Becoming Americans

by Donald Batchelor

  The sailors lifted onto the dock and rolled towards the group a hogshead of Richard's making. It was the best he'd made, and he was proud of it.

  His uncle circled the cask and felt the barely perceptible seams on the staves. The hoops were firmly bradded and filed; the whole had been smoothed and oiled to give it the appearance of a piece of furniture.

  "My boy, my boy," his uncle repeated as he circled the hogshead, making much of his nephew's work. "You are a craftsman, indeed. How could I soil this cask by using it?"

  "I'll keep my linens in it," his wife replied. "Now we have no need to order a new chest from Bristol." She hugged Richard again, this time making him feel uncomfortable.

  "Did you make this?" Thomas touched the cask and looked up admiringly at his cousin. "Did you make it from scratch?"

  "I grew the tree and dug the iron," Richard said.

  "You did not!" the boy replied and blushed again.

  "And now, Uncle, the news to warm you through the coming winter. The King is home! King Charles is home in England!"

  John was silent for a moment, then gave a long prayer of thanksgiving. He sent Thomas to ring the bell that issued warning of attack, or summoned workers about the plantation from their work or play, to come at once to the manor house.

  The celebration lasted for a week. Pigs and cattle were slaughtered and roasted. Turkeys were roasted, chickens and pigeons stewed, and pies and tarts and cakes covered tables that bowed under the weight of food. Guests arrived by river and by road. Gunfire went on throughout the first night, and all the days that followed were filled with horse races and games and—with Mister Williams's example—hours of Bible reading and prayers. Richard went on his first carriage ride when he accompanied his aunt and cousin on a visit to the lordly, brick manor house of Edward Diggs, a man whose wealth and fame came as the grower of the colony's first and finest sweet-scented tobacco, and as a highly praised producer of silk worm.

  When they returned from the two-day visit with the Diggses, Uncle John showed Richard an engraved brass plaque he'd attached to the polished hogshead: "This cask arrived with the news of the Restoration of King Charles II."

  John and Mary Williams treated Richard as if he'd been born to them. His cousin Thomas tagged along behind him like a puppy. The God of Love they talked of constantly was real to them, and they reflected it in their acceptance of him. But, by the time the visit was ending, and Richard's thoughts were preparing him for the months of backbreaking clearing and burning that Harper had promised, he'd tired of the nightly Bible readings and the lengthy prayers. The trip to church with his family was a disappointment because Anne had returned to her father's plantation on the Elizabeth River, although Richard did enjoy the reception that his blue suit received when he sat in the Williams' pew with his new family.

  On the night before returning to Pine Haven, Uncle John called Richard into the hall and asked his wife and son to step into the other room.

  It was the end of twilight, so Aunt Mary closed the windows before the mosquitoes could fly back in. The scent of bayberry filled the room as she lit the candles and pulled the door behind her.

  "You've made me proud and you've brought back memories I thought were lost," Uncle John began. He fingered something as he spoke.

  "And you give Thomas something that no one else could have. A family connection that will—we pray to God—survive his mother and me. The blessing of a family's love and devotion is exceeded only by the love and devotion of our Heavenly Father and the family of Saints."

  Richard's uncle stared at the small round object in his hand.

  "You brought me a gift of love and labor, my boy, that your Aunt Mary and I will always cherish. I have for you a gift of love that no one could have convinced me to part with."

  He unsnapped the locket that he held and stared at the contents.

  "This is a lock of your father's hair," he said.

  Richard hesitated, then stepped to where his uncle stood holding the cherished memento to the candlelight. It was the blond curl of a child's hair, of the same texture and color as the lock of his own hair that Richard owned.

  "I remember when our mother snipped this curl from his little head. I wasn't that much bigger, truth be told, but I felt I was. About like you and Thomas, I suppose. About that age difference. He was a precious child and a noble man."

  Uncle John handed him the locket and Richard mumbled a quick rhyme to ward off ghosts as he took the locket into his own hands. It was like seeing a ghost, he thought, and marveled at his own emotion. He owned nothing that had been his father's; he'd seen no image of him. He'd been fascinated and comforted when Uncle John had told him of his resemblance. Now he felt a closeness, a true blood connection.

  "As a more practical matter, I give you these."

  Richard looked to his Uncle John, still caught in the power of the tiny thing he held. He saw the canvas bag his uncle was reaching for and bent to lift the bundle for the elderly man. It was heavy, it clanked, and Richard placed it gently on his Aunt Mary's polished chest.

  "One gift for the heart, one for the hand," John Williams said. He opened the bag and took out tools: a draw knife, a mallet, an adz, a rounding knife, and a hollowing knife.

  "Cooper's tools!" Richard nearly dropped the locket.

  "Not all you need, but some of the basics. Harper, your master, should supply the rest."

  "Uncle John…."

  "The gifts come with love and with advice, my boy. You have a gift from God that will secure you from want. Men will always need hogsheads and pipes as long as there are dry goods and liquids to hold or ship. You may not become wealthy, but you will not want, and you will have time for the truly valuable things in life—your family and your friends. Wealth is not the blessing that is claimed for it, I'm learning. Your Aunt Mary has recently come into an inheritance of six hundred more acres on the Dragon Swamp. It comes with debts and worries that already drag me down. So, the advice I give you with this locket and the tools is simple. Continue to live simply when you are a free man. Do not be caught up in the mad scramble for ever more land and servants that has overcome Virginia with your generation. Avoid debt when possible. To maintain the love of life I see you have, work for enough to give you independence, but not so much as to bind you with heavy responsibility."

  The fortnight with his family on the Piankatank rushed by for Richard, but it melded with the lesson he had learned with Opeechcot in the forest. Virginia was his home. This was his family.

  Chapter Five

  Edward Harper ran down the dock to greet the boat. Before Richard could begin the stories he'd been rehearsing, Edward blurted out, "Brinson Barnes is dead and Father is to wed Drusilla!"

  Richard forgot his brief resentment of the timing and asked for details.

  "For three days the chills of the ague racked him," Edward explained. "I was there in father's stead. The grippe had laid Father low for a fortnight— vomiting and the runs. He's better now. I watched Old Brinson die, and a frightening thing it was, by God. You got back in time for the funeral!"

  Old Brinson Barnes had been good to them. Richard touched his rabbit's foot and poured a bit of beer on the ground by his left foot. Without Barnes, they would probably all be dead. God had sent them Barnes and Opeechcot. Maybe He'd taken Mistress Harper in return for the favor. Truth be told, they probably got the better of the bargain. These two years of guidance had been their apprenticeship, Richard thought. He remembered the faces he had looked to as the Deliverance's captain made his prophecy. How many were still alive?

  "Opeechcot is gone, too," Edward said. "We don't know if he's dead, but he's gone. He disappeared the morning after Barnes died."

  "Opeechcot's not dead!" Richard insisted. "He wouldn't disappear and die!"

  The two young men were silent for a moment.

  "And the bans have been posted for Father and Drusilla."

  "That'll just make them legal," Richard said, and smiled. They were silent again
.

  "Everything keeps changing, doesn't it, Richard," Edward finally said.

  The funeral was large and grand. That was the custom of the country and it had been one of Barnes's last requests. Mistress Barnes had rented a lush velvet pall from the church that draped gracefully from the peaked lid of the coffin. The crowd was feasting and drinking the best the widow could summon, and Edward expressed the question that he knew was plaguing the widow and that was bothering his own father.

  "Old Brinson made it hard for her in the end, he did. He kept asking for this fine farewell and he kept insisting that she should remarry when he died. That she should marry his kinsman, our James Barnes. But she isn't able to buy his contract from Father. She'll have nothing left after paying for this funeral."

  The drunken guests were firing guns now, and Edward stopped talking as the fusillade of gunfire chased away the evil spirits. Gunfire had become such a dangerous part of drunken funeral celebrations that some people were talking about instituting regulations.

  "The minister gets four hundred pounds of tobacco for the funeral fee! And this is real Madeira wine!"

  "I know," Richard said. "And there's French brandy for the gentlemen."

  Edward shrugged and looked to the drunken widow. Her eyes were red and swollen. She held the arm of Harper's servant, her recent kinsman, James Barnes. Her own recently freed servant, the sawyer, Robert—who now called himself Robert Sawyer—stood near behind her, smiling at the sumptuous feast.

  The Sawyer spoke into the ear of the goodwoman. Mistress Barnes lowered her head, as James Barnes stood by, rigid in restraint.

  "He kept talking about home, at the end," Edward said. "He was homesick for England."

  "That was a sad waste of time," Richard said. He felt no pity.

  Within a week the word was out that Mistress Barnes was soon to wed Robert Sawyer. There was such haste, that the bans would not be posted. The sawyer would, instead, pay the two hundred pounds of tobacco for a license and, as soon as the formalities could be arranged, Widow Barnes would wed the man whom, just weeks before, had been her servant.

  James Barnes struggled to contain his rage. He knew the wishes of his cousin Brinson that he wed the widow. He'd expected to be freed to wed this lady of some substance. But the expenses of Old Brinson's first dying wish had precluded the second.

  Edward was right, the funeral had nearly taken the whole estate, leaving nothing to afford the purchase of James Barnes's contract, and leaving the grieving woman with a plantation, servants and slaves that demanded a man's firm hand to manage.

  Robert Sawyer was at the ready with coins—a rarity—and with credit he had accumulated using the time and tools his master had allowed him. Harper and the other planters were suspicious that such a sum as the new freedman evidenced to hold could have been amassed by honest means. The man had sawn lumber for most of them, had been hired by them for some carpentry, but it seemed unlikely that as a servant he could have accumulated such an amount.

  Mistress Barnes was in no position to be too curious. She was desperately in debt and—like all the planters—was suffering from the low price of tobacco that was the result of over-planting. The only recourse to low prices was to plant even more, and Brinson had been slow to act on that. His last year's crop had been no larger than the previous. Her creditors were being impatiently, and only temporarily, polite. No one would openly question the sources of Robert Sawyer's wealth.

  Richard and Edward were amused by the scandal and were only curious as to the amount of rum punch Sawyer would provide the wedding guests. When the day had come and gone, they tried to console their friend and co-worker, James Barnes, that he hadn't lost a bride and freedom, he had gained a source of spirits. The new planter had told Harper and his people that his pipes of wine and ale were never empty and that they should treat them as their own. James Barnes would not be consoled, although he drank the wine. Instead, he made vague threats and hinted at troubles that would come.

  Francis Harper and Drucilla Smittle were more circumspect. One month passed without celebration as the bans were read on subsequent Sundays for Harper and his servant girl. Work resumed on the plantation. Richard spent long days wielding the heavy ax that now swung easily in his control. More acreage of trees must be felled to free the land for cultivation. Huge trunks that he'd girdled the year before were now hacked at until they fell. Again the night skies were lit by huge fires that sparked the horizon, warming the English settlers on cold nights as they sat around their own blazes telling tales of England and of their dreams for the future.

  Richard preferred the days alone when he could work with his ax and with his thoughts. He could contemplate the future. His own future. Plans that must be his own, independent of his friend Edward and Pine Haven. Uncle John promised to be helpful, but Uncle John was old. He would likely die before Richard was a freedman. That was six more years! By then Anne would be…. He made notches in the hickory trunk to add it up. She would be sixteen, and probably already married! Certainly, there'd be many established planters or their sons vying for her hand. He'd have little chance as a new freedman with no more than he'd be able to save by hiring out his cooper's skills. Anne was spoiled already. She'd want a man of means who could build her a brick house and buy her clothes. Yet, the sawyer had done it. It was possible, somehow. Suddenly, the questions about Robert the sawyer became interesting. More than gossip, they might hold the key. Sawyer wasn't just a survivor, he'd prospered. Richard determined to find out how.

  On most days, James Barnes worked with Richard, drinking hard and long in his resentment. His grin was gone. He was no longer "Robin Hayseed." He made full use of Sawyer's offer, as if to ruin the man by emptying his pipes of wine. He felt no gratitude, he said. It was less than his due. Two years earlier, when James was staying at Old Brinson's, splitting and sawing weatherboards for Harper's manor house, the sawyer had told him things that James had sworn to secrecy. He'd told Barnes of his life in England and the crimes that had brought about his exportation to Virginia. "Robert Cutpurse" was a better name for him than Robert Sawyer, Barnes told Richard. Now he was a respectable planter while Barnes, who came from a good, hard-working family, remained a servant. He'd been an heir, almost!

  This new land gave everybody a chance, Richard reminded him. It wasn't over. Barnes would be free himself in two years. He could settle his own land….

  But where, Barnes wanted to know? All the good land on this side of Indian country was going fast. And where would he find a wife? What good woman would settle for a new freedman with just an ax and rifle and a suit of old clothes with a bag of seed-corn? That's about all he'd be provided as his rights with freedom. Even the whore Drusilla was going to marry well above her station. Brinson Barnes—and even the sawyer—had finished with Drusilla long before the trade for Harper's young girl servant two years ago.

  When Richard betrayed his shock, James Barnes spat on the ground and called him "an innocent babe who hasn't learned his cock from his thumb."

  "Does Harper know about her? If it's true," Richard added.

  "It's true enough," the drunken man replied. "And if he don't know, he's the biggest fool in Gloucester County, he is!"

  "Well, you best mind your tongue, I think, or you'll be losing it!" Richard said.

  Dangerous talk about a woman who'd fed them all and nursed them through their gripes and varmint bites. A woman who'd nursed the Devilpossessed Evelyn. A woman who'd soon be mistress over them. And even if she had given pleasure to other men before she came to Pine Haven, why should they turn on her now? Barnes's jealousy would be his ruin.

  On a bright, cold morning three days before his wedding, Francis Harper gave the men an extra pint of beer and announced that they were going processioning. This ritual, repeated every few years for every plantation, led friends and neighbors around the perimeter of a man's land so that boundaries were observed and acknowledged by all. Trees were re-marked as necessary, or a stone might replace a dyi
ng tree. It was generally a convivial day of friendship to renew or continue the understanding of ownership or to acquaint new neighbors of territorial limits. Robert Sawyer was anxious that the friendly company bestow upon him the welcome and acceptance of his arrival. The land of Brinson Barnes came to him with the widow.

  James Barnes and Richard Williams were included in the procession as porters of food and drink for the planters. Barnes carried his own flask of rum as Richard walked with Edward, sharing a flagon of their own. By noon, the men had reached the southwest corner of the Barnes—now Sawyer—property. They stopped to eat in a cleared area that was warmed by sunlight. The marker for this corner was an old tulip tree that had been struck by lightening, and the men had to devise a new marker for this limit.

  "By rights, this should all be mine," Barnes told Richard and Edward. "'Cutpurse' the sawyer took it from me. Like he always takes what he wants. Watch out when he comes for your new mum," he said to Edward.

  Edward frowned and started for the man, but Richard stopped him with the offer of half a chicken and a yam. Barnes muttered to himself and walked off into the woods.