by Julie Berry
“It was the Lord who fought our battles for us. Not a sinner whom the Lord used as a tool in his hands, then sent to his eternal judgment. Make no mistake. Woe unto them who call good evil and evil good. And woe unto those that harbor iniquity in their families, for the Lord God visiteth the sins of the fathers upon the children, and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Eunice shifts herself in her seat, angling her face away from you. You don’t fail to notice.
Reverend Frye goes on in this fashion for another half an hour, intones a prayer, and sits down. Rupert Gillis stands for another hymn, a halfhearted affair. More eyes are on your back than on the schoolmaster’s arm.
After the song, people rise to leave, but you stay rooted to your pew. The congregation lingers in the rear of the chapel, swapping conversation and dreading the wet snow.
Reverend Frye makes his way down the aisle toward you. Seeing him, you rise and stride down the aisle of the church, your Sunday coattails flapping behind you. Your gaze sweeps over Eunice’s bonnet, and I see a trace of sorrow. Yet another village belle you’ve lost. You see me, too, and press your lips together. Perhaps you know that I alone can empathize today. You push your way through the gossipers and leave. The others flow out after you and linger on the stoop.
“Lucas,” Alderman Brown calls out from the porch. “What ails you?”
You turn. Your face is livid. Even inside the church I can hear your answer.
“Did we risk our lives to defend a just society, where guilt must be proven and not assumed? Or are we no better than the oppressive kings from whom our fathers fled?”
I look over to where Reverend Frye leans on his cane in the doorway. He and I are the only ones left inside the church. He glances over and notices me, then returns to the podium to gather his things.
XV.
The breeze is warm and the sunshine bright on my way home from church. The snow turns wet and heavy but still has days of melting left. Chances are tonight the cold will strengthen and I’ll wake up to a sheet of ice. I stomp my way through the thick mush, taking a child’s pleasure in it, in spite of everything.
Maria wasn’t in church this morning. Leon told me when I passed by him that she was feeling poorly today. He made a point of telling the preacher, too. I am sorry for her but pleased that Leon acknowledged me as his wife’s friend. I wonder if our shoveling had exhausted her. She wasn’t raised for hard work.
I pass by your house, and Jip comes flopping through the snow to sniff me and paw at my skirts. The poor old thing can’t smell, but habits last longer than senses. I squat down to pet him.
“Sshorry, boy,” I say, feeling wonderfully free with a deaf dog. “I haven’t gotth anything.” Better on the Ns! I scratch between his ears and he squinches his eyes with pleasure. “Good boy,” I croon. “Good boy.” It sounds more like “goo boy.”
The sun is high overhead, and my stomach rumbles for its dinner. I pat Jip one last time and stand up. Just in time I see you move away from your front window, but not without seeing torment on your face.
Poor Lucas. No one wants to see a neighbor publicly shamed at meeting. If I could, I would read you Darrel’s book about the French girl. There’s a lesson in it for wouldbe heroes. The people you save won’t celebrate you. They’ll gather the wood and cheer while you burn.
XVI.
I can hear them arguing before I reach the door. I linger outside for a few moments to survey the battle.“I will too go!” Darrel yells. “Why shouldn’t I?” “You’ll slip and fall and break your neck.” Mother is slamming pots and trenchers around by the sound of things.
“Then that would be one less thing for you to worry about.”
“Don’t talk that way.”
“I’m no good like this. With schooling I could do something. Provide for myself. If I sit here, I’ll rot. If I die trying to better myself, so be it.”
“That’s fools’ talk. You think I can bear to see something worse befall you?” Mother’s voice has dropped, and I have to press my ear against the door to hear her.
Darrel doesn’t answer.
“You’re my only son.” Mother’s voice is gentle, cajoling.
There is a small silence.
“What about Judith?” Darrel says. “She’s your only daughter.”
Mother thumps her bowls some more. I feel a sinking dread in my stomach at what she might or might not say.
“We weren’t talking about her,” Mother says. “We were talking about you.”
My first thought is to slip away to the barn. My second thought is the one I follow.
I open the door and walk in.
Mother avoids my gaze.
XVII.
We pass a strained and silent afternoon. School isn’t mentioned again. After eating and chores, we all go to bed early. In the morning I wake before Mother and tend to all my chores well before the sun is up. I pack a pail with some food for our lunch and hide it in a corner. I build the fire and heat water for breakfast, and I help Darrel dress himself. I try to do all that I would be expected to do during the day so she can have little occasion to complain.
Mother appears and watches us warily, eyeing us for a telling move, like a cat waiting for a mouse to bolt. But as the kettle is singing and the table spread for breakfast, with both of us dressed and seated, there is little she can say.
After we eat, as if by silent understanding, Darrel stands with his crutch and hobbles over toward where the coats hang by the door. He’s concealed his books and his broken slate in a strap inside one sleeve—he must have done it in the night. Clever Darrel! I wrap myself in scarves and a coat, take the lunch pail, and offer Darrel my arm.
Mother is silent. A cat about to pounce.
I open the door, and we go outside into the silvered snow. The sky is pale, and our breath freezes in puffs. Neither of us looks back. That’s all Mother would need to stop us. I lean Darrel against the side of the house. “Wait here,” I tell him. As I suspected, the melted snow froze in the night, and every shoveled path now is deadly slick. I skate and scrabble my way once more to the barn and return with a sled Father built for Darrel when he was a boy. It’s a bit small for him now, but he can fold himself up and sit on it, and I can stomp my way through the ice and pull him to school this way. He pretends to propel us along with his crutch as if the sled were a boat.
No signs of life at your house yet, and knowing Darrel’s eyes are on me, I hide my looking.
We arrive at school early, which I intended. It gives me time to get Darrel unwrapped and into his seat before the other students arrive. Only the schoolmaster is there, feeding the fire.
“Well,” he says, seeing us come in. “This is an unexpected pleasure. Miss Finch.” He kisses my hand, which I hadn’t offered. How dare he be so forward? “And Master Finch. So good to have you back in class. We’ll have you caught up with your classmates in no time.”
I stand aside while the schoolmaster bends over the books Darrel has brought with him, murmuring his approval and pointing with long white fingers to the pages they’ll examine today. At length he turns and notices that I am still here.
“It was kind of you to help your brother get here,” he says, brushing his hair back off his forehead. “Dismissal time is at three o’clock, if you’d like to return then to help him get home.”
Darrel intervenes.
“She’s not leaving. She’s enrolling,” he tells the schoolmaster. “She wants to learn to read. She’ll be staying with me here when I come.”
Rupert Gillis stands up straighter and peers down at me with a gleam in his eye. “Well,” he says. “This is an opportunity, isn’t it?” He rubs his hands together. Students start to enter the schoolhouse, boys and girls bundled to their nostrils in winter wraps. They chatter together until they see Darrel and me.
“Let’s see.” The schoolmaster strides about the room. “Where shall we put you? With the others near your age? No, not the lads. You ha
ven’t had much schooling, have you? Can you read? I thought not.” A pair of older girls in the back twitter.
The schoolroom fills rapidly now. Great boys swagger in and thump Darrel on the shoulder. I feel beads of sweat form on my forehead as all those eyes wonder at my presence. I hear little snorts of laughter. Reverend Frye’s red-haired daughter, Elizabeth, slips in, sees me, and looks away. She’s only two years younger than me, but it might be a dozen, she seems so young and shy.
The schoolmaster claps his hands, making me jump. “I have it.” He pulls a chair up next to his own. “You shall sit here beside me, so that I can mentor you directly. That way you’ll be spared the need to speak recitations with the partner at your desk. You won’t have to sit with the very young children at your level, nor with the lads closer to your age.” He rubs the seat of the chair beside him by way of inviting me to sit there.
My face is hot, yet I feel frozen. My skirts brush against my legs as I walk to his desk. The rustling bounces off the schoolroom rafters.
“Good morning, students,” Rupert Gillis says. “I’m sure we’ll all want to welcome Master Darrel Finch back to school. And now we have a new student. I’m sorry.” He smiles a closed-lip smile. “Master Finch, remind me of your sister’s name?”
XVIII.
All morning I watch my hands, which lie folded in my lap. This doesn’t protect me from seeing the eyes of the entire classroom riveted on me, despite Mr. Gillis leaping around the room, writing out arithmetic problems on each child’s slate. When I hear them all scratching away at their work, I venture to look up. Several older girls and boys from the back row stare at me with unblinking, expressionless eyes. Here I sit by the teacher’s desk, on display, as if I’m being punished. To divert myself I look over Mr. Gillis’s desk. There is little to see. A stack of primers, an ink pot and quill, a ruler, a book of maps. His possessions are as nondescript as his person.
And then, he slides into the chair beside me and favors me with a small smile.
“There now,” he whispers, and leans toward me. “Shall we get started?”
Eyebrows rise throughout the classroom.
“The first step is to assess what you already know. This may prove challenging since you can’t, er, tell me. But we’ll figure it out as we go.”
I feel mortified. This is scandalous, and the twenty students watching him whisper to me know it. His breath blows sour in my face. My ambition to read grows shakier by the moment.
“There.” He draws an A on his slate. His fingernails are stained with lead. “Do you know what that is?”
I nod my head. On the way to school that morning I’d considered revealing that I could speak. What better place than school? But the schoolmaster repulses me. I won’t entrust my secret to him.
Somehow I endure the morning. He quizzes me on my letters and, with an extra slate, he sets me to work copying them out. After that, he gives me the most elementary primer and asks me to sound out the first lesson’s words in my head. It. At. If. Is. Up. On. As. An.
I can already do this, and much more, but that is all right with me. I am content to start at the very beginning. Reading is worth learning in the proper way. I can be patient.
He dismisses the class for lunch, and the students get their pails. I’m grateful for the chance to leave my seat and sit by Darrel while we share our meal. He’s uncomfortable, I can see. His wound still pains him. At home he’d lie down by this point in the day and take some rest.
While the others are busy with their food, I lean over and whisper in his ear, “We cahn go home. You can shleep. We cahn come back thomorrow.” I lean back and watch Darrel’s face. He looks torn and tempted.
“Want to?” he whispers.
I nod.
“Fetch Mr. Gillis?”
It isn’t hard to convey to the schoolmaster that my brother wishes to speak to him. He bends over and listens to Darrel, then nods his head.
“Certainly,” I hear him murmur. “You must ease your way back until you’re more able. Let’s give you a reading assignment for this afternoon . . . there. These pages will do nicely.”
I gather our coats and help Darrel into his. By this time the other students are getting their coats to go outside and walk about and throw snowballs, so our departure is not remarkable. Mr. Gillis holds the door open for us as I help Darrel descend the icy steps. He jumps down after us and helps situate Darrel in the sled.
“Good to have you back, Master Finch.” He seizes my hand between both of his and fixes me with his gaze. “I’m honored,” he says, “to have you as my newest pupil.”
Out of sight to anyone watching, under the cover of his upper hand, he caresses a slow circle on my palm with a fingertip.
XIX.
The colonel did things like that. Run his hand down my arm. Stroke the sides of my neck with his thumb and forefinger, just under my jawbone. Trace his nail down the sole of my stockinged foot as I lay on my cot.
XX.
I can’t pull Darrel home fast enough. Twice he complains of my jostling him. The sun is hard at work melting the snow, but last night’s ice has proved impenetrable. Now the ice remains with a slick of water over its surface. I am stumbling and sliding with every other step, barely able to pull the sled without traction under my feet. Darrel takes a spill from the sled and gets wet and chilled all over. This will only be fat in Mother’s fire. How I dread going back tomorrow. I won’t do it. I don’t have to.
And that would be a whole pig’s worth of fat in the fire.
I heave Darrel back onto the sled and set off once more.
XXI.
I thought if I could read and write, I could get my hands on some books and paper before I set out for the cabin in the spring. Then I could fill my days, whatever hours weren’t spent surviving, on learning and thinking. I thought there could be solace in words.Solace, I begin to think, is only a fantasy.
XXII.
Mother makes no mention of our having gone to school, but there is triumph in her eyes. She thinks we came home early because the school experiment failed. Neither Darrel nor I want to give her that victory. So, tired though he is, Darrel sits by the fire all afternoon and scrapes dried corn off the ears with his thumb, and picks through beans ready for soaking. I sit opposite him and knit a pair of heavy stockings out of coarse gray wool. The steady flow of yarn through my fingers subdues me. I have already presented him, secretly, with his book bag. He was pleased. Now that Mother knows of our schooling plans, there seemed no more need to hide it.
“It was good to be back in class,” Darrel announces loudly. “Doesn’t appear I’ve fallen far behind.”
Mother wrings wash water out of one of Darrel’s shirts.
“Awfully good of Judith to take me,” he goes on. “I’m in her debt. And what do you suppose? Mr. Gillis has her sitting right beside him so he can tutor her closely.”
At this, Mother looks up at me.
“You see to it you’re cordial to the schoolmaster.” She wags the wet shirt at me.
I show no more emotion than my ball of yarn.
“He just may fancy you, God willing. So do as he tells you.” She drowns another shirt in her bucket.
Darrel’s mouth hangs open. “Mother, Gillis doesn’t have designs on Judith.”
“Much you’d know if he did,” Mother says, elbow deep in suds. “She’s got her own future to think of, and she’d best think wisely.”
XXIII.
I lie in bed torn and unable to sleep. I dread sitting next to Rupert Gillis for even another hour. I dread my mother attempting to form a match for me. But I also dread her exulting in our failure to return to school. And I dread disappointing Darrel, the great pest, in spite of everything he does to aggravate me.
One more day. I have endured worse than Rupert Gillis for years on end. I can endure one more day.
XXIV.
“How long have you been speaking, Judith?” Darrel asks me on the way into town the next morning.
&n
bsp; I halt the sled and scowl at him. I silently rehearse the sounds I’ll need in advance. Yes. “Before you were bornh,” I say with all the aggravation I can muster.
Darrel laughs. “I know that. I mean, since. You know. All this time you say nothing, and now all of a sudden, you’re talking. Why is that?”
I consider how to answer his question, or if I even want to. Is Maria the reason? Were you, at first? Off in my lonely cabin, with whom do I plan to speak?
“Shick of it,” I finally say. “Ahways shtuck. People think I’m shtupidh. Or I’m noth there.”
Darrel nods solemnly. “That’s how they think about me, too.”
I heave the sled along once more. No it isn’t, you selfish baby. There’s no comparison. Nobody thinks you’re stupid. No one ever could. But empathy is dear in my world, so I’ll take it.
We arrive at school just as the schoolmaster appears at the doorway to beckon the students inside. Not a moment sooner.
Darrel seems more at ease greeting his schoolmates today. A couple of them grab him under the arms and carry him in. He laughs and protests. He’s no sooner through the door than a large, wet snowball plasters itself across my back. I do not turn to look. I hurry up the stairs, shake my coat off in the rear of the room, hang it, and sit at the schoolmaster’s desk, taking care to move my chair as far from his as I can.
After calling the class to attention, Mr. Gillis spreads before me a large sheet of rough paper and hands me a lead pencil. “Copy these three times each,” he says, opening a book to a page of letters. I am pleased; his manner is straightforward, almost brusque. Some tension slides off me. He is a schoolteacher, and he intends to teach. That is all. Very well, that is why I came.
