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May 1752
JANE ELIZABETH BENTON HASTINGS had never thought of herself as a hero, so she was somewhat dismayed to find that her neighbors hailed her as such for several days after she saved the life, or at least the leg, of Reverend Anders Russell.
She had been gathering wild herbs in the meadow uphill from the town, careful not to disturb the minister who sat on a flat rock at the base of the cliff, reading what looked like his prayer book. Mullein was particularly plentiful around the rock where he sat, and she could see he had placed his feet among thick tufts of the fragrant herb. She did not resent his use of it as a footstool, however, for mullein was scattered throughout the meadow.
She was not yet used to the way these herbs and flowers grew so profusely and bloomed so early, even though she had lived these seven years in this more southerly climate than the one they had left behind in Brandtburg. She looked around to be sure she was alone in the meadow, for the stricture of Homer Martin against ever saying the name of the hated town he had made them leave, was something he had drummed into the heads of everyone on that long path. Never say the name of that town. Never even think it.
She took a moment to muse about what might have happened to the Stickneys and the Everests. She missed Adah and Arinda. Pray God they had found a welcoming home in Cullowhee.
She missed her women friends from Brandtburg as well. The men may have had their feuds and fights, she thought, but we women quilted together and spoke gently with each other. Except, perhaps, for Charlotte Ellis and her ilk. Some women could not get along well with others no matter where they lived or who they associated with. Charlotte’s sister Sarah, the minister’s wife, may have been a stickler for convention, but she was unfailingly pleasant. Charlotte on the other hand had a heart as tightly closed as a miser’s pocket. Jane Elizabeth wondered why.
She had seen little of Charlotte’s late husband, Rupell Ellis, for he had always held himself aloof. Perhaps their marriage had not been as fulfilling as her own. Mister Hastings was ever a kind man, a good provider, and a thoughtful companion on cold winter evenings. Somehow Jane Elizabeth thought that Charlotte Ellis might not have enjoyed such harmony in her marriage. Surely that would sour any woman. Perhaps, she thought, that was why Charlotte had been so lax with her daughters, not requiring them to marry. It was scandalous, of course, but Jane Elizabeth could almost see the reasoning behind it.
Not that she would ever suggest such a thing to Sarah. Not if she wanted any peace.
She forced thoughts of Charlotte Ellis and Sarah Russell from her mind. This was too pleasant a day to spoil it with such imaginings. She picked the long soft mullein leaves, planning to place a basket of them in the outhouse. They were so much more pleasant to use than corncobs. Naturally, she saved some to be brewed into a tea useful for treating persistent coughs, and she tied one large bunch of the leaves together so they would be available to make into a salve for the bruises old Mistress Black had on her legs. Mistress Martin—Louetta Tarkington Martin, that is—had shown her how to concoct such a wondrous ointment. She would return later in the year to gather the flower spires of the mullein for use as torches.
The mint, which she gathered into an equally large bunch, winding a length of yarn around the stems so she could hang it easily to dry once she got home, would brew into wonderfully refreshing teas. When they first settled in Martinsville, seven years ago, she had planted several small bunches of mint here in the meadow, knowing full well she did not want it in her garden, for once it took hold, it would crowd out most other plants around it. Now, a walk through the meadow was almost as fragrant as sitting beside the hearth on a winter night with a mug of mint tea near at hand. The smell of it clung to her skirts whenever she passed through one of the numerous patches. She set down her basket for a moment and lifted her fingertips to her nose, drawing in the heady aroma of the fuzzy leaves. It was a wonder she did not have bumblebees following her around the meadow, for they seemed to love the smell of the herb, and her hands and clothing absorbed the scent so easily. She did so enjoy their rumbly buzzing.
Finally, she decided to fill the rest of her large basket with dandelion flowers. She planned to use them to concoct a clear yellow wine that was much prized as wedding gifts for the various women of the town.
She had almost completed filling her basket when she heard a low rumble, followed almost immediately by an anguished scream. Tossing the basket to one side, she ran toward Reverend Russell, noting as she ran that he appeared to have been knocked off his seat by a large boulder that must have fallen from the cliff. As she ran, she screamed for help, but when she reached the man, she knew she could not wait for others to arrive. His leg was trapped beneath a wide stone, and pain was etched into his face.
Without thinking how she could not possibly lift such a heavy rock, she bent, grabbed the protruding front edge of it, and heaved it upward with all of her might so it tipped downhill away from the minister. It had not yet landed with a tremendous thump when two men appeared around the corner of the Garner’s house in time to see it crash to rest beyond the minister’s broken leg.
Together the men, Silas Martin and the blacksmith, carried the screaming pastor home and turned him over to the care of his wife and her sister.
Jane Elizabeth wiped the blood from her hands onto a nearby tuft of soft grasses. The edge of the rock had been jagged, but, in her hurry to get it off the minister’s leg, she had not paid attention to her own pain. All she had noticed was that Reverend Russell’s leg had been cushioned between two heavy mounds of mullein. Otherwise, it might have been crushed instead of merely broken.
She took a moment to gather the herbs and flowers that had strewn across the meadow when she flung her basket out of her way. It would not do to waste them.
By the time she returned home, the full import of what might have happened had struck her, and she barely had time to set down her basket before she collapsed, shaking, into her husband’s arms.
~ ~ ~
SILAS HAD BEEN AMONG the first to respond when he heard the unmistakable rumble of a rock fall, followed almost immediately by two screams. The first was the voice of a man. The second, a woman. He and Matthew, who had been discussing putting a grate in the middle of the fire pit on the town green, dropped their tools and rounded the corner of the Garner house just in time to see Mistress Hastings heave an enormous boulder so it upended and tumbled aside.
He had delighted in telling his children—Louetta already knew about it of course—about the escapade as they gathered for the evening meal a number of hours later. “When Matthew and I went to lift the rock out of the way after Reverend Russell had been tended to”—here Silas paused dramatically—“we could not shift it, even though you well know how strong our village blacksmith is.” Everyone sighed most satisfactorily.
“How did you move it?” Brand’s voice held a fair degree of awe.
“We found we had to enlist the help of Matthew’s son.”
Louetta dished out more pottage. “You never sing your own praise, Husband, but I hope you will not pause in your praises of Mistress Hastings.”
“Indeed not,” Silas agreed. “She may have saved our minister’s life by her quick action.”
“I am sure if she had paused to think first, she never would have attempted such a feat.”
“We can thank Providence that you and Miss Julia were close at hand to tend to him immediately, for Mistress Russell and Mistress Ellis knew naught what to do.”
He heard his wife’s muttered comment. Not as much sense as a pair of chickens.
He took a bite, swallowed, and turned serious. “Think you his leg can be saved?”
“I feel certain it can if the wound is kept clean. The green potion Miss Julia and I have begun to stockpile should help in that endeavor. Of course, he will need to refrain from trying to put weight upon it until it is healed somewhat. I fear he may walk with a decided limp for the rest of his life.”
“At least he will live. There is much to be said for that.”
Louetta nodded. “As minister, it is good that he will not have to labor hard in the fields.”
Silas smiled fondly at his family. He had the best woman in town and the finest children, but he would be first to admit that Mistress Hastings ran a close second to Louetta Tarkington Martin. Or perhaps third. After all, there was Miss Julia in the picture.
That evening, he drew the faces of all three women, as if they were discussing something most important around the fireside. He had thought the sketch would show their serious side, but could not seem to help the undercurrent of laughter that seemed to spring up between the three faces on his paper.
~ ~ ~
“IT LOOKS LIKE WE’VE reached 1752,” Dee said. “Can we get back to the diary now?”
“Wouldn’t it make sense to look at all the Silas sketches together,” Rebecca Jo said, “even if they do jump ahead in time?”
Maddy didn’t look convinced. “No. Let’s put these others aside for now and bring them out again when they fit into the chronology. I want some diary time now.” She peeled off the white gloves she’d been wearing and sat next to Ida. “Especially since it doesn’t look like there’s much more in this volume.”
Her words held what sounded like real regret, a feeling I shared as well. I did not want the diaries to end.
13 July 1752
This is my first entry in more than six years. I take up this journal again to record glad tidings, the first of which is that when the sun rose this morning, I felt for the first time since the death—how I hate to write that word—since the death of my husband, that I am among the living myself. There seemed to be no particular reason for my change of heart this day except that perhaps it is time for me to move forward. I was not able to wear widow’s weeds, but the mourning has been constantly in my heart for these half dozen years, and I fear I have been less than attentive to my John as he has grown into such a fine young man, so very like his true father. Miss Julia and Louetta Tarkington have, I fear, had to take him under their wings on those days when I was unable to deal with the boy, and barely able to care for myself. I do not know what I would have done without the two of them.
Melissa reached over and touched my shoulder, and I was reminded of how difficult things had been for her when her fiancé was murdered. "Thank goodness for good friends," she said.
They began to take a more active part in caring for young John just a few short months after my husband’s death when I neglected to watch the boy closely enough as we walked beside the river. The young scamp jumped in, and I barely even noticed. Does that make me a bad mother? Certainly an inattentive one. I was so wrapped in my own mourning that, had it not been for Silas Martin’s jumping in the swollen river to retrieve the boy, I might have lost the most precious reminder I have of my husband’s life and of our love for each other.
My son calls Mother Julia by the name of Grandma, and Louetta has become Aunt Louetta to him. The two women are delighted, and John thrives with such love surrounding him. Louetta began early to teach him his letters, and he has become a voracious learner.
I have the sickle my Hubbard had fashioned for me, and as I hold it each harvest time, I feel his presence, yet a sickle is but cold metal. My John is the truest connection I have to his father.
Six years ago, I dyed a small length of linen, using the hulls of walnuts to attain a deep black, and fashioned it into a sort of bandage that I tied around my upper arm underneath my shift. It was the only private indication of mourning I could allow myself, other than my tears, and even those I had to limit as best I could. Homer Martin forbade me to attend the funeral, for he said my tears, which I told him were due to the pain of my monthly courses, would bring shame on him, as our neighbors would assume I cried for John Gilman. Little did he know our neighbors would have assumed rightly.
My sister Constance lost her infant just one day after my Hubbard’s death. Although I tried to support her at the funeral, I found my eyes so often drawn to the grave where my husband lay.
"That’s the sketch of the two of them with their hands joined on top of the coffin," my mom said, and we all nodded.
Ida hardly even paused.
I have visited my Hubbard’s grave often in the past six years, having taken on the job of maintaining the cemetery in general so that no grave may run to ruin, thereby hoping to disguise the fact that I truly go there to tend my Hubbard’s final resting place. Most families, of course, care for the graves of their deceased, but each grave occasionally needs a bit of extra attention, particularly those few where there are no living children to care for them.
Last year in April I walked with Miss Julia to the cemetery as usual and found that the marker that said ‘John Gilman’ had been uprooted. I suspect it was Homer Martin who did it. Although he has never said anything, I fear he has become aware that I spend an undue amount of time tending the Gilman grave. Miss Julia was distraught indeed to find what had happened to the grave marker of her 'son,' but we could say naught in confidence between us, for other women were there as well, even when we tried to draw aside so Miss Julia could tidy the grave of Ira Brandt, for the cemetery seemed overrun with women that day. I am unable to assist her in doing any work on Ira Brandt’s grave, for I find myself gritting my teeth when I think of what he did to my Hubbard—how Ira Brandt’s rash action resulted in so much pain for my dear husband and so much delay to his trip. Without the burning of Hubbard’s face, he might have caught up to me in time—in time for what? Would I truly have left the Martin wagon when I had such a young child? Or might Hubbard have come upon me when I was still heavy with the babe just before the birth, making it impossible for me to leave safely? After all these years—eleven since my true marriage—I cannot discover answers to any of these questions of mine. Will I ever? Or will those questions gradually recede until they no longer seem important?
John Gilman’s marker was replaced and uprooted three more times, much to the distress of Miss Julia. Finally Homer Martin ordered that a wall of stone be erected around that central part of the cemetery. He must have given particular instructions to the young men he commanded to build it, for when Miss Julia and I saw it the next day, we found that the wall, sturdy and immovable and wide enough to serve as a seat, had been built directly over my Hubbard’s grave.
"Well," Maddy said, "there’s our answer."
My mom looked confused.
"Remember, Mom? You asked why Hubbard was buried underneath a wall." I hated what Homer Martin had done, but I was happy to know the reason.
Miss Julia objected, of course, but the act was done and Homer Martin adamantly refused to have it relocated, and no man in the town will speak against his decision. Silas visited our house the next morning, and even though Homer Martin insisted I walk about the town so he could speak to his brother in private, I am sure that Silas raised his voice against Homer’s decree. But what could he do? Homer’s rule of the town is absolute. That man acts so very differently when he is with the other men. I will admit that he seems to drink less now than he did on our journey. Perhaps that time was a reaction to the death of his first wife, my dear Myra Sue. But he is no less cruel with me for all the bonhomie he shares with the men of the town. One of the rare travelers who came to this town brought that word—bonhomie—with him. It comes from a French term meaning ‘good fellow’ and does well to describe the camaraderie Homer Martin revels in. How hollow must be his joy.
I am ashamed that I had not the courage to add my remonstrance over the wall to that of Miss Julia, but I feared—not for my life, perhaps, but most certainly for my bones.
She and I have determined that we will sit on that wall to rest each time we go to the cemetery and we will speak of nothing but joyful tidings while we are there. She, as his mother, has the right to speak his name openly and often, and I delight in hearing her tell of how good a son he was to her. Homer Martin may wish to erase the name of John Gilman from the annals of this town’s history, but he will never erase that name from my heart.
“It’s so nice,” Sadie said, "to get confirmation of these bits and pieces we’ve seen before."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
“Remember that letter from Mary Frances to her beloved husband where she talked about sitting on the wall that was over his grave? The letter where she told him of the death of Jason and Henry after they saved the church doors? This is what she was talking about.”
Maddy retrieved the letter from the top drawer of the dresser and re-read the pertinent parts.
Amanda reached out her hand for the letter. “Do you suppose anybody else knew, other than Mary Frances and Miss Julia?”
"She’s never mentioned telling anybody else," Maddy said, "although her sister Constance might have guessed."
"Well," Rebecca Jo said, "the men who built the wall must have known it was right over a grave."
“Surely,” Pat said, “Homer couldn’t have gotten away with being such a rat without anybody—anybody else—in that group guessing what he was up to.”
“He sounds like a guy who knew how to manipulate people with all his—what did she call it?—bonhomie,” Carol said. “Then there was the magic of the Martin name. At that time, anyone named Martin was still probably almost sacrosanct.”
Ida snorted, and resumed reading, but I stopped her.
“Glaze! Do you see what this means?”
“What what means? What are you talking about?”
I do not know.
“That day you doused for bodies in the cemetery? I’ve been teasing you ever since about how your dowsing rods clicked together when they were over the stone wall.”
She pursed her lips, but I thought maybe she was trying to keep down a grin, because the sides of her mouth kept turning upwards. “I think you owe me an apology, Sis. An abject one.”
“Consider it done. This is my public and appropriate grovel. You found Hubbard Brandt’s body before anyone even knew it was there.”
Another dead body?
“And to think I’ve sat there in that very spot,” Sadie said. “Hundreds of times.” She looked down at her colorful pink sweatshirt. “Maybe thousands of times.”
“I wonder what sort of legal battle we’ll have if we try to get the grave exhumed,” Maddy said.
Amanda handed the letter back to Maddy. “I doubt anything would be left after more than two hundred years.”
“There’d at least be the bones,” Maddy said. “Think about archeological sites where skulls turn up after thousands of years. Millions of years.”
“What about DNA?”
We all looked at Easton in astonishment, but nobody had an answer for her question. Not even Maddy.
“Shall I continue?” It didn’t sound like a question.
I waved my hand. “Go right ahead.” I was as curious as Ida to find out what else Mary Frances had to say.
Homer Martin has announced that he intends to be buried within the enclosure of that wall. May his bones never have a moment’s peace therein.
“Amen to that,” Melissa said.
I couldn’t help but feel the same way, but still, I felt compelled to object. “Don’t you think that after all these years, all that anger Mary Frances had for him—justifiable though it was—needed to be laid to rest?”
Sadie nodded her gray head. “Like I said earlier, holding a grudge is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.”
Easton got a funny look on her face. “When did you say that?”
I wasn’t about to admit that Sadie had ushered Easton out of the attic, ostensibly to get a glass of water, so she—Sadie, that is—could give me that little mini-lecture.
“Maybe you were on a bathroom break.” Sadie didn’t even glance at me. She knew I’d gotten the message loud and clear.
“Listen up.” Ida said. “It looks like she got past her grudge, at least for this entry.”
On to better news. My son John has been fractious with a bad cough, but now begins to mend. At Louetta Martin’s advice, I am treating him with mullein teas and poultices, and his breathing seems somewhat easier today. He asked me this morning if he was well enough to go to the meadow. 'I must go,' he told me, 'for I have not gathered flowers for you for many a day.' Is that not sweet? Even now as a young man—at ten he is not yet grown but his voice deepens every day and his shoulders are becoming so broad I am hard put to keep him in clothing that fits him. Still, even yet, he cares for his mother.
Some time ago—I believe it was in the middle of May—Jane Elizabeth Hastings lifted a heavy stone from Reverend Russell’s leg after it fell—the rock, not his leg!—from the cliff. She is being touted as a woman of wonder, for the stone was far heavier than she. In fact, it later took three men—two of them the blacksmiths—to lift it and wrestle it out of the meadow. If she had stopped to think about what she was doing, she would surely not have been able to accomplish such a feat.
"I wonder," Sadie said, "if that’s the big boulder on the north end of the meadow."
"Of course not," Dee said. "Nobody could lift that."
"I bet three men could," Glaze said.
"Or one Wonder Woman," I added.
Reverend Russell will, I fear, need to walk with a cane. Silas Martin fashioned him a fine one from ash. He will need it for the rest of his life, as the bone of his thigh was badly broken, and this town still without a doctor. Fortunately, several heavy overgrown clumps of soft mullein leaves—the same herb with which I am treating John—cushioned his leg somewhat so it was not crushed flat against hard earth. Otherwise he might have lost the use of that leg altogether. Will wonders never cease?
Our resident historian shifted abruptly on her chair, so I asked, “Is something bothering you, Carol?”
“This reference to Jane Elizabeth Hastings. I’ve known her only as a name on an old town list, and then only as the wife of Robert Hastings, the publican. But here she just ... just comes alive.” She wagged her head, looking somewhat like a confused cockatoo. “It blows me off my feet sometimes.”
You are not falling.
“That means it surprises me,” she told Marmalade, who had chirped from my lap.
“I know what you’re saying.” Sadie readjusted the legs of the dark blue sweatpants she was wearing. They were so loose on her, she’d had to roll up the bottoms of the legs. Several times. I wondered who’d loaned or given them to her. Below them, her bright yellow tennis shoes looked incongruous. “These stories started out as just an interesting exercise, but I’m going to miss these folks once we’re finished with the diaries and with the attic.”
“That’ll be a long, long time,” Easton said.
Sadie looked at her with what I thought might be compassion. “Long is a relative term, dear.”
Ida cleared her throat.
Speaking of wonders, I am still laughing over the wedding of MaryAnne Breeton to Thomas Russell on the 7th of last month. I am sure that this story will live for hundreds of years in the memory of the people of this town, for it is too good a tale to be forgotten, and will surely be told around hearthstones for many years to come. Still, I choose to write of it here because it brings a smile to my heart. I do believe Thomas has loved MaryAnne ever since that day she ran to protect her brother from the attack of the painter, for I have seen the expression in his eyes often when he looks at her. How good that he finally found the gumption to speak up and ask for her hand. I love that word, gumption. I learned it as we passed through one of the small villages on our journey here. A man who wore—of all things!—a kilt, said we had great gumption to have traveled so far. I would say that he himself had gumption to wear clothing that looks so much like a shortened woman’s skirt.
After we finished laughing, Ida backed up and re-read part of that paragraph. “I am sure this story will live for hundreds of years? Has anybody here heard about that wedding?”
“I know they married each other,” Sadie said. “Matthew Olsen’s mother was my cousin, and I think she and I are both descended from Thomas and MaryAnne, but I’m not a hundred percent sure.”
Carol smiled broadly. “You’ve the makings of a true historian, Sadie.”
“Hard to avoid collecting stories when you’re older than mass-produced marbles.” She didn’t even wait for our chuckles. Not that there were many. We’d heard that line too many times in the past few days. “But I’ve never heard any specific details about the wedding.”
“It must be a good story,” Dee said, “if Mary Frances thought people would remember it.”
“If you’ll quit theorizing”—Ida had a bit of a bite to her voice—“I’ll give you the details.”
But I stray from the story of the wedding. Young Barnard Surratt is the bane of his poor mother’s existence. He has ever been one to torment the children around him, and despite frequent strappings from his father and constant attempts from his mother to teach him better manners, he continues to be intractable.
He made the mistake though of mocking poor Thomas Russell as Thomas attempted to reply with those two words that would seal his marriage to young MaryAnne Breeton—as dear a girl as I have ever known. As Barnard exploded in mirth over his own stuttering rendition of I-I-I-I w-w-w-will, MaryAnne stepped away from the altar, turned Barnard over her uplifted knee, and swatted his behind with four or five swift hard strokes. I am astonished that she could accomplish this, for at almost eight years of age, Barnard is nearly as tall as MaryAnne herself. She had on her side the element of surprise and a righteous anger, though, which must have leant her strength, much as Jane Elizabeth must have felt a surge of power when she lifted that boulder from Reverend Russell’s leg.
We were stunned at first, and no one dared to breathe a word of reproach. In truth, I think the others were as pleased as I was at MaryAnne’s response to Barnard’s cruel teasing.
When MaryAnne rolled Barnard off her knee—he landed with quite a loud thump—and returned, face flushed, to stand beside her soon-to-be husband, she looked up at him, placed her hands on her hips, and demanded, “Well, will you?” and we were all astonished to hear him say the two words as clear as could be, with not a halt to his voice at all.
“Finally,” Glaze said. “An answer.”
“To what?”
“Don’t you remember, Mom? The proposal letter from Thomas to MaryAnne. We wondered how it turned out, and here”—she swept her arm in a wide arc—“is what happened.”
“I love MaryAnne’s spirit,” Sadie said.
“You ought to,” Ida remarked, “since she’s your great-great-great-et-cetera-grandma.”
“Maybe,” Sadie said.
“Definitely.” Ida’s tone allowed no room for rebuttal.
She turned back to the journal.
Tuesday 3 October 1752
With careful management, the small fund of flax seeds we brought with us from our previous home has grown larger each year, so that this year we have a bounteous harvest of seeds and fiber. We women will be busy indeed all winter with our spinning and weaving. The soil here is so very fertile, unlike many of the fields in Bran in the town we came from ...
Ida held up the book. “She started to write Brandtburg but then she crossed it out a couple of times.”
“Homer’s instructions to wipe Brandtburg out of everyone’s memory certainly seemed to have worked,” Carol said.
“You’d think,” Pat said, “that Mary Frances wouldn’t have wanted to follow any of that man’s instructions, especially not in her secret diary.”
“Yeah,” Dee said. “I should think she’d want to write Brandt every time she had a chance. After all, it was her married name—her real one.”
Rebecca Jo hadn’t said anything for quite a while, so when she spoke her words seemed to carry a greater weight. “You’re forgetting she had a son to protect. If I’d been her, I think I would have had nightmares from the fear that I might inadvertently let something slip.”
“That’s right,” Carol said. “Can you imagine what Homer Martin might have done to her or to the boy if he’d found out he wasn’t really John’s father?”
“Or if he’d found out he wasn’t really married to the woman,” Maddy said in a dismal tone.
With that horrible thought hanging in the air, Ida continued her reading. “She’s talking about how the fields back in Brandtburg weren’t so fertile.”
... where so many of the fields were less luxuriant than here. Those same fields had been used for many generations, and I cannot help but wonder if the earth there may have felt worn out, almost like a woman who has had to endure far too many pregnancies. It is more likely though that it was the extreme coldness of the northern winters, or quite possibly the fact that the time of growing was shorter. There is much lucerne available here, for it grows readily, so our livestock will be well-provisioned all winter.
"Hold on," Dee said. "Lucerne? What’s that?"
Maddy didn’t even miss a beat. "Alfalfa. They grew it for hay for the cows and horses."
I thought about the fancy packages of alfalfa teas Annie used to sell in her herb shop. "I didn’t know they had alfalfa back then, in the seventeen-hundreds."
"You’d be surprised what they had back then," Carol said.
After seven years in this valley, I still find myself astonished occasionally that spring flowers appear in early February rather than mid-April and that harvests can last far into October rather than ending in late August.
Whatever the reason, the flax roots grow exceptionally deep here, which bodes well for the amount of homespun we will be able to produce. Young John has been a great help, for he grows apace and will soon be able to hold his own alongside the men during the harvest.
I held up my hand. “Wait a minute. Why would the depth of the roots have anything to do with how much cloth they could create?”
“I can answer that,” Maddy said.
“Why am I not surprised?” Dee had pitched her voice up an octave or so. “More of your research?”
“You hush, Dee. All my research has answered a lot of your questions, and you know it.”
Luckily, Maddy’s tone didn’t sound nearly as harsh as her words, just as Dee’s questions hadn’t sounded combative.
“Any time you’re ready,” Ida said, “you can give us the answer.”
“Most grain plants are harvested by being cut off at the ground or pretty close to it. The seeds come from the seed heads—sometimes those are cut off first—while the stems are used as straw, for bedding in stables. Like oats. They’re harvested like that. Are you following me so far?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, but I nodded anyway. “Flax fibers are different, though. They come from the stem of the plant,” she explained, “but they also continue on down into the root, so if the roots grow deep, then the fibers are much longer.” She spread her arms, hands stretched wide apart.
“And those longer fibers,” Carol said, “mean stronger thread for the weaving of the homespun cloth.”
“No wonder she was happy about it,” Pat said.
"Is that why the seeds were so important?"
I looked a question at Melissa because I couldn’t tell where she was headed.
"If they had to dig out the roots, then they’d have to re-seed each year, wouldn’t they?"
"They reseeded all the crops each year," Carol said. "I don’t think any of their crops were considered perennial. In fact, they may not have even known that word back then."
There wasn’t any answer forthcoming. I guess none of us was of true farmer stock.
"Except the mint." Sadie’s voice was droll, and I remembered the huge swath of mint that grew on one side of her house. Even in the five years I’d lived here, it had almost doubled in size.
“She must have been busy with the harvest,” Ida said. “The next entry is more than a month later.”
Pat eyed the rapidly diminishing number of pages left in the journal. “More likely she was trying to conserve what paper she had left. Wouldn’t you like to know where she got these blank books to begin with?”
“Hubbard gave them to her,” Glaze said. “Remember? She wrote about it. Or maybe he was the one who mentioned it?”
“Hubbard got them from the schoolmaster,” Sadie reminded us.
“But how could a lowly schoolmaster have afforded something so expensive?”
“That’s right,” Carol said. “Such books certainly weren’t widely available. In fact, they were darn rare. Most people wrote on single sheets of parchment or paper—if they even had access to writing materials. The children used slates in school, so they could erase and reuse them each day.”
“Yeah,” Maddy said. “That’s why most of the really old historical material I’ve seen comes from families that were fairly well off, because only they could afford such luxuries as paper.”
“But I wouldn’t have called the Martin clan—or the Brandts—particularly wealthy,” Sadie said. “So how did old Master Ormsby end up with what would have been a treasure at that time?”
“And why,” Dee asked, “would he have been willing to give something that valuable to Hubbard?”
Carol shrugged. Maddy shrugged.
I do not know.
Even Marmalade wiggled her shoulders in what looked for all the world like a catly dismissal.
7 July 1753
There is justice indeed. Not only from MaryAnne Breeton Russell at her wedding to Thomas, but now from young Frederick Breeton who I believe has always had a yearning for little Louise Martin. I base that judgment on the number of times I have seen him pull her braid. I had to turn away this morning to keep from laughing in Louise’s face, for her righteous indignation was a wonder to see.