The Hollow Tree

by Janet Lunn

  Copyright © 1997 by Janet Lunn

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Seal Books and colophon are trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited.

  THE HOLLOW TREE

  Seal Books/published by arrangement

  with Alfred A. Knopf Canada

  Alfred A. Knopf Canada edition published 1997

  Seal Books edition published August 2001

  Map by Paul McCusker

  eISBN: 978-0-307-36746-4

  Seal Books are published by

  Random House of Canada Limited.

  “Seal Books” and the portrayal of a seal are the property of Random House of Canada Limited.

  Visit Random House of Canada Limited’s website:

  www.randomhouse.ca

  v3.1

  For Louise, who understands story

  better than anyone else I know, with love

  and gratitude.

  The author wishes to acknowledge the pre-Harris government Ontario Arts Council, the Vermont Historical Society, The University of Vermont Library, the Norwich, Vermont Town Library, the Trenton, Ontano Public Library, Angela Thorpe in the Newport, New Hampshire public Library, Christopher Marshall, Greg Brant, John Lunn, the editorial staff at Knopf Canada, the children at C. M. Snider Public School, Wellington, Ontario, who listened to me read, and, most of all Kathryn McCarthy for her patience and good humour through countless reworkings of this manuscript.

  Cover

  Map

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1 By the River

  Chapter 2 Traitors and Spies

  Chapter 3 The Message

  Chapter 4 I Will Need to be Very Brave

  Chapter 5 Alone

  Chapter 6 Peter Sauk

  Chapter 7 There’s Nobody There

  Chapter 8 Anne

  Chapter 9 Camp

  Chapter 10 On the Move

  Chapter 11 Axle-Broke Brook

  Chapter 12 The Prisoner

  Chapter 13 One Is One

  Chapter 14 The British Fort

  Chapter 15 Will You Wait?

  Epilogue

  Other Books by This Author

  By the River

  Throughout all her long life, Phoebe Olcott never forgot a single moment of the last happy afternoon she spent at home by the Connecticut River. It was on a day in May, in the year 1775, and she spent it in her favourite spot on the river bank on the Vermont side.

  Phoebe lived with her father in the little wilderness settlement of Hanover, on the New Hampshire side of the wide river. Five years earlier, their ox carts piled high with their belongings, the Olcotts had made the long trek north from their settled town in Connecticut when Eleazer Wheelock had moved both his Presbyterian college and the Indian school north to Hanover. Jonathan Olcott had come to teach at the college.

  Teachers and students alike had set to, with a will, to fell the enormous white pines and build their habitations, but, in 1775, the college was still only a collection of rough buildings surrounding the stump-filled clearing called The Green. To Phoebe it was the centre of the world and she loved it. She loved the big unpainted dormitories and classrooms and the big college barn at the corner of The Green. She loved Dr. Wheelock’s house, which everyone called The Mansion House. She loved the ringing sound of iron on iron that emerged from the fiery depths of Israel Curtis’s blacksmith shop as he fashioned horseshoes and door hinges and fire boxes, and she loved Master Seaver’s carpentry shop with its scent of fresh pine wood shavings. She even loved Captain Storr’s tavern, although she never went there and the laughter and the shouts that erupted from within it sometimes frightened her. She liked the young men better when they came bursting through her own cabin door, drunk on ideas and not on rum.

  They came, fired up to argue Greek philosophy and Christian doctrine with Phoebe’s father. Sometimes they came with pigeons, partridges, rabbits, or deer slung over their shoulders, ready to butcher for Phoebe to roast over her fire. Phoebe’s quiet ways were popular with them. They called her pet names like Mouse, the name her cousin Gideon had for her, or Little Bird, the name the Mohawk Peter Sauk called her.

  Phoebe would squeeze herself between the log wall and the edge of the big stone fireplace in the front room and listen to the talk with longing. She would have liked to join in, but she was too shy. However, she was not too shy to think about the talk and to wish that women could become students at the college and teach there. One day, she supposed, she would marry one of her father’s students. He would become a teacher like her father, and life would go on as it had for as long as she could remember.

  Her mother and her infant brother had died of measles when she was four. She could remember nothing at all about her brother. She remembered her mother’s smile and her soft, low singing, but there was little time in that backwoods life to long or to grieve.

  She had had to begin at age four to care for her father and herself. Now, at thirteen, as well as the book learning she had from her father, she could cook wild animals and plants from the forest, as well as the potatoes, pumpkins, and onions she grew in her tiny garden patch. She could spin the tough-fibred flax and soft wool, then weave them together into the linsey-woolsey cloth out of which she made shirts and breeches for her father and simple gowns for herself. Sometimes she even managed to dye the cloth with red from the wild puccoon or brown from the sumac As well she had learned to make sure her father had his books under his arm, his comforter around his neck, his hat on his head, and his bit of meat and bread in his coat pocket every morning before he set out across The Green to meet his students.

  Phoebe often thought of life in the little settlement surrounded by the endless forest as like being inside her cabin with a storm raging outside. The settlement seemed like a haven against all that wildness.

  But on this bright afternoon in May, she was not thinking about any of that. She had turned her back on her housework, and she was refusing to think about the war her father and his students always talked about of late. Thoughts of how her impulsive father might rush off to fight in a war made her feel sick in her stomach. No, she could not think about that. She tucked her shawl into her waistband and, bunching her skirts tightly in her hands, she hurried down the steep Hanover hill to the little cove where Master Starling kept his canoe. In exchange for doing his mending, Master Starling, the old bachelor who worked for the blacksmith, let Phoebe use his canoe. She was too frugal to pay the tuppence for the rope ferry and, besides, she loved to pit the strength of her arms against the river’s strong current. Skilfully she paddled across the big dark river to the western shore, to where a brook tumbled into the river beside a small beaver meadow about the size of the Olcotts’ tiny cabin, protected from the encroaching forest by five giant willow trees.

  The sun was high in a deep blue sky, but the air was chilly. A stiff breeze from the east had made the journey easier for Phoebe but hard going for a flock of geese working their way north. As she neared the shore, a pair of otters dived into the water, alarming a blue jay perched on a low branch of one of the willows. It took off with an indignant screech.

  She jumped out of the canoe and pulled it up over the stones onto the grass. She sniffed the May-scented air, the freshness of blue violets and yellow adder’s-tongues, the sweetness of the trailing arbutus under the last of the snow in the rock shadows at the edge of the meadow; she listened to the cheek-cheek of the spring warbler. Tiny pale-green leaves softened the branches
of the willow trees. She croaked back at the baby frogs trying out their high, shrill voices along the muddy river bank, then swiftly stepped across the meadow to the biggest tree. Halfway between the ground and its lowest branch was a deep hollow. It was home to a grey squirrel Phoebe had named Constant, after an incessant talker in Hanover. It was also the place Phoebe and her cousins Anne and Gideon Robinson had, years ago, chosen for their letter-box.

  Whenever Phoebe could slip away across the river — if there was no time to climb the hill to Orland Village, where her cousins lived — she would leave a note in the hollow tree. The note would let them know she had been there, give them news, and tell them when she might come again. They would do the same.

  Anne was two years older than Phoebe and she liked to remind her cousin of it. She could be sharp-tongued and had a temper that came and went like a lightning storm in June. Phoebe wasn’t always comfortable around her, but she couldn’t help but admire Anne’s high spirits, her easy manner, and the way she attracted people to her. Gideon was two years older than his sister, as serious as Anne was frivolous. Every moment he could steal from his daily chores he spent in the woods, collecting plants. He had no interest in farming or studying at the college with Phoebe’s father; all he wanted to do was to catalogue Vermont’s wild plants. Phoebe loved Gideon, his steady nature, his rare smiles, his patience with Billy Wilder, the gentle boy the villagers called simple, who followed him everywhere with slavish devotion.

  Phoebe and her cousins had been like sisters and brother almost all their lives. Their mothers had been sisters and their fathers were friends. The Robinsons had chosen to settle on the Vermont side of the river because they had come with friends from Connecticut Province who were settling Orland Village. Phoebe’s father chose the New Hampshire side because he had accepted a teaching post at the college. But the families, like the two provinces, were separated only by the wide, swift-flowing Connecticut River, so Phoebe and Anne and Gideon met when they could in their favourite meadow. This time there was a crumpled note from Anne. It read only: “Thursday after dinner.” And it was Thursday afternoon after dinner.

  Before Phoebe had time to do more than lift her skirt and stuff the note into the pocket she wore on a string around her waist under her gown and sit herself down under the tree, Anne was there beside her.

  “So” — she smiled down at her cousin — “you came.”

  “Yes I did, and my hand is sore from spinning, I worked so swiftly this morning. I was bound I would have at least one portion of this perfect day to do with as I pleased. So here I am, but not because of your note. I’ve only read it this minute.”

  “Phoebe.” Anne shook her head. “You are so dutiful. Do you never, ever just cast off your work without a thought?”

  “No. How could I?”

  “Well, we are not the same.” Anne tossed her shawl to the ground and dropped down on it. “No,” she said with a note of satisfaction in her voice, “not at all the same.”

  Nor were they — not in looks, not in temperament. To begin with, Anne was not only two years older than Phoebe, she was at least four inches taller. She was graceful and slim, with long hands and feet, and light brown hair — which she preferred to call golden — that curled softly around her pale, oval face. Deep violet eyes tilted up at the corners just enough to make her face interesting. She laughed easily with the young men in the village and always had a quick response to their jokes. She was considered by them all to be the best-looking girl in the village — and by a good many of the girls to be the vainest. She dressed every morning with great care and was always neatly turned out. The gown she wore this afternoon was rose-coloured and there was a bit of lace in its collar. Her shawl had a checked pattern in black and white.

  Phoebe, on the other hand, was somewhat awkward and she was timid. She was short and round, and she had a round face. Her dark brown hair was so straight and fine that it was forever coming loose from its braid to fly around her face. Her brown eyes were bright and large, her nose small, her mouth wide — much too wide, Anne often told her, but would sometimes add out of kindness, “But your eyes are fine, Phoebe. I expect they are your finest feature.”

  “Well, they are not crossed and I can see out of both of them,” Phoebe had responded tartly the first time Anne had said that, but, truly, she didn’t spend much time thinking about what she looked like or what she wore. There was no lace on her collar and she had not troubled herself to dye the cloth for her everyday gown. It was the much-washed grey-white colour of old linen and wool. She had determined early on that she was no beauty and did not see much point fretting about it.

  “Gershom Lake brought me a gift last night,” said Anne. She leaned back against the tree. When Phoebe made no response, she asked, “Don’t you wish to know what he gave me?” There was a note of annoyance in her voice.

  “Oh, I do indeed.”

  “It is but a little thing,” Anne said carelessly, “a good-luck charm, a heart he fashioned from a broken silver spoon of his mother’s.”

  “Oh, my!” Phoebe took the rough little silver heart Anne held out to her. She wondered what it would be like to have a young man bringing her gifts. “It is fine indeed. Do you mean to have Gershom Lake, then?”

  “Oh, mercy, no!” Anne took the heart from Phoebe and began to toss it back and forth between her hands. “But I like well the things he brings me.” Her smile was so self-satisfied that Phoebe was shocked into saying, “Anne, how can you be so unkind! You’ll be left on the shelf with no husband at all. You—” She stopped. She had no wish to be the target of Anne’s sharp tongue. What’s more, she knew, only too well, Anne’s opinion of her own chances of finding a husband.

  “I’ll not mind,” Anne said with a sniff. “I do not mean to marry a village boy. I mean to go to Boston or New York, or perhaps even across the sea to London. I certainly do not mean to spend my life working myself to the bone in this backwoods. I mean to be a fine lady and wear silk gowns, and kid slippers with diamond buckles on them. Old Mistress Shipley was a fine lady in Boston before her husband was lost at sea with all his ships.”

  “I know. I know all about Mistress Shipley.” Phoebe clapped her hand to her heart. “Mistress Shipley has suffered mightily,” she intoned, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

  “Honestly, Phoebe” — Anne rose to her feet — “you needn’t make speeches at me out of your father’s old books. Mistress Shipley was a fine lady, and it’s truly dreadful she must live in that horrid shanty. That lazy Robert might at least build a proper house for his mama.” Whatever she was going to say next was interrupted by the sound of someone on the forest path. In a moment a tall, brown-haired boy came hurtling down the hill through the bushes into the meadow.

  “There’s going to be a war,” he announced breathlessly. “I knew, of course, there must be. After those idiotic, hot-headed farmers fired on the British soldiers over in Lexington, in Massachusetts, ’twas certain the King would not permit such outrage.”

  “You knew, of course, you knew,” scoffed Anne. She drew her shawl tightly around her shoulders. “But, Gideon, it’s not the King who is starting the war — if there is to be a war; it’s those farmers and their Boston friends. I heard Papa say that.”

  “It does not matter, infant.” Gideon stood in the centre of the meadow, his feet apart, his hands behind his back, his head thrown back in excitement. “The King will never let them go free with their rebellious nonsense,” he said.

  He looks like a preacher, thought Phoebe crossly. She loved Gideon so much she abhored his smallest flaw. And here he stood sounding pompous in his passion.

  “Furthermore,” said Gideon, “our king will want to know that not everyone in his fourteen American colonies is disloyal. I shall most assuredly have to enlist in his service.”

  “Oh, la, Gideon.” Anne was amused. “You can’t do that. Papa will never allow it. You know he will not.”

  “I know. I know how he hates fi
ghting.” Gideon thrust his hands into the pockets of his breeches. “He will say Jesus himself bade us turn the other cheek. But, Nan, war is different. War is … is … ” He began pacing back and forth across the little meadow. His stiff self-importance had disappeared. He spun around to face the girls. “This war is important!” he cried. “We cannot let those no-account rowdies like Hiram Jesse and Elihu Pickens run our lives. Some of those traitors are talking about going off to Boston to fight the British soldiers. We have to stop them!”

  “Papa says—” Phoebe began timidly.

  “Your p-papa!” Gideon stuttered in his agitation. “Your papa supports those rebels. Patriots, he calls them. Only last week he was sitting in our parlour, supping our cider, talking of Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, those Boston rabble-rousers, as though they were heroes. Before you know it your father will rush off to fight with those Boston rebels. Patriots! How can they call themselves patriots? They’re disloyal. They’re traitors! Your father is a traitor!”

  Phoebe was horrified. Gideon thought it, too: Papa would go off and fight. Suddenly she was sure that Gideon, too, would fight. He would fight for the King. The two people she loved most in the world would go to war and fight on opposite sides. Dear God, they might end by killing each other.

  She could not listen to any more. She grabbed her shawl from the ground where she’d left it and, without a word, crossed the clearing in a dozen steps, pushed the canoe into the water, and jumped in so fast she nearly tipped it over. Quickly she knelt and began paddling furiously towards the New Hampshire shore. She heard but did not answer Anne and Gideon’s surprised shouts. She paddled with all her strength against the strong current and a rising wind, glad of the need for the exertion, and the soreness in her arms.

  War. They would go to war. Now she could not keep it out of her mind.

  Two evenings ago she had heard her father say to his gathering of students, “This war has been in the making for years.” On that evening, talk of philosophy had quickly become talk of the right and wrong of war against King George III.