Mary Ann moved to a stool and sat down, holding up her hands for quiet. Emily cut off her tears, though she continued to sniff as a sign to her mother that her pride had been severely damaged. Young Joshua put an arm around his sister’s shoulder as Rachel shushed her two stepbrothers into silence.
“Did you children know,” Mary Ann said solemnly, “that when I was a girl your age, I had to sleep on the floor too? Only I had to do it for almost three years.”
“Really?” Emily and Rachel exclaimed together. “How come?”
Mary Ann looked thoughtful, but was only trying to hide the fact that she was pleased that her ruse had worked. All thoughts of who was bumping whom were gone. “Well, when I was about Mark’s age, my father decided he was going to make his living building turnpikes.”
“What’s a turnpike, Grandma?” Luke asked.
“A road,” Mark replied sagely, pleased with himself that he would know.
“That’s right, Mark. We lived in a small village in western Massachusetts. We lived in a cabin smaller than this one. But it had an attic in it, and my older sister and I slept up there. We had only blankets. And besides that, my bed was where the roof and the walls came together. So I always had to sleep on my tummy, because if I slept on my back, my toes would rub against the ceiling.”
Mary Ann felt a hand on her shoulder. Benjamin had moved over to stand beside her. He was smiling down at his grandchildren. “And do you know what?” he asked soberly. “Even to this day your grandmother still sleeps on her tummy.”
“She does?” Rebecca seemed surprised. That was something about her own mother she had not known.
“Yep,” Benjamin said. “Actually, she starts on her back. Then after a while she rolls onto her side. But eventually she always ends up on her stomach.” He squeezed Mary Ann’s shoulder gently, his eyes teasing her. “It’s kind of like an old hound dog. She always has to turn around three or four times before she settles down and goes to sleep.”
“I do not!” Mary Ann said, poking at him.
That got even the adults, and everyone laughed. In one crib, Elizabeth Mary, Lydia’s baby, stirred and whimpered softly. Lydia put a finger to her lips and pointed at the babies. “Shhh!”
Benjamin raised one arm, as if taking an oath. “It’s true,” he whispered. “I swear it.”
“Did you have to sleep on the floor, Grandpa?” Rachel asked.
Benjamin was still weak from his bout with the illness he had contracted while imprisoned in Richmond, Missouri, with Joseph Smith, but he had not lost his sense of humor. He frowned in mock concentration. “Floor?” he harrumphed. “Who had a floor! We had to sleep on the ground outside.”
The children’s mouths circled into large O’s, but Nathan clearly choked and Rebecca started to giggle.
“Grandpa!” Mary Ann scolded. “You stop fooling the children and tell them the truth.”
He looked hurt. “We did sleep outside.”
“Only when the weather was good and because you and your brothers wanted to. You had a bed.”
“Yes,” he mourned, “but I don’t remember sleeping in it much.”
She poked at him again and he stepped back quickly, chuckling. Sensing that he was playing to an audience, he went on in complete seriousness. “Actually, your grandmother and I both started out in life tied to a board, like an Indian papoose.”
Nathan was surprised. “Are you serious, Pa?”
Mary Ann was nodding. “Yes, that is the truth. When we were born, children were always swaddled, as it was called.”
“Swaddled?” young Joshua echoed.
“Yes. The mother would get a flat board, and then she would take long strips of cloth and wrap them around and around the baby, tying them firmly to the board.”
“They didn’t let you crawl around or anything?” Lydia asked, as fully interested as the children now.
“No,” Benjamin answered. “People believed that if they kept the neck and back of the child straight, not only was it more healthy, but they thought it made for strong moral character. It made the child a better person.”
Mary Ann smiled down at the upturned faces. “Then once the children got old enough to learn how to walk, at about a year old, they were taken out of their swaddling clothes and put in dresses. Boys and girls. It didn’t matter—all children of that age wore dresses.”
“Dresses?” Emily cried in amazement. “Even you, Grandpa?”
He laughed. “Even me. For Sundays my mother said I had a beautiful lace dress just like my sister.”
Jessica chuckled softly. “What’s the matter, Emily? Can’t you picture Grandpa wearing a dress?”
“No!” Emily said in a drawn-out sound of astonishment. The others were also shaking their heads, not able to picture their grandfather in those terms.
“How long did that go on, then, Father Steed?” Lydia asked.
“Till we were about four or five. Then the boys were ‘breeched,’ as it was called. They got to wear trousers like grown-up men. That was a big day, I’ll tell you. I can still remember my breeching day. I was prouder than a mare with a new foal. I strutted around the house and the neighborhood all afternoon in my new pants. I was big stuff.”
“It was a big day for the girls too,” Mary Ann came in. “Instead of the simple dress that was the same for both boys and girls, we got to wear hooped petticoats and corsets, just like our mothers and sisters.”
Nathan chuckled. “And that was something to look forward to? I’d just as soon be tied behind a horse and dragged as wear a corset.”
Mark Griffith yawned mightily and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his fists. Jessica, now sitting beside the two boys, pushed him gently down to the blankets. He didn’t protest. Luke, watching, immediately curled up beside his brother. “I think it’s time you go to sleep,” Jessica said.
Rachel looked at her mother. “We wanna hear Grandma talk more about when she was a little girl,” she implored.
Mary Ann nodded sagely. “All right, but why don’t you all lie down. Then you can hear Grandma better.”
Even Emily accepted that as a good idea. In moments they looked like spokes on a wagon wheel—heads nearly touching as they faced Mary Ann, bodies and feet pointing away from her.
“Tell them about the Sabbath and Sunday toys,” Benjamin suggested, once they were all settled.
“Oh yes, Sunday toys. I had almost forgotten about those.” She spoke softly now, soothing them with her voice. “We all had what we called Sunday toys back then.”
Nathan and Lydia sat down beside Emily and young Joshua. Lydia began gently rubbing Emily’s back. Rebecca and Derek also found a place and made themselves comfortable. The adults were as interested in this as the children.
“You see,” Benjamin explained, “you have to remember that back then, in some parts of New England, the Sabbath day was observed very strictly.”
“In our town,” Mary Ann broke in, “it was against the law to even laugh on Sunday.”
“Oh!” young Joshua breathed.
“Really?” Emily and Rachel were likewise suitably impressed.
Mary Ann nodded and went on. “As children we weren’t allowed to whistle, to go outside and play, to have friends over, or anything like that on the Sabbath. So even the best of children got pretty hard to handle on Sunday afternoons.” She chuckled. “I’m sure now that it was out of parental desperation that Sunday toys were born.”
“So that’s why they called them Sunday toys?” Lydia asked. “Could you use them only on Sundays?”
Mary Ann nodded. “Yes, but it was more than that. They were toys that always had a religious theme. They were designed to teach something about religion or the Bible.”
“Like what?” Nathan asked.
“There were music boxes that played hymns, blocks for building toy churches. My parents gave us a game, kind of like checkers, only it was called the Game of Christian Endeavor. As we moved our pieces, it would teach us the rewards of virtu
e or the punishments for sins.”
She paused, her eyes softening with the memories. “But the favorite of all the Sunday toys was the Noah’s ark set.”
“Like Noah’s ark in the Bible?” Rachel asked.
“Yes, exactly,” Benjamin answered. “I can still remember. My father came back from a trip once. He had stopped at a wood-carver’s shop somewhere and bought us a Noah’s ark. Oh, it was wonderful. The ark had windows in it and a ramp you could move.” His eyes were soft with remembrance. “And Noah!”
Mary Ann laughed, looking at the adults. “I guess the carver was from England. In my set, Noah had on a black suit and string tie and a bowler hat. Derek would have loved it. I can still picture him, all formal and proper-looking. And his wife looked like an English mistress.”
“Did it have animals, Grandma?” Rachel asked, her eyes wide as she tried to imagine what it must have been like.
“Oh yes,” Mary Ann breathed, “hundreds of them. All of them in pairs. There were cows and horses . . .”
Mary Ann talked more slowly now, and let her voice drop even lower. She began to describe the animals in detail. Emily didn’t make it past the pigs and chickens. Rachel hung on through the lions and tigers and other jungle animals. Young Joshua, stubborn and fierce-willed as always, nearly made it through the mythical animals that were purely the creation of the wood-carver’s imagination. But eventually even he gave up. Mary Ann let her voice trail off to silence. She stood, and one by one the adults tiptoed through the curtain and back to their beds.
As they quietly found their places and settled in, Nathan reached across to Mary Ann’s bed and touched his mother’s arm. “That was wonderful, Mama, and not just because it got the children to sleep. I didn’t know any of that about you and Pa.”
“Yes,” Lydia agreed instantly, “it was fascinating.”
Rebecca grunted a little as she shifted the awkwardness of her weight so she could look at her parents. “I want you to do that again sometime, Mama.”
Mary Ann was surprised by the reaction of her children. “All we were doing was reminiscing a little.”
Rebecca shook her head. “Didn’t you see their eyes as you talked to them? They were seeing their grandma and grandpa in a whole new light.” She touched the bulging roundness of her stomach. “And I want our child to have that experience too.”
“Amen,” Derek said solemnly.
Mary Ann was pleased. They were crowded here in this cabin, and even in the day they were in one another’s way. But a large part of the family was together and that meant a great deal. “Thank you, children,” she said. “If that’s what you’d like, we’ll do it again sometime.”
Will Steed looked up. Though he was in near-total darkness inside the storage locker, he could tell the ship had begun to move, slowly, almost imperceptibly. It came as no surprise. He had been listening to the cry of the deckhands and the answering shouts of the dockworkers as they cast off the lines that moored the packet ship to the wharf in Savannah, Georgia.
Stiffly, Will got to his feet. The storage locker was cramped at best, and there was very little room to move around. Seventy-two hours was a long time in such narrow quarters. He reached out in the darkness, feeling for the bucket that was used for swabbing the deck and that hung from one beam. Having cracked his head on the bucket several times during his confinement, he didn’t move about until he had it located.
As he stretched, working the kinks out of his legs, he felt the current catch the bow and begin to turn the ship around. Above him, he could hear the creak of winches and the hum of rope whipping through the pulleys. They were hoisting the sails. He nodded, again not surprised. Each day about this time there was always a seaward breeze. The captain would be a fool not to capitalize on it in getting back downriver.
Will felt that last shred of hope blowing away, like sand sifting between his fingers. For a moment he was tempted to press his eye to one of the cracks of light around the door, but he knew it was futile. He had tried it numerous times. The largest crack was big enough to let him know whether it was night or day outside, but that was all. He could see nothing. Besides, he didn’t need to. He could picture the scenes outside his cell as clearly as though seeing them. Closest to the ship would be River Street, with its warehouses and shouting stevedores, with its cotton wagons rattling on cobblestones and slaves sweating in the heat and humidity until their faces glistened like the polished ebony of his mother’s piano. And directly behind the warehouses would be Factors’ Walk, where the men who bought and sold the cotton crops would come out of their offices, stand on the iron bridges that spanned the street below in a dozen places, and buy a ten- or twenty-thousand-dollar crop with the flick of a finger or the raise of an eyebrow. Factors’ Walk—where he had stood with the stranger from Missouri named Joshua Steed and introduced him to Savannah.
He swung away from the door, the utter sense of loss suddenly too intense to bear any longer. They weren’t coming. He had to face that. His mother had not gotten his letter. At least not in time. Will turned and slammed his clenched fist down against the wooden door, exulting in the stab of pain that shot through his wrist where he had broken it. It was the only real evidence he had left of his vast stupidity. He smashed it against the wood again, wincing sharply, wanting to punish himself.
Finally, reaching out to ward off the bucket, he moved back to the corner and the pile of musty blankets. He sat down heavily, cradling his throbbing arm against his chest. For almost two months now, ever since he had learned that the ship would be stopping in Savannah, thoughts of that city had sustained him, had kept him going. For almost two months now he had planned and schemed and waited for this time. Now those hopes were cruelly dashed.
He cocked his head, no longer able to hear the sounds of the waterfront. They had left Savannah. Soon they would slip past Salter’s Island and the silent walls and cannon of Fort Jackson. From there, it was only fifteen miles or so to the open sea and fully beyond any final chance of deliverance.
Feeling sick to his stomach, Will Steed dropped his head between his knees. A great and desolate sense of loneliness roared in his ears now, drowning out any last sounds that might have come had he been listening.
Chapter 2
Caroline closed the door to Olivia’s bedroom softly, then tiptoed down the hall past Savannah’s room. The door there was still open about a foot or so. Caroline glanced at it as she went by, but was not tempted to pull it shut.
As she came down the stairs, Joshua looked up from where he was reading a newspaper. His cane lay on the floor beside him. “They asleep?”
“Not Livvy. But she’s about there. She’s daydreaming about Matthew again.”
Joshua sighed. “She’s not twelve yet. When is she going to get over this silly crush?”
Caroline shrugged. “When Matthew announces he’s going to marry Jenny, I guess. That will hit her hard, but it will also be the cure.”
“You think he will?” Joshua asked.
Caroline nodded emphatically. “Haven’t you watched them together? They’ll marry. And soon, I think.”
“Well,” he said, tossing the paper aside, “if they do, they have my blessing.” He sobered noticeably. “If Jenny’s mother hadn’t hid me while I was recovering . . .” He brushed it aside, not wanting to think about the consequences. He owed a lot to the McIntires. Then Joshua remembered something. “You didn’t shut Savannah’s door, did you?”
She smiled as she shook her head. Caroline knew better than that. For being only two years old, Savannah had an incredible ability to sense, even in her sleep, when anyone violated the solemn covenant she had extracted from them never to shut her door. Caroline and Joshua had learned that no matter how quietly they managed to do it, invariably the little red head would shoot up off the pillow, there would be an angry cry of betrayal, and it would take an hour or more to settle her down again. So even after they went to bed and turned out the lamp in the hallway, they always left her door o
pen. It wasn’t the dark that bothered her. She just did not like the thought of being shut up inside the room.
Caroline’s smile broadened. Savannah didn’t like the thought of being shut up anywhere. To even hold her in your arms was a major accomplishment. This one was like a colt, too full of life to be fettered by bonds of any kind.
Joshua was watching her. “What?” he asked.
She went to stand behind him, laying a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes softened. “I was just thinking about Savannah.”
“What about her?”
“Is she yours or mine?”
He laughed. “There’s no red hair in my line.”
That was true enough. Caroline’s hair wasn’t the fiery red that Savannah’s was, but it was a deep auburn. Caroline had inherited that from her mother and had also passed it on to Olivia. “Maybe not, but she’s got your mother’s eyes.”
Now it was Joshua who nodded. His eyes were dark brown. Caroline’s were a startling green, a gift which she had also bequeathed to Olivia. But Savannah’s were of that same clear blue purity as Mary Ann’s. He chuckled softly. “She may have gotten her grandmother’s eyes,” he agreed, “but I think she got her grandfather’s stubbornness.”
“Ha!” Caroline cried, slapping him on the shoulder. “I think you skipped a generation there, sir.”
He looked offended. “Me? Stubborn?” He pushed back his chair, grabbed her and pulled her down into his lap, then kissed her soundly. “You better watch your tongue, woman.”
“You don’t think you’re stubborn?”
“I bristle at the very suggestion.”
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