When I came down from the loft this morning I knew at once something dreadful had happened. Mother was sitting at the table with her head down on her arms, weeping. Grannie was holding Margaret, but the baby was all wrapped up with only a small bit of her face showing, and she wasn’t making a sound. Grannie was not trying to soothe or rock her. She was just holding her. Then I heard hammering behind the house. (It was Father, I found out later, making a tiny coffin.)
Jamie burst down the ladder, calling to Laddie. I grabbed him and hauled him outside. I saw Hannah and told her what had happened. Then Uncle Andrew and Aunt Norah came right over. People kept coming by all day long. Even people we have not met yet. Mr. Murchison sat with Mother for a while and prayed with us. Jamie kept hunched up in a corner, all white-faced and quiet. Some of the women tried to comfort him but he just shrugged them away. Any other time Grannie would have had his hide for being so rude, but she just patted his shoulder whenever she passed him by. He is huddled up in bed beside me right now and is making little distressed-sounding snuffling noises in his sleep. First we lost William, now Margaret.
Grannie took charge and made certain everyone was made welcome and thanked for coming, then she made us a cold supper after they had all left. Mother wouldn’t eat. She went into her room and I have not seen her since. Father’s eyes were all red at supper too.
We will bury Margaret tomorrow in the small Presbyterian graveyard.
The poor wee baby. She was just beginning to be a person. I keep thinking of the way she used to gurgle and smile at me …
I have to stop writing. My tears are blotting the paper and making a terrible mess.
December 1783
December 1st, 1783
I have really been too sad to write in this journal this past week. Mother has been walking around the house like a ghost. Grannie is doing most of the work.
We have started going to the school. I was looking forward to that so much, but all of the fun went out of it when baby Margaret died. I will write of it anyway and see if that makes me feel any better.
Hannah and I went together the first day, of course. The school is in a shanty on the other side of the settlement. It is just one room. We have long tables set up as desks, with benches to sit on. Very few books — only those that Mr. Mitchell brought with him. We have been provided with a few slates and we take turns using them. Mr. Mitchell has set Hannah and me to teaching the youngest ones their letters. There are two other girls the same age as us. Their names are Annie Stanton and Flossie Hoople. They seem nice.
Most of the others are boys. Father had decreed that I should take Jamie, even though he is so young, and George and Hugh went as well. George is a year older than Jamie and Hugh a year older than that. I thought they would be a terrible nuisance, but the teacher, Mr. Mitchell, is very good at keeping order. Perhaps too good. Father was good at keeping order, but he was never mean. I think Mr. Mitchell is mean. He has already strapped two boys for no more than what Father would have considered normal high spirits.
There are about twenty children there in all. Jamie, George and Hugh are the youngest. Several of the others are around my age, only a few are older — all boys. The older girls, such as Molly, seem to feel they should be at home helping their mothers. Or, perhaps it’s their mothers and fathers who feel that way. I am very fortunate in having parents who have told me that I can keep on going to school for as long as I want. Hannah says her mother and father have told her the same. Of course, once we leave Machiche, there is no telling when we will find another school.
I told Father about Mr. Mitchell strapping the boys. Father looked disapproving, but only said that sometimes strapping is necessary.
“Boys like to test the Master out,” he said. “It is important to let them know right away that disorderly conduct will not be tolerated.”
I don’t think he really approved, though. It must be hard for Father seeing someone else doing his work.
One thing is a little difficult to bear. I am used to being the top girl for my age. No one has ever been able to best me at reading, spelling or ciphering, but Hannah is just as good as I am and, I must admit it even though it galls me to do so, she can out-spell me! I was most annoyed when she won the spelling bee today. Still, I like her so much I suppose I can put up with it.
I miss Margaret so terribly. I keep thinking I hear her cry and looking around for her. I remember I did that for so long after William died — I kept expecting him to walk through the door. Sometimes when my mind was wandering I even laid a place for him at the table before I realized what I was doing.
I do not feel any better at all.
December 3rd, 1783
School goes on. I think Alex Calder is sweet on Hannah. He sits and stares at her with such a moony expression. He did not even hear Mr. Mitchell ask him a question this morning.
I teased Hannah about it when we were eating our lunch but she blushed and got quite annoyed with me. I think I had better not tease her again.
I don’t suppose any boy will ever be sweet on me.
December 5th, 1783
It is so strange not to be making ready for the winter. Usually by this time we would have had the harvest in and would have been busy putting down potatoes and vegetables in our root cellar, drying apples and salting pork in barrels. We always killed a pig and used “everything but the squeal,” as Grannie would say. I used to hate helping Mother boil the fat down for lard and soap, though. It smelled so bad! But I guess that was better than what Angus and William had to do. They had to scrape the bristles off the dead pig so Father could sell them to the general store for a bit of extra money. That was truly disgusting. The whole business was messy but the hams hanging up in the fireplace chimney to smoke made it all worthwhile. I’m not that fond of salt pork — and getting less and less fond of it — but I do love smoked ham. This year we will have to make do with the rations we have received from the soldiers and what Father can shoot.
It is unusual for Father to be home all day at this time of year, too, and he seems very unhappy about it, but he says that hunting and fishing will keep him busy. People fish here even in the winter. Father says they cut holes through the ice!
We have a barrel of salt pork sitting outside the door (what joy!) but no hams. No strings of dried apples hanging over the hearth, either. Potatoes and turnips, but no root cellar to put them in. Father is digging a hole next to the house and that will have to do. He has made a kind of shelter there. Grannie has brought her bedraggled lilac bush into the house for the winter and it sits in a corner, well wrapped up in burlap. It looks very dead to me, but Grannie does not give up easily.
We have so few clothes and no means yet of making more. We will have to make do with what we wear on our backs. We have been promised by Governor Haldimand that we will be supplied with bolts of cloth and blankets from the King’s stores, but I fear that those who arrived before us have received most of them. Nor do we have a bootmaker here to make us new boots when the ones we are wearing give out. Some of the settlers have learned from the Indians how to make moccasins — perhaps we will as well. We could make them out of the hide of the deer that Father shot, once he has it tanned.
It is going to be a long, difficult winter. And so lonely without William, Angus and Margaret. We seem like such a small family now. No wonder Mother is so sad.
December 6th, 1783
Mr. Mitchell gave me another bottle of ink yesterday. I was despairing because I was running out, but when I screwed up the courage to ask him for some to take home, and told him what it was for, he gave me a whole bottle! He was very impressed that I am keeping a journal. I thought for one horrible moment that he was going to ask to see it, but thanks be he didn’t.
Perhaps he is not as mean as I thought he was.
December 7th, 1783
Hannah was here at the crack of dawn to fetch a shovelful of coals. Somehow or other their fire went out last night. Father is careful of ours. He banks it every ni
ght and covers the coals with ashes. Jamie is very proud because Father has given him the job of whittling a stick of wood into shavings every evening, to use to coax the fire back alight in the morning. Father gave him his own knife to work with and it is Jamie’s dearest possession. Next to Laddie, of course, who is snoring by the hearth as I write this.
December 8th, 1783
We have had a message from Angus to say that he and Duncan arrived safely at Fort Cataraqui, and are busy with the rest of their battalion helping to build a sawmill. We will probably not hear from them again until spring, but I think that message raised Mother’s spirits a little. She is still very despondent, though, and Grannie is twice as bossy to make up for it.
It’s strange how I go along for several days feeling almost content, and then I wake up one morning feeling homesick and miserable. I miss baby Margaret and keep remembering all of her sweet little ways. It seems so unfair that her life should have been so short.
How I wish things could be as they were. I wonder if I will ever be happy here?
December 9th, 1783
The cabin of a family named Roberts caught fire today! We had just settled down to our morning lessons at school when we heard a great clanging of a bell and people shouting. Of course we all piled out to see what was going on. A cloud of smoke was billowing up from the north end of the settlement. Hannah and I tore over to see what was happening. As we got close we saw flames leaping up out of the roof of the cabin. There was so much smoke it made us choke. It didn’t help, either, that there was a brisk wind blowing. Men were running toward the fire with buckets of water, and women with quilts. They soaked the quilts in water and threw them on the burning roof and on the rooves of the houses next to it. At first it didn’t seem to help at all, but gradually they got the fire under control before it spread to the other houses. Then it began to snow and that helped as well. The cabin was saved but it will have to have a new roof. Mrs. Livingstone’s quilt was burned clear through. Grannie ran out with one of hers, but by the time she got there the fire was out. I’m very glad, because it was the quilt from my bed. Of course, I would have sacrificed it if it were needed, but I’m mightily relieved that it wasn’t. The nights are cold here.
Father says the fire was probably caused by sparks from the wooden chimney. That’s why he won’t burn pine wood in our fireplace. It’s too gummy and causes the chimney to soot up. Even so, I could see sparks coming out of the chimney when I went out to our privy to relieve myself before coming to bed. I hope our roof doesn’t catch on fire!
I’m tucked up cosily in my quilt now, though, with the stub of a candle to give me light. Mother has told me that I mustn’t keep it lit for too long. Candles are much too precious to waste. I suppose I should put it out now.
December 10th, 1783
All the women are getting together to try and find scraps to give to Mrs. Livingstone so that she can make a new quilt. Her daughter, Janet, asked me at school this morning if we could give them some. I asked Mother when I went home at noontime, but she just shook her head.
“Our very clothes are scraps — what could we possibly give them?” she asked.
I felt embarrassed and dreadful all at the same time. I didn’t know how I was going to go back and face Janet. Then, just as I was leaving, Mother thrust something into my hand.
“Give Janet this,” she said, and ran back into her room before I could answer her. When I looked at what she had given me I saw that it was baby Margaret’s old blanket.
I cried all the way to school, but managed to stop before I got there so that no one would see. Hannah saw, of course, because we always walk together, but I didn’t mind that. Hannah and I have no secrets from each other.
December 11th, 1783
Janet says she and her mother and her older sister, Betsy, have started piecing together the patchwork for a quilt top already and they are very grateful for all the material. Janet says her mother has promised us all a quilting bee in the spring as soon as they are ready to put it together. I must practise my stitches this winter and maybe I’ll be allowed to do some of the quilting. I am quite a neat stitcher, even if Grannie does nag at me all the time.
Actually, it’s probably because Grannie does nag at me all the time that I have become so good. Perhaps I should not get so cross about it.
I smell snow in the air again.
December 12th, 1783
My nose was right. It snowed all night and is still snowing. My feet froze on the way to school today. I envy the people who have good Indian moccasins to wear.
December 13th, 1783
Still snowing!
December 14th, 1783
Snow has stopped and I would dearly love to go out and play in it but it’s Sunday. Church services this morning and church services again this evening. Mr. Murchison preaches very long sermons. In between times we are supposed to sit quietly and not even play. Grannie does not let us do anything on Sunday!
I am writing this up in my bed where she can’t see me. I suppose that is very bad of me, but I just have to do something.
I am feeling so twitchy. My legs just want to run!
December 15th, 1783
Today we had a snowball fight at school, girls against the boys. It was so much fun. The boys are bigger but I think the girls were cannier. Alex Calder hit Hannah squarely with a huge snowball. I told her that proves he’s sweet on her. So she hit me with a snowball and got snow all down the back of my neck. She says that all boys are dolts and she wouldn’t want to have anything to do with any of them, much less Alex Calder. I don’t think I believe her, but that’s one subject I think I had better not pursue. She’s quite fierce about it.
That’s why I don’t believe her.
My one and only dress and my coat were soaking wet when I got home, of course, and Grannie was angry. She says I am a little heathen. How could I be a heathen when I go to church services every Sunday?
Anyway, my clothes are all draped over the bench and table, steaming away in the heat from the fire. The whole cabin smells of hot, wet wool. I am sitting as close to the hearth as I can, in my nightdress and well bundled up in my quilt. I feel quite warm and comfortable, actually.
I must stop writing now and practise my stitching.
I think the girls won the snow fight, but the boys will never admit it.
December 16th, 1783
It is my birthday today. I am thirteen years old. If we were still in Albany I would be celebrating with Lizzie Crane and my other friends from school. There would probably have been presents. No presents here. I don’t think Mother has even remembered it. I did not tell anyone at school, but I did tell Hannah. She gave me a hug. That is a good enough present for now.
Later
Father came in with four squirrels and Mother is making a stew for supper.
“For our Mary’s special birthday dinner,” he announced.
So I guess they didn’t forget after all.
The stew is bubbling away and beginning to smell very good.
Later still
The stew was delicious. So much better than mouldy old salt pork. And there were presents! After dinner Father presented me with a doll that he had whittled himself. I am much too old for dolls, but I did not tell him that. Jamie gave me an apple that Mrs. Leake had given him last week. He had hidden it away for me all this time, the scamp. He worried that it was a little dried up and shrivelled, but I assured him that it was perfect. I cut it neatly into five pieces after supper and we all shared. I have saved the seeds to plant when we are finally settled somewhere. We had apple trees back in Albany, but I suppose now we will have to start over.
Mother did not have raisins or currants for a cake, but she made Lumpy Dick and we had that with maple syrup. All in all, it was a feast!
And just now, as I was about to climb the ladder up to my bed here in the loft, Grannie stopped me.
“Here, child,” she said, and gave me a small square of embroidered linen. It was one of h
er fine handkerchiefs that she had embroidered herself for her marriage chest. It bore her initials, M.M. for Mairi MacDonald — the same name as mine although mine is written in the English spelling and hers in the Scottish. For once she was smiling and her face looked all soft. Looking at her in the firelight, I suddenly realized that she must have been very pretty when she was young.
It has turned out to be a lovely birthday, after all.
December 19th, 1783
Father says that news has come that the English have now completely evacuated New York City and the last of the Loyalists have left America. General Washington and Governor Clinton made a triumphant entry into the city on horseback. I truly do not believe we will be going back home, no matter how much my mother wishes to. I don’t want to, either. Why would we want to live amongst those people again after the way they treated us? I certainly would never be friends with Lizzie Crane again. Hannah is a much better friend. I do hope that when we settle we will be somewhere not too far away from each other.
December 20th, 1783
Everything is all abustle because Christmas is coming. The Scots don’t celebrate the way the others do, but it is exciting nonetheless. Back in Albany the English would bring in a huge log — a yule log, they call it — and they kept it burning for the twelve days of Christmas. The Irish lit candles and placed them in the windows to welcome Mary and Joseph. The German families had the best custom of all, I think. They used to bring in a live fir tree and set it up in a corner, and decorate it with candles! The Rickles had an enormous tree and we children all went over on Christmas Eve to watch them light the candles. It was so beautiful I could hardly breathe. They could not leave them alight for long because of the danger of fire, but it was bonny while it lasted.
With Nothing But Our Courage Page 6