by Sara Donati
She paused in the doorway and waited for her eyes to adjust to the brightness of firelight reflecting off polished copper and pewter. “Little girl. Come on over here.” Curiosity was sitting at the long table, a tray of breakfast biscuits just out of the oven in front of her. When she smiled there was nothing halfway about it. At almost ninety she was proud to still have every one of her teeth, strong and white. Between the bleached linen of her head wrap and her smile, Curiosity’s skin was as wrinkled and dark as an apple left to dry out to a sweet smelling husk.
“Bring me that plate of ham while you at it, would you?”
She was tying up a napkin of biscuits, which meant somebody couldn’t wait for breakfast but would have to eat when time permitted, someplace out in the weather. Most likely it would be Birdie’s oldest sister.
“Hannah?”
Curiosity nodded. “Missus Rountree in travail.”
“Who brought word?”
“Why, your brother Daniel. The teacher his very own self.”
This idea was so odd that for a moment Birdie couldn’t make sense of it. Right now Daniel should be on his way from his little house on Hidden Wolf to the school, where he always arrived by quarter past seven at the very latest. But Daniel was running errands and bringing messages.
Curiosity was saying, “Missus Rountree got a good set of hips on her, I doubt she’ll have much trouble though it is her first.”
Birdie found herself staring out the window at the rain, and feeling suddenly sleepy again. The kitchen smelled of brewing tea and ham and fresh bread and it was warm, as familiar and comfortable as Birdie’s mother’s own kitchen. As she buttered biscuits and stacked them, she let herself be lulled by the familiar noises: Anje humming under her breath, the crackle of the fire, the soft creak that the cradle made as Curiosity rocked it with her foot. Birdie glanced down at the round face of her youngest nephew and saw that he was watching her too, content for the moment with the sound of their voices. Simon’s eyes were the startling green-blue of spring lichen, a gift Ben Savard had settled on all three boys but neither of his daughters, whose eyes were hazel.
Nature ain’t got no interest in playing fair. Another of Curiosity’s many sayings that were true but shouldn’t be.
Outsiders saw the household as odd, and in fact it had a reputation that reached to Albany and down the Hudson in one direction and to Quebec in the other. Once in a while a stranger came through and knocked on the door out of pure nosiness and bad manners, wanting to see the old black woman who had started her life as a slave and ended up with land and property of her own. And was it true she had a half-Mohawk woman who claimed to be a trained doctor living with her in the house, and a dozen children with skin the color of deep red clay? The rumor said that the only white faces in the household belonged to the maidservants. And if that wasn’t a backwards picture, Birdie had heard a tinker say to his horse, then what was?
It was an unusual household in some ways, but to Birdie it was a second home. Noisier than her own maybe, when her nieces and nephews—known in the family as the little people—were all in the same room.
Rain was rattling against the shutters so loudly that at first Birdie didn’t realize Hannah had come into the kitchen. She sat down at the table, tucked a stray dark hair into the scarf she had wrapped around her head, and then scooped up her youngest child and sat him, a solid six-month-old brick of boy, on her lap. He immediately began to bounce softly and sing to himself, thumping her breast with one little fist, as if demanding admission.
“You had your fill not an hour ago,” Hannah said to him. “You just want to noodle.”
“The sweetest child yet,” Curiosity said in approval.
A soft rumble of thunder made the baby blink in surprise. Hannah nuzzled him, but she spoke to Birdie. She said, “Little sister, can you look after the children for me while I’m gone?” Birdie straightened in her surprise.
“But there’s school.”
“No school today,” Curiosity said. “That’s the other thing your brother come to tell us.”
No school. A day here—a rainy day here—with the Savard nephews and nieces, the oldest not three years younger than Birdie herself, but twice as much trouble.
Birdie drew in a deep breath. “I don’t understand. What’s wrong? Where’s Daniel now?”
“Out the barn with Ben and Runs-from-Bears and my Joshua and all the rest of the menfolk,” said Curiosity. “Talking about the weather.”
Birdie’s eyes moved to Joan, who was opening the window in order to pull the shutters closed. The rain was falling in sheets, and Joan’s face and arms got wet. She looked purely disgusted, but that was nothing new. Joan was always sour and her sister Anje was always sunny. Today Joan was especially sour because she didn’t like coming to help out at Downhill House; and she was even more eager than Birdie to get back uphill.
To Hannah Curiosity said: “Thaw woke me up in the middle of the night. But then I suppose I was half listening for it anyway. The signs all there.”
It occurred to Birdie finally that there was a connection between the weather and how long Ma and Da were in coming. They had traveled by sleigh as far as Johnstown and then booked passage down the river to the city. They would come back up the Hudson by steamboat—another adventure she was missing—and in Johnstown they’d get the horses and sleighs from the livery. The trip between Johnstown and Paradise flew by in a sleigh.
But the snow was going fast, and in its place there would be mud, and there wasn’t a sleigh known to man that ran over mud. It would be a much longer and more difficult journey. All because of the early thaw, and the rain.
Birdie felt Hannah’s eyes on her, the warm weight of her regard. “I wish Throws-Far had stayed up in Canada,” Birdie said. “If he had to come back here, why couldn’t he keep his old weather predictions to himself? It’s not fair.” She stopped herself because from the corner of her eye she saw Anje taking in every word and storing it away. Birdie glanced down at her feet and said, “I shouldn’t talk like that. Da says Throws-Far is a good man.”
Hannah was smiling at her. “A good man can also be a frustrating man.”
“Amen to that,” said Curiosity. “But Throws-Far, he always been one to shout out to the world the things he want to believe hisself. Even as a little boy. If he hadn’t been raised among the Mohawk, I have no doubt he would have turned into a preacher of the fire-and-brimstone variety.”
“But do you think he’s right?” Birdie asked. “Is there such a thing as a hundred-year water?”
“I suppose we’ll find out.” Hannah’s expression was clear and honest but not very comforting. When she was like this she most reminded Birdie of their father, who could tell you an unhappy truth and still make you feel safe.
Hannah leaned forward to smooth a curl away from Birdie’s temple with one cool fingertip. “You can leave it to the men to do what can be done, you know. Not every burden is yours to carry.”
Curiosity smiled grimly.
Hannah was saying, “You are a great help, little sister. You make me proud.”
What Birdie thought to say, but kept to herself, was this: She had little choice. If Hannah needed her to help with the little people, then she would help. But what she wanted was for the rain to go away, so the grown-ups could stop talking about floods, and she could go to school and be distracted from her worries. There would be spelling to learn by heart, twenty words full of letters that popped up without sense or warning, from exercises to receiving.
If she could go to school and sit at her desk she could pretend that there was nothing to worry about and then when Daniel rang the bell that marked the end of school she could rush home and find them all there: her mother and father, her brother Gabriel, who had been allowed to come to Manhattan just to keep him out of trouble, Lily and Simon, Luke and Jennet and their brood. There would be a lot of talking and laughing and Ma would make tea and get out the cake tin and everybody would eat some and pretend to lik
e it.
Curiosity said, “Child, where is your mind this morning?”
“Someplace between Johnstown and Paradise,” Hannah answered for her.
With a deep sigh Birdie gave in. “Do you think—” She paused, wondering if it was a good idea to put her worst worries into words. Once spoken, thoughts were free. They could fly around the room and come swooping at a person’s head when she could least protect herself.
“Go on.” Curiosity wiped her hands on the piece of toweling she kept tucked into the waistband of her apron.
“I was wondering how much the thaw will slow them down.”
Curiosity reached across the table and took Birdie’s hand between both her own, and she smiled. “They be here just as soon as they can, you know that. Your Da will find a way.”
Hannah said, “You needn’t worry, sister. Before you know it we’ll be overrun with Bonners. By the end of the summer you’ll be glad to wave them off home.”
“No, I won’t,” Birdie said, irritated now. “I would be happy if they stayed here forever, even if it would mean having the little people following me around everywhere. But at least Lily and Simon will stay even if Jennet and Luke won’t.”
“Hush,” Curiosity said. “Don’t you go borrowing trouble. It come to find us soon enough without you shouting out an invitation.”
The clock in the hall whirred and struck seven, and Hannah got up. She put the baby in Curiosity’s lap and set her doctor’s bag on the table. It was old and very worn, the leather patched in more than one spot. But Hannah opened it with care, and she studied what she saw there. Her doctor face was so different from her sister face that she looked like a stranger for a moment.
“You take Shorty,” Curiosity said to her. “He the only horse surefooted enough to get you where you need to go in this muck.”
Hannah looked back at them over her shoulder. “Ben has already saddled him for me.”
“Well, good,” Curiosity said, huffing a little. “That’s as it should be. You pay attention, you girls,” she called to Joan and Anje. “Our Hannah had to go all the way to the other end of the country to find him, but she got herself a good man, one who looks to his own and takes a care. If you find yourself a man like Ben Savard you hold on tight.”
Birdie wondered if Curiosity didn’t see the expression that flickered across Joan’s face, or if she just chose to ignore such things. Joan LeBlanc didn’t appreciate the suggestion that she should find herself a husband who was red, black, and white all rolled together. She might like Ben Savard—it was hard not to like him—but there were boundaries, she had told Birdie once. Everybody knows about those boundaries but your family, she had added, and then looked afraid that she had said too much.
Birdie hadn’t told anybody about that conversation, but she did try to work it out for herself, why Joan would say such a thing that was sure to cause offense.
From above came the sound of doors opening and closing and then a rushing down the stairs.
“Here they come,” Birdie said.
“Hungry, too.” Curiosity stood, her hands smoothing out her apron. “Best get some porridge on the table.” She paused, her head tilted slightly to one side.
“My,” she said. “Will you listen to that rain coming down?”
4
In a boardinghouse on the outskirts of Johnstown, Mrs. Louise Kummer sat at her kitchen table scowling at her accounts book while the kitchen girl got breakfast started. A full house, down to the maid’s own cubby. You could say this much for German girls, they knew better than to complain about spending a night on a pallet by the kitchen hearth.
Mrs. Kummer squinted at the point on her quill, decided it would have to do, and wrote down one last figure.
“There. Now watch nobody tries to sneak off before I settle with them. Keep an especial sharp eye on the folks up under the eaves, those Bonners. I don’t know why I ever let them talk me into renting to them. I hardly slept a wink, worrying.”
Herlinde might have said how clever Mrs. Kummer was; how many people could snore so loudly while wide awake? Instead she vowed to watch and report immediately if someone tried to cheat her mistress of her rent.
Mrs. Kummer thumped her coffee cup on the table, and Herlinde came over to fill it.
“Those Bonners are odd, every one. Now in some cases you can see clear enough where it comes from. He was brought up wild, like an Indian, but her?” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Mrs. Bonner is an English lady brought up grand with maids to serve her, but what does she do? She comes over here to teach school in a godforsaken place like Paradise, and then she runs off with a backwoodsman and ends up with a whole houseful of brats.”
Herlinde made a sound in her throat to show that she was listening. Mrs. Kummer did not like to be ignored.
“Nathaniel Bonner of all people,” her mistress said. “And him with a half-Mohawk daughter.”
Herlinde decided to chance a question. “Would that be the woman doctor?”
Mrs. Kummer drew in a noisy breath. “You’ve heard of her, I see. She does indeed call herself a doctor. I wouldn’t believe it myself but for I saw Samson Vanderstaay with my own eyes. Went up to Paradise to see if she could do something about his belly gripe and came home right as rain. And he’s not the only one.” She waved both hands in the air as if to encompass all of Johnstown.
“For my part I wouldn’t let a half-breed woman come close enough to touch me. But that’s Paradise for you. Quakers and Indians and Africans living side by side. In the meetinghouse and classroom too. But then the schoolteacher is another Bonner.”
Herlinde had come from Germany only six months ago, and sometimes her English couldn’t keep up with Mrs. Kummer. “Mrs. Bonner does not teach school?”
“Oh, she did,” Mrs. Kummer said, her whole face twitching in disapproval. “For years. But her oldest boy took it over, so she can write editorials. For newspapers. And what does a woman know of politics, I ask you, and who cares what she has to say? It’s not what the good Lord gave us to do.”
Herlinde tried to look disapproving, but in fact she was more curious. She had come to America with high hopes and now here she was, still working in Mrs. Kummer’s kitchen. She liked stories of women who managed to do what they set out to do.
“And on top of all that,” Mrs. Kummer said, “she calls herself a rationalist. Fancy word for heathens, you ask me.” Her bright eyes cut suddenly toward the milk pail Herlinde had lifted to the table.
“You take the cream off and water that milk down proper before you start the porridge.” She paused to pick the last of the bacon from the platter on the table. She tucked into her cheek like a squirrel. “Tonight half my rooms will stand empty. I’m not made of money, you know.”
It was something she told Herlinde many times every day: I’m not made of money. Often Herlinde had had an urge, almost irresistible, to ask this woman who owned a house and a farm and ate meat every day exactly what she was made of. Mrs. Kummer’s reaction would be swift. Pack your things and get out.
Herlinde had seen Mrs. Kummer put four girls out on the street in the last six months, and so she held her tongue. Work was hard to come by these days, and it wasn’t as though she could ask Mrs. Elizabeth Bonner if she needed another house servant. As poor as her post was here in Johnstown, no one ever asked Herlinde Metzler to do for Africans, and certainly not for Indians. The very idea must give any Christian girl nightmares.
5
Just twelve days after their ship docked in New-York harbor and still many miles from home, Lily Bonner Ballentyne woke from a light sleep and tried to make sense of her surroundings.
A small room on the very top floor of a boardinghouse on the outskirts of Johnstown. A narrow bed that she was sharing, not with her husband, but with her good-sister Jennet. On a trundle jammed into the space between bed and wall, Jennet’s daughters were still asleep. Sweet little girls, but busy and unsettled sleepers.
It was a small blessing to be t
he first to wake, one Lily was glad of. As much as she had missed her family, she now missed the solitude she had come to love. She thought of the small house in Rome, with its thick walls and deep shadows, the lemon and olive trees and the grape arbor in the garden where she spent so much of her time. The sound of bees, and the smells. Often she would go for hours without seeing or talking to anyone, drawing and reading and sleeping in the sun.
One of the twins twitched in her sleep. Lily was almost sure it was Isabel, but the girls were very much alike, and especially so like this, their faces relaxed in rest. Everything about them was round: chins and soft cheeks and the curls that tumbled around their faces. They had been born while Lily was away, but they were so much like their mother they seemed immediately familiar.
As much as her nieces amused and entertained her, Lily held her breath until the little girl settled again. In another half hour the tumult would begin, a party of adults and four lively young children on the last stage of a journey that had been fraught with delays and complications every step of the way. They should have been in Paradise days ago, and instead they were stuck here in Johnstown.
All the way across the ocean she had imagined coming home by sleigh, gliding over a winter’s worth of hard-packed snow, tucked into a cocoon of furs. The way she and Simon had once come home to Paradise from Montreal, in the deep of winter, traveling fast and quiet because of the war and the troops that patrolled the border. Now she had to laugh at herself for such girlish fantasies, for her steadfast refusal to consider the unpredictability of spring weather. The snow was going, and the rain was rapidly turning the roads to mud.