His answer did not bring me comfort. I felt I was being ensnared in some trap. Yet, by that time I knew how to get to Boston, so I stilled my hands from shaking, holding the papers. “Good day, sirs,” I said. Then I stopped at the door and added, to smooth my way in the future, “And God keep you all and yours. Thank you for attending us today.” I should have said more hearty thanks to this daft old woman, I told myself as we walked the road in silence. As a gift it was as perplexing as it was generous, for I knew not how I should live in a roofless stone shed full of rats and pigeons and the stray catamount or bear. Nor did I believe that anything so enormous came without obligation. There was also her vow that the place was haunted and her own stormy jaunting through the woods to contend with. I was not sure I had the heart for it. It was, however, a place to be until I knew of a better place to be. “Goody?” I asked as we ambled back down the path toward her house. “Why was he so hesitant to make the changes to your deed that you asked? Are the men of this town so full of hatred for me?”
“Ach, no. It’s not me they mean to harm, neither. It is my land that raises their ire. They want it, you see. If I should die without an heir, it will belong to the town. They could either apportion it amongst themselves or set something upon it, such as a school or a community farm. It is good land. High and flat, already cleared for the most part. A stream that flows year round. You have woods, too. This is enough for today. I am so tired. So very tired.” She opened the door to her house. “Eat with me, lass.”
“Shall I help you with bread?” While I sliced bread she had made, she cut chunks of cheese, which she had also made, and I admired the knowledge she contained.
Goody poured cider, sniffed it, and said, “Gone hard. ’Tis twice as good.”
I hesitated a moment before the food, thankful for the simple grace of it, thankful to know this most peculiar woman. “May I ask you a question, friend?”
“Aye,” she said, smacking her lips after a long draught of cider. “Anything, friend. Long as you do not ask to sleep here.”
“I do not question your wonderful gift to me of a house and land. You said it was forty acres, yet the deed given to me lists four hundred and twenty. The other five you said is in truth fifty. I would have begged you for but a place to lay my head. Why mislead the amount yet make so generous a gift?”
She smiled and turned her eyes to the cheese before her, pushing it on her plate with one finger until it made a complete circuit of the cracked old dish. “To watch your eyes. I saw no greed. No grasping. I saw you were but stunned and perhaps unbelieving. If evil led your thoughts, I could have changed my mind with no more word than that I was yet mad when I said it.”
Goodwife Carnegie intended that I sleep in my new “house” yet I could not. The house was home to many creatures with which I had no intention of sharing my bed. I slept that night under the great tree by the door of the stone house, placing boughs for shelter and a hiding place. I vowed I would sleep as the Indians had made me do, glad the night was warm, glad I smelled no bears. Only in the morning light did I marvel to myself that I had slept deeply, unafraid, unbothered by dream or squirrel.
My breakfast was an apple Goody had sent with me when I left her home. My one complaint was that it was too small. I started in with the old broom handle, pulling back vines and rubbish, dragging everything out of doors where I could sort through it to see if there was aught that might be of use. In the corner by the old bedstead, I found a rotted pair of boots. I got to the front corner and took away a nasty vine full of thorns that had grown over a rotted woven blanket, which seemed to have been stitched with padding in it, just as Ma had made the petticoat. When I moved it, a rat darted at my ankles, clawed at my skirt a moment, and I shrieked in terror that the thing would climb my clothing. It tangled one foot in my stocking as it struggled to get away, and I swung the broomstick at it. The rat ran from me and out the door into the light as I hit my anklebone with the stick. Grimacing, I used the stick to raise the blanket.
A spinning wheel.
I pushed away dust and leaves, dragged the thing to the center of the room, and pressed the pedal. It gave an awful groan and the leather strap fell away. I pulled it into the light. The thing was old, painted black, decorated with delicate lines of red with tiny green leaves. All was sound except for the spindle, which some animal had gnawed, yet it still went into its place, still could hold wool. A spindle could be gotten. No doubt Goody must have forgotten and would want it. I sighed, for far more than the land she’d tempted me with, this was something I knew I could use to my advantage. Later, she helped me replace the leather strip that moved the wheel, and clapped her hands when I pushed the pedal. This was not my home, I repeated with each step.