Becoming Americans

by Donald Batchelor

  Low marshland lined the river on both sides and opened as they returned to the mouth of the Eastern Branch. Heading upriver, they were now in the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth. Here it narrowed, but still bore traffic to and from the settlements that sent up smoke on both sides.

  Richard whittled on his wood and watched the egrets wading in the water's edge or standing motionless in the marsh. He wondered if there was a number to describe the types of birds in this country. There could be no number large enough to name the quantity of geese that came here each year to feed themselves and to feed the colonists, and certainly not a number to name the pigeons that came in quantities that blocked the sun and broke the limbs of trees when the birds lighted. Stories abounded of the fish that jumped into the boats of fishermen. The crabs were numberless, and the oysters…and the sky was bluer in Virginia than anywhere. It truly was a land of plenty for the man who'd simply reach out and take what he wanted.

  The boat slowed as the wind moved to the south and west. The sailors picked up oars to help them reach their destination before the tide turned.

  Like Harper's hunting dogs, Richard lifted his head and sniffed the breeze. The hint of a new odor mixed with the smell of salt. It was a musky smell he'd learned back at the sodden head of Garden Creek of Pine Haven plantation: rotting logs and ferns and juniper and cypress. But here the land, which rose from the small bays and channels of dark water, was dry land.

  "It's the great swamp, you smell."

  Richard looked back to see Ingolbreitsen awake and staring at him.

  "The great dark sea of swamp that lies to the south of here. The barrier from here to the Southern Plantations," he said.

  "Who lives there?" Richard asked. "Is it beyond the line of settlement?"

  "Bears and snakes and great alligators and more snakes, dwell there. And giant cypress trees that rise sixty feet clean, before a branch. And song birds and giant juniper and deer and dark water that will stay fresh for six months. And what people there are, give not a damn for any line drawn by your Governor Berkeley. Such people as you'd not want to meet up with, my boy." He laughed.

  The boats tied up opposite a large creek that flowed from the western shore of the river. A slight man in clean and somber clothes met them at the pier.

  "Welcome, Captain Ingolbreitsen," the man said.

  "Hodges! Glad to see you again," replied the captain.

  "We were sorry to hear about the misfortune with last week's shipment, but are pleased to offer his hospitality to thee again so soon."

  To "thee!" He was a Quaker! Richard raised an eyebrow. Quakers were known troublemakers and they were outside the law. The captain of the Deliverance had refused to board a number of them who were being sent from Bristol against their will. The Friends brought bad luck and discontent.

  "And famous for his hospitality, your master is, Hodges. This is one of my men, Richard Williams. He's known to your master."

  "Thee art most welcome, too, young Richard. If thee both would follow me, then. I'll take thee to him thee call my 'master.'"

  Richard looked to Ingolbreitsen, who showed no sign of surprise or disdain. But, thought Richard, the Dutch were known as heretics, themselves.

  Stacks of shingles lined the pathway to the small building where the Quaker led them. The smell of boiling tar came from behind a row of hogsheads. Smoke rose from the pile of burning pine knots that Richard knew was smoldering behind the barrels.

  John Biggs was seated behind a table, quill in hand, working on his accounts. He rose to greet his visitors, then pulled them to the fireside to dispel the cool damp air of the late afternoon.

  "Bartholomew, you arrived early! Dinner will not be ready, but you'll drink a mug of rum punch, I wager. Ale for our young friend?"

  "You know I'd sink a whole ketch of shingles to return for your fine rum punch, John. The boy, though, will be helping load the boats after paying his respects to you, Mister Biggs."

  "It's an honor to set foot on your plantation, Mister Biggs. My master and my uncle will be proud for me when I tell them."

  "Well said, young man. We'll see you at our supper table, then."

  Richard stepped outside and ran back to the boat. This was no punishment, but God's reward for some unknown good deed he'd performed!

  Did Anne know he was here?

  He looked around, but could only see the chimney top of the manor house upstream, and beyond, the stacks of shingles and outbuildings of the plantation.

  Richard and the sailors and Biggs' men worked quickly in the fading light to load the boats before dark. They would set sail before dawn with the falling tide.

  Richard's toughened hands were bleeding from the task when the hurried work was completed. He returned to the building where he'd left the men.

  The Quaker was sitting at the table with the quill in his hand. He pointed out the path to the manor house for Richard.

  "Cleanse thy hands in the river first, my boy. John Biggs and his Anne would not be pleased by dripping wounds."

  Richard went back to the river and held his hands in the water until the bleeding stopped, then dried them on his breeches and hurried to the house.

  The windows beside the door were made of oiled paper, so Richard couldn't see inside. Neat rows of low shrubs lined a walkway to the door and surrounded the shingled house, hiding the low pilings and the bed of a small dog that ran out from beneath the house, yapping at Richard's feet as he knocked at the door.

  A woman opened the door, her scrubbed face smiling beneath a white skullcap. Her simple gray dress of homespun matched the breeches of the Quaker man.

  "Yes, Boy?" she asked.

  "Mister Biggs told me to come…" Richard began.

  "Thee must wait here," the woman said.

  Another Quaker!

  "Sarah, let the boy in."

  Richard heard Mister Biggs' voice.

  He stepped into the hall of this two-room house.

  Captain Ingolbreitsen and Mister Biggs were seated at the table smoking the longest clay pipes Richard had ever seen, as the Quaker woman busied herself with the final preparations of the meal. A young girl in a patched dress sat by the fire turning a spit with two chickens on it. A large stew pot simmered over the fire, and a smaller pot on legs stood over hot coals at the edge of the hearth. The girl's hair was tucked beneath a skullcap, and she was staring at the fire as she turned the spit with obvious and intense boredom.

  "Richard. Come tell me about the loading," Ingolbreitsen said.

  "Yes, Sir. Hello, Anne," he dared to add.

  Anne stopped turning the spit long enough for the birds to sizzle as she looked at him with surprise, then with a broad grin that he'd seen before.

  "Hello, Richard," she said. "There's no telling where you'll turn up, is there?"

  "Anne, mind your manners," her father said.

  Richard reported that the shingles had been loaded and secured, that they were good, solid shingles, and that the sailors had gone to the servants' quarters for supper.

  "Then sit quietly by the fire until we're ready to eat," the captain said.

  Richard glowed as he obeyed the order, and squatted by the wide hearth opposite the girl who looked like a child again tonight, he thought. That thought held some disappointment and frustration for him, as he'd begun to have grownup dreams about her and about their future.

  They spoke quietly as the men drank and smoked their strong-smelling pipes of oronoko.

  "How did you get up with him?" Anne asked softly, and nodded her head toward Ingolbreitsen.

  Richard quietly told her of the news since they'd talked at length, and that this trip had been arranged through a man who only recently was a freedman but who was now well-established.

  "A friend of his?" She nodded towards the captain again.

  Richard nodded, "Yes."

  She studied Richard.

  "So?" he asked.

  "You are such a child," she said, and looked away in dismissal.
>
  Richard was surprised and hurt then angry and frustrated at not being able to express it now, with the men sitting at the table laughing, and the Quaker woman glancing to the hearth every few moments. His clenched fist began to bleed.

  "Father!" Anne cried. "He's hurt his hand!"

  Richard was embarrassed and tried to hide his hand. When pressed, he explained about the cuts.

  "Anne, take a torch and lead the boy to Molly's cabin for some salve," her father said.

  "And be back instantly, thy supper's ready," the Quaker woman said with some suspicion in her voice.

  Anne led Richard out of the house by the light of a burning stick of lighterwood. Richard's silence forced her to speak first.

  "I'm sorry. I am. But I thought everyone knew about the various dealings of Captain Ingolbreitsen."

  "I know he's a trader with several boats and ships. I know your county's Commissioners think well enough of him to contract their building of a courthouse! The imaginings of a little girl who sits by the fire turning a spit could be of little interest to me!"

  "I said I'm sorry and I truly am. The last thing that I want to do is make you angry."

  Richard looked at her tortured face in the fire's light.

  "I'm not angry. Truly, I'm not," he said. Was he ever angry with her?

  "I want us to be friends, Richard. Remember that turkey-wing broom I made for you?"

  "I still have it at Pine Haven." He'd given it to Evelyn. "And I'm making you a gift. I'll give it to you the next time I see you." He would make her something. Something wonderful.

  She beamed in the torchlight.

  "How very thoughtful of you," she said.

  "But what about the captain?" Richard asked.

  "I only know what the servants say, and you know how servants talk and lie…."

  Richard stopped before he spoke and reassured himself that she wasn't talking about him.

  "I heard that he forges headrights," Anne went on. "And smuggles tobacco brought down the rivers and takes it directly to Europe without paying the King's duties. I heard that he was suspected of clipping coins and making new ones. I know that he's helped practicing Quakers and Dissenters escape the law when they were accused. The swamp is full of criminals and escaped servants that he's abetted! Your friend Sawyer must work with him."

  "That can't be true. Your father wouldn't be dealing with him. He wouldn't be smoking a pipe with him, feeding him…."

  "My father is a Christian man who has sympathies with the Quakers and other Dissenters. He says a man is innocent until they prove him guilty. And there never have been any charges made against Captain Ingolbreitsen."

  "Then no more of that talk," Richard said. "When we walk back to the house, the talk will be of when we might see each other next."

  Biggs' black slave Molly put a salve on Richard's cuts. She was the first African that he'd seen close-up. It was said that the Assembly, this year, would make Africans now in servitude, and those to come, servants—slaves—for life. And that their children would be slaves for life, and so on. He studied the face of this strange-looking woman and wondered if she knew what freedom was. There were people who said that these Africans were people just like him. He didn't think so. They were too different.

  Anyway, they would be more valuable if they were servants for life. A man who started with a few of these slaves could—if he had good, seasoned breeders— grow a stable of workers who'd not be leaving after they'd finally learned a useful and productive trade. They'd multiply, and a man could become rich from their labor!

  Molly bandaged his hand and looked him in the eyes. They were kind eyes that smiled at him, and they made Richard momentarily ponder the upsetting possibility that these Africans just might be fully human! He dismissed the thought.

  They hurried back to the house with Anne's dog circling them and barking at the odor of a stranger. Anne told him of the upcoming May Day Fair that was to be held at the Old Field near the parish church. Richard said he'd bring the present that he'd made for her.

  The young people ate in silence at the end of the table and, when they'd finished the pipe they were allowed after supper, Richard was sent to the servant's hut to sleep.

  He arose early in hopes that he might see Anne again before the journey back to the courthouse. She didn't appear, and he took the opportunity for a brief inspection of the near grounds of the plantation.

  The garden was neatly plowed, and early peas were in bloom. A fence surrounded the vegetable garden, and the geese who angrily honked at his passing wore yokes, fashioned from shingles with a hole cut for their heads. This prevented them from poking through the garden fence, but it didn't improve their dispositions.

  Flowers bloomed along the south side of the house and the powerful aroma of a first-breath-of-spring bush made him think of Pine Haven.

  Captain Ingolbreitsen found him squatting in the herb garden and motioned him to follow. The Captain proudly pointed to the row of bright tulips that bloomed within a neat, short fence of their own. Richard had never seen flowers so beautiful. The petals were like wax, or butter, or like velvet.

  "I give the child one tulip bulb each year. She likes beautiful things. Such beauty is expensive, my boy." He spoke the words to Richard like a warning.

  Anne came up behind them.

  "This is the one you gave me last fall, Captain," she said, pointing to the deep-red one that Richard thought of as velvet.

  "Your Quakers do exacting work," Ingolbreitsen said. "Everything is so orderly."

  "I do the gardening," Anne said. "They are my flowers. Today the gardening must wait, though, for I'm making soap. I always have luck with my soap. It always hardens. I make soap for the entire plantation. They depend on me," she said with satisfaction.

  "She's the hardest working child I've ever seen," the captain said to Richard.

  "I know the hard work and the courage of my grandfather and my father, Captain Ingolbreitsen. I'm grateful for the safety and the plenty that they've given me. Grandfather Ware says that gives me a debt of duty."

  Richard looked at her as if there were an old woman hiding in the child's body. Only old folks talked of "duty."

  "I think I like that one best," Anne said, pointing to the red tulip again. "Sarah says it's improper for a young girl to like such a color. Which one do you like, Richard?"

  He pointed to the blue one.

  "Blue has been my favorite color for two years and more," he said, and she blushed.

  "We must go, Anne, but maybe we'll see you at the May Day Fair," the Captain said.

  "You mean you may not be there?" she asked him with some worry in her voice.

  "That depends on how much work my men have done by then," he said.

  She gave Richard a severe and threatening look.

  "They will work hard, I'm sure," she said.

  The wind blew cold from the north and Richard and the Captain rowed with the sailors to get warm. The captain let him drink freely from the jug of rum, and by the time they stowed the oars to ride with the current, eating the bacon and fresh bread that Sarah Hodges had given them, the captain was speaking to him as if Richard were a man, though he still called him, "boy."

  "She could do worse than you, I suppose, but she most certainly could do better. And unless you've come by the means to impress Mister Biggs by the time she comes to the marrying age, she will do better. Have no doubts about that, my boy."

  "My Uncle John will help, I know. And I've worked with my cooperage to have a skill to hire out—like I'm doing with you, Captain Ingolbreitsen. And I'm open to do whatever it takes. She will be mine. I decided that over two years back. It can be done, gathering the wherewithal, I mean." He looked directly at the captain. "Robert Sawyer did it."

  Ingolbreitsen took another drink.

  "Maybe the sawyer worked harder than you do. Or maybe he was willing to take on tasks that you might shy away from, Boy."

  Richard waited until he had the captain's direc
t look.

  "Maybe not," he said defiantly, and with an air of knowledge.

  Ingolbreitsen bit a chunk from his rope of chew.

  "Work hard, Boy. We'll see," he said.

  On a night in late April, Richard was awakened by one of the English favorites of the Dutch. The pox-marked man motioned for him to be quiet, and they sneaked out of the hut, leaving the other five men sleeping on their beds of rushes and straw. Outside, the cloudy, moonless night was as dark as inside the windowless hut where the men still slept.

  He was led to a tent beside the water where two Dutch sailors and the other English favorites waited.