“I made them.”
“He paid you for them. That means you stole them.”
“Well and aye. There were too many high spirits last night. I didn’t think clearly. At the last I couldn’t watch my work go to the flames. Risked losing the hair off my back for them.”
“You have to give them back.”
“Will you allow me at least to say that I saved them from the fire? Must I confess all and be hung?”
“You heard the call to fire and saved them. That will serve.”
“Aye.” He kissed my cheek. “You are my rudder in an evil sea, Ressie.”
After the Easter sermon, Reverend Clarke received a note from one of the deacons. We sang a hymn. Then he announced that Imperial Governor Thomas Hutchinson’s mansion in Boston had been burned down and messages had been left stating it had been done by the Sons of Liberty. No one made a sound. I imagined that some cheered within themselves, some were saddened, even angered. Some wept, but that, I knew, was no indication which way their feelings leaned. I stayed myself from any expression and looked at my prayer book. I noted that the singing of the next hymn was so rousing as to shake the glass in the windows.
Cullah drove our new third-hand wagon to Boston the next day, whistling, as he carried the four well-made chairs to the governor’s new temporary quarters. The buggy had a seat for two with a shade behind them, and a place to stack things in back. He tied the chairs with as much gentle care as if they had been children. No questions were asked, he said, for he had found the menservants at home, and he left the chairs amongst their congratulations for the salvage.
He left for his shop carrying his toolbox on his back on a Monday two weeks later, a beautiful April morning, the kind of morning when the whole earth seemed to be celebrating its life and warmth. All the pear and apple trees had blossomed, frost was but a memory, and birds pecked at our windowsills. I had kissed him and he slapped my hip playfully before he left. I collected eggs. I put out bread dough to raise. I swept the floor. In that much time, less than two hours, he returned to the house, his face pale and wan, his right hand wrapped in cloths none too clean, and to my horror, he had lost half the littlest finger on his right hand to a whirling blade. I cleaned his wound and wrapped it in linen bandages.
“Ah, I’m a terrible fool,” he said. His voice barely hid his pain.
“My poor husband. It must hurt so dreadfully.”
“I cannot hold a sword now.”
“But you can. You will.”
“It will feel different.”
I looked hard into his face. “Why do you need to hold a sword? Why did you not say a saw or an axe? Or a plane or chisel? Why did you say a sword?”
“Cooper and Prescott came by the shop just before I did this.” He held his bandaged hand up. “There is yet another new tax. It was passed six months ago without a single man from the colonies to question it in Parliament, without any of us knowing it beforehand. Every piece of paper must bear a stamp and every stamp must be paid for. A penny for a receipt. A pound for a license and three to sell a piece of land. Ten shillings for a pamphlet and five pounds for a newspaper! It will drive the newspapers out of business, and it is meant to do so, for they speak of nothing but angry outcries against the king. They say there will be open rebellion this time, far beyond this colony. War.”
A chill ran through me. “But, how did that make you cut your hand?”
“While they were talking across the street from my shop at Elliot’s Wheel and Carriage, Tories went in, front and rear, and confiscated all the wheel rims he had. Claimed they were illegally gotten iron not from England but made in Philadelphia. It caught my eye. I was trying to look as if I did not notice, for they aimed muskets in every direction, even at a young woman crossing the street with her bairny at her side. I looked away for just an instant. With a band saw, an instant is far too long.”
“I should say. Were they English wheels?”
“No.”
“Will Goodman Elliot get his wheels returned?”
“He’s out his inventory and can’t make his orders without wheels. Now they’re so high, he said, when he finally delivers the coach he has made no profit at all. Ressie, a man cannot stay in business making no profit!”
“Will you have some rum and willow water for the pain?”
“Well and aye. It did not hurt at all, did you know that? It felt like nothing, until now. Now it feels as if the devil himself has chewed it off.” I poured rum. Mixed him a toddy of willow water. He took a long draught of the drink and coughed. “Ah. Would you give me cider instead? I am not fond of this stuff. I feel it already, making my brains spin. I heard your brother is in Boston.” He coughed again. “The army has ransacked his house but not found him, yet Hancock just got a load of spices from Talbot’s ships.”