Becoming Americans

by Donald Batchelor

  By the end of February, most of the hills were ready, and by the time of the New Year's celebration in March, the corn was planted in its hills. In April they could finish the tobacco hills, and in May the tobacco plants were sturdy enough for transplanting in the one clear field and beneath the dying branches of those giant chestnuts, hickories, and oaks which still stood. In the early summer months, as the new Virginians began to experience the power of the country's heat, they hoed at the weeds and topped-out the fast-growing tobacco, preventing development of flowers and seed, forcing strength into the leaves. They "suckered" to eliminate the sapping by growth that sprouted at the base. In the silencing heat of August, they cut and hung the plants to dry in sheds they'd built almost as carefully as the house. That left them free to harvest corn when it was ready, then they could cask the dried tobacco in October, celebrate the harvest, finish with the corn, butcher and dress hogs, then—since it was winter—they could clean and burn.

  As the newness became routine, Francis Harper became increasingly withdrawn and secretive. He worked as hard or harder, as long or longer, as his servants. He heeded the admonishment of Mistress Ware about his responsibilities, though, and responded to the sensible prodding of Drusilla. Still, whenever possible, he was alone wandering the woods, or fishing in the bay.

  Evelyn Harper had grown more strange, until they all feared the Devil had completely captured her. They found her one late-spring morning, silent, with an arm outstretched, holding a coiled black snake. Her face dripped perspiration, and her eyes blazed. Drusilla started making larger portions of Opeechcot's brew, as, otherwise, the girl required too much attention.

  Opeechcot was no longer an object of fear but, instead, the boys were fascinated by the old savage's knowledge and understanding of his land. Many of his ideas were bizarre and laughable, but Opeechcot had lived to be an old man in this place, and Richard still held the fear of the ship captain's warnings.

  James Barnes and Billy Forrest grew restless in the wilderness, and sometimes escaped work to go to court with Harper. They went to the militia drills required of every man of sixteen years or older. There they found excitement, as the drinking and horse races and gambling always led to fights; even an occasional duel. The stories they brought home made the boys eager for manhood.

  Richard and Edward were inseparable, but finally had their first fight when Edward admitted to his Halloween trick of hiding Richard's old clothes on the morning of the confrontation at Mister Ware's, with Edward laughing even as Richard's fists fell hard on him.

  For them, the adventure had turned into mostly work. The days were hard and boring. Few visitors were seen, except the Barneses, although ships passed in the Bay with cargo and new settlers. They looked forward to church each week, as they never had in England. Richard often thought of Anne Biggs and, as his body grew and hardened, he thought of her increasingly in anticipation of her womanhood.

  Word arrived in 1659 that Oliver Cromwell had died at about the time that Harper and his people arrived in Virginia. The slow news also delayed tales of unrest and revolution in England. Certainly, in due course, King Charles II would be called from European exile and the monarchy restored. Maybe England was the exciting place to be, the boys considered. But their future was in Virginia, and Richard, increasingly, was aware of his need to prepare for the day he became a free man.

  In the full heat of their first August, word arrived that two servants at a plantation on the York River had died from the sun, and that another two exhausted men had died when they exposed their half-naked bodies to the dew and damp earth, hoping for a full night's respite. It came to Richard that he must make a way to escape the killing labor of the fields. He took seriously the suggestion of Mister Ware.

  Mister Ware had been fulsome in his praise of Richard's astuteness in noting the faulty hogsheads, and had suggested that Richard put his knowledge to good use. Harper had seized upon the idea and set aside time for Richard to develop his rudimentary skills. Mister Ware sent him home with green staves and hoops and heads to measure, copy, or improve upon. Richard studied the materials, and began his first hogshead.

  The hogshead must come out forty-three inches tall and twenty-six inches across the head. The inspectors for the tax collection were strict enforcers of that law.

  The seasoned staves he brought from the Ware Plantation, and the few good hogsheads Harper owned, were Richard's models. He selected from the fallen trees those trunks of red oak that were the straightest and strongestlooking. He and James sawed the trunks into sections about the length of the ax, then they split the sections into quarters and removed the sapwood from the center ends. Rough staves were then rived from each section and trimmed on a saw-horse with a pull blade. He left these staves to season for a couple of months—depending on how dry the logs were—then he worked with each stave separately.

  Richard had no measuring tools except his eye and the models. He experimented with green staves as the wood seasoned; tapering it at both ends, and beveling it with his broad ax. He scraped out the inside of the stave, leaving the ends thicker, making each a little concave. By the time the real staves had seasoned, Richard was able to shape them quickly, and he did so with growing pride in the ease with which he did a thing that others—even Edward—noted with surprise and respect.

  Then he practiced arranging the staves in a setting-up hoop, placing thick staves beside weaker, thin ones, using the thickest—the bung stave, in a liquidcontaining pipe—as a reference point, leaving the narrowest stave for last to make the tightest fit. Then a sizing hoop was slipped over the setting-up hoop and forced down evenly with a mallet to the middle of the staves' length. This was then replaced by a permanent truss hoop. The rough beginning was turned over a fire, warming and softening the wood to make it receptive of the increasingly narrow truss hoops that were forced down the cask, narrowing the mouth that would be held by an iron hoop that matched its opposite, the setting-up hoop. Then the barrel was heated again to permanently set and bend the staves. A ridge was scraped out around the top inside, into which he forced the round head he'd already made.

  Richard was less than proud of his first hogshead, but he'd learned a lot and, what's more, Francis Harper was very pleased. When the news arrived about the four dead servants in York County, Richard dared to suggest that he was more valuable to Harper with an oak stave than with a grubbing hoe.

  In the early weeks of their second winter in Virginia, Harper told his people that they'd have some extra time this season, as he wasn't out to burn and clear so much acreage in advance. He'd learned there was no need to clear more land than they could tend, so they'd merely girdle a few more acres and leave the trees to slowly die until he had more men. Some days after that, Brinson Barnes reported that Opeechcot had approached him with the suggestion of taking the boys into the woods to teach them lore and medicines of the forest. Drusilla urged Harper to let the Indian have them for two weeks, and her opinion had assumed increasing weight at the plantation.

  The days with Opeechcot were long days of walking many miles, mostly in silence but for the short words the old man used to teach his lessons. They walked, touching trees and tasting bark and feeling different types of dirt. He told them names for everything they saw, always a Pamunkey name and often the English one. They tried to remember the English names they didn't already know, and they were questioned repeatedly about what he'd told them. On the morning of the second day they reached a river and, in the afternoon, the boys identified the chimneys of the Ware Plantation on the far shore. They kept walking, not allowed to stop and eat a noontime meal, but nibbling from the tiny grains of crushed, dried corn they carried. They drank water from a stream, feeling full and satisfied. At nightfall they made beds of pine boughs and listened to Opeechcot's stories of the animals, and about the spirits that surrounded them. In time, they told Opeechcot stories of their God, and shared knowledge of the amulets and omens that they'd learned back home in England.

 
The savage was surprised and bemused by the white man's need to pray to and worship a good god. He, too, believed in an all-powerful god of goodness, but his god's gifts were plentiful and freely given, so that, with this bounty naturally available, the affairs of men were left to men. However, there were many jealous, evil spirits about which delighted in the interference of that flowing munificence, and who devoted themselves to the bedevilment of men. It was to these spirits that respect must be shown, and sacrifices offered.

  They dared to ask him about '22 and '44.

  "There is no beginning and no end to the folly and the sorrow."

  They insisted, "Were you here?"

  "I will not wake the spirits and the sorrow by telling these old tales."

  Opeechcot closed his eyes, and the boys stared at the motionless old man. He had ended the conversation for the night.

  The land grew swampy as the river narrowed, and movement forward became increasingly difficult. Richard loved the darkness and the mystery of unknown sounds. Both boys felt safe with Opeechcot, and enjoyed the adventure of being miles away from Pine Haven, and unlawfully traveling without written passes. That fact made it necessary for them to avoid plantations, Englishmen, and the ferry over the Piankatank River. With Opeechcot's direction, they improvised their own small raft of two logs lashed together for the short crossing. After a brief walk north, the path began to rise, and parallel the road that ran northwest along the ridge above the broad Rappahanock River. They followed the road until there was no road, and they walked on with the Indian, losing sight of the great river at times, until it curved back to the path the Indian pursued.

  When they neared the falls of the Rappahanock, they stopped to gaze westward. From where they stood, the boys could see vast distances, and a shared feeling came to them that they'd only felt before in church. A blue haze shrouded hills that Opeechcot assured them reached to the skies, and were the home of the cold winds and ice that came in winter. Edward urged Opeechcot to lead them there, but the Indian replied that it was too far. He accepted the guide's reply, but insisted that he would go there one day. When he was grown, he would go there.

  Richard didn't share his friend's longing. He already missed the waters and the teeming life of the great Chesapeake Bay.

  One night, on the return, Opeechcot spoke reverently of the initiation of men into his tribe. Boys of about Richard and Edward's age group were taken into the forest—forcibly—from their mothers. For two months they were schooled and tested and tried. They were daily fed on a brew, which made them, in the end, forget their pasts. They returned to their village unaware of any previous belongings, or even of their families.

  At the boys' insistence, Opeechcot prepared a weak potion of this drink and they drank freely from it. They saw images and spirits in the trees and listened to the water and the wind talking to them and, when they had calmed down from the day of colorful visions and hysteria of tears and laughter, they felt closeness to this country that they hadn't known before. They could understand why the Pamunkey boys had returned to their villages changed into men of their own making. Their friends and relations in England had never talked with trees, had never seen the living water. They could never imagine the immensity of this untamed land

  The year's backbreaking labor had prepared the boys for the lesson they received in the forest. England wasn't home to them. This was their home, now. They would be men of Virginia. Their children would be children of Virginia, and would be born surrounded by the spirits they had seen in their forest sojourn with the Indian.

  In September of 1660, word reached the colony that King Charles II sat happily on his throne, returned to cheering throngs in May of that year. Governor William Berkeley had returned to power, and Virginia celebrated the monarchy.

  Pine Haven received that word from men aboard the shallop which Mister John Williams had sent to fetch his nephew. The boat was returning from James Town with provisions for the planned celebration of Mister Williams's fiftieth birthday. Now, certainly, there would be grand festivities.

  The invitation from his uncle had arrived by horse and rider. The old path of Opeechcot's from Pine Haven to the Barnes Plantation was being used more often, and the visiting horseman politely noted that the path might be slightly widened and cleared of underbrush and fallen logs. Then they would have a road. Harper added that new item near the top of his agenda. He would be able to buy a horse this year.

  The men on the Williams shallop were friendly and deferential towards Richard. He was their master's nephew, even though a mere servant himself. He played the role, and stood in the bow with the wind blowing his long curls. It was a sunny voyage through schools of fish as they briefly sailed the Bay, then entered the wide mouth of the Piankatank, retracing the route Richard had gone with Edward and Francis Harper.

  Fields opened in the dense forest and lapped at the river's edge, where cattle grazed or corn stood tall and ripe. Hills of clipped tobacco stalks dotted other fields where pigs roamed wild, hunting for more to eat. When the familiar chimneys of the Ware Plantation rose from the ridge, Richard felt a surge in his pulse.

  By the time the shallop was tied up at Mister Ware's dock, word had spread of the boat's arrival. John Williams's neat shallop was familiar to them so Mistress Ware herself met it, Mister Ware being occupied in a distant field. Standing by her on the dock was a young girl showing promise of adolescence. Anne's face had changed somehow, Richard thought. Were her lips fuller? Her eyes were different, or did she just use them differently when she looked at him? Her dress seemed to flare more from the tiny waist, and…was she developing breasts?

  He barely heard the words of greeting from Mistress Ware, but soon recovered, telling the lady of the visit to his Uncle John, and that he'd requested the sailors stop that he might offer his greeting to Mister and Mistress Ware. And to their family, he added, bowing to Mistress Ware then, more deeply, to her granddaughter. He lifted his head in time to see the flush rise in Anne's face.

  Despite the urging of Mistress Ware that he wait until her husband's return, Richard was firm in that he must hasten to his uncle with the great news of His Majesty's restoration. Richard was content to go on, knowing that with neither of them having said a word, his claim for the future was restated and acknowledged with a smile and a blush.

  The plantation of John Williams was at the upper reaches of the Piankatank, on the edge of the Dragon Swamp, above the ferry Opeechcot had avoided. Richard noted with pride the chimneys of the manor house and the number of outbuildings. A road ran westward in the distance to a bridge that crossed the narrowing river. This was the lower reaches of the same road they'd followed with Opeechcot. Uncle John was well placed for travel by land and by the river.

  The house was not quite so grand as Mister Ware's, but it was most comfortable. A small section of the house—about fifteen-foot square—must have been the original house, for it had the large chimney required for cooking. It remained the kitchen, but another section—about twenty-foot square—had been added on. Some things still bloomed in the old garden, and the smell of crushed apples was stronger than the smell of tobacco that blended with it.

  John Williams waited on the riverbank as Richard's shallop drifted to the pier.

  "Welcome, Nephew!" Uncle John shouted to him.

  "My thanks, in advance, for your hospitality, Uncle!" Richard shouted back.

  Richard hurried to the portly gentleman.

  "I am forever in your debt, Uncle, for the honor of this invitation." He bowed to his uncle, but was taken into the man's embrace.

  "You repay that debt, Richard, by being the upright boy you are. The son of a noble father."

  John Williams directed Richard's attention to the tiny woman who stood beside him. The boy standing by her side, though just a child, was as tall as she.

  "This lady is your Aunt Mary, Richard, and this, your Cousin Thomas."

  Richard took the woman's hand and raised it to his lips.

  "No
, Richard," she said," your Aunt Mary wants more from you than Cavalier manners." She pulled him with surprising strength into her arms and gave him a long and full hug that almost brought tears to his yes. He tried to remember if he'd ever been made to feel so wanted and belonging. When he was released his heart was full, and so were the eyes he turned to Thomas. He took the boy's hand in both of his and shook it warmly.

  "You look like your namesake, our Cousin Thomas in England," Richard said. "And he's a terror!"

  The boy blushed and his parents laughed.

  "I bring you a present Uncle, and I bring you news that will insure this as the best birthday of your life."

  The man stammered and his wife glowed. The boy could sense excitement coming.

  "First, my humble offering in honor of your birth feast and in appreciation of the blind faith you showed me at our first meeting."