A spring of hope. That’s about all I got out of the sermon or the service itself. After all, I didn’t like to sing. I wasn’t that great at praying—my mind wandered. And the meeting house was stuffy, full of stiff-backed old men and women, two or three who pressed hearing horns to their ears, rich folks who fanned themselves, poor folks who sweated in homespun muslin and duck trousers, fidgeting children, and those who fell asleep in the back pews well before the doxology. I let my imagination carry me out of the meeting house and to Paris.
After services, Mama made us stay put in the first row, letting the crowd scatter to their Sunday roasts and Bible studies. That annoyed Baby Hugh to no end, but he knew better than to act up in public, especially in church. Finally we rose, and met with the Reverend White at the door.
Mama presented him with the vinegar pie.
“Why, thank y’all. Thank all y’all. From the bottom of my heart. It’s good to see y’all. How you been farin’, Missus Ford?”
“We are fine in health and spirits, Reverend.”
“And Connor?”
Her smile faded. “No word,” she said hollowly.
He set the pie on the bench by the door, and put a massive arm on Mama’s shoulder. “I’ve prayed for him and all the young men fightin’,” he said. “The Lord’ll look after him. He’ll see him home. God is on our side, for our side is just.”
“I’m sure you are right.” She said it without feeling, though.
“Well ….” It was noon. The reverend looked hungry. He likely wanted to get back to his cabin and the vinegar pie.
“Reverend,” Mama said, “I hate to impose, but we need to borrow a good mule.” He pursed his fat lips, as she continued. “One that can haul two barrels of sawdust from Connor’s mill to Mary Frederick’s plantation. That is per trip. Twelve miles round trip. I cannot fathom how many trips. Well, that would depend on the sawdust.”
“Sawdust?” His belly rumbled.
“Sawdust. For insulation.”
His face shook with laughter. “That Mary Frederick. She is always up to somethin’. Sawdust. For insulation.”
“Yes. And you remember that our mules were stolen ….”
“By runaway slaves!” the reverend thundered, no longer laughing, his face now contorted with rage.
“By whomever,” Mama said. “Confederate deserters or just plain white trash.”
Which, to me, didn’t seem like the right thing to say when one wanted to borrow a mule from a Southern sympathizer, but the Reverend White apparently did not hear. He whipped off his wide-brimmed black hat, ran fingers through his thick, sweaty locks of brown hair, and frowned hard.
“How long do you reckon you’d need my Betsy?” he asked once the hat was atop his head again.
“Two days,” she said, sounding uncertain. “We can haul the … well, Travis can haul the sawdust, dump the barrels in Mary Frederick’s stables, and the carpenters building her carriage house can place the sawdust where best used for insulation.”
I wasn’t sure our supply of sawdust would take two days to haul.
“Well,” he said, glancing at the pie again, beaming. “I reckon for vinegar pie, I could loan y’all my Betsy for two days.” He turned to me. “Boy, you recollect where I live?” I nodded. “Good. You come on ’round my place on Tuesday. I need Betsy on Monday to get me on my prayer calls. Lots of prayin’ needed durin’ these dark days of war and pestilence. Can you ride a mule? Good. You can ride Betsy bareback to your place. Bareback, I say. Don’t think you’d fit in my saddle nohow. But you’ll need to bring Betsy back Thursday evenin’. On account that I got more prayer rounds to make Friday. That suit y’all?”
“Yes, Reverend,” Mother answered. “We thank you for your generosity.”
“Shucks, Missus Ford, it’s the Christian thing to do. And …” he winked, and added in a conspiratorial tone, “some folks say I’d sell my soul for one of your vinegar pies.”
Mama put her arm on his shoulder. “Now, Reverend,” she said, thickening her accent so that she sounded more like Miss Mary than our mother, “I don’t think that’s true at all. Not at all.”
They both laughed.
Chapter Six
On the morning of Monday, April 4th, I walked alone to Papa’s sawmill to begin my new career as businessman. Mama didn’t want Edith in the sawmill—not that Edith wanted to be there—and, besides, someone had to look after Baby Hugh, so I volunteered to begin filling the barrels and inspecting those that already contained sawdust, so they would be ready for Tuesday, when we would have the Reverend White’s mule to haul the sawdust to Miss Mary’s.
Mama packed a lunch of a raw potato and some carrots, some leftover cornbread, and a half-full jar of apple preserves. I tried to slip my writing tablet and two pencils in the knapsack, but you couldn’t get anything past Edith’s keen eyes.
“You going to write or doodle?” she asked snidely. “Or do some actual work?”
“Work,” I snapped, thinking: Writing is work. Though I didn’t know that for certain. Criminy, I’d never tried writing except when practicing my letters or scribbling a letter to some friend or relative.
“Leave him alone.” Mama had come to my rescue. “But, Travis, you cannot idle away the hours. We will only have the Reverend White’s mule for two days.”
“I know, Mama.” I let her kiss my cheek, smiled at Baby Hugh, and stuck my tongue out at my sister before whistling “Pop Goes the Weasel” as I bounded down the steps and headed up the path to the main road, skipping toward the Ford Family Mill.
I didn’t know if King Louis’s Musketeers of the Guard wore knapsacks like those Confederate soldiers I had seen in Camden, but mine did. Twenty-three-year-old Travis Ford—it sounded French to me—left his farm in Gascony, armed with a musket (the broom Mama had given me) over his shoulder, and rapier (a sapling I had snapped off in the bar ditch).
I dueled with Comte de Rochefort and Cardinal Richelieu’s guards, running several through with sword, piercing others with well-aimed balls from the musket. The mysterious Milady de Winter tried to poison me, but I switched goblets and watched her cough, gag, and fall into the bar ditch to be eaten by crocodiles.
Then I thought: It was the spring of hope. It was the epoch of adventure.
I had adventure, but where was the hope? Tossing away the rapier, I studied on my conundrum. Monsieur Travis Ford, poor nobleman from Gascony, hoped to become a musketeer. That didn’t strike me as reason enough to title a whole story, possibly even a book, The Spring of Hope. Soon another problem struck me. Rochefort, Richelieu, Milady were fine villains for Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d’Artagnan, but those were Alexandre Dumas’s creations, not mine.
A bobwhite quail sang out. I whistled back at him.
A farmer on a bay horse called out a greeting as he rode out from Camden, but I didn’t even realize he had spoken, didn’t even notice the horse, until he was three rods past me. I turned quickly. “Good morning, sir.”
“You’re in deep thought, boy,” he called back, chuckling. “Best be aware of your surroundings. Yanks could be hiding in them trees.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
* * * * *
Twenty-three-year-old Monsieur Travis Ford turns his musket toward the towering forests outside of Meung-sur-Loire. Cardinal Richelieu’s … no, Cardinal Willard’s guards could be hiding behind any tree, waiting to pick him off, to steal his letter of introduction to Monsieur Mowbray, commander of the king’s musketeers.
More adventures await the hero as he turns down the woods lane.
* * * * *
Even sight of the rundown mill failed to dampen my spirits.
I stormed the castle, killing one guard with a musket ball, beating two others with the butt of the gun, and then was safe inside the walls. Out of breath, I reloaded the musket, peeked through the window, and saw
the squirrel staring at me as if I were crazy.
My laugh startled him, and he scurried up an oak, but soon he, and plenty of his friends, had resumed their quest to find the acorns that littered the ground. They could clean up the nuts, but I had a far more daunting task. I slung the knapsack off my back, leaned the broom in the corner, and looked around me.
“It would take five grown-ups a week to do this work,” I said aloud. “I’ve only got today.”
I got at it, though, still whistling, knowing The Spring of Hope would have to wait until I stopped to eat.
The first full barrel was so rotted, the top broke off in my hand, spilling wet sawdust onto the top of my brogans. Three others looked to be in fair shape, so I went back to the first barrel, and, somehow, using a shovel from the tool shed as a level, managed to tip it over. I overturned an empty barrel, and began rolling it across the floor when my right foot smashed through a rotted board. Luckily I didn’t break my leg or anything else.
* * * * *
The castle is filled with traps. That would keep French swordsman Travis Ford on his adventure.
* * * * *
Carefully I picked my way across the floor, dreaming up other adventures, then forgot all about my story as I began shoveling sawdust into the barrel.
I worked until well after noon, dumping sawdust from baskets into barrels, sweeping, shoveling, sweating. Two barrels. The bottom fell out of the third when I moved it. Only two barrels, but that would work. It would have to.
My trousers were covered with sawdust and my hands rough from the shovel and broom. Finally I decided it was time to eat. Thinking I would write and eat, I ate instead, famished, washing it down with water from the well. A fish jumped up in the nearby pond. Birds sang. Thunder rolled, and I stepped outside and looked at the sky, most of which was blocked out by the pines. I saw no clouds, but thunder did not lie. I should have brought my poncho with me.
* * * * *
Travis Ford, King’s Musketeer, made his way through the streets of Paris, a violent thunderstorm raging, following his lovely Constance, wondering what intrigue she was involved with, fighting highwayman along the route.
* * * * *
When I had swallowed the last of the cornbread and fingered out the remaining preserves, I went back to work, testing the two barrels, and sweeping up mounds of sawdust mixed with the droppings of squirrels, mice, rabbits, and rats. Late that afternoon, I decided that I had worked enough. I moved to the millpond, washed the sweat and sawdust off my hair, face, neck, and hands, and dried myself off with the rag I’d stuck in a trouser pocket.
The pines rustled overhead in the wind, and I knew a storm was coming. Mama would be worried, but, first, I had to write. So I sat down and began my epoch of adventure.
By the time I knew I needed to start for home, I could smell rain in the air, which presented me with another problem. If I got caught in a storm, The Spring of Hope might be ruined. Besides, did I really want to bring it home, and have Edith discover it when she was snooping around in the loft? Have her laugh at my literary desires? Worse, have Mama find it?
Stepping inside the tool shed, with its tin roof, I began exploring. There were two toolboxes still full of tools, which might work. A lot of sacks. Saws, shovels, rakes, axes leaning in the corners. I pulled a piece of burlap off a shelf, and found a box. I stepped closer, used the burlap to wipe off the dust, and lifted it. The box was made of wood—not pine, not oak, but something dark. The lid was hinged, and there was a keyhole, although I could see no key. It didn’t matter. The lid opened, and I looked inside. Empty, but it smelled of cigars and tobacco. I brought out my tablet and set it inside. It fit perfectly and I closed the lid, then stared.
At first, I thought the picture on the lid had been painted, then it struck me that it was a wood engraving, and finally I realized, no, it was something different. The image depicted a man in a funny shirt with a white collar, bending over, picking on some strange-shaped guitar. A lady in a flowery dress sat, hands clasped against her heart, eyes closed, head tilted up toward the minstrel who was serenading her. The moon was crescent. A tree, leaves drooping from the branches, stood behind her. They were on a deck. Ship or palace? I couldn’t tell. A lake or river or ocean lay behind them. The lady had blonde hair. The man wore a black cap.
The images had been put together with pieces of wood, like in a puzzle, meticulously fitted to form a piece of art. It was the most wonderful cigar box I had ever seen, and then I saw the signature at the corner: C.J. Ford, ’59.
Connor Joseph Ford. My father was more than a sawyer, more than a furniture maker, more than a soldier. Staring at the lid, I ran my fingers across the top, feeling the contours, the design, the love. Papa was an artist. After I slipped the box back inside the burlap sack, I placed it back on the shelf.
Once I had broom and knapsack, I sprinted down the woods lane, hoping I would beat the rain home.
* * * * *
I did. It rained most of the night, but the storm had blown past by the time I was up before dawn.
“You know where the Reverend White lives?” Mama inquired.
“Yes, ma’am. Me and Papa delivered him some wood for that shed he was building one time.”
“Papa and I,” she corrected.
“Papa and I, I mean. I can find it.”
We had everything figured out to a T. I would bring the mule home this afternoon, run back to the mill, finish collecting the sawdust—and maybe have time to add a few paragraphs to The Spring of Hope. Wednesday, when we began hauling the insulation to Miss Mary’s, would require some additional help. I couldn’t hoist one-hundred-pound barrels onto the packsaddle. But I had engineered a plan that would work. Leaving Baby Hugh with Edith at home, Mama and I would go to the mill. We could pull the mule up to the open side where the cut timber went spilling out. Then we would harness one barrel on that side, turn the mule around, put the second barrel on the other side, and lead the mule all the way to Miss Mary’s. We would do the same thing on Thursday, before I had to take the mule back to the Reverend White’s. He lived closer to Miss Mary, anyhow.
Two hours later, the hounds began yipping and howling as I approached the preacher’s cabin. Mama had baked him another vinegar pie, which he greatly appreciated and which I was pleased to be rid of after four miles of traipsing through soaking wet grass and mud. The reverend took me to the barn, where he introduced me to Betsy. He slipped a hackamore and blanket on her, and then boosted me onto her back.
“Good luck, boy.” His breath smelled of bacon. “Now, don’t you forget to have her back to me Thursday afore dark.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Got lots of prayin’ to be done Friday.”
“Yes, sir.”
“War’s goin’ badly for us, boy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But it’s darkest before the dawn.”
“That’s what Uncle Willard says.” I thanked him again, kicked Betsy into a walk, and ducked on my way out of the barn. A half mile later, out of the woods, and back on the main road, Musketeer Travis Ford was racing his fine black steed through charging lancers, the lady Constance clinging to his back, whispering words of love and encouragement.
In no time I reached home.
“I wanna ride him!” Baby Hugh cried out from the porch.
“It’s a her,” I said, swinging down, taking off Betsy’s blanket, and tossing it over the porch railing to dry.
“How would you know?” my brother asked.
I gave him the look that said: Are you the dumbest kid in Washington County?
“Mama!” Baby Hugh wailed. “Can’t I ride that horse?”
“It’s a mule,” Edith and I said at the same time.
Mama broke up the bickering before it turned into a fight. “That mule is here to help us,” she told Baby Hugh as she came down the steps, put one
hand on the mule’s back, and walked around him. In her other hand she had carrots that she offered to Betsy. The mule began munching on the carrots. She seemed to enjoy them. Of course, she hadn’t been eating carrots and potatoes all fall, all winter, all spring, like we had.
“It’s good to have a mule around again.” Mama’s face shined brightly. She rubbed her hand in a circular motion on Betsy’s neck. When Betsy began peeing, causing Baby Hugh to stagger backward and Edith to scream, Mama merely laughed. “Oh, this is a great spring,” she said. “I can feel it.”
“It’s a spring of hope,” I told her, and her smile faded as she began to stare at me. It kind of felt as if she were seeing me as an adult, not a kid, not her son. “That’s right, Travis.” Her eyes glowed again. “A spring of hope.”
“Hope springs eternal,” Edith said, just to say something.
“Yes. Yes, it does.”
After dinner, I hurried back to the mill, sending squirrels retreating up to the highest limbs as my feet crunched atop the acorns. I secured lids on the barrels, scooped the last shovelful of sawdust into the last fit barrel. Two barrels. I’d have to fill those barrels again. Looking around, I decided there wasn’t enough sawdust left to fill more than five barrels, but that was better than nothing.
I didn’t know how much insulation Miss Mary’s carpenters would need, but this was all we had. Unless Mama decided I could operate the sawmill, which would mean opening the dam to turn the muley, shoving lumber along the carriage, and then listening to the whine of the saw as it cut into the log. It would take a lot of trees to produce enough sawdust to fill even one barrel.
So this was all Miss Mary would be getting from the Ford Family Mill, but it was a start. It might be enough to put something on our plates other than potatoes and carrots. Maybe we could even find and afford a sack of coffee for Mama.
Poison Spring Page 5