Lapeer County, January 1862
Mary hung back in the sanctuary as the rest of the congregation filed out into the snow. Men and boys drove their horses and sleighs up to the shoveled path at the church door, tucked their women in under furs and blankets, and headed for home where the fires waited to be stoked. Each month it seemed another young man was missing from their midst, sucked into the growing maelstrom to the south. The joy of Christmas faded, and though it was the dawn of a new year, there was a palpable lack of cheer.
Bridget handed Mary her cloak. “Are you ready, ma’am?”
“Nearly. Fetch the sleigh. I’ll only be a moment.”
Bridget shook the minister’s hand and disappeared through the door.
Reverend Whittaker turned to Mary. “Well, Mrs. Balsam, it seems you are reluctant to leave. Is there something on your mind?”
“Very perceptive, Reverend, as always. There is something about which I should like to speak with you—briefly. I won’t keep you from your Sunday dinner.”
“Of course, my dear. What can I do for you?”
Mary lowered her voice despite the empty room. “As you know, I am currently housing an escaped slave at my husband’s behest. He is an upright and God-fearing man, and you can’t imagine what a help he was to me during the harvest. Indeed, I find that he is indispensable.”
The minister nodded in a noncommittal manner. Mary couldn’t tell if he was agreeing or if he simply wanted to get home to the hot meal Mrs. Whittaker was preparing.
“George has been learning to read, which he had been forbidden to do by his former master, and he longs to come to church. He knows Bible stories that were passed down verbally, but now that he is reading the very Word of God, he’s encountering things he doesn’t understand, and I’m not so sure I’m the best person to interpret them. He’d so benefit from sitting under your preaching, and he is starved for Christian community.”
Reverend Whittaker held up a hand, and Mary realized she had been rambling. “Mrs. Balsam, are you asking to bring him with you to church on Sundays?”
“I guess I am. I know that not everyone here is for abolition, but I can’t imagine why anyone would deny a fellow human being the chance to worship.”
“Indeed.” The minister appeared deep in thought, and Mary held her tongue to allow him to consider her appeal. “Mrs. Balsam, I believe your request comes from a kind and generous heart. I can’t say how he will be received by some, but I do believe it would be against Christian teaching and Christian charity to exclude someone from worship. Were there a Negro congregation close by, it wouldn’t be an issue, as he would just go there. But we cannot expect that out here in such wild country.”
Mary allowed her hopes to rise. “Then I may bring him with us?”
Reverend Whittaker smiled. “Yes, you may. And I will preach on Paul’s letter to the Galatian church in support.”
“Oh, thank you, Reverend.” Mary grasped his hand. “George will be so thrilled.” She threw her cloak around her shoulders, and Reverend Whittaker walked her to the door. A sprinkling of snow peppered Bridget and the horses as they waited by the shoveled pathway. Mary turned back once more to her minister. “Thank you again.”
Reverend Whittaker nodded. “Oh, Mrs. Balsam?”
“Yes?”
“It may be best if you came in rather late and sat in the back row.”
Mary’s smile faltered. “Of course.”
She felt like someone had offered her a slice of apple pie and then handed her nothing but burnt crust. But then, George could learn as easily from the back row as from the front row.
The smile on George’s face when Mary relayed the news to him at dinner an hour later was the brightest she had yet seen. With each passing week since his arrival, Mary had detected changes in George. His external wounds had healed and faded. He had put on some much-needed extra weight. His subservient manner had changed so that he no longer seemed like a chastened dog but a partner in the work on the farm. And now, five months into his stay, he had truly smiled.
In that moment, Mary realized that he was a handsome man. On the heels of that realization was another—that he was indeed a man. She counted up the months that Nathaniel had been gone and recognized with unsettling clarity that she did not simply miss her husband; she longed for a man’s touch.
Mary, Bridget, and George had been eating at the same table without discomfort for months. But during Sunday dinner, as she caught herself staring at him, Mary wished he were eating in the kitchen. The meal could not end fast enough, and as soon as she could do so without seeming rude, Mary excused herself and fled to the library, leaving Bridget to clean up.
With the return of the weekly routine the next day, Mary felt back to normal. When George came in to breakfast after feeding the animals, he was once again just George. And when the two of them sat down in the library for his lessons, she was merely the teacher and he the student.
“I’m quite happy with your progress reading,” Mary said after he had read aloud a passage from Acts. “And now I think we must focus on writing for a time. You’ve progressed as far as you can with the slate. We must get you to write your letters smaller and work on your script. If you are ever to have a business for yourself, you cannot write out orders or receipts with such a shaky hand. I’ve decided to let you try paper and ink.”
Mary pulled some supplies together from the desktop and gave George a quick lesson in dipping the nib in the ink and applying the correct amount of pressure to create a bold line with no splotches. “It will take a good deal of practice, so please don’t get discouraged.”
He stared at the paper. “What should I write?”
Mary thought but a moment and then retrieved the Bible from the library table. She flipped to Philemon. “Copy this entire letter. You may only use one piece of paper.”
George looked dubious. An hour later he stood up and brought the paper to where she sat reading. “I can’t get that whole letter on just one sheet of paper.”
“Yet,” she corrected. “You can’t do it yet. Your letters are too large. You will have to write smaller. Try it again on the back.”
By the end of the day, George had attempted the feat five times. Each time he could fit more words on the paper, until finally all he was missing were Paul’s greetings at the end.
“Nicely done,” Mary said. “And now you have the back side of that paper to fill.”
“Could I write a letter of my own?”
“To whom?”
“I have a sister.”
Mary hesitated. She couldn’t allow George to write a letter to someone he knew in the South and risk alerting his former master to his whereabouts. Perhaps it was foolish to have taught him to write at all.
“Can she read?”
“No, but one of the girls she looks after does.”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “Wouldn’t that be dangerous for you both?”
George’s face fell, but he nodded his understanding. After a moment’s thought he said, “Could I write a letter to you?”