As he walked away with two months of Cullah’s earnings I winced under the weight of this new sort of poverty in a way I never had when I was starving. I remembered the slave woman saying, “We know what that cost. You eat it.” I sat on a stump in the garden where my family’s labors barely wrested aught for our table. I had to sit a while and remember. Even asking my own memory what it was that connected it to this. At last I realized that poverty was a kind of captivity. Then I picked up my hoe and went to work. I dared not complain to Cullah because I was so angry it would bring out my worst nature. I cut a new line in the earth for yet more beets and parsnips. Carrots, potatoes, beets, beans, and parsnips. Perhaps squash this year. Squash did not keep well, but it livened the blood. Yes, I shall plant squash. “I shall ask Roland,” I said aloud to the soil, “to procure some squash seed.”
In the distance, a bell sounded. This was not Sunday. It could only mean some alarm. Over the tops of trees to the west, a haze of smoke drifted skyward. I ran toward it, not setting down the hoe. People came from all around, gathering as neighbors do, to the house of Virtue Dodsil. It was engulfed in flame. A spark from the chimney had caught the thatch. All of them were out, except for the house cat. There was little that could be done other than watch the place burn to the ground. Virtue himself stood before it, his whole body atremble like I have never seen before. He shook with such violence he had to shift his feet to keep standing.
I said to him, “Will you come to my house? At least for a few days?”
“No. We will live in our barn. At least we have that.”
I returned to my home and loaded my arms with blankets we could spare. Some new that I had made, some old to be placed upon the ground. I had woven goods aplenty, but little else to give. His wife took them with somber thanks. Then she looked at them more closely and said, “These are new. You didn’t mean to give us new blankets, did you?”
“Yes,” I said. “Emma, you need them.”
“Mistress MacLammond, Resolute, you are wondrous kind.”
That night, I lay awake thinking about our roof. “Cullah? I want you to build the chimney taller.”
“It is tall enough, Ressie. Dodsil’s roof caught fire because his chimney was full of holes, not because it was too short. Our chimney is good.”
“It is very old. It was here two generations ago.”
“It is two feet thick on all sides. Sleep, wife.”
CHAPTER 32
May 18, 1759
Sunday at Meeting, Reverend Clarke spoke with fiery words about the freedom of mankind. We of Lexington town were convinced there was no distance at all between our rights as British citizens and our godliness. One night at a town meeting, he had us shaking in our boots when he said, “Goodman Parker has been held, used most dreadfully and badly beaten, and charged with treason for carrying our minutes of the last meeting to the town council in Boston.”
All around the room, talk grew more heated. Cullah proclaimed that he was loyal but would not be crushed by the iron boots of the British Crown. I wondered at that because Cullah would never profess loyalty to the English Crown. Jacob listened, but said nothing. Scriveners wrote with mad excitement, taking down all that occurred. At last, Reverend Clarke asked for someone willing to carry our notes to Boston. “We will have two copies prepared, so that one may perchance get through. Two messengers. Who will go?”
Cullah stood and shouted, “I will go. There’s one man for you.”
Jacob’s face brightened. “I say, I shall be glad to go.”
Another man across the room shouted, “Take me. I’ll make it through.”
I pictured them slinking through the woods and brush, Redcoats on their tails like dogs after a fox. I stood. Amidst the shouting men, it was a while before anyone noticed, even Cullah seated next to me. I stood upon the bench where I had sat. The din about me shrank to almost nothing.
Reverend Clarke asked, “Goodwife MacLammond. Have you aught to say?”
“Yes,” I said. “Take me. I go to Boston every week. Put the papers in my handcart, and I shall walk there as I do every other time, with my child upon my apron strings. The soldiers will be looking for men carrying parcels, or horses with packets. I will stroll right up to the door and bid them all good day along the way.”
Nary a foot moved nor a sniffle was heard. The rumble of men’s voices began as faraway thunder mixed with laughter and rose to a terrible pitch. “A woman? A woman! A message taken by a woman. It’s terrible. It’s ungodly. It’s wonderful. It’s brilliant. It’s heresy.”
I stepped off the bench with Cullah’s help. His eyes flashed with more anger than I had ever seen. I had thought I was presenting a brave and unique solution. I had no idea he would be so alarmed. He folded his arms and looked straight ahead, the muscles in his jaws making his beard move. Jacob said nothing.
At last, Reverend Clarke held up his hands. “We will vote on this suggestion.” Vote they did. It was given to Cullah to carry one packet, to another man to carry the second. As we rode home, he simmered, not speaking.