, we thought Articles could be written into the Covenant to satisfy the parties. There was also the matter of Freedom dues. For it seems in Articles of Indenture there is a giving of land and other goods to the Servant at the fulfillment of his Term. I had not known of this and said there could be no question of any such. That Spearmint had already a Trade and a place of business. The Articles were solely for the purchase of Ashes’ freedom, that Ashes was to be his Freedom dues. To which John Peele smil’d and call’d me a good man of business. That he would mind in future any Transaction he might have with me.

As I was about to leave he ask’d had I thought any further on Edward Swift’s offer. I paus’d at this and then told him how, at the beginning of the winter when he first came to me with Mr. Swift’s proposal, I had not been able to fancy myself a Wife. But that now, tho’ only a few months had pass’d, I had grown in my own thought and in my own heart in ways that made me think I could be married. Married, I said with what I hope was a not unkind smile, but not to Edward Swift. That I had not told Mr. Swift so with any such baldness, but that I believ’d he understood all the same.

He ask’d then did Dorcas and I have enough in store, and did we have enough money to get through the rest of the Winter. I told him that there was yet a little Specie in our Bible box, to which he ask’d was that but our everyday money, and had not Father a hidden place where there might be a more substantial amount? I said I did not know of any such.