by Ron Carter
Margaret’s face darkened. “Terrible thing. Terrible.” She tapped the second folded sheet. “What about this one?”
“I think I’d better go to Charlestown and try to find her.”
“Any idea how to do it?”
Dorothy shrugged. “I guess go to the post office and ask.”
They were sipping at the steaming coffee when the sound of pounding feet brought both women around. They both recoiled as the front door was thrown open and Caleb burst in. At fifteen, he had nearly reached his full height of just under six feet, and the spread of his shoulders had begun. His knees and elbows were still too obvious; his hands seemed far too large for his arms, his feet too large for his legs; and his nose seemed out of proportion. He was still smooth cheeked, with hazel eyes and light brown hair, and his jaw had only begun to catch up. His shirtsleeves were rolled above his elbows, and he had forgotten to take off his printer’s apron before his headlong run from the printing shop to his home. It was covered with ink stains, as were his hands and arms. It was clear the man he would become was going to be strong and striking.
“Mother!” Coming as he had from brilliant sunlight into the sheltered room, he did not see the women seated at the table for a moment, and then he saw them and slowed. He nodded to Dorothy, and his eyes flashed as he spoke too loudly. “Mother, a rider just told us at the print shop! Colonel Thompson’s regiment had a Tory! He blew up half the regiment and . . .” He suddenly realized who was there and he paused. “I don’t think Billy was hurt.”
Dorothy smiled. “He wasn’t.”
Caleb plowed on. “He blew up a lot of things, and they caught him and they shot him! Just like that! Held a court-martial on him and shot him for spying! He had it coming. All Tories do. There were other men killed and some hurt, and the doctor had to set up a hospital and everything. The wounded are going to be here today or tomorrow!”
Margaret nodded and pushed the letter towards Caleb. “We just got Billy’s letter. He told us about it.”
Caleb’s eyes widened. “Can I read it?”
Dorothy handed it to him and he stood planted, oblivious to the world as he read every word. He rounded his mouth and blew air. “Billy’s all right. It isn’t as bad as that messenger told.” His forehead wrinkled. “Is there another letter?”
Margaret held it up. “It’s for the mother of the spy. We shouldn’t read it.”
A thought struck and stopped Caleb in his tracks and his eyes widened in instant excitement. “Can I let Mr. Ingram at the print shop read Billy’s letter? We’re setting print, and Billy’s letter would be something special! Mr. Ingram might pay me for it, or make me a reporter!”
Margaret looked at Dorothy and she nodded. “It’s all right. Please don’t lose it.”
“Promise. I’ll bring it back real soon.” He turned on his heel, then stopped. “Can I take that other letter sometime?”
“That will depend on the boy’s mother.”
Caleb ran out the front door clutching Billy’s letter, eyes bright in anticipation of what Mr. Ingram was going to say when he read it. In his mind he was seeing large print on the article in tomorrow morning’s biweekly newspaper: “BOSTON REGIMENT DISCOVERS TORY SPY PLOT.” In smaller print: “Billy Weems a witness.” And at the bottom of the huge article: “By Caleb Dunson.” He broke into a pounding run, working out which words would be powerful enough to describe midnight explosions that devastated the Boston regiment in a rainstorm.
Margaret smiled ruefully and walked to close the front door, left standing open when Caleb made his running departure. “Last week he said he was going to join the militia. He has a lot of anger over losing John, and Matthew being gone. I worry about him.”
“Why are they always so willing to go to war?” Dorothy said softly.
Margaret sat down. “I don’t know. When do you think you’ll go to find Mrs. McMurdy?”
“This afternoon, if I can.” Dorothy shook her head thoughtfully, and there was pain in her eyes. “I hope the letter tells her about her son, before the newspaper comes out.”
Margaret leaned back in her chair. “Do you want to take Billy’s letter along?”
Dorothy reflected. “Maybe I should.”
“I’ll send Brigitte with it as soon as she’s read it.”
Margaret remembered the scarf holding back her hair for the morning wash, and removed it and laid it on the table. They finished their coffee, and both rose to go to the backyard.
The wood yard was to the right of the kitchen door, a small area inside a low fence where the firewood was stored. Inside, there were rungs of pine and maple stacked on one side, a chopping block with a large axe in the middle, and the split kindling stacked high against the back wall of the house. An abandoned rake lay across a partial pile of the wood chips that had fallen from the splitting of the kindling.
At the far end of the yard, beneath the great oak tree around which John and Matthew had built a circular bench, Prissy and Trudy squealed in mock terror as Adam threatened them with a large spider he swore was clasped between his rounded hands. He threw his hands towards the girls and separated them. Prissy and Trudy screamed and ran around the oak to stand with their hands clenched beneath their chins, thrilling in the horror of the fictional spider.
“Trudy,” Dorothy called. “Come along.”
Trudy thrust forward an accusing finger. “Adam had a spider!”
Adam shook his head violently. “Did not.”
Prissy marched forward, hands on her hips. “Did too.”
“Did not.”
Margaret stepped into the yard. “You two come finish in the wood yard!”
The tone in her voice put an end to all arguments, and Adam pouted as he marched back to the rake, Prissy following with her chin high, face a mask of indignant superiority. Trudy trotted to Dorothy’s side, and they walked back through the house, Margaret following.
Dorothy stopped at the front door. “Tell Matthew when you write.”
“I will. Come tell me about that poor mother.”
Less than twenty minutes later, once again wearing her heavy wash-day apron, Dorothy walked into her backyard and felt the bottom of the nearest sheet, then a pillowcase, and smiled. They were dry, slightly stiff, and they smelled of good, homemade soap and Boston sun. Systematically she pulled clothespins and stuffed them into her apron pocket, loaded Trudy’s arms and sent her in, then gathered her own load and followed. They stacked the piles on the dining table for sorting into two stacks, one to be ironed, the other not.
Tuesday was ironing day for goodwives, and tomorrow at dawn Dorothy would sprinkle and roll and pack the ironing stack in the wicker basket, and heat six flatirons on the kitchen stove. When the sprinkled clothes had ripened she would spend four hours with light beads of perspiration on her forehead in the hot kitchen, rotating the flatirons from the stove to the ironing board, while Trudy helped hang or fold the finished articles. Then Trudy would iron all the pillowcases under Dorothy’s sharp eye.
Dorothy started at the sudden, urgent rap at the front door, and she quickly hung her heavy apron and hurried to open it.
“Brigitte! You’re early. Come in.”
“Oh, Dorothy,” Brigitte exclaimed as she walked in and untied her bonnet, “when Mother told me about the regiment I was so scared! Billy right there with explosions and men hurt.”
“It frightened me too,” Dorothy replied.
Brigitte held out Billy’s letter. “Thank you for letting me read it. Mother said you have a second letter for someone in Charlestown?”
Dorothy’s eyes fell. “The mother of the boy they shot for spying.”
Brigitte shuddered. “How awful! When are you going?”
“Right away.”
“Could I come with you? Trudy can go down with Adam and Prissy. Mother said it’s all right, and she thinks someone should be with you.”
The east wind moved their ankle-length skirts and tugged at their bonnets as they stood on the heavy
timbers of the dock for the Charlestown ferry, watching the pilot bring in the squat, round-nosed boat from Charlestown loaded with wagons and livestock and people lined against the guardrails. The battered bow thumped against the baffles and the dock shuddered slightly, while the dock crew quickly looped four-inch hawsers over weather-blackened pilings two feet thick and secured the ferry into its port. The ferry crew opened the gates and began calling orders to start the unloading of the walking passengers, then the wagons and carts, and finally the livestock.
Half an hour later Dorothy and Brigitte stood against the guardrail as the sailors on the dock cast off the heavy hawsers splashing into the water, and the ferry pilot blew his horn. The boat, riding low and sluggish with its new load, started back towards the Charlestown side of the Charles River.
Twenty minutes later they braced for the jolt of docking, then waited their turn to walk through the gates onto the Charlestown dock, and up Deery Street towards the high white spire of the Charlestown South Church. They walked in silence, awed by the many remaining burned-out homes and shops and the rubble of buildings destroyed by British cannon one year earlier. During the battle of Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill, with hidden American snipers in Charlestown maintaining a continuous fire, General Howe had ordered the guns of the British fleet riding at anchor in the Charles River, led by the Somerset and the Lively, to reduce Charlestown to rubble. The 168 heavy twenty-four-pound cannon joined with the British guns atop Copp’s Hill to blast for hours, while Bostonians stood on housetops in grim silence, listening to the thunder, watching Charlestown burn and Howe’s army sent reeling in defeat on the grassy slopes. New homes and shops were abuilding now, but the blackened wreckage of the old was a grim reminder of the terrible price paid by the city of Charlestown for the staggering losses the Americans inflicted on the red-coated regulars on June 17, 1775.
The two women walked to the tall front doors of the church, read the sign, and walked to the rear of the building to rap on the door. A moment later it opened and they faced a short, portly, balding man. “Yes?” he said, head tilted while he peered over his spectacles.
Brigitte spoke. “I’m Brigitte Dunson and this is Dorothy Weems. We’re from Boston, looking for a woman named Beatrice McMurdy. Do you happen to know her?”
The round face puckered in concentration. “No, I don’t think I’ve heard that name.”
“Then could you help us find the post office?”
The rotund little man walked out and pointed. “Anchor Tavern. Down two blocks, turn right one block, on the corner. Polly Ambrose owns it.”
“Thank you, Reverend.”
Polly Ambrose stood just over six feet in height and weighed close to three hundred pounds, and Brigitte and Dorothy heard her laugh roll out into the street while still a block away. Her hair was piled on top of her head with strands hanging, her dress was loose and flowing, and her homely face was as round as a dinner plate, split by a great smile. The faint odor of rum lingered in the tavern, where four sailors sat at a table with a large flask and pewter mugs. They straightened to stare as Brigitte and Dorothy walked through the open door. Polly stood behind a small counter against one wall, sorting envelopes.
“Beatrice McMurdy?” she said. “Yes, seems like I’ve heard of her.” She sobered for a moment. “You have business with her?”
“Yes. A message.”
“Bad news?”
Brigitte shrugged. “We don’t know.”
“If she’s the one I’m thinking of, she lives on Busey Street, down near the shore. Never comes outside her house. I don’t know how she gets food. Come on outside; I’ll show you.”
The wind stirred her hair and billowed her dress as she pointed.
“Thanks so much,” Brigitte said.
“Don’t mention it.” Polly grinned. “You two gave those sailors quite a start when you walked in.” She chuckled as she walked back inside the tavern.
Brigitte blushed and hid a smile as she hooked her arm inside Dorothy’s. They walked away together down the slight incline to a narrow street with a crooked sign with the single word “Busey” printed on it. The cobblestones ceased, and the women continued on the winding dirt street, past houses that became increasingly more derelict. They stopped at the one with no fence or gate and studied the unpainted, weathered boards and curtained windows that stared back like dead eyes in a dead building.
Brigitte felt an involuntary shudder as she rapped on the front door. They heard a slight rustle inside, but nothing more. Brigitte rapped once again, and from the corner of her eye she saw a slight movement in the curtain. She turned, but the curtain settled and did not move again.
“Mrs. McMurdy,” Brigitte called. “Please come to the door. We have a message about your son.”
A full minute passed with not a movement, not a sound, before Brigitte rapped again. Slowly the rusted door handle turned and the door opened three inches. The room inside was dark, and the two women could see nothing past the door. A high voice demanded, “Who are you?”
“Brigitte Dunson and Dorothy Weems, from Boston. We have a letter about your son.”
“Is he dead?”
“May we come in?”
“Where’s the letter? Show me the letter.”
Dorothy handed the folded sheet to Brigitte. “It’s here.” She held it up.
“Hand it through the door.”
“Mrs. McMurdy, we need to talk to you.” Brigitte carefully weighed her next words. “I believe your son is dead.”
For long seconds Brigitte waited, while the only sound was the lapping of the sea on the rocks two blocks down and the wind in the few trees and dried sea grass. Slowly the weather-cracked door opened, and a small, hunchbacked woman with an old, worn shawl clutched about her shoulders stepped back to allow them entrance. They entered the small parlor, blinking while their eyes adjusted to the dim light, and they breathed shallow at the rank smell of a house too long closed and too long neglected.
The woman faced Brigitte. Her face was sallow, cheeks pinched, nose hawked. Half her teeth were missing, decayed. “Give me the letter.”
“May we sit down?”
The woman gestured, and they walked a path through the clutter to the dining table and sat on chairs that creaked. The woman opened one blind and thrust her hand forward for the letter. She sat down and smoothed it, and formed the words silently as she read the brief, undated message.
Beatrice McMurdy: I write to tell you today your son was found guilty of spying and was shot. He asked me to tell you he was sorry. He was not hung, because he was finally brave and told us what he done. I believe he was a good man who got the wrong friends. I am sorry for you. Signed, Eli Stroud, Boston Regiment.
In the single shaft of sunlight, her thin hands crumpled the letter, her gray head settled forward, and she buried her face in her arms. Her shoulders shook in silent sobbing. For two full minutes Brigitte and Dorothy sat unmoving, pain in their hearts for the grief-stricken mother. Finally Dorothy leaned forward and placed her hand gently on the bony shoulder. She could think of nothing to say.
The sobbing slowed, then stopped, and the woman raised her face and wiped at her tears with her sleeve, and Brigitte and Dorothy saw a change, a softening in her face and her eyes. “You were good to bring the letter. You should go now.”
Dorothy spoke gently. “Did your son lose his life?”
The woman blurted, “Shot for spying. A Tory!”
Dorothy closed her eyes in pain for a moment. “Your son was loyal to what he thought was right. You must not condemn him for that.”
“It makes no difference. He’s gone.” Her mouth trembled and she swallowed hard.
Brigitte interrupted. “When will your husband be here?”
She shook her head, and her expression again became hard, cynical. “Never. He ran off when Darren was two. Drank too much. Wouldn’t be responsible. Didn’t like me or the children.” Her eyes became pleading, and she spoke as though she were trying to ex
plain her life, justify herself. “I tried. Heaven knows I tried. It got hard when Madeline died, and I had to try to earn enough money to feed Darren and me. When he got older he knew his father ran off and he was so full of anger. So angry all the time. That’s when he changed. I knew in my heart he would come to no good end.” For a time she bowed her head, and once again her shoulders shook, and she murmured softly, “I just didn’t know what to do . . . what to do.”
“Who was Madeline?”
“My daughter. Beautiful little thing. Four years older than Darren. Smallpox.”
She battled for composure. Suddenly her face softened once more, and she spoke as with a new voice. “You were good to come. I thank you. Do you want to read the letter?”
Dorothy read it slowly and passed it to Brigitte, and Brigitte read it and folded it. “It says your son died bravely in the end. He was loyal to what he thought was right. Remember him that way.”
“Can I make some coffee?” she said eagerly. “I can make coffee.”
Brigitte glanced at Dorothy. “If we come back another day, would you make coffee for us?”
“Another day? You’ll come back?
“Yes.”
“Soon? Yes. I’ll make coffee. I have some coffee. I can make coffee.”
“Thank you. We must be going now. We’ll come back.”
“What are your names? Where do you live?”
“I’m Brigitte Dunson, and this is Dorothy Weems. We live in Boston, not far from the South Church.”
The woman repeated the names quietly, as though memorizing them. “Brigitte Dunson. Dorothy Weems.” She raised her face. “You will come back soon?”
“Soon.”
Brigitte walked to the door and opened it, and she and Dorothy turned. “Keep the letter in a safe place. Thank you for letting us come in.”
The small woman walked quickly to Brigitte and threw her arms about her, and Brigitte held the thin body close for several seconds. Then Dorothy gathered her into her arms and held her and felt the wracking sobs.
“Soon. You promised.”
“We promise.”
