Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons

by Ann Rinaldi

"Should I have?"

  "I hear tell he's asked you to marry him."

  I let my breath out, slowly. Sulie. She listened at doors. How else would he have known? I had told no one. "Yes."

  "Has he pressed his suit with Father?"

  "We have not spoken of it to anyone yet."

  "And why? Does he think you're some scullery maid to be dallied with?"

  "We haven't dallied, Nathaniel."

  "You are a ward of this family."

  "I am free," I said. "Your father freed me."

  "Ah yes." He took a long draught of chocolate, set his cup down, and wiped his mouth with his linen napkin. "So you have what you desire, then. Freedom, which cures all ills. Does it pleasure you, Phillis?"

  "I've not had time to notice."

  He laughed. "Welcome to freedom. To say it has its constraints is not to do it justice. The colonies will learn."

  I said naught, not wishing to anger him further.

  "You are still writing, I see."

  "Yes."

  "I saw your poem about Graves in the Royal American. Do you think that was wise?"

  "I did not consider the wisdom or the stupidity of it. I just wrote it," I said.

  He sighed. "Don't try to flummox me, Phillis. You have become nothing if not an artful jade."

  My face flushed. "How so?"

  "You use people. You got your friend Obour and Reverend Occom to sell your books. To say naught of poor Reverend Hopkins in Princeton, who loathes poetry."

  "I was as helpful to him as he was to me," I said.

  He waved aside my protest. "You are demure with clergymen because you need their backing. You wrote to John Thornton, the rich philanthropist, claiming that the freedom my father gave you was perhaps the deserved wages of your evil doings. When all you ever wanted was freedom. You know how pious he is, and that he might think you vain and un-Christian if you said otherwise."

  "How do you know all this?"

  "You carry my name," he said. "It would be remiss of me not to know how you are using it"

  "I have used it to no ill, Nathaniel."

  "Not yet, but you will."

  "How can you say such?"

  "Then you wrote that letter condemning Christian ministers who have slaves," he went on quietly, "and waited until two weeks after my mother died to publish it."

  "She urged me to publish it."

  He got up and went to the window and stood looking out at the rain.

  "I am a free nigra woman, Nathaniel," I said to his back. "I must do everything I can do to exist."

  "Do you wed this John Peters for a roof over your head, then?"

  "I have not said that I will wed him."

  He shrugged. "It matters little to me if you do," he said, "but I feel it incumbent upon myself that I tell you I do not like him."

  "You scarce know him," I pointed out.

  "I know of his kind. He cannot support you, Phillis. He cannot keep you in the way you have been kept here."

  "It is not my desire to have any man keep me. I shall make my way on my own. Freed by the fruits of my pen. Remember, Nathaniel?"

  "Don't use old memories on me, Phillis. They no longer suffice. The world has changed and so must we. Or we will not survive."

  "You've become hard, Nathaniel," I said.

  He turned from the window. He picked up his coat and put it over his arm. "As I must, to exist in the world. And as you never can be. Which is why I predicted once, a long time ago, that free, you would perish."

  "Thank you for your confidence in me," I said.

  He gathered up his hat and some papers that he put in an oilcloth bag. "I must go out." He walked by me to the door, then turned. "You may stay in this house as long as you wish, Phillis. Don't wed John Peters because you think you must go."

  He was staring at me intently, and for just one flicker of a moment I thought I saw some of the old Nathaniel, my old friend and mentor.

  "Thank you," I said.

  "I would, of course, be much gratified if you would look after my father. His mind is going."

  So, then, the reason for his kindness. But I know I saw something of my old Nathaniel there, something he quickly wanted to hide. "I was not planning to leave him," I said.

  He nodded briefly. Then he was gone.

  I felt myself split in two. I collapsed in a chair, crying for the effort of not betraying my true feelings for him. I plunged into the depths of my soul, sitting there, such depths as I never knew existed.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  SPRING-SUMMER 1775

  I kept my promise to Nathaniel. Seven months later, John Peters and I delivered Mr. Wheatley to the door of the Lathrops in Providence, Rhode Island.

  War had come. A month ago things had blown up between the colonials and the British in Lexington. We could no longer stay in our house with the British officers, no matter how amiable they tried to make things.

  John Lathrop had left the pulpit of Old North in March, taking Mary and their one child to Rhode Island, where he was asked to fill the pulpit of the First Congregational. Three of their four children had died in the last year, of a malignant fever.

  There was no place in Boston for ministers who defied the Crown. And no place in Boston now for us.

  It had naught to do with being Tory or Patriot. Mr. Wheatley still considered King George III his sovereign. It had to do with lack of food and candles, with living surrounded by soldiers in the streets, and with all our friends having fled.

  It had to do with the fact that at any moment Boston might explode into a million pieces, and I had to get Mr. Wheatley out.

  The first thing Mary's husband did was ask John Peters to stay. "We cannot pay you. My salary is but a pittance. But we can offer you a roof over your head. Mary is in circumstances again and we shall need help with my father-in-law. He is failing."

  "A roof I could use," John said. His stall at North End Market was gone, of course. I'd sewn money inside his coat pocket when we fled. British sentries at the Neck had searched everyone. We were not allowed to take money or food out of Boston.

  John Peters cast a look in my direction. "But there is something you should know, Reverend."

  "What is that?" Lathrop asked. "You're not planning on joining the British, like Sulie and Bristol did?"

  John Peters grinned. "No, they did it for freedom. Which I wager they'll never see. I've asked Phillis to marry me. Do you think it seemly I live under the same roof?"

  Lathrop's thin, ascetic face broke into a smile. "Splendid! I think that is splendid. Did you hear that, Mary?" He turned to his wife.

  She shrugged. "That was months ago, Phillis said. And she hasn't said yes."

  "Well, then, you must talk to her, Mary. You must tell her there is no better state than a good Christian marriage, despite all grievances."

  Mary only smiled. "Come, let's go in to supper. We are all tired and must get settled. Phillis and I will take up that question another day."

  I fell into the rhythms of the Lathrop household. I made myself useful. With another child coming, Mary certainly could use any help she could get.

  John Peters stayed.

  Should I marry him? I deferred the question. War was coming. In June, John Peters left to help dig the trenches on the hill above Boston where the Americans fought off the British. A thousand British regulars were killed. Charlestown was burned.

  I was in a fit of terror until John returned, dirty and grinning and sassy as ever. That summer an army was being formed in Cambridge with a Virginian, George Washington, at its head.

  "I'll sign on with Washington if you don't marry me," John said.

  "I won't be bullied into making up my mind. Anyway, Washington isn't taking nigras."

  "Yes, he is. Free nigras are joining."

  But he did not go. He was badly needed in and around the parsonage. The hot summer days melted, one into another. I dragged myself around, once again waiting. For what, I did not know, but after Bunker Hill ever
yone else seemed to be waiting, too, for some decisive action, some shift in the wind.

  One hot July day I sat in the garden with Mary. Little Thomas was just put down for a nap. The men were all out. We were both sewing.

  "Is there no better state than marriage?" I asked her.

  She smiled. "I did promise to take up that question with you, didn't I?"

  "Yes."

  "I love my John. But marriage is hard labor and sorrow and crosses of every kind."

  That was no answer. I waited. Surely she would say more. But she continued darning.

  "I don't know what to do," I confided. "My John is sweetness in itself. I know he wouldn't ill-use me."

  "What else is there for a woman?" Mary asked.

  "I have my poetry," I said.

  "Ah yes." She sighed. "You are a woman accustomed to her independence, Phillis. You always were. Look how you went to England. How I envied you! And now you're working on a new book of poetry! I scarce have time to read."

  "I can't support myself, Mary," I said. "It would be nice to have a husband to look to for that."

  She nodded. "He's a good man."

  "But he knows nothing of my work. He never reads it."

  "Does he object to your doing it?"

  "No."

  "Then you have no complaint. Most husbands want their wives to do nothing but sew a shirt and make a pudding."

  "I fear marriage, Mary," I said.

  She went on darning, not looking at me.

  "I lie awake nights, thinking on it. I keep asking John to wait. Then I ponder, how long will he do that before he runs off to war and gets himself killed?"

  "Do you love him?" she asked.

  I thought for a moment. "Yes," I said. And I was surprised to realize that it was true.

  She smiled. "I always thought you loved another."

  I just stared at her. Had she been sensible, then, of my love for Nathaniel? I could scarcely meet her unblinking gaze.

  "Prince," she said. "I always thought you loved Prince."

  I was flooded with relief. Tears came to my eyes. I nodded. "He was a good friend. But my spirit never quickened to him in that way."

  "Then what do you fear?"

  "I fear what will happen to me and John if we get this independence. How will nigras fit in? If I marry John, I'm his wife. I must live his life. If I don't, I'll always be accepted by whites because of my work."

  "Then you must do something so the Patriots will embrace you as their own," she said, "and your husband with you. For we shall have this independence. My John is sure of it."

  I stared at her with new appreciation. She was no silly girl anymore. She had substance now. When I'd first come, she'd embraced me warmly, as if there had never been any girlhood animosity between us. And I'd watched her these last weeks in her role as the parson's wife. She was a true helpmate to John, running the house with the help of only one hired girl.

  All this alone should have been enough to convince me of the merits of marriage, I minded.

  "That would be good, Mary," I said. "But what could I write?"

  Her smile had some of the old mischief in it. "Why not write a poem in honor of our new commander-in-chief?" she said. "Why not write a poem to George Washington? I hear he is quite a man."

  I did not act on it right away. Not until John Peters told me about this Washington who had taken command of the army.

  John had been to Cambridge. He was helping again, bringing food in from the farmers of Rhode Island, for the army.

  "You should see him, Phillis," he said.

  "Oh? And you did, I suppose?"

  "I did. I saw him riding through camp. So tall he 1›. And so solemn. The army is a shambles. The camp is thirty miles long. The men loll about and pick fights with each other. The Southern men hate the Yankees. The Southern riflemen refuse to take orders from anyone. All they do is show off with their long rifles and waste ammunition. They need food, clothing, shoes. Mischief abounds. But when Washington rides through, they all come about and take notice. You should see him, Phillis, as I did."

  "Tell me, John."

  "They call him the Fox Hunter."

  Everything about me came alert. "The Fox Hunter?"

  "Yes."

  I thought of my father. I had not thought of him in a long time. I saw him suddenly, standing with his musket in his hand, about to go to the edge of the village and hunt the black-legged mongoose. I felt my father's presence as if he were in the room with me.

  "A silence falls over everyone when Washington rides by on that white horse of his," John was saying. "They stop what they're doing, stop their fighting and lolling. They snap to attention. They know he's not hunting foxes now. The roughest Kentucky rifleman stands tall. At the same time everyone gets becalmed. He looks at you and you cringe. Like you would if God looked at you. But there is kindness, too, in that face. Oh, Phillis, I tell you, this is a man who will do good things for us all."

  "The Fox Hunter," I said again.

  "Yes, that's what they call him."

  "I would like to see him," I said.

  Still, I did not write the poem. And then, in October, the British burned the town of Falmouth in Maine, laying waste to wharves, houses, shoppes, leaving people without shelter. A Captain Mowat, who led the shelling, said he was ordered to destroy all the coastal towns. And said Portsmouth would be next.

  Here was wanton savagery. Englishmen burning the village of other Englishmen. Everyone was in a panic. And no one had doubts anymore as to what side they were on.

  I wrote the poem. And a letter. John Peters personally delivered both to Cambridge. By now he knew some officers there. They got my correspondence into Washington's hands.

  At the beginning of December I had a letter from General Washington himself, inviting me to Cambridge to meet with him.

  Chapter Forty

  DECEMBER 1775

  John Peters sat erect and proud on the wagon seat as we drove down the main road of the camp at Cambridge.

  It had snowed a bit the night before, but this afternoon the sun was out in a sky that was a blue bowl overhead. And the sun was warm.

  The scene around me made me cower close to John.

  For as far as the eye could see were men, rough men in shirtsleeves. I heard curses, shouts. Some, in leather leggings and shirts, seemed fierce and raw. They spit tobacco. They wore all manner of things slung on their persons, everything from powder horns to slabs of bacon.

  Some were drilling. Others cooking. They had no uniform but wore all manner of clothing—red worsted caps, hats of beaver, tricorns of black with clay pipes stuck in them. Some wore uniforms from the French war. All carried guns. Some of the guns were seven feet long. Others were ancient flintlocks.

  John Peters knew his way around. He pointed things out to me. "We're at the foot of Prospect Hill. That two-story farm house is called Hobgoblin Hall. It's headquarters for Charles Lee. He commands the left wing of the army. Artemas Ward has the right. Israel Putnam, the old Indian fighter, has the center. He's fifty-six years old."

  "Who are those young men drilling there on the green?"

  He laughed. "Yale students."

  Drums were throbbing, men shouting orders. I could smell wood smoke and gunpowder. Men were bending over steaming camp kettles, waving smoke away from their faces. I heard some fifes in the distance. And there were flags everywhere, flags of different sorts, snapping in the breeze.

  I felt very small and lost, riding on the wagon next to John. Like all my concerns and worries were of no account. Like all my life I'd been thinking only of my own needs, while these rough-and-tumble men were thinking of the good of us all.

  Something was happening here. Something grander than I could ever conceive with all my fancy words. Something outside my ken.

  "I feel lost, John," I said.

  "Don't worry, we're here." He drew the horse's reins up in front of a large house with shuttered windows. "This is Craigie House, Washington's headq
uarters."

  Immediately we were surrounded by young officers wearing blue and buff. The reins were taken from John's hands.

  "State your business," one young officer said.

  John gave him Washington's letter. The officer read it and looked up at me, then helped me down. "Move this wagon. Get it out of sight. Supplies are coming in," he ordered.

  John clucked to the horse and drove away. I stood watching him, a helpless, strangled feeling in my throat.

  I was once supposed to be presented to the king and queen of England at the Court of Saint James. I do not know how I would have abided the glittering court, the pageantry.

  This house was no court. By English standards it was a rude country home. But my heart hammered inside me nevertheless. Things were happening here. There was an air of purposefulness, even power.

  Inside, all was aflutter. Dozens of people, some of them officers, seemed to be moving things about. Two were carrying a heavy clothespress up the main stairway. Two others were bringing in a pianoforte. A man stood at the back door with an armload of evergreens. Behind him someone was unloading a cart of firewood.

  The officer and I stood outside a closed, polished door. "The general is busy at the moment," the officer said. "We'll just wait here."

  It was drafty in the large hall. I shivered and looked up. On the landing a man was fastening evergreens to the fat cherry banister.

  "Are they preparing for Christmas?" I asked.

  The officer smiled. "Yes. And for the arrival of Mrs. Washington. They expect her coach tomorrow."

  Washington had slaves. John Peters had told me that. How would he receive me, then? Had he ever met a free nigra woman?

  The door opened. I held my breath. A tall, broad-shouldered man in full dress uniform came out. I made ready to curtsy.

  The officer put a restraining hand on my arm. "That's General Greene," he said.

  I watched the general walk down the hall. Then the officer stood in the half-open door for a moment and, having been acknowledged, went inside.

  I heard his boots walking across the wooden floor, heard murmurings, then a man's voice raised in surprised pleasantry.