It ain't long till Annie and Betsey Byrnes invite me to go home with them to spend the night and Mistress says all right 'cause she really don't care what her serving girls do, even though she makes sure I'm locked up tight every night. And Sylvie comes over, too, 'cause she lives just down the street from them, and we have a fine dinner with their parents and their younger sisters and brother and one older brother whose name is Timothy who seems right pleased that I came over. Their father is a shipwright so we got a lot of things in common and we get along well, and their mother is a fussy, jolly sort, who makes sure everyone's got enough to eat, and beams proudly over her merry brood.
After dinner we play ring games and tell riddles and I pull out my pennywhistle and give 'em a few tunes and songs and raps out some steps and then we gathers about the fireplace and pops popcorn, which is the most wondrous and tasty thing and which Betsey says the early settlers learned from the Indians back when the Indians was being nice before the British started paying them to ... and then she reddens and clams up, having forgot for a moment, I guess, my history and place of birth, but I laughs it off and packs in more of the salty popcorn and sings a few more songs. Timothy sits next to me by the fire and we hold hands for a while till it's time for us to go to bed. He's a sweet boy and I give him a peck on the cheek as we leave for upstairs. Then we girls get dressed for bed and have a great giggling good time in their big old feather bed, all of us, Annie and Betsey and Sylvie and even the little ones, Eileen and Gabby and Antonia, who are so thrilled to be with their older sisters on this night of merriment that we fear they shall never sleep.
But sleep they do and then we sit up cross-legged and light one candle and talk of the boys they got their eyes on, with great snickerin' and teasing back and forth. Annie and even shy Sylvie are quite frank in reeling off their list of boys who they might look favorably on, but Betsey keeps her secrets, she just smiles and shakes her head and looks off. They tell me I should marry Timothy 'cause he's taken a shine to me and he's a good boy and has got a trade and they'd love to have me for a sister-in-law, but I have to tell 'em I am promised to another.
Course they drags every detail of my recent misadventure out of me and I warms to it, being a natural show-off and storyteller, and I prolly shouldn't but I really gets into the tellin' of it, and they squeals and covers their mouths with their hands in shock and delight when I tells 'em about Mrs. Bodeen's girls and specially about Mam'selle Claudelle day Bour-bon. Then I puffs up like the judge and tells that part, usin' a deep voice for the judge and a high squeaky one for the constable and a sweet one for Mr. Pickering, and they says how could you be so brave to take all that, and I say I warn't brave at all as I was on the edge of wettin' my pants at any moment during the whole thing and they can take that as the truth, and amen to that.
Then I puts Jaimy's ring in my ear with great ceremony so that I knows that I looks like a pure buccaneer to them, and then I tell them about the Brotherhood and the Dolphin, as I sure don't owe Mistress no promise about not tellin' about my past to these girls. I tell them about the Brotherhood oath and I tell 'em to each spit in both of their hands, and they say, "Yuck," but they all do it and so do I and we all clasp hands mixin' the spits and I say all deep and magical-like, "This being the forming of the Dread Sisterhood of the Lawson Peabody, each what pledges to the others that they will in all ways watch out for each other and never to betray another member but always help them and keep them uppermost in their hearts, and so say you one, so say you all." And we all say, "Amen," and drag the word out long and long.
And then I tell 'em all about that time in Kingston and how Jaimy and me's got an understanding about gettin' married and I get ohs and ahs and wide eyes when I tells 'em almost all about Jaimy and our hammock and our other spots on the Dolphin, and Sylvie up and says, "So you've bundled, then, Jacky?"
More snorts and stifled giggles from them all.
I sit up and say, "You will tell me what 'bundling' means and then I will tell you if I have done it or not." I am watchful. I don't mind bein' teased, but...
Annie clears her throat and puts on a teacher tone. "Well. There's a lot of farms around here that are so far out on the frontier that the girls don't ever get to see any boys 'cept her own brothers for maybe years at a time." She takes a deep breath and goes on. "Sooooo ... when there's something like a barn dance or something, and a boy and girl spark a bit ... weeeeellll, if that happens and it's agreeable to the parents, then later the boy is invited out to spend the night at the girl's farm ... aaaaaaaand, if all goes well at dinner, then..."
"Spit it out, Annie," I says, gettin' impatient with all this hemmin' and hawin'.
She finally gets it out in a rush. "Then the boy and girl go to bed together and sometimes there's a board down the center of the bed and sometimes there's not, but usually they keep their nightclothes on and spend the night in just talking and maybe a little kissing and stuff, but no more than that, and if they find in the morning that they still agree, then they set up a date to get married and then they do and they go off to start their own farm. We never do it, of course, 'cause we're city girls and there's plenty of boys around here."
"You Yankees never cease to amaze me," I say, and after I have thought on this a bit and thought back on my own case, I say, "Yes. I have bundled and I did find it most pleasant."
There's hoots and I get called "Tacky Hotbottom" and there's pillows thrown and shrieks all around until, finally, down below, the father of the house takes up a poker or some such thing and gives the floor beneath us a few sharp raps and issues a muffled threat to beat us all to sleep if we don't quiet down and let a poor workingman get his rest and why was he cursed with daughters, and we do it, we blow out the candle and quiet down. We settle into the big bed with the big fat feather-tick blanket over all of us. Feeling all their bodies, both big and little, snugged in around me, their breathing growing slow and even, reminds me of the old kip neath the Blackfriars Bridge in London, with Polly and Judy and me and the rest, 'cept it's warm and clean here and our bellies are full, and there it warn't like that at all.
As I fall asleep with Jaimy's ring in my fist, I hope with all my heart that he and I still got an understanding. My letter is on its way to him, the one where I told him about my disgrace and told him I ain't never gonna be a lady, and he ain't gonna like that, no, he ain't gonna like that at all. Oh, I could've written lies about how good everything was going but I don't want to lie to him, not now, not ever. And if it comes out that he don't want me no more because of it all, well, I'll deal with that when I find out for sure.