THE STORY OF ELIZA LITTLE
SPRING 1779
“The church service had begun that morning as usual. I remember I’d stood for the hymn but refused to sing. I didn’t have the spirit. Not only was the entire sermon still before me, but the whole war had just headed south and left me behind. All the men General Washington sent to the frontier for our protection after last October’s raid were now gone. Count Pulaski’s dragoons were the first to leave, pulling out in December because they could not keep their horses fed through our long winter. And less than two months after this, his infantry was called away. Finally, in April, even General Hand’s infantry was ordered elsewhere. I had planned on joining Hand’s infantry, but …”
I hesitate. Trying to explain my foot or my mother to Scar would be impossible.
“… there I was instead, stuck between my mother and my sister in a church pew. Everything was irking me that morning. My neighbor Mrs. Decker’s endless chatter to my mother about late frosts and what a nuisance it was to have to cover the corn saplings. My sister Mary’s constant humming. The Reverend taking ten eternities to embark on his sermon. Every single person in the congregation with their sniffling and coughing and throat-clearing. I was miserable.
“That’s when I heard the church door open. A latecomer. Yet another annoyance. Now the Reverend would have to wait until this dawdler got settled. I turned to see who it was so I could direct my anger accordingly. But the transgressor was someone I’d never seen before in my life.
“Her hair was long and black and tied up by a blue ribbon. She wore a brown gown and a blue petticoat. And she held the hands of two little girls, one on either side of her. It wasn’t so often that new people came into our settlement. In fact, besides the troops, it almost never happened at all. I watched her take a seat in an empty pew directly across from us.
“I didn’t listen to one word the Reverend said after that. This girl took up all the room in my head. I could tell she was my age, although I would soon learn just how close in age we were. And she was alone with the children.
“When the sermon finally came to an end, I planned to follow her out so that I might hear who she was. But at the opportune moment, my mother remembered a recipe for stewing eel that she needed to impart to Mrs. Decker before she could think to take another step. And although I believe no one needs another recipe for stewed eel, Mrs. Decker decided that she did. Since it would be improper to leave my mother in the pew, I was trapped.
“I watched the girl walk down the aisle and depart the church. Which … was fine. It wasn’t like I wouldn’t hear the gossip on these three girls from Mrs. Decker or Mrs. Van Etten soon enough. But then Mary asked me who they were and I could tell how badly she wanted to know. So for my sister’s sake, I attempted to rush us out.
“Until that morning, I hadn’t realized how many old people we had in our congregation, and at the moment, they were all in front of us. I tried grabbing onto Mrs. Park’s elbow to hurry her along. She generously thanked me for my help while rambling on about growing old and feeble and how I shouldn’t let it happen to me. She kept smiling, too, making me feel wicked for wanting to drop her elbow and run. Meanwhile, Mary pushed past me at the doors.
“Finally released from the church, I spotted the girl standing on a small hill in the churchyard with Mr. and Mrs. Van Etten. When I looked over at her … she was looking right back at me.”
Recalling the moment unsettles me. Even here—in this wild and lonely place—she is able to creep inside me and steal my peace. My hand moves to wipe my brow and I find my forehead hotter than a kettle hanging low on the lug pole. It’s like the memory of her eyes have brought on a fever. Swallowing, I press on.
“The girl’s stare compelled me to seek occupation. I turned to my mother, but she wasn’t behind me anymore. She, Mary, and Mrs. Decker were already making their way up the hill toward the girl and the Van Ettens.
“That’s when I spotted Mr. Decker and headed toward him. Martinus Decker is an important man in our settlement and was a good friend of my father’s. He and the Reverend were deep in conversation. I knew what they would be talking about before I got there—the war. It’s all Mr. Decker ever speaks of. And when I arrived at their side, I found I was correct. The Reverend was grumbling over the loss of troops on our frontier. Mr. Decker was, of course, agreeing. When they noticed me, Mr. Decker clapped me on the back in a friendly way, and the Reverend asked after my family.
“I reported we were well and then stood quietly by, allowing them to return to their conversation. I was happy to be a part of their group while free to have my own thoughts. Every so often I glanced across the crowded churchyard at the girl. There were many of us milling about that Sunday due to the warm spring sunshine.”
I look around our clearing. Dark. Quiet. Still. This place doesn’t feel as though it shares the same earth as that bright, busy churchyard. I turn to Scar and am surprised when I meet his opened eyes. I suspect I’ve been silent too long, because he gives me a look that says, Go on.
He’s listening.
“When I next checked on the girl, she wasn’t there. That’s when I caught sight of Mrs. Decker leading the group of them down the hill toward us like a goose leads her goslings to the water’s edge. And for some reason, I didn’t want to be there when they arrived. But Mr. Decker was engrossed in a new debate with the Reverend, and when I tried to excuse myself, neither paid me any attention. And to walk away without excusing myself would be rude. Although, truth be told, I had no excuse to give, anyway.
“So the girl got closer and closer. And with each approaching step she took, another meaningful thought took flight from my head. By the time she reached us, I swear I could hear the wind whistling through my empty skull.
“Mrs. Decker introduced her to Mr. Decker. It was the first time I heard her name … Eliza Little.
“Mrs. Decker explained that Eliza Little had come down from Cushetunk two days before with her father and three sisters. She informed her husband that the Littles were fierce Patriots, and that the Tories were stirring up trouble in the north, so Eliza’s father thought it best to surround himself with friends until the war was over. Mr. Decker shook Eliza’s hand and expressed his pleasure in meeting her. He then began to enquire after possible shared acquaintances in the north. I was less than a cubit from her but I seemed able to see her only in small pieces—her eyes, her mouth, her hair. Suddenly I heard Mrs. Decker saying my name: ‘… Noah Daniels, Mary’s older brother. He is sixteen as well.’”
Scar is coughing.
I break off my story and wait.
He settles.
“Mrs. Decker went on some about how close we lived to each other, and how she was sure we’d all be great friends in no time, but I wasn’t listening—mostly because Mrs. Decker always used too many words, but also because Eliza Little reached out to shake my hand. She had to lean forward and pluck my hand from where it hung at my side, because like a fool, I hadn’t moved. I shook her hand, and kept shaking it. I meant to …”
He’s coughing again.
His coughs turn into gasps.
I drag myself to my knees, ignoring the musket ball screaming in my gut. He can’t breathe. He’s choking.
I rip off the frock and try to sit him up. But the coughing and sputtering are joined by loud, grunting screams when I bend him at the waist. I lay him back down and grab the canteen. “Here,” I tell him, trying to force him to drink. The water is the only thing I can think to do. He refuses it and, instead, hacks and chokes. I grab him and, holding his head in one arm, I press the jug to his lips. He fights me. I try again, and succeed in dumping a little water down his throat. But he coughs it right back up, along with a trickle of dark saliva, which runs down his chin.
This is bad.
I crawl to the knapsack for a fresh dressing, with one hand clutching at the lead ball in my stomach to keep it quiet. Scar sputters and hacks behind me. It’s a terrifying sound.
There are no fresh dressings.
I untie my shirt and whip it about to remove the leaves and needles. Finding the cleanest corner I can, I tear it off. The air feels cool on my wound. I don’t like it. I crawl back to Scar.
It seems something is stuck in his throat, but how can that be? He hasn’t eaten anything since I’ve been with him. I wet the clean piece of shirt using only a small amount of water—we’re getting low—and wipe the sweat from his face. Then I sit helplessly by and watch him choke.
I can’t stand it. It’s like his eyes are growing bigger and his skin is shrinking away from his face. He looks older than when I first found him late this afternoon. Like a tiny old man. And he will not stop choking. He can’t cough properly.
What do I do? What do I do? If I could just make him sit up …
I try again to force him to sit, but he thrashes at me, and between his surprising strength and my feverish head, I’m unsuccessful.
“You’ll choke to death if you don’t sit,” I yell. But as I’m yelling, I have an idea. And having an idea livens me up. I place him back down, roll him like a log onto his uninjured side, and begin to pound on his back. I’ve seen the women do this in church with babies. I know Scar doesn’t have to belch, but whatever is stuck will have an easier time coming out if I help.
Scar can barely draw breath, let alone cough. I pound his back and shout at him. “Cough, Scar, cough!” This poor boy probably wishes I had stabbed him dead this afternoon. But I don’t quit. “For the Lord’s sake, COUGH!”
Finally, he half spits, half coughs out a thick, dark-brown liquid. Is it vomit? What is it? I move closer. It looks like he’s vomited a wet mess of finely ground tea leaves.
Scar is limp with exhaustion, but able to breathe. The coughing has stopped. I roll him back and he sighs in relief. Covering him up, I reach for the water. He’s too tired to fight me, and he drinks. I’m so thirsty, but I close the canteen. After I lay his head down, his moon-shadow is out of the way of his vomit and I see it’s not tea leaves, but blood he’s been choking on. It looks partially dried somehow. But it’s definitely blood.
It’s then that it hits me … He isn’t going to live.
I guess I knew this when I first found him this afternoon.
Without thinking, I pick up his hand in mine and look up at the sky between the branches of the hemlock trees. Why is it that when we want answers we know we can’t have, we turn our faces to the sky? Maybe it’s all those stars. Maybe just comparing our concerns to their twinkling masses shrinks our problems.
Scar squeezes my hand.
I’m afraid to look at him. I know that he knows he’s dying.
He squeezes my hand again.
I look down. His eyes are like the stars, full of twinkle. I’m amazed by how well I know his eyes when I don’t even know his name.
“Hand prisoner?” he croaks.
His voice shocks me, and I can barely take in that he spoke, let alone understand his meaning.
“Girl?” he says. “Hand prisoner?”
“What?” I say. “I wasn’t holding her hand prisoner. Maybe it was her fault. Maybe she forgot to remove her hand from mine.” But then I grin a little sheepishly. “You’re right. I held her hand too long,” I admit, lying back down next to him. “She had to eventually yank it from me.”
He laughs. It’s a good sound. Hand prisoner. I think Scar might be funny. I like knowing this about him.
“After she released herself from my grip, she said she needed to locate her sisters and head home. Her father was unwell and her older sister needed help in caring for him. As she turned to leave, she stopped and spoke to me: ‘So, we are both sixteen. When is the day of your birth?’
“I knew the answer to this, of course, and was just about to give it when my sister answered for me. ‘March seventh,’ Mary said.
“‘I’m the fifth,’ the girl said. ‘Of course this means I’m the elder, and therefore the wiser, of us.’
“She laughed.
“I didn’t.
“‘Two days is hardly time to become wise,’ I told her.
“She laughed again, although I didn’t think what I’d said was funny.
“My mother interrupted our conversation with an invitation for her family to join us for supper the following Saturday when her father was feeling better. She thanked my mother and accepted. After this, she gathered her sisters and left.
“For the next week I worked our farm like a true descendant of my headstrong mother. It being spring, there was a never-ending list of things to do. Fields to prepare, seeds to sow, animals to feed, traps to check. Within the week, I had our small farm looking quite acceptable. I labored at such a pace that when I hit my straw at night, I was already asleep. I wanted to show Eliza Little that those two days she held over me meant nothing.
“When I awoke on the following Saturday, I made a list in my head of a hundred chores to do to keep from thinking about our supper guests. I was cleaning out the smokehouse, number four on my list, and sweating like a pack mule, when Mary came out and told me to clean up for dinner, our midday meal, for we had a guest.
“I never asked who it was. I assumed it was Mrs. Van Etten. She often visits my mother. She’s a kind woman, although she speaks too much of her health. I quickly cleaned myself using a dirty rag hanging in the barn and went to dinner. When I stepped into the cabin I bumped right into Eliza Little. And though she tried to hide it, I saw her sniff. I’m sure I smelled like last year’s smoked pork butt.”
“Or maybe, smell fish,” Scar says, pulling his hand from under the frock and making it swim.
“Yes, thank you,” I tell him, “or maybe I smelled like old fish … anyway … She and her little sisters had come to inform us that their father wasn’t feeling well enough for supper that evening, and my mother invited the three of them to stay for dinner.”
“Beside noticing how badly I smelled, it was also the first time Eliza Little noticed my foot.”
I raise my twisted, thick ankle into the air for Scar to see—the toe end of my moccasin bending awkwardly left.
“And when she noticed, she did something that no one had ever done before … She asked me about it. ‘Cow, horse, or tree?’ she said. When I didn’t answer, she answered herself with a shrug and a laugh: ‘No matter, all three are the same—useful, but heavy when they land.’
“It was a true statement, so I told her as much. And again, she laughed.
“We sat for dinner over beef mixed with currant and cabbage. And this is where I first learned how much Eliza Little loved to talk. As we ate, she described life in their old settlement, including how they’d lost their mother to the pox the year before. But mostly she entertained us with stories about her older sister Sarah’s bad cooking. I’d never seen my mother enjoy herself so much.
“When dinner was finished, my mother and Mary offered to introduce her sisters to our new litter of pigs. Eliza Little and I cleared the table together. It was the first time I’d been alone with her. She told me she was sorry for the loss of my father. I told her I was sorry for the loss of her mother. She stopped clearing then and smiled at me. Not knowing how to respond, I nodded my head. She laughed and called me a serious fellow. But she said it as though being serious was not quite a proper thing. At that moment, my mother came in with fresh water and I announced that I’d walk the girls home. I was determined to behave well no matter what this girl called me.
“On that walk we had our first fight … of many. The argument was over the planting of wheat. She believed in growing more wheat than one needed, and then transporting the excess wheat and flour to market. Now, as a matter of course, I’m not against growing more wheat than is necessary to barter for tools and livestock, but to go hauling it about the colonies … Never mind, it was a heated fight. And about wheat. Who fights about wheat?”
I turn to Scar. He clearly agrees. Although I know he’s humoring me. Mohawk men do not plant wheat. They hunt and fish and fight. Farming is women’s work.
. . .
“And that is what I said to her. ‘Who fights over wheat?’ And do you know what she did?”
I don’t wait for Scar to respond.
“Of course, she laughed. She seemed to think everything was funny. Just as she thought that everything needed to be discussed … at length. And so we fought, at every meeting, and on every subject—over how much corn to feed a hog through winter—whether grass be cut easiest by sickle or scythe—how to plow a straight row—even what a correctly plowed straight row should look like!
“And if I ever came close to winning one of these arguments, Eliza Little would bring up those extra two days that she’d lived in this world like they were indisputable evidence of her being right about everything. Sometimes she wouldn’t even say a word, she’d just smile while she held up two fingers in the middle of my sentence. It made me want to pluck her up and toss her in the Neversink.”
My voice is tiring. I try to soothe it with spit, but I have none.
“When we arrived at Eliza Little’s home, I excused myself, informing her that I needed to return immediately to complete my chores before dark. She smiled and whispered, ‘So serious.’
“That night I lay on my straw, frowning when I thought about Eliza Little—which made me think that perhaps she was right and I was too serious. She did this to me … sent my thoughts spinning in frustrating circles. And I slept very little before it was time to rise for church the next day.
“Of course, Eliza Little and her sisters were again at the service. The sermon flew by. I had never known the Reverend to speak so well. It was another beautiful spring Sunday, and when I stepped outside, I saw that she was standing in a group next to Mr. Decker. At first I looked around for others I could speak with. But I decided right then and there that I was going to live the same way I did before Eliza Little arrived. So I walked straight for Mr. Decker to say good morning. He halted his conversation and greeted me with his usual enthusiasm. He then began to introduce me to Eliza Little, forgetting that we had met the previous week, standing right beside him. Before I could stop him, he started in on my excellent character, and what a hard worker I was. If I had written a script in my own hand, I couldn’t have done a better job singing my praises. The speech went on for quite a while and I felt I should applaud when he finished. Take that, I thought, two days older and wiser.
“Eliza Little smiled and told Mr. Decker that she also believed me to be of steady character. But even though the words ‘steady character’ seemed meant in a complimentary way, I could not take them as such. Instead, I could hear her voice in my head now calling me ‘so steady.’ How she got into my head, I do not know.
“She then wished us a good day, saying she needed to be on her way. And before I could stop myself, I offered to see her safely home … revealing more of my steady character.”
“You see?” I say. “How bothersome she is. And trust me, I had not provoked this from her in any way.”
“Woman comes from sky,” Scar whispers. “Many times, men ask birds, when you take back woman?”
We turn to each other and laugh.
“A flock of crows,” I tell him, “and all my problems might be solved.”
All my problems … Scar is weakening by the moment and my own cheeks glow with fever. We need more than birds.
“I was once again locked into the task of walking her home when it was the last thing I wanted to do.
“The walk started off quite slowly, for her little sisters needed to dart here and there before they moved in a forward direction—like two busy butterflies. And while the little ones flitted about, Eliza Little engaged in her affection for speech. She told me how they had come from Connecticut when she was a baby because her father had a dream of owning his own farm. About how hard they all had worked for that dream and how her mother had basically died for it. She proudly showed me her fingernails, black with dirt from spring planting. She joyfully spoke of our rich soil, our freezing winters, our sweaty summers. And on top of one particular hill, she even threw open her arms and declared her devotion to the entire river valley.
“I don’t know why I did it—maybe it was her passion for the seasons, or maybe her dirty fingernails—but I took her on my secret walk to a certain small patch of land. I’d never invited anyone there before, not even my sister, Mary.
“Her little sisters were thrilled to leave the road for adventure. They engaged me in constant conversation for the entire walk to what I like to call my farm. I explained my plans for the cabin I would build one day and where I would place my barn and fields, and what I would plant first. The butterflies stopped listening when I became invested in the subject of chinking—the mixture applied between the logs in a cabin in order to keep the wind from howling in. Eliza Little didn’t stop listening. And she was not shy regarding what she believed were the proper chinking proportions between deer hair, mud, and lime. I actually thought her way too concerned with the lime. But wanting to be polite, I did not mention this at the time.
“When we arrived at my farm, Eliza Little exclaimed over the soil as it crumbled rich and dark between her fingers, pointed out the location’s excellence in regard to water, and noted the perfect view in all directions. It made me feel as though I had created the soil and view myself. I told her that I had scouted out this place long ago and that I visited it every evening after my chores were finished. Although as soon as we took a seat together on a rock at the southeastern corner of my farm, we promptly began to fight over how many trees would need to come down, and where was the best placement for the cabin.
“Every day after this, Eliza Little met me on the walk to my farm at the fork in the path between our land and her family’s … and our fighting continued. We agreed on almost nothing but those things that were at the most elemental level, like building the cabin with its back to the wind. It was so rare that we agreed on anything, that when we did, it felt odd, like a bath in midwinter, and we quickly moved past it.”
“You’re probably wondering why I even let her walk with me. It’s only because she would be standing there at our usual meeting place carrying a birch basket of gingerbread or cranberry tarts. Cranberry tarts … What could I do? Of course I had to let her come.”
I sigh, picturing Eliza Little the last time I saw her. She wasn’t holding onto a basket full of tarts, but holding back a heart full of tears.
Breathing in the smell of the river deeply through my nose—the clean scent of drying stone—I look over at Scar. He is sound asleep.
I wonder if Eliza Little is sleeping right now.