by Ron Carter
He stopped for a few seconds, then added, “But it isn’t right. And we’re going to fix that, one way or another.”
Caleb said, “You better be careful. The law is the law. You go above it, and you could start a war.”
Tredwell didn’t flinch. “That’s what the British said. They lost.”
The wagon rumbled on for fifteen minutes before Tredwell drew rein at a place where two ruts branched and angled south. Hosea Abrams and Thomas Marsing both dropped to the ground with their bedrolls.
Tredwell spoke to Abrams. “I’ll bring your horses to church in the morning.”
Abrams bobbed his head, turned, and was gone.
Tredwell nodded and gigged the horses, and the wagon rattled on. Caleb took the place beside Tredwell on the driver’s seat, and fifteen minutes later Tredwell reined the horses north onto a trail that soon rounded a gentle curve that led into an arrangement of open farmyard, barn, and outbuildings to the left, low log cabin to the right. Moments later the barn door swung open and two boys who were the image of Tredwell burst out into the sunlight, stopped, then came trotting. The door to the house opened, and a woman of medium height, square shoulders, plain face, solid, walked out into the sunlight, wiping her hands in her apron. Behind her came two girls, younger than the boys, and they followed the woman as she strode toward the wagon. The woman and the children were all dressed in the rough garb of working farmers.
The boys reached the wagon first, and Caleb was startled when he could not tell them apart. They were identical twins.
Tredwell pointed to one, then the other, as he spoke. “Isaac and Jacob. This is Caleb Dunson. He’s come to help.”
The boys each thrust out rawboned hands that were too big and too hard for their seventeen years, shook Caleb’s hand perfunctorily, and murmured, “I’m glad to make your acquaintance.”
The woman approached, and the boys stepped aside as she came to her husband. She ignored Caleb for the moment it took to survey Tredwell. “You’re all right?”
“Yes. Good. You?”
She smiled. “All right. Tired.” She turned to Caleb, waiting, and Tredwell spoke. “This is Caleb Dunson, from Boston. He came with us to help where he can. This is my wife, Rachel.” For the first time, Caleb saw the light of gentleness and warmth in Tredwell’s bearded face as he spoke of his wife.
Rachel thrust out her hand and Caleb shook it. “I’m honored to meet you, ma’am.”
Shy, unaccustomed to strangers, Rachel responded, “It is my pleasure, sir. I hope you can stay with us for a while.”
“A day or two, thank you,” Caleb responded.
The two younger girls, whom Caleb judged to be about twelve and ten, stood behind their mother, bashful in the presence of a stranger. Rachel turned. “This is Rebecca, the older one, and Ruth.” There was pride in the mother’s eyes.
The two girls nodded a greeting, and the older one said, “I’m happy to meet you,” but neither offered their hands.
Rachel asked Isaac and Jacob, “Through in the barn?”
“Got to milk Troublesome. Then we’re through.”
Tredwell said, “Started the barley yet?”
“Tried this morning. Needs two more days of this sun before its ready.”
“The pigs?”
“Got three down today, dressed. We’ll salt ’em and get ’em in the vats in three days.”
Rachel interrupted. “Finish with Troublesome and get washed. Supper will be waiting.”
The sun had set when the boys walked into the kitchen to pour half the bucket of warm milk into two pitchers, and Isaac took what was left out into the root cellar to clabber for buttermilk. Caleb joined the men as they went outside to a washstand to pour tepid water and work with hard brown soap, then dry themselves on clean flour sacks. They ran a homemade, wooden comb through their wet hair and entered the kitchen.
This was Rachel’s kingdom. In the fields and the barn, the men were king. In her kitchen, she was queen. They stood respectfully in the plain, log-walled kitchen amid the rich aromas of roast mutton and boiled vegetables and homemade bread, and butter churned by Rebecca and Ruth. Everything in readiness, Rachel pointed. Tredwell took his place at the head of the table, and then the others took their places, Caleb at the far end of the table, facing Tredwell. Without a word Tredwell clasped his hands and bowed his head, and the others followed, and Tredwell said, “For the bounties of this table we thank Thee, O Lord, and being safe together again. Bless us to use the strength from this food in doing Thy will. Amen.”
They all repeated their “Amen” and reached for steaming bowls and platters. For a time they ate in silence before the talk began, and then it came in a flood. Tell us about the trip. Were there any Indians? How far is Boston? Did you see ships? Were there any British soldiers?
In the midst of the talk, Tredwell turned to Rachel. “You heard about David Banes?”
She set her fork down. “I heard he went to court. What happened?”
“Deveraux gave him sixty days in debtors prison.”
Rachel gasped and everyone quieted as she asked, “Mullins? Was he behind it?”
“Yes.”
“Right at harvest time? Judge Devereaux did that?”
“He did.”
“Is Banes in jail?”
“He was until we got there this afternoon.” He gestured toward Caleb. “This man paid his debt, and the sheriff had to let him go.”
Rachel studied Caleb for a few moments. “That was a Christian thing you did.”
Caleb bobbed his head and said nothing, while the twins stared at him in surprise.
Tredwell went on. “That’s not all. When we got there, Brewster and two of his deputies were in an argument with half a dozen other farmers. They had ax handles and pitchforks, and things came close to a fight. That’s when Dunson stepped in. If he hadn’t, someone could have been hurt.”
Rachel paused for a moment, then looked about the table. “Eat. Food’s getting cold.” The children scooped up food on their forks, but they said nothing as they hung on every word from their father.
“Things are getting bad.” His expression mellowed for a moment, and as he continued speaking, Caleb sensed he was a torn man. “I know it isn’t the sheriff’s fault. Most likely it isn’t Mullins’s fault, either, or even Judge Devereaux’s. It’s just the way things has gone. Mullins’s business is lending money that he got from banks. You follow that money, and it leads back to England, and Holland, and maybe Spain. I think the trouble all started when those foreign banks saw this country had only paper money, so they demanded to be repaid in hard coin. Figured they could hurt us and at the same time get land here. When they made their demand, Mullins had to get the hard money, and the only way he could do it was to do the same thing—make us pay in silver—hard coin we haven’t got and can’t get.”
For a moment he stopped, and the room remained silent until he spoke again.
“But even if all that’s true, we don’t have a choice. I have to protect what we’ve got, no matter what. If we stand up to the sheriff and Mullins, maybe they’ll stand up to those banks, and if that happens, maybe the legislature or even the Congress will do something. I don’t know any other way.”
He stopped again for a moment, then finished. “I called for a meeting Monday night, after dark, at the church. I expect a lot of people will be there. The sheriff knows about it. I hope he has better sense than to start something.”
Rebecca murmured to her mother, “Can we go?”
Rachel said, “Your father will decide. Finish your supper.”
Deep dusk had set in by the time the women finished the supper dishes, and Rachel called the twins. “Church tomorrow, baths tonight. Get the tubs out. Rebecca, get the towels and soap. Nathan, string the curtains.”
Outside, the heavens were a black velvet dome filled with diamonds when Caleb got out of the huge wooden tub of lukewarm bathwater that had been used three times, dried himself off with clean flour sacks
, and dressed behind the curtains. He helped the twins dip the bath water from the tub and throw it outside into the yard. In bright moonlight they rinsed the tubs at the well and leaned them against the wall of the shed where the family stored their scythes and pitchforks. When Caleb returned to the house he approached Tredwell, seated in his rocking chair before the fireplace, lost in thought as he stared into the dying remains of the fire.
“If it’s all right, I’d like to sleep in the barn.”
Tredwell showed surprise. “We can make a bed in here.”
“I have writing to do. I’ll need a lantern.”
Tredwell’s forehead wrinkled in surprise. “Writing?”
“Make some notes of what I saw today. While it’s all there in my mind.”
Tredwell shrugged. “As you wish.”
It was close to midnight when Caleb put down his pencil and read the four pages he had written. Satisfied, he folded the papers, put them beside his shoes, turned the wick of the lamp down, and leaned back on his blanket. There was a slight rustle from the stalls where the two oxen lay, and then quiet, and Caleb drifted into a dreamless sleep.
Notes
For descriptions of the terrible circumstances that were ruining the farmers in Massachusetts as described in this chapter, see Bernstein, Are We to Be a Nation?, pp. 9, 70–71, 92–97 and Main, The Sovereign States, 1775–1783, pp. 452–54. For commentary on imprisonment for nonpayment of debts—debtors prison—see Nevins, The American States, 1775–1789, p. 456. For an excellent discussion of the practice of midwives and afternurses and “closing the loin,” as herein described, see Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale, pp. 165–91. A federal foundry and armory had been built at Springfield to cast brass cannon and store munitions, including thirteen hundred barrels of gun powder and seven thousand muskets and two hundred tons of shot and shell, as described herein (Higginbotham, The War for American Independence, p. 447).
Springfield, Massachusetts
Mid-September 1784
CHAPTER XXXV
* * *
The henhouse rooster furiously flapped stubby wings to reach the roof of the caged chicken coop, strutted to the ridge beam, extended his neck, threw back his head, and crowed his greeting to the gray dawn of a new day. Caleb joined Tredwell and the twins in the sunup feeding of the animals and milking of Troublesome, helped hook the oxen to the wagon, then took his place at the table for a breakfast of griddle cakes and maple syrup and buttermilk. Rachel handed him clean trousers and a shirt that were tight-fitting and brushed his coat while he dressed for church with the boys. They all stood in the kitchen for her inspection, then walked out to the wagon where Tredwell helped her onto the driver’s seat while the twins helped the girls into the wagon box with them and Caleb. On the ground, with the twelve-foot whip in hand, Tredwell called, “All ready,” and the whip cracked over the heads of the oxen. The big splay-footed animals bowed their shoulders into the yoke and the wagon jerked into motion with Tredwell walking beside, where he would remain until they reached the church. Behind were the two horses Hosea Abrams had given Tredwell to use for the trip to Boston, haltered and tied, plodding along with resigned disinterest.
With the white church steeple showing above the trees a quarter mile ahead, the twins sat tall in the wagon, and the girls came to their knees, counting the buggies and wagons and saddled horses collecting in the village, identifying each. The twins searched for the young ladies of the valley, while the girls watched for their confidantes and friends. Caleb smiled at the realization that gathering at the church in this valley on Sunday was for a great deal more than worship. Gossip, courtship, births, deaths, illness, accidents, whose cow had calved, whose mare had foaled, who was wearing improper clothing, whose bonnet was too fancy, who had left, who had come—it was all whispered or exclaimed and added to or detracted from according to needs or whims until everyone was satisfied they knew the absolute gospel truth about everything and everyone else within twenty miles, notwithstanding that no version of anything matched any other version.
The Reverend Roger Bennett preached a starchy sermon on the Golden Rule, humbled them by his declaration that each of them was in some particular failing in this great commandment, delivered a resounding closing prayer, and services were concluded. The congregation filed out into the glorious sunshine, with the surrounding forest showing every color known to mankind. The women formed into little groups, and the buzzing began, with ladies passing from group to group, with no one being spared. Isaac and Jacob and two neighbor boys their same age accidentally found themselves near the well where blonde, blue-eyed, sixteen-year-old Mary Jane Westerman, with a large gap between her two front teeth, and three other girls her age were gathered. Mary Jane and the girls grinned their pleasure and blushed and ducked their heads when the boys approached and pulled off their old black felt hats and said, “Mornin’.”
Rebecca and Ruth disappeared behind the church with half a dozen other girls their age, to giggle and exclaim and point and conjure up the most shocking ways their innocent minds could conceive to describe who had done and said what to whom, and why. Then they would shriek and throw their hands over their mouths and stare in feigned wide-eyed shock while their minds raced to invent new ways to make their startling contribution to the world of children, trying to be grown-ups.
The men gathered in the shade of the church, Caleb with them, to stand shifting their feet while they listened with stony faces to a recital of the arrest and jailing of David Banes, and they murmured aloud when Tredwell told of the anxious moments when five of the men with ax handles and pitchforks confronted the sheriff and two deputies with muskets in what could have exploded into mayhem. Heads turned to look at Caleb when Banes told of his twenty-dollar payment that prevented what could have been a disaster, and then Tredwell led them into a loud, warm, give-and-take exchange of how they should handle the meeting to be held the next night.
It was past noon when the women began to break away from their groups to find their offspring and husbands, and the wagons and buggies began to roll away in all directions. Caleb was aware that too many people were glancing at him, some quietly talking to those around them as they gestured toward him. He climbed into the Tredwell wagon and sat down, his back to the church, and waited for Tredwell to crack the whip and start the oxen for home. Hosea Abrams untied his two horses from the wagon, Tredwell nodded his thanks, and the whip whistled and popped.
The midday meal was ham and potatoes with bread and fresh cider, and when Rachel refused to let Caleb help clean up, he excused himself and went to his blanket on the straw in the barn to read his notes and add to them. He helped with the evening feeding of the livestock and milking of the old Guernsey cow, and once again went to his own blanket. In deep dusk, from somewhere to the west came the distant howl of a wolf, then another, and for a moment all else was forgotten as Caleb was irresistibly drawn to the ancient spell of the hunt. He saw in his mind the tireless pack, yellow eyes glowing, each taking their turn in the relay that would end in a trembling, exhausted deer or elk backed up to a rock or a tree stump, ready to fight a death battle it knew it could not win.
The law of this world: The strong kill the weak.
He stretched out on his blanket, jabbed at it until the lumpy straw beneath was smooth, then closed his eyes.
The morning eastern sky was gray when the barn door rattled and Tredwell entered. “Ready?”
Caleb followed him and the twins sixty yards north of the house, into the near edge of a twenty-eight-acre field of barley, heads full and golden-white in the oncoming sunrise. Tredwell and Caleb carried scythes, with whetstones thrust into their pockets. With the wisdom of a life spent learning the ways of nature, Tredwell reached to gather a handful of the heads, then clasped his palms together and rubbed them hard for ten seconds. He separated his hands, blew gently into the crushed mass, and watched the chaff lift and flutter to the ground. He opened his mouth to receive the clean, full heads and chewed them to a paste. T
hen he turned to the twins, eyes glowing.
“You were right. It’s ready.”
Without a word they walked to the west edge of the field, and Tredwell led out. Swinging his long, curve-handled scythe in the peculiar circular motion of one who knew, he started north, with the twins and Caleb behind, listening to the ‘ping’ sound as the blade sliced through the stalks. Caleb gave him a twenty-foot start, then followed, swinging his scythe next to the cut made by Tredwell. The twins gave Caleb a twenty-foot start, and then they began the monotonous, back-breaking labor of shocking the fallen stalks of grain—gathering an armload carefully to avoid knocking the heads loose, forming it into a bundle, using half a dozen stalks to wrap it, tying it, laying it down gently, then gathering the next armload, tying it, gathering the next, tying it.
Sweat was dripping by the time the sun rose, and chaff was sticking to their wet faces, necks, and arms. Tredwell and Caleb paused to run the whetstones five times down each side of the cutting edges of their scythes, then continue the rhythm of cutting. The sun was an hour high when Rebecca and Ruth came running, shouting, “Mama says come to breakfast.” They washed, ate in silence, laid down on the pine flooring for ten minutes, then strode back to the field. At one o’clock the girls came running again. They washed and ate a light midday meal, collapsed on the floor once again, and were back into the field twenty minutes later, working with the whetstones before they began the cutting.
Four hours later Tredwell squinted at the sun, surveyed with satisfaction the sixteen acres they had cut and shocked, looked at the eastern sky for any sign of storm, and said, “We better go in. We got evening chores, and a meeting to attend after. We’ll finish tomorrow and get it into the barn for thrashing.”
With the silent, deep satisfaction of those who work hard for the food on their table, the men washed and took their places at the table. Isaac offered grace, and they ate leftover ham, boiled turnips and squash, and drank cool buttermilk from the root cellar like the tired, ravenous men they were. Rachel watched with the pride of a wife and mother who understood her vital place in the family and who filled it well.
