“I am sorry, mum. I know Pa tossed me off on you.”
“He did no such thing. Brendan is my son, Bertie, and you my grandson. As long as I am able, I will help you both but you have to do your part. Boys go out at fourteen and you are almost that age.” I sat. “Your father is doing the best he can for you. He cannot disobey his orders.”
“He could become a Patriot, then he would not be a soldier. He would be a rebel.”
I sent him to bring in extra wood one day and opened the secret room above the loom. On a passing fancy, I took Brendan’s drum from its place, found the drumsticks, and closed up the wall before Bertie returned. On Hogmanay morning, I served up cakes of Indian flour with a slice of cured pork and treacle. “Look,” I said. “This was your father’s. It shall be yours now. Remember, make no face, young man, other than one of polite curiosity. I will not order you to play it, but it would be something to do. Take it, if you want, to Meeting on Sunday and we will see if there are any men who can teach you to make some music from the thing. I will not harp at you about it. Do it or not, as you please. We shall also ask if there is one who would apprentice you. You may try out five or six trades before you find your task. A man must make a living, and you will see what suits you.”
“Mum? I would rather join the Sons of Liberty and learn to drill with a musket.”
Cullah was, at that moment, doing exactly that. The Tories expected the colonists to be at their hearth sides on such a wintry day, and so it was deemed the perfect day for drilling and firing. “They need boys who can drum. Your father was fair at it. You might have the talent.”
“I wish to be a soldier for the colonies, not a drummer.”
“I have got work to do. I shall be down at the loom,” I said. When he stared ahead in silence, I asked, “Would you like me to teach you that? Most weavers are men.”
“No.”
“Go out and help Grandpa. Clean the stalls for him.”
“I hate cows.”
“Do you miss your pa?”
“I hate him.”
“Ah. He will come for you. He will.”
“No he won’t. He will die. Some Patriot will put a ball through his eye.”
“You are afraid the Patriot will be you.” Bertie’s face reddened and he turned away from me. La. I knew so well that mixture of anger and longing for a child missing parents. My heart yearned with love for him, but the boy was old enough he would not do well if smothered by a grandmother’s kisses when what he longed for was a father. “Did you know they pay drummers more than they pay soldiers? Anyone with a finger may shoot a musket, but not everyone can play a drum.”
Later that day, as I sat at the loom I heard an extra thump. I stopped, fearing my loom was coming apart, and I could ill afford to have it repaired. I began again and a definite thump-bump followed the normal sound of the pedals. I got off the bench and inspected everything on the machine, and nothing was loose. I began again. Thump-bump, thump-bump. “It is I, mum,” called Bertie. He stood, holding Brendan’s drum and descending from where he had sat upon a stair just out of my sight.
We laughed together. Then he sat again, and as I started, he tried to follow with drumsticks. “There,” I said. “I cannot tell you how to do it well, but you might start keeping time with me.” By the time the snow melted and the days of muddy roads began, he had learned from one of our deacon’s sons how to get a smart pattern out of the drum.
*
In the summer of 1774, Margaret’s husband, Thomas, was made governor. Great celebrations were held across the colonies, for people hoped that he would relieve the state of siege we felt under Governor Hutchinson. I read about it in a paper I brought from Lexington the following week. But Margaret herself sent me the notice along with a folded and wax-sealed packet full of pins, needles, an ell of small lace, and a thimble. I felt hurt that she did not invite me to the celebration, but I knew I would be so foreign to other people there as to be looked upon as an oddity, a token American. After I read it, I walked to our stream and sat by a still small hollow in the streambed where the water’s surface rarely moved. I set the letter from Margaret adrift there. It swirled in an eddy and the ink washed from it. Too late, I remembered how dear the paper itself was, and I reached for it but it was gone from my grasp, moving downstream. Moving toward the ocean, a letter with no words, heading out to sea.