Читать книгу Constance - Patricia Clapp - Страница 17

June 1621

It is June, and in the continued fair weather which has been granted us the planted fields show green and promising, and Elizabeth’s hollyhocks are fat with buds. I found clumps of violets in the woods a while ago, some of which I dug up and brought home, and these we have planted just within the hollyhocks, where they will bloom again next year. From Elizabeth’s amazing chest came also rosemary and sage and dill and other seeds, which are now prospering, so that we will soon be able to cut and hang them to dry beside the chimney place. In truth, with all the green of spring, and the planting that other women have done within the small, fenced-off gardens about their houses, our Street has become very pleasant to the eye.

Early in the month, the planting being completed and not requiring as much work from the men as before, Governor Bradford thought it wise to send some representatives to visit Massasoit, both to tighten the peace and friendship which has existed between the Indians and us (and pray God it may continue!) and to find out more about the other tribes that inhabit this area, even though we have seen little of them. For this task the Governor chose Father and Edward Winslow. Father, of course, was most pleased at the distinction and spent an entire day in cleaning and brightening his boots and clothes so that he might show to advantage and do the settlers honor. I should not have thought that Master Winslow would have been so ready to leave his wife, for he and Susanna have been wed but a month, but Elizabeth tells me that I am filled with female notions about love and marriage, and I suppose she is right, since I know little of either. In any case, Master Winslow seemed as eager as Father—wife or no—so they took themselves off, laden with food and arms and gifts for Indians till I wondered how they could move at all.

Since the Two Teds are busy all the daylight hours, Giles appointed himself the man of the house whilst Father was away, and spent a great deal of time sitting in the open door with Father’s oldest fowling piece across his knees. This made both Elizabeth and me so a-quiver, since Giles’s aim is not yet up to the standards set by Captain Standish, that Elizabeth at last sent him to go hunting wild strawberries, with the promise that could he find enough she would make him a pie. Giles, being very fond of such a pie, and knowing the vast number of tiny berries he must needs find, took some of the younger boys with him—the Billingtons and the Brewsters—believing, doubtless, that he could have the smaller lads do much of the work, while he took unto himself the proceeds. So off Giles went also, with his train of followers, and Elizabeth and I settled down in peace with Oceanus the only man about the house.

Captain Standish had given Father two gowns that once were Rose’s, muttering very gruffly that “mayhap Elizabeth or that young maid Constant might find use of them,” and since there was a great deal more of Rose than there is of me, Elizabeth and I set to work to make one over for a proper fit. This is work I do enjoy, and though it may sound too prideful to say aloud, I can write here that I have a truly clever hand with a needle, and even Elizabeth will vouch for that, as well she should, since it was she who taught me. We talked as we worked, and the door stood open with June sun shining in, and Oceanus sat on a rug on the floor trying to catch the beams and making his own sweet gurgling sounds at them, and the afternoon was pleasant. In some manner we got to speaking of Priscilla and her John, who are wed at last, and I told Elizabeth all that Prissy had told me about poor John’s courtship and we laughed together at the strange ways of men. Then Elizabeth said to me in that quiet way she has, “Is there any man amongst us who pleases you, Constance?”

I looked at her in surprise. “As husband, you mean, ma’am?”

“Aye, as husband. Thou art not too young to be considering.” Elizabeth only says “thou” to me when we are alone together. I thought about the men in the settlement and could not help but smile.

“’Tis my misfortune, ma’am, that they all seem to be either too young or too old, or else they have already taken wives.”

“What of John Cooke?” Elizabeth said.

I wrinkled my nose at her. “John is naught but arms and legs and a voice that still undoes him on occasion. And he is just my age—sixteen—which seems far younger in a man than in a girl. No, ma’am, I fear that John would never do.”

“I have watched him look at thee—with more than friendly interest.”

“He does?” It seemed quite strange that I had never noticed, and I said so.

“It is difficult to notice when one never looks,” Elizabeth remarked. “Hast thou paid any attention at all to John?”

“Not when I could avoid it. His hands are damp.”

Elizabeth smiled. “He will outgrow that,” she said. “Give the boy time, Constance. He comes of good family, and shows promise of being a handsome man. You could do worse.”

“But I hope I can do better,” I said. “Are you looking to be rid of me, ma’am?”

Elizabeth leaned forward quickly, stretching her hand across the rosy cloth that filled her lap, and taking my hand in hers. “Never, Constance! Nothing would please me more than to keep thee with me always. But thou must make a life for thyself, and a woman does that only with a man. Take all the time thou needst, my poppet, and be sure in thy own mind when the moment comes. Till then, bide here, for my love for you is great! Now, stand up, child, and let me hold this gown against thee whilst I measure the waist.”

The sun’s stripes were long and slanting when Mistress Brewster tapped at the doorway and entered. I gathered the cloth up in my arms to clear off the stool on which it had been resting as we sewed, so that she might sit down, and then stood folding it neatly to put by for the evening. Mistress Brewster has a face that turns down all over—the eyes, the mouth, the lines aside the nose—everything slants downward, giving her a most unhappy look. But she is a good woman, and very kind, if one does not mind a bit of preaching. She sat down now, with a great sigh, and greeted us.

“I came for the boys,” she said then. “Heaven alone knows how often I have told them to come straight home from their outings and not to dally, but still in these pleasant afternoons they find a hundred things to keep them. They are here with Giles?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Giles took them berrying with him—the little Billington lads too—and they have not returned. I had not noted how the day had gone.”

“Do you think they are all right?” Mistress Brewster asked, and her voice bore a trace of worry. “William says we have naught to fear from the Indians, but the boys are very young, and if they were to do something foolish—”

“Giles would watch out for them, I am sure,” Elizabeth said loyally. I did not feel quite as sure as she did, but I felt it better not to say so. I never fully trust Giles to behave intelligently, but mayhap, as Father says, that is just because he is my brother. He has never really done anything too wrong.

Just then we heard running steps along the hard-packed dirt of the Street, and Giles himself came plunging in the door, followed a few seconds later by Love and Wrastle Brewster and Francis Billington. They all carried baskets of dusty strawberries, and their faces and hands bore the proof of a fruitful afternoon. The Brewster boys went to their mother, and Giles faced Elizabeth, all talking at once. Young Francis Billington, “the young Guy Fawkes,” leaned in the doorway.

“We have searched and searched, Mother,” Giles was saying, with a distress that is quite unlike him, “and we could find no trace of him. I did not know whether to leave or no—but at last I thought it best to come back here for help.”

“You did quite right, Giles,” Elizabeth said in her calm voice, seeming to grasp immediately whatever the problem was, though I was still bewildered. “But how was it you let him stray away from you? You are the eldest; little John is but seven years old—”

Giles cast a quick glance at John’s brother, Francis, where he still stood, unspeaking, in the door. “John does not always do . . . quite . . . as he is bid,” Giles said carefully.

Love Brewster, only ten, but a good and sturdy child, nodded his head in strong agreement. “Giles told John not to wander off,” he said, “but John said Giles wasn’t old enough to tell him what to do.”

“Nor is he,” muttered Francis sulkily.

Wrastle, just seven himself, marched up to Francis, a year his elder. “Then why did you not watch him? You are his brother!”

“How long since you last saw him, Giles?” Elizabeth asked.

“At best an hour or more, Mother. We have been looking and calling all that time, but he never shouted back, and we could find no trace of him. I tried to watch for footprints as Squanto showed me, but the ground there was thick with pine needles—I could see nothing.”

“Mayhap he just didn’t want to answer,” Francis said. “You’ll see. He will be back safe and sound—and with more berries than anyone!”

“God knows I pray you are right, Francis,” Mistress Brewster said, “but I think it better we do not wait. Go and find your father, and I will send William, and—”

“I will go with them,” Giles said. “I can best show them where we were.”

“If I tell my father he will trounce me,” Francis whined.

“And to good purpose,” I heard Elizabeth murmur very softly. “Too bad ’twas not done more often ere now.” In her usual voice she spoke briskly as she rose. “Mary, if William could go with Master Billington and Giles, that might be best. Stephen is not here, as you know, or of course he would look for John. And best they start soon, before nightfall.”

“I shall call Will,” Mistress Brewster said, and took her own boys firmly by the hand. At the door she looked down at Francis. His hair was uncombed and matted, his nose was running as it always seems to, and occasional swipes at it with his dirty hands had smeared his face. His arms and legs were scratched by briars and thorns, and his bare feet were filthy. He was not a pleasing child, but Mistress Brewster has a very Christian nature.

“Come, Francis,” she said. “I will go with you and tell your father of John’s misadventure. He will not trounce you if I am there.”

Francis peered up at her suspiciously, sniffed, and wiped his nose with his hand once again. “He will, once you leave,” he muttered, but he turned and went with her across the Street and up one house, to the Billingtons’.

Elizabeth made Giles wash his hands and face, and rest long enough to eat some corn bread and cold meat. By that time Master Brewster and Master Billington were ready to leave. Looking at Master Billington I could not but feel for young Francis. It seemed quite sure his father would not only be very ready to trounce him for any misdemeanor, but would take great pleasure in the doing.

Until dark that night, and throughout the next day, and the next, the search continued for John. By this time poor Ellen Billington, whom I like little more than her husband, she being a loud-voiced, shrewish woman, was sure her child was dead and lying somewhere stiff and cold and never to be found. She knew he had been set upon either by wolves or Indians, and in truth it seemed most possible, but John Cooke said to me that he knew Indians were very smart and he had always understood that animals were too, and he doubted whether either one would bother with the Billington lad.

At last Governor Bradford ordered that word be sent to what Indians we knew were friendly as to whether they had seen aught of John. It was Massasoit who replied, telling our Governor that John had wandered into an Indian plantation twenty miles south of here—a place called Manamet—and that the Indians there, on their way to Nauset, had taken John with them! This news caused Ellen Billington to moan that her son would be better off dead than raised by the Indians, as would surely be the case, for they would never let him go. John Cooke said they would let him go fast enough once they found what a troublesome child he was, but he only said it to me.

Nauset being far down the coast from here, Master Billington and the Captain and a few others took the shallop and started out. They had been gone only an hour or so when a most horrible storm broke, with thunder and lightning enough to end the world, but they did not turn back. Poor Giles, who had not been allowed to accompany them, was in a fearful state, taking all the fault unto himself, though Elizabeth and the Two Teds and I told him that was not warranted.

And then, after three dreadful long days of waiting, the shallop came sailing into the bay, and there was John, standing jauntily in the bow, decked with beads and feathers, and looking mightily pleased with himself. His mother fell upon him, weeping and sobbing and clutching him close to her, and then stood back and handed him a clout on the ear that knocked the child back into the water. From thence his father plucked him out, curtly thanked Captain Standish and the other men who had manned the shallop, and grasping his wife by the arm and dragging John after him—with Francis bringing up the rear—he strode up the hill to his house, pushed them all inside, and slammed the door.

Upon the heels of this came Father and Edward Winslow, wearier and hungrier than I have ever seen them. They paused briefly to speak to Governor Bradford and put his mind at rest as to the success of their trip, and then each went to his own home. While Giles pulled off Father’s boots and I rubbed his sore, raw feet with an unguent, Elizabeth piled his trencher high with a steaming hotchpotch of venison. We told him all concerning John’s disappearance and the great disturbance it had caused, and he told us some of the events he and Master Winslow had shared, yawning mightily the while. Elizabeth laid her hand on his shoulder.

“Did you not sleep, Stephen, whilst you were gone?”

Father wiped his mouth with his napkin, swung around in his chair, and pulled Elizabeth down on his knee.

“Bess,” he said, “each night the Indians have been creditable hosts to us. As they slept, so did we.”

“Well, then?” Elizabeth said. “What keeps you gaping so?”

“One night we slept in the open field, making a juicy feast for the mosquitoes. Another night we laid upon boards covered with a thin matting. At one end lay the chief and his wife, at the other end lay Edward and I, and among us lay two other chiefs, who deemed it an honor to rest with white men.” I saw Elizabeth’s lips begin to twitch.

“And the other nights?” she asked, with something close to a giggle.

“The other nights—wherever we were, we were treated to the best bedding our hosts could provide, and in every case they shared it with us.”

“Then I do not think you should complain, Stephen. It seems to me you had excellent treatment.”

“Bess, every night we slept with Indians! You know how Indians smell, but blast it, woman, do you know how Indians put themselves to sleep?”

Elizabeth shook her head, her eyes wide and sparkling, as Father stood up, letting her feet slip to the floor.

“No, Stephen, how do Indians put themselves to sleep?”

With a roar that sent Giles and me into an agony of laughter, Father bellowed, “They sing!” Then he added, “I am now going to bed. If anyone dares to raise his voice before noon on the morrow, may he be struck dumb from above!”

And with that Father tumbled into bed, breeches and all, and while Giles and I—aye, and Elizabeth too—gasped with smothered laughter, his loud and ferocious snoring most comfortably filled the room.