“Go get them! Fetch Master Hasken as I told you! Get out that door or I’ll—I’ll.” She left off speaking as the bear’s arm made another grab, this time taking with it a pudding. One pewter cup dangling from a curved claw disappeared out the window.
“I will not go outside with that thing there!” I screamed. No matter that the bear was on the side of the house away from the door, the thing was as tall as the walls and I had seen it run before, faster than a horse in full gallop.
Mistress picked up a carving knife and came toward me. “You get the men, Mary. Do as you’re told or I’ll cut off your nose.” The bear growled and Birgitta screamed. Mistress waved the knife at the door. “Back up, Birgitta, you’re too close to the window. Mary, I won’t tell you again. Run for help. Get out!”
“It will eat me! I shall not go!” I said. Watching that blade in her hand, I held to the seat of a three-legged stool that was light enough for me to swing. I picked it up. “You go outside, Mistress. You are grown.”
“You’re young and fast. You can do it,” Birgitta said. “Be brave. It’s only a bear.”
Christine slumped to the floor, jittering and shaking and drooling. The bear heaved its great weight against the wall again, and chinking fell from all around the room. Straw from the thatching sifted down upon our heads. Several pieces drifted into the fireplace and caught, leading fire out of the coals and spreading it onto the floor near Christine.
Mistress said, “Birgitta, open that door. Mary, run! Run, you little tart!” She waved the knife at me again and this time I held up the stool between us, the legs pointed at her. The bear reached into the window again. Birgitta beat at the beast’s paw with the iron fire poker, which made it angrier and more intent on breaking the walls. The door stood open. The bear roared. Mistress came at me wielding the knife. With all my strength I threw that stool at her, turned on my heels and dashed out the door.
I had no idea as I ran whether I had hurt her or even killed her. I did not care. I ran for my life, skirting wide around the clearing but stopping to look over my shoulder as I approached the last log house between me and the crowd of men working on it. The Haskens’ house was at one end of the clearing and the bear had not followed me. I ran straight to the side of Reverend Johansen and pulled his coat. I hopped up and down and my lips moved but my tongue had dried and grown hard and immovable as a pack of sand between my teeth.
He searched the faces of the men and knelt before me. “Speak up, child,” he said.
I clenched my eyes and choked out, “Bear.”
The men chased the bear into the woods again by clanging shovels and axes and beating barrels. Someone brought out a pistol and shot at it but no one knew whether or not the ball found its mark. Reverend Johansen told me in the presence of all listening to him that I had been brave to run for help. Our neighbors came to the house that evening, and as if they never tired of the story, they looked at every scratch the bear had left upon the house, the cookware, and the goats. They questioned me and many nodded their heads, saying I had courage to run for help with the monster at the gate.
When they said that, I looked straight into Mistress’s face, wondering if she would say that she had threatened cutting off my nose to make me do it. I pondered whether that would make her look a fiend, and almost was tempted to offer the story. In the silence as she and I locked eyes, I thought that bearing witness against her cruelty might have revealed my threatening her with the stool and they would believe me to be a defiant and violent person. Was I? I could only say yes, but why risk another beating by admitting it? No one mentioned either the thrown milk stool or the waving knife. I decided that one did not exist without the other in that story, and keeping quiet was my best answer.
Reverend Johansen held up his hand. “Gentlefolk? As we build our meetinghouse we should also construct a garrison wall. Build it high enough to keep us from bears and thieves.” I wiggled through their ranks, making myself as small as a mouse, to stand near Reverend Johansen. I liked his way of saying things so that people listened. I got an idea that grew as the men talked. I had been sold more than once like a barrel of oats, my ownership transferred from pirates to privateers to the Haskens. Why could I not be sold again to Rachael and Reverend Johansen? I could tell him about Mistress stealing my coins and he would listen. And if he would not, since Rachael had taken my coins for her dowry, I would steal them back.
That evening I waited until the family headed outside for the privy—and thank goodness for better weather and the use of it—before bedding down for the night. Birgitta bent over Christine, who was still mute and lay fixed with a huge cloth baby-damper. I went to lie in my usual place, between Birgitta and Christine. I whispered, “Mother Birgitta?” just to watch the old woman’s face, to see whether she warmed to the title as she had before.
Her eyes opened. “What, Mary?”
“Do you think the new Mistress Johansen might need a serving girl?”