“Brag,” I breathed. I’d never heard of brag, but it sounded exciting. Maybe he would teach me how to play. With a flutter of anticipation, I gazed avidly around me, then twisted to take in the advertisements and legal notices plastering the wall. Between an announcement of a town meeting and a note offering the sale of a goat was a warning about runaway apprentices. I smiled, imagining my name there, then turned again, began picking at my meal, and strained to catch the exchanges in the room.
My ears pricked at a complaint about President Madison, “his bacon-brained General Wilkinson, and the shameful cronyism already wrecking our government.” Politics! I leaned forward, hoping to hear more. This was what I’d longed to be made privy to: stimulating theories and elevated discourse. Unfortunately, the distant conversation took a mundane turn and began to dwell on the sad state of a neighbor’s cow.
I slumped. Mostly these men were just puffing on pipes and drinking.
Maybe the reference to the farmer’s cow aroused Mr. Rude’s attention, for he reintroduced the milking topic at his table with a more seriously muttered “Damme, it don’t make sense, John, adding milking to your chores. Is darning socks next?” He grunted. “You have men’s tasks to perform, and if last year’s haying was any indication, you could use the practice. Too slow with the scythe, by far.” He cracked a smile. “Listen, girl. I can promise you this year, if you don’t learn to quicken your pace, I’ll be nicking your ankles with my blade to hurry you along.”
More red mottled poor John’s face. “Stop calling me girl. And I can’t exactly practice haying this time of year.”
“Then you should be building fences and splitting rails.”
“I do. I still have time to help Mother. Why shouldn’t I?”
He pounded the table once, with a fist. “Because it’s not your work. That’s for Patience to do.”
“She’s five!”
“Then your mother must handle it herself.”
The young man opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of retorting. Instead he seized his tankard and, without even tasting its contents, turned his glare to the side. He caught my gaze in the process.
I smiled. “Your willingness to help”—I shrugged—“well, I think it says a lot about your character.”
He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “My mother’s been very sick.”
“Sorry about that, but sick or not, if a woman has her hands full, she can use assistance. Anyone’s.”
My support, spoken quietly, wasn’t intended for the obnoxious man across the table, but he must have heard enough of it because he observed, “Yet another girl in the tavern. You aiming to become a milkmaid, too, girl?”
I narrowed my eyes. The stupid oaf. He reminded me of Matthew. “I don’t like how you use that word.”
“Milkmaid?” He barked a laugh. “Too bad, milkmaid.”
“Girl,” I clarified through my teeth. “You say it like cur or swine.”
“Freddy,” Gid said warningly.
I glanced at my brother. “I just wonder he’d make a curse out of the label. Doesn’t he have a sister to esteem? A mother to respect?”
The boor snorted. “This has nothing to do with my mother.”
“I disagree. When you use girl in that degrading way, you disrespect all women, including your mother.”
Phineas groaned.
The man sneered. “I see you’re a mama’s boy like John here. Why don’t you go home to your mother?”
“If only I could.” Sadness pierced me. I missed Mama terribly. “I’d certainly find any mother better occupied than I am. Mothers would never waste their time on this.” I dismissed the taproom with a flick of my hand.
“Nor should they. A taproom ain’t for females. It’s the small reward menfolk earn after a day of breaking their bodies in the fields.”
“I don’t begrudge hardworking men an hour of leisure, but when does a woman ever reap such a reward?” A moment to sit, without stitchery blanketing her lap and children hanging off her arms? To my young neighbor, I said, “What was your mother doing when you left?”
He scratched his crown. “Feeding fiber to the spindle, I think.”
I nodded. “Working. Like always.” No evening of fellowship, cards, and liquor for her. As for the Sabbath … well, how restful could a day be when there were children to mind? Even a holiday didn’t belong to women, not when they had to cook, cook, cook to make the occasion extra special. “You distinguish your mother by helping her. That’s more than filial devotion. That’s piety. The fifth commandment: Honor thy father and thy mother.”
Gid dropped his head in his hands and moaned.
Phin squawked. “Now he’s preaching!” He stood hastily and said in a conciliatory way, “Freddy’s studying to become a minister.”
I ignored him and executed from my seat a small bow to the faithful son. “I respect you for the deference you show your mother. I believe God does, too.” Then because I couldn’t help it, I added, with more ire than sense, “Only those who break the commandments burn in hell.”
The young man darted a fretful peek at the outraged face across the table.
“Did you just send me to hell?” The cousin planted his hands on the table and heaved himself to his feet, scraping the chair against the floorboards in the process.
I blinked. He was big.
“Come, tadpole. I dare you. Say that a second time.” Without waiting for a response, he turned to Gid and backhanded the air in my direction. “Is this stripling a relative of yours?”
Gid held up his palms and shook his head.
“Oh, he’s his own man.” Phin sidled around the table, clamped my wrist to urge me to follow, and hissed in my ear, “Lord Almighty, Freddy, you want to see the man break the sixth commandment, too?”
Gid rose quickly and caught up with Phin and me; then the three of us performed a close-knit shuffle, giving the angry man as wide a berth as the crowded—and now silent—room allowed.
The beast cracked his knuckles and took a step, as if to block our escape.
What have I done? My heart, beating madly, lurched and seemed to land in my throat.
The tavern keeper’s wife suddenly spoke. “Your baths are ready and waiting in your rooms.” She was standing, eyes wide, arms akimbo, in the doorway. She stepped back. As soon as we stumbled over the threshold, she pulled the doors shut and exhaled loudly.
Phineas whipped out his handkerchief, mopped his brow, and skewered me with a disbelieving glare.
Plowing both hands through his hair, Gid gasped, “Of all the foolish—that man was twice your size. Nay, thrice. What were you thinking, Freddy?”
I winced (truthfully shocked by my temper as well) and glanced hesitantly at our rescuer, waiting for her censure, expecting an eviction for inciting trouble.
She merely herded us toward the stairway. “Sam Fry is tiresome, tormenting his cousin that way, and here everyone knows the boy’s poor mother just suffered another miscarriage and is as limp as a dishrag. Well, John’s a good sort. Hold on.” She paused by the front counter to collect three thin towels. Before passing them out, she smiled and, to my astonishment, ruffled my hair. “You’re a good boy, too—filthy as a stray mutt but carrying a clean heart. There’ll be a slice of apple pie coming up with your bathwater.” She winked. “My treat.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
My near row with the taproom bruiser did not disrupt my sleep. Nothing could. I was too weary and barely managed to keep my eyes open long enough to eat my pie, bathe, and give Fancy a halfhearted washing. Blissfully clean, I slept heavily and didn’t stir until the morning commotions in the tavern yard incited my dog’s barking. In fact, my companions had almost finished breakfast by the time I wandered into the quiet taproom.
“Why, if it isn’t our young radical, Mr. Freddy.” Phineas raised his coffee cup in salute. “Stay up late reading some Mary Wollstonecraft?”
Gid folded his arms and sat back. “Or writing your sermon blasting the social ills common in taverns?”
Phin smiled. “Or drafting your treatise in support of the cause of women?”
“Oh, I finished all that a long time ago.”
My brother grunted. “How was the apple pie?”
“Excellent.” I grinned at his peevish expression. Maybe he would have gotten a slice of pie, too, if he’d stood up for women. But he hadn’t.