“I reckon the Lord didn't concern himself much with me,” said Peggy. The lady reached out and touched Peggy's cheek. Peggy knew the lady had noticed she was somewhat dirty from the dust of the road. But what the lady mostly thought of wasn't clothes or cleanliness. A torch, she was thinking. That's why a girl so young wears such a cold, forbidding face. Too much knowledge has made this girl so hard.
“Why have you come to me?” asked Modesty. “Surely you don't mean harm to me or your father, for such an ancient transgression.”
“Oh, no ma'am,” said Peggy. Never in her life did her own voice sound so harsh to her, but compared to this lady she was squawking like a crow. “If I'm torch enough to know your secret, I'm torch enough to know there was some good in it as well as sin, and as far as the sin goes, Papa's paying for it still, paying double and treble every year of his life.”
Tears came into Modesty's eyes. “I had hoped,” she murmured, “I had hoped that time would ease the shame of it, and he'd remember it now with joy. Like one of the ancient faded tapestries in England, whose colors are no longer bright, but whose image is the very shadow of beauty itself.”
Peggy might've told her that he felt more than joy, that he relived all his feelings for her like it happened yesterday. But that was Papa's secret, and not hers to tell.
Modesty touched a kerchief to her eyes, to take away the tears that trembled there. “All these years I've never spoken to a mortal soul of this. I've poured out my heart only to the Lord, and he's forgiven me; yet I find it somehow exhilarating to speak of this to someone whose face I can see with my eyes, and not just my imagination. Tell me, child, if you didn't come as the avenging angel, have you come perhaps as a forgiving one?”
Mistress Modesty spoke with such elegance that Peggy found herself reaching for the language of the books she read, instead of her natural talking voice. “I'm a– a supplicant,” said Peggy. “I come for help. I come to change my life, and I thought, being how you loved my father, you might be willing to do a kindness for his daughter.”
The lady smiled at her. “And if you're half the torch you claim to be, you already know my answer. What kind of help do you need? My husband left me a good deal of money when he died, but I think it isn't money that you need.”
“No ma'am,” said Peggy. But what was it that she wanted, now that she was here? How could she explain why she had come? “I didn't like the life I saw for myself back in Hatrack. I wanted to–”
“Escape?”
“Somewhat like that, I reckon, but not exactly.”
“You want to become something other than what you are,” said the lady.
“Yes, Mistress Modesty.”
“What is it that you wish to be?”
Peggy had never thought of words to describe what she dreamed of, but now, with Mistress Modesty before her, Peggy saw how simply those dreams might be expressed. “You, ma'am.”
The lady smiled and touched her own face, her own hair. “Oh, my child, you must have higher aims than that. Much of what is best in me, your father gave me. The way he loved me taught me that perhaps– no, not perhaps– that I was worth loving. I have learned much more since then, more of what a woman is and ought to be. What a lovely symmetry, if I can give back to his daughter some of the wisdom he brought to me.” She laughed gently. “I never imagined myself taking a pupil.”
“More like a disciple, I think, Mistress Modesty.”
“Neither pupil nor disciple. Will you stay here as a guest in my home? Will you let me be your friend?”
Even though Peggy couldn't rightly see the paths of her own life, she still felt them open up inside her, all the futures she could hope for, waiting for her in this place. “Oh, ma'am,” she whispered, “if you will.”
Chapter 5 – Dowser
Hank Dowser'd seen him prentice boys a-plenty over the years, but never a one as fresh as this. Here was Makepeace Smith bent over old Picklewing's left forehoof, all set to drive in the nail, and up spoke his boy.
“Not that nail,” said the blacksmith's prentice boy. “Not there.”
Well, that was as fine a moment as Hank ever saw for the master to give his prentice boy a sharp cuff on the ear and send him bawling into the house. But Makepeace Smith just nodded, then looked at the boy.
“You think you can nail this shoe, Alvin?” asked the master. “She's a big one, this mare, but I see you got you some inches since last I looked.”
“I can,” said the boy.
“Now just hold your horses,” said Hank Dowser. “Picklewing's my only animal. And I can't just up and buy me another. I don't want your prentice boy learning to be a farrier and making his mistakes at my poor old nag's expense.” And since he was already speaking his mind so frank like, Hank just rattled right on like a plain fool. “Who's the master here, anyway?” said he.
Well, that was the wrong thing to say, Hank knew it the second the words slipped out of his mouth. You don't say Who's the master, not in front of the prentice. And sure enough, Makepeace Smith's ears turned red and he stood up, all six feet of him, with arms like oxlegs and hands that could crush a bear's face, and he said, “I'm the master here, and when I say my prentice is good enough for the job, then he's good enough, or you can take your custom to another smith.”
“Now just hold your horses,” said Hank Dowser.
“I am holding your horse,” said Makepeace Smith. “Or at least your horse's leg. In fact, your horse is leaning over on me something heavy. And now you start asking if I'm master of my own smithy. Anybody whose head don't leak knows that riling the smith who's shoeing your horse is about as smart as provoking the bees on your way in for the honey.”
Hank Dowser just hoped Makepeace would be somewhat easier to calm down. "Course you are," said Hank. "I meant nothing by it, except I was surprised when your prentice spoke up so smart and all.
“Well that's cause he's got him a knack,” said Makepeace Smith. “This boy Alvin, he can tell things about the inside of a horse's hoof– where a nail's going to hold, where it's going into soft hurting flesh, that kind of thing. He's a natural farrier. And if he says to me, Don't drive that nail, well I know by now that's a nail I don't want to drive, cause it'll make the horse crazy or lame.”
Hank Dowser grinned and backed off. It was a hot day, that's all, that's why tempers were so high. “I have respect for every man's knack,” said Hank. “Just like I expect them to have respect for mine.”
“In that case, I've held up your horse long enough,” said the Smith. “Here, Alvin, nail this shoe.” If the boy had swaggered or sirapered or sneered, Hank would've had a reason to be so mad. But Prentice Alvin just hunkered down with nails in his mouth and hooked up the left forehoof. Picklewing leaned on him, but the boy was right tall, even though his face had no sign of beard yet, and he was like a twin of his master, when it come to muscle under his skin. It wasn't one minute, the horse leaning that way, before the shoe was nailed in place. Picklewing didn't so much as shiver, let alone dance the way he usually did when the nails went in. And now that Hank thought about it a little, Picklewing always did seem to favor that leg just a little, as if something was a mite sore inside the hoof. But he'd been that way so long Hank hardly noticed it no more.
The prentice boy stepped back out of the way, still not showing any brag at all. He wasn't doing a thing that was the tiniest bit benoctious, but Hank still felt an, unreasonable anger at the boy. “How old is he?” asked Hank.
“Fourteen,” said Makepeace Smith. “He come to me when he was eleven.”
“A mite old for a prentice, wouldn't you say?” asked Hank.
“A year late in arriving, he was, because of the war with the Reds and the French– he's from out in the Wobbish country.”
“Them was hard years,” said Hank. “Lucky me I was in Irrakwa the whole time. Dowsing wells for windmills the whole way along the railroad they were building. Fourteen, eh? Tall as he is, I reckon he lied about his age even so.”
; If the boy disliked being named a liar, he didn't show no sign of it. Which made Hank Dowser all the more annoyed. That boy was like a burr under his saddle, just made him mad whatever the boy did.
“No,” said the smith. “We know his age well enough. He was born right here in Hatrack River, fourteen years ago, when his folks were passing through on their way west. We buried his oldest brother up on the hill. Big for his age though, ain't he?”
They might've been discussing a horse instead of a boy. But Prentice Alvin didn't seem to mind. He just stood there, staring right through them as if they were made of glass.
“You got four years left of his contract, then?” asked Hank.
“Bit more. Till he's near nineteen.”
“Well, if he's already this good, I reckon he'll be buying out early and going journeyman.” Hank looked, but the boy didn't brighten up at this idea, neither.
“I reckon not,” said Makepeace Smith. “He's good with the horses, but he gets careless with the forge. Any smith can do shoes, but it takes a real smith to do a plow blade or a wheel tire, and a knack with horses don't help a bit with that. Why, for my masterpiece I done me an anchor! I was in Netticut at the time, mind you. There ain't much call for anchors here, I reckon.”
Picklewing snorted and stamped– but he didn't dance lively, the way horses do when their new shoes are troublesome. It was a good set of shoes, well shod. Even that made Hank mad at the prentice boy. His own anger made no sense to him. The boy had put on Picklewing's last shoe, on a leg that might have been lamed in another farrier's hands. The boy had done him good. So why this wrath burning just under the surface, getting worse whatever the boy did or said?
Hank shrugged off his feelings. “Well, that's work well done,” he said. “And so it's time for me to do my part.”
“Now, we both know a dowsing's worth more than a shoeing,” said the smith. “So if you need any more work done, you know I owe it to you, free and clear.”
“I will come back, Makepeace Smith, next time my nag needs shoes.” And because Hank Dowser was a Christian man and felt ashamed of how he disliked the boy, he added praise for the lad. “I reckon I'll be sure to come back while this boy's still under prentice bond to you, him having the knack he's got.”
The boy might as well not've heard the good words, and the master smith just chuckled. “You ain't the only one who feels like that,” he said.
At that moment Hank Dowser understood something that he might've missed otherwise. This boy's knack with hooves was good for trade, and Makepeace Smith was just the kind of man who'd hold that boy to every day of his contract, to profit from the boy's name for clean shoeing with no horses lost by laming. All a greedy master had to do was claim the boy wasn't good at forgework or something like, then use that as a pretext to hold him fast. In the meantime the boy'd make a name for this place as the best farriery in eastern Hio. Money in Makepeace Smith's pocket, and nothing for the boy at all, not money nor freedom.
The law was the law, and the smith wasn't breaking it– he had the right to every day of that boy's service. But the custom was to let a prentice go as soon as he had the skill and had sense enough to make his way in the world. Otherwise, if a boy couldn't hope for early freedom, why should he work hard to learn as quick as he could, work as hard as he could? They said even the slaveowners in the Crown Colonies let their best slaves earn a little pocket money on the side, so's they could buy their freedom sometime before they died.
No, Makepeace Smith wasn't breaking no law, but he was breaking the custom of masters with their prentice boys, and Hank thought ill of him for it; it was a mean sort of master who'd keep a boy who'd already learned everything the master had to teach.
And yet, even knowing that it was the boy who was in the right, and his master in the wrong– even knowing that, he looked at that boy and felt a cold wet hatred in his heart. Hank shuddered, tried to shake it off.
“You say you need a well,” said Hank Dowser. “You want it for drinking or for washing or for the smithy?”
“Does it make a difference?” asked the smith.
“Well, I think so,” said Hank. “For drinking you need pure water, and for washing you want water that got no disease in it. But for your work in the smithy, I reckon the iron don't give no never mind whether it cools in clear or murky water, am I right?”
“The spring up the hill is giving out, slacking off year by year,” said the smith. “I need me a well I can count on. Deep and clean and pure.”
"You know why the stream's going slack," saidHank. "Everybody else is digging wells, and sucking out the water before it can seep out the spring. Your well is going to be about the last straw. "
“I wouldn't be surprised,” said the smith. “But I can't undig their wells, and I got to have my water, too. Reason I settled here was because of the stream, and now they've dried it up on me. I reckon I could move on, but I got me a wife and three brats up at the house, and I like it here, like it well enough. So I figure I'd rather draw water than move.”
Hank went on down to the stand of willows by the stream, near where it came out from under an old springhouse, which had fallen into disrepair. “Yours?” asked Hank.
“No, it belongs to old Horace Guester, him who owns the roadhouse up yonder.”
Hank found him a thin willow wand that forked just right, and started cutting it out with his knife. “Springhouse doesn't get much use now, I see.”
"Stream's dying, like I said. Half the time in summer there ain't enough water in it to keep the cream jars cool. Springhouse ain't no good if you can't count on it all surnmer. "
Hank made the last slice and the willow rod pulled free. He shaved the thick end to a point and whittled off all the leaf nubs, making it as smooth as ever he could. There was some dowsers who didn't care how smooth the rod was, just broke off the leaves and left the ends all raggedy, but Hank knew that the water didn't always want to be found, and then you needed a good smooth willow wand to find it. There was others used a clean wand, but always the same one, year after year, place after place, but that wasn't no good neither, Hank knew, cause the wand had to be from willow or, sometimes, hickory that grew up sucking the water you were hoping to find. Them other dowsers were mountebanks, though it didn't do no good to say so. They found water most times because in most places if you dig down far enough there's bound to be water. But Hank did it right, Hank had the true knack. He could feel the willow wand trembling in his hands, could feel the water singing to him under the ground. He didn't just pick the first sign of water, either. He was looking for clear water, high water, close to the surface and easy to pull. He took pride in his work.
But it wasn't like that prentice boy– what was his name? –Alvin. Wasn't like him. Either a man could nail horseshoes without ever laming the horse, or he couldn't. If he ever lamed a horse, folks thought twice before they went to that farrier again. But with a dowser, it didn't seem to make no difference if you found water every time or not. If you called yourself a dowser and had you a forked stick, folks would pay you for dowsing wells, without bothering to find out if you had any knack for it at all.
Thinking that, Hank wondered if maybe that was why he hated this boy so much– because the boy already had a name for his good work, while Hank got no fame at all even though he was the only true dowser likely to pass through these parts in a month of Sundays.
Hank set down on the grassy bank of the stream and pulled off his boots. When he leaned to set the second boot on a dry rock where it wouldn't be so like to fill up with bugs, he saw two eyes blinking in the shadows inside a thick stand of bushes. It gave him such a start, cause he thought to see a bear, and then he thought to see a Red man hankering after dowser's scalp, even though both such was gone from these parts for years. No, it was just a little light-skinned pickaninny hiding in the bushes. The boy was a mixup, half-White, half-Black, that was plain to see once Hank got over the surprise. “What're you looking at?” demanded Hank.
&nbs
p; The eyes closed and the face was gone. The bushes wiggled and whispered from something crawling fast.
"Never you mind him," said Makepeace Smith. "That's just Arthur Stuart.
Arthur Stuart! Not a soul in New England or the United States but knew that name as sure as if they lived in the Crown Colonies. “Then you'll be glad to hear that I'm the Lord Protector,” said Hank Dowser. “Cause if the King be that partickler shade of skin, I got some news that'll get me three free dinners a day in any town in Hio and Suskwahenny till the day I die.”
Makepeace laughed brisk at that idea. “No, that's Horace Guester's joke, naming him that way. Horace and Old Peg Guester, they're raising that boy, seeing how his natural ma's too poor to raise him. Course I don't think that's the whole reason. Him being so light-skinned, her husband, Mock Berry, you can't blame him if he don't like seeing that child eat at table with his coal-black children.”
Hank Dowser started pulling off his stockings. "You don't suppose old Horace Guester took him in on account of he's the party responsible for causing the boy's skin to be so light. "
“Hush your mouth with a pumpkin, Hank, before you say such a thing,” said Makepeace. “Horace ain't that kind of a man.”
“You'd be surprised who I've known turn out to be that kind of a man,” said Hank. “Though I don't think it of Horace Guester, mind.”
“Do you think Old Peg Guester'd let a half-Black bastard son of her husband into the house?”
“What if she didn't know?”
“She'd know. Her daughter Peggy used to be torch here in Hatrack River. And everybody knowed that Little Peggy Guester never told a lie.”
“I used to hear tell about the Hatrack River torch, afore I ever come here. How come I never seen her?”
“She's gone, that's why,” said Makepeace. “Left three years ago. Just run off. You'd be wise never to ask about her up to Guester's roadhouse. They're a mite ticklish on the subject.”
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