by Ann Rinaldi
“Mama, the baby’s name is Oliver James.”
Still nothing. “Perhaps Becky will let me bring him sometime.”
She went on with her stitching. She was making a chemise. I didn’t know who it was for, but I sure could have used a new one myself.
“Mama, I’m betrothed to John Reid.” I was sure that would elicit a response. She had always loved John so. Hadn’t she been the one to always bring up his name to me? I had been too young at the time to realize that both she and Father had wanted John for me long before I wanted him myself.
She held the chemise up for my inspection. “It’s beautiful,” I said. “Your stitches are so fine.”
“You look as if you could use a new one, child. Would you like me to make one for you?”
“Oh, I’d love that.” She’d given me the apron she had made. What would I tell people if they asked? My mama made this for me, only she doesn’t know she’s my mama?
Each time I left the Moores’, I felt so confused inside it took me two days to sort everything out. And then it was time to see Mama again.
I kissed the top of her head. “I have to go, Mama.” As always, there were tears in my eyes when I walked out.
In May another letter came from John. He said he was fine and taking full advantage of his parole. I could write to him, provided I remembered everything he had taught me and was especially careful of my penmanship. For he had told the British who opened his mail that his pupil might be writing to him. They very much enjoyed the story of how we were now betrothed, and he did not want them to see a sloppy letter, so I should be careful in my writing.
I knew that he meant that I must not say anything to give him away, for he was still carrying on his spying activities. Somehow he was managing to get information from New York through to the Americans.
I wrote to him that night. Once a week he wrote to me from New York, and once a week I responded. Always he said he was fine. He walked about town freely, he said. He had even made friends with the British officers. He was a familiar figure around Manhattan’s streets, and I was not to worry.
His letters kept me alive. Daniel had written that the army was leaving Morristown in May, but he could not tell me any more. In June David wrote from the hills above Boundbrook, saying they were well but he couldn’t wait to get back into action again. Mama still did not know me as June and July passed. Becky and I had each staked out our own territory in and around the house, so we didn’t have to converse often.
And then one day in early August, Canoe came home.
I was waiting on a customer in the shop when a shadow darkened the doorway. No sound accompanied it. I finished with my customer and looked up. “Canoe!”
Then, in a manner that was not at all proper, I ran across the floorboards and right into his arms. I had never done that before, but he picked me up and held me as Dan or David might have done, then set me down, smiling.
“So, you’ve grown up and taken your father’s place. I always knew you would be the one to do it.”
“Oh, Canoe, you know about Father’s death!”
“We heard.”
“Where is my grandfather? I do want to see him! Oh, Canoe, everything is awful! Mama is sick and I haven’t heard from my brothers since June and John Reid is a prisoner and—”
“Not now,” he hushed me. “Your grandfather is fine. He sent a wagonload of supplies. I must unload them.”
Outside the shop I squealed in delight over the salt, molasses, pepper, bolts of linen, tobacco, needles and pins, and silk thread.
“Canoe, where did you get all of this?”
“I came by way of Philadelphia.” That was all he would say.
He brought everything in the shop and put it on the shelves while I told him what had happened in their absence. “You must come in for supper, Canoe. Lucy will want to see you. We have plenty.”
He shook his head and smiled. But he wouldn’t look at me.
“You must, please! There’s so much more I want to hear about Grandfather. I can’t believe he’s coming home! It’ll be like having Father back again, almost! Oh, Canoe, please?”
He stood in the middle of the shop, his eyes sad, yet amused too. “Your sister …” he said.
“What of her?” But I knew. “Canoe, I’m mistress of this house. Dan has arranged for Grandfather Henshaw to send me an allowance to run it in his absence. I keep accounts of everything I do to show Dan. And of the shop, as well. Rebeckah is only visiting.”
He looked at me hesitantly. “Oh, Canoe, come, please. It’ll be like being with family again.” I stopped, hoping I hadn’t offended him.
I hadn’t. “All right,” he said, “for you.”
I brought him into the kitchen, where he could have coffee. Lucy greeted him warmly, and then Becky appeared in the doorway, the baby in her arms. Canoe stood up respectfully and inclined his head.
“Hello, Canoe,” she said curtly. “Jem, I’m desperately in need of help with the baby. I can’t find that lazy Molly anywhere. Could I bother you for a minute?”
In the parlor she closed the door. “How dare you, Jemima Emerson! You know how I’ve always felt about him. Here I am, stuck in this ungodly town with a baby, trying to bring some decency back into this house, and you invite that …” She closed her eyes. “I want him out of the house immediately.”
I felt as if she’d struck me. “Becky, he’s practically family!”
“That’s just it!”
She stared me down fiercely. And all the months of war and struggling, of facing Hessians and British, of seeing Father dead, of the work in the shop, all of it melted away. I was once again the little sister in the upstairs chamber being scolded for being unladylike.
“Please, Becky! He brought me supplies!”
“I don’t care if he brought you four hundred Spanish dollars! I want him out!”
“I can’t. I’ve invited him for supper.”
“You can and you will. I have a baby in the house. Who knows what diseases he brings! Tell him the baby is running a fever. Tell him anything. But get him out!”
I was trembling when I left the parlor. But in the kitchen I found only Lucy, stirring the stew over the fire. “Where’s Canoe?”
She just looked at me, and I knew he was gone. I went to bed early that night without supper, hating Becky more than I’d ever hated her. And hating myself more.
“Hello, Canoe.”
He looked up from the harness he was fixing in the barn at Otter Hall. He was not surprised to see me, although it had taken me almost a week to get up the courage to ride over.
“It’s hot to be out,” he said.
“I should have come sooner. I couldn’t get away.”
“How are things going?”
“The supplies you brought me came from heaven.”
He looked down at the harness. “Only Philadelphia. Hardly heaven.”
“Have you heard from my grandfather?”
“He will be here by the end of October.”
“I can’t believe it. I’ve been so long without anyone in the family. Except Rebeckah.”
He said nothing.
“Have you heard about Bennington, Vermont? We heard there was a British defeat up there.”
“It’s true,” he said. “Captain Johnny Stark won a battle.”
I sighed and looked out over the fields that lay in the unreal blue-green haze of August. “The farm looks good Canoe.”
“You know better,” he chided gently. “Most of the fields lie fallow. The repair work is piling up. But it will improve.”
“Canoe, I’m sorry about last week.”
“There is nothing to be sorry for.”
“I should have stood up to Rebeckah. You had every right to stay.”
His dark eyes smiled. “You’ve done enough standing up to people for a while, perhaps.”
“No, Canoe. It never stops. It has nothing to do with war. It just never stops.”
“You learned tha
t too soon.”
“Not soon enough.”
“You’ve crowded too much into one year. Give yourself time.”
“Canoe, I never wanted to hurt you. Grandfather will be furious with me when he finds out. And John Reid, why, he’d lecture me into next week if he knew. I’ve failed everybody.”
“They don’t have to know. And you haven’t failed, because it didn’t come from you.”
“It did, because I did nothing. Because I didn’t do what I should have done.”
He was struggling with the harness. “You will when the time comes,” he said.
“When will that be, Canoe? How will I know it? How can I be sure?”
“You will be,” he said. “Now why don’t you give that horse some water?”
CHAPTER
33
By late August of 1777 all we knew was rumors about the war. I hadn’t heard from my brothers since June. In mid-August John wrote from New York and said that he had been exchanged as a prisoner and freed from his parole. “I do not plan on returning to the American army yet,” he wrote. “I have made such good friends here in Manhattan, I think I shall stay on awhile and rest. I have a bit of a cough.”
Was he pretending to be sick in order to stay and gather information, or was he really ill? I had no way of knowing, and it maddened me.
In August Becky received a letter from Oliver saying that the British were pushing off in a fleet of over two hundred ships from Sandy Hook in New Jersey. If Becky knew where they were headed, she did not tell me. We didn’t talk at all anymore.
Late in August Canoe had word that the Continental army was in Pennsylvania, heading toward a place called Brandywine. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. And I was so exhausted I didn’t care.
You couldn’t believe anything you heard about the war, anyway. One minute we’d hear about a victory, the next a defeat. Becky let something out about Howe’s junior officers being dissatisfied with the way he was running the campaign of 1777, since he seemed to be constantly stalling and letting the Americans elude him.
I was weary of it all. The war was practically ruining my father’s shop. Canoe set off again the last day of August and brought me another wagonload of supplies. I didn’t inquire where he’d gotten them. And I didn’t invite him home for supper. But the supplies picked up my spirits the same way the pemmican used to when he gave it to me in the old days before I was grown up.
There comes a day each September when you wake up and know the summer is over and fall has arrived. The slant of the sun looks different and something is in the air—a coolness, a hint of frosty mornings to follow. I woke early on the morning of September 24 and reached for a warmer petticoat. In the kitchen I sat at the side of the table closest to the fire rereading the letter that had arrived from Dan the day before.
The news was not good. Washington’s army had suffered a defeat at Brandy wine on the 11th of September. But both Dan and David were still fine. I ate my breakfast and went to the shop.
Shortly after noon, when I’d finished the bit of stew left over from last night’s supper, there came a knock on the shop door.
I sighed in exasperation. “Ought to make them wait,” I mumbled, even as Father would have mumbled to himself. “A person can’t even have a minute to have some nourishment.”
But something about the shadow of the figure cast through the window caught my eye. It was not a civilian who had come to buy shoe buckles. It was a soldier. I shivered as I crossed the floorboards and fumbled with the door.
He just stood there. So did I, staring. I don’t think I even blinked once. I’m sure he didn’t. I went hot and then I went cold, then I closed my eyes for a moment, sure I would faint. Yes, it was a soldier, an officer in the Continental army.
“Well, aren’t you going to invite me in, Jemima Emerson? Or have you forgotten your manners again?”
I backed into the shop. He followed, leaving the door ajar. Inside I stared at him, wide-eyed, unable to speak. I could see that he looked thinner and older.
He stood, looking very authoritative and handsome in his uniform, sizing me up. He walked around me as I stood in the middle of the shop, his boots clicking on the wooden floor. His eyes went over me from head to toe, and I flushed.
“Well, Jemima Emerson, you do look very grown up.” He came full circle around me and stood surveying me sternly, his hands clasped behind his back.
“But you haven’t curtsied. You do know how to curtsy. I’ve seen you do it. Can you do it for me?”
I was shaking so, I could barely manage it. But I did execute a fine curtsy, if I do say so myself. I raised my eyes to look at him.
“Your head and shoulders could be held a little higher, but it will do for now.”
I straightened up. “How do you know so much about it, Mr. Reid?”
“I’ve been in the company of a few fine ladies in my time.” A smile played about his lips, although he was doing his best to frown.
“I’m afraid I don’t look anything like a lady today, sir.”
“You look perfectly fine to me, Jemima Emerson.” And then he smiled, gave a whoop, threw off his hat, and opened his arms. I ran to him. He embraced me and kissed me.
“John!”
Still kissing me, he turned and kicked the door shut with his foot.
CHAPTER
34
At first I thought that John was just thinner than before and that he needed some home-cooked food. But after our first fierce embrace in the shop, he started to cough. And although he was sunburned from his travels, there were circles under his eyes.
“John, you are ill,” I said.
“Just seeing you will make me well again.”
“I thought when you wrote about having a cough, you were just pretending, so you could stay and gather information.”
“I didn’t have to pretend. But it came in handy, the cough. The British treated me beautifully, and I made friends with the officers and managed to send my superiors all kinds of information about British troop movements, shortages of supplies, and leading British officers.”
“Why did you finally leave?”
“It was getting dangerous. My superiors knew I was sick and ordered me home for a rest. I’ve been traveling for a week, and it wore me down.”
“And are you finished with all this now, Captain Reid?”
“For the time being. I was ordered to rest and recover. But I will go back. My services are needed.” He coughed again.
“I think what is needed, John, is a good bowl of Lucy’s soup. For your cough.”
He ate the soup but not much else for supper. And I ate little more. I couldn’t stop staring at him across the table. I couldn’t believe he’d really come home. He looked around the dining room as if remembering it from some dream. He put up with Rebeckah’s chatter, but always, it seemed, he was listening for something else. He had the soldier’s trained eye and ear; nothing escaped him. And although I knew he was not feeling well, he did make a fine appearance at the table in a clean white shirt with a black silken stock under his collar.
“Stop staring at John,” Rebeckah ordered. “You’ll make him uncomfortable.”
“How was the food when you were a prisoner, John?” I asked.
“Jemima!” Becky scolded. “Have you no feeling at all?”
“It’s all right, Rebeckah,” he said. “Jem should learn about such things.”
“And you, I suppose, are still playing the tutor? Well, if you are, then you should tell her what it was like when Boston was evacuated a year ago last March. And how all those good Americans, whose only crime was being loyal to the King, were forced to leave their homes and possessions and sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia. Tell her how her aunt Grace was one of them. And you should let her know what it was like for them once they got to Halifax, with little shelter and food available.”
“You were not there, Rebeckah,” John said, “either for the evacuation of Boston or the confusion in Halifax.�
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“Oliver was. And he wrote to me of it. What kind of a tutor are you if you only give her one side of the argument and withhold the full truth? Aunt Grace has now sailed for England, as have many of our good neighbors and friends who were Tories. Does she know that?”
“You are right, Rebeckah, I won’t deny that,” John said calmly. “We’ve lost many good Americans who had to flee because of their politics. And I shall educate Jemima about the matter when I have the time. But now I will answer her question. My provisions were sufficient, Jem. I wish I could say the same for other American soldiers who were prisoners in New York and weren’t lucky enough to have privileges because they weren’t officers. I visited some prisons and tried to help some of them, but the British didn’t like my seeing all of that and they soon put a stop to it. I did find out that many American prisoners could have gotten out, had they agreed to enlist in the British army. Some did, with the plan to desert as soon as they could, but most of them died rather than defect to the enemy.”
The candles were so bright in the room as I looked at him across the table. Or did it only seem so because of the tears in my eyes?
“This war has ruined the lives of many good people on both sides,” John said. “But wars usually do that.”
We took our coffee in the parlor. “You’ll stay the night, John,” I said. “Dan’s room is empty.” He reached out to take my hand as I went by his chair, and I could feel the warmth of his grasp.
“John, you’re feverish.”
“The fever always comes back at night,” he said.
“You’ll stay as long as need be,” I amended. “You need to be looked after. Living alone, with no one to care for you, will only make you worse.”
“I’ll give you no argument tonight, Jemima,” he said, leaning back and closing his eyes for a moment. “I’m pure exhausted. We can talk about it in the morning.”
I had to take the cup from his hand, for he had the shivers then. Lucy had to help him up the stairs to bed.
