by Rachel Field
“There now, child, it’s nothin’. Go set this basket in a shady spot where the butter pat won’t run.”
Marguerite would have liked to help roast the fowl and set out the food with the women, but she was soon detailed to watch over the children.
“Keep those young ones well out o’ the men’s way, Maggie,” Dolly charged her. “Can’t have any under foot for a log to fall on ’em or a hand chopped off, maybe.”
Kate Stanley was tow-haired and square, a stolid child of nine, while her younger brother William was a freckled scamp of a boy two years younger. They followed the young Sargents as Marguerite, with Debby in her arms, led the way to a point just east of the new house. Here Joel had set up a stout pole that had been used with rope for hauling stones from the beach. The little group settled themselves about it now to watch the men at work.
“My, look how they heft the logs,” exclaimed Becky, “as easy as if they was little sticks!”
“One, two, three, four, five,” counted Susan methodically on her fingers, “six, seven, eight, an’ the Cap’n makes nine. I never see nine whole men a-workin’ all to once in my life.”
“That’s my pa with the biggest ax,” Kate pointed out. “He can make the chips fly ’most over to here.”
“An’ that’s my Uncle Ira over there on the ladder!” put in Jacob proudly. “He’s climbed up highest.”
Marguerite watched in fascination as the figures of the men moved to and fro in the strong September sunshine. They lifted and laid the great brown logs in place so surely and swiftly. Only now and again one was too heavy or rebellious for them, or another slipped as they tugged and raised it. That made her know how hard they were straining to set them one upon another with the notched ends fitting into corners according to the pattern. It was a wonder to see the upper framework mounting miraculously under their efforts, while their bare backs and shoulders glistened with sweat.
“Mon Dieu,” she thought to herself, “but it is a fine thing to be a man and turn trees into houses!”
“We’ve got boards in our house,” Kate was telling the twins. “Our pa he fetched them from the sawmill way up the inlet. He says a log house ain’t no kind for decent folks. I heard him tell my ma so last night.”
“Well, we’ll have a board one too someday,” Susan hastened to assure her. “’Twasn’t our fault the Injuns burned the other house up.”
“They’ll do it again maybe,” suggested the practical Kate. “My pa he thinks your folks are plumb foolish to build it here.”
“Yes,” her brother added, “Injuns are likely to come again an’ bring trouble on us all.”
But in another moment a shout went up from the men. The first log was being laid on the roof.
Then it was time for them all to gather round the log table where the six women had spread their feast. Marguerite’s eyes widened to see so much food after their fare of fish and meal and berries. Here were smoked meats, fowl, and eggs, new corn and beans, stewed pumpkin and turnips, and butter and wild honey to flavor the cornbread and hasty pudding. She ran about at Dolly Sargent’s bidding, now fetching wooden plates heaped with food to the men who had flung themselves on the ground nearby; now quieting the children with good things or hurrying up to the spring for a bucket of fresh water. Or again she sat herself down among the children, scarcely able to eat for the wonder of looking from face to face of all those gathered about the table. She felt a queer beat of happiness within her, seeing them all so hearty and full of life and good nature. Sometimes she even dared to smile into one of the men’s or women’s faces, and when Abby Welles returned her look with a show of friendliness she tingled with pleased excitement. Surely, she thought, as she spread a slab of johnny cake thick with honey for Jacob, surely it is a fine thing to have a Raising.
Talk flowed freely all about her, and easy laughter such as she had not heard for many months. Only now and again, if someone said the word “Indian,” was there a sudden silence or eyes turned quickly to the edge of the woods. In spite of her wrinkles Hepsa Jordan appeared the gayest and most carefree of them all. The strings of her dark sunbonnet wagged continually as she nodded her head or made quick retort.
“I declare,” she said beaming upon them all, “I ain’t had so much sociability since I can remember. Seth he was dreadful afraid we were in for a spell o’ fog when the wind turned, but I told him I knew better, for only the day before I’d dropped a knife an’ it stuck in point-first. That’s a sure sign of company. I never knew it to fail.”
“She’s got a sure sign to fit everythin’,” laughed her nephew. “I wouldn’t dast to do my plantin’ without she told me the moon was set in the right quarter.”
“An’ she’s right, Seth Jordan,” spoke up Hannah Welles. “You men maybe think it’s all your doin’ that the crops thrive, but there’s a lot to havin’ the moon on your side as well.”
“Well, I ain’t sayin’ as I’d swap Hepsa for all the rest of you put together,” Seth answered, “not even for Abby there that’s a sight for sore eyes.”
“Land, Seth,” Hepsa laughed, “you talk plain foolish. What would a girl like Abby want with signs an’ brewin’s? That for old folks like me. Still,” she added with another headshake, “I can see as far into a stone wall as the next person, if I do say so.”
Abby had blushed a rosy color at such personal remarks. She sat between Ira and Ethan, her pink skirts spread daintily about her on the moss. She said little, but her eyes were softly bright as she listened to the talk about her and sometimes, when either of her neighbors addressed to her in a low voice some remark not meant for the rest of the company, a dimple would deepen in one of her cheeks. Marguerite watched fascinated to see it come and go. It would be nice, she thought, to wear a pink calico dress and white stockings and to sit between two young men in just such away.
“Come, Maggie,” Dolly Sargent broke in on her thoughts, “finish your food and help me clear up what’s left.”
But Hepsa Jordan rose instead.
“Let the girl be for a bit,” she said. “I’ll give you a hand with the things. She’d ought to eat more an’ fatten up some,” she added, giving Marguerite’s sharp shoulder-blades a tap as she went by. “Why, she’s so thin she’d have to stand up twice to make a shadow.”
After the men had lolled a while longer, they returned to their work. Axes and hammers rang out with even greater vigor, and the roof took shape amazingly before their eyes. Caleb and Andrew clambered about at the men’s bidding, carrying tools and nails, and whistling and shouting to give vent to their own feelings of importance. The women gathered in a little group about the cleared log table and spread out their knitting or patchwork, giving an occasional rock to Debby’s cradle or wrapping the Morse baby into his shawl. Marguerite would have liked to stay with them to watch Abby’s pretty ways and to hear Aunt Hepsa’s talk, but she knew this would not be encouraged. Her place was to keep the children from under foot.
But it was not so easy to keep them amused. The twins and Kate Stanley quarreled over the corncob doll and succeeded in tearing its calico dress. William cut his finger whittling a toy boat, and Jacob and Patty kept straying toward the log house whenever Marguerite so much as turned her back. Pumpkin, the dog, who usually slept after a meal of any sort, seemed upset by so many strangers. He ran sniffing about, barking in short, excited yelps and generally making a nuisance of himself.
“He’s barking his ‘afraid’ barks,” Becky said. “Maybe he smells Injuns.”
Marguerite refused to belive this, but all the same he acted restless and made short dashes in the direction of the spring.
“Let’s follow him a ways,” urged William Stanley. “We can run real quick if we see anything.”
Thinking that there could be no harm in a short sally, Marguerite agreed, and they set off together, the dog ahead. Suddenly, just as they came in sight of the spring, the hair along his back began to rise. He uttered a deep growl and stood uncertainly in the path. All eyes
followed the direction of his sniffing nose. And there before them a great black bear was helping himself from a butter firkin left to cool.
He seemed bigger than a mountain to the children when he rose on his hind legs at their approach. His forepaws, dripping with butter, showed claws cruelly sharp and long. For what seemed like an endless space, rather than the few seconds which it must have been, the bear regarded them intently, making a deep rumbling of disapproval. The dog was edging forward now, growling fiercely and getting ready to spring. It was this which brought Marguerite to her senses.
“He’ll be killed!” she said aloud and made a grab at the rough hair about Pumpkin’s neck. But it slipped through her fingers.
The bear had dropped to all fours now and was coming toward them. He moved deliberately on his clumsy paws; still he came on, with an ugly look and red tongue showing.
“Quick, run quick!” Marguerite heard her own voice crying to the children and then, almost before she had time to think what she was doing or why, she had darted forward and caught up a wooden bucket left standing beside the spring. Fortunately she had filled it earlier, for there would not have been time to dip it full before the bear was upon her. As it was she found herself looking into the little yellow slits of bright eyes and it seemed to her she could even feel the heat of its breath. Then she gathered all her strength and hurled the bucket. The water struck full in the bear’s face, splashing in a shower from the dark fur. Marguerite waited for nothing after that. She turned and fled, with only one look over her shoulder to make sure he was not plunging after them.
But he was not. With a bellow of disgust the bear turned and made for the woods, where even Pumpkin made no attempt to follow.
The children burst screaming into the clearing, telling an incoherent tale of the encounter. All the men stopped work and seized their muskets. They hurried up to the edge of the woods but soon returned empty-handed.
“Must have been a big fellow by the paw prints,” Seth told them. “But he’s gone now an’ no mistake. Didn’t leave much of your butter either, Hepsa.”
“Bear meat makes good eatin’,” said Andrew Stanley regretfully.
“Wisht we’d seen him first,” added Caleb. “We’d ‘a’ had more sense ’n to scare him away.” He gave a frown in Marguerite’s direction.
“But we couldn’t shoot him without any gun,” Susan reminded him, “an’ he was comin’ right down after us.”
“I guess you wouldn’t have gone up close an’ emptied the water on him, Caleb Sargent,” retorted Becky.
Joel Sargent set his musket down again and reached for his hammer. “You done the right thing, Maggie,” he said shortly.
“Yes,” put in Dolly. “You had the children to think of.”
“Got spunk for three times her size, that girl has,” Hepsa Jordan was saying with an approving nod. Marguerite could not help feeling a little guilty. Perhaps she ought to explain that she had not thought much about what she was doing till it was over. Besides, if she had not been careless about leaving the butter and water bucket there she could not have done what she did; she was surprised that no one thought to chide her for this in the commotion. However, she was glad they had not. She found it altogether pleasant to be the object of praise.
Now the roof was laid on and only the smaller tasks such as cutting doors and windows, stuffing the chinks between logs, and the hammering and sawing of inside parts, remained to be done. Here was work enough for all. Even the younger children fetched baskets of moss to be stuffed into every crack and crevice, while Caleb and Andrew brought mud from up the inlet to pack in and harden.
Marguerite helped the children gather moss from the edge of the woods. It was pleasant to pull it up by the handful and to look back at the log house with the men clambering all over it and the women below in their full dresses and bonnets; pleasant to hear the sound of voices and hammering. She could make out the pink of Abby Welles’ dress, like a calico flower.
“Abby Welles is pretty,” she said to the little girls as they filled their baskets.
“Ethan Jordan’s sweet on her,” Kate Stanley told them. “Ma says she wouldn’t wonder if he was to bring her something real handsome when he comes back from Portsmouth.”
“I would that I were eighteen,” sighed Marguerite, “and not bound-out any more.”
“But you wouldn’t look like her even then,” reminded Susan. “She’s got curls an’ pink cheeks.”
Remembering the dark face that had looked back at her from the mirror of the spring earlier that day, Marguerite knew she spoke the truth.
“If a girl ain’t pretty then she’s got to be extra good,” Kate Stanley went on. “My ma says you won’t get married no other way.”
So they turned back to join the rest, chatting as they went.
How the accident happened Marguerite never could be sure, and those who were nearby each had a different story to tell. All of them had gathered about Joel Sargent who was fitting the precious panes of glass into two window frames he had made. Twelve little squares he had brought with him on the Isabella B. in case of need, so there could be but one narrow window to light each of the two rooms. He had leaded them together carefully, three rows of two panes each, and one was already in place to the right of the door.
“Steady there,” he called to Ira who was helping him, “while I take off a bit of the sill.”
Whether it was his hacking or Caleb’s clambering to the roof at that moment that jarred the hammer out of place no one could say. But it came hurtling down directly above the door. Jacob, all intentness over the window, caught it full force, and tumbled to the doorstep with a sudden cry. Blood spurted from a gash on his forehead, and slowly widened into a reddish stain on the stone before there was even time to pick him up. For a moment it seemed he must be killed, what with all the blood and his going suddenly limp before them.
Then Hepsa Jordan was taking command of the situation. Marguerite found herself holding Jacob’s head in her lap, helping to wash away the blood with some clean scraps of cloth from the bag the old lady had brought.
“There, he ain’t hurt bad,” she was reassuring Dolly and the rest. “Struck him too high for harm, but an inch or so nearer the temple an’ I couldn’t ‘a’ done much. Hold this cloth, Maggie, while I get out my sewin’ things.”
“What you goin’ to do to him?” Dolly Sargent’s eyes were frightened as she watched the old woman threading a needle.
“I got to stitch it together. ’Twon’t heal no other way,” she answered quietly. “Take your two hands, child,” she ordered Marguerite, “an press the edges close as you can. He’ll be comin’ round in a minute an’ I want to get this over with. You, Caleb, fetch me some sea-water. I’ll need that next.”
Although Marguerite’s hands felt cold as if they did not belong to her, she deftly followed the old woman’s bidding. She was acutely aware of everything before her, of the white bone that showed under the oozing blood, and of the torn skin being drawn together. But although she saw the red staining her own fingers and felt the heaviness of Jacob’s head, she seemed detached and far away. It was as if she were looking on at some picture of a hurt child and people tending it.
“Press harder,” she heard Aunt Hepsa saying. “There’s just one more stitch.”
Things grew rather blurred after that. The blood pounded in her own temples and it was only Jacob’s crying that roused her. Pain and salt water were bringing him to his senses again. Marguerite tried to ease him as Hepsa Jordan bathed and bandaged.
“There now,” she was saying. “That’s aplenty for now. He’ll be good as new in a week. I’ll send Seth over with some ointment to rub on. Why, Maggie, you’re ’most as white’s he is. Don’t you go an’ keel over after helpin’ me out like an’ old hand!”
“He had a mighty close shave, that young one did,” Marguerite heard Hannah Welles remarking to Mary Jane Morse a little later when Jacob had been laid in a shady spot, well wrapped in one of the
quilts. “But it’s no kind of beginnin’ for any house.”
“Yes,” the other agreed with a headshake. “Blood on the doorstep ’fore they’ve even moved in looks bad to me!”
“Oh, gracious,” Abby broke in, her pretty face aghast, “I wisht you wouldn’t talk so. It fair gives me the creeps, it does.”
“Signs are signs, Abby Welles,” her mother rejoined, “an’ I’ve seen too many in my time to overlook ’em. I tell you, I wouldn’t set up to live in that house, after this, if you was to offer me a hundred pound sterling an’ six china teacups.”
“I’d do a heap for china teacups,” sighed Abby.
“Well, it’s temptin’ Providence just the same,” said her mother, “an’ Hepsa Jordan she give me a queer look when that hammer struck him. She knows it don’t mean no good, for all she kept her mouth shut.”
Marguerite was glad Dolly had not been by to hear them. Their words made her uneasy, as talk of signs and portents always did. It was like being sent into a dark cellar alone to fetch something. She felt relieved when the word went round that it was nearly time for the Isabella B. to haul up her anchor.
Already Captain Hunt was aboard seeing to his ropes and sails, while Timothy Welles waited impatiently on the beach for Ethan to join him. But Ethan had run back to have another word with Abby. Marguerite could see them standing together a little way off, Abby’s full pink skirts blown against his seaboots and rough breeches. The sound of her laugh came clear and bell-like before he ran down the beach to the dory and they pushed off. Andrew Stanley and Caleb were at the oars, all importance at being allowed to row them out. It was late afternoon now; the sun came slantwise over the water, making the seaweeds at the high-tide line ruddy, turning the Isabella B.’s mast from dull brown to tawny orange. Even her sail, patches and all, brightened as it filled.
Now the two boys were rowing back in the dory alone. The sloop with reefed canvas was made fast, and the little group on shore could see the figures of the three men busy with ropes and anchor chain.