A Gathering of Days

by Joan W. Blos

  Thursday, July 7, 1831

  Very hot again today & with no prospect of rain. The raspberries are poor this year. We even consider whether ’tis worthwhile to turn them in to jam.

  Because it has lately been so dry Father is in daily fear that we may suffer a fire! We’ve stored some buckets of water in the house and are especially careful over our cooking now.

  Walking home from school today we saw how deeply our bare feet imprinted the soft and velvet dust.

  The Shipman family just now left, they having passed here a pleasant visit after the supper hour.

  Friday, July 8, 1831

  Matty was stung by a bee today which caused her face to swell. I noticed that she came not to me, but rather took her complaint to her—who quickly put her handwork down and taking Matty by the hand, led her to the Summer kitchen. There she mixed salt and water together until they formed a crusty paste which she applied to the sting. It proved a useful remedy with which we were not acquainted.

  I watched the whole of this from my stool, where I sat with churn between my knees, willing the butter to come. Later she sat with M. a while, and sang small funny songs to her. Our mother would have done the same, and did so, once, for me.

  Monday, July 11, 1831

  We hear they are having difficulty to raise the money to complete the Bunker Hill monument! Solicitations have been made, but fall short of the mark. Six years ago, when she took Daniel to witness the marker’s dedication, General Lafayette from France and our own Senator Dan’l Webster both were there. Daniel had said they were the same because they shared the name. “And now,” she exclaimed, as a story-teller will who has a particular point to make, “I proudly add that Senator Webster also was the son of a farmer in the state of New-Hampshire!” “Hurrah!” yelled Matty and I at this. But Daniel looked none too pleased.

  Mr. Webster had given a rousing speech, as he was expected to do, being well known for declaiming. In it he said that the monument—both because of its height and location—would now greet the voyager who entered Boston harbour. Conversely, and equally fitting, he thought, it would provide the traveller, departing, with his last sight of home.

  Tuesday, July 12, 1831

  Daniel has found a most perfect new name by which I and Matty, too, may address his mother.

  “Mammann,” said he, combining her name with the common Mamma.

  However, she heard it otherwise.

  “Daniel,” she cried, “what an elegant thought! We can say it is after the French, and thus the height of fashion.”

  Be that as it may, it pleased me well; also it seemed her light remark served to conceal true feeling. Later I told her, “Good night, Mammann.”

  It was, and both of us knew it to be, the first I’d addressed her directly.

  Wednesday

  Daniel is teaching me how to do sums; wherefore I plan to surprize him, next Winter, by knitting him a muffler, fringed, and dyed to the butternut’s colour.

  Thursday, July 14, 1831

  A boy has died in Meredith, of burns received the Fourth of July, while setting off explosions. A terrible price, as Mammann says, to pay for celebration.

  Father believes it will always happen—so long as the Fourth is celebrated, and that so long as this nation of ours holds dear the freedom on which it reste; and which we love, he concluded.

  “You know I love it no less than you,” she retorted hotly. “Still must I believe there exist other means to show our joy than those which cost us human life year after year after year.”

  “And do you remember Zebulon Preston?” Mr. Shipman asked. “How he got his ear blown off, and stood there with the blood running down, not knowing what had happened?”

  Mammann shushed him on the spot, but I was fascinated! Mr. Preston, the flour miller, was well known to me. Often enough, while he talked with Father, I had stared at the side of his head with its furrowed scar. So that was how it came about! I had not known before.

  Mrs. Preston, the miller’s wife, is very pimpled and stout. But who would accept so maimed a man except she had no choice? They have many children, the eldest Matty’s age.

  Thursday Friday, July 15, 1831

  Beans. We eat them as they come in, at morning and evening meals. Then we shell them to spread and dry, and save against next Winter.

  It seems each year it is the same. I am certain I would rejoice never to see more beans. Mammann says that is very short-sighted; while Father reminds us with serious voice, “For harvest and good bounty one ought give naught but thanks. Were I your teacher, Catherine,” he says, “I’d have you write that out.”

  Saturday, July 16

  Scarcely time, these Summer nights, for keeping of a journal! I would record, if hastily, that our teacher, gentle and kind, does better with the younger pupils than we older scholars.

  Cassie and I, still best of friends, have rather less to say to each other than we were wont to do. Often, now, I confide in Mammann; and Cassie and Daniel—as who would have guessed!—are plainly drawn to each other. When once I mentioned this to Cassie her quickening colour clearly confirmed what her words denied. Asa teazes her very much, which I think not kind.

  Sabbath

  “They are wrong,” observes Mammann, “about the swallows and Spring. It is exactly one of them that creates a season! Take a whole flock, overwhelming a meadow, and that is merely a lot of birds—and good grain plundered besides!”

  XIV

  Monday, July 25, 1831

  Teacher Holt and Aunt Lucy Mason are going to be married! Cassie says she is older than he, but not enough to matter. They have not set the marriage date, or if the wedding will take place here or Salem, Massachusetts, which is Aunt Lucy’s home.

  Cassie & I are beside ourselves with hoping that our own New-Hampshire will prove the favoured location. As was decided concerning Aunt Lucy, Matty & I will call him Uncle Edward, as will the Shipman children.

  We are the first, after the Shipmans, to have the happy news.

  Mammann says that joyful times should as truly confirm our faith as times of sorrow test it. For good times and ill each have their place; and he who doubts or questions either will only reveal how poor is his trust, how flawed his obedience.

  Thursday, July 28, 1831

  As Cassie, Sophy, and I together made our way from school today, I and Cassie talked about Aunt Lucy, how happy she now seems.

  “I’m tired of her and her happiness,” cried Sophy on a sudden.

  “How will it be, do you think for me, when I’ve gone to the mills . . . ? Promise you’ll both remember me? And O! I shall write you letters and letters! And you must do the same!”

  “Why, Sophy,” Cassie answered her, “you’ll be the one more likely to forget amidst new ways and company; while here ’twill always be the same, and we two merely going on in the same old ways—”

  “Promise,” said Sophy, “will you promise me that?”

  “I promise,” said Cassie seriously, surprized by this sudden emotion on our friend Sophy’s part.

  Then loud shouts overtook us all as Dan’l and Asa on the gallop appeared; and if they’d observed that tender moment they confessed it not. Soon, with whoops and cheerful yells, we climbed the fence and crossed the fields—the way, tho’ rather rougher, being a short-cut home.

  Monday, August 1, 1831

  At last, last night, heavy rain! Father believes it has come too late to save the food corn, already parched, but may be preserving to some. Mammann’s roses, for which she feared, stand up brightly now.

  Tuesday, August 2

  When we descended the school house path who was there but Joshua! He’d been sent to salt the calves, then contrived a longer way ’round, that he’d be at the school house at the dismissal bell! He walked with me, Cassie, and Sophy talking idly of this & that, then suggested we turn through the woods, which they wished not to do. Then Josh and I parted from them, tho’ not without calling back and forth with small tho’ urgent messages about
the coming day. Soon we felt the woodsy shadows, whereat we continued more quietly, grateful to be cool.

  Were further rewarded to discover a very handsome oriole, who calmly let us approach him. We stood quite close for the longest time, observing every shaded feather; I longing the while for pen and ink that I might have drawn him from life.

  Now does memory show him to me—such a handsome creature, with proud tilt to his head!

  Wednesday, August 3, 1831

  The fire, our friend in Winter months, is a tyrant now! I dread to waken the coals each day; and should Dan’l murmur of sun on fields I quickly offer him turn about—to lift the kettle to the blaze, or tend full pots at the fire’s edge while steaming vapours rise.

  Mammann’s complexion suffers altho’ she does not complain. She whose skin was white and fair has lost that elegance. Her cheeks have become as ruddy as mine, despite the bonnet she wears out of doors; and all but forgetting the demands’ of style, she pins up her hair like a farmer’s wife and bares her arms to the elbow.

  Thursday, August 4, 1831

  Teacher Orpha sometimes permits the conduct of school out of doors. On these days we convene near the tree, the littlest ones gathering close to her, and some times, even, one of the babes will lay his head in her lap. “Poor little thing,” she’ll say with a smile. Or maybe, “Pretty dreamer!”

  Then does the droning of our voices rival that of the somnolent bees while off to one side, the more wakeful infants intone their little verses, and their abc’s.

  For our part we’re set three-syllable words, and do not tell Teacher Orpha we have mastered them before.

  Bru-tish-ness.

  Fruit-ful-ness.

  Love-let-ter.

  Jew-el-ler.

  I thought about the Jew today, the scissors that he sold me, and will he come again?

  Seven blocks of my quilt are done; so many more remain!

  Friday, August 5

  Dan’l and Asa, having made a pact, assisted each other in their chores, then prepared for fishing. Father watched them from afar, then came closer to where they worked to offer much and varied advice to which they listened politely.

  She called after, “Do take care!” To which Dan’l made no answer. No doubt he knows how to traffick in Boston; but, concerning Nature’s ways, shows himself imprudent.

  Saturday, August 6, 1831—a day uncommonly hot!

  The cats lie stretched on the horse-bam sill, that ancient, flat, and solid stone being shaded through the morning. Poor kitties, they are too hot to stir! I saw a mouse quick cross the floor. And Tabby, tho’ she must have known, did not attempt pursuit.

  We all move slowly in the heat, having still our chores to do, but secretly wishing like the tabby-cats we might lie out in repose.

  Sunday, August 7, 1831

  Another of Father’s stories.

  When he himself was but a boy, a woman who was exceedingly poor lived past Meredith Center. Her children went barefoot most of the Winter, and often were wan and tattered.

  One day the woman came to a house to ask a bit of butter. When the farm wife said that she had none, the other flew in to a rage. Shrieking coarsely, “You better had!” she ran across the yard.

  Then the good wife sat down to chum, but the butter would not come. Recalling then the other’s curse, the good wife brought her fire well up and having removed the pot from the crane, held the hook to the fire. When that device came to glow like the coals, she plunged it in to the churn so that steamy clouds rose up. When she resumed her churning, the butter was quickly made.

  Just at sundown two days later a child came to her door. “Our mother is taken ill,” cried she. “O, I do pray you to come.”

  Quickly the good wife put on her shawl, and went in to the night. Soon she entered the neighbour’s wretched house, and tho’ she dearly wished to withdraw she approached the other’s bed. At once she knew it was too late and that no help could be given. The poor woman’s breath soon left her body, she attended only by her piteous babes and the neighbour woman.

  Our father paused as he came to this, then hushed his tone to continue.

  They said in town, and for miles around, that when the body was made ready for the grave, a recent bum was discovered. Its shape was that of an old-fashioned hook, exactly the kind the good wife had used to purify the milk.

  I cannot rest for thinking on it; those poor orphaned children; how came the burn to be there?

  Tuesday, August 9, 1831

  The weather still very extreme. Although I try to be patient, still will I complain. Mammann, should she hear me, is quick to observe I ought to be glad for our large Summer kitchen, which spares the house the worst of the heat. Or, as she said the other day, “Think you on the city dwellers, where every street knows a hundred fires, and there’s no stream in endless fall to the trough behind the barn.”

  What she calls “the country life” is amazement to her still.

  “Catherine,” she’ll say, putting hands to her hips in a favourite posture, “now just come look at this!” Or, should we be berrying, down in the patch, “Catherine, do you see that leaf, the one that’s too soon painted over with the colours of autumn?” Or: “Mark that upstart flower there! I’ve not seen its like before!” Then she will ask how it is called; and should I not be equipt with its name she will tell me to look at it well that I may be able, once we are home, to sketch it out for Father.

  Wednesday, August 10, 1831

  The dark-striped tabby had four kittens today and each of them a darling! We knew her time was nearly here, but had not thought so soon.

  Cassie likes the pure white one best. I prefer the little black, whose two front paws are tipped.

  They are too tiny to take in our hands, and sleep so curled and sweet.

  Thursday, August 11, 1831

  Cassie, Mammann, Mrs. Shipman, and I were occupied nearly all of this day with picking whortleberries. The women gossiped like girls! We found a great many excellent berries and so will have both pie and pudding, the latter enriched with Summer milk, nearly as thick as cream.

  Our arms, before the day was done, were criss-cross’d with welts and scratches. The berries grow so close to the briars one can not have one without the other—a lesson, I’m sure, for us to regard—but no one, not even Cassie’s mother, this day pointed it out!

  I know not which I enjoyed the most—the berries themselves, so plump and sweet, or, after we picked and sampled our fill, to wash ourselves in Little Squam Pond before returning home. I found the water refreshingly clear and happily not too cold. Cassie, however, became quite chilled. That is often the case with her. I noted, when we said good-bye, her hands were still cold to the touch.

  Tomorrow we shall meet together to assort the berries we’ve got, and pick out the rough stems.

  Friday, August 12, 1831

  Perhaps having gotten too much chilled, Cassie is struck with fever, She came not to school today; and afterwards Willie came around to say they’d not be coming by as we had expected.

  Daniel is in a great sulk. He wanted to go with Asa to town. But Mammann said where a town was concerned any two boys were slower than one. And would not grant permission.

  Saturday, August 13, 1831

  Mammann returned sorely distressed from calling on Mrs. Shipman. Cassie suddenly turned far worse and the doctor was summoned. He, to halt the progression of disease, vigourously applied his leeches. Now, as a consequence of the cure, Cassie is even more weak and pale, can scarcely sip at broth.

  “But Charles,” said Mammann as she put out our meal, “there must be something else to do; some other doctor to call?”

  He interrupted, roughly I thought. “You forget. This is not Boston—”

  “But Charles! Suppose it were one of ours—Daniel? Catherine? Little Matty? Would you say the same?”

  “I told you,” he said. “This is not Boston. Here we have got but just one doctor. He does his best, is all.”

  Monday, August
15, 1831

  Again, to-day, great heat. The storm we hoped for never broke; an unfortunate circumstance.

  Cassie is said to be slightly improved; I picked some flowers beside the road with hopes that I might see her. Her mother said she was resting then and would not let me in. It wasn’t just the flowers though. I felt that I must speak with her, not only in my own account but with so many affectionate greetings from school mates and our teacher.

  Later. Written by moonlight!

  The cicadas call so loudly tonight they woke me from my sleep. How they insist that Autumn approaches; that our Summer’s spent!

  Tuesday

  Again has Cassie taken a turn that may be for the worse. We hear that her mother resigns herself, and thus maintains composure.

  “But one can see the effort, Charles! It’s worse, far worse, than on Sunday! O! I can hardly bear to see—but will, of course, for I’m resolved to help however I can.”

  For a while further nothing was said. Then Mammann spoke again. “You know that you have to fight Death, Charles . . . I have done so, and did not you? Or will you say, as you did before ‘But this is not Boston?’ O, Charlie, forgive me!” she said. Turned, and bolted thru the door, & quickly fled the house.

  After a time Mammann returned. She had got herself composed, plaited her hair and pulled it tight, and looped it behind her ears. At once she sat down to the table and opened the writing desk. Father turned to her, surprized. Responding to his silent question, she gave no sign of the agitation she’d recently displayed. “I’ve decided,” she explained, “to send directly to Boston to my bookseller there. I realize now that I may have need of more knowledge of remedies than I now possess.”

  Uncle Jack came later to visit. They sat out a while.

  Wednesday, August 17, 1831

  Cassie, they say, is much recovered, despite our apprehension. We are all quite gay tonight, even Mammann, I note. Perhaps, ere long and after all we will soon be berrying again, and other glad pursuits.