The old lady did as she was told, dragging her feet across the packed dirt floor as she said, “If you lie beside me it’d warm my bones—but my throat is raw as a burned leaf. I’d like a bit of warmed ale if it’s about. That’s a good girl, Mary,” she said as I pulled the coverlet upon her, scarf and all. I found the pewter cup that had been polished for Reverend Johansen, poured a bit of cider in it, and laid the boiling rod in it until it quit sizzling. “Here, Birgitta,” I said.
She drank it, lay back, and closed her eyes, in the heavy sleep of sickness. I built up the fire because she was cold. I smiled at the luxury of it as the flames claimed the new kindling. Master must have gone to town or he would be here by the fire, I thought. The rest of the family was upstairs, from the racket of them. I bundled up, wearing two of the girls’ cloaks, and went to the woodshed three times, intending to lay up a store so I would not soon have to go again. I made room for the wood beside the hearth and under the eating table. As the house warmed, the voices upstairs calmed. Not a creature moved in the house. I felt proud of the warmth I had added without being told.
I decided I would do more work without a beating than I did with one. Patience had said, “Be clever,” and clever I was going to be. The Haskens all together did not have one whit of cleverness. With no one watching me, I surveyed the house, silent except for scuffling from the goats. I took Birgitta’s stick from her chair and opened the door to the goat room. With trembling hands, I milked four goats, which took care of all except for the one balky one. A kid, twice her size, nursed at the old doe and butted her, but to be milked she would not stand.
“Stupid,” I called her. What was that goat’s name? “Stupid!” I shouted. Stupid-the-goat kicked the bowl and sent it flying. When I fetched the bowl and began again, I whacked her leg as a warning. I saw with a new understanding what Birgitta had done to me. Was the old woman so stupid as to think a girl and a goat were one and the same? Still, waking up cradled in her lap had changed something within me, and I felt a strange mixture of longing and much-softened anger toward her.
After the milking I took a long drink of the warm milk. I wiped my face and burped. It felt so good to be full. I downed fully half the bowl. Never mind, I thought. I poured water into the milk to bring up the level. Just like Cora stealing Patey’s shoes, I would make my every effort one to survive long enough to leave. The house had warmed as a spring day in Jamaica. I opened the front door, pulled in a kettle of snow, and put it on the hob to melt. I did not linger or stare into the distance longing for escape, for the cold was too harsh to even ponder it. As the day wore on I heard wolves, and pushed away any thought of escape. Summer would come. I would leave then, and be stronger. I got water and scrubbed my poor bare head, feeling chilled but good.
In a basket by Mistress’s chair lay three turned-wood spools of thread. I helped myself to the white thread. I pulled off my petticoat and found the needle. I mended every torn place, stitching upon the old stitches so much so that there remained more stitching than cloth. I tore loose parts of my old silk gown and made patches to mend places where my treasures had worn holes, trying to make them look as if naught but a patch were there. I worked on my pocket; I wished I could take it to Ma and have her exclaim over it.
I held an image of Ma in my mind and looked down at the petticoat. There I saw, as if for the first time, the stitches she had done, so tiny and perfect next to my clumsier ones. The lines she had made were clever, indeed, as if decoration were their sole purpose, yet much was held inside, hidden. “Oh, la,” I said, running my fingers over patterns of squares and circles, looped ovals with my clumsy patching blotting out the patterns. I sighed. Ma would be sad to see her work so battered. So dirty and ragged. How I had complained about this petticoat, even as the pirates broke through the walls! I searched among what remained of the silk. Finding a loose end of thread, I pulled it, and a piece as long as my arm came free. Part of it was still blue because it had been enclosed in a seam. I pushed the end of it through the needle with great care. Then, using a line I drew in my imagination, I followed the paths of Ma’s stitches where I had darned the cloth so heavily. I tied a knot and laid my fingertip against my stitches where they began to mimic what Ma had put there. Her hands had created beauty in such a simple thing.