We had reasons to be thankful for our smart-tongued companion. Not only had he helped in the crossing, but he also (much better than Gid and I ever would) understood the blazes on the trees that had been left as direction indicators by Indians and earlier pioneers. We would have been lost—literally—without Phineas’s guidance.
One night by our campfire, fortified with too many drams of Mama’s hard cider, Gid tried to deliver a heartfelt speech of gratitude. Phineas brushed this aside and held up his tin plate with its remnant of johnnycake and fried salt pork. “This is reward enough: Freddy’s shockingly good cooking and the exquisiteness of the ingredients.” He took a bite, chewed slowly, swallowed, and moaned, “Wheat. Glorious wheat.”
I considered his impassioned sighs and lip smacking. What had he grown used to subsisting on if a quick bread and a few pieces of crackling pork could inspire this level of appreciation?
Catching my perturbed study, he grinned. “Sure beats wild-leek soup.”
As helpful as Phineas was, his constant teasing and joking rankled. The only—only—times he turned somber were when he mulled aloud about the theft of his potash at the tavern and what was going to happen when he couldn’t pay on his land. Then he’d frown at the fire.
Such seriousness was short-lived. He’d resume his raillery all too quickly. My occasional, solitary visits to the woods particularly amused him.
Once, when I returned after a quick trip, he burst out laughing. “Merciful heavens, Freddy. You’re not suffering from a stomach ailment, are you? No? Then don’t be bashful. We won’t look.”
His hilarity only increased when I stammered an excuse of shameful bruises left by my previous employer.
“Oh, no, not the evil silversmith again,” he groaned through his mirth.
And on another occasion: “You shouldn’t be ashamed, Freddy. We are all God’s creation, big and small. Alas, some will always be bigger than others. But you’ve still got a little growing left in you, so don’t worry yet. And if you remain on the nubby side, as long as the equipment works, you shouldn’t worry. A woman’s sensitive spot isn’t the hole. You want to head northward to find her paradise. Ha-ha-ha!” His arm, swung over my shoulders for this friendly (and excruciatingly mortifying) reassurance, practically choked me as he doubled over and lurched sideways in his subsequent laughter.
Gid listened to these tormenting teachings with an expression that was part alarmed, part amused, and part embarrassed (for both of our sakes, no doubt). However, he made no move to interfere, and when I muttered under my breath a complaint, his face turned sanctimonious, and he retorted, “Freddy was your stupid idea. Not mine.”
In contrast to my great modesty and Gid’s milder version, Phineas revealed a remarkable casualness about such delicate matters. Without pausing, he would carry on about the superiority of horses to all other animals while unfastening his pantaloons and relieving himself against a tree.
Even more startling were his bathing rituals, the regular scrubbings he gave himself and his clothes in the river, unmindful of my gape and indifferent to the nippy April air and the cold water. “Cleanliness, dear Freddy, is the secret to good health,” he once lectured over his lathered shoulder, “cleanliness and abstinence.” Then, with a twinkling smile, he added, “Abstinence from excessive drinking, anyway. Filth and drunkenness are death’s boon companions.”
In response to my whispered comment on Phineas’s excessive washing rituals, my brother shrugged. “It’s an English thing.”
This could be true. We’d learned that Phineas’s family had only recently immigrated to America from Tadmorden, Lancashire, England.
Gid scratched over his right ear. “And not such a bad idea. I ought to brave the frigid water and join him.”
I sighed. “Wish I could contrive a good bath.”
“Soon.” He gave me a dark look. “In the meantime, stop paying such close attention to Phineas’s.”
I stuck out my tongue and shuffled away, my face hot from the implication. Truthfully, my peeks at Phineas were curious but not lascivious. Oddly enough, instead of focusing on his nakedness, I found myself wondering what Daniel Long would look like similarly occupied in the river.
It struck me as a tragedy of my own making that I’d never find out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Batavia, despite owning the distinction as the Genesee Valley’s county seat, was little more than a bare-bones village. Its outskirts didn’t so much drift toward the wilderness as slam into it, for trees densely enclosed the town. However, I couldn’t have experienced a greater surge of relief entering its precincts had I found myself in Boston. For too long, Gid, Phineas, and I had suffered either the gloom of the woods or, when the sun breached the canopy and sifted through the legion of branches, its bewildering glare.
Entering Batavia, I blinked like a blind girl newly introduced to sight and, since I’d taken to traveling mostly on foot to ease the weary oxen’s burden, stumbled into the road and straight into the path of a mule-drawn cart.
“Oh!” I tripped backward. “I beg your pardon.”
“Mind where you’re going, boy,” the owner said testily, yanking his animal out of my way.
Phineas eyed me in amusement. “Follow me.” He tapped his horse’s sides with his heels and trotted ahead of us along the thoroughfare.
The central office of the Holland Land Company, Grecian in architectural style, anchored the town on the main road where people strode or rumbled along in wagons. When we shuffled into the clean building, I regretted my ragged appearance, but the bespectacled, thin-haired clerk at the front desk must have been used to dirty visitors, for he barely blinked at Gid and me. Indeed, he seemed more struck by Phineas’s dapper apparel. His wide gaze lingered on him and the instrument case in his hand before he coughed and shuffled some papers. “This way, please,” he said, his Dutch heritage discernible in his accent. He indicated the hallway behind him.
After he escorted us through a doorway and departed with a murmured assurance that we wouldn’t wait long, we found ourselves sitting in the richly paneled, book-lined contractor’s room.
The graying agent who entered a few minutes later greeted us and promptly unrolled a map. Based on Gid’s request, he inspected this map for a moment, trailing his finger along the demarcations sectioning off two long, intersecting roads, Oak Orchard and Ridge, then identifying the Welds brothers’ location. As if speaking mostly to himself, he murmured, “A little south of the Ridge, I believe—right here, near what we call the Five Corners. Two hundred and sixty acres.” He peered inquiringly at Gid.
My brother, his eyes alight with excitement, nodded and repeated reverently, “Two hundred and sixty acres.”
Gid took the article, made his first payment, provided contact and beneficiary information, and signed three papers to secure the transaction. This took all of five minutes.
Then my brother and I waited as Phineas explained the theft of his potash. “I’m afraid I only have the interest due.” More nervous than I’d ever seen him, he fidgeted with his instrument case. “I don’t know when I’ll raise the rest.”
The agent nodded. “May I see your article, please?”
Phineas unlatched the case. After opening the compartment under the scrolled end of his fiddle, he removed a few neatly wound coils of strings, a block of resin, and at last, his folded article. Phineas hadn’t once played his instrument for us. I wondered when he would.
The agent opened the article and read it. “I’ll be back shortly.”
We waited for his return without talking. Phineas sat hunched over his clenched hands, Gid stood staring at his contract in amazement, and I sidled along the shelves, eyeing the books and missing Mama’s collection back home.
When the agent returned, he passed Phineas a new contract and explained matter-of-factly that he’d waived the back interest, as well as a dollar per acre on the balance.