The men worked quickly, most with the bucket between their feet. At first the women talked quietly and the children made a play at husking at one of the other mounds. But gradually, as the contest drew on, as men began to slow at their labor and the competition became more grueling, conversation ceased. Some of the men now paused with every ear, flexing their hands, or wiping sweat from their brow.
But at least two labored as if impervious to fatigue.
John worked quickly, face slick with sweat. Fingers slipping on the husks now and then, he ripped them away with something like bitter determination.
Beside him, Simeon worked with apparent ease, methodical, precise, and not a little ruthless. He snapped more than one ear in two during his efforts.
And finally, the minister called out, “Time!”
Conversations began again as the ears were counted. And the tally was given with some ceremony by the minister.
“It is Thomas Smyth, the winner!”
Thomas Smyth, the winner. Everyone seemed as if they were surprised. But why should they be? How could a blacksmith not be stronger than the strongest man among them?
But, oh! Now Simeon was looking round at him. And now the man was turning his head to look at me with his iced blue eyes.
I stepped behind the bulk of a mound of corn to hide myself.
Why could Thomas not have left well alone? It was not his contest. Not his fight. Simeon meant to show Susannah how good a man, how strong a man he was. What he had not meant to do was be humiliated at his own game.
And now Thomas had begun something.
Please, God, it would end in nothing.
Please, God?
In the silence that followed the minister’s announcement, only one person clapped. ’Twas the captain. And the sound was loud. Rhythmic. Mocking.
“Well done, Simeon Wright. Well thought. And now not a man of you can handle his musket! Whatever would happen should the Indians choose this night to come?” He had been advancing upon Simeon and finally he stopped. But not without one last word. “You might pause to think on that.”
19
THAT SABATH SIMEON WRIGHT stood in the midst of us in the meetinghouse and announced that more signs of savages had been seen.
There was an immediate outcry.
“ ’Tis not my doing! I only thought that all should be warned.”
I almost pitied the poor man. For certain it was not his doing, but I understood why the townspeople would protest. Though we had not forgotten the attack, we had chosen to ignore it. Had not the savages run away? In this critical time for storing up food, the men had begun roaming farther from town in their hunt for game.There had been talk of organizing a party to fell some of the trees in the common, to lay up a supply for the winter. Of course, the captain still organized his double watches. But the men had been grumbling about the inconvenience of it for near onto a month.
As Simeon Wright returned to his seat, the minister took to his lectern. With the opening up of the Bible, the protest quieted and then died out.
As we broke between sermons for dinner, the captain met us at the door to the meetinghouse. “They tell me sign of savages has been observed.”
Father nodded.
“And who was it observed those things?”
“Simeon Wright.”
The captain turned from us, eyes sweeping the crowd. He spun on a heel and marched straight toward Simeon Wright.
Conversations broke apart at his approach. Men stepped out of his path. Boys trailed in his steps.
“Mister Wright!”
Simeon dropped his arm from his mother’s shoulders and turned around. “Good day, Captain Holcombe.”
“I am told you saw more signs of savages.”
Simeon placed the heel of his musket on the ground and rested the muzzle against his shoulder. “I did.”
“I would like to know this: Why is it to you alone that these savages always appear? Are you some special friend? Or enemy?”
Simeon’s face flushed. The knuckles gripping his musket turned white. “Nay. Not to my knowledge. But is it not providential that I have noted signs of their presence? In order to warn you all?”
“Providential, indeed.”
Several days later, the presence of even more recent signs of savages worked its way through town like a rushing wind. By the time it reached our house, by the time we hurried to the road, half the town had gathered at Goody Blake’s.
I spied Abigail and walked over to join her. “What is it?”
“ ’Tis said to be the mark of an Indian’s foot.”
“Where?”
“Over there. By the window. Where the pigs have left their mess. ’Tis thought he was sent to spy on Goody Blake.”
“Truly?”
“Why else would he have stood there?”
I tried to shake the chill from my spine. As the crowd grew, I left my friend and worked through the people, trying to get closer to the window. Standing on the tips of my toes yielded no success. But I saw Nathaniel crouched down upon the earth with some of the other boys.
I went to him and prodded his shoulder with my knee. “What do you see?”
He looked up at me. The protest writ upon his face dropped away once recognition lit his eyes. “ ’Tis a footprint. And not from any shoe of ours.”
“But how do you know it?”
“There is no mark from a heel.”
I let him go back to his peerings and moved as close as I could toward the front of the crowd. Having no luck, I settled on a place at the extreme edge of the multitude, toward the corner of Goody Blake’s house. It was there I overheard a conversation between the captain and Simeon Wright.
“There now. You cannot tell me ’tis not proof of that which I have seen!”
“I tell you no such thing.”
“ ’Tis the print of a savage for certain.”
“Perhaps. Though ’tis curious how a savage who can keep himself from sight for months on end would simply happen to stumble into these pigs’ leavings, conveniently located right here, by Goodman Blake’s house.”
The crowd had begun to quiet and the captain’s words to reach more ears than just mine.
“Perhaps they grow careless.”
“And ’tis another curiosity, that. Why should they grow more careless as they creep closer? ’Twere me, I think I would take ever more care not to be seen.”
“These savages do not think as we do.”
“Nay. But I could not say, with any sort of certainty, that their thoughts are any less than ours.” The captain broke from Simeon and walked to the window. He squatted and appeared to examine it, spreading his hand alongside it, as if to measure its length. “Such a long foot I have rarely seen!” He placed a hand to the ground and turned to look behind him. Toward me. And Simeon Wright. “ ’Tis almost as if you have a double, Mister Wright, loosed in the wood to harass us.”
“Those Indians come in all shapes and sizes.”
“No doubt.” He pushed to his feet and addressed the crowd. “There is nothing more to be seen here.” His eyes fastened upon several of the men. “Back to the watch.”
But Simeon Wright would not be told to leave. “Will you make no new rules, Captain Holcombe? Upon this evidence of savages creeping about the center of the town?”
“What would you have me do, Mister Wright? More than has been done?”
“I do not think it wise to continue talk of felling trees in the common.”
“Not even with a guard?”
“And leave the women and children without protection?”
At Simeon Wright’s words, mumbling swept the crowd. And soon protests could be heard. “How are we to survive this winter if we have no logs to burn?”
“And how are we to mend our fences?”
The captain held up a hand and the men were silenced. “If you’ve need of lumber, then go to Wright’s mill. I am certain he has laid up wood in abundance. Enough for all of your needs. Is that
not so, Mister Wright?”
“I suppose I could spare a log or two.”
The captain nodded as if the words confirmed something. And then he pulled his hat farther down on his head. Gestured to his watchmen and started off.
Those at the front of the crowd took one last look at the print and left. Those standing farther back soon came to be at the front. There was naught to say. And naught to do but to return home and pull our latch strings inside behind us.
The crowds dispersed rapidly, neighbors pulling cloaks fast about their shoulders and hurrying their children on the path toward home.Thomas touched my arm and began walking away. But I could not move. I was watching Goody Blake.
After all had left, all but us, she had squatted beneath her window. Her eyes had grown worse. I had known it, this past month, by the hesitation in her steps. She could hide it within a group of neighbors, for when speaking to another, which of the women actually looked into the eyes of those to whom she spoke? But now, alone, she stretched out a quaking hand and patted the mud, feeling for the footprint. When she felt it, she put down a knee into the pig-fouled earth and bent so her face was almost soiled by it. And there, as she fingered the length and breadth of the impression, her face grew pale, her fingers grew even more unsteady.
At last, she lifted her head from the droppings and then turned her beautiful, failing eyes toward the window. And I could almost hear her thoughts. Could almost feel her fear. ’Twas one thing to be spied upon by a savage, but ’twas another thing entirely to know that you could have done nothing at all because you could not have seen it, would never have known. If there was a savage come to Stoneybrooke, he could pick no better place to begin his . . . savageries . . . than Goody Blake’s.
But the Indian could not have known it. Of all the houses in Stoneybrooke, why had he felt compelled to choose her window to peer into? To make a prison of the one place where the woman was still able? Could still feel secure?
By the next Sabbath, the meetinghouse had been adorned with wolves. Two of them. Someone would be collecting a generous bounty of ten shillings apiece! The creatures had been fixed to the wall with nails driven into their back paws, their heads left to loll at the ground. Whoever had killed them had done a thorough job of it. Their skulls had been crushed beyond recognition and their front legs hung at odd angles from the bodies. Birds rose from their corpses and flew away at our approach. But only to the top of the roof.
At the break between sermons, I went to find Abigail.
She was leaning against the wall of the meetinghouse, babe suckling at her breast. Beside her, Rebecca crouched in the dirt, her own child playing at her feet.
I had just come to stand in front of Abigail, just opened my mouth to greet her when my words were cut off by the approach of Simeon Wright.
“Susannah Phillips.” Several heads turned in our direction, drawn our way, no doubt, by Simeon’s loud voice.
He was trailed by my sister.
“Mister Wright.”
From the shade beneath the brim of his hat, his eyes glowed blue. He flashed his teeth in a smile. “My mother would like to invite you to supper Wednesday next.”
“She . . . would?” Simeon’s mother was rarely heard from and rarely seen, so I could not keep from searching for her behind his broad shoulders. A small step to my left revealed her lurking in the shadow cast by the corner of the meetinghouse.
“She would. You and your father. Family. I have a . . . proposition . . . to make.”
“A proposition?”
“I wish to speak of your future.”
“My future?” But how could he know of the plans between John and me? We had barely dared to speak of them yet betwixt ourselves.
“What is this, Simeon Wright?” It was with some relief that I recognized the voice of my father come to join us.
“An invitation to supper. Next Wednesday.”
“We are honored.”
Simeon nodded at my father. Nodded at me and then left us without another word. For such a tall man, he moved easy on his feet through the door. Like a fox.
I turned to resume my speech with Abigail, but in all that had followed from the start of our conversation, she had found conversation with Rebecca instead.
“ ’Tis good. The captain will take his meal with him this night to the watch . . .” Mother turned round to look at the house as if she had forgotten something.
“Shall we go, Mother?” Father moved toward the door as he spoke.
She cast another glance round the place and then, finally, she smiled and withdrew her cloak from its hook. “Not without my cloak.”She looked at Mary and me. “And not without yours either.”
It seemed too hot, this sun-warmed day, to need them. “But—”
Mary’s protest was cut off by Mother’s words. “You’ll thank me on the way home.”
We walked down the road past a half dozen houses. I would rather have turned into any of them than continue on to where we had been invited. I had been there once, during the attack, and I had no wish to go there again. Mary, however, seemed to have no such misgivings. It was only on the climb up the hill that her pace began to slacken.
The house was set just beneath the high point of a ridge, overlooking a meadow that stretched up from the river. Had we crossed over the ridgeline behind the house, we might have seen the mill in the valley below.
A manservant opened the door at Father’s approach. We were shown, all of us, into a room that I could see served no purpose but for sitting. Such a room was a luxury none of the rest of the houses in Stoneybrooke had. It was furnished with a settle, several chairs, and a small cabinet I took to be a sort of instrument . . . all of them things that I had failed to note when we had been quartered here during the attack. Still, I clung to my opinion: Though I was happy to think one among Stoneybrooke might someday be a goodwife here, I was content for that person not to be me.
As we passed into the kitchen, a hand reached out and plucked at my arm. I turned at the movement and found Simeon’s mother beckon. Her smile beamed out of her withered face like a ray of sun. She took my hand in her own. “ ‘Because the Lord hath heard I was hated, he hath therefore given me this son also: and I called his name Simeon.’ ” She looked at me in expectation.
I could not think how to reply to such strange words, and so I nodded and quickly followed my sister through the door.
Once in the kitchen, we were seated upon benches, as was the custom. But for himself, Simeon Wright had a chair. A splendid chair with spindled legs and a carved back. It was positioned at the head of the table. And it was from there he commanded the meal to be served.
Silent servants leaned around us to place the food upon the table. No trenchers for the Wright house; each one of us had our own plate cast from pewter. Even Nathaniel and the child.
Once we had all been served, the servants withdrew to the corners of the room. And then, a silence befell us. It was not a wordless silence, for Simeon entertained us all with stories of the Puritan struggle against King Charles and news of Boston. Nay, the silence was more of a posture. It was a watchful silence, a waiting silence. A silence conjured chiefly by Mistress Wright and the servants who sat and stood as if they might be found wanting at any moment.
I could not understand the mood.
Simeon himself was expansive, seemed almost to sprawl in his chair. His demeanor was that of a man with plenty of leisure and ample good will and time enough to spend them both as he pleased. And obviously, it pleased him this evening to spend it with us.
Across from me, his mother made not one sound. Not that I expected her to speak. She seemed too intent upon eating to save any energy for words. But she made no attempt to follow the conversation, no attempt to listen to her son’s words. Though her gaze shifted now and then to him, it was a furtive gaze, as if she hoped he would not notice her. It seemed odd to me. As odd as a woman with a forearm the size of a sapling to eat enough to satisfy a man five times her weight
.
Once the meat and sauce had been finished, once the flummery had been served, Simeon requested that his mother play the small organ that stood in the sitting room. “ ’Twas my father who removed it from a church in England. With his own hands. To purify the worship.”
Mistress Wright had started at Simeon’s request. Raised her eyes to look at him and then quickly lowered her gaze toward the table.“Nay. Please do not ask it of me.”
“For our guests.”
She shook her head.
Mary and I shared a glance. ’Twas uncomfortable to be witness to a family disagreement.
Mother laid her hand upon Mistress Wright’s. “Please. Do not worry yourself on our account, Mistress Wright. We will be no less welcomed for not having heard you.”
The poor woman flinched at Mother’s touch.
Simeon’s smile stretched even wider. “I must insist.”
His mother blinked. Stilled. Then she took a great breath, rose, and walked to the sitting room.
The rest of us followed, arranging ourselves behind her in the shape of a crescent moon. For several long moments, she simply sat there, hands upon her lap.
“Mother!” Simeon reached out in front of her and threw open two doors, which revealed a sort of cabinet containing wooden tubes.The insides of the doors had been painted with scenes of maidens frolicking in a garden.
Mistress Wright placed trembling hands to the instrument and began to play. The last time I had heard an organ was in my grandfather’s house. It had always seemed to me a music even sweeter than that of birds. I did not recognize the tune she played. It was something insubstantial, light and gay, which did not fit the season or the gathering chill of darkness outside any more than it fit our sober group. A hesitation between each note soon overcame the tune and worked a tension through the room. I am certain it was as much work to listen to the song as it was to play it, and it was with some relief that I greeted its conclusion. When she started on another, I do not know that I breathed until, at last, she had finished.
The third song must have been well loved. It was played with a growing confidence. A growing grace. And in the playing, Simeon’s mother seemed transformed. Her shoulders raised themselves, straightening her hunched back. Her chin lifted, imparting an illusion of assurance. A smile so worked itself upon her face that she appeared, for that moment, quite pretty. And youthful.
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