Halestorm

by Becky Akers

  Benson nodded. “Double your profits.”

  “Yes, sir, ’tis but simple economics. Hope we do as well with your ship.”

  “Mr. Daggett, you’ve probably hit on the truth of the thing. Have to ask my son if the men arguing in favor are going to be teaching after this. He told me their names and pointed them out to me. One of them’s from your part of Connecticut, I think, a Nathaniel Hill or some such.”

  “Hale? Nathan Hale?”

  “That’s the one.”

  But if Nathan were speaking, Alice was bound to be here. “I know him. A bigger fool I never hope to meet.”

  “I thought so. They stuff their heads so full of Horace-this and Plato-that there’s no room left for common sense. Least this’ll be more diverting than the Latin this morning. I don’t know why they have to chatter on for hours when none of us can understand them.”

  That afternoon, following hymns and prayers and more addresses, Nathan Hale and Benjamin Tallmadge climbed onto the stage with Ezra Samson and William Robinson. Guy sneered as Nathan’s voice rang through the room. “Resolved: that the education of daughters is neglected in favor of their brothers for no good reason.”

  Two girls in the first row began clapping, captivated by the speaker’s looks more than his sentiments, or Guy missed his guess. Hale could claim King George sported asses’ ears and the silly things would believe him because his teeth shone white and his skin was translucent rather than pockmarked.

  Other ladies joined the applause until the hall resounded. Hale waited gracefully. He was not discomfited as most men would be, with no idea of what to do with their hands and feet.

  When he could be heard, Nathan continued. “These days, we’re clamoring for liberty, but aren’t we depriving our mothers and sisters of their freedom with laws against educating them? We wouldn’t restrict the liberty of a lady who doesn’t want to read Homer by decreeing she has to. So we ought not violate the liberty of those wishing to study Greek by decreeing they can’t. ’Tis tyranny to tell one person that he must learn or another that she may not.” Hale took his seat to cheers from the ladies and even some of the men.

  Ezra Sampson rose to argue the other side. The sea of faces and the approval lavished on his opponent plainly unnerved him, and he quavered incomprehensibly. Guy soon tired of the spectacle. He was also loath to watch the girls swarm Nathan Hale afterwards. Before he left, he searched the crowd once more for Alice without success.

  He retrieved his horse and mused on her whereabouts. Was she ill? She would have to be sick unto death to miss this event, and then her mother would have been at her bedside, not here in New Haven. Perhaps her husband had forbidden her to go. But he would have had to hog-tie and gag her, and Ripley did not look the man for that. Alice was a spirited woman, determined to have her way. Her absence could only mean that she had chosen not to come. And that said she no longer cared for her brother.

  Guy took but a day and a half to reach Coventry. His belief in Alice’s change of heart spurred him onward as mercilessly as he did his horse. At his farm, he shook the dust from his clothes before visiting a barber. Then he brushed the hay and dirt off his chaise, the one in which he had courted Alice.

  He had never been inside Elijah Ripley’s mansion on the Willimantic River, though he had often ridden past. It was a paean to the latest English style, perfectly symmetrical, with a gambrel roof and pediments over the windows. He reined to a halt before it and heard Elijah out back, shouting orders for loading the sloop anchored at his landing. Good: Alice was alone.

  A maidservant answered Guy’s knock and showed him to the parlor. He had barely examined the harpsichord in the corner, heart hammering, hands clammy despite September’s heat, when steps sounded in the hall, and Alice stood on the threshold.

  He had never thought she might be pregnant, and he was shocked at what it had done to her. It was like hitching a thoroughbred, born for racing, to the plow. She stared defiantly, daring him to comment, and straightened her mobcap. He could have wept at the drab hair seeping from beneath it.

  He coughed to hide his horror and reminded himself that she would not languish like this forever. Once she birthed the child, and recovered, she would be as comely as before. “Ah! Mrs. Ripley, I believe. I’ve come to congratulate you on your fine catch.”

  Alice glanced over his shoulder, out the window. Since destroying Nathan’s letters, Elijah had treated her with courteous contempt. Meals were silent, torturous affairs. Days passed with fewer than a dozen words exchanged. At night, he huddled on his side of the bed while she relaxed on hers, at last finding some benefit in the whole mess. If he discovered Guy Daggett here in the parlor—

  “Please, Mr. Daggett, my husband—he’ll hear, he’s—”

  “Around back. I know.” He took her hands and smiled into her eyes. “Alice, I still care for you, you know.”

  “But I’m married.”

  He tipped his head back and laughed. “And that’s supposed to stop me? Alice, just because you’re married doesn’t mean we can’t, ah, visit. We’ll have to be discreet, sure, but we can still…visit.”

  She studied him, confused but flattered. And she wanted Guy to call on her, to enliven the evenings when she sat with only Elijah for company, when she feared she might go mad with longing.

  “So,” he said, “what do you hear from your honorable brother?”

  She blushed and disentangled her hands from his with another look at the window. “Mr. Daggett, really, I—”

  “You have a jealous husband, Mrs. Ripley?”

  “I—I have one who—who dislikes Tories.”

  “Ah, and what’s he think of ladies who love their brothers?”

  “Mr. Daggett, please, go away. He—I’m afraid of what’ll happen if he—if he finds you here.”

  “He’ll have to get used to seeing me here, Mrs. Ripley. I’m back, I expect to stay for a while, and I’m going to be visiting you a lot.”

  This was the Guy she remembered, determined, confident, in love. Happiness sparkled inside her.

  He bowed, then slapped his tricorn atop his head. “Good day, Mrs. Ripley.”

  That afternoon, Guy considered how best to seduce Alice as he inventoried his farm. He would proceed slowly, as slowly as his herd of cattle was growing, with only two calves born over the seven months of his absence. His chickens were in worse shape: not one remained to flutter and peck in the barnyard. A pity Elijah Ripley hadn’t fallen prey to the eagles and foxes that had carried off his poultry.

  Worst of all was discovering that his well had gone dry. Such ludicrous things happened in these colonies. Ladies yearned to marry their brothers, royal officials sported tar and feathers for discharging their duties, and wells that had given water since his great-grandfather’s day suddenly quit. He must hire a new one dug. He sighed. That was an expense he could ill afford.

  Nathan sat his horse on the bank of the Connecticut River and surveyed Haddam’s Landing. Shipbuilding yards flanked the town, the workers’ hammers and saws flashing in the sun. Through the trees, he spied a red building that might be the schoolhouse. A handful of taverns lined the main road. He wiped his brow. A glass of cider after the dust and heat of the ride would be a taste of heaven. He could inquire for the school, too. He was eager to begin his tenure there, in a place that had never known Ally, that might even hold a girl who could cure his loneliness. He nudged the General down the rocky incline.

  Nathan dismounted at the first ordinary. It was three in the afternoon, during harvest, and the taproom was empty save for the proprietor. He stood at a desk in the corner, a ledger before him. Nathan dug a copper from his pocket, and the man glanced at him over his spectacles. “What can I get you, friend?”

  “Cider, please.”

  When his host set the mug before him, Nathan raised it with a nod to him.

  “You the new schoolmaster?” the man asked.

  He smiled. “I’m that easy to peg?”

  “Naw. Just didn�
��t think you’s come to work in the shipyard.” The man laughed, and Nathan wondered whether he intended compliment or insult. “Well, you’ll have your hands full, friend. The last master just about killed the birch outside the school door, he cut so many switches from it. Where you boarding?”

  “With the Snow family.”

  “Fine woman, Mrs. Snow. Ain’t too many cooks good as her. But she’s had a rough time of it since her husband died, even with her mother and aunt staying there with her. Those two old biddies can talk the wings off a bee, I swear. And you want to watch out for her boy, Matt. Anytime there’s mischief a-brewing, Matt’s at the bottom of it, that’s sure. He about drove the last master to madness, what with all his tricks. Couple of weeks ago, he sprinkled gunpowder in the schoolroom’s hearth. Scared the master so bad when he lit the fire he took off running, and we ain’t seen him since. Matt’s a expert at all your everyday tricks, too, like putting spiders down the girls’ backs in Meeting and suchlike. And then, one time, long about two month ago—”

  “You tell me where the schoolhouse is?” Nathan swallowed the rest of the cider and got to his feet.

  “Go down the road here about half a mile. Then, at the fork, you’ll see it sitting there, on a piece of hardscrabble land ’tweren’t no use for farming. It’s a red building, out of wood, like all of them hereabouts.”

  The school was as described, with a scraggly tree marking the door. Nathan stepped inside to see a fireplace, its bricks pitted and scarred, at the rear of the room. A table occupied the front, with two birch rods across it. Four rows of wooden benches marched from desk to hearth.

  “You the new master?”

  He turned to see a boy of his brother David’s size lounging barefoot in the doorway.

  “That’s me. I’m Nathan Hale.”

  “I’m Matt Snow. Wanna see my pet frog?”

  Nathan was wary. The frog was probably a bit of wood, carved to resemble a frog’s head and back with a prong running from it to stick in a ball of horse’s dung. Matt produced a dirty handkerchief and unwound it. “Hold out your hand, master, ’cause he’s a lively one, and he’ll hop away, you don’t catch him.”

  “You know what’ll cure that, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Kiss him. Roll him over, on his back, and give him a big kiss right on his belly. That settles them down. Least,” he shrugged, “that’s what my brother always says. He’s about your age.”

  Matt regarded him, the frog forgotten, then grinned. “I bet he already played this on you, huh?”

  “Maybe I played it on him.”

  Matt digested that in respectful silence before asking, “You know any other jokes?”

  Nathan rolled his eyes. “So many, Matt, it’ll take years for the telling. Good thing I’m boarding with you. We can swap tricks.”

  “Got a dandy place to catch spiders I can show you. It’s right outside our barn. ’Course, you have to fight with the chickens sometimes for them, but still, I get lots of them there, those ones with real long legs that make the girls scream loudest. Say, don’t you think God musta laughed real hard when He made spiders, on account of He knew He’d be making girls someday. You don’t have one, do you? A girl, you know, a wife?”

  When Nathan shook his head, Matt nodded with satisfaction. “Thought you’s too smart for that. Come on, I’ll take you home. Mama’s anxious for you to get here. She’s been baking all week, but she wouldn’t let any of us have none of it, not even a bite. Ain’t that mean? But I fixed her. I throwed a dead mouse in one of her cakes when she wasn’t looking and Grandma was out visiting, afore she baked it.”

  The Snows’ house was a sunny place afloat on a sea of flowers. Mrs. Snow was as cheerful as her garden, though her smile became a pucker at sight of her son. She had laid a welcoming tea in her parlor and escorted Nathan to it proudly. As she poured, he eyed the three cakes crouching round a vase of roses.

  She passed a cup to him and said, “Now, Master Hale, which cake do you want? There’s plum, and a nice sponge, if I do say so myself, and this one here’s spiced. Or maybe you’ll take a piece of all three?”

  Nathan glanced at Matt, sucking the finger he had swiped along the edge of the plum cake. “What do you recommend, sir?”

  “All three!”

  Mrs. Snow cut a generous wedge from the spice cake. “Will you be taking all your meals with us, Master Hale?”

  That depended on how often her son helped in the kitchen. Before he could answer, Mrs. Snow gasped “Mercy!”, clapped a hand to her mouth, and collapsed onto her chair. Matt was on his feet and would have bolted from the room but for Nathan’s hand on his shoulder.

  “Now, Matt,” he said. “You went to a lot of trouble with this one. You had to catch the mouse and wait for just the right time to drop it in the batter. No need to rush off now the whole thing’s coming to fruition. Stay and enjoy it. Wouldn’t you agree, ma’am?”

  Mrs. Snow fanned herself with her apron, beyond speech.

  Nathan continued, “I’d say you’ve earned a big piece of cake, Matt, if your mother will allow it.”

  She restrained her shudders enough to push the pastry toward Nathan. He scooped the mouse and some crumbs onto a plate and passed it to Matt. “There you are. Please go ahead. Don’t wait for us.”

  “I—I don’t want it.”

  “No, I guess not.” He nodded sagely. “Man smart enough to know where the best spiders are wouldn’t eat this. Tell you what. Give me your word of honor that you’ll leave your mother alone when she’s cooking, and you can go feed this to the pigs.”

  Matt trudged from the room. Mrs. Snow whisked the spice cake off the table and cut slices from the other two. “You were wonderful with him, Master Hale. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “’Twas done from self-interest, ma’am. I don’t want to find all kinds of creatures in my dinner while I’m here.”

  “He’s a good boy, Master Hale, but I’m about at my wit’s end. He was a handful before his father died, but since then, well...Even Mother can’t do a thing with him, though of course she only raised girls. And Aunt Rice never married, so she’s no help at all. I think he needs a man’s touch.” She passed him a plate overflowing with cake. “Oh, and that reminds me. They asked me to make their apologies, Mother and Auntie, if you got here before they did. They’re out calling on Mrs. Flash. She just had another baby, you know, her sixteenth, and all but one of ’em alive and healthy to this day, if you can believe it.” Mrs. Snow shook her head, marveling at such a feat. “Master Hale, I started to ask before: you going to want all your meals with us? I’ll understand if you say no.” She smiled bravely, and he knew she was picturing her disgrace when the town learned he was boarding elsewhere.

  “On the contrary, ma’am, I hear you’re the best cook in Haddam’s Landing, at least when Matt’s busy someplace else.”

  Her courage turned to pleasure. “They told me you were a smooth one, Master Hale, and your fine talk’ll take you miles with me. But you’re probably tired after your ride. Let me show you your room.” She swished into the hall and up the stairs, pausing at a door on the landing. “This one’s the warmest even if it’s not the biggest.”

  A small bedstead and chair stuffed the chamber. Two candlesticks sat on the windowsill, and a chair-lamp filled with whale oil perched on a bedpost. No books enlivened the tiny room, but he would soon remedy that. He nodded to her with a smile. “This’ll be fine, Mrs. Snow.”

  “’Tis a small bed.”

  He took it for an apology and started to say it would do, when she interrupted.

  “No, sir, I mean, it’ll hold only one. I wouldn’t mention it, you look like an honorable man, but the last master—Mother caught him trying to bring his lady friend up here. I won’t have it.”

  “Mrs. Snow, I—”

  “A man with your looks, well, I imagine the girls don’t leave you alone. But not in my house, sir. Now please forgive me, we’ll say no more about it. Dinner’s a
t four, but supper’s at your convenience, just let me know in the morning, if you please. Your washing’s included in the charge for the room.”

  Early the next day, Nathan stood before some thirty pupils. Most could read, and half knew some Latin. His predecessor, a sour man named Slocum, had been a martinet to judge by the stiff posture and blank faces that greeted him. Even Matt sat subdued on his bench.

  Nathan smiled, said he had been sitting in their place not long before and knew how it was. Furthermore, their fathers had hired him to teach gentlemen. He would excuse anyone who did not so comport himself from their company. A forest of skinny arms waved at him.

  “You saying you ain’t gonna whip us, sir?” asked the boy beside Matt.

  “No, Mr. Crookson, no whippings. You might keep that between us or your fathers’ll want to fire me.” Only a few boys smiled: Master Slocum had not approved of high spirits in school. “’Tis your job to learn and mine to teach. We both uphold our end of things, we’ll enjoy our time together. But anyone wants to shirk his part might as well abandon his post.”

  “So even if we answer wrong, we ain’t gonna get whipped?”

  “No, but answer wrong and you get The Wool.” He slipped his hand in his pocket and came from behind his desk to lean against the front. “Mr. Covington, how about helping me demonstrate The Wool?”

  He chose Asa Covington because of a story Matt Snow had told last night. “Old Man Slocum hated him. Don’t know why. He’s kinda ugly, but he ain’t mean or nothing. Once Asa even said it was him that stuffed hay down the chimney so’s it’d smoke, and it wasn’t. It was me. He got beat so bad that time he’s still got a scar. He shows it to us sometimes at recess.” A boy that heroic deserved some encouragement, and he smiled reassuringly as Asa staggered to his feet. But however he smiled, Asa looked sick.

  “Mr. Covington, I’m going to ask a question, and I want you to say, ‘Three,’ no matter what the answer really is.” Nathan removed his hand from his pocket. “Now, sir, what are one and one added together?”