Hope's Journey

by Jean Rae Baxter

  Into her trunk went the old gown, to be saved for workaday wear. She paid Mary four shillings for the gown, leaving them both well pleased with the transaction.

  CHAPTER 16

  Ship Ahoy!

  Hope stayed at Mrs. Fairley’s sewing establishment for three nights. On the morning of her departure, Mrs. Fairley arranged for a boy to take Hope’s trunk to the harbour in a wheelbarrow. The streets were crowded. It seemed that everyone in town was heading in the same direction. There were people on foot and people on horseback and people driving wagons. The sky was blue, with a few scudding clouds. A perfect day for sailing to Niagara. Hope walked so fast that the boy with the cart had to jog to keep up.

  An official wearing a green frock coat and tricorn hat appeared to be directing operations. Hope went up to him and asked where passengers were to wait.

  “On the wharf.” He pointed to a wooden dock where a dozen people stood amongst their boxes and trunks. The boy trundled her small trunk onto the wharf and set it down. Hope paid him one penny, which was the amount Mrs. Fairley had suggested. The boy touched the brim of his hat and then ran off, the wheel of his wheelbarrow bouncing on the rough ground.

  Near Hope on the wharf stood a girl of about her age, also with a trunk at her feet. She was a plump roly-poly girl with shiny pink cheeks. Since she too was alone and obviously preparing to sail on the packet boat, Hope introduced herself and asked the girl where she was going.

  “I’m Selena Morris,” the girl said. “I’m going to Niagara to join my family. I haven’t seen them for seven years, and I’m so excited!”

  “What happened to keep you apart for so long?”

  “It’s because of the war. We were Georgia Loyalists. When the rebels took over Savannah, I became separated from my family during the evacuation. It was chaos. People were so desperate to escape that they were pushing each other out of the harbour boats that were carrying Loyalists to the British ships. There were dozens of ships and dozens of boats. The boat my family was in was overcrowded, so another came to take some people off. I was huddled on the floor of the first boat, on my hands and knees in water, and so terrified I couldn’t move. My mother thought my father had me. My father thought my mother did. They got into the second boat, but I didn’t.”

  “How could they fail to notice you weren’t with them?”

  “They had their hands full,” said Selena. “Mama had my baby sister in her arms. Papa had my two little brothers to look after, as well as our boxes. I was seven years old. If I hadn’t been terrified, I would have had the sense to stick close to them.” She shrugged. “But I didn’t. So that’s how it happened. The boat I was in went to one ship, and the boat with the rest of my family went to another.”

  “And then?” Hope asked.

  “When the boat I was in reached the ship, I looked around for my parents to help me up the ladder. When I didn’t see them, I was more scared than ever. I remember a man shouting, ‘Hurry up!’ Somebody gave me a hand climbing the ladder. The deck was swarming with people. I was running around bawling and asking if anyone had seen my mama and papa. Nobody had. A family named Doyle took me under their wing and comforted me. They looked after me all through the voyage. They had a boy and a girl close to my age. They told me that most of the evacuation ships were going to East Florida. Uncle Ned—Mr. and Mrs. Doyle asked me to call them Uncle Ned and Aunt Sally—said that when we reached East Florida, we’d be sure to find my parents. But we didn’t.”

  “Where had their ship gone?”

  “To Jamaica. But we didn’t know that. Most of the ships had gone to East Florida, but a few had gone to the West Indies.”

  “So you were in East Florida and your family was in Jamaica.”

  “That’s right. Neither knew where the other was. Uncle Ned and Aunt Sally didn’t like the climate in East Florida. After a couple of years, we left. We went first to Nova Scotia, and then moved west to Kingston. The Doyles treated me like one of their own children, but I kept the name Morris. We all hoped that someday I’d be reunited with my real family.

  “If my real family had stayed in Jamaica, I likely never would see them again. But my father is a merchant. He saw an opportunity to do business provisioning British forts. That’s what took him to Niagara. People go back and forth all the time between Niagara and Kingston. After a while, somebody put the two stories together: little girl lost her parents; parents lost their little girl. So here I am.”

  By the time Selena had finished her story, the harbour boat had left shore to fetch the passengers disembarking at Kingston. They were assembled on the deck of the Juliana with their boxes and trunks. The first person to leave the ship was an official carrying a black box with the words Royal Mail in shiny brass letters. The passengers then descended the ladder and seated themselves on the benches in the harbour boat. The sailors followed with the luggage.

  When the boat reached the wharf, it was again the official with the box of mail who was helped out first. He did not release his hold on the box at any time. Hope was glad to see him take such good care of the Royal Mail. It made her feel more confident that her letter had indeed reached Colonel Butler.

  Now it was time to embark. But before anyone else got into the harbour boat, the official returned carrying a box that looked the same as the one he had taken from the ship. The passengers did not climb into the harbour boat until he was seated. A cheerful young sailor helped Hope and Selena step from the wharf into the boat.

  “At last I’m on my way!” Hope said to herself as the boat pulled away from the wharf. Selena sat beside her, her dimpled hands clasped tightly on her lap. She glanced back over her shoulder several times in the direction of the throng of people standing on the shore.

  It took only a few minutes for the boat to reach the Juliana. As Hope climbed up the ship’s ladder, she was careful to keep any speck of dust or tar from touching her new gown. When all were aboard and the Juliana was ready to leave the harbour, Selena asked, “Will you watch my box while I wave goodbye to the Doyles?”

  “Gladly.”

  Selena rushed to the railing and began waving to the crowd on the waterfront. She did not stop waving until the schooner had left Kingston Harbour. When she rejoined Hope, she had tears in her eyes. “I’m going to miss them,” she sniffed. “For half my life they’ve been my family.” Hope sympathized, but only up to a point. It was hard to feel sorry for a girl who had not just one but two loving families.

  CHAPTER 17

  Swinging a Cot

  Selena wiped her eyes and gave one more sniff. “Let’s go below,” she said, quickly recovering her spirits. “We must claim our cots. I don’t want the spot next to the wall.”

  Hope didn’t know what Selena was talking about, but she followed her to the hatch and down a set of steep stairs that was little more than a ladder. A sailor helped them with their trunks, bumping them down from step to step.

  At the bottom of the stairs there were two doors facing each other across a corridor. A sign on one door stated, “Female Passengers.” The sign on the other door read, “Male Passengers.” When Selena opened the door of the cabin reserved for females, Hope saw a roomful of hammocks hung side by side from hooks screwed into the timbers on opposite walls. The hammocks were so close together that they almost touched.

  “See what I mean?” said Selena. “The last ship I was on, there was scarcely room to swing a cot. I had the spot next to the wall, so every time the ship gave a toss, I was flung against the wall. By the time we had sailed from St. Augustine to Saint John, I was black and blue.”

  “So that’s what you call a cot,” said Hope. “I thought a cot was a bed with foldable legs.”

  “On a ship, a cot is a long skinny net you sleep in. When nobody else is around, it’s fun to swing a cot.” Selena grabbed the side of a hammock, and sprang up like a bouncing ball. “Want to try it? Climb into the cot next to mine.”

  Hope followed her example, though her less practised leap almost s
ent her catapulting over the hammock to the other side.

  As soon as they were ensconced, Selena gave Hope’s cot a shove. “If we push and pull, we can get them swinging so fast you think we’ll turn upside down.” Hope wasn’t sure this was a good idea, but she was willing to try it.

  Soon they had the two cots swinging in unison, faster and faster, higher and higher. Selena shrieked with laughter. Hope, clutching both sides, felt her stomach lurch.

  Then the door opened. The woman who entered the cabin gave a gasp. “Good heavens! Are you trying to break your necks? This is no way for young girls to behave.”

  The man who followed her remained only long enough to set down a trunk before retreating.

  Hope gladly let her cot come to rest. She peeped over the edge. The woman had beady eyes, a tiny mouth and a double chin that quivered with indignation. “You are behaving like a pair of monkeys swinging in the trees,” she said and, without waiting for a response, left the cabin.

  “I’d like to be a monkey swinging in a tree,” said Selena. “There’s not much to do on a voyage. I’d rather swing than play whist.” She sat up and looked at Hope. “You’re white as a ghost. Didn’t you like swinging your cot?”

  “Not very much. At the top of the swing, I was afraid I’d fall out.”

  “You wouldn’t. But that doesn’t matter. If you don’t wish to swing, you don’t have to. I want to hear your story. So far, I’ve done all the talking.”

  Hope lay still for a minute, arranging her thoughts and letting her stomach settle. “It’s like this.” She began at the beginning with her father’s going off to war before her mother knew that another child was on the way. She told Selena about her birth in the forest, her childhood in the barracks, her year at the orphanage and the four months she spent looking after Mrs. Block. She ended with her plan to search for her father and her brother Silas at Niagara.

  Selena listened attentively, with only the occasional gasp of sympathy to interrupt the story. When Hope had finished, she said, “You’re brave to set out on your own, especially since you aren’t even sure you’re going to find them. And if you do find them, what if you don’t like them? I mean, they’ll be total strangers.”

  “Selena, I’m going to find them, and I’m going to love them, just as they’re going to love me. I know this the same way that I know the sun will rise tomorrow.”

  “I still think you’re brave,” said Selena.

  After a few minutes they went on deck. For the rest of the day, they watched the forest go by, mile after mile of green trees broken up by small farms and the occasional settlement. An awning had been rigged up on the deck for passengers who wanted to keep out of the sun. Sailors carried up from the galley steaming kettles of beans simmered in molasses, a stack of hardtack biscuits and a cauldron of tea. Some passengers had come aboard with their own food in wicker hampers. People sat under the awning to eat, as if it were a picnic.

  Hope and Selena remained on deck until the stars came out, and then they went below. They were the youngest of the six female passengers. Only a few years their elder was a bride on her way to join her husband. He was, she said, a corporal in the 24th Regiment of Foot stationed at Fort Niagara. She told them that only a few men were allowed to have their wives with them. She was happy to be one of the lucky few, although she did not look forward to her work as a laundress for the soldiers.

  There was also a quiet woman of middle years who impressed Hope with the elaborateness of her blue bonnet, which had a tall crown bound about with a wide silk ribbon and surmounted by an indigo plume that was two feet long.

  The oldest was a white-haired woman, who let the others know that she was on her way to visit her daughter in Queenston.

  The sixth female passenger was the stern woman who disapproved of girls swinging cots.

  Selena was eager to share her story with the others, but Hope remained silent, for she did not feel like speaking of her quest again.

  Before long, all talking ceased. The cots swayed gently in unison as the Juliana held its steady course.

  Hope lay awake, thinking about her father and Silas, but mainly about her father. Shutting out everything except the motion of the cot, she summoned from the depths of her mind the man whom she had spent her whole life imagining. Tall and thin. Brown eyes, black hair and bushy eyebrows. The smell of pipe tobacco. He regarded her tenderly, his arms ready to hug her. She went to sleep waiting for him to speak her name.

  During the night the wind dropped. When Hope went up on deck in the morning, she saw that the Juliana was not going anywhere. She rested at anchor near the mouth of a creek where a band of Indians was camped. Their bark-covered lodges looked like overturned mixing bowls with a hole on top.

  To pass the time, one of the male passengers brought his fiddle up on deck. He played “Devil’s Dream,” “The Girl I Left behind Me” and “The World Turned Upside Down.”

  The ship was close enough to shore for the Indians to hear the music. They must have liked it, for two of them came out in a canoe with a big basket of fresh fish, which they offered as a gift. The ship’s cook said he would fry it up for the passengers. Though a few passengers complained of the delay that resulted from being becalmed, most saw it as part of a traveller’s lot and treated it as a holiday. Hope had not had such a pleasant time for as long as she could remember.

  That night a fresh wind filled the sails again. In the morning, when Hope and Selena went on deck, the ship had reached the mouth of a steep-banked river. On the east bank stood a huge fortress. On the west side of the river there was a village. A man standing near Hope exclaimed to his companion, “See that cloud of mist rising in the distance? That’s the spray of the Falls.” So this was Niagara. They had arrived.

  Clinging to the railing, Selena hopped up and down with excitement, her round cheeks deep pink as she waved to the throng gathered on the wharf.

  Hope joined her at the railing. “Do you see your family?”

  The question was unnecessary. There could be no doubt about whom Selena was waving to. Two stocky little boys were holding between them a white banner on which was written “Welcome Home Selena.” A chubby little girl was dancing about. A man and a woman, the latter short and plump, waved energetically.

  The ship moored at the wharf. The gangplank was lowered. After giving Hope a hug, Selena rushed ashore. Hope hung back as a surge of loneliness swept over her. People of all ages were smiling and embracing. If only someone were there to welcome her!

  Then suddenly she saw a tall man with bushy eyebrows smiling in her direction. There he stood, one hand waving and the other holding a bunch of flowers. Had her wish been granted? For one delirious moment, it seemed that by some miracle her father had come to meet her.

  Yet all she had to do was turn her head to see that the object of the man’s attention was the person right behind her on the gangway. It was the quiet woman with the elaborate blue bonnet. She was waving to the man, the plume on her bonnet ducking and rising. Her eyes shone with happiness, and on the man’s face was an expression of equal joy. They rushed toward one another. At the bottom of the gangway, Hope had to dodge to avoid their embrace.

  After that, she did not feel so much disappointed as foolish while she waited for the sailors to bring her trunk off the ship. Even after it had been brought to her, she lingered on the wharf looking about. Before anything else, she had to find someone who could take her to Colonel Butler. It sounded simple enough, but she didn’t know where to start.

  CHAPTER 18

  Navy Hall

  After the other passengers had been taken away by families and friends and the sailors had returned to the ship, Hope remained on the wharf. She sat down on her trunk, wondering what to do next, when a freckle-faced boy with a wheelbarrow came her way. He said, “Do you need someone to carry your box?”

  She hesitated. Her trunk was small enough for her to carry for a short distance, but she did not know how far she had to go. “I might if I knew w
here I was going.”

  The boy lifted one eyebrow. “You must have some idea.”

  “I have to see Colonel Butler of the Nassau Militia.”

  “He’s likely at Navy Hall. For a penny, I’ll take you there.”

  She had money in her purse, the coins safe in the pocket that she wore under her gown, fastened by straps to a belt around her waist. When she put her hand on her side, it was reassuring to feel its shape.

  “Is it far?”

  He pointed to a cluster of wooden buildings. “That’s Navy Hall.”

  It was too far to walk while carrying her trunk. “Yes,” she told the boy, “I will hire you.”

  After the boy had loaded her trunk into his wheelbarrow, they started off. It took only a short time to reach Navy Hall. The boy stopped the first redcoat they met.

  “Can you tell me where we’ll find Colonel Butler?”

  The soldier motioned toward a two-storey, gambrel-roof structure that looked like a barracks. “Over there.”

  Hope followed the boy to the building. He picked up her trunk, carried it inside and set it on a bench outside a closed door. The penny paid and the boy gone, she sat down on the bench. From inside the door came two male voices in earnest conversation. She had no choice but to hear them.

  “I don’t mind if he changes the name,” came the deeper voice. “I’m proud of it, but whoever heard of a capital called Butlersburg? It lacks dignity. If Simcoe wants to call the town Newark, that’s all right with me.” He paused. “Mr. Hamilton, you and I have more important matters to worry about.”

  “Such as where he’s going to live.” Mr. Hamilton had a Scottish accent.