Wintering Well
Page 12
Ethan had posted himself as watchman. As soon as the wagon was in sight, he called out, “Ma! Pa! Nathan! Simon! They’ve come!” And so everyone was there to greet them as they climbed down off the wagon.
Pa stood in the back and smiled proudly as Ma walked over and hugged each one in turn, her eyes filling with tears of joy. “Alice, you look beautiful. You’re going to be a wonderful mother to that baby. It seems like yesterday I was carrying you. Will, you look strong and tall with that new leg! We made the right decision about that, without doubt. I am so proud of you. Cassie, you have grown up! Alice has written how much help you have been to her and to poor Dr. Theobold and his children.” Ma stood back and looked at them all with pride. “And here Nathan is going off and getting married.”
“Ma, I will just be going off for the ceremony and the supper! Martha and I will be right here tonight and tomorrow. And,” he added softly and proudly, “forever.”
There were more hugs all around as Ethan jumped up and down, running from one of his big brothers or sisters to another. “Will,” he said, tugging on Wills new shirt, “Will, I took good care of your animals for you. I did! Come and see!” He pulled Will toward the house.
Alice and Cassie showed Ma the food they had brought. “We’ll leave it here in the wagon, since we’ll be heading over to the Baileys’ soon enough. With all you made, there’s no doubt we’ll have ample of everything,” Ma said. “Now, you all come inside and have some food and drink. We’ll have more time to talk now than we will later today, when there will be other events to occupy our minds!”
Pa followed everyone into the house, quieter than Ma but looking just as proud.
They all settled into the kitchen. “This is the way we always sat in the evenings!” Alice said.
Simon teased, “But in the old days you didn’t take up quite so much room.” Alice blushed and they all laughed.
Cassie sat on the hearth, holding Sunshine, now a full-grown cat, tightly in her arms.
Pa was the first one to bring up the future. “I didn’t notice many bags in that wagon. Alice, I know you and Aaron must get back to Wiscasset tonight. But Will and Cassie? You were to be in Wiscasset only for the summer. Summer’s past. Time you were to home for the winter.”
After a short silence Will spoke. “Pa, you said there was no place on a farm for a man with one leg. At first I was angry with you for saying that. But now I know you were right. I could do some farmwork, but it would not be easy, and it would put an extra burden on others. In Wiscasset I saw other ways for men to live, and with the two legs I have now, there are other possibilities for me.”
“He is such a smart boy,” put in Alice. “Why, he has been helping Dr. Theobold. The doctor says Will could be a fine surgeon someday.”
Pa looked at Will. “So that’s what you want, Will? To be a surgeon?”
“Doctoring would be a fine profession,” Ma put in proudly.
Will looked down. “It would be fine. And I have given it a lot of thought. But I don’t think the practice of medicine is for me.”
“Then, what did you have in mind?” Pa said. “Or were you planning just to stay and eat Alice and Aaron out of house and home?”
“Pa—” Alice tried to add a few words.
“No, Alice, this is not your issue. It is for Will and me to decide.”
Ma put her hand over Alice’s.
“I’ve been doing more whittling this summer. Carving things.”
“Whittling is a fine amusement,” said Pa. “But it is not a way to make a living.”
“Will made all those animals. He let me play with them,” said Ethan, pointing at the dozens of carvings he had lined up neatly against the far wall. “I took good care of them when he was gone!”
“You did just fine, Ethan,” said Ma, opening her arms as he came for a hug. “Let the others talk now.”
“I have spoken with Mr. Dann. He’s the cabinetmaker who made my leg, Pa, and is a fine craftsman. He said I could work with him and learn furniture making. And I might want to do that. But first I want to try a big carving.”
“And what is this thing you are going to be carving? And where will you even get the money for the wood? Will, you are thirteen years old! It is time you took responsibility for your future. Carving is not a future!”
“I am taking responsibility, Pa,” said Will. “I have thought a lot about my future. I met a man in Wiscasset. Captain Morgan is his name. He owns ships, and he is building another now. In July, I showed him a small carving I did of Alice.”
Alice looked down and blushed.
“He said it was just the sort of thing he wanted as a figurehead for his new ship. Only bigger.” Will took a deep breath. Everyone was quiet. “Mr. Dann got me some wood and I did another carving of Alice, a bigger one, to show Captain Morgan I could do it.” Will looked proudly at everyone. “He liked my work. And he’s given me a commission to carve a figurehead for the Wiscasset, the vessel being built for him this winter.”
They all looked at one another in amazement. This was news!
Pa’s voice was gentle but questioning. “What do you know about figureheads, Will? You carved little toys for Ethan and nice birds for your ma, I know. But a figurehead … that’s a big piece. And it must be right, or it will bring bad luck to the captain and crew. Even a farmer knows that.”
“Captain Morgan is willing for me to try. In the past he has ordered figureheads from carvers in Boston and Philadelphia. But this ship is to be called the Wiscasset and he wants her to boast a figurehead carved in her home port.” Will hesitated. “He knows it will be the first time I have attempted such a thing. But he wants me to do it. Mr. Dann has said I may do the work in his shop, and he will be there to give me advice.” He paused again. “If the carving is not good enough, then I will have lost a winter. But it will be a winter when I tested myself to see if I could do something well. Something I chose to do.”
Will got up and walked over to his father.
“Pa, before the accident I wanted to be a farmer. I wanted it more than anything in the world. I wanted it so much I couldn’t see anything else. But after my accident I had to look at other things. This is what I’ve found. It may not be right in the end. But I have to try. To give myself this chance.”
Pa nodded. His voice was gruff. “You are becoming a man, Will. I’m right proud of you.”
Aaron spoke up. “He’s welcome to stay with us. We have enjoyed having Cassie and Will with us. And with the baby coming”—he looked sidewise at Alice—“maybe they could be of help sometimes.”
Pa looked at his younger daughter. “Cassie, too?”
“Pa.” Cassie’s voice was strong. “Dr. Theobold will pay me to care for his house and his children and will teach me about herbs and medicines. If I were a boy, I’d want to be a doctor, just like Dr. Theobold. Really, Pa, I would!”
“A she-doctor! I should say not,” Pa harrumphed. “You two are getting your minds confused by town life. Women cannot be doctors. Their brains are not strong enough, and it would certainly be improper for them to see and do the sorts of things doctors must.”
“I know, Pa,” said Cassie. “But a woman could help a doctor. A woman could learn about herbs and medicines and tinctures and potions and how to mix them for patients.”
“Sounds like something the Indians did, not something for my daughter to do,” Pa answered.
“You’re right; the Abenaki had considerable skills with plants and herbs. But so do men from Europe. Dr. Theobold said so.”
“Apothecaries, you mean,” Pa sputtered. “Fancy name for witches, I suspect.”
Ma looked at Cassie and gave her a sign to quiet down.
Cassie sighed. “You’ve met Dr. Theobold, Pa. He’s a good man. A widower with children who needs help. The children like me, and his home is only a few blocks from Alice and Aaron’s, so I could be of help to them, too, with the baby coming.”
No one said anything for a few moments. Then Pa nodd
ed. “Sounds as though you have both settled your lives. Cassie, sounds like Alice and Dr. Theobold could use your help for now. Maybe more than your ma will be needing you here. But you will be missed in Woolwich. And you know if all does not work out as you hope, you will always have places here.”
Cassie went over and hugged Pa, and Will shook his hand as Simon and Nathan came over to congratulate him.
Ma stood up. “It sounds as though it is settled. Cassie and Will have both found new beginnings in Wiscasset. And starting tonight, Martha Bailey”—she looked at Nathan with a smile—“no—Martha Ames will be here to help me. I think Martha and I can manage taking care of three men.”
“And me, Ma,” said Ethan. “Don’t forget me!”
“We could never forget you, Ethan,” said Ma, lifting him up and giving him a big hug. “How could we ever forget you?”
While the rest were putting Ma’s contributions to the wedding feast into the wagon, Will walked up the hill to the small family cemetery. Here his great-grandparents and grandparents and aunts and uncles had been buried. Here he had played hide-and-seek behind the granite markers when he was Ethan’s age, and here he had come when he needed to be alone.
He looked at the only new grave in the cemetery: the space where Pa had buried his leg. The toes that he had loved to wiggle in the mud, the shin he had bruised playing ball, and the knee he had banged coasting down the hill behind the schoolhouse on hand-hewn clap-boards. “A part of me will always be here, on this farm,” Will said softly to the grave. “It will stay here, even if I go away. I will miss the farm. I will miss Ma and Pa and my brothers. But it is time for me to go on.
He backed up a little, embarrassed to have caught himself talking out loud.
There on the ground next to him a black feather stood straight up in the soft, dark earth.
Down in the farmyard everyone was rushing about, readying gifts and food for the wedding. Nathan’s life was changing today too. He would soon have a wife to love and protect and support. He did not have to leave home to move on.
“But I do,” Will said to himself. This winter would be a test. If he failed, then he would try again. But he had to try. And he would need all the luck he could get. He thought of the old expression for surviving the freezing cold and dark days of a Maine winter.
“Winter well,” Will whispered, looking out at the farm and family he loved. “And I pray that Cassie and I, too, will winter well.”
He tucked the black feather in his pocket and continued down the hill.
HISTORICAL NOTES
The seaport of Wiscasset, Maine, shire town of Lincoln County since 1794, is on the Sheepscot River, about fifty miles northeast of Portland. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries it was one of the busiest ports east of Boston.
In 1819 and 1820 the area was recovering from the economic depression begun by the Embargo Act of 1807, continued by the War of 1812, and then made worse by several years of cold and drought that encouraged westward migration.
The District of Maine had been a part of Massachusetts Bay since 1652, when the Massachusetts General Court claimed it. During the Revolutionary War agitation for its own independence began in Maine, and finally, in 1819, a majority of Mainers voted for separation from Massachusetts. Under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Maine entered the Union as a free state, Missouri was admitted as a slave state, and slavery was forbidden in the Louisiana Territory north of the southern boundary of Missouri. Today Maine honors its early association with Massachusetts by being the only state other than Massachusetts to celebrate Patriots’ Day, commemorating the battles of Lexington and Concord.
Compared with today’s knowledge, the practice of early-nineteenth-century medicine was primitive. Although the concept of vaccination had been tested, the connections between hygiene, germs, and disease had not yet been made. Some surgical procedures, such as amputation, were relatively common, but their success was unpredictable even in the most sophisticated European cities.
Until the middle of the nineteenth century there was little formal training available for doctors. Some American doctors were schooled in Europe like Dr. Theobold’s father, who attended medical lectures at a German university and served as a doctor during the American Revolution.
In 1820 formal medical training in the United States consisted of a degree from one of the three arts colleges (they became Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania) that included lectures in medicine, followed by an informal apprenticeship. Many practicing doctors, like Dr. Theobold, had no formal medical training and depended on experience and medical journals for their knowledge.
Doctors of this period, especially those on the frontier, often also served as dentists, surgeons, apothecaries, and even coffin makers.
By definition, doctors and surgeons were male. Although some Native-American women were healers, and women practicing as midwives performed vital services for women during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by 1820 male doctors in most towns and cities of New England had convinced women that doctors were best qualified to assist during childbirth. Midwives continued to serve women in frontier communities throughout the nineteenth century, and during the second half of the twentieth century there was a resurgence of interest in the now medically certified skill of midwifery.
Elizabeth Blackwell was the first American woman to receive a medical degree in 1849. She, her sister (who was also a doctor), and a female friend founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1857. Dr. Blackwell later settled in London, where she helped establish the London School of Medicine for Women.
And although throughout history there have been men and women who cared for the sick, there was no formal training for nurses, male or female, in the United States until 1873.
Thanksgiving, a harvest event first celebrated by the Pilgrims in 1621, was observed in early December by most eighteenth-century New Englanders. By 1819 there was little uniformity about the precise day on which Thanksgiving was celebrated, but many states, even those outside New England, proclaimed it each year in November, and it had become a celebration of homecoming as well as of the harvest. In 1863 Abraham Lincoln made the third Thursday in November a national Thanksgiving Day, and in 1941 Congress passed a joint resolution moving it to the fourth Thursday in November.
The Ames family is fictional, as are Will’s friends Sam and Paul, and the Pendleton brothers, but the other characters in Wintering Well, including Dr. Theobold and his family, lived and worked in Wiscasset, Maine, in 1819 and 1820. Dr. Theobold was a well-loved town doctor who was remembered for his caring, for his dogs, and for the roses that surrounded his Wiscasset home. After his wife, Nancy’s, death in 1820 he remarried and continued to serve the people of Wiscasset until his death in 1846. His son, Fred, followed the family tradition and also became a doctor.
The Wiscasset jail that Will and Dr. Theobold visited was used until 1953. Today it, and the jailer’s home, are cared for by the Lincoln County Historical Society and are open to the public during summer months.
And an old letter in the Wiscasset archives tells the story of a boy who fooled the other boys in town by moving a flock of sheep into the graveyard and pretending to be afraid of the ghosts there.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER
25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
HISTORICAL NOTES