He moved his fingers upon it as if the feel of the fabric told him a story that his eyes could not. He turned it right again, took Ma’s casket and slipped it inside. It settled in the place it had always been, corners fitting worn places on the pocket as the cloth aligned for it and nothing else.
“Come with me.” Reverend Johansen slapped the cap upon his head, took hold of my hand with his, snatched up the casket and the pocket from the table, and marched the two of us to the common ground near the well. Where the common had been so trampled little grass yet grew. He held my hand up in the air. At that moment I felt the sap that connected our skins tug and loosen and stick fast again, and I enjoyed it. He cried out. “Hoi-ye, brothers and sisters!” Lonnie came with the first that heard his call. He turned to her and said, “Sister Livonah, fetch your mother to this place.” To the rest he called, “Where is my wife? Bid that lady come.” He led me to the step at the church house and we stood before the door.
Mistress hurried toward us, Birgitta rumbling and grumbling behind her. When Mistress saw me her face darkened. Reverend Johansen raised his voice as if he were preaching. “Fellow pilgrims, just as David, King of Israel, though he had dozens of wives, smote Uriah and took Uriah’s wife to himself out of greed and desire, we must never take, out of greed and desire, from those who cannot defend themselves. This child, Mary of the Haskens, came on her journey to us, in possession of one thing. This.” He held the pocket aloft, pulled Ma’s casket from it. “Wife? Come here.” He put the casket in her hands and at once I believed I would be hung. Waves of gray darkness washed before my eyes. He said, “Put that in the hands of your mother, Mistress Hasken, from whom you received it.” If not for the reverend’s strong hand holding mine I would have sat upon the steps, for my legs had not the strength to hold me.
Rachael whimpered and put her hand to her lips. She started to protest but she did not dare dispute her husband before the company. She carried the casket to her mother and held it out. Mistress stared at the box, glancing at me. Rachael said, “Take it, Mother. It is not mine.”
When Mistress had the casket in her hands, she searched the faces of people gathered about but got no understanding from them. “Mistress Hasken?” Reverend Johansen began. “We accept and forgive the misplacing of a small article, even forgetting whence it came, but we know that our Lord commands, once the truth is found out, it must be returned to its owner. Did any in your family work, sell, or trade goods or money, ever, for the thing you now hold in your hand?”
“No, Reverend,” she said.
“Yet, though it fit into the pocket owned by this person known to us as Mary, and its story matched what she has told with her hand on the Word of God, you thought it not fit to return it to the person who could have been the only source of such an object, and claimed such, but keep and thus further your daughter’s material possessions?”
“Well, yes, Reverend.”
I felt almost sorry for her, for she was confused by the parson’s words, and had admitted her guilt without so much as a struggle of conscience. People made noise. Someone announced, “We need to build some stocks.”
She blurted out, “I didn’t know it was hers. She’d stole it and so ’twas my right as owner of her property. The husband and I paid good coin for her an’ all of her as come with.” By that time Master had come, and stood beside her.
Reverend Johansen said, “Brother and Sister Hasken, in indenturing this maid you paid for her strength and ability to work. You did not buy her possessions nor her virtue nor her soul.” He was red around the collar and put his hands behind his back where both hands clenched in fists. “This is a human being, not a goat. Your duty to her is to feed, clothe, and educate her. Mistress Hasken, return that casket to its owner.”
Mistress had no choice but to lay the casket in my hand. I closed my fingers upon it, feeling as if it held my ma’s heart and soul, not just two coins. “Thank you,” I said. Mistress bowed in submission, though not to me, but to some higher force found in the eyes of her fellow pilgrims. My eyes caught Birgitta’s. She glowered with rage. I might well rue this action, though I had my two pounds and my box.