A More Perfect Union: A Novel (The Midwife Series Book 3)

by Jodi Daynard

  “A tub of hot water, John,” she said. “For you both smell.”

  7

  AT PEACEFIELD, SUMMER WAS A TIME FOR farming and for the consoling rituals of the season: a morning project, followed by a bath, and then dinner with the Millers. After dinner, Mr. Adams took a nap while Johnny wrote letters. He wrote to his grandmother and to Cassie, asking how they fared. If the winds and fate obliged, he would hear back from them in about four months’ time.

  Before bed, Johnny read for several hours. Mr. Adams’s library was vast, and Johnny spent many happy hours burning the Adamses’ candles. To challenge himself, he decided he would commit a book to memory. He chose Common Sense, by Thomas Paine. After a week of practicing, he felt confident that he knew it by heart.

  One night, as he approached his chamber after taking a light supper, he found the door ajar. Johnny bent down to find a tall stack of broadsides holding his chamber door open. A note had been placed on the top, held down with a small stone. It read:

  So that you may better understand the mad goings-on of the Brobdingnags —J. A.

  Johnny laughed and shook his head. He began to read the broadsides that same night, and by the end of the week he thought he had begun to understand the current American situation. From all he could glean, a bifurcation had begun to separate those citizens who favored France and those others who favored Britain. However, the different positions went deeper, Johnny sensed, than merely attitudes toward these foreign powers. The country suffered from increasingly wild and divergent fears. Federalists such as Adams feared mob rule and the establishment of a despotic “people’s government,” as was occurring in France.

  Jeffersonians—or Jacobins—feared power vested in any single person or place. They worried that the Federalists secretly wished to establish another monarchy, along the British model. But it seemed to Johnny that certain Jacobins, in fighting for states’ rights, actually worked to preserve the institution of slavery.

  Johnny’s new knowledge about the state of the Union unsettled him. Washington, he knew, fervently rejected the notion of political parties. Hamilton and Madison, too, had written about the dangers of political factions. To Johnny, such opposing parties could but hinder the pursuit of a unified America. But then, perhaps there was something in all this he didn’t understand. He would have to ask Mr. Adams about it.

  When not reading or helping Mr. Adams with his chores, Johnny spent his time playing with the children. These were the times he loved most. After working on the hill, he would sprint the mile and a half to Lizzie’s cottage. Seeing Johnny running down the lane, the children would race after him crying, “Wait! Wait for us!” But Johnny always continued on down to the water, where he would leap in with a great whooping cry.

  Only Tom, the eldest Miller child, refused to join them. A serious lad, he preferred to work in the fields and frowned at Johnny’s frivolity. Miriam, on the other hand, a bright, bold girl of twelve, loved nothing better than to follow Johnny wherever he led.

  One afternoon, her younger brother Will taunted her, “Miriam loves Johnny! Miriam loves Johnny!”

  “I do not!”

  “Do, too!”

  Miriam punched him in the neck, and he tackled her. She fell back onto a stone. Rising and holding the back of her head, she cried, “I’m going to tell Mama!”

  Will sang as she scrambled up the dunes,

  Tell Tale Tit,

  Your tongue shall be slit;

  And all the dogs in the town

  Shall have a little bit!

  Lizzie ministered to her sobbing child, but within moments the girl had dried her tears and struggled to free herself from her mother’s arms.

  “Oh, I’m all right, Mama,” she said. “Let me go.”

  Johnny smiled at the recollection of his own Barbadian games. One game he and his friends loved to play was called “stick-licking.” This was essentially sword fighting using homemade wooden swords. The last time Johnny played that game, he accidentally smacked his good friend in the mouth. The child’s mouth bloomed blood, and he ran home screaming that Johnny had hit him on purpose.

  Cassie did not approve of stick-licking or most of the other games that he played down by the shore. “You wit’ dose ruffians again?” she would ask, not guessing that Johnny was the worst of the lot. She would sniff him and rub her finger behind his ear. Then she would lick her finger, tasting for salt. Heaven help him if her lips puckered!

  There were knife fights, too. All the boys owned knives. Some were rustic paring knives filched from kitchens; others were slim, elegant daggers. Johnny’s was a small pocketknife with a bone handle, which his father had given to him one day. They were at the shipyard, and it was just growing dark. Soon, his father would head home.

  “Don’t use it for fighting,” his father said. Then he added with a smile, “And don’t tell your mother.”

  They both knew that if his mother caught him with the knife, she would make him toss it into the sea.

  Observing Lizzie’s children, Johnny could not help but admire their honesty and directness. He admired their lack of airs, too. They worked hard and played with abandon. Then they sat ramrod straight when dining, their manners refined. No one here found contradiction in this. In Barbados, one was either a nobleman or a farmer. In America, Johnny marveled, one could be a farmer in the morning and vice president by dinnertime.

  On the day before his departure for Harvard, Johnny walked to the cottage after breakfast and met his mother in the kitchen garden. She was picking herbs for their dinner.

  “Oh, hello, Johnny,” she said, kissing him. “Well, your time in Eden is almost up.”

  “This is Eden,” he replied. “Unlike our ship. I admit I’m sad to leave.”

  “Does it remind you of home?” Eliza asked. Since their arrival in America, they had spoken only rarely of home.

  “In some ways,” he said carefully, not wishing to open any wounds.

  “Well”—Eliza tapped her thigh—“I shall go help Lizzie. You know she plans a farewell dinner for you?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Eliza opened the door, and as she did so, the children leapt from their hiding places, giggling.

  “Surprise!” they shouted and tumbled into Johnny, endeavoring to climb him like a tree.

  Miriam was fretful. “Johnny. I thought you’d never arrive!”

  “Yes, we want to play! We’ve worked all morning!” Will complained.

  Lizzie called to them from the kitchen, “Don’t go far. The Lees arrive any time now.”

  The children began to groan just as carriage wheels could be heard crunching over the stones in the lane.

  “They arrive!”

  Another two minutes found everyone happily greeting one another. Johnny knelt among the eager Lee children, while Aunt Martha and her eldest daughter, Kate, moved into the kitchen to help Lizzie and Eliza. Johnny thought that, with her spectacles and sloppily pinned bun, Kate looked as plain as ever, though he did notice her comely figure.

  Johnny rallied the children. “All right,” he said. “Why don’t you all head down to the beach and wait for me there. I must fetch some pails.”

  “Pails?” asked Ben derisively. “Whatever for? Pails are for little children.”

  “Not at all. You’ll see.”

  At once, Johnny ran off to the barn, picked up a number of pails, and ran to the shore, where he was soon joined by Kate. She strolled toward him, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun.

  Johnny nodded to her, then spoke to the impatient children.

  “As there are only four pails and nine of us, I shall have to make teams, and one of us shall be on his own. Will and Ben, you find black shells. Miriam and Sara, you can find yellow ones.”

  “But I want to be with Hannah!” Sara cried, pointing to the littlest Lee girl.

  “Hannah shall go with Will,” Johnny said.

  “Ew! I don’t want to go with her,” Will complained.

  Hearing this
, Hannah cried, and Kate moved to console her, glancing balefully at Will.

  Eventually, the pairings were sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction, except for Kate, who made nine.

  “Kate, you’re the odd number,” said Johnny.

  “Oh,” she said, “I don’t mind.”

  “Well, you can search for pink shells. You know the ones I mean. I believe they are scallop shells. Let’s give ourselves half an hour.”

  “An hour!” Miriam objected.

  “All right, an hour, unless we are called to dinner. Then we’ll count and see who has the most.”

  “But black shells are not common. We shall lose!” whined Will.

  “Nonsense, Will,” said Miriam. “They’re as common as pink or yellow. Mussel shells are black. Johnny has chosen quite equitably. Now let’s go!”

  “A moment.” Johnny held his arm in the air. He knew how to whip his young audience into a froth of suspense. “I shall count it down. On your marks.” They gripped the pails. “Get set.” They crouched and leaned forward. “And go!”

  All the children save Kate shot forward and scattered across the shore. She and Johnny ambled up the beach, their backs to the sun. Kate seemed in no rush, either to hunt for shells or to speak. It occurred to Johnny that her one sentence, consisting of four words, was nearly all he’d ever heard her say. Perhaps she was one of those shy, simple women who remained with their families all their lives. An old maid.

  Sara, meanwhile, had abandoned Miriam in favor of her new relative. She clutched Johnny’s hand as if they walked on jagged rocks, though the beach was pebbly and even sandy in places.

  As Johnny and Sara looked for yellow shells, the water, the children, and even Quincy gradually disappeared, and in his mind’s eye, Johnny found himself wading in the clear blue water of Carlisle Bay. It was so clear that he could see his feet, like pink coral, in the white sand below. Tiny fish swam between his toes. He saw the slender rowboats as they traveled back and forth from ship to shore with supplies of every imaginable kind, and the red-turbaned women walking barefoot from the hills with live turkeys riding on their heads. He saw Cassie waiting by the gate with her stern judgment, and he ran to her, skipping in rhythm to distant kettledrums.

  Kate coughed once, returning him to Quincy and the shell hunt.

  After an hour, the children all gathered in one spot on the beach, each group excited by their haul. A cursory glance in the pails told them that the count would be close.

  By the time they returned to the cottage, the dining table and chairs had been taken out into the garden.

  Lizzie appeared at the door. “Children, dinner’s nearly ready. Go and wash up. There’s a bowl and pitcher in the kitchen.”

  Just then, Mr. Miller, whom Johnny had not yet met, came riding down the lane on a noble-looking black horse. He appeared hot and weary from his travels, but the moment he espied Lizzie and his children, he grinned and quickly dismounted.

  Johnny thought him a striking-looking man: His bearing was erect, his forehead tall. But, with his large nose and wide-set eyes, one could not quite call him handsome.

  Lizzie’s face lit with joy. “It’s Thomas, at last!”

  A sudden motion made Johnny turn to discover Mr. Adams, reading upon a broadside at the far end of the table. He had been sitting so quietly that Johnny had not noticed him until that moment. Seeing Mr. Miller, Adams stood. “Thomas! Excellent timing! How did you fare?”

  “Well in some ways, galling in others,” Mr. Miller remarked, referring to his tour in New Hampshire as a circuit judge.

  “Well, let us share our gall after dinner.”

  Mr. Miller then turned to Johnny and bowed. “Hello. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Thomas—Johnny?” he cried, suddenly realizing who this tall child was.

  “The same.” Johnny bowed.

  Mr. Miller wiped his brow and then pumped the boy’s hand vigorously. “I didn’t know you! Well, but I hear you’re off tomorrow to that great castle of learning in Cambridge.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He’s off to the kitchen, Tom, to wash the sand off,” Eliza corrected, wiping her hands on her apron. She smiled at Mr. Miller warmly and approached him. Then she took his hands in hers as if he were her brother. Johnny knew that Mr. Miller had been the one to bring Mama to Quincy when she was big with child. He had withheld his judgment when her own family had condemned her. Indeed, Cassie and his mother had so often shared how Mr. Miller saved mother and child that it had acquired a certain biblical grandeur, like the story of Moses in the bulrushes.

  Dinner began cheerfully, with a toast to Johnny’s success. Miriam, eager for attention, said, “Well, Ben and I nearly won our game. We got more shells than Johnny and Sara, but Cousin Kate got the most shells of all.”

  “The most what, child?” Mr. Adams asked. Though often distracted, he was fond of children in general and had indulged his own far beyond Abigail’s stricter sense of child-rearing.

  “Kate found more pink shells than we did black or yellow,” Miriam replied.

  “Indeed.” Mr. Adams nodded and took another sip of his cider. “But you know, Kate,” he drawled out. “One must question, ‘What is pink?’ For I do believe that ‘pink’ might cover all manner of reds and ivories and indeed even some yellows. You might have had an advantage.” Here, Johnny saw Mrs. Adams’s eyes roll.

  Kate turned to the old man. “Advantage, Mr. Adams? In what sense?” The Lees’ eldest daughter had been so quiet during dinner that everyone had nearly forgotten about her, including Johnny.

  “Oh, John,” complained Abigail, “why must you ruin the children’s fun with a philosophical discourse?”

  “Fairness, Abigail. Fairness.”

  There were stifled giggles about the table. But Kate continued with some heat, “Fairness, Mr. Adams? Is it fair to condemn a person to the ignominy of having cheated without so much as a shred of proof?”

  Johnny nearly fell off his chair. The girl could not only speak but now did so quite powerfully—and to the vice president!

  “Katherine,” scolded Aunt Martha. “Pray, do not speak to Mr. Adams like that.”

  Kate stood up and moved off to the house without a word. She returned with her pail, sandy and reeking of dead mollusks. She set it down upon the great man’s lap.

  “Have a look, Mr. Adams. Do.” The vice president had been about to bite into a juicy scallop. But he set fork and scallop aside in order to consider the smelly bucket of shells.

  “Hmm—let us see.” He poked a pudgy finger into the pail. Johnny heard the shells scrape against one another.

  “Pink. Pink. And—pink.” He cleared his throat and gazed up at the proud girl. The he reached for her hand, which she proffered reluctantly.

  “Well, child. You’re your mother’s daughter, all right. I’m most humbly apologetic and do beg your forgiveness. The pail is a veritable sea of pink. As usual, my reach has exceeded my grasp.”

  Abigail raised her eyebrows.

  Suddenly, Kate said, “Oh, I forgive you, Uncle John. For you do seem truly remorseful. What’s more, though you were not correct, it was nonetheless a reasonable theory. For many shells are indeed a remarkable combination of shades.” Here, Kate drove home her point. “But I was careful to choose the pinkest ones.”

  The entire table was silent at this speech. But instead of gloating over her decisive victory, Kate emitted a sudden giggle and gave Mr. Adams a fond peck upon his cheek. Adams’s hand rose to touch the place she had kissed. The rest of the table began to titter, and Mr. Adams himself finally burst into loud guffaws.

  8

  “WHAT AN EVENING!” ELIZA EXCLAIMED AS SHE and Johnny traveled toward Cambridge the following morning.

  “Most astonishing,” Johnny agreed. “I must say, I had thought the eldest Miss Lee either shy or simpleminded. But she is neither. Not at all.”

  “She’s her mother’s daughter,” said Eliza.

  Johnny glanced at his mother. “What mean you
, Mama?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  This was not the first time that Johnny’s mother had alluded to Aunt Martha’s mysterious past. It was as if she wanted to tell Johnny but dared not do so. Often, at home, his mother had called Martha an “unsung hero” of the Revolution. But she had never revealed her meaning.

  When the chaise crossed the bridge into Cambridge, Johnny saw tears come to his mother’s eyes.

  “Mama, why the tears? Is this not fairly near Quincy?”

  It was not the distance that had made Eliza cry.

  “Oh, Johnny. I want everything good for you. I want—I hope—there will be no limits placed upon what happiness and honor you find.”

  “Why should there be limits, Mama?”

  “You know why.”

  The secret of my blood, he thought. But his kinky hair had been pomaded, and the beads removed.

  “I shall bear it. Do you think me so weak?”

  “Nay, John.”

  “Then what?”

  Eliza sighed. “It’s others I fear. It’s always others.”

  As they made their way along the river and finally arrived at the Great Bridge, Eliza recalled how, twenty years earlier, the rebels had removed its planks to keep the British soldiers from crossing over, and how the British army had found the planks and restored them. Then she remembered how Papa and the stable boys had nailed planks across their home’s doors and windows, fearful less of the British than of the rebels themselves. As she crossed that same bridge now, Eliza shivered with the same fear—not of the British, but of Americans. Of those who would harm her son.

  Cambridge was crowded with carriages bringing new and returning students to their lodgings. Coachmen hoisted trunks down from the carriages and brought them to and from Harvard and Massachusetts Halls. Their chaise could not approach the curb, and Johnny was obliged to descend in the middle of the street. Eliza could not go with her son to see his chamber, which was vastly disappointing. She knew Johnny was to have a roommate but wished to know: What sort of boy was he? Would he be kind and studious or wild and troublemaking?