Tree of Freedom

by Rebecca Caudill

  The first bright evening star was burning over the cabin as the Venables filed up the hill from the spring. Stephanie saw it first, and made a wish on it, the way her mammy had taught her in the Back Country.

  “Star light, star bright,

  The first star I’ve seen tonight.

  I wish I may, I wish I might,

  Have the wish I wish tonight.”

  Hardly had she whispered the brief wish than she saw it had come true. Noel, she saw, was already home, standing in the cabin doorway, waiting for them.

  At sight of him, Stephanie felt her heart flouncing around under her dress.

  Bertha stopped stock-still. She started to say something, but it was plain to anybody’s eyes that she was as weak as a newborn kitten. Looked like the summer in the wilderness had taken more out of Bertha than a body thought for. Come winter when the red men would stay put in spite of all the British bribes to pry them out, Bertha would get a long rest. Then she wouldn’t spill over like that for everybody to see.

  “You back, Noel?” said Jonathan.

  At least, Jonathan could find a tongue in his head to speak to the boy. Apt as not, he had been laying to light into Noel when he saw him, but seemed like he was as glad as anybody else to see the young un standing there whole.

  “Howdy!” said Noel, coming out to meet them. “I would have been back sooner,” he explained, “but there were things I had to do.”

  Stephanie couldn’t take her eyes off him. This was Noel, all right. The outside of him was the same as ever—the same shock of sun-bleached hair, the same freckled face, the same lanky arms and legs, the same steel gray eyes looking straight through things.

  In other ways, however, it wasn’t Noel, but a different boy who had come home. This boy wore no sullen look on his face. Gone was the way he drew up into his shell as if he’d been stepped on every time Jonathan spoke to him.

  “I was all for comin’ back right away, as soon as we settled with His Majesty and the Indians,” Noel said, “but Colonel Clark sent me on an errand.”

  “Your news can wait, I reckon,” said Bertha, “long as you’re here with it. I never yet heard tell of a body comin’ home from war without bein’ hungry. After supper you can tell us what kept you.”

  It was a feast of the biggest and the best the clearing could yield that Bertha got together for supper. And it was a feast for the eyes, too, Stephanie decided, watching this brother helping his mammy, getting a fire going under her kettle, carrying up water from the spring for her, and digging potatoes and scraping them with his knife, natural-like, as if it wasn’t a woman’s work.

  Stephanie went with him to call up the hogs.

  “I was mighty worried sometimes, Steffy, you couldn’t make out,” he confided to her. “You did yourself mighty proud, as far as I can see.”

  “Oh, things could ’a’ been worse,” she said, tossing the words off lightly. It was the queerest thing, she thought, how she couldn’t remember the number of times they had sat huddled in the dark cabin afraid of their own breathing, now that Noel was home again with some mystifying bright thing inside him.

  “Colonel Clark wanted me to carry a message to Governor Jefferson,” said Noel, as they sat about the doorway after supper.

  They waited, wishing he would hurry.

  “He wanted to tell Governor Jefferson I had a callin’ to practice law,” explained Noel, “and the Governor would oblige him by seein’ that I had a chance to read with a good lawyer at Williamsburg.”

  If a bolt of lightning had struck the doorway where they were sitting, it didn’t seem to Stephanie they could have been stunned more completely. This talk of a buckskin going up to Williamsburg to read law books and make a lawyer out of himself fairly knocked a body’s breath out. Noel, however, didn’t give them time to enjoy their surprise. He had other news.

  “While I was in Williamsburg, Pappy, I went to the Capitol and read that Land Law,” he said. “Accordin’ to the law, that man Bedinger can’t claim enough Kentucky land to raise a flag on. Some feller there looked up the records for me, and found mention some place that a man by the name of Nalley had sort of looked over the grant years ago, about 1765, and let that pass for surveyin’. But the law says expressly the land has to be surveyed by a surveyor authorized by the masters of William and Mary College. I went to the College and looked over the names of every surveyor they’ve authorized since the College was founded, and this man Nalley, if he enrolled there, must have gone fishin’ instead of studyin’ how to use his compass.”

  Oh, Noel was talking big as Governor Jefferson himself, thought Stephanie.

  “Have you bought pre-emption rights to other land, Pappy?” asked Noel. “With the money Colonel Bowman paid you?”

  “Not yet,” said Jonathan. “Soon as we get the new neighbors settled, I aim to go to the Land Office an’ pay for a thousand acres. I reckon ’twon’t be a loss to have another thousand, even if Frohawk can’t take this away from me in court.”

  Noel pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt bosom and handed it to Jonathan.

  “You might register this for me at the same time,” he said. “It’s a military warrant for four hundred acres on the Green River for servin’ with Colonel Clark. It’s my pay.”

  Stephanie couldn’t take her eyes off Noel. He had gone away with his head hidden under his wing, and he had come back ruling the roost. But queerer than that was the way Jonathan was letting him rule the roost.

  “I reckon you can go to the Land Office with me,” said Jonathan. “Can’t you? You ain’t goin’ to Williamsburg to read law right off, are you?”

  “No,” said Noel. “There’s not much use learnin’ law till you know whose law it is you aim to practice—the new law of a free America or the old British law. I’m countin’ on goin’ first back over the mountains and join up with the patriots. I figure they need every soldier they can get. And I want to see what’s become of Uncle Lucien.”

  It wasn’t so much what Noel was saying that struck a body dumb, as the way he was saying it, upstanding and bold as if he were his own master. Jonathan wasn’t understanding him at all. Apt as not, thought Stephanie, Jonathan never would understand Noel, even if he lived to be nine hundred and sixty-nine years old, like Methuselah. But he was listening humble-like, as if he wished he could understand this boy, as if he knew for a fact that this young un of his was worth anybody’s trying to understand.

  “Reckon me an’ Rob mought go out in the spring before corn plantin’ time,” Jonathan told him, “an’ find wharabouts your claim is.”

  That would be something else for her pappy to do, thought Stephanie, some day when he saw smoke rising from the new cabins down the river and he felt crowded.

  “When we finally get our freedom and can make our own laws, then I aim to practice law here in Kentucky,” said Noel. “Maybe at Harrod’s Fort. Maybe at the Falls. The settlement there’s mushroomin’. Named Louisville for the French Louis.”

  Had Noel seen all the world, Stephanie wondered. The whole, enduring world?

  “I brought you some presents, Steffy,” Noel said. “Found ’em at a house where I stopped for the night. When the man saw I took a shine to ’em, he told me I could have ’em if I’d dig potatoes for three days. That’s one reason I was late gettin’ home. I was diggin’ potatoes.”

  He disappeared in the dark cabin loft and came back carrying two books which he laid in Stephanie’s hands.

  “This here un’s called Arithmetick, Vulgar and Decimal,” he said, putting a finger on one, “and the other is A New Guide to the English Tongue.”

  Now it was high time, thought Stephanie, for her to say her say, to spill the thought that had been growing in her own mind while Noel talked of lawyering.

  “I’m goin’ to teach school in Kentucky,” she announced. “I can already read some of the words in Pilgrim’s Progress. Now I aim to learn everything in these books this winter. Steve Whatcoat’ll help me. And when summer comes I aim
to gather up all the young uns—the Pigots, and Willie and Cassie, and all the new young uns down the river, and teach ’em to read and spell and cipher.”

  Noel laughed softly. It was like a miracle from the Bible, thought Stephanie, hearing Noel laugh as if all the tightness inside him had loosened up, and he wasn’t lonesome any more, or hurt, or lost in the way he was taking.

  “I heard tell of a Dame’s school when I was in Williamsburg,” he told her. “Girls live together in a big house and learn readin’ and spellin’ and cipherin’ and talkin’ French and embroiderin’, and a whole passel of other things besides. Reckon you could spare Steffy this winter, Mammy, to go to school in Williamsburg? And reckon we could build her a schoolhouse to teach the young uns in, Pappy, when I get home from Caroliny?”

  “Lonesome Tilly’d help build a schoolhouse, I bet,” piped up Willie. “And Steve Whatcoat.”

  Stephanie didn’t trust herself to move. Nor to speak. She was afraid she might shatter the bright magic of the words Noel had spoken. Why, she thought, all this was like Uncle Lucien’s puzzle cut out of a scrub line gall. A body got the first pieces together easily enough, but then he struck a snag. He worked on it and worked on it, and he felt like quitting and putting it away in a corner of the loft because he couldn’t finish it. Then, he wasn’t sure how, he got another piece to fit, then another. And all at once, the rest of the pieces slipped in easily.

  “Want to hear a ballet I learned in Virginny?” asked Noel.

  He reached inside the door and picked up the dulcimer where Stephanie had left it. Laying it across his lap, he plucked the strings gently. Now, thought Stephanie, for sure, Jonathan would rise up and claim this was more liberty than he could allow any young un of his to take. But like another miracle straight from the pages of the Bible, Jonathan sat there and listened.

  Strumming the strings, Noel sang soft and lonesome-like.

  “What a court hath old England, of folly and sin,

  Spite of Chatham and Camden, Barre, Burke, Wilkes and Glynn!

  Not content with the game act they tax fish and sea,

  And America drench with hot water and tea.

  Derry down, down, hey derry down.

  There’s no knowing where this oppression will stop;

  Some say—there’s no cure but a capital chop;

  And that, I believe’s each American’s wish

  Since you’ve drenched them with tea and deprived them of fish.

  Derry down, down, hey derry down.

  Three Generals these mandates have borne ’cross the sea;

  To deprive ’em of fish and to make ’em drink tea;

  In turn, sure, these freemen will boldly agree,

  To give ’em a dance upon Liberty Tree.

  Derry down, down, hey derry down.”

  Stephanie sat staring at her pappy with fascinated eyes. Jonathan was patting his bare foot in time to the strumming.

  “Seems like I heard that ballet when I was in Virginny, too,” he spoke up when Noel finished. “That or somethin’ like hit. I can’t recollect exactly which.”

  About the Author

  Rebecca Caudill was born in Kentucky in 1899, and her childhood in Appalachia served as inspiration for much of her writing. She published over twenty books for children during her lifetime, and today they are praised for their authentic depictions of pioneer life. Caudill’s historical novel Tree of Freedom was a Newberry Honor Book in 1950. She died in 1985.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © by 1947, 1949 by Rebecca Caudill

  Cover design by Connie Gabbert

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-2517-1

  This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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