The New Land

by The New Land (retail) (epub)

  It had been a cold winter, but they all were. This one had been a season of limbo, of suspended lives. A half-dozen children died from fevers. Frau Shuler’s cough lasted for months then started to bring up blood. A wolf pack attacked a man while he walked his trap line, which showed what a hard winter it was. Wolves didn’t usually attack people. The man fought them off but suffered terrible bites.

  Ursula agreed to marry Matthias Leichter, but Nungesser refused to perform the ceremony without proof that Fritz was dead. Over winter fires, the settlers argued the question. Husbands and wives quarreled over it. Neighbors disagreed. Finally, a consensus emerged that the wedding should proceed, a consensus built on Ursula’s popularity and Leichter’s status at the first man of Broad Bay. When Leichter announced he would take Ursula to Fort Georges to be married by Captain Shaw, Nungesser relented. He had conducted the ceremony only two weeks ago.

  More than twenty farms, including Mayflower Hof, stood as charred, ruined reminders of the violent times. When Leichter tried to organize building and repair parties, few stepped forward, not even to work on the stockades. Timbers rotted at the bottom of the palisades. When the clay and dried grass fell from between the log walls of the stockade rooms, settlers stuffed cloth and sticks in the gaps. Rather than repair roofs, the people moved their beds away from the leaks and set out buckets to catch dripping water. They mulishly endured the frigid temperatures and blizzards.

  So when the ship’s cannon boomed, the families came running. Even though the bay was choppy, Alec McDonnell and three other boys launched a skiff to meet the ship. Alec scrambled up the ship’s ropes. On the deck, he paused at the sight of his father’s empty sleeve.

  Robert spread his left arm wide and laughed in greeting. “Come on, lad,” he said, “it means I’ll do only twice the work of other men.”

  Robert and Johann and two others climbed into the boys’ boat. The sailors lowered Keller in a sling, then handed down his crutch with the men’s muskets and gear. So many other rangers piled into the ship’s boat that it threatened to overturn. The boats raced to land, the men hooting and shouting challenges all the way in.

  Johann stared at the wooded shoreline, the hills beyond, the clouds plunging across the sky. The breeze swept away the monotony and frustrations of the last months. The land was still here, as he remembered it. His land.

  As they neared shore, he saw that the pier needed work. The stockade too. He would go to Mayflower Hof this very day. Christiane stood back from the crowd that had come down to the waterline. She was holding Franklin and waving. He had never felt so lucky.

  The boys’ boat arrived first. They rowed up on shore with a crunch. Walther ran into the water to meet them, tumbling into the boat, then Hanna followed. Johann laughed as he carried them ashore, complaining that they had grown so big. He went back to help two others carry Keller through the water, giving in to Keller’s demand that he be set down at the first piece of dry land. He was still wedging the crutch into his armpit when his children piled into him, knocking him off his wooden leg and into the water with a shout.

  Johann lifted his belongings from the boat. He handed his musket to Walther, the bag to Hanna, and walked up the slope. When Christiane put Franklin down, the boy ran to him, then stopped short. Johann crouched and opened his hands, smiling. The small boy, suddenly shy, turned sideways. Johann swept him up.

  She was there, then, reaching around his neck and gripping him tightly. He held her close. “Oh, Christiane,” he said.

  PART III

  1775

  †

  CHAPTER ONE

  †

  “Papa! Papa! I made a house!”

  Johann looked down from his workbench to the three-year-old playing with scrap wood. Karl looked up at him expectantly.

  With a low moan that seemed to accompany a lot of his movements lately, Johann knelt to examine the structure, which consisted of two blocks of uneven heights covered by a short board. “Yes, it looks very fine, very strong,” he said. He absent-mindedly poked a finger into the open space between the blocks. “Such a large door. I like that. Many people can come in.” He smiled at his son. “You will have many friends.”

  “It’s not done.” Karl said, crawling over to the basket of scrap wood to find other pieces. He had his mother’s sturdy frame and dark coloring.

  Johann blew on his hands, then twisted to hold them out to the fire, still necessary in early April. He inched closer to the fire. “Ah, Karl, no house ever is finished. It’s good for you to know that so young.” With a louder grunt, Johann turned back to the table leg he was trying to turn. “Perhaps,” he continued, “you will make furniture some day with your big brother Franklin.”

  “I make houses,” the boy answered, still shifting through the wood scraps, searching for one the right size.

  “Houses, yes.” Johann squinted to line up the leg on the lathe, which he’d made himself, attaching a wheel he could turn by hand to rotate the wood. His scrap basket held fewer botched table legs than it used to, but each one still was a struggle. He was working on a design for a lathe powered by a foot pedal, based on one he saw in Boston the year before. That would leave both his hands free to apply consistent pressure as the wood rotated. Muller the blacksmith got the dimensions wrong on the metal shafts, so he was making them again.

  “Johann?” The door burst open, bringing a gust of cold air. “Catherine said you were back here!”

  “Matthias.” Johann wiped his hands on his apron to shake hands with Leichter, then closed the door against the cold. Leichter strode to the fire to warm his hands and spoke over his shoulder. “I see you have a new helper.”

  “I made a house,” the boy said, pointing. He stood. “I go tell Mama.” Johann helped him with his jacket, which had served four of his brothers and sisters before him.

  After feeding the fire, Johann pulled a stool over to join Leichter, who was scratching under the wig he wore to cover his baldness. Johann had never tried a wig, though his own hair had whitened while retreating from his forehead at a steady pace. Catherine said he looked distinguished, which was as much as he could hope for these days.

  They lit their pipes from a stick of kindling that Johann pulled from the fire. After ritual inquiries about family and comments about the weather, Johann waited and puffed. This was not a social call. Matthias Leichter didn’t make social calls. Though he’d lost his official authority—Broad Bay was now an incorporated town named for General Waldo—Leichter remained a leading citizen. He was rich in land bought cheap from those who fled the settlement during the hard days.

  “Ursula says we must have more cabinets,” Leichter said, leaning back and extending his legs. “She wants them in the dining room. Large, with glass doors.”

  Johann stared into the fire, trying to remember the room. It was a wide one that could take a substantial cabinet. “And you? What do you think?”

  Leichter smiled. “I think the mistress of the house has spoken, so thus it shall be. A couple of old dogs like us have learned that much.” He plainly took pleasure in being able to provide such luxury in a house that was already the largest in Waldoborough. And in spreading his largesse to Johann.

  Johann tried not to resent Leichter’s self-satisfaction. The man had proved a doting husband for Ursula and took on her daughters without hesitation. Still, when the religious troubles fractured the settlement, the two men had disagreed. Leichter sided, loudly, with Nungesser and the established congregation. Johann, never churchly, sympathized with the Moravians. He admired their simplicity and willingness to wonder. He missed talking with their pastor, who had softened Johann’s feelings about God, moving him from fear and bafflement to acceptance and hope. For two years, while the arguments boiled, Johann and Leichter spoke rarely and then only frostily. After most of the Moravians left for North Carolina, the friction faded but never disappeared.

  “I should come by your home,” Johann said, “and hear directly from the mistress. She can
show me what she wants.”

  “Yes, by all means.”

  “It sounds a large project. It will come with high cost.”

  “It should be very fine. It will be in a featured place. That’s why I insist that Johann Overstreet must build it.” Johann smiled. He assumed it was Ursula, not Leichter, who insisted that the job go to him.

  “I’ll have to send to Boston for the glass.”

  “Of course.” The two men smoked for a minute. “You’ve heard,” Leichter said, “of the fighting there?”

  “Something about it. More British soldiers coming, they say?”

  “It’s astounding,” Leichter said. “Armstrong says they speak openly of rebellion. These rebels have stockpiled weapons, even cannons. Such fools they are, imagining they might stand against the king and his army. You’ve seen the king’s army, the fleet. Who would send simple farmers against them?”

  “Well,” Johann smiled at the fire, “up at Louisbourg, simple farmers from Broad Bay fought very well.”

  “You were backed by the king’s army and Royal Navy! Much easier to fight with them behind you than against them.”

  “Ah, Matthias, fighting is never easy.”

  Leichter sat forward. “Of course, the sergeant major knows about such things, but you agree that it’s madness to oppose the king?”

  “I agree that I accept your commission and will stop by to see the mistress of the house tomorrow morning, if that suits her. As for Boston and the king, I choose to remain here in Broad Bay and build furniture.”

  When Leichter was gone, Johann wondered how long it would take for Catherine to drop by. She had a nose for new orders. Sometimes after Sunday services, she would predict one based on the way a woman had looked at her, or passed an unexpected word. Often Catherine’s predictions proved right.

  “So?” she said as she opened the door. Not yet thirty, her generous figure filled the doorway, particularly with baby Klara on her hip. When Karl was born, Johann was surprised that Catherine kept most of the flesh she had gained in the pregnancy. Christiane never did. But perhaps with more flesh, Christiane would have survived the last birth, Liesl. Liesl, now eight, could unnerve him by looking up with her mother’s solemn grey eyes, eyes that seemed to know much.

  For three years, he and the children lived without a woman. He had attended the Moravian services then, where he saw Catherine, dimpled and cheerful. When she brought bread to the house, sometimes cakes, Johann knew what was afoot. Robert McDonnell told him not to marry. “You’ll never be satisfied with another woman,” he said, “nor should you be.”

  Robert had been wrong, but then Robert hadn’t lived without a woman, not with so many children who needed mothering. Poor Hanna. As the eldest girl, she bore too much burden, forced to be mother to Franklin and the other girls. Johann remembered lying in bed in those years, beaten down with fatigue, staying awake to experience for a few moments the marvel of a quiet house.

  Of course, Catherine was not Christiane. No one knew that more than he did. But she was a good woman who brought order, cared for his children, warmed his bed, and often smiled and sang as she did it. Where Johann thrived in quiet spaces, Catherine craved bustle and tumult. If those were missing, she produced them. She made Johann think of the psalm’s advice to “make a joyful noise.” He knew he had been fortunate a second time. The older children, Hanna and Walther, never warmed to this second wife, but Franklin had no such problem. Of course, Franklin had the knack with people.

  “Come sit by the fire,” he said without turning. “And close the door.”

  “I need to get back,” she said as she sat, opening her cape and giving baby Klara her breast. She sighed. “It’s always so nice and quiet here.”

  Johann smiled. She often said that as she vanquished the quiet. When he told her of Leichter’s commission, her face lit up. “Oh, Johann, you must charge him every penny it’s worth. Not like last time, no special price because of Ursula and her poor first husband.”

  “I think you’re right, Katia. This time the special price for Herr Leichter will be because he’s so prosperous and should not be allowed to rest in his prosperity. We must help his silver to get out and see the world.”

  “Johann, just imagine,” she said, “all the fine people will see your work there and they’ll want something just like it. You’ll be buried with orders! You’ll need to bring on apprentices.”

  Johann laughed. “First, I should build a very fine cabinet for the Leichter Schloss. Then apprentices.” He gazed down at Klara, sucking greedily, then returned to his table leg.

  “So where’s Franklin?” Catherine asked. “Hasn’t he returned with the firewood? He should have been back an hour ago or more. He should be helping his papa.”

  “It’s coming to be spring, my dear. A young man may dawdle when he feels spring.” He shrugged without turning. “Even an old man may.”

  “Ach,” she said, lifting the baby to her shoulder and buttoning her cape, “so now you’re going to learn how to dawdle? No one will recognize you.” She stood. “You know you spoil that boy, that Franklin. He knows nothing of how hard things can be.”

  “That’s good. I hope to spoil them all. That’s why we came here, to Broad Bay—”

  “When will you call it Waldoborough?”

  “When General Waldo’s family repays me for this land that I paid for twice because he cheated me.”

  Catherine smiled and kissed his cheek. “Wouldn’t that be a happy day!” She laughed. “Perhaps you should just take it out of their hides?”

  “Such a pleasure that would be.”

  She stroked his cheek. “The sergeant major at war again! Do you hear that, Klara?” she nuzzled the baby. “Your ferocious papa will impose justice upon the rich!” She twitched her skirt in a becoming fashion and stepped to the door.

  “Mama! Mama!” Karl rattled the door from outside. When Catherine opened it, she caught him with one hand and guided him back toward the house in a single motion. “The girls,” Karl complained, “won’t let me taste the cake batter.”

  “Of course they won’t,” Catherine said. “What have you done to deserve it?”

  “Katia,” Johann called as he went to close the door, “town meeting tonight. I’ll be going with Robert.”

  Catherine made a face back at him. “Yes, and you’ll come back complaining about all the talk, talk, talk, men just wanting to hear their own voices.” She sighed. “Fine. You and Robert should go and make everything right.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  †

  The passage along the Medomak, past the riverside farms, was no longer a path. Over twenty years and more, the forest shrank slightly each time someone journeyed to trade or to visit neighbors or to attend Sunday services.

  In the early days, only a few dozen people walked on the path in a week. That multiplied when peace released the settlers from the stockades. They spread out to till new land. They pushed deeper into the woods for lumber and game and pelts, which retreated before them. Footfall after footfall widened the way. Wet weather converted it to rutted mud, exposing stones and tree roots that grabbed at travelers until someone grew exasperated enough to hack them out. By the time the descendants of Puritans began to arrive in Broad Bay, it was already a bridle path.

  Now that the land was safe and the Indians humbled, the new people coveted this land that only Germans had been hungry enough to settle. Horses broke off trailside twigs and branches; their heavy tread pounded the ground and the roots underneath and broadened the way further. The new people demanded more from the land. They had a fever to improve it and the resources to do so. The Germans joined them in chopping down bushes and trees, grubbing out stones, producing a road wide enough for a team and wagon.

  As Johann’s mare picked her way, he held a lantern on the pommel of his saddle. His mind ran back in time, to the changes in Broad Bay. He remembered when there was no path at all, and when he buried a son and then a wife on the land he paid for twice.
The Indians, so terrifying then, had yielded to a well-armed people who kept crowding in, seemingly without end. The Indians receded with the forest. Johann’s oldest boy, Walther, now worked his own farm. Johann pulled up his collar against a chill.

  “Johnny,” Robert McDonnell called from his doorway. He turned back for a word to whoever was inside, then scrambled onto a tall black gelding. “I just about gave up on you.”

  “They never start on time,” Johann said. “Not Loomis. The meeting’s already two weeks overdue, anyway.”

  McDonnell’s horse fell in step with Johann’s mare. “They’ll probably start on time to push through that tax Loomis wants, the one to pay the salary of Herr Nungesser.”

  A look of distaste came over Johann. “Such a swine he is. Surely we’ve not become so corrupt as to approve that tax.”

  “I don’t know. Leichter’s behind it. He’s an influential man.”

  “But who can think we should collect tax to pay a man of God. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s! Nungesser, as a man of God—”

  “A what?” McDonnell burst out.

  “Fine, as a man who leads a religious congregation, Nungesser should not receive tax money. If his church wishes to pay him, that’s fine.”

  “And if they don’t, even better, eh?”

  “Ach, he’s rich enough from swindling the old people he pretends to help with his fake medicines.”

  Their talk turned to the gardens they would soon plant. McDonnell’s son Alec was insisting on expanding the family’s sawmill. “I swear,” Robert said, “if I stand in his way, that young buck’ll just run right over me, toss me out on my arse. Says we need to keep up with all the boatbuilders, also with the new houses going up. Talking about our own shipyard now.” Robert’s pride was clear from his tone. “These new people, they want good boards, not the logs and mud we used. And did you hear about Cushing? He’s talking about putting in a mill above the falls. Say, John,” he wheeled to look at Johann, “did Cushing ever settle that boundary dispute, the one with Penner?”