Becoming Americans

by Donald Batchelor

  Edward was surprised at the impertinence of his nephew.

  Other patrons in the coffeehouse looked in their direction.

  Joseph laughed. "I warrant we've a rougher sense of humor in Virginia, Sir, than you find in Bristol."

  The old cavalier relaxed and joined with the laughter. "No, I didn't sell them, Cousin. I keep the best for my own stables," he said.

  The serving girl came with their pot of tea. James and Stephen focused on the pear-shaped silver pot, and the tiny lamp beneath that kept the tea warm. They'd never been served from silver before, and knew that old Cousin Edward was a man of substance to warrant Jeremiah Goodwin's silver service. Stephen's eyes moved, and stayed on the girl as she placed blue and white cups and saucers around the table.

  "This china ware comes as ballast in the ships."

  The English cousin spoke to the boys.

  "Tea shipments are too light."

  The girl put down a pewter bowl piled with chunks of sugar and a small, earthenware pitcher of cream.

  The ancient cavalier held a lump of sugar in a spoon, watching it absorb the tea and dissolve.

  "This is my first visit to the Virginia colony," he said. "Norfolk is a bustling little frontier port, I see," he said.

  "Frontier?" was the defensive question in the minds of the local Williamses.

  "It's growing very quickly, Cousin," Joseph said. "I'm proud to say that some of our timbers are in this very building. Growing very quickly, yes. Lots of mouths to feed."

  Joseph knew this was the time to speak. Tomorrow, Edward Williams sailed for Bristol.

  "That's why I'm determined to construct a mill!"

  Joseph leaned forward and rushed on.

  "I could feed the county with the corn I'd grind in a tidal mill. And we're at the head of the creek, where the timber meets the water. Richard could run a sash saw with the wheel. We'd clapboard the county!"

  Joseph stopped himself. He was almost across the table, staring into the face of the old man. James and Richard looked to each other. Stephen looked at his father. He'd never seen his father so excited before.

  "My cousin Richard did well in coming to America," Edward said, daintily stirring sugar into his tea, then pouring a stream of heavy cream on top.

  "We are all proud of what our father did, and hope to build on what he left us," Joseph said, and leaned back into his chair.

  "Left your mother with a hefty debt, I'm told. And that's what drove her to the Quaker heresy? To save your birthrights, you say? The Biggses had been Godfearing folks in Kent. It pleased my father to hear of the union of Richard with that family. Before John Biggs turned Quaker, of course."

  "Our mother is a pious believer, Cousin. She has redeemed herself from any unbecoming associations," Richard said.

  Stephen took his eyes from the serving girl to look more closely at the old man. His relative lifted his cup to his nose, eyes closed, to sample the aroma of the steaming liquid. He placed it back on the saucer.

  "She's an honest woman, she is," Richard said with rising heat.

  "She taught us to pay our debts," Joseph added, thinking of her most unnecessary act of repaying a debt caused by her husband's counterfeiting.

  "Grandmother Fewox has friends in the best homes of Virginia and Carolina," James said. He was the favorite grandchild, and this old man from England would not speak ill of her!

  "Son," Joseph said, "Cousin Edward meant no disrespect to your grandmother. Norfolk County is not the world, you know. It is we who are not so mindful of the limits of respectability. We live amongst Quakers. Due to our long and forced proximity to dissenters, we sometimes forget that association might cast an unfavorable light on us."

  "Exactly, Cousin. An unfortunate reflection, that's all," the old man said. "And, amongst us, I've never met a dishonest Quaker. I'll give them that—for what it's worth, weighed against their arrogance and blasphemy."

  Edward removed the excess snuff from his nose with a tiny, silver spoon.

  "Appearance matters more than reality in many things," Richard said.

  "And money can buy appearance," Joseph added.

  Edward Williams sipped his tea, gave a grunt of disgust, then turned in his seat and spat his tea on the floor.

  "Wench!"

  The frightened girl hurried to their table, spilling coffee onto her apron.

  "What is this slop you've poured into my cup, Miss Betty? I asked for Black Dust! I wanted tea! What is this black dust, cinders?"

  The men in the room were listening, waiting for the girl to call for Goodwin. She straightened and spoke.

  "I don't know, Sir. It's the Black Dust what you sold my master, Sir," she said.

  The men's laughter drowned out all outside sounds.

  Edward Williams would not be laughed at.

  "Then it's you who don't know how to prepare it! You colonists attempt to rise above yourselves when you approach the gracious aspects of life," he replied aloud.

  Some of the sailors, and two gentlemen, laughed. Other men rose up in anger. Willie Goodwin hurried into the room, wiping his hands on his shirt.

  "Gentlemen, please! Mr. Williams, is there a problem?"

  "Goodwin, if you'd spend less time peppering Miss Betty, here, and more time teaching the slut the arts of tea preparation, the customers would not be forced to riot!"

  "The tea is not to your satisfaction, Sir?"

  "The drink bears no resemblance to tea! The wench has destroyed the fine product I delivered to you. Bring me and my guests coffee. And would you please be so kind as to prepare it yourself?"

  "He don't let me fix it," the girl mumbled.

  "Oh? Then, my apologies, Sir. But for God's sake, let the girl make the coffee," Edward said.

  The men laughed again, and those who'd stood sat back down.

  Joseph was agitated. He wanted to talk about the mill!

  "I hope you took no offense, Cousins. I've found such ignorance among many of the colonists," Edward said.

  "We must assume so, Cousin." Joseph leaned back on the table. "But we Virginians are humble in our ignorance, and are dependent on friends back home in England to speed our growth towards knowledge in all spheres."

  "With what benefit to your friends in Bristol?" Edward asked. He leaned forward in his chair, smiling.

  Stephen knew that the bargaining had begun. Grandmother Bourne always said the Williamses were "thick as thieves."

  Chapter Twenty

  A cold April breeze blew from the north. Stephen stopped in his work and stood upright, letting the short-handled, hoe-shaped broadax serve as a prop. He turned to face the moving air, closed his eyes and let the air chill his sweating, bare chest. Maybe a traveling female would see him from the Great Bridge road. Her horse would stumble and he'd run to catch her….

  He lifted the heavy broadax and felt the muscles in his arm tighten and swell. He smiled at himself. He was the tallest, strongest and most handsome of his age group. In three months he'd be a tithable and in the militia. He wasn't the best shot, and he was having trouble learning the march commands as he watched James drill, but he could pin any of his peers in a wrestling match. He'd seen girls—and some women—watching him. It was time he had a woman. He was old enough.

  In frustration, Stephen opened his eyes and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He stepped away from the long framing timber he was dressing, and stepped into the shadows. He took off his cocked hat and fanned his neck as he lifted his blond hair by the cord that bound it in the back. Stephen's hair had never turned black like the rest of the family's, it remained a dark blond that his Grandmother Bourne claimed he'd inherited from her. He looked around the busy yard and went back to work.

  Hardware for the mill would be arriving in the summer, and much was left to be done. Stephen's father, Uncle Richard, and brother had gone up the James, the Rappahannock, and the York to visit and examine mills. Stephen was left at home, under the supervision of his Great-uncle Thomas Biggs, to help prepare t
imbers for the more skilled workers to drill and chisel mortise and tenon joints. Stephen had wanted to go along and James hadn't, but his father had insisted that the oldest son and heir be a part of the mill from its beginning. Stephen didn't care about the mill, but stories that came back with Governor Spotswood's return from exploring the Appalachian Mountains made him curious about places that were different.

  "Bugger you!"

  Stephen heard a worker's loud, angry voice. He turned to see one of the hired men pull a broadax from the timber he was dressing and throw it at a man doing like work fifteen feet away. The twirling handle hit the man in the chest and knocked him to the ground. The thrower fell on top of him and started punching. The stunned victim tried to ward off the blows while thrashing with his legs.

  "Get ye two apart," Thomas Biggs yelled as he ran toward the fight.

  Stephen dropped his ax and joined the gathering crowd. Willy Biggs, Thomas's son, ran to stand beside Stephen. The two boys yelled encouragement to one fighter, then to the other. Thomas reached the crowd and pushed the boys apart, then bent down and separated the fighters.

  "I'll have no more of this conduct. Thee art not in the swamp with thy cutthroat friends, today, Mister Jones! Mister Black Jack, back to thy work!"

  The two fighting men calmed, then dusted themselves off, muttered, and picked up their axes. Neither challenged the giant referee, Thomas Biggs.

  "Stephen!" Thomas glared at his nephew's son.

  "Yes?"

  "Why art thee naked in public with no shirt?"

  The crowd of men chuckled. One of them called out, "Yeah, Stephen. Why's that?"

  The soft sound of horses' hoofs stepping on oyster shells caught everyone's attention and turned their heads. The wind lifted the skirts of the female rider and Stephen stepped from the crowd, drawing himself almost as tall as his uncle.

  "It is thy sister, Ann Harbut, Stephen," Thomas Biggs told him.

  Stephen ran to greet his sister and brother-in-law as the men went back to work.

  "Hello, Ann," he said. "Dick."

  He smiled up at his brother-in-law.

  "And, hello, Little James," he said to his young nephew. Little James rode seated behind his father.

  "Hello, Bess," he said to the toddler who rode in front of her mother.

  Ann Harbut stopped her horse.

  "Stephen Williams! What are you doing naked before your neighbors and strangers?"

  "It was hot before this breeze came up," he said defiantly.

  "Father would whip you if he were here. You know that!" His older sister shared their father's concern for appearance.

  "Ann.," Richard Harbut started.

  "Father's not here," Stephen said. "Welcome to Williams manor, Mistress Harbut," he said, and bowed low with a graceful sweep of his hat.

  "Put on your shirt, Stephen," his sister said, then nudged the horse toward the house

  Richard Harbut lifted his son to the ground.

  "Grandmother! Grandma Bourne!" The little boy ran ahead, calling to Mary Williams and the ancient Mary Bourne.

  Ann had come early to her mother's house to lie-in for the birth of her third child. The Harbuts were moving in with the Williamses while Dick Harbut oversaw the construction of the Williams mill. The house would be crowded, but it had been worse.

  "Dick said I should come early, Mother. He wouldn't be able to bring me next week. He's finishing a warehouse up at Great Bridge."

  Dick Harbut had arrived in Virginia with little more than his carpenter tools, but that was more than enough. Skilled carpenters were scarce in Norfolk Town and in the southern counties. Joseph had met Harbut at the courthouse soon after the man's arrival, and decided that the soft-spoken Harbut would be perfect for his daughter, Ann. A carpenter was exactly what he needed, certainly. So, to help his aging and stern daughter, Ann was given a dowry of dressed white oak framing timbers, and one thousand feet of sawn poplar planks. The dowry was appealing to Harbut, and so was the prospect of a continuing source of good timber.

  Ann tried to be a good wife, and followed the example of her mother in urging her husband on to perfection. But, sometimes that effort caused her vexation, as did her children's behavior. Ann was already concerned about her children. Both were demanding and obstinate, she often said, despite the whippings she gave Little James and the solitude she used to punish the willful toddler, Elizabeth.

  "This next one is going to be better," Ann told the family as they ate dinner.

  "That's what I said after you came," Mary Williams told her oldest daughter.

  The family started to laugh, but stopped when Sister Mary's laugh became too loud. Sister Mary always laughed when someone else did.

  "Why didn't Aunt Pathelia come with Uncle Richard?" Ann asked. "She could have been helpful with Father and James away."

  "Your Aunt Pathelia says she feels uncomfortable here, what with people talking about her so," her mother said.

  Ann was adamant.

  "She should have thought about that when she married—excuse me, became the mistress of—her brother-in-law! There can be no marriage in Carolina, I don't care what their Proprietors say. God recognizes no ceremonies without one of His licensed ministers."

  "So, then, your mother is a bastard! Why don't you say it?" her Grandmother Bourne demanded.

  "Say, 'Our sister is an evil bitch,' Sister Mary," Stephen said. "Our Sister is an evil bitch."

  "Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch…." Sister Mary started a chant.

  "Stop it, Stephen. Be quiet, Sister Mary, and chew you food," their mother said.

  "At least your mother was born of love," Mary Bourne said, finishing the conversation.

  "I can eat no more," Ann Harbut said, and stood up. She held her huge stomach as she walked to the bed opposite the fire.

  Little James took up Sister Mary's chant and banged his spoon on the table, yelling, "Bitch, bitch, bitch." Sister Mary chimed in with him.

  "Children, stop it!

  Mary Williams had had enough. She was tired. She was over forty years old and pregnant, herself, although no one knew of it but her. She was waiting for Joseph to get back before she told.

  Stephen was disgusted with the women, and got up from the table without saying a word. He filled his pipe, lit it with a coal, and then went outside to smoke. But, it was cool after sunset, too cool. After finishing the pipe, he went back inside and climbed up to the loft and got in bed, still clothed, beside the sleeping Little James.

  Stephen was awakened in the middle of the night by cries of pain. He realized that Ann's baby was coming, and earlier than she'd expected. He heard a muffled "shhh," and women's voices, low and soothing. Little James stirred in his sleep. Stephen put an arm around the child and went back to sleep.

  He awoke again, hearing the lusty cries of a newborn baby. The women had done their work. In the morning they would present him with another nephew. He hoped they named it "Stephen."

  He awoke a third time, just before dawn. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire and of his mother's and his grandfather's snores. He lay in the still, listening to the comforting sounds. He heard his grandmother whispering to Elizabeth, his niece.

  "Get back in bed, now, Bess. Don't want to wake up your mother. Your mother's tired, dear. Get back in bed with your Grandma Williams."

  Stephen loved the sounds of home. He wished he were with James and their father, seeing the country, but he loved the sounds of home. One day, he would see the country. He'd go to Carolina again, and he'd visit his Grandma Fewox and his Uncle Richard, but he wanted to always have a warm home with warm sounds.

  The new baby started crying, again, but the hearty screams, soon, were muffled. Then, they stopped.

  Stephen drifted off again but soon was re-awakened, this time by smoke then, fully, by cries for help. He jumped from the bed, pulling the startled Little James with him.

  "Go outside! Now!" he yelled at the frightened child, then dropped the boy down into the hall.


  He stepped into his shoes and climbed down the ladder. Smoke had filled the room. Flames engulfed the fireplace end and crawled across the ceiling.

  "My baby! My baby!"

  Ann's voice pulled Stephen's eyes to her where she lay in bed, struggling to rise with a limp, naked, infant in her arms. His mother was helping Ann from the bed, while Grandmother Bourne tugged at the child.

  There were screams other than his sister's, and Stephen looked through the smoke towards the fire. His niece Elizabeth. Her dress had burned away. Her hair had burned off. Her little body was on fire!