by John Demos
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Puritan Girl, Mohawk Girl is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the actual people, events, and locales that figure into the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4197-2604-0
eISBN 978-1-68335-150-4
Text copyright © 2017 John Demos
Illustrations copyright © 2017 Greg Ruth
Book design by Pamela Notarantonio and Melissa J. Barrett
Cover illustration © 2017 Greg Ruth
Cover design by Chad W. Beckerman
Cover copyright © 2017 Amulet Books
The artwork on the facing page and used throughout the book is based on a wampum from the collection of the Library of Congress. Wampum: To-ta-da-ho belt—diamonds in center said to be a covenant chain signifying alliance of towns. Call Number: LC-B2- 29-15 [P&P].
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PREFACE
When Christopher Columbus and other explorers got to America from Europe, they found millions of people already living there. They didn’t know where they had landed, or who those people were. They thought perhaps they had reached the Indies, a group of islands in Asia; that’s why they called the natives Indians.
After a few years, as more and more Europeans came over, they realized that America had nothing to do with Asia, and that these Indians were a completely different group. They saw America as a “new world.” They settled on the land and claimed it for themselves. They started farms, villages, and towns. They organized “colonies” that belonged to their home countries in Europe. They didn’t ask permission from the Indians; they just went ahead with their plans. They viewed Indians as inferior to themselves—as “savages” living in a primitive way.
In fact, the Indians and Europeans each claimed certain advantages over the other. Europeans took pride in their sturdy wood houses, their skills in making cloth and ironware, and, most of all, their Christian religious faith. Indians were better at growing crops, at moving about in the wilderness, and at hunting and fishing; moreover, they were confident in their own religious practices. Both sides were eager for trade. For example, Indians would offer the fur pelts of beavers and other animals caught in the forests, while Europeans gave woven blankets, iron pots and knives, and glass beads in return.
The earliest European colonies were founded around the year 1500 in Central and South America and the islands of the Caribbean Sea, by people who came from Spain and Portugal. Then, in the 1600s, English men and women began coming to places along the Atlantic coast of North America that are now within the United States. At about the same time, the French founded a colony in what is Canada today.
The various European countries involved in this colonizing were often at war with each other. And whenever that happened, their colonies were dragged in, too. Some of the bloodiest wars were between the English in New England (the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine) and the French in eastern Canada. They were rivals for the land, as well as in religion. The French were Catholics; the English were Protestants. The Catholic Church had been the only one in Europe for many centuries. But in the early 1500s, some of its members split off and started their own church; they became the Protestants. Each side thought of itself as the only true religion; each condemned and hated—and sometimes fought with—the other. This was true in the colonies of America just as it was in Europe.
As time went on, native peoples were pulled into these struggles. Though their populations were going down throughout the 1600s and 1700s—mostly because so many died of diseases brought over by the colonists—Indians were still a force to be reckoned with. Their biggest, most powerful grouping in eastern North America was the Five Nations of the Iroquois. Each of the five lived separately, but cooperated with the others in trade and warfare. (In 1722, one more nation was added, and the Five became Six.) Their territory covered much of what today is upper New York State. Most of this group were friendly toward the English colonists and bitterly hostile to the French. There were, however, several small clusters, chiefly Mohawks (one of the original five nations) who had left their homeland and moved northward into Canada. There, they became allies and trading partners of the French. Some lived in what were called missions, villages founded by French priests with the aim of persuading as many of them as possible to become Catholics.
In the early 1700s, England and France began a war that would go on for about ten years. Almost immediately the fighting spread to their American colonies—New England against French Canada. Some of the Iroquois sided with the English and others chose to stay neutral, while the Mohawks in Canada actively joined the French. There were bloody raids back and forth. Whole villages were destroyed, and hundreds of people were killed. The “French Mohawks” (as they were now called) captured many colonists, especially in New England, and took them to Canada. Some would be returned in exchange for ransom, but others were held for years—decades even—and adopted into native families. Quite a few would never go back to their homes; in many ways, they became Indians.
This book is about one of the captives, the most famous of all: a child with the English name of Eunice Williams. If somehow we could visit New England in the 1700s, we’d hear about her from the people living there. Almost everyone knew her story.
PART ONE
PURITAN GIRL
CHAPTER ONE
WINTERTIME
“Listen!” Eunice said, sitting up straight. “Don’t you hear that rustling sound out by the summer garden?” It was midnight. Beside her in the little wooden bed, her older brother Stephen lay snuggled beneath a heavy quilt. She nudged his shoulder, and he woke up. “Listen,” she said again, lowering her voice to a whisper. He nodded and cocked his head to one side. Together they strained to hear. She was seven, he was ten. The rest of their family was fast asleep.
Eunice climbed out of bed and tiptoed to the window. Outside the moon shone brightly, making the trees cast long shadows across the snow. As the wind blew, the shadows moved from side to side; one was shaped like a crouching person. Eunice’s eyes moved with it, sensing danger. But when she looked some more, everything seemed normal. She was about to turn away when she heard it again—the same sound, but clearer now, more like a crunch than a rustle. At the window, she again peered out. Then she saw, off to the left, a tall figure walking slowly back and forth, his boots breaking the crust on the snow. A musket was tilted over his shoulder. He was the night watchman, standing guard. Feeling relieved, she climbed back into bed.
Her people—in the town called Deerfield, which was part of the English colony of Massachusetts—were at war with the French up in Canada. It was the winter o
f 1704; enemy soldiers might be coming any day. Her father, Reverend John Williams, had warned her, and told her to stay close to home. “Mark my words, child,” he said, “no one is safe. We must pray to our Lord for protection every day.” Her father was a minister and town leader; whatever he said must be obeyed.
Some of the Indians were enemies, too. They knew the forest better than anyone; they could blend into the trees and move without sound. You couldn’t tell they were there till it was too late. They liked to attack in the dark, when the townspeople were sleeping. That’s why Deerfield needed a night watchman.
The next morning dawned bright and cold. Eunice and her older brothers trudged through the snow to the small red house where Granny Hinsdale ran the village school. Inside, all the children sat in rows on wooden benches. They were of different ages, ranging between about six and fourteen. The teacher divided them into groups and made different lessons for each one. Eunice and the other littlest children were learning the alphabet. Each had what was called a hornbook, a small, flat piece of wood with a piece of paper pinned to it that was covered with see-through strips of cow’s horn; on the paper, all the letters were written. The children would read and recite the letters aloud from A to Z, sounding like a chorus. The older children were practicing numbers—adding, subtracting, counting to a hundred. At the end of the morning, they all stopped what they were doing and listened as the teacher read them stories from the Bible. She read the same story three times, then told the children to recite it back to her in the same words. Eunice had a good memory and could do this quite easily. “You are a smart child,” the teacher said to her. “It’s God’s gift to you; use it well.”
After they got home, Eunice and Stephen put on their warmest clothes and went out in the yard to play. Together, they piled up snow to make a fort. They broke off tree branches to use as pretend muskets. They got their brothers, Samuel (who was thirteen) and Warham (who was four), to act like enemies coming at them through the woods. Eunice and Stephen hid in the fort, then sprang up with a shout, pointing their branch muskets. Warham fell on the snow, pretending to be dead, but then got up and danced around. Stephen said a little crossly, “Stop your fooling; this is serious! The French and Indians might really be coming. We’ve got to be ready.”
Throughout that month it snowed and snowed. Most days after school, the Williams children played for a while and then went about their chores. The older boys would go to the barn to feed the animals and clean their stalls, while Eunice stayed in the house to help with women’s work.
On some afternoons Eunice chopped vegetables for a stew her mother was making for supper. When she was finished, she would go to the hearth, stand on her tiptoes, and dump the whole lot into a big kettle that hung from a hook in the chimney. She had to be careful around the burning embers, though. Once when she went too close, her skirt caught fire. Luckily, Samuel was nearby and threw a pail of water on her to make it stop. She wasn’t hurt, but the skirt was ruined.
Another of Eunice’s chores was pushing the handle on a wooden churn that turned cow’s milk into butter. Up and down it went till her arms ached and her fingers grew stiff. Sometimes she closed her eyes and tried to distract herself by humming tunes she had learned from one of her cousins in Boston.
When she had time, she also sewed. She was making what people called a sampler. This was a square piece of cloth on which she stitched colored threads to form letters and numbers, along with flowers on the edges. When at last it was done, she sewed at the bottom: Eunice Williams of Deerfield Her Sampler Finished 11 of January 1704 in the 8th Year of Her Life.
That was the pattern on weekdays, but Sunday was completely different. They called it the Sabbath, which meant it was all about God. No one did regular work. Instead, they spent hours in church, first in the morning, then again in the late afternoon. Whole families went there together. The grown-ups sat in long pews, with the men on one side and the women on the other. The children were up in the balcony with a man called a warden making them behave. If they talked or giggled, he lifted his cane and rapped them on the knuckles. Eunice always sat beside her friends Martha French and Mercy Carter; in the wintertime, when it was cold in the church, the three girls snuggled together under a large blanket that covered all their legs and laps. Eunice’s father stood down in front and led everyone in prayers. He also preached sermons that went on and on; sometimes it was hard to stay awake.
The church was for Protestants, like all the others in New England. Some people called them Puritan because they tried to practice an especially “pure” kind of religion. The way Eunice understood it, you were supposed to think only good thoughts and to love God even more than your own family. In fact, she did better than most. She said her prayers every night, and always tried to treat other people with respect. People said she was a true Puritan girl.
CHAPTER TWO
A BABY SISTER
As the winter went along, Eunice’s mother was expecting a baby. Her stomach grew bigger and bigger. She didn’t always feel well, and sometimes had to spend all day in bed. When that happened, a dark-skinned woman named Parthena who had lived with the family for several years took charge of the children. In some ways Parthena was a second mother to them; they loved her, and she loved them back. Every morning she would brush out Eunice’s long blond hair and form it into a beautiful braid. Often she told fascinating stories about life in Africa, where she had been born and raised. She didn’t mention being captured away from her own family, brought by ship to America, and sold as a slave. And Eunice never thought to ask her about it.
There was lots to do before the baby came. Parthena went to the attic and got the cradle they used when the other children were born. Mice had gnawed a large hole in the bottom, so it had to be fixed. There were clothes to find and arrange, and bands of heavy cloth they would wrap around the baby’s whole body—what they called swaddling—to keep it warm and safe.
Many of their neighbors helped with the preparations. Goody Nims brought a wool blanket she had made last summer after the sheep were sheared. (“Goody,” short for “goodwife,” was what married women were called, while “Goodman” was how you referred to a man.) Goody Allen and Goody Corse had both made pincushions with embroidered designs, a common gift when a baby was about to arrive. Goodman Barnard and Goodman Field brought firewood to use in cooking and for keeping warm. Eunice and her brothers piled it in a tall stack beside the barn.
But the most important person in all this was the village midwife, Goody Frary. She was an older woman no longer able to bear babies of her own but skilled in helping others have them. From time to time she would stop in to see how Eunice’s mother was doing. The two of them had been friends for years; Goody Frary had delivered all the Williams children. This was a comfort since giving birth was risky; you couldn’t be sure of how it would go. Every evening the family sat together at their dinner table and prayed for the safety of both baby and mother. Eunice tried not to worry, but she couldn’t help thinking how terrible it would be if something went wrong and either the baby or her mother died.
Finally, on an afternoon near the end of January, Mrs. Williams felt the start of labor pains; the baby was coming! Reverend Williams went off in a hurry to get the midwife, who lived at the other end of the village. Snow was falling as he rolled the carriage out of the barn and harnessed two horses to pull it. Soon the flakes became so thick he could hardly see. But he made it through and found Goody Frary eating her supper. As soon as he appeared, she knew the reason. She grabbed her overcoat and rushed to the carriage; there was no time to lose.
While this was happening, Eunice went out to call several of the neighbors. When someone gave birth, it was the custom for other women to help the midwife. Eunice ran from house to house telling them: “The baby is coming! My mother’s pains are getting stronger! Please come quickly!” Within minutes Goody Allen, Goody Nims, Goody Hawks, Goody Sheldon, Goody Corse, and Goody Munn were all there at the Williamses’ door. At
almost the same moment the carriage pulled up, bringing Eunice’s father and the midwife.
Now they all went to the “borning room” at the back of the house. This was a little room used only for giving birth. Parthena and the neighbor women spread blankets on a bed in the middle. They brought towels to use when the baby was coming out. And they filled pails of water for washing up when it was over. Goody Frary had a little bag of ointments and medicines that she arranged, one by one, on a bench in the corner. Mrs. Williams walked slowly into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. Her pains were increasing, but it wasn’t time quite yet. The others hugged her and promised to do their best.
Then they made a circle around the bed, held hands, and lowered their heads. Reverend Williams came in from the parlor to lead them in prayer. “Almighty God,” he said in a trembling voice, “have mercy on all your servants gathered in this room, and especially on my dear wife and the child whose life is about to begin. We pray that they be preserved in good health, to join the faithful here on earth for years to come. But if, instead, they must go now to sit beside you in heaven, we will say with all our hearts ‘the Lord’s will be done.’”
After he finished, Reverend Williams went back to the parlor, where he and the rest of the family would wait. The children were very excited and tried not to worry too much. Eunice and Stephen played games of pick-up sticks and marbles to distract themselves. Every so often they would lean toward the door, eager to hear some hopeful sound—maybe even a baby’s cry.
Meanwhile, inside the borning room, Mrs. Williams lay back on the bed and closed her eyes. The other women stood on either side of her, rubbing her neck and shoulders and humming soft tunes. Then, when the baby was close to being born, they called to her: “Push! Push! Push!” And so she did. Moments later the midwife said, “Look, here comes the baby right now!” She held it gently in the palms of her hands and lifted it up for all to see: a tiny, beautiful girl.
