by Van Reid
FIDDLER’S GREEN
OR
A Wedding, a Ball, and the Singular Adventures of Sundry Moss
Also by Van Reid
CORDELIA UNDERWOOD
— or —
The Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League
MOLLIE PEER
— or —
The Underground Adventure of the Moosepath League
DANIEL PLAINWAY
— or —
The Holiday Haunting of the Moosepath League
MRS. ROBERTO
— or —
The Widowy Worries of the Moosepath League
MOSS FARM
— or —
The Mysterious Missives of the Moosepath League
PETER LOON
A Novel
FIDDLER’S GREEN
OR
A Wedding, a Ball, and the Singular Adventures of Sunday Moss
Van Reid
Camden, Maine
Published by Down East Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom
Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK
Copyright © 2004 by Van Reid
Maps by James Sinclair
First Down East edition 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file
Library of Congress Control Number: 2003066557
ISBN: 0-670-03320-0 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-1-60893-526-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-1-60893-527-7 (electronic)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
TO MAGGIE, HUNTER, AND MARY.
Contents
from the Portland Daily Advertiser, June 2, 1897
from Disguise, Dual Identity, and the Moosepath LeagueA Monograph by Basil Penwall (1947)
PROLOGUE: THE DARK ROOM
June 3, 1897
BOOK ONE: WEDDING AND DEPARTURE
June 4–5, 1897
1. THE MEMBERS WERE EARLY (June 4, 1897)
from the Eastern Argus, June 5, 1897
2. BRIDE AND GROOM
3. A KITCHEN FULL AND A CHORUS OF TWO
4. VARIED SPECIES OF CHICKENS CAME HOME TO ROOST
5. THE UNPREDICTED STORM
6. TIME AND TIDE
7. A RUM BUSINESS
8. GATHERED ON THAT DAY
9. THE WEDDING
10. THE FIRST SHOT OF A DISTANT CONFLICT
11. INDICATIONS
12. DEPARTURE (June 5, 1897)
from the Eastern Argus, June 7, 1897
BOOK TWO: MRS. MORRELL’S ANNUAL JUNE BALL
June 8, 1897
13. PICKING THE PRINCIPALS
14. PARTNERS BOW
15. CUTTING IN
16. A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING
17. PRINCIPALS IN PLAY
18. CHARMED
19. PRISCILLA
20. PRINCIPALLY SPEAKING
21. PRINCIPALS IN ACTION
22. MUCH MIGHT OCCUR
23. CHASING SOLACE
24. TENDING TEACUP
25. THE INDIAN BRIDGE
BOOK THREE: THE SINGULAR ADVENTURE OF SUNDRY MOSS
June 9–10, 1897
from the Portland Daily Advertiser, June 7, 1897
26. LEAVING WITHOUT KNOWING (June 9, 1897)
27. QUICK AT FIGURES
28. SUNDRY PUTS IN HIS OWN OAR
29. SOMEONE’S MR. MOSS
30. SADNESS AND POSSIBILITY
31. SETTING COURSE
32. MR. NORMELL
33. A BAD JUNCTURE BETWEEN STOPS
34. LILLIE IN THE FIELDS
35. PROOF THE DAY WOULD END
36. ODD ENOUGH
37. LAUGHING WATER
38. TIM’S BURDEN
39. AMONG THE DROONE AND NORMELL
40. THE DEAFENED MAN THOUGHT WHISPERS WERE SILENCE
41. MEETING HORACE
42. DUTTEN LANE
43. WHAT ABNER SAW AT THE FAIR
44. ON THE CUSP OF KNOWING
45. ONE WHY BUT NOT ANOTHER
46. MOTHS THROUGH A WINDOW
47. THE PATH OF BEST INTENT WENT BOTH WAYS
48. LIGHT AND DAWN (June 10, 1897)
49. AN ELF FROM THE WOODS
50. THE DOWSE
51. THE KNIGHT ON THE ROAD
52. BODY OF LIES
53. CRUXES AND CRANKS
54. ONE FELL SWEEP
55. THE LAST TIME HE SAW SEVERAL PEOPLE
BOOK FOUR: SMALL ENDS UNDONE
June 14–15, 1897
56. THE MANTEL WATCH (June 14, 1897)
57. MEN WITH LITTLE MOTIVE (June 15, 1897)
from Mister Tobias Walton, June 9, 1897
58. PASSPORT AND VERIFICATION
EPILOGUE: HARD BUSINESS
June 16, 1897
Author’s Note
from the Portland Daily Advertiser (Portland, Maine)
June 2,1897
A QUESTION OF GENDER NOT GRAMMATICAL!
Every month there seems to be a new inn or restaurant or combination thereof opening within city limits, and we are often amused by the extremities to which proprietors will go for the sake of drawing custom to their doors. Good food and a soft bed are not the end of it; music and games and even the promise of intrigue seem to wheedle the curiosity as much as the aroma of hearty cooking apprehends the nose.
It is unexpected, then, when a tavern shuns unasked-for attention, which is exactly the case as of late with one such business hard by the waterfront. The owners are closemouthed about an interesting matter that took place there on Saturday, despite which, people have been dropping by, in hope of seeing the child who exchanged genders during the course of a single bath.
We are told that for months the child—a scrawny little waif, a boy, whose parentage is either missing or suspect—has regularly appeared at the tavern’s back door and that the lady of the house, just as regularly, took pity on the hungry face and fed it, never actually allowing the creature into her clean kitchen.
After involvement with a recent exploit of Portland’s own Moosepath League, reported in this journal last week, it was decided that the child should be taken in by the tavern owners, but that he should first receive a good scrubbing, as this detail had been avoided for six years or so—that is, the child’s entire life.
What was the surprise of our Mrs. Taverner—whose real name we will not reveal—when she stripped off the little boy’s garments and found a little girl hiding beneath! No one, including the proprietress—who has six children herself and is not easily fooled—had suspected that they were feeding a lass and not a lad, and even the child herself seemed unsure about it all. An explanation for the deception has not been entirely propounded, and much fanciful conjecture has been rife upon the street, though the tavern family discourages the
same under their own roof.
We have visited the house ourselves, but the owners are keen to keep the business quiet, and we were impressed that the child’s welfare (not to say, state of mind) would not benefit by further publicity and speculation, so the name of the business or its people will not be learned in this article.
It seemed too interesting, however, to let go altogether, and we put it before our readers, wondering if someone out there is privy to a proper explanation and promising that we will apprise the same with any forthcoming whys or wherefores.
from Disguise, Dual Identity, and the Moosepath League
A Monograph
by Basil Penwall (1947)
There is no mention about the disclosure of Mailon/Melanie Ring’s true gender in the private journals of the Moosepath League’s charter members, and one writer, at least, has tried to make from this fact a case for Victorian prudishness. We are talking, however, about a six-year-old girl who had been directed by her father to “be a boy” since before she could remember, and there is, besides, evidence that Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump were simply never informed or that, having been informed, they either misconstrued the details or thought them immaterial. It is well to understand that what may seem prudery in our modern times was often simple prudence, a respect for privacy, and the sense that other people’s affairs were not necessarily suitable for even the pages of a personal diary.
Years later Eagleton would write about Emma Craft, who traveled with the charter members for three days before her disguise as a young man was found out—by another party. (Several compilers have made note of how often events early and late in the league’s history reflected one another, though those events more often than not came to very different ends.)
But for our present discussion it is enough to presume that among the members of the Moosepath League, Sundry Moss was probably the sole possessor of this knowledge concerning the “former Mailon Ring.” At the time of the Dutten Pond incident, Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump still thought of Melanie Ring as the skinny little boy who had aided their escape from Danforth Street at the very beginning of their search for Mrs. Roberto. As for Mr. Moss, he would be heard to say (years later) that Melanie was “more niggle than inches,” meaning, it has been supposed, that the room she occupied in his own heart and conscience was greater than her size might seem to warrant to the world at large.
PROLOGUE THE DARK ROOM
June 3, 1897
Well, God bless the man!” said Mabel Spark when she heard that Mister Tobias Walton was to be married the next day. She had never met the chairman of the Moosepath League, but by his association with Messrs. Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump, she was sure she had every reason to think well of him. Standing at her kitchen counter in the back of the Faithful Mermaid (a respectable, if not entirely law-abiding, tavern on Brackett Street), she did not alter her rhythmic rolling of pie dough but cast a pleasant smile at the bearer of this news—Mister Walton’s self-styled gentleman’s gentleman, Sundry Moss.
“Hmmm!” said her husband, Thaddeus, who at that moment realized he had buttoned his shirt wrong. He lingered by the door to the tavern room, peering down at his substantial anterior.
“Your shirt’s buttoned wrong, Thaddeus,” said Mabel.
“Well, it is,” he agreed. He couldn’t see the better part of his buttons with that immense beard in the way, so he was left to pull out his shirttail to understand how he’d erred.
“And he can never get his undershirt on right side to,” she informed their guest.
“Mom!” said their middle daughter, Annabelle, who was pouring Sundry a mug of coffee.
Their guest was not to be daunted by any reference to undershirts, however. “I had a great uncle,” he informed them, “who rode his horse backward two and half miles on a bet.”
Mabel laughed. She had plied him with a piece of apple pie and a slab of rat cheese, and he sat at the family table, offering this reminiscence between forkfuls.
“This is good pie!” said Sundry.
“It’s the last of the apples from the cellar,” she said. “But there’s too much nutmeg.”
“No, no,” Thaddeus disagreed. “Never too much nutmeg.”
Sundry thought about it. Long and lanky, with a square jaw and almost handsome features, he looked like a man—if still a young man (twenty-four, to be exact)—who knew a good piece of pie when he tasted it. The afternoon sun shone through the window over the dry sink and warmed his back, and he sat at the trencher as if he’d eaten there half his life, though he had visited the Faithful Mermaid only once before. He tasted the pie again. “I might have to have another piece before I can decide,” he said with comic gravity, and it was clear from Mabel’s smile that she would happily serve it to him.
“Was the horse backward, or your great-uncle?” wondered Annabelle, who was a bright girl of sixteen.
This question gave Sundry pause. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I never thought to ask.”
“Your Mister Walton and his lady must have wonderful plans for tomorrow,” said Mabel. She was working the dough pretty hard, but there was a faraway look on her face. She had fond memories of her and Thaddeus’s wedding, simple though it was.
“Not at all,” said Sundry Moss. “They just announced it yesterday.”
“Good heavens!” said Mabel.
“We were hoping you might be able to cook for the reception.”
“Good heavens!” said the woman again.
“The Shipswood Restaurant is hosting the rehearsal dinner tonight,” explained Sundry, “but they didn’t think they could help out at the house tomorrow on such short notice.”
Mabel exchanged looks with her husband. She had not gotten past the precipitate nature of the approaching nuptials. There was, in her experience, only one reason to rush a wedding, but she had understood that both groom and bride, in this instance, were well into their middle age. Thaddeus, too, seemed to have lost interest in his buttons.
Sundry knew what they were thinking. “There is a kid on the way,” he offered, and they could not guess how wryly he spoke.
“Oh!” said Mrs. Spark. She glanced at Annabelle, who was old enough to understand this line of thought and young enough for Mabel to shoo from the room. Annabelle stood in the middle of the kitchen with Mr. Moss’s coffee, looking as surprised as her mother.
“God bless the man, indeed,” said Thaddeus quietly. He had met the portly, balding, and bespectacled Mister Walton and now thought him more enterprising than he would have credited.
The door to the tavern swung open, and Davey Spark tromped in with an armful of dishes. He paused long enough to take stock of people’s faces; his father’s was hard to read through that profusion of beard, but Annabelle’s expression told her brother that there was something up.
“He’s seven, I think,” said Sundry.
“Seven?” said Mabel.
“The boy,” Sundry explained.
“Seven?” said Thaddeus. That seemed like shutting the barn door after the horse was out.
“His sister’s son.” Sundry nodded seriously and did not let on that he understood where he had been leading them.
“Good heavens!” said Mabel a third time—though with a laugh in her voice. Her frown was replaced by the sort of look she employed when she caught her children at some minor sin. “Seven, indeed!” She blew a sigh of relief, but she might have swatted Sundry if he’d been any closer.
Thaddeus chuckled. Annabelle set the cup of coffee before their guest and rolled her eyes, which made Sundry smile.
He took a sip. “Thank you. The boy’s mother sent him on his own from Africa. Mister Walton is supposed to meet him at Halifax, and he and Miss McCannon thought it well to make a family out of it.”
“Don’t we have some trade out there?” asked Mabel of her oldest son.
“In Halifax?” asked Davey.
“In the tavern.”
Davey clattered the dishes into the dry sink at the back of the
room and hurried back through the tavern-room door.
“We just birthed a half-grown child ourselves,” said Thaddeus.
“Thaddeus!” said Mabel.
“I guess he knows about it.”
“You did tell me,” said Sundry.
“Might as well have been a birth,” added the bearded fellow. “There was that much question as to what it’d be, in the end.”
“Here she comes, by the sound,” said Mabel, which was as much as saying, “Hush, now.” Sundry did look interested. Mabel turned, her arms covered with flour, and watched two young children, both dressed as boys, charge in through the back door. “Wipe your feet!” said Mabel.
“We saw Mrs. Roberto!” said the taller child.
“Timothy, wipe your feet!”
“Pull it up, chief,” said Thaddeus.
Sundry leaned back from his half-demolished pie to consider these kids. Tim was a wiry, yellow-haired seven-year-old with humor and awareness stamped all over him. Melanie Ring, who was, until recently, known as Mailon and thought a lad, was smaller and slightly darker, with pale blue eyes, and carried herself with a degree of gravity that seemed altogether out of step with the Spark household. No one quite grasped how much she grasped the discrepancy between the facts and the façade of her gender. Asked if she understood that she was a girl, she had said, “A little.”
It was her father who had instigated the pretense, telling her that boys were not “hard put like girls.” Burne Ring was a creature of the night and the bottle, and knowing that he would be of little use to her, he had put her in boy’s clothes, told her to be a boy, and left her to her own devices. Even before the truth was generally discovered, the Sparks had decided to take the child in as one of their own, if her father would allow it. In the meantime, Thaddeus had decreed (against his wife’s objections) that too much change all at once was unwarranted and that Melanie Ring should continue to dress as a boy until they had time to get used to the idea that she was not one.