by Anna Myers
“Good Lord, boy, did you not hear what happened at the battle?” Mr. Kent turns away from me, and the others do the same.
Wretched, I begin to step backward, away from them. My entire body is shaking as if it were but a tree branch in a violent windstorm.
“My wife can make the truce flag.” The minister’s words come to my ear. I whirl and flee across the green, through the muddy streets, and up the hill toward my home.
I can imagine my mother, sitting in the parlor. By now it is her time to read aloud to George and Sarah. Perhaps baby Rebecca toddles about in her pudding. Who will protect them?
At the edge of town, I am forced to rest for a moment, and I lean against the trunk of a dead pine tree.
“Cut off his nose and lips.” The words slip from my own mouth, but so unlike my voice is the sound that at first I want to look behind me for the speaker. I am alone, of course, and feeling more afraid than I had ever imagined possible. I take one long, slow breath, and then I run again. I move across our green with no thoughts of cricket. My legs threaten to buckle beneath me, but I run still, up the grassy knoll toward the home of my father, Joseph Kershaw, whose body may at this moment lie in a mass grave out near the old Salisbury Road.
Chapter Four
Dear Father,
Where are you? I know about the terrible battle. You aren’t dead. You cant be dead. Were you afraid during the battle? I would have been so afraid. The British are coming our way. No one wants to fight them. Even Mother says we must make our peace with them. How can I do that? I am your son. I cannot surrender to the British. I do not know what to do.
I stand now at the window. Staring out I see Cato, a hoe resting against his shoulder, heading toward the vegetable garden. Is it possible that life in this house will go on just as before while we wait for the British to come?
When I told Mother the news, she sat quietly for a while. “We will do whatever we must do to live,” she said. Her face was white with fear, but she stood. “I must go over menus with Biddy.”
Mother walked toward the door, but she looked back at me and smiled. “It is sometimes just as brave to know when not to fight as it is to fight.”
Just as always, Euven comes for studies. “I’ve been paid to do lessons, not stand about in the streets talking of war as do most of the people in town,” he says when he arrives. “Speculation will do no good at this point.” He takes books from his knapsack and places them upon the keeping room table. On top is a geometry book. We have only recently begun the study.
“Pythagorean Theorem,” he says with pleasure, and he touches the book cover gently.
I look at this person and think it is a waste, a man whose tall, muscular frame all but fills the doorway to a room, a man who can fell a deer with his musket at a distance before other men have even observed the animal. I shake my head. What a pity that such a man is a Quaker and a teacher when he could be with our fighting men, could be, even at his young age, a leader among them.
I do not share Euven’s enthusiasm for our new subject, and even on a good day my mind would be apt to wander. Through the window near our table, I can see Jurrusica in the back garden with George and Sarah. Laughing, George runs after a hoop. Sarah struggles with a pair of stilts. She falls, her white underpetticoat flapping in the wind, but getting up at once, she tries again. The garden is full of red and yellow flowers in bloom.
I jump up. “I must do something,” I shout. “I can’t just sit and wait for the murderers to come to our door.”
Euven reaches for my arm and draws me back down to my chair. “This is a nice room.” He waves at the shelves. “Thy favorite room, I believe thee said.” He pauses and he smiles at me. “Thee must have a keeping room inside thyself, young Joseph, a place to store what is good, what will make thee strong when thee most need strength.”
I slump miserably, my face in my hands. “What can I have inside? I do not know what Father would have me do.”
“Then,” says Euven, “perhaps it is time thee begin to think for thyself.”
“But I believe my father lives,” I say. “If he were dead, something would tell me. I would know, do you not agree?”
He does not answer at once. Rising, he paces toward the great hearth. “I agree that hope is good,” Euven says at last, and his eyes are full of sympathy. “There will be time for mourning, when there is no hope. But I believe thee must learn to keep thy own counsel.”
“While my father lives, I must try to do what he would bid me.” I write Joseph Kershaw upon my slate. It is not my name I spell. It is that of my father. It is not the name of my late father.
Somehow Euven gets me through the lessons. When he leaves, I stay in the keeping room, staring at the coals on the hearth. Finally night comes, but sleep does not come with it. I lie watching the moonlight play upon the heavy curtain. Across the hall, my mother moves about her room. When I hear her go out into the hallway, I rise and join her.
“You should go back to bed, Joey,” she says, but she does not insist. Instead she takes a place on the hall settee and pats the spot beside her.
When I am settled, I decide to try my theory on Mother. “I believe Father lives.” I clear my throat and go on. “If he were dead, I would feel his death inside.”
My mother nods, and she smiles. “I have thought the same thing. Yes, he lives. He must live.” She reaches for my hand. “You are a man, Joey, perhaps not in years, but you are a man now.”
With a shake of the head I disagree. “Not man enough to protect this family. Mother, perhaps we could go to Burndale, be with Uncle Samuel.”
“There will be no fleeing the British. If they come here, they will go too to Burndale. Have you forgotten your Uncle Samuel is already a British prisoner of war on parole?”
It is true, I suppose. My uncle will surely be watched by the enemy. He has been captured by them once and allowed to return to Burndale, but they will keep an eye on him if they come into the area. While Mother talks, my head is turned in her direction. Out of the corner of my eye I see something.
After being sent back to bed, I lie again in the room I share with my little brother. This time, however, I do not stare idly at the curtain. Now I have a mission. Now I have an idea. When enough time has gone by with no sound from my mother’s room, I will act.
To pass the interval, I whisper, over and over, my father’s words, “Stand tall.” When at last Mother is still, I slip from bed, stepping carefully upon the rays of moonlight that dance across the shiny oak floor.
The floors, being new, do not creak. I do not have far to go. Above the hall settee is a rack. On that rack is a pistol. Not able to reach the gun, I climb on the satin cushion.
The gun feels cold in my hands. I stand for a moment striving to quiet my beating heart. I have held this same pistol before when shooting with my father, but I have never held it with such a purpose as I hold it now.
Barely breathing, I go back to my room. Inside I try to decide where I shall hide the gun. I consider my wardrobe, among my clothing, but of course Mother would look there at once.
Standing in my room, my father’s pistol in my hands, I look all about my chamber for a place to conceal the weapon. My search brings nothing to mind. When my glance falls on my brother George, I step closer to the bed. In the moonlight I study him, my younger brother so like me, the same high forehead, the same dark hair. George, however, is not a man. At seven he is little more than a baby.
A great desire to protect my brother envelops me, but when my lips move, it is a promise to my father that is produced. “I’ll shield him, Father. I swear I’ll shield them all.”
As the words leave my mouth, an idea comes to me. Perhaps, I think, it is a message sent to me from my father through the night air, just as my promise was sent to him.
I move at once out of my room and toward the stairs. In the darkness I stay close to the wall because of the missing rail, but still I am soon met with the aromas of the keeping room.
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nbsp; Ham lingers from the cooking of our evening meal, spices always, and the comforting smell of earth, which I know clings to the rakes, hoes, and other garden tools stored in the corner. At the bottom of the stairs, I stand savoring the smells and looking about the massive room, the inner workings, the guts of our elegant home.
The doors, just under our front porch, are huge and can open wide so that supply carts are driven inside on the brick floor. At the opposite end is the great fireplace where cooking for the entire household is done. A large woodbox stands beside the vast stone hearth.
It is there I will hide the pistol. Kneeling, I begin to take out each stick of wood, placing it quietly on the floor. When most of the pieces are moved, I place the pistol on the bottom in the center of the large box. Gently I stack the wood over it. When I finish, I sigh and rest my hand on a top log. Now, I have only to make sure the woodbox is always full. Biddy will be glad to have my help. I will tell her Father asked me to see to some chore each day.
Euven has told me to keep a room inside myself for good things that will make me strong. I smile. It will be easier to be strong with a gun hidden in the keeping room.
Rising, I turn to make my way back upstairs, but instead I gasp. There in the shadows against the wall is a figure I had failed to notice. Cato! He lies on a pad such as the lesser slaves use for sleeping. He, who has a much nicer bed elsewhere, has chosen to sleep here on the hard brick floor.
It takes only a second for me to realize why he is here. The keeping room is Cato’s realm. It is here that he takes count of our provisions and from here he directs other workers. In my father’s absence he thinks it better to sleep on this floor.
Moreover, I am aware that his eyes are now open. I can spot his white hairs among the dark, and I see that his head is raised, resting on a hand with the arm bent at the elbow. Cato has watched me. Cato knows my secret.
I make no movement. I can feel, rather than see, his eyes boring into me. Cato, unlike the other slaves, does not defer to me. When I was small and toddling behind my father at his business, it was often Cato’s quick hand that swatted my bottom and pointed me in a different direction if I came near mischief or danger.
Now I wait for him to say something. Will he scold me? Will he demand that I return the pistol to its proper place? For a long minute no words are said, no movement is made. Then Cato lowers his head, and I believe he closes his eyes.
I start for the stairs, but Cato’s voice stops me. “Yo’ might got the master’s gun, boy, but ol’ Cato knows who yo’ is. Does yo’? Before yo’ point that gun at a living thing make sure it’s something yo’ want dead, cause that’s what guns does, boy.”
Cato’s words anger me. “I am my father’s son,” I say. I do not wait for an answer. I put my foot down hard upon the first step, but the sound does not block out Cato’s disapproving snort.
When the first light of day comes, I am out of bed and at my window. No sign of the British! Looking down from the slight hill on which our house sits, I see smoke arise from the dwellings in town. Roosters call their greetings to one another. I see a carriage drawn by two horses. A lady and a gentleman sit on the seat. The horses’ gait does not speak of hurry. I go to the other window from which I can see more of the town. People move about the streets, but none of them are British soldiers. All is yet well in Camden.
Downstairs I find the door open to the keeping room, and I hear my mother’s step on the stairs and her voice calling, “Cato, the pistol is missing from the hall. Cato?”
I follow. If my secret is to be revealed so early on, I must know. Stopping on the last step, I hope to see and hear without being noticed.
Cato stands beside the table where his breakfast of grits and sausage sits half eaten. “No, ma’am. I never touched Master’s gun,” he said. “I’ll search through quarters if you thinks someone there has stole it.”
He waits, head bowed slightly, for my mother to speak. I grin, realizing he has kept my secret without actually lying.
“No.” My mother sighs and begins to turn away. “Go back to your food. If you didn’t take the gun, I expect I’ve only to look in Joey’s chamber.”
I back quietly up the stairs a ways and then head down, stepping hard. Of course, Mother hears me.
“Good,” she says when I am visible, “I was about to come up to you. What have you done with your father’s gun?
For a moment, I consider lying. Behind Mother I can see Cato at the table. His head is cocked to one side, his eyebrow is raised. Then he points his finger at me. I know that he is warning me to come out with the truth before he does.
“Mother,” I plead. “The British are certain to come to our door. Would you have me without a weapon?”
“Yes,” she says flatly. She steps toward me and brushes from my eyes the hair I have failed to tie back. “To resist will mean death. Bring the gun to me now.”
“I am the man here now, Mother. Did you not say so?” I try to make my voice strong as I repeat, “Did you not say so?”
She nods her head. “You are, but I am still your mother. Bring me the pistol.”
“I will keep the pistol,” I say, and my gaze meets hers, unflinching.
I expect her to make the demand again and more forcefully, but she only wipes her hand across her eyes. “I forbid you to use that weapon,” she tells me. “And when I find it, I shall take it myself to the woods and bury it until your father’s return.”
No words come to my mind, so, staring down at the brick floor, I move away from the narrow stairs. Again my mother touches my hair, then goes quickly up the steps. Cato gives me one satisfied smile before turning to give full attention to his sausage and grits.
When Euven comes again in the afternoon, he makes no effort to spread the books upon the keeping room table where I have waited for him. “Perhaps one day skipped will not ruin thy mind,” he says. He pauses a moment, then goes on. “Riders bring the message that the British will be here tomorrow. General Cornwallis leads them.”
At once I am on my feet. “Will they march by or stay?” I ask and I grip the back of the chair.
Euven shrugs his broad shoulders. “Who can say? It may not be as bad as thee imagine.”
“Then I wish they were here now.” I hear my voice tremble, and I am barely holding back tears. I drop back into my chair, and slump forward, resting my head and arms upon the table.
Euven leans over to where I sit to touch my shoulder. “Several men have decided to meet the soldiers outside of town with a flag of truce. I think as a Kershaw son, thee would be welcome among them.”
I look up at him, and I bite at my lip. “My father says it is better to die a free man than to live a slave to British masters.”
“Thy father does not wish thee to die,” says Euven.
“I hate the British.” I pound my fist against the table.
“Hate is the most powerful of slave masters,” Euven says gently. “I wish I could teach thee that, young Joseph. It is a truth harder to learn even than geometry.”
“How can I do else but hate them? They are butchers!”
“I cannot but believe good and bad men abound on both sides.”
We are quiet for a while. I close my eyes. The keeping room sounds fill my ears. Biddy’s soft humming as she peels potatoes at her workbench competes with the sound of water boiling in a huge pot hanging above the fire. I decide to concentrate on the song, a familiar tune the slaves sing about how God delivered the Israelites from Egypt.
Finally, Euven reaches for my arm and pulls. I open my eyes. “Have thee decided? Will thee meet the British with promises of surrender?”
“Will you go with me?”
“I will stand beside thee,” he promises.
Chapter Five
Dear Father,
I am to be among the men who surrender our town to the British. Are you disappointed in me? Know that I have not really given up. I have your pistol. A time may yet come for me to strike against them.
The next morning Isaac Kent is in charge of the group of men who meet to walk just outside of town, where they will wait for the coming army.
Euven and I approach the group before they are all gathered, and he tells the others that we wish to join them. Mr. Kent studies me. “This is not the time for crying,” he says, “or for any other boyish nonsense.”
I nod my head. “Young Joseph Kershaw is more than just a boy,” says Euven.
“You will be beside him?” asks the baker.
Euven promises to keep an eye on me, and they agree that we may join them.
No one talks as we move down the street. Yesterday’s sun has dried most of the mud to hard lumps of sand. Mostly I keep my eyes on the prints left by the shoes of the men who walk before me.
Just a few feet past the last small dwelling, Isaac Kent raises his arm. “Here,” he calls. “Spread in a line across the road.” Euven and I end up in the middle of the line, with me beside Reverend Fielding, who holds the flag.
We are quiet, and the sun shines warm upon my head and shoulders. Euven has turned to look back at the little house. “Hannah lives there,” he whispers. “With her mother and young brother.” I too glance back. There is a face at one of the windows.
Then we catch the first strains of music. Just as I had imagined so many times, we hear them before they come into view. The pounding of their feet and the music of their drums and fifes grow louder and louder as they come.
“They gave no heed to the truce flag in the battle,” I murmur to Euven. “Cut him to pieces who held it.”
My whisper must have been heard by the minister. He shifts the flag, which was attached to a broomstick, from one hand to the other. “But they were soldiers. We are civilians. They will not harm us.” He speaks loudly to the group in general, then drops his voice. It is unclear whether he now speaks only to himself or to me, but I strain to hear the words. “My Bess made the flag, hemmed it nice.”
I study the flag, made from sparkling white material, made large too so that the British could not fail to see. I wondered if the minister thinks the British will be impressed by a well-hemmed flag. But how could I know? Maybe they will be. I say nothing, only try hard to smile at Reverend Fielding, who pats me on the shoulder.