The Indentured Heart

by Gilbert, Morris

  “Sure! Look, I’ll tilt it back and you pour powder in.” He took the pipe in both hands and lifted the end into the air. Charles took the powder horn and dumped the entire contents down the pipe. “Wait a minute—that’s too much!”

  Charles grinned at him. “Thought this was a real cannon, Adam!” He took the leather sack and emptied the contents down the tube and said, “That ought to do it.”

  Adam said with a worried look, “That’s a lot of powder, Charles!”

  “You scared to shoot it?” Charles jibed. “Then I’ll do it!”

  They argued about who was going to touch it off, all the while maneuvering the piece to aim at the canvas target. Finally, they were satisfied, and then Charles said with a sudden blank look, “How are we gonna shoot it? You have to have fire.”

  “Sure, you do,” acknowledged Adam. “I’ll go get a spark from the kitchen stove.” He darted across the yard, scattering the black chickens as he ran. There was always fire in the kitchen stove, and he went into the wood room and brought out a large pine splinter. Raking the coals back, he stuck the splinter into the stove and it burst into flame almost at once.

  He left the house and made his way across the yard, shielding the flame with his free hand. When he got back to the trees, he looked down at the cannon, and suddenly he said, “We better not do this, Charles.”

  “You scared?” Charles taunted.

  “Well, a little bit. You put so much powder in, it could just blow up and kill us—and besides, if Father finds out we’ve used his powder, why, he’ll kill us!”

  Charles snorted, “You trying to back out, Adam?”

  Adam moved behind the cannon. “All right! One of us will need to put his foot on top to keep it from kicking up, and one of us has to shove this fire down the hole.”

  “I—I’ll—put my foot on it,” Charles decided, but his face was a little pale. He gingerly put his foot on top of the pipe and looked at Adam. “Well, go on—do it!”

  Adam didn’t want to do it—yet at the same time, he did. He almost threw the splinter down and stamped it out, but the pale sneer on Charles’s face told him that he’d never hear the last of it. Carefully he moved to one side, knelt, and held the tiny flame over the hole. Then with a sudden burst of desperation, he thrust the splinter into the hole.

  There was a short sizzling sound; then the cannon bucked wildly, skipping out from under Charles’s foot! The explosion deafened both of them temporarily, and they fell backwards with their eyes shut tightly.

  A stillness followed, and Adam rolled to his feet, followed by Charles, and he yelled, “Look at the target!”

  The canvas had been blown almost off the saplings, but they could see at once that it was riddled by dozens of holes.

  “What a cannon!” Charles yelled back, and the two of them started running toward the tattered canvas. Picking it up, they looked at the holes, counting them. “Boy, we sure got us a good cannon here!” Charles cried excitedly.

  Adam started to reply, but suddenly there was a cry from the house. Both boys wheeled around, and they saw their parents running out of the back door, closely followed by Sampson and the household servants.

  Charles gasped. “We hit the house! Come on, Adam! We gotta get away from here!”

  Charles took off running into the woods, but Adam stood fixed to the spot. It never occurred to him to run, and with his heart beating in his chest for fear, he stepped out of the woods and made his way toward the house.

  The musket balls had plowed through the canvas, a few of them had lodged in the trees on the edge of the tree line, but most of them had swept the yard.

  As Adam slowly walked across the yard, he saw his father standing in the midst of a dozen dead black chickens. A few others were flopping all over the yard uttering plaintive clucks.

  Adam could not bear the look of sorrow and anger on his father’s face, and lifted his eyes to the house, where he saw that one of the expensive glass windows, which had been shipped all the way from England, was shattered, and there were round holes all along the sides of the house.

  Then he saw his stepmother standing beside the rug she’d inherited from her grandmother. She stood there staring in disbelief and shock at the holes that let the sunshine through in tiny bars.

  Adam heard his father’s voice calling his name in anger, and the fear in him was so strong it robbed him of his strength. He stood there with his face down, pale as a ghost, and he knew that his father was standing over him, yelling.

  He looked up once and saw his father’s face twisted into an ugly mask; not being able to look at him, he shifted his gaze away. He saw his stepmother, her lips like a knife, take one look at the rug, then stoop to pick up something. She straightened up, strode over to his father, and raised her arm, revealing the carpet beater in her hand. It was a heavy piece of rawhide, blunt and dry, with sharp edges where it had aged.

  Martha Winslow drew her arm back, and Adam saw his father’s head twist, heard him cry out, but it was too late. She was a big woman, strong and quick. The beater whistled through the air; then he felt something like fire and ice together. For a second, it did not hurt, but then the agony tore through him. His hand leaped to his face, and he felt the raw flesh on his cheek and neck.

  “Martha! No!” Miles cried out in shock. He ripped the beater from her hand and threw it as far as he could. Then he knelt beside the boy and said with a trembling voice, “Let me see, Adam.”

  He lifted Adam’s hands away, and then he stopped breathing—as though he’d been kicked in the stomach by a mule. He rose and cried, “Sampson, get the buggy hitched—quick!”

  “Yessuh!”

  Adam knew that he was badly hurt, but he did not cry. In a few minutes he heard his father say, “You drive, Sampson—I’ll hold him. Whip them up—to Dr. Stone’s!”

  Then he heard his stepmother’s voice, but Miles snapped coldly, “Get your hands off this buggy! Whip them up, Sampson!” The servant obeyed and the buggy leaped forward.

  Adam remembered one thing about that wild ride, and it was not the pain in his face. It was the first—and last—time in his life that his father ever held him in his arms!

  * * *

  A month later Miles took Adam aside and told him he’d be leaving. They were in the parlor, and Miles saw that the stitches had done fairly well, but Dr. Stone had said, “He’ll always have a scar, Mr. Winslow.” His manner had been harsh, for he was sure, Miles realized, that he had struck the boy.

  Now looking down, he saw that the puckered marks of the scar, which ran along the boy’s lower cheek on the jawbone and continued across the neck, would always be a symbol of his own failure.

  Martha and he had been farther apart than ever, and he had seen that it would be impossible to have Adam at home. Martha hated him and would make life unbearable.

  “Adam, I’ve decided to send you away.”

  Adam looked up quickly, despair in his eyes, but he said nothing. He had said practically nothing for a month. When Charles’s part in the business had come out, he’d said, “It wasn’t his fault. If I hadn’t made the cannon, it wouldn’t have happened.”

  “I know things have been hard for you, but I think you’ll like your headmaster.” He waited for Adam to ask who it would be. When there was no response, he said, “It’ll be William.”

  Adam’s head shot up and some of the bleak despair left his face. “I’m going to live with William?”

  “I thought you’d like that,” Miles grinned. Then he sobered, “You’ll study with him—and you’ll study Latin with Mr. Jonathan Edwards—in return for which you’ll chop his wood.”

  “I’m to stay there always?”

  Miles put his hands on the sturdy shoulders, and his voice was gentle as he tried to explain, “There’s no happiness for you in this house.” For any of us! he nearly added, but did not. “William has a nice house and a housekeeper. He tells me there’s a workshop and a good blacksmith who likes boys. I—I haven’t been as
good a father as I should, Adam.” He paused and with an effort went on. “You are not a bookish boy—but you have a genius. Despite all the bad things about the cannon—you made it—and I’m very proud to have a son who is gifted in that way!”

  Squeezing the boy’s shoulders lightly, he spoke softly, “I’ll take you tomorrow. Say goodbye to Charles—and to your mother.”

  Adam saw his father had trouble saying all this, and he whispered, “I—I’ll miss you, Father!”

  After the boy left, Miles cursed himself. Why didn’t I hold him when I said goodbye? Why didn’t I?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A LITTLE LATIN

  “Well, Adam, it’s time for your first Latin lesson with Rev. Edwards.”

  Adam’s first two weeks with William at Amherst had gone quickly. Although he had missed his sister, Mercy, he had adjusted to his new life far better than his brother had expected. But as the two sat at the breakfast table eating the fried ham and scrambled eggs that the housekeeper, Mrs. Little, had set before them, a cloud fell across the boy’s face.

  “Do I have to, William? Can’t you teach me?”

  “No, I can’t. In the first place, Rev. Edwards is the best Latin scholar in the country, and in the second place the arrangement is already made for you to chop his wood in exchange for his teaching. But I’ve got a surprise for you that ought to make the whole thing much easier. You eat all that breakfast, and you can have it.”

  William watched Adam surreptitiously, wondering not for the first time if they had done the right thing by the boy. He had been shocked and angered when Miles had brought Adam to him a month earlier, the scars on his face and neck red and not fully healed. It had been hard for his father to put his feelings into words, but William had seen the resentment in his stepmother years earlier, and when Miles had pleaded with him to take the boy, he had agreed at once.

  And it had worked well—indeed, he had never seen Adam so cheerful. The scar on his face was still red and angry, but there was a peace in the boy’s face that had been missing.

  “We’re going to be two old bachelors, Adam,” William had told the boy after Miles had driven away. “We’ve got this big old house, and you’ve got a room all your own. We have Mrs. Little to cook for us and clean up after us. Mr. Little, her husband, is a fine blacksmith—even makes rifles—and he’ll be glad to have you help him. We’ll get a dog and hunt a bit. We’ll also catch some fish out of the stream down the road. Why, it’s going to be fun!”

  Well, it’s been good for the boy, William thought as Adam finished his breakfast. He was wound tight as a spring when he got here—but he’s lost a lot of that. I think being around Edwards and his children will do more for him than anything else—maybe help get that defensive set out of his back!

  “I’m all finished,” Adam said.

  “Right! Now, let’s get to that surprise!”

  He put on his coat and led Adam outside to the barn. Opening the door, he commanded, “Now, close your eyes and don’t open them until I tell you!”

  He threw the door open, went inside and drove out his own horse and the small reddish mare he’d bought from Samuel Sinclair. Then he stepped outside, saying, “All right, you can look now.”

  Adam opened his eyes, and when he saw the horse, he looked wildly at his brother and whispered, “That’s—that’s not for me, is it, William?”

  “Well, I can’t ride two horses, can I? It’s yours, Adam—and happy birthday. Remember your last birthday in Philadelphia?”

  Adam nodded and reached his hand out, and the red mare came slowly toward him, then licked his palm. Adam did not look at his brother, and there was a break in his voice as he said, “Thank you, William!”

  “Man ought to have his own horse, Adam.” William knew how to please a boy, and soon the two of them were saddled and riding down the road headed for Northampton. It gave the man a great deal of pleasure to watch his younger brother as they tried out all the mare’s gaits along the way.

  It was only an hour’s ride to Edwards’ parish, a busy village with six hundred parishioners living in the area around the church, a fine frame building with a high turreted roof. Going past it, William led the way to a simple foursquare house bounded by a slab fence. Most of the houses in the village were unpainted, but the minister’s was a chaste white with red trim and jaunty green shutters.

  The pair dismounted, tied their horses to a post, and as they walked onto the porch, the door opened and a man stepped outside. “Well, William, you’re here early.”

  “Your newest scholar can’t wait to get started, Reverend. This is my younger brother, Adam. Adam, this is Rev. Jonathan Edwards, your new Latin teacher.”

  “Good morning, young man!” Edwards stepped forward and put his hand out, gripping Adam’s hand firmly. “You are most welcome!” His piercing eyes took in the boy; then he laughed and said, “I suspect you’ll not mind that monstrous woodpile out back so much as conjugating Latin verbs!”

  “He’s a hard worker, sir,” William stated. “But if your Latin lessons are as hard for Adam as your theology lessons are for me—why, I pity him! I couldn’t make head nor tail of this book you gave me!”

  Edwards laughed and said, “Well, well, we have time this morning to spend on that old demon of Antinomianism! Let me introduce Master Adam to his woodpile and you to the writings of Mr. Sewell.”

  He stepped off the porch and led them around the house, pausing to wave a thin hand at a pile of logs strewn over the ground. A set of cross trestles for holding them, several rusty saws scattered on the ground, and a variety of wedges and mauls completed the picture. “There’s your wood—and I trust you will take better care of the equipment than I do,” Edwards remarked. “Suppose you spend the morning on this while I read with your brother. Then this afternoon, I’ll see what sort of scholar you are.”

  The two men left, and Adam picked up the saw and felt the teeth. Finding it to be dull, he walked over to the small shed a few feet away from the house. Tools were strewn everywhere in a careless fashion, and he spent an hour sharpening the saw with a rusty file. He did the same for an ax and for the two splitting mauls. Then he spent the rest of the morning cutting the logs into short sections.

  Adam liked to cut wood. It gave him pleasure to run a sharp saw across the log and feel it bite down; soon he had cut a stack of two-foot-long logs. Splitting was even more enjoyable. The air was cool, and the beech he split divided as splinterless as a cloven rock. He had the gift of letting his mind go as he worked, his hands and body operating with machine-like precision while he thought of pleasant things—mostly that day of his new horse and what fine things they were going to do.

  The hours sped by, but he had no sense of the passage of time, and it startled him when he heard a voice say, “Oh, my word! Look at the wood that young man has cut!”

  He turned quickly to see Rev. Edwards and William standing there watching. They had been watching for some time, Edwards fascinated by the easy way Adam split the wood. He was an indifferent woodsplitter himself, and it was a mystery to him how the boy never seemed to strain, but the ax always fell exactly where he wanted it to.

  “I told you he was a worker,” William smiled. “And if you have anything broken, he’s likely to be able to fix it for you—a real gift with his hands, sir.”

  “Plenty of that around here, William,” Edwards sighed. “I’m not very good in that way. Well, let’s wash up, Adam. Mrs. Edwards has fixed us a nice lunch.”

  A small porch was attached to the rear of the house, where they washed their hands before going through the oak door into the long room that served as a kitchen. “They’re waiting for us. I fear we’re a little late.” Edwards led the pair into a low-ceilinged room with a large window on the long outside wall letting a stream of golden light fall on the white tablecloth that graced the rectangular table.

  “I’m sorry to be late, my dear,” Edwards said at once. He walked to a place at the end of the table and introduced Adam.
“This is my newest scholar, Mr. Adam Winslow.”

  William pushed Adam into a chair to his right and the boy gazed in amazement at what appeared to be a sea of girls! Actually, there were only six, including the beautiful woman sitting to Edwards’ right, but every eye was fixed on him, and he ducked his head and felt his face burn. He knew that made the fresh scar stand out starkly, making the situation worse.

  “You are very welcome, Adam,” the lady greeted quickly, seeing the boy’s embarrassment. “But you’ll have to pardon our daughters for staring. Girls, tell our guest your names and how old you are.”

  “I’m Sarah—age twelve,” the largest girl said at once.

  “And I’m Jerusha—ten.”

  “Esther—nine years old.”

  “Mary. I’m six years old—how did you get that scar on your face?”

  “Mary!” her mother reprimanded sharply, “I’ve told you not to ask questions. You may leave the table!”

  Adam’s hand reached up and covered the scar with an instinctive motion, and a quick anger shot through him. But when he saw tears form in Mary’s eyes as she slipped to the floor, he said impulsively, “Oh, don’t make her go, please! I—had an accident, but it’s better now.”

  “Very handsome of you, sir!” Edwards interposed quickly. “You’ll soon discover that Mary is somewhat impulsive, Adam! Now that’s Lucy, age three and here you see young Timothy, age two—the only boy among this troop of females!”

  “He’ll be spoiled by all these older sisters, Rev. Edwards,” William said.

  “No doubt! I was the only boy in my family. Had ten sisters and they all spoiled me.” Then without a pause Edwards suddenly offered up a blessing over the food, and they began at once to eat.

  “I can tell you, Mr. Winslow,” Sarah Edwards stated as she passed the fresh hot bread, “those sisters of his did spoil him. He’s not gotten completely over it to this day!”