“What?” Gid demanded.
“Not a smart idea, purchasing a lot, sight unseen.”
My brother folded his arms. “I can trust my friends’ recommendation.”
“Because they’re clearly bright, those boys.”
Gid bristled, but I couldn’t help it: I burst out laughing.
Again, that elegant shrug. “Well, the lot might suit you as well as any other. I’m on the other side of the Welds boys, and in truth, the entire territory is a vicious trial. Nothing but wooded swampland.”
Gid and I stared.
“All of it?” I asked, vividly recalling the description of snake dens Robert Welds had read to us from one of Mrs. Linton’s letters.
“Inevitable, really. Low-lying land under an endless canopy of trees stays moist. You’ll see for yourself.” He sighed. “I’ll escort you to Batavia.” He shot a glare at the tavern. “I have to explain why I don’t have the money to make my loan payment and might as well do it now than later.”
“Aren’t you worried about leaving Marian and the children unattended?” I asked.
He snorted. “She’s more capable than I am of defending the family. You should have seen what she did to the bear that tried to attack our cow.”
“Shot it?”
He released the tether from the post. “Axed it.”
“Heavens.” That was impressive. “But won’t she fret if you don’t return right away?”
He fitted his boot into a stirrup and gracefully mounted Sweetheart, giving her a moment to prance under his weight, then rewarding her with a rub. “She’ll be glad I’m not underfoot, ‘sawing up a racket on the fiddle,’ as she says. That woman has zero appreciation for fine music.” He sniffed again. “Truthfully, this will be a pleasant vacation for me—a chance to get away from her tart tongue and that pack of dirty ankle-biters.”
These unromantic disclosures left me nonplussed. Perhaps he and Marian had married prematurely, without sufficiently considering their differences before plunging into a lifelong union. I’d never met a man so obviously disenchanted with his mate and offspring.
Gid, however, seemed more focused on the agreeable news that we’d secured a guide for the remainder of our journey, and he and Phineas spent a moment discussing directions and probable difficulties, given the mucky conditions. Finally Gid said, “We appreciate your escort.” He tapped a stump with his boot. “But after we take care of our business with the land company, I’d like to make one additional stop in a place called Barre.”
“That won’t be difficult. It’s not far from Batavia. Friends settled there?”
My brother nodded, his quick peek in my direction sheepish.
I grinned. Gid wasn’t wasting any time in resuming his courtship.
* * *
Before leaving the tavern yard, we turned the sleigh back into a wagon and then followed the river for three days until we came to a section shallow enough to cross. During this time, our guide sparkled with humor, even when he complained about farm life, the iniquities of the three children “infesting” his cabin home—and his wife.
I felt sorry for the poor woman and probably too blatantly wore my sympathy because Phineas said, “Don’t be taking her side, Freddy. She’s terrible. The temper in that woman! Most don’t even guess it. Why, if I ate a cherry tartlet every time I heard someone gush, ‘Oh, Marian, what a lovely girl,’ I’d be a fat fiddler, let me tell you. She fools them all because she hides the meanness so well. Make the mistake of irritating her once in a while, and she’ll let it go for weeks, whole months, with hardly a scowl, but what she’s really doing is saving the anger, storing it up like an army hoarding weapons and ammunition. Then, one day, I’ll say the littlest thing, like ‘Golly, Marian, that gingham getup could stand to meet a hot iron,’ and boom! She’ll blast me so hard, it’s like there’s a cannon hiding in that wrinkled skirt. Ah, well, it’s my lot in life to suffer so, I expect.”
I was skeptical. Seemed like the person suffering the most was Marian.
After a couple days of this, Phineas took a break from bemoaning family life in order to enthusiastically recount stories of raging torrents, drowning cattle, and pioneers floundering in deep waters and sinking to their deaths.
The conditions inspired the shift in his morbid wit. The melting snow had dangerously swelled the river, and I could easily imagine never making it to the other side. I was constantly clasping the lucky spile in my pocket as we followed along the river’s rushing length.
We traveled as much as we could during the frigid hours before and after nighttime, when the ground was stiff with cold, permitting us to rumble over the pitching lanes without sinking into the mud. I got a good amount of exercise popping in and out of the wagon to drag aside broken tree limbs and hack at the dead remnants of trail-webbing vines. So many encroaching branches: It was as if the forest wanted to reclaim itself and swallow the paltry path humans had carved out of its wildness.
I’d never seen such a forest, with its ancient trees, enormous and innumerable. It teemed with animals awakened by the milder conditions. When I needed to venture from our riverside sojourn into the woods for privacy’s sake, I stayed as close as possible to the dense edge, certain that trespassing even a foot too far would make me one more intrusion the vegetation would engulf, perhaps holding me in its gnarled clutches to await a wolf’s or panther’s or bear’s dinnertime.
Eventually, I couldn’t avoid the fearsome interior, for our journey veered straight into the woods. This, however, only happened after we executed a different terrifying feat: the fording of the river.
With the wagon cracks caulked and the oxen hitched by rope to our horseman guide, we dared the river at its shallowest point, which still seemed dangerously deep. It was a strangely silent crossing. Anxiety had stolen our voices. The entire way, the poor animals’ alarmed eyes bulged above the surface of the water. Fancy, with a frantic whimper, scrambled almost to my shoulders.
The great benefit of the crossing (besides, obviously, survival and being able to continue on our journey) was that I achieved the first thorough soaking I’d had in weeks. I wasn’t precisely clean, but I no longer reeked. Phineas, of course, stayed miraculously dapper and mostly dry. Afterward, he merely stretched out a long leg and exclaimed, “The Genesee works better than champagne for boot shining.”
We had reasons to be thankful for our smart-tongued companion. Not only had he helped in the crossing, but he also (much better than Gid and I ever would) understood the blazes on the trees that had been left as direction indicators by Indians and earlier pioneers. We would have been lost—literally—without Phineas’s guidance.
One night by our campfire, fortified with too many drams of Mama’s hard cider, Gid tried to deliver a heartfelt speech of gratitude. Phineas brushed this aside and held up his tin plate with its remnant of johnnycake and fried salt pork. “This is reward enough: Freddy’s shockingly good cooking and the exquisiteness of the ingredients.” He took a bite, chewed slowly, swallowed, and moaned, “Wheat. Glorious wheat.”
I considered his impassioned sighs and lip smacking. What had he grown used to subsisting on if a quick bread and a few pieces of crackling pork could inspire this level of appreciation?
Catching my perturbed study, he grinned. “Sure beats wild-leek soup.”
As helpful as Phineas was, his constant teasing and joking rankled. The only—only—times he turned somber were when he mulled aloud about the theft of his potash at the tavern and what was going to happen when he couldn’t pay on his land. Then he’d frown at the fire.
Such seriousness was short-lived. He’d resume his raillery all too quickly. My occasional, solitary visits to the woods particularly amused him.
Once, when I returned after a quick trip, he burst out laughing. “Merciful heavens, Freddy. You’re not suffering from a stomach ailment, are you? No? Then don’t be bashful. We won’t look.”
His hilarity only increased when I stammered an excuse of shamefu
l bruises left by my previous employer.
“Oh, no, not the evil silversmith again,” he groaned through his mirth.
And on another occasion: “You shouldn’t be ashamed, Freddy. We are all God’s creation, big and small. Alas, some will always be bigger than others. But you’ve still got a little growing left in you, so don’t worry yet. And if you remain on the nubby side, as long as the equipment works, you shouldn’t worry. A woman’s sensitive spot isn’t the hole. You want to head northward to find her paradise. Ha-ha-ha!” His arm, swung over my shoulders for this friendly (and excruciatingly mortifying) reassurance, practically choked me as he doubled over and lurched sideways in his subsequent laughter.
Gid listened to these tormenting teachings with an expression that was part alarmed, part amused, and part embarrassed (for both of our sakes, no doubt). However, he made no move to interfere, and when I muttered under my breath a complaint, his face turned sanctimonious, and he retorted, “Freddy was your stupid idea. Not mine.”
In contrast to my great modesty and Gid’s milder version, Phineas revealed a remarkable casualness about such delicate matters. Without pausing, he would carry on about the superiority of horses to all other animals while unfastening his pantaloons and relieving himself against a tree.
Even more startling were his bathing rituals, the regular scrubbings he gave himself and his clothes in the river, unmindful of my gape and indifferent to the nippy April air and the cold water. “Cleanliness, dear Freddy, is the secret to good health,” he once lectured over his lathered shoulder, “cleanliness and abstinence.” Then, with a twinkling smile, he added, “Abstinence from excessive drinking, anyway. Filth and drunkenness are death’s boon companions.”
In response to my whispered comment on Phineas’s excessive washing rituals, my brother shrugged. “It’s an English thing.”
This could be true. We’d learned that Phineas’s family had only recently immigrated to America from Tadmorden, Lancashire, England.
Gid scratched over his right ear. “And not such a bad idea. I ought to brave the frigid water and join him.”
I sighed. “Wish I could contrive a good bath.”
“Soon.” He gave me a dark look. “In the meantime, stop paying such close attention to Phineas’s.”
I stuck out my tongue and shuffled away, my face hot from the implication. Truthfully, my peeks at Phineas were curious but not lascivious. Oddly enough, instead of focusing on his nakedness, I found myself wondering what Daniel Long would look like similarly occupied in the river.
It struck me as a tragedy of my own making that I’d never find out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Batavia, despite owning the distinction as the Genesee Valley’s county seat, was little more than a bare-bones village. Its outskirts didn’t so much drift toward the wilderness as slam into it, for trees densely enclosed the town. However, I couldn’t have experienced a greater surge of relief entering its precincts had I found myself in Boston. For too long, Gid, Phineas, and I had suffered either the gloom of the woods or, when the sun breached the canopy and sifted through the legion of branches, its bewildering glare.
Entering Batavia, I blinked like a blind girl newly introduced to sight and, since I’d taken to traveling mostly on foot to ease the weary oxen’s burden, stumbled into the road and straight into the path of a mule-drawn cart.
“Oh!” I tripped backward. “I beg your pardon.”
“Mind where you’re going, boy,” the owner said testily, yanking his animal out of my way.
Phineas eyed me in amusement. “Follow me.” He tapped his horse’s sides with his heels and trotted ahead of us along the thoroughfare.
The central office of the Holland Land Company, Grecian in architectural style, anchored the town on the main road where people strode or rumbled along in wagons. When we shuffled into the clean building, I regretted my ragged appearance, but the bespectacled, thin-haired clerk at the front desk must have been used to dirty visitors, for he barely blinked at Gid and me. Indeed, he seemed more struck by Phineas’s dapper apparel. His wide gaze lingered on him and the instrument case in his hand before he coughed and shuffled some papers. “This way, please,” he said, his Dutch heritage discernible in his accent. He indicated the hallway behind him.
After he escorted us through a doorway and departed with a murmured assurance that we wouldn’t wait long, we found ourselves sitting in the richly paneled, book-lined contractor’s room.
The graying agent who entered a few minutes later greeted us and promptly unrolled a map. Based on Gid’s request, he inspected this map for a moment, trailing his finger along the demarcations sectioning off two long, intersecting roads, Oak Orchard and Ridge, then identifying the Welds brothers’ location. As if speaking mostly to himself, he murmured, “A little south of the Ridge, I believe—right here, near what we call the Five Corners. Two hundred and sixty acres.” He peered inquiringly at Gid.
My brother, his eyes alight with excitement, nodded and repeated reverently, “Two hundred and sixty acres.”
Gid took the article, made his first payment, provided contact and beneficiary information, and signed three papers to secure the transaction. This took all of five minutes.
Then my brother and I waited as Phineas explained the theft of his potash. “I’m afraid I only have the interest due.” More nervous than I’d ever seen him, he fidgeted with his instrument case. “I don’t know when I’ll raise the rest.”
The agent nodded. “May I see your article, please?”
Phineas unlatched the case. After opening the compartment under the scrolled end of his fiddle, he removed a few neatly wound coils of strings, a block of resin, and at last, his folded article. Phineas hadn’t once played his instrument for us. I wondered when he would.
The agent opened the article and read it. “I’ll be back shortly.”
We waited for his return without talking. Phineas sat hunched over his clenched hands, Gid stood staring at his contract in amazement, and I sidled along the shelves, eyeing the books and missing Mama’s collection back home.
When the agent returned, he passed Phineas a new contract and explained matter-of-factly that he’d waived the back interest, as well as a dollar per acre on the balance.
Perhaps our companion had been half prepared to lose his land, for these revisions left the normally loquacious Phineas temporarily speechless. He finally managed, “How kind. I—I don’t know how to thank you.”
The elderly gentleman folded his hands over his vested front. “Make your land prosper. That is the company’s hope for every industrious settler.”
Shortly thereafter, we stood outside the building, and I felt precisely as I had upon leaving the forest: disoriented and stunned.
Gid gazed around dazedly. “That was easy.”
“Dropping blunt is all too easy,” Phineas agreed. “Let’s celebrate. There’s an inn down the road.” He squeezed the back of his neck and shook his head. “We need to toast the Holland Land Company, the very generous Holland Land Company.”
He spoke with absolute sincerity and blew a gusty exhalation: a huge sigh of relief.
* * *
We visited the local postmaster to dispatch a letter to Mama and Papa and then made our way to the inn. Though dubiously named Skunk’s Misery, the place neither stank like a skunk nor promised misery to its travelers. It was rough-hewn but surprisingly clean. And though my brother’s resources had dwindled and Phineas’s financial plight was even direr than Gid’s, I’d barely touched my savings. So I offered to pay for our supper and rooms—two, one for Gid and Phineas and one for me. If our new friend wondered why I took the single room, he didn’t say anything. He probably perceived it as further evidence of my excessive modesty.
After booking our rooms, I requested a bath.
The tavern keeper’s wife sourly inspected not just me but Gid, too. “You’ll all be getting baths. I won’t have my straw-tick beds swarming with bugs.”
I
was happy to endure the implication that we carried infestations on our persons, as long as I could get clean, and I even paid the extra fees for a bit of soap and additional kettles of hot water.
A loud crash in the back of the building interrupted our transaction, and the tavern keeper’s wife excused herself to check on the situation.
The aroma of roasted pork reached us where we waited. Through a set of closed interior doors sprang a shout of laughter. Gid gazed complacently at the neat accommodations. Phineas, arms crossed, rocked back on his heels and wondered aloud if baked apples might form part of our meal. The successful negotiations at the Holland Land Company had ensured the men’s good spirits. They were prepared to enjoy themselves.
Unlike them, I possessed nothing of great value—no land, cabin, spouse, or livestock. Nevertheless, my face undoubtedly beamed the brightest. I was about to visit a hitherto forbidden realm: a taproom.
The tavern keeper’s wife returned and directed us to our rooms. “Takes time to prepare three baths. You might want to sup while you wait.”
We agreed with alacrity. After following my companions to the second floor, securing Fancy and my belongings in the private room, and trailing Phin and Gid down a different staircase, I headed into the taproom with every expectation of pleasure, as eager as a secret society’s novice on the evening of her induction.
It was like entering a noisy cloud. Several farm laborers puffed on clay pipes, and smoke mixed with the fetid odors of sweat, grime, and whiskey.
Phineas’s nostrils curled. “Can’t smell a single baked apple in here.” He whipped out a handkerchief and held it fastidiously to his nose. Suddenly he seized my arm and yanked me toward him.
One of the patrons, a burly man, in a burst of jocularity had sent his chair back on its hind legs, straight into my path. Thanks to Phin’s quick action, the blow only grazed my thigh.
The sprawling man shot forward, the chair hit the floor with a thud, and he whirled around. “Watch it.”
Me? I glared back. “You, too.”
Gid laughed nervously and nudged me along. “Take care, Freddy.” He flared his eyes. “First the mule cart and now this. Pay attention to where you’re going.”
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