The Claim

by Jennifer L. Holm

  “Of course,” I said. “And I am so very sorry for saying you didn’t know how to cook.”

  “Oh, but I don’t,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh. “My husband hasn’t had a decent meal since we stopped coming to the hotel. The poor man is wasting away.”

  I laughed.

  “But I should very much like to learn how to cook,” she continued. “That is, if you are still willing to teach me. I promise to be a better pupil.”

  “I’d be honored,” I said.

  When the sun set, torches were lit along Front Street, turning the muddy road to magic. A group of men pulled out their fiddles and began playing a merry tune. Men grabbed ladies and swung them around. I watched as Mr. Frink gently led Mrs. Frink out to dance.

  Keer-ukso whirled me around.

  “I like this Boston custom,” he grinned.

  The song ended and people clapped and cheered.

  Mr. Swan walked to the porch of the hotel and shouted for silence.

  “I do believe a speech is in order on a day such as this,” he began, looking out at the crowd. “As you all know, I have spent three years on this bay, and tomorrow I return to Boston. But I tell you now that I have never known such good and true friends as the ones that I have made here,” he said, his eyes resting on mine. “I shall miss you all dearly.”

  The crowd roared in approval.

  “Now, I believe another member of our community would like to say a few words,” he said. “Jehu?”

  I watched as Jehu walked up the porch, hat in hand.

  “I reckon we should thank Mr. and Mrs. Frink for organizing such a good spread,” he said, and the crowd immediately cheered.

  He looked out at the crowd, his eyes searching and then coming to rest on me. “I’m not too good at giving speeches, but this is one I’ve been practicing for some time.” He took a deep breath. “Jane Peck, will you be my wife?”

  I imagined I felt a draft from the collective in-rushing of breath. All eyes were focused on me. I had no doubt that I was blushing from the tips of my toes to the crown of my head.

  Jehu walked down the steps, his eyes intent. The crowd parted to let him through until finally he stood before me, the blue-eyed sailor of my dreams. The scar on his cheek twitched in the nervous way I knew so well.

  “Well, Jane?” he asked gruffly. “Will you have me?”

  I looked into his blue eyes, eyes that had seen me come so far.

  “Marry him, gal!” Mr. Russell shouted.

  As Papa liked to say, you make your own luck.

  “Yes!” I shouted.

  The crowd erupted into a great cheer, and Jehu picked me up and swung me around in his arms, kissing me soundly on the lips.

  “Yer jest marrying her for her pies,” Red Charley said sourly.

  I looked into Jehu’s laughing eyes.

  “Well, are you?”

  Jehu winked. “Could be I am.”

  For one brief, shining night Shoalwater Bay was as I had known it could be.

  Everyone danced and ate and sang, and Brandywine stole so much food, his belly fairly sagged. Jehu spun me under the starry sky, and the night air turned cool, but I was warm clear down to my bones. The warmth I felt came not from the bonfire but from the love of my friends, who looked on in approval.

  Father Joseph and Auntie Lilly tapped their feet, watching as Mr. Swan took a turn with Cocumb. Keer-ukso held Spaark to his chest, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. And Willard, the rascal, danced with both Katy and Sootie. But it was the sight of Mr. Russell gallantly spinning Millie, his eyes alight with mirth, her blush becoming, that made us all smile.

  Oysters and dreams may have brought us here, but something else had made us stay. This place at the edge of the wilderness was now our home. And as I looked up at the sky, the scent of the bay sweet all around, I knew that nothing would ever be easy. The rains would return and mud would clog the roads, and William would cause trouble, but in the end we would try our best. Here in this place, far from finery and corsets, ladies spoke their minds and followed their hearts.

  Who knew what the future held—indeed, who ever knew?—but in the arms of the man I loved, I had nothing but hope.

  The next morning the whole settlement came down to the beach to see us off to San Francisco. Jehu was going to try to find Captain Johnson, and I was going to buy fabric for a wedding dress.

  “The sewing circle is finally going to get some sewing done,” Mrs. Staroselsky said.

  “We shall make you the most beautiful wedding dress ever,” Mrs. Hosmer promised.

  The schooner dropped anchor, and a rowboat was lowered.

  “Have you got the list?” Mrs. Frink asked.

  “Of course,” I said. She wanted me to purchase some things for the hotel. A concierge’s duties were never done.

  A rowboat touched the beach, and a man came walking up to us, carrying a bag of mail.

  “Any of you know who Miss Jane Peck is?” he asked, scratching his head.

  “Who doesn’t?” Mr. Swan said with a low bow to me.

  The man presented me with an envelope. The return address listed Papa’s solicitor in Philadelphia. I scanned the contents and looked up at Jehu.

  “It appears I have found you an investor for your mill,” I said mysteriously.

  “Who?”

  “Me! My inheritance is waiting for me in San Francisco, and it should be more than enough to help get your mill started!”

  “Huh,” Jehu said.

  “Naturally my investment shall be on the same terms that you would have given Mr. Biddle,” I said. “And I shall insist on being a full partner.”

  “Partner, eh?” Jehu pretended to consider my offer seriously.

  “Well?” I asked.

  Jehu grinned at me. “You drive a hard bargain, Miss Peck.”

  “You could say that I’m a woman who knows what she wants,” I said.

  Keer-ukso slapped Jehu on the back. “Good thing you are marrying her!”

  We were getting ready to get in the rowboat when Katy and Sootie came running down to the beach, Williard hot on their heels.

  “Wait! Boston Jane!” Sootie shouted.

  The children ran up to us.

  “It’s a present for you,” Katy said shyly, handing me a flour sack.

  I pulled out a miniature handmade canoe with two little dolls sitting in it. One had red yarn for hair, and the other had yellow yarn.

  “I made the boat,” Willard said proudly.

  “What’s that stick?” Jehu asked.

  “It’s the paddle,” Sootie said.

  “I’m assuming that the doll with the red hair is supposed to be me. But who is the doll with the yellow hair supposed to be?” I asked.

  “Better not be Baldt,” Jehu muttered.

  I laughed.

  “We couldn’t find any black yarn,” Katy explained.

  “Either way, gal, I reckon it means we’re expecting you and Jehu to go places,” Mr. Russell said, and spit.

  As we stood at the rail of the schooner, watching sunlight skip across the shimmering water and the sleek sea otters frolic between the waves like playful puppies, Mr. Russell’s words hummed in my ears.

  Jehu slipped his arms around me. In the distance, Shoalwater Bay was disappearing, my house now a speck on the cliff.

  The ship lurched suddenly, but Jehu’s arms held me steady.

  “You’re not gonna puke, are ya?” he teased me.

  I looked into his laughing blue eyes and smiled.

  “If I do, I’ll aim for your boots.”

  I looked across the stretch of water, bright and shining as hope, and knew that Mr. Russell was right. We were going places.

  But we would be back.

  The End … for now!

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The town where Jane lives is based on two early oyster settlements, Bruceport and Oysterville, on Shoalwater Bay (now known as Willapa Bay) in Washington State. During its heyday in the ninet
eenth century, an estimated 50,000 baskets of oysters were shipped off the bay every year. These settlements boasted hotels, dry goods stores, churches, and taverns, as well as coffin shops. But like many boomtowns, Bruceport disappeared, and Oysterville now has only a remnant of its former glory. My own family was very involved in the oyster trade on Shoalwater Bay. My great-grandfather, Charles Holm, and my grandfather, Wendell Holm, and my uncle, Ivan Holm, were all oystermen. Like Jane, I have come to appreciate oysters.

  Cocumb’s experience in Boston Jane: The Claim was inspired by the real-life story of Bill M’Carty, or “Old Brandywine,” one of the original oystermen on Shoalwater Bay. According to James Swan’s account of the incident in his book, The Northwest Coast, Or, Three Years’ Residence in Washington Territory, M’Carty fell off his boat and drowned, leaving behind an Indian wife and an eleven-year-old daughter called Katy. Upon M’Carty’s death, Katy was taken away from her mother and placed in the custody of the family of a local judge. Her mother managed to regain custody of her for a time but, sadly, in the end was strongly pressured to give Katy into the keeping of a local pioneer family. Tragically, James Swan approved of this action and was, in fact, instrumental in the removal of the child. Unlike in The Claim, there is no mention of the child ever being returned to her mother.

  Elections for constable, justice of the peace, and representative to the legislature were in fact held in 1850s Shoalwater Bay, although in general, rough-and-tumble pioneer justice prevailed. James Swan echoed this concept by noting, “For what did we want of laws? We were a law unto ourselves.” One of the first trials to be held there was over stolen whiskey.

  William Baldt’s get-rich-quick land scheme of Baldt City was inspired by the real-life dreams of Elijah White, a former physician turned Indian agent, who promoted and sold nonexistent land plots in an imaginary place called Pacific City to unknowing settlers.

  The Frink Hotel is loosely based on the Stevens Hotel in Oysterville, which housed oystermen. Isaac Whealdon, an early settler on the bay, commented thus on the hotel and its gracious owners:

  It is said of him and his wife that they never turned away a man who was hungry and cold and I, who came here an orphan boy, say Mrs. Stevens gave me the first feather pillow and bed mattress I ever had. When we used to sit down to that long old table, in that old dining room where Mr. Stevens did the carving and Mrs. Stevens poured the coffee, I used to look at them and say to myself, “God bless you!”

  Likewise, Star’s Dry Goods was inspired by the Jewish dry goods stores that existed on the frontier in the nineteenth century, and Staroselsky and Rose Star are family names.

  RESOURCES

  Chinook Tribal Office, Chinook, Washington.

  Ilwaco Heritage Museum, Ilwaco, Washington.

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

  Oysterville: Roads to Grandpa’s Village, Willard R. Espy, University of Washington Press.

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