The soldiers might be alone in the house if we went to meeting. My heart gave a great thump. We had always kept Christmas in the small ways Jacob had told me, with small gifts and a pudding, and the burning of a tree, though it was outlawed in all of Puritan Massachusetts. There would be no Christmas, no gifts for the Christ Child, no Hogmanay. But my children would be so disappointed if we held it not at all.
To say that billeting soldiers made bedlam of our lives would not do it justice. For three weeks of cooking, cleaning—and I kept my word, showing them the washtub and scrubbing methods—just having them in every corner had turned our snug family into snarling cats. The children fought, hit each other for toys, and bit each other when I was not looking. Cullah snapped at me for no reason, and I nattered at him over carving a new spindle for the flax wheel, knowing I had no time to spin and had not touched it in months. At last I heard myself as some harried shrew of a wife, and burst into tears, begging his forgiveness.
Brendan was enthralled with the soldiers, their uniforms, their weapons. He tried on their coats, marching about the room holding a real sword tucked in his elbow. The rest of the children grew pensive, especially Gwyneth, who started sucking on the ends of her hair, even pulling it from her cap to get to the ends, no matter how often I tied it up. And then one day America ran into the house, leaving the front door ajar, bumping Barbara over in her haste, which sent the babe to screaming. I picked up Barbara and followed America. I reached the last flight of steps above our bedroom just as the girl slammed the miniature door to her tower chamber. Barbara still wailed, but by the time we reached that chamber she was becoming amused by being jostled upon my hip up the stairs. I talked to her as I went, “There, there. Hush now. It was an accident, poppet. Shush, shush.”
I opened the door and ducked to creep inside the tiny room. I found America huddled in a ball as far from the door as she could be. “What happened?” I asked. I set Barbara down, who began crawling, exploring the place. I petted America’s back as she sobbed. She raised her face. It was not bruised but her lips were swollen beyond anything that even a bee sting could do. The front of her bodice was torn and part of her shift had been pulled out of the ripped place, the shift, too, ripped and frayed.
“He said I should let him have a feel of my bosom. He said feeling girls was not wrong. I told him to unhand me but then another grabbed my arms and held me fast. They pulled at my titties. They kissed me and put their tongues into my mouth, though I spat at them and bit them. One of them got his mouth on me and bit my lips so hard I thought he would bite them off. Then he grabbed my, my—I cannot say it.”
“How did you get away?”
“They heard Master Jacob coming. They threw me into the goat shed and blocked the door with a post and left me there. Master Jacob opened it and I ran.”
I turned at hearing Barbara cry out, “Gom!” which was her name for Jacob. He stood behind us on the stairway, having followed the commotion. Babby made her way toward him and I nodded, hoping to convey to him that I thought everything was soon to be in order. I said to America, “Did they do other things to you? Did any of them open his pants?”
“No. They cursed me and said all they wanted was a friendly feel.”
I put my arms around her. “There was nothing friendly about that. This will not happen again. For now, change your clothes and I will make you some coffee. Bring me that bodice and I shall repair it and embroider it, so that this damage is replaced with something beautiful.”
I hurried through the house making sure all my children and Jacob were indoors, closing every shutter, and at last barring the door. One of the soldiers tried entry and then beat against the door. “Let us in!” he called.
“Go to the devil and shake yourself!” I cried back at him.
Jacob roared with laughter. “You heard the mistress of this house! Do it!” The man outside beat against the door thrice more and then all was silent.
As the sun lowered, another time someone tried the door. Cullah’s voice called out, “What’s this? Who has barred my own door from me?”
I stepped out, and told him of America’s sorrow. “They can sleep in the goat shed tonight. Tomorrow you must find their superior officer in Concord and have them sent somewhere else.”
“I’ll talk to them,” he said, and turned about without even setting down his pouch. He came in for supper an hour later, though the soldiers did not. In fact, I saw them not at all until the next morning when they applied for some breakfast, all of them shivering, filthy, and bearing blackened eyes and blood-stopped noses. The saucy corporal walked bent as if he had been kicked in the middle by a horse.
America told us which of them had held her and which had torn her clothing. But in truth, Cullah said, when he confronted the men all of them came to each other’s aid, and he’d had no choice but to give them all a good drubbing.
“All at one time?” Brendan asked him.
“Aye, boy.”