Boston Jane

by Jennifer L. Holm

  “My dear girl, I’m so sorry,” Mr. Swan said.

  I sat at the sawbuck table in Mr. Russell’s cabin with my face in my hands. My cheeks were wet, my eyes puffy. I had been crying all morning. Poor Mr. Russell had been so discomfited by my tears that he had taken one look at me weeping in Mr. Swan’s arms and fled the cabin as if being chased by a pack of wild dogs.

  William and his wife had left, too. My future—no, my life—had left.

  “What am I to do?” I asked. “I don’t know if I can survive another voyage like the one it took me to get here.”

  Mr. Swan sat down opposite me and said earnestly, “You could stay.”

  “Stay here? In the middle of the wilderness?”

  “Yes, Jane. Stay.”

  The word hung on the air, hummed in the still of the cabin.

  “But there’s nothing for me here.”

  Mr. Swan’s face fell.

  “I can’t, Mr. Swan. You must understand. I don’t belong here. I’m—I’m a lady.”

  A gleam entered Mr. Swan’s eye. “A lady who has an oyster business?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “A lady who dives into a raging river for an old man’s canoe?”

  “But—”

  “A lady who carves up a whale?”

  “There are rules!” I said, exasperated.

  “Jane, there are no rules here. And you are a lady, the finest in all Shoalwater Bay.”

  “What kind of future would I have here? You of all people must understand. Your wife and children, back in Boston …” My voice trailed off, but there was no mistaking my point. His own wife hadn’t wanted to come to the wilderness.

  Mr. Swan was silent and I knew I’d hurt his feelings.

  “Papa said there are plenty of eligible young men in Philadelphia,” I said in a small voice, realizing at once how very much I missed the sound of Papa’s laughter. “And besides, I miss him. I miss Philadelphia. I miss Mrs. Parker and her cherry pie. I miss everything. I want to go home.”

  Mr. Swan nodded.

  “Well, we’ll miss you, my dear. You are like a daughter to me,” he said heavily, his eyes watery.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Swan, but really, this is the most sensible decision. I must go.”

  The Hetty was due back in Shoalwater Bay in two weeks’ time, and I would be on her.

  It seemed no coincidence that the day of my departure dawned fair and bright.

  A sweet September breeze was blowing across the water, much like the day we’d first sailed into Shoalwater Bay. The sun bounced off the smooth surface, and everything looked so beautiful and green that I almost believed that Shoalwater Bay was luring me to stay. But it was too late. I was packed and ready to go. I looked like a respectable young lady for the first time in months in the new blue dress I had stitched.

  “Very well then, my dear,” Mr. Swan said sadly.

  Handsome Jim had refused to see me off.

  “Boston Jane leave?” he said dully.

  “I must. There’s nothing to keep me here now that I’m not marrying William. I’m going back to Philadelphia and my family and friends there.”

  “No! Boston Jane not leave.”

  “But—”

  His eyes were dark. “We your friends, Boston Jane!” he said. He stared at me angrily for a moment and then stormed off into the woods.

  Mr. Swan and Mr. Russell carried my trunk down to the beach where I would wait for the Hetty.

  Mr. Russell spat loudly.

  Truly I was going to miss dodging his tobacco.

  “There you go, Jane,” Mr. Swan said, trying to put on a cheery face as he put down his end of the trunk with a small wheeze.

  Brandywine was darting around the beach, chasing gulls, and Sootie sat on the trunk, like a queen on her throne. She didn’t quite understand that I was leaving for good. She thought I was moving for the winter, the way her family left Shoalwater Bay in winter. I didn’t try to correct her.

  Mr. Russell took off his cap, scratching his head. Would the man ever be rid of fleas?

  “Good luck, gal,” Mr. Russell said. He seemed on the verge of saying something else, but then simply shook his head and turned and walked over the dunes.

  Mr. Swan was trying to be jovial, but it was clear that he was still quite unhappy with my decision.

  “Now you will be sure to keep in touch. We have business, you and I,” he said, his throat catching.

  “Yes, of course,” I said stiffly.

  He held out a bag. “A small present for your leave-taking. There is never anything decent to eat aboard a ship.”

  Small clusters of strange-looking fruit attached to branches rested inside the cloth.

  “They’re crab apples. Quite tart, but I’ve acquired a taste for them,” he said with a forced smile. “Perhaps you can make one of your famous pies.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “The food was certainly terrible on the voyage here.”

  He swallowed hard. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t see you off. I’m not very good at farewells,” he said, and turned and strode away.

  The previous day, Father Joseph had stopped by as I was packing, a packet of letters in his hand.

  “For the bishop,” he explained.

  I nodded and took the packet.

  He regarded me silently. I remembered the outbound voyage on the Lady Luck and everything that had happened since. Father Joseph was woven up in all my memories.

  “I’ll miss you, Father,” I said, and hugged him impulsively.

  Father Joseph swallowed, his eyebrows knitted in concern.

  “God watch over you, ma chère,” he said.

  The Hetty sailed into the bay, its white sails fluttering. A sudden wind rose and blew over me, gentle as a kiss, the air smelling sweetly of salt and the sea.

  Jehu.

  I wondered if he still hated me, halfway to China.

  Brandywine nuzzled his cold nose expectantly in my hand.

  “I have no food, Brandywine,” I said. “But I shall miss you.”

  Sootie was playing in a shallow tide pool, splashing about. I slipped off my new boots and joined her. The water was cool, the sand hard beneath my feet. She made a face at the water.

  “Pretty Sootie!” she declared.

  I studied my reflection in the water. The sunburned face, the round cheeks, the nose dotted with freckles, hair unbound and fluttering wildly in the wind. The girl looking back at me bore no resemblance to the thin, pale, quiet, tidy, proper creature that had departed Philadelphia so many months ago.

  The Hetty dropped anchor, and a rowboat was being lowered. I put on my boots, picked up my case, and stood patiently on the sand. I looked at the sack in my hand and pulled out one of the odd little crab apples.

  And the strangest thing happened. Will you believe it?

  It all came rushing back.

  Being eleven years old and laughing with Jebediah Parker. The sun shining down as if it would shine forever. The feel of a rotten apple, heavy in my hand. How at that moment the future seemed full of possibility, the whole world stretched out like Mrs. Parker’s cherry pie, just waiting for me to take a bite.

  How I was the luckiest girl in the world.

  “Jane!”

  I looked up. Jehu was waving to me from the rowboat.

  And he was smiling!

  I stood on the beach, my heart thudding in my chest. My life felt as tangled and messy as my red hair. How had I gotten to this sorry state? I had been such a happy girl. Had my life truly been determined by the unlucky flight of a rotten apple?

  Certainly not.

  I was Miss Jane Peck of Philadelphia. I was also Boston Jane of Shoalwater Bay.

  By any name, I had a choice.

  I took a deep breath and smiled at Jehu.

  Papa always said you make your own luck.

  And maybe you do.

  The End

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I was inspired to write Boston Jane after reading Skuldug
gery on Shoalwater Bay, a book of poetry by Willard Espy, about the nineteenth-century pioneers and Indians on Shoalwater Bay. One of the pioneers he wrote a poem about was James G. Swan.

  James G. Swan, an enigmatic and self-proclaimed adventurer, abandoned a comfortable middle-class life and family in Boston to go and live on Shoalwater Bay (now known as Willapa Bay) in the Washington Territory in 1852. He wrote a fascinating account of his stay at Shoalwater Bay entitled The Northwest Coast, Or, Three Years’ Residence in Washington Territory that was published in 1857 by Harper & Brothers.

  James G. Swan was very interested in the Indians residing at Shoalwater Bay and spent much of his time learning their languages, sleeping in their lodges, and living and working alongside them. In fact, he went on a fishing trip with a group of Chinooks on the Naselle River, the setting of my first book, Our Only May Amelia.

  The Chinooks residing at Shoalwater Bay spoke both the Chinook language and the Chinook Jargon, a trade language that was used for generations by many Pacific Northwest tribes to communicate with each other and with the Europeans when they arrived. Both the pure Chinook and the Jargon were spoken languages, not written, and so different spellings exist in varying accounts.

  In keeping with the spirit of James Swan, I have generally used his spellings in Boston Jane. Also, like Handsome Jim and Suis, some of the Indians spoke English fluently, the children generally more so. However, Swan took pains to point out in his book that many Chinook felt they already had a perfectly good, extremely flexible trade language in the Jargon, and therefore had no use for English. Thus quite a few Europeans made regular use of the Jargon, and several dictionaries of the Jargon exist.

  James G. Swan was characteristic of the typical nineteenth-century white man in that he subscribed to many of the attitudes of his time and the prejudices that came along with them. However, in other respects he was a surprisingly open-minded and unbiased observer, who genuinely seemed to care about the Chinook way of life and their fate. These contradictions were what made him so interesting to me, and were why I couldn’t resist writing about him. I think the James Swan in Boston Jane is a little romanticized compared to the real man, but I hope I’ll be forgiven a bit of poetic license.

  Although this is a work of fiction, I have incorporated several real-life incidents in Boston Jane, specifically Mr. Swan’s ill-fated experience with the chimney and the canoe, the smallpox outbreak, and the Fourth of July celebration. The character I have tried to bring to life in this book was inspired by some of his own remarks, for example: “This is the best method of traveling in any Indian country; that is to say, always have some Indians in the company …” Swan never once hinted at why he was willing to leave his family alone in Boston for three years: this is perhaps the greatest mystery in The Northwest Coast, and I have entirely invented Mrs. Swan’s motivations in this book.

  I was so excited by my research that I named many of my characters after other historical residents of Shoalwater Bay, including Chief Toke, Suis, Mr. Russell, Father Joseph, Champ, M’Carty, Dolly, Jehu Scudder, and William Baldt. I have fictionalized these characters in all instances. In real life, Father Joseph Lionnet was actually a missionary at Chinook, Washington. By all accounts, the real Father Joseph was equally unsuccessful at convincing the Chinook that his ways were better than theirs.

  Brandywine the dog was entirely made up, but bears a remarkable resemblance to a certain animal I know who is always begging for food. However, the Brandywine was a frigate that gave the real M’Carty his nickname, Old Brandywine.

  Incidentally, conditions aboard brigs sailing around Cape Horn were often every bit as bad as I have described them. I ran across an account in which a paying passenger suffered so much that he actually jumped ship at Valparaiso and signed on as a working hand on another ship bound for San Francisco.

  Finally, I based Miss Hepplewhite’s teachings and Jane’s etiquette book, The Young Lady’s Confidante, on a popular nineteenth-century etiquette book, The Young Lady’s Friend by Mrs. John Farrar. Mrs. Farrar was such a respectable lady, and writing a book was so unseemly for a woman of her times, that the first few editions of The Young Lady’s Friend had only the words “By a Lady” on the cover. In some instances I have used the actual instruction from The Young Lady’s Friend in Miss Hepplewhite’s dialogue and in The Young Lady’s Confidante (will you believe it!).

  “There is more to be learned about pouring out tea and coffee, than most young ladies are willing to believe.”

  RESOURCES

  Chinook Tribal Office, Chinook, Washington.

  Pacific County Historical Society and Museum, South Bend, Washington.

  The Northwest Coast, Or, Three Years’ Residence in Washington Territory, James G. Swan, University of Washington Press.

  Skulduggery on Shoalwater Bay, Willard R. Espy. Illustrated by Nancy Lloyd, Cranberry Press.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jennifer L. Holm is the author of two Newbery Honor books, Our Only May Amelia and Penny from Heaven. She is also the author of several other highly praised books, including the Boston Jane trilogy, Middle School Is Worse Than Meatloaf, and the Babymouse series, which she collaborates on with her brother, Matthew Holm. Jennifer lives in California with her husband and their two children. You can visit her on the Web at www.jenniferholm.com.

  CHAPTER ONE

  or,

  The Luckiest Girl

  It was a sweet September day on the beach, much like the day I’d first sailed into Shoalwater Bay that April. The sun was skipping across the water, and the sky was a bright arc of blue racing to impossibly tall green trees. And for the first time since arriving on this wild stretch of wilderness, I felt lucky again.

  You see, I had survived these many months in the company of rough men and Chinook Indians, not to mention a flea-ridden hound, and while it was true that my wardrobe had suffered greatly, one might say that my person had thrived. I had made friends. I had started an oyster business. I had survived endless calamity: six months of seasickness on the voyage from Philadelphia, a near-drowning, a fall from a cliff, and a smallpox outbreak. What was there to stop me now?

  Although a life on the rugged frontier of the Washington Territory was not recommended for a proper young lady of sixteen, especially in the absence of a suitable chaperone, I intended to try it.

  After all, I did make the best pies on Shoalwater Bay. And striding up the beach toward me was a man who appreciated them.

  “Jane!”

  He had the bluest eyes I had ever seen, bluer than the water of the bay behind him. A schooner, the Hetty, was anchored not far out, and it was the reason I had packed all my belongings and was standing beside my trunk. The same schooner had brought Jehu Scudder back to the bay after a prolonged absence. Indeed, when Jehu left, I had doubted that I would ever see him again.

  “Jane,” Jehu said gruffly, his thick black hair brushing his shoulders, his eyes glowing in his tanned face. I had last seen him nearly two months ago, at which time I had hurt his feelings, and sailor that he was, he had vowed to sail as far away as China to be rid of me.

  “Jehu,” I replied, nervously pushing a sticky tangle of red curls off my cheeks.

  He shook his head. “You’re looking well, Miss Peck.”

  “As are you, Mr. Scudder,” I replied, my voice light.

  We stood there for a moment just looking at each other, the soft bay air brushing between us like a ribbon. Without thinking, I took a step forward, toward him, until I was so close that I breathed the scent of the saltwater on his skin. And all at once I remembered that night, those stars, his cheek close to mine.

  “Boston Jane! Boston Jane!” a small voice behind me cried.

  Sootie, a Chinook girl who had become dear to me, came rushing down the beach, little legs pumping, her feet wet from the tide pool in which she had been playing. She was waving a particularly large clamshell at me, of the sort the Chinook children often fashioned into dolls.

  “Look wha
t I found!” she said, eyeing Jehu.

  “Sootie,” I said, smoothing back her thick black hair. “You remember Captain Scudder? He was the first mate on the Lady Luck, the ship that brought me here from Philadelphia.”

  Sootie clutched the skirts of my blue calico dress and hid behind them shyly, peeking out at Jehu with her bright brown eyes. Her mother, my friend Suis, had died in the summer smallpox outbreak, and since then Sootie had spent a great deal of time in my company.

  Jehu crouched down next to her, admiring her find. “That’s a real nice shell you have there.”

  She grinned flirtatiously at him, exposing a gap where one of her new front teeth was coming in.

  Jehu grinned right back and squinted up at me from where he knelt. “I see you took my advice about wearing blue. Although I did like that Chinook skirt of yours,” he teased, his Boston accent dry as a burr.

  The cedar bark skirt in question, while very comfortable, had left my legs quite bare. “That skirt was hardly proper, Jehu,” I rebuked him gently.

  At this, his lips tightened and a shuttered look came across his face. The thick angry scar on his cheek twitched in a familiar way. He hunched his shoulders forward and stood up, deliberately looking somewhere over my shoulder. “Ah, yes, proper.”

  I bit my lip and stepped back. I had little doubt as to what was causing this sudden transformation. I had rejected his affections, as I had been engaged to another man.

  “So tell me, how is your new husband?” he asked in a clipped voice.

  “Jehu,” I said quickly.

  He turned from me and stared angrily out at the smooth bay. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got supplies to deliver,” he said tersely, and then he turned on his booted heel and strode quickly down the beach away from me.

  I took a step forward, Sootie’s arms tight around my legs. What was I to do? Miss Hepplewhite, my instructor at the Young Ladies Academy in Philadelphia, had a great number of opinions on the proper behavior of a young lady. I had discovered, however, that many of her careful instructions were sorely lacking when it came to surviving on the frontier. There was not much call for pouring tea or embroidering handkerchiefs in the wilds of Shoalwater Bay. And I certainly didn’t recall any helpful hints on how to prevent the only man one had ever kissed from storming away for the second time in one’s life. So I did something that I was sure would have shocked my old teacher.