Escape

by Mary Beacock Fryer

  Papa looked crestfallen. “Not really,” he answered. “I wasn’t in the infantry. Mine was a cavalry company, but I never rode with it. Zebe Seaman sent rebel soldiers to seize me in my own stableyard just as I was setting out to join it.”

  “I didn’t realize that you were caught so soon,” Mr. Butler murmured. “That was bad luck.”

  I could see that even now it hurt Papa to remember the ordeal. “I was tied across my horse and led past all my neighbours,” he said. “On the way to Fishkill we had to sleep on the ground beside the road. I was so burdened with irons that I couldn’t even roll over.”

  “Well, my life in an infantry regiment wasn’t hard,” Mr. Butler said. “We made some long marches, but we had wagons to carry our supplies.”

  “I’m going to join the army when I’m older,” Sam announced. “It would be just the life for me.”

  Mr. Butler’s eyebrows rose. “I thought your father was training you to be a blacksmith.”

  “Yes, he is,” Sam replied, “but I hate it.”

  A wave of pain crossed Papa’s face. Sam noticed and went on at once, “I’m sorry, Papa, but there are so many other things I’d rather do. Besides, some day there may be another war and then I won’t have any choice.”

  It was Mama who answered him. “War may seem exciting to you, Sam, but your father and I have been through it and I can tell you it’s a hard and bitter business.”

  Sam looked a little sheepish, but he wouldn’t give up. “Mr. Butler,” he asked, “why did you make long marches? Didn’t you spend most of your time fighting the rebels?”

  “Sometimes a battle lasted no more than half a day. What’s more, we spent long months in camps in Quebec.” Mr. Butler chuckled. “Some of the officers complained that we did more fighting in the taverns of Montreal than on the battlefield. Army life can be very lazy.”

  “That would suit Sam,” Cade interrupted. “The less he has to do, the better he likes it.”

  Sam ignored him. “How old do I have to be to join the army?” he asked Mr. Butler.

  “In my company the oldest man was sixty-two and the youngest twelve.”

  “Twelve!” Sam gasped. “That’s just Ned’s age. Can you picture him as a soldier?”

  My face grew hot. Sam always managed to rile me. “I could be a soldier if I had to,” I snapped.

  “Of course you could,” Mr. Butler soothed. “The lad I mentioned was only four and a half feet tall.” Mr. Butler knew how to pacify me. That was just my height.

  Mama had been staring into the flames, lost in thought. Now she said softly, “Who knows what will happen? Just think of how our life has changed in the past few weeks.”

  “I have been thinking about that,” I piped up, “and there’s something that puzzles me. You and Papa have always urged us to tell the truth no matter what happens, but while we were travelling to Fort Stanwix we told lies all the time. What made that right, Papa?”

  Papa sighed and thought for a while. Then, instead of answering, he began to hum a tune. “Do you remember it, Truelove?” he asked.

  No words from Mr. Butler, but suddenly he broke into song.

  If buttercups buzzed

  After the bee,

  If boats were on land,

  Churches at sea …

  “I don’t understand,” Cade said, looking very puzzled at this reply to my question.

  “It’s a song called ‘The World Turned Upside Down’,” Papa said. “We learned it from the British soldiers during the war. I can’t think of a better way to answer Ned’s question. Sometimes the world is turned upside down and then we can’t always behave as we want to. We had to lie to save our lives, and at least our lies didn’t hurt anyone.”

  But I wasn’t really listening to Papa. “Sing some more the song,” I urged Mr. Butler. That was all he needed.

  If ponies rode men,

  And if grass ate the corn,

  If cats were chased into

  Their holes by the mouse,

  If the Mamas sold their babies

  To gypsies for half a crown,

  If summer were spring,

  Not the other way round

  Then all the world would be

  Turned upside down.

  “I still think it’s a silly song,” Cade said. “‘Yankee Doodle’ is a lot better.”

  Mr. Butler laughed. “‘Yankee Doodle’ is pretty silly too, but I will admit it’s a better marching song. ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ is too slow. I could never keep step to it.”

  Suddenly a strong gust of wind swept across our fireside, and the leaping flames were flat. “There’s a storm coming,” Papa said, looking up at the dark blue sky.

  As he spoke, huge raindrops began to fall. With a blanket over our heads, Elizabeth and I rushed to cover the children, who were asleep in the wagon. The lightning came closer, flash after flash, followed by great claps of thunder. Then the wind dropped and the heavens opened up. The rain fell like a sheet, soaking us to the skin. Smith and Stephen woke up and began to whimper.

  As suddenly as it had come, the storm passed, but our fire was out and we were drenched and shivering. “Maybe I wouldn’t like to stay in the woods after all,” I murmured to Elizabeth, longing for a roof and warm walls.

  Chapter Twelve

  Fording the River

  Early in the morning of our fourth day in the Kahuago valley, we reached the Long Falls, where the gently meandering river became a boiling cascade, plunging down over steep rock ledges. While Mama and Cade stayed with the children, the rest of us climbed to a peak from which we could see the mighty waterfall in its entire length.

  “What a magnificent sight!” Papa said in awe. “It would make a splendid setting for a mill.” Then shading his eyes from the morning sun, he peered northward. “But where does the trail go from here?” he went on. “It seems to have disappeared.”

  “This is where we leave the Kahuago,” Mr. Butler replied. “From here it flows west to Lake Ontario, but we keep going northeast. We should find our trail back near the wagon. It leads to the river bank and a ford to the north shore.”

  Suddenly I realized that Sam hadn’t said a word for once. When I turned, I saw him standing on a rock all alone, his eyes lifted to the sky, his arms outstretched. I asked him what he was doing and he winked at me. “I’m trying to part the waters,” he said, “but I’m afraid I’m no Moses.”

  Papa didn’t like jokes about the Bible, but even he laughed at that. “We could use a miracle,” he muttered, as he started down the hill, scrambling and slipping on the boulders.

  Back near the wagon we poked around in the underbrush, searching for the elusive trail. Papa hacked down a few saplings. When they were cleared away, the narrow trail reappeared, barely wide enough for the wagon.

  Fortunately it was a very short distance to the ford. Once we reached it, Mr. Butler waded into the water and, picking his way carefully over the rough bottom, set off for the opposite shore. In some places the water came up to his chest. Cade and Sam would be able to manage the crossing easily enough, but Elizabeth and I were too short to keep our heads above water in the deep spots, and the younger ones would have to be carried.

  “The current is fairly strong, Caleb,” Mr. Butler reported when he came back. “We’d better stretch a guide rope between the shores so that we’ll have something to hang on to.”

  From the wagon he took a coil of rope and handed one end of it to Papa, who tied it to a sturdy pine tree. As he crossed the river again, Mr. Butler uncoiled the rope, and on the other side he attached his end securely to a rugged oak.

  He came right back to us, nodded to Papa, took Stephen in his arms, and waded into the river. Stephen clung to him, terrified but not uttering a sound. Not Sarah though. When Papa picked her up, she squealed and squirmed, trying with all her might to get into the water. Cade followed them so that he could look after the children on the other side. On the next trip, Mr. Butler carried Smith, Sam helped Elizabeth, and
Papa guided Mama, who had Robert strapped to her back I stayed on the south shore to take care of the horses.

  Papa and Mr. Butler came back at once. Papa bent to remove his shoes, saying to me, “Take yours off too, Ned. Although I wondered what he had in mind, I did as I was told. When Papa lifted his head, he explained to me that the ford was very rough. We were going to take the horses across upstream, where the current was weaker and they would able to swim.

  Very proud and pleased with myself, I tugged the mare lead and followed Papa and the stallion along the river bank. Swimming with a horse was new to me. I knew it would be tricky, but I’d certainly be able to lord it over Sam if I pulled it off.

  “Take her into the stream as far as you can,” Papa instructed me. “When she starts to swim, grab her tail — and keep out of range of her hooves. She’ll kick.”

  Getting the mare into the stream was easier said than done. She was intent on lapping up great mouthfuls of water. When I tried to pull her, she began to paw. Papa slapped her rump, and she plunged forward, pulling the lead out of my hands and nearly knocking me off my feet. I lunged after her and grabbed her tail. After that it was easy. When her feet touched bottom on the other side, I let go of her tail and swam ashore. On the bank she whinnied and stamped the ground until Papa brought the stallion up beside her. Then both horses settled down.

  Papa and I led them back downstream to where the others were waiting. Just as I’d expected, Sam’s nose was out of joint, until Papa told him that he could help bring the wagon over. While Cade and I rubbed down the horses and tethered them, Sam and Papa went back to the other side

  Mr. Butler had distributed the load very carefully over the wagon, with the blankets and clothes on top, where they would be safe from wetting. He was standing holding the Bible, wondering what to do with it. Papa decided it was too precious to risk and carried it across, held high above his head.

  Then the three of them secured the load with ropes and removed the wagon wheels. One by one the wheels were floated to the north bank. When everything was ready, Sam tied a rope to the wagon box and crossed the ford, uncoiling the rope behind him. He harnessed the stallion and attached the end of the rope to the horse’s harness. “Giddap, giddap,” he urged the sturdy beast, and with a heave the stallion started up the river bank. Soon we heard the scraping of the wagon box at the river’s edge on the other side. When the box landed in the water, the front end plunged down, soaking half the load.

  Step by step, Sam coaxed the labouring stallion up the bank. With each pace forward, the wagon box was drawn farther into the river. At last it was afloat and gliding towards us, but it made a poor boat, laden as it was. Papa and Mr. Butler, one on each side of it, tried to hold it steady, but in the middle of the river, where the current was strongest, it began to swing downstream. Papa lost his footing and disappeared underwater. When he surfaced, the wagon was yards away from him and he had to swim hard to catch it, but the two men soon had it back on course.

  Then, just as they were nearing our shore, the wagon box tilted, spilling most of the load. Mama cried out in alarm, and Papa shouted some words that startled me, but he and Mr. Butler managed to right the wagon, and the struggle began again. Sam kept urging the stallion forward, but it seemed an eternity before we heard the welcome scrape on the shore. The job had been done, but Papa stood at the river’s edge, groaning. All his precious iron and tools — and Mama’s pots — were lying on the bottom, some in fairly deep water, and most of our clothes and blankets were floating on the sparkling surface.

  Sam and I plunged into the water, determined to rescue as many of our things as we could. Without thinking, Elizabeth followed us, but in the confusion Mama didn’t notice. Her eyes were glued to her precious sewing box, which was drifting downstream. Instinctively, I swam after it. It got perilously close to the waterfall before I caught it. Fighting my way back against the current, I wondered why on earth I’d risked my life for a trinket — but I knew how much it meant to Mama.

  When we’d retrieved everything we could see on the surface, Sam and I began to dive for the pots and tools. We managed to rescue several things, but much to Papa’s sorrow we found the remains of his last jug of whisky smashed on some rocks. There was no sign of the anvil. By now we’d churned up the bottom so much that we could hardly see down into the water, and Papa told us to rest for a while and let the sand settle.

  While Mama and Elizabeth were wringing out the blankets and clothes, Sam and I made a search of the river’s edge. We found some turnips in the shallow water, but most of our food was missing, and so were Papa’s shoes and mine.

  The tall willows that overhung the river bank blocked out the sun. In the deep shade we stood shivering in our wet clothes, too woebegone to move, but Mama was quick to rouse us out of our gloom.

  “Ned, scout along the trail to see if you can find a sunnier spot for us,” she said to me, and I went willingly, glad to have something to do.

  About half a mile beyond the ford, the woods opened into a grassy meadow bright with buttercups. The golden warmth cheered me, and I rushed back to the ford, shouting, “I’ve found the very spot.” Papa and Mr. Butler had just finished replacing the wagon wheels, and we set off at once.

  At our new campsite, Elizabeth and I helped Mama spread out the wet clothes and blankets to dry. Sam and Cade had stayed at the ford to catch some fish. Before long they appeared, holding a string of gleaming trout between them. “Can we eat right away, Mama?” I asked. “We’re starving.”

  “I hope you can wait until the fish is cooked,” Mama laughed, walking towards the fire Papa had built.

  That fine feed of trout finished the job of reviving our spirits. As soon as we had eaten, Elizabeth and I got a basket from the wagon and told Mama that we were going to pick berries. That always seemed to work. What we really planned to do was find the anvil. At the ford the water had cleared and we caught a glimpse of its polished top glinting on the bottom — a little farther out than Sam and I had been diving earlier.

  “I’m going in for it,” Elizabeth said. With that she pulled off her clothes and plunged underwater. When she surfaced, she was gasping.

  “I can’t hold my breath long enough to give the anvil a good tug,” she said. “Can you fetch some rope without making everybody suspicious?”

  I ran back to camp and beckoned Cade. “Elizabeth and I have found the anvil,” I said, “but we need some rope and a little time.”

  “Leave it to me,” Cade replied. In a pinch I could always count on him. From the wagon he took a coil of rope, but just as he was handing it to me, Papa noticed.

  “What are you going to do with that rope?” he called.

  Suddenly Cade groaned and doubled over. It seemed more Sam’s kind of trick than Cade’s, but it worked. Papa forgot all about the rope and rushed to see what ailed Cade. I grabbed the coil and fled, with Cade’s howls pursuing me along the trail.

  At the ford Elizabeth was swimming over the spot where the anvil lay. I uncoiled the rope, tied a loop in one end, and tossed it to Elizabeth. She caught it and dived headfirst into the water. She stayed under so long that I was getting worried, but at last her head bobbed up.

  “The loop’s too small to go around the anvil,” she gasped between breaths. I payed out some more rope to her, and she made a bigger loop. Then under she went again, and this time when she reappeared she was smiling broadly.

  “The rope’s around the anvil,” she called, climbing out of the water and hastily drawing her clothes over her dripping body.

  At the same moment I heard a stern voice say, “What are you two doing?” Behind me Mr. Butler was staring hard at Elizabeth’s drenched hair and clinging clothes.

  To draw his attention away from my sister, I stood right in front of him and spoke quickly. “We’ve got a rope around the anvil. Will you help us pull it out?”

  I didn’t fool him for a minute, but he winked at Elizabeth and took the rope from me. One mighty tug, and the anvil was
clear of the bottom. Another tug, a long pull, and it was on the bank at our feet — Papa’s much prized anvil.

  “I’ll take it to your father,” Mr. Butler said, setting off up the trail, dragging the anvil behind him. “You two are supposed to be picking berries.”

  “We’d better do it too,” I said to Elizabeth.

  By the time we’d filled the basket, Elizabeth’s hair was almost dry and we started back. The first thing we heard when we reached the camp was Mama’s voice demanding crossly, “Where have you two been? I needed you Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth was at a loss, so I quickly took the overflowing basket from her and handed it to Mama saying, “Picking berries, Mama. Don’t they look good?” The trick worked, and Mama went off smiling with the berries in her hands.

  Cade and Sam were waiting to pounce on me. “How did you get the anvil up?” they wanted to know. “Mr. Butler wouldn’t say much about it.”

  “Elizabeth fixed a loop around it and we dragged it ashore.”

  Sam grinned. “I knew you and Elizabeth had a hand in it, but Mr. Butler didn’t give you away. He’s a good sort, isn’t he?”

  The next day we began to travel overland, away from the Kahuago River. For about ten miles the countryside was green and open, and the going was easy. Then suddenly it changed, and the trail got very rough. Often we had to hack away bushes and brambles to get the wagon through.

  On the second day we came to a hill of bare, pink rock. It wasn’t very steep, but it was smooth. Papa was sure the horses would slip trying to pull the wagon up.

  Sam and I climbed the hill with Mr. Butler to find out what lay beyond it. We could see the trail leading overland on high ground, but at the foot of the hill there was a river winding its way through the dense forest. We worked our way down to the river’s edge and followed it a short distance. We hadn’t gone very far when the water began to churn and boil. Just a few yards ahead the river plunged in a waterfall deep into a rock gorge.