| |
Sunday 10 November 1745
SILAS SHOULD HAVE known nigh on a month ago that he and John Gilman would not be able to work on the doors at any time during the harvest. Harvest had required well more than a fortnight—more than three weeks—of concentrated work every day. Even Sundays were included, for Reverend Russell had been cognizant of the need to get this first harvest accomplished before the autumn rains set in.
If they had still been in Brandtburg, the harvest would have been long over and they would already be facing winter snows. He stilled that thought. He did not want to dwell on how life had been in Brandtburg. They were here, now, and this was the only time that was important. Late summer rains had delayed the start of this harvest, and he was thankful they had not had to leave it too long. Even now, rain clouds gathered, threatening to unleash their load. He was grateful they had completed the last of the fields in time, and grateful, too, for the sturdy roof above him.
He flexed his hand. The wound had healed completely—almost completely—although there had been times when gripping the scythe had cost him a fair amount of pain. He was ready to discard the bandaging completely, but Louetta had threatened him with dire consequences if he did so without her approval. He smiled to think of her fierce protection of him and of Brand. The boy had been a great help through the harvest. He would be a fine man soon.
John Gilman came yawning into the shed. “I beg your pardon.”
His yawn, restricted as it was by the scarring of his mouth was barely wide enough to admit a mosquito. Silas wondered how Gilman managed to eat enough to keep himself alive.
“There is no need,” Silas said. “I have done plenty of yawning myself these past number of days, although I tried to disguise them during the church service.”
John chuckled and picked up a stub of charred stick. “Shall I begin roughing out the design on the second door?”
“Nay. I would have you begin the vines on this one. I will sketch the outlines on the right-hand door. This bandage somewhat hampers my movement yet, and I prefer not to carve.”
“Your hand has been trussed up like that for a long time.”
“My dear wife felt it needed extra protection during the harvest, and when her mind is set on a course, I would not care to be the one to get in her way.” He reached out his other hand to take the charred stick from John. “I had thought to include my initial and that of my wife on the door, perhaps down at the bottom, among the tufts of grass, for she has been a constant inspiration to me.”
Silas saw that John swallowed almost convulsively before he spoke. “I think that is a fine idea.”
“Why do you not include your own initials? These doors will, after all, be a work of art, and the artist has a right to claim his own work.”
Hubbard pursed his lips. Or rather, what was left of them. “Just now as I passed by your brother I heard him say to the men who surrounded him that he planned to install a beautiful set of new doors for the church.”
Silas nodded without surprise. “That is like my brother. Few people are curious, though, about what is happening within these shed walls. I doubt anyone will know the truth of it.”
“Except us,” John Gilman said.
“Except us,” Silas agreed.
~ ~ ~
YOUNG JOHN KEPT TRYING to reach into the oat pan, and his little arm was already covered with chaff. Mary Frances smiled at him. “You may gather straw to make poppets for yourself. Would you like to teach the other children how to make them?”
As the boy bent to pick up a handful of the longer oat straws, Miss Julia nodded approvingly from the low stool where she wielded a side-headed mallet. “He will be a true blessing to you in your old age.”
“Have you only the one son, Mistress Gilman,” Constance inquired, “or are there other living sons and daughters, perhaps left at home with families of their own?”
Mary Frances was glad her sister had asked. She had wondered the same thing, but had not felt comfortable asking, since she knew Miss Julia’s “son” was not truly her son.
It was obvious from the expectant silence that settled over the women that Mary Frances and Constance were not the only ones who were curious to learn more about the Widow Gilman. Abigail Downes Russell, wife of the village blacksmith Matthew Russell, looked particularly avid. She was ever one to collect tidbits of information, but she, unlike Charlotte Ellis, never seemed to want to profit by the gathering of such facts.
Miss Julia seemed at a loss for words for a moment. “I had other children, but five babes died as infants, and then a house fire killed my oldest son and two daughters, as well as my husband.” A collective sigh went up from the women, for they had all known of many deaths. “And my John’s older brother,” Miss Julia added, “was killed when he took a heavy fall.”
“Your son,” Mary Frances said once she could make her voice work, “must be a true blessing to you, as mine is to me.”
She could tell from the look in Miss Julia’s eyes that Miss Julia understood fully what she was saying.
“I do have one grandchild,” Miss Julia said, inclining her head to Mary Frances. “He would be the same age as your son.”
The women returned to the threshing that had ceased momentarily while everyone listened to Miss Julia. Gradually they became caught up in telling the stories women tell, sharing the gleaned bits of wisdom women share, and in general enjoying each other’s company as they filled basket after basket with fine oats.
~ ~ ~
ROBERT HASTINGS WAS happy to accept Call Surratt’s invitation to sit for a few moments in the Surratt’s dooryard. "Have a cup of beer with me to celebrate the end of the harvest." Call had sounded so hearty, so welcoming, Robert could not say no.
"We did well, would you not say?"
Robert simply nodded, almost too tired to speak.
Mistress Surratt brought out a pitcher of beer along with two carved cups. She left the men to pour for themselves and retreated up the hill. "Threshing to do," she said by way of a goodbye.
"To a successful harvest," Call said. "May we have many more."
"And may the next one be even more abundant."
"Amen to that."
The two men sat companionably for several minutes. Eventually, Robert became aware—more aware—of the cup he held. "Where did you get this?" He held it aloft.
"John Gilman, who boards in our barn. He does chores to repay us for his meals, but he said he wanted to do more, so he is carving cups for all of us in the family. That," he said, indicating the cup Robert held, "is the first."
"Is it?"
"And this one I hold was the second. He made them before the harvest began and has done nothing else since, but he has promised me a goodly supply of these cups. Geonette likes them. You should feel honored she brought one for your use."
"I am honored indeed."
But Robert was more than honored. He had held cups much like this is Brandtburg, in his tavern there. Leaf-patterned cups that had been created by Hubbard Brandt. Very like to this one.
Robert leaned back against the wall of the house. "Some day I hope to open another tavern here. When I do, I shall have need of a multitude of cups on the day we open, for I intend to invite the entire village. Would you perhaps be willing to loan me some of these?"
"You have yourself a deal," Call said. "I look forward to the day."
Two mornings later, Robert happened to turn onto the lane above his house just in time to see John Gilman walking ahead of him past the church. The man had a slight limp.
The man carved like Hubbard Brandt. The man walked like Hubbard Brandt. Of course, he looked nothing like Hubbard Brandt, but with his face so scarred, who could tell?
Robert slowed his pace and strolled a bit farther. John Gilman’s horses. Blaze and Star without a doubt. Miss Julia was not his mother, not if this man was indeed Hubbard Brandt.
What was a Brandt doing here in Martin’s Village?
What was Robert going to do about it?
He could imagine what Homer Martin would do should he learn a Brandt had come this far to find them. If Homer found out, Hubbard Brandt—John Gilman—would not last a day.
Hubbard—Gilman—was too good a man. Robert would hold his peace.
~ ~ ~
IDA WAITED UNTIL MADDY had curled herself up in the pile of pillows she’d preempted on the first day and then read off the next date from the Mary Frances diary. "November tenth. How about yours, Biscuit?"
"Looks like it’s still your turn. Hubbard’s next entry isn’t until November twenty-sixth."
Sunday 10 November 1745
I have taken no time to write during the three weeks of the harvest. Anyone who has ever lived through such a time will understand completely why I did not take quill to paper, although I doubt whether anyone will ever read these private jottings of mine—except I myself. I occasionally thumb back through this small book and read a sentence here, a few words there. But I digress. This has been a most productive day.
There were somewhat more snores than usual during this morning’s church service. For three weeks, the harvest has not stopped for anything excepting that single two-hour service, and many of the men—and women, too—took the time to rest sitting upright on their benches. I cannot call them pews, for there are no proper backs to them, which necessitated many of the wives acting as props lest their husbands fall over. I cannot blame the men. The harvest is so intensive a time, for we had to take advantage of the stretch of dry weather we have had.
Dee began to chuckle. "Some things never change."
"How so?" Ida lowered the diary.
"I have a friend who’s married to a wheat farmer in eastern Colorado. July’s always a killer for them."
"But don’t they have heavy machinery to do the work for them?"
"Maddy, Maddy, Maddy. You sure were right when you said you don’t know much about farming."
Maddy grinned. "So, enlighten me."
"Somebody has to run those machines, and there’s still a heck of a lot of hauling and heaving things around. My friend said her husband and brother-in-law fall asleep at the table sometimes with their heads lying next to their plates."
"I think I’d rather work with our Butterfly Brigade."
"Lazybones," Ida said.
At the beginning of the harvest, it was decided that, rather than having each family tend their own crops, it would be the work of the entire town to go from field to field together. Fortunately, the fields are all close together north of the village in a relatively flat area. Homer Martin, of course, was against that idea when his brother first broached it, but once Silas convinced him, Homer Martin set the plan before the assembled men of the town as if it had been his own idea, and was highly praised for his forethought.
Maddy mumbled something, but Ida ignored her. I couldn’t fault Maddy for her disgust with Homer Martin. I felt the very same way.
After church this morning, we women decided to meet together to thresh the oats, thinking that we could each work on the portion that is our own family’s, but if we did it sitting close together we would be able to converse—and laugh—as we worked. And so it happened. Threshing is such a messy business. No matter how much we cover our hair, we become coated in the clinging chaff and bits of straw. The rain has not fallen, but the clouds have billowed all the day. The resulting strong wind aided our threshing immeasurably.
We set the young children to ferrying the threshed oats home and bringing yet another bushel, and another, and another as long as they lasted. Surprisingly, we completed the work in this one long day. Next year, when more land has been cleared and more crops planted, the threshing will take us many days longer to finish. With the resultant longer work, though, will come a far greater yield.
"Those fields she mentioned," Sadie said. "They must have been where the new development is."
"Some developer bought up the land north of town," Melissa explained to Carol, "and built a bunch of houses."
"Wonder if any of them has a wood-burning stove," Maddy mused, but nobody seemed inclined to answer her.
At one point my sister Constance asked Miss Julia if she had any other children. Five who died as infants, she said, and three who died in a house fire when she lost her husband as well. Then she surprised me when she said, choosing her words carefully, “My John had an older brother who died in a heavy fall.” I am sure most of the women assumed he had fallen from a roof, and only I knew that the unknown man in our cemetery was Ira Brandt, her John’s older brother. She surprised me then again by saying that she had one grandchild. She looked at me and said, “He is the same age as your son.” I cannot express the wave of happiness to know that in those few words Miss Julia claimed young John as her 'grandchild of the heart.' My son’s real grandmother—my mother—has never even held him, so I know without any doubt that she believes my John is not the son of Homer Martin, for which she will never forgive me. Of course, I have known all along about her suspicions, ever since she thrust me into this untimely, unwanted, and unholy marriage. I am sorry, though, that she dotes so upon Constance’s children and ignores my boy.
"Her loss," Rebecca Jo said. "You’d think she would have come around, since John was apparently such a sweet little boy."
"I wonder what Constance thought about it," Sadie mused. "Surely she must have noticed the difference."
"Maybe it was easier just not to talk about it," Maddy said. "Ostrich in the sand, you know."
What is a ztrich in this hand?
"We’re going to have to watch our language," Carol said, "so I don’t have to do so much translating."
Constance asked me just a week ago why our mother never wrote the date of my marriage to Homer Martin in the family Bible. I was not aware that she had not, but now I wonder if she thereby withheld her blessing of the union. I do not know whether that shows that she pitied me or that she blamed me. Has she ever regretted forcing me into this union? All I could think to say was that the day I was married to Homer Martin was the night our father died and that Mother might not have wanted to connect the two events. She seemed to accept that, but her eyes follow me sometimes and I cannot interpret her look.
The clouds have increased over the past few days, and we worked past sundown last night to finish the last of the fields. Fortunately, the moon was close to its full. Even so, we set the older children around that final field with torches in hand, charging them on pain of the most vigorous strapping not to let a single spark come near the dried grains. The babes and young children, my John included, were all gathered at one side of the field under the watchful eyes of a circle of children only slightly older than themselves, who sang them to sleep. If I had not kept moving my arm in the rhythm of the sickle, I would have been in danger of falling asleep myself, for the sound of their loo-la-loo was soothing indeed. I was almost too weary at the end to lift John and carry him home, but his warm body snuggled so sweetly against my cold breasts, I could easily forget my own discomfort.
"That’s really sweet," Pat said. “I’m glad Mary Frances got so much joy from her son.”
“You know,” Melissa said, “sometimes at the end of a day when I’ve been cleaning up after guests have departed, or had an extra lot of cooking to do, or just been inundated with chores, I’ve moaned about how hard life is. But I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult things were back then.”
“They were hard,” Sadie agreed, “but look at all those special little moments that Mary Frances finds.”
Easton shifted on her chair. “Like what?”
“Well, like the little poppet moment in the previous entry, and the snuggle moment at the end of the harvest, and the times she had good conversations with some of the other women in the town, especially, it sounds like, with Miss Julia. It can’t all have been back-breaking work.”
"What’s a poppet?"
Sadie looked at Easton as if surprised that anyone could not know what a poppet was. But then I could see her shift her thinking. Nobody called little dolls poppets anymore.
After Sadie explained, I couldn’t help asking, “Do you think you might have enjoyed living back then, Easton?”
She appeared to study the question more closely than it warranted.
“A simple yes or no would suffice,” I finally said.
“I’m not sure I would have been up to it.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised by her answer. I doubt I would have been up to it either.
Up to what?
I was surprised, though, that she’d put so much thought and apparent honesty into her answer. Sadie must have really given her a talking-to.
“Speaking of not being up to it,” Ida said, “my tummy’s beginning to wake up. How about we talk the men into getting some lunch on the table?”
Rebecca Jo looked at her watch. “How about just another artifact or two? Maybe one more hour?”
“We’d better set an alarm clock,” Melissa said. “You know how we get wrapped up in this stuff.”
Ida placed the journal beside her chair and removed her gloves. “Okay, but we won’t need an alarm. My grumbling stomach will do the job just fine.”
"If yours doesn’t," Melissa said, "Ralph’s will. We’ll probably be able to hear it from all the way up here."
I thought it was lovely the way people used to write so many letters and save the ones they received, but I had to admit, as Glaze had remarked earlier, that most of them were pretty ordinary. I found myself yawning.
“What’s wrong, sis? Are you as bored with these as I am?”
“We could always open another hatbox, I suppose,” I said, but my eye was caught by a glimpse of weathered brown paper beneath the jumble of assorted letters I’d been going through.
Marmalade jumped from my lap into the trunk, and it looked for all the world like she was as intrigued as I was by the sight of it.
It smells very old.
“Whatever you’ve found,” Carol said, “it must be good. Marmalade thinks this one is old, just like that last one.” She peered over my shoulder into the trunk as I lifted Marmalade out of the way. “I’d say she’s right.”
I am always right.
“We’re sort of like an accordion,” I said. “First we fan out all over the attic, and then something like this shows up and we squeeze back together.”
“Reminds me of rush-hour traffic in Atlanta,” Dee said. “All strung out and then bunched up bumper-to-bumper.”
I didn’t pay much attention to her, though, as I lifted the old paper and scanned down it quickly.
9 August 1879
Sojourn House
Providence, Rhode Island
Mister and Mrs Arthur Hastings
Beechnut House
Martinsville Georgia
Dear Mister Arthur and Mrs Grace,
I have been fortunate enough to find someone who continued to teach me to read and write, as you and Mrs Eliza began to teach me when I stayed in your upper room. Her name is Mrs Juneah Brown, and she was most patient with me. She accepted me long ago as her son, and so I have taken on her name, but I kept the first name my mother gave me when I was born—what we called a basket name. Mrs Juneah escaped, as I did, through the help of many people who risked their lives for us.
“Hold on!” Maddy hopped up and headed for the white dresser. “Juneah? Wasn’t that the name of the woman who escaped in the box of quilts?”
“It sure doesn’t sound like a common name,” Rebecca Jo said, “but that doesn’t mean it was necessarily the same woman.”
Dee’s face tightened. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t, either. I’m with Maddy. I bet it was the same person.”
"And Eliza," Sadie said. "There was something about an Eliza in one of those letters we found."
It took Maddy several minutes to find the one Sadie was talking about. "It’s this one. Somebody named Leonora is dead, and"—she scanned down to the signature—"Augusta is warning her cousin Eliza not to marry Gideon Hastings." She set that letter down and headed back to the dresser. "Eliza," she said over her shoulder, "was the mother in that picture on the swing."
"The mother of Young Gideon," Carol said. "He was the town vet who drew the pictures of cow intestines, so Eliza must have married Gideon despite what her cousin told her."
"And Young Gideon grew up and married Amelia," Dee reminded us. "Amelia was on the swing, too."
"Mrs. Grace," Easton said, quoting the salvation of the letter. "Bean de Ghrásta. Those words on the cheval mirror. The gift from Arthur."
The more bits she added, the more I remembered.
We kept piecing bits of information until we had at least a partial picture of who was who. I felt like we were a lot farther ahead than where we’d started.
Ida called a halt to all this. "Read the rest of the letter, Biscuit."
"Yes, Ma’am."
Mrs Juneah, who has a fine business as a sempstress here in this town of Providence, took me to hear Mister Frederick Douglass speak recently, and we were both most impressed by his dignity and were moved almost to tears by his powerful presence.
"Frederick Douglass, wow!" Carol’s face looked like it was lighted from within. "Living history!"
"And all you had to do," Pat said, "was travel to Georgia for the ice storm of the century to experience it."
"You’re right," Carol said. "If it hadn’t been for this storm, we wouldn’t be up here in the attic." She looked a bit sheepish. "I hate to admit this, Biscuit, but when Melissa first told me she’d introduce me to you and Glaze, I wasn’t all that interested. McKee wasn’t one of the names on my list."
Melissa crossed her eyes and somehow or other managed to roll them at the same time. "What do you keep telling us about making assumptions?"
"You got it!"
Got what?
"That means Melissa was right."
Oh.
Maddy waved the first letter in the air. “I was right! It was a woman named Juneah, the one Dolly and her husband—and Slingshot the mule—took up the road.”
I had to agree with her. It sure sounded like it might be the same person. I went back to reading.
She often says I must learn to be a gentleman, and true gentlemen always thank those who have been of service to them, so I choose to write to thank you for saving me from the dogs and the hunters all those years ago. She says she has often regretted not knowing the names of the elderly couple who transported her and her daughter in a box filled with quilts,
"Bingo," Melissa said. "You were right, Maddy."
Rebecca Jo grinned at me. "This would certainly qualify as the happy letter you wanted, Biscuit."
Happy indeed.
... filled with quilts, but she has written to the people of the church who ferried her onward from there, hoping they would spread her words of gratitude.
My journey north was one I would almost rather not think about, although it was eased greatly when I met up with Mrs Juneah and her daughter, who is now my wife these past two years. The months I spent in your upstairs room when you and Mrs Eliza taught me my letters was not only a time of healing for my poor feet and the wound on my head,
"Wound on his head?" Glaze ran her hand—unconsciously I thought—along the scar that ran down the left side of her face. She’d had to have twenty-three stitches. I wondered if it still pained her. I know the scar over my eyebrow still bothers me occasionally. I could have lost the use of my right eye, but Glaze could have lost her life if it hadn’t been for Gracie—Snookums—that dog she’d had at the time.
"Yoo-hoo!" Ida called. "Earth to Biscuit. Come back to the land of the conscious."
... but a time when I began to heal some of the hatred in my heart. Those long hours I had to remain motionless during the evenings so as not to be heard by your son gave me a great deal of time to think. I may have been young in years, but I do believe I was old in experience.
I know you despaired of ever having a chance to help another such as I because of the way your valley was so distant from any well-traveled road, but I want you to know that saving even one life is worth a lifetime of other good deeds.
I will always be grateful to you, and I remain
Your young friend, freed truly by the grace of God, but with your help,
Babylon Brown
I pulled out one of my homemade hankies and wiped my eyes.
Why are you crying? The letter sounded happy to me.