He drew me to a chair near the punch bowl. “No. Injured. You keep stomping on my feet.” He passed me a cup of punch and stood by my chair, watching me in amusement as I quaffed it. Then he glanced at Gideon, who was leaning against the wall and doing his best not to glare at Robert, who danced with the gaily giggling Rachel.
Mr. Long’s expression turned thoughtful. “Ah.” He gave me a sympathetic smile. “You’re worrying about losing your best friend.” Absently, he reached down and brushed a strand of my hair behind my ear.
I gaped at him. The impulsive gesture obviously surprised him as much as it did me. For a moment he didn’t seem to know what to say or where to look, and finally he simply tucked his hand in his armpit, as if not trusting it to stay put.
He cleared his throat, and after a minute the awkwardness passed. I resumed frowning at Gideon and wishing the boy hadn’t turned into such a ridiculous fool.
Mr. Long handed me a second cup of punch. “Poor Harriet,” he mused quietly. “It’s hard getting older.”
*
Bluebirds arrived, Easter Sunday came and went, rain turned parts of the farm into watering holes, the brook rose and flooded, a spell of sunshine dried the worst of the muck, spring plowing began, many ripped seams were mended, many stockings were darned, many wristbands were stitched, and all of April passed before Gideon spoke of the Genesee Valley again, saying a little about the Welds brothers, verifying their similar pioneer plans, and mentioning how much money they’d already put aside, enough to allow them to leave for the wilderness months before he would.
All of this sounded like a preface. Sure enough, he asked abruptly, “What do you think about their cousin Rachel?”
I worried the flattened end of a nail with my thumb. We were in the forge barn, where he was making nails to improve his savings. Though we all had chores that contributed to the family’s earnings and helped maintain the farm, if we chose to do more than we were assigned, we could make spending cash, what Mama called “pin money.” Gid hid his personal savings under the plank where I stood. The pile of coins was growing into quite the cache. After a moment of silence, while I deliberated telling him my true opinion, I tossed the nail in the pile and shrugged. “She’s pretty.”
“Yes, very pretty,” he sighed, and hammered a nail rod to a point with unnecessary force. “Every Middleton boy thinks so.”
Hope leaped like a blaze in a wind. So Rachel was much admired? Good. Perhaps she was a flirt, and Gideon would grow disgusted with her. Or maybe some richer Middleton boy would pursue and win her, and my brother would decide the Genesee Valley didn’t sound so wonderful after all. I didn’t say anything else, about Rachel or Gid’s pioneering, and to my relief, the conversation waned.
I was not the kind of person to handle a problem. I ignored it and prayed it’d disappear.
But this problem didn’t, as I learned the first Sabbath in May, after meeting.
The Sunday started so well. Spring was new enough that I hadn’t forgotten what the meetinghouse was like in winter. How wonderful not to haul foot stoves into the unheated church, not to watch Pastor’s stormed message make clouds in the bitter air around his red face, not to shiver in our muffs and under our furs for the wearying hours of worship, not to bite into half-frozen communion bread, and not to fear that the icy baptismal waters were going to smite the unfortunate wintertime newborns with a deadly chill.
The day was blissfully mild. I felt unencumbered. Free.
It was even warm enough for some of the Middleton folks to walk barefoot to the meetinghouse and thus save the shine on their shoes. They waited until they reached the doorway to slip them on and button them.
Those of us who lived too far away to walk traveled on horseback or in carriages and wagons. We arrived just as the Weldses did, and though my older brothers jumped out of the wagon and rushed to the fence where the horses were hitched so they could examine a neighbor’s new bay, Gideon quickly strode to greet the Weldses. Looking extraordinarily pleased, he lent Rachel his hand to help her step down to the rutted road, before any other young man could beat him to it.
Overhead, a hawk wrote curvy letters across the blue sky in soaring sweeps, looking more like a creature playing than hunting. With the help of the wind, the trees and bushes dotting the yards twitched their young leaves like frisky colts. Early miniature irises, ice blue, formed a pretty trim around the white church. The blacksmith shop was quiet, the tavern windows dark. No vendors cried their wares, and no spinning wheels whirred. Besides murmured conversations and the occasional caw of a crow, the only sounds to disturb the Sunday peace came from approaching parishioners, their wagon wheels crunching the gravel on the roads and, upon reaching the bridge, thundering the loose planks.
It was too fine a day to rush into the church. Folks dallied outside, shaking hands, inquiring after one another’s farms and relatives. Some loitered by the fence; others strolled across the scruffy grass into the graveyard. Children played on the ground and promptly reversed the positive effects of their Saturday night washings by digging into the flower borders and yanking loose fat worms.
When at last we shuffled in, most of us had worked out the worst of our fidgets, and the congregation settled down to listen to Pastor Cartwright’s morning-long sermon with good grace.
Though he kept us on our knees for one too many interminable prayers, we enjoyed some distractions. Mama brought a store of nuts and dried fruits for munching. Mr. Underwood entertained us with his amazing spitting skill, shooting his tobacco juice down the middle aisle, sometimes as far as the altar. Once, the dogs in the neighborhood set up a racket; then, as if led by a singing master, in one accord they started to howl. And halfway through the service, Widow Harrison, who lived behind the church, popped out of her pew to try to capture one of her chickens, which had wandered through the open doorway. Whenever she got close enough to seize it, the hen eluded her with a brawk! and a nervous flapping of wings. The fun came to an end when the bird clumsily flew up and landed on the pulpit. The reverend trapped its legs in a speedily shut Bible.
Finally we sang the closing hymn, received the benediction, and went outside. We lived too far away to commit our afternoon to the second round of worship. Stretching our stiff muscles and blinking at the noon-high sun, we prepared to leave. I was looking forward to a few hours of rest. But then three things happened to ruin what promised to be a perfectly lovely day.
First, after climbing into the wagon and sitting back to wait for the rest of my family, I spotted Matthew and immediately noticed something strange in my oldest brother’s demeanor. He detached himself from the crowd by the church doors, looked carefully behind him, and sidled to the end of the fence. Then followed this worrisome sight: Matthew and Isaac Rush deep in conversation. Rush was the worst gamester in Middleton and the man most responsible for arranging the various local gambling parties and blood sports. Mothers, in particular, despised the man. He all too efficiently encouraged their boys to empty their pockets in wasteful plays for money stakes.
The Winters didn’t have the luxury of a fortune to gamble away, but there was no mistaking the secretive passing of a fat purse that took place between my brother and Mr. Rush. How in heaven’s name had Matthew scraped together such a bundle? Even if he’d set aside a year’s worth of pin money, he never would have saved that much, not unless he’d gotten lucky at the card tables and managed to grow his cash. If that was the case, it was a short-lived luck. The money was gone now.