by Unknown
Joe kept grinning to himself. He wasn’t like Adam Helmer, who hated the sight of a pretty girl carrying a baby in her inside because it seemed to take the point out of her good looks. Joe liked any pretty face, and he had grown especially fond of Lana’s.
“Sure,” he replied. “It’s going to snow hard. There’s a real storm com-ing. Feel the cold. No, you can’t feel it on your skin. You’ve got to feel it in your nose. You can smell a big snow before it comes. And look there!” He pointed his long finger at a gap in the tumbling rollers of the clouds. “Just watch there a minute.”
As Lana came close to sight along his finger, Joe’s eyes slid sidewise. He thought she looked happy to-day. She was a real nice girl, he thought, the way she brought him and Adam things to eat and cleaned their house out for them. “You keep watching.” He moved his shoulder so that it touched hers and he could feel the round soft solid curve through her dress. He even felt her draw her breath.
“Oh, the geese?”
“Geese,” he nodded. “They’ve been going by all day. Higher than hell and straight south.”
She saw them come and go, leaving the clouds in their wake, a rippling line.
“And there’s another thing,” said Joe. “Keep still. Don’t even breathe.”
He liked to see her when she held her breath.
“You mean that singing sound? What is it?”
“That’s high wind. You can hear it that way in the westward country where the land lies flat. Down here we get it when the wind blows high.”
Her lips were parted, quick and red to breathe the cold.
“Now you’d better get inside,” he said. “A girl in your shape has got responsibilities. And anyways, Gil will be hungry for his dinner. He’ll want to get started right after.”
“Oh yes,” she exclaimed. “The paymaster’s coming to-day.”
“Yes,” said Joe. “We’re going to draw militia pay. By God, we ought to be rich. Rich enough so I can buy you a present maybe.” He eyed her with sly eyes.
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Boleo. But you ought to save your money.”
“I ain’t a hand at saving. Why, sometimes I’ve made thirty pounds and spent it all in a couple of throws in Albany.”
“Throws?”
“Well, maybe I got tossed around by the girls a little.” He spoke with a kind of boastfulness. “Down there the girls get at a man like me. He can’t hardly help it.” His wrinkled face expanded. “God,” he said, “the things that have happened to me, though!”
“Why, Mr. Boleo!” Lana was bubbling with delight.
“Well, I hadn’t ought to talk this way to you.”
“I’m sure a girl wouldn’t rob you. Not up here.”
His eyes became lugubrious.
“That’s the trouble. Women are the devil.”
Gil and Adam came in at noon. Gil with the cart piled high with firewood to add to the corded tiers already in the woodshed, and Adam carrying the hog-dressed carcass of a buck on his broad shoulders. The three men hung up the deer in the woodshed, and all came up to the stone house for dinner, sitting down at the table with Mrs. McKlennar, who derived a monstrous satisfaction from all Joe’s stories. She was delighted also with Adam Helmer. Any big man could put a flutter under her ribs, and Adam, with his coarse, good-featured face and long yellow hair, pricked her mettle.
The kitchen reeked of their tobacco-tainted clothes, and there was a wet bloodstain on the shoulders of Adam’s deerskin shirt. Beside the two, Lana always noticed Gil’s cleanliness with pride. But to-day he was as excited and noisy as they. All three men were bursting with the prospect of ready money coming in. They hadn’t decided what to do with it, but Gil had earlier said to Lana that they would need the money. What little cash he had had dwindled away to nothing, and he would not receive his year’s salary of a hundred and twelve dollars until April. Militia money would be handy to buy some necessary stuff for clothes, shoes, and store flannel, out of which Lana could work things for the baby during the winter. Besides, their powder was getting short (and the price was high).
Lana and the negress, Daisy, served them with samp and pork, and slices of dried squash fried in lard and flour, and apples baked in maple sugar. In the midst of dessert, Mrs. McKlennar got up suddenly and fetched a bottle of sack from the cellar, pouring them each a glass.
“My husband always celebrated on pay day,” she explained. “I ought to start you boys off right.”
Joe Boleo rolled the liquor on his tongue.
“I’d like to have met your husband, ma’am. He must have had some right good notions,” he said politely. But as they went out of the door, he whispered to Adam, “I’ll bet that horny Irishman got him a good stiff drink of rum to wash it out with.”
Mrs. McKlennar watched them go. “Look,” she said to Lana, “it’s started snowing.”
Fine white flakes were driving down upon the valley. Already they had made a thin dusting over the earth and the three men tramping abreast towards Fort Dayton left muddy footprints in it.
“Lord,” said the widow, “they’re three fine boys.” Then she flung her arm round Lana’s shoulders and her horselike face softened. “Come upstairs,” she said. “I was in the attic before dinner and I found some things I thought you might use for the baby.”
Lana wondered what Mrs. McKlennar could possibly have that would be useful to a baby.
The house grew warmer as they went up the stairs. Then when they passed through the trap into the attic, the air was cold again. It was darker too, with the snow falling outside the one small gable window. The loose boards clattered under the widow’s tread. She bent down suddenly.
“I got these out,” she said.
Lana looked down. She saw a cradle and blankets, a miniature plate, and a silver spoon.
The widow breathed harshly through her nose. Two bright spots had flushed her gaunt cheeks.
“One of Barney’s soldiers made the cradle, and Barney got the other things and showed them to me on our wedding night for a joke. I remember how we both laughed. But we never used them. I don’t know why. We tried the best we knew, too.”
Lana said softly, “I think it’s awful nice of you to let me have them.”
“Nonsense,” snorted Mrs. McKlennar. “Don’t get sentimental.”
She rubbed her nose.
“Take them down to your room. No, I’ll carry them; you better not lift such heavy stuff.”
The snow was driving hard against their faces when the three men forded West Canada Creek and came in sight of the fort. The number of footprints on the road made Adam laugh.
“I bet the militia never turned out as good before.”
Joe Boleo grinned.
“How much do you think the pay amounts to?” Gil asked.
“Plenty,” Adam replied. “I don’t know how they figure it, but we commenced in June, going down to Unadilla, and we was pretty busy right along till Arnold went home. It’s pretty near three months, up here. Down east the campaign was longer. Maybe they’ll pay us for the whole campaign.”
They encountered George Weaver going through the gate. He was looking so solemn and embarrassed that they asked him what was bothering him.
“Why,” he said, “Mrs. Reall wanted to come along to collect what was due on Kitty’s pay. She asked if she could come with me. And Emma didn’t like it much on account of John and Mary Reall. But I said it wouldn’t be neighborly not to take her. She’s just ahead.”
Mrs. Reall, looking surprisingly cheerful, turned back to greet them. She had her daughter Mary with her. Mary, Gil thought, was growing into a nice girl. There was a still, brown earnestness in her eyes he didn’t expect to see in any Reall. And she looked a little appalled by all the men round her and her mother, a little ashamed that her mother should have come, perhaps. Gil held his hand out, introducing his two companions to the Realls.
Adam smiled at the girl and said to the mother, “You come with us, ma’am. We’ll all go in together.”
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The soldiers’ mess had been turned into the paymaster’s office for the afternoon, and a couple of the garrison were assigned to guard duty at the door. WTien Adam worked a lane for his companions through the crowd, the soldiers barred the entrance.
“When does this paying start?” Adam demanded.
“When he gives us the say-so.” One of the soldiers jerked his head back toward the door.
They stopped and chatted with the men round them. Some people eyed Mrs. Reall and Mary curiously, but nobody took notice of them more than to say “How do you do.”
Then a pompous voice cried sharply from the messroom, “All right, lads.” One of the soldiers turned and bawled, “Do I let in the whole shebang, mister?”
“No! Let in twenty or so, that’s all the room will hold comfortably; and then close the door until they’re paid off. Then let in another lot. We can’t freeze, you know.”
With Adam’s broad shoulders clearing a path, Gil and Weaver and Joe and the Reall women were among the first to enter.
The room seemed dark after the swirling whiteness of the snow outside. And the snow itself, when one looked out at it, seemed to lend to the darkness. A log on the hearth was disintegrating into a mountain range of coals. With his back to it, in a black coat, red waistcoat, and soiled white tie, sat the paymaster, come up from Poughkeepsie at Colonel Bellinger’s request. He had the roll of the regiment before him and the colonel’s muster sheets, and these he was comparing and checking against each other. He finished as the men crowded in and barked a little in his throat. “Line up,” he said. “Line up down the table. I can’t handle you all at a time.”
As he stepped up to the table, Gil noticed that Colonel Bellinger was in the room. The colonel looked grim. Gil could not understand why.
“Hey, there,” said the paymaster. “What’s that woman doing in here?”
Mrs. Reall, who was third in the line of men, stepped out of it and drew herself up before the paymaster.
“I came to collect my husband’s pay.”
“Hak, hak, hak,” went the little man. “No women allowed in here, ma’am.”
“But I said why I came.”
“What’s his name? Why isn’t he here himself?”
“His name is Christian Reall,” said Mrs. Reall. “He’s dead.”
The little man examined his list.
“He ain’t marked so. Now, ma’am, will you kindly get out?”
“Just a minute.” Colonel Bellinger came forward. “I don’t know why Christian Reall isn’t marked on the list as dead. But he was killed and scalped. I saw him myself. I think his widow is entitled to his pay.”
The little man looked angrily at the colonel.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He seemed to swell with the importance of his position. “I’m appointed to pay militia wages. I don’t pay dead men.” He gave his little barking cough.
“But where do I get his pay? I’m entitled to it. I’m his lawful wedded widow,” said Mrs. Reall.
“Claim against the state. Swear it to a justice. File the claim. Hak, hak.”
“But I ain’t got any money. I need it. I’ve got children, mister.”
“They’re no business of mine.”
“Look here,” said the colonel. “Surely he earned his money as well as any man could. I’ll swear to the time of his death and to Mrs. Reall’s being his wife. Can’t you pay her for his time up to then?”
“My dear sir,” said the paymaster. “We don’t do things that way. I’ve explained the procedure. The claim will be filed before the auditor-general and passed by an act of Congress.”
“Jesus Christ, listen to the bug-tit.”
Adam Helmer’s voice was heavy with admiration.
“Sir?”
No one answered.
Colonel Bellinger took Mrs. Reall’s arm. “I’ll see you get it, and I’ll see you have something on account.” He led her to the door.
The men turned back to the paymaster, who was clearing his throat. “Give your names,” he said. “I’ve got the money sorted for you.”
A man named Hess and a man named Stoofnagle drew pay. Then it was Gil’s turn.
“Gilbert Martin.”
“Company?”
“Mark Demooth’s.”
“Oh yes, Captain Demooth’s. Here you are. The account’s different from the other companies. You get no pay for the five days’ service with General Arnold. You were requested to act as scouts for Continental troops. Therefore your expenses will be due you from the United States Congress. You will receive it in due course. That makes your pay $4.27 instead of $5.52, which is the regular private’s pay for last summer’s militia service in this regiment.”
A stunned silence fell upon the room. The two men who had already received pay began counting it. Gil looked down at the money in his hands. Four dollars and twenty-seven cents. Suddenly his throat swelled. He thought of Oriskany. He didn’t feel like waiting for the others to be paid. He went towards the door.
Perhaps the little man felt uneasy, for he started coughing again as Joe Boleo gave his name. The gangling woodsman slouched over him.
“Thanks,” he said. “It sure is fun to lick the British.”
The little man coughed.
“It’s the regular pay according to the regulations of the New York Congress. Militia serving in its own precincts draws pay only for actual duty. In your case, expedition to Unadilla fourteen days. You were then discharged. Expedition to relieve Fort Stanwix, unsuccessful five days. You were again discharged. Expedition under General Arnold, successful-five days. Twenty-four days at twenty-three cents a day is five dollars and fifty-two cents. It seems plain to me.”
“You said the word, bug-tit.”
Joe followed Gil out into the snow. The roofs of the buildings were whitened. The stockade looked black against it. The air was getting colder; soldiers blowing into their hands on sentry walks made clouds of steam that whipped rapidly away among the swirling flakes.
Adam Helmer overtook them. He was laughing loudly. “I ought to have brought my purse along.”
Gil had nothing to say. He went out through the fort gate and turned left for home. The snow was making fast.
The other two men walked in his footprints, Joe at the tail end, muttering to himself.
“What you talking about?” Adam demanded.
“I was wondering how in hell those buggers got to be that way.”
“How in the hell what buggers got to be what way, Joe?”
“Those Congresses.”
The Snow
The snow lay two feet deep when the storm cleared. The weather remained cold. Winter, thought Emma, had come to stay; and she walked along on her husband’s bear-paw shoes with a feeling of complete security.
She hadn’t told any of her menfolk where she was headed for. She had merely announced at dinner that she was feeling housebound and that a romp in the snow would do her good. The cabin seemed awfully small for four large people: herself, and George, a solid man, and John, nearly a man; and now Cobus was catching up to John. All three had looked at her from over their plates; all three had said, “All right, Ma,” grinning their boys’ grins. She was proud of her menfolk, and as she left the house she had a comforting assurance that they were proud of her. Even John was, preoccupied though he had been these past months with the Reall girl. She felt sure that he had no idea that she was going to Fort Herkimer, with the deliberate intention of talking to Mary Reall.
She had not seen the girl since they left Fort Herkimer to live in the cabin on Peter Weaver’s place, where George had agreed to give his time and the boys’ for a third share in the farm produce. She had had no intention of ever seeing the girl; when George announced that he was going to take Mrs. Reall to the pay-off, Emma had been hurt, as if by doing this George were taking John’s and Mary’s side against herself. But as soon as he told her how the paymaster had treated Mrs. Reall, all Emma’s natural wrath had risen blazing.
“I wish I’d been along,” she said; and “I wish you had, Emma,” said George. “The girl seemed to take it hard, ashamed to see her Ma put down, and all.”
“It’s a wonder you men didn’t stand up for them.”
“There wasn’t nothing we could do. Bellinger was there. He couldn’t and he’s the colonel, too.”
She let it drop. But the idea came to her, now that she felt the Realls had been put upon, that maybe Mary could be talked into a state of sense. It was just as important for the girl, after all, as for Emma’s John, not to hasten to a wedding.
As the blood started flowing through her body, she pulled the shawl back from her gray hair, drawn uncompromisingly to its honest knot. The cold whipped up the color in her cheeks. Her stride was masculine; the weight of the snowshoes made her swing her feet. She ought to have been wearing trousers. She kept kicking the loose snow from the webs. It was powdery and it glittered when she flung it off. She trod down hard to hear the squeak, putting her weight forward over her knees.
God hadn’t granted it to Emma to have a pretty face; but she had a fine, well-working body. Walking by herself made her conscious of its strength and vigor, feeling herself in every part; yet to tramp this way, for the sheer muscular delight, was an expression of her underlying femininity. Where pretty women who had looking-glasses might have examined their naked selves, Emma, instead, renewed acquaintance with herself by means of what she called her romps.
To Mary Reall, who saw her swing through the gate, Emma’s hearty good health was an expression of ruthlessness. The girl was afraid of her. She knew instinctively, even as Emma asked to see Mrs. Reall, that John’s mother had come down to talk to her.
They had a corner of the northwest blockhouse, which they shared with two of the Andrustown families. Mary’s mother was lying on one of the bunks originally built for a garrison. A fire in the centre of the floor gave all their heat to the three families. The smoke had blackened the rafters and the ceiling boards. It found its way upwards through the trap and out of the spy loft when the wind allowed. It was a miserable place.