by Ann Hood
“Excuse me,” she said, stepping into his path, “do you know where the Hamiltons live?”
The man took a step back into the remaining lamplight, so as to better see Maisie.
“Are you sure you mean the Hamiltons?” he asked her.
Maisie nodded. “Alexander’s family,” she said, in case Hamilton was the most common name on Saint Croix.
The man shook his head. “There is no Hamilton family,” he said. He had a big, bushy mustache and a very round, red face. “The boy lives with the Stevenses. His friend Neddy’s parents.”
The man turned to continue on his way, but Maisie said, “Why does he live with them instead of his own family?”
Stopping, the man sighed and shook his head. “The father, that would be James Hamilton, left for Saint Kitts years ago and hasn’t been seen around here since. Even when Rachel died, he didn’t come back.”
“Rachel?” Maisie asked him.
Felix rolled his eyes. Why did she need to know every single detail about Alexander Hamilton? All they really needed was to find the Stevenses’ house.
But, of course, the man was droning on. “Alexander’s mother. Rachel. She died in ’68, poor thing. Both she and the boy, Alexander, got yellow fever.”
Felix gasped. His hands went up to his throat. It did hurt, he decided.
“Yellow fever?” he managed to say. “It’s here? On this island?”
“It comes every year,” the man said, nodding. “She called Doctor Heering,” he continued, “and he did his best. They say the chicken broth the nurse gave her seemed to help for a bit, but three days later she died. The boy survived. But they took everything from him and his brother, everything except her books. He’s a smart one, that Alexander. And loves to read.”
For a moment, the man grew quiet.
“Yellow fever comes every year?” Felix managed to croak.
The man nodded again.
“Can’t you control the mosquitoes?”
At this, the man laughed. “Mosquitoes? What would they have to do with yellow fever?”
Of course, Felix realized, scratching at his mosquito-bitten knees. They hadn’t figured out yet that mosquitoes carried yellow fever.
The man began to walk away again, then turned back to the children.
“The Stevenses’ house,” he said. “Up the street here.”
Without being asked, Maisie and Felix followed him.
The sidewalks were made of inlaid tiles, and the houses—the colors of sherbet—had overhanging balconies with flowers hanging from them in long trellises. The air smelled sweet, and once again, Maisie started to relax.
“What are the symptoms of yellow fever?” Felix whispered to his sister.
But it was the man who answered. “Well,” he said, “there’s the fever itself. And the vomiting. But it doesn’t come until winter. Seems to start right around Christmas every year.”
Relieved, Felix said, “Why didn’t you say so?”
The man didn’t answer him. Instead, he pointed to a raspberry house. “The Stevenses’ home,” he said.
The house appeared to be dark, as if everyone in it had gone to sleep.
“That light burning back there,” the man said, “that would be Alexander. Probably studying.”
Maisie saw it now, the one light in the room farthest from the street.
The man tipped his hat at Maisie and Felix. “Good night then,” he said, and continued up the street.
“We can’t wake them up,” Felix said, hoping his sister would, in fact, do just that. The thought of a bed and some food and water made him almost brave enough to do it himself.
“No,” Maisie agreed. “But there’s a barn back there. We could sleep in there.” She elbowed her brother playfully. “Like at the Bartons!”
“Who would have thought that time traveling always dropped you in a barn?” Felix laughed.
He thought a minute, then he said, “You could throw pebbles up at Alexander’s window,” Felix suggested. They did that in the movies sometimes, and he always had wanted to try it himself.
“I’m not going to do that,” she said.
“Why not?”
“He might get mad at me,” Maisie said.
“Who cares if he’s mad at you!” Felix said. His sister never cared about things like that.
“I care!” she said. “And I’m sleeping in that barn. If you want to throw pebbles at his window, be my guest.”
She walked purposefully toward the barn. Felix could tell there was no changing her mind, so he walked right behind her.
The barn smelled awful, though not as bad as the wharf had. It was small, with a couple of horses in a stable and a goat in the main part. If they were going to sleep here, they would have to share the space with that goat.
“At least the hay is soft,” Felix said, trying to be optimistic.
Maisie looked at the goat. The goat eyed her warily.
“Just great,” she muttered.
Maisie and Felix curled up in opposite corners, and even though the hay was scratchy, the barn was smelly, and the goat was curious, they fell asleep immediately.
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Felix woke up the next morning with a goat staring right in his face. He’d never been this close to a goat, except for at the petting zoo in Central Park. The goat is actually kind of cute, Felix thought. But when he went to pet it, the goat opened his mouth and attempted to chomp on Felix’s hand.
“Maisie,” Felix said, “wake up or we might be this goat’s breakfast.”
Maisie groaned. “Don’t even say the word breakfast unless you have some.”
“I wish,” Felix said. “Maybe your boyfriend can get us something to eat.”
In a flash, Maisie was standing over him, eyes on fire, nostrils flaring. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said.
“Okay, okay,” Felix said, getting to his feet.
As soon as he stood up, the goat butted him, knocking him back to the ground.
“Ouch!” Felix said, rubbing his back.
Maisie pulled him up and hurried him away before the goat repeated its attack. Outside, the sun was already hot, the air still.
“Go and knock on the door,” Maisie said, nudging Felix toward the house. “Ask for Alexander.”
“I’m not doing that!”
“I just saved you from a ferocious goat,” Maisie said. “Now it’s your turn.”
Felix stared at the door, trying to summon his courage.
Before he even came close to approaching it, the door flew open and a woman stepped out. She was wearing a long dress and apron, and she carried a rug in one hand and a stick in the other. Felix watched as the woman began to beat the rug, hard, sending little puffs of dirt into the air.
Maisie shoved him forward.
“Hey,” he said.
The woman stopped beating the rug and turned sharply in their direction.
“Where in the world have you two come from?” she said.
“We’ve been at sea,” Maisie told her.
“You poor things! In what country did you find those terrible clothes?”
Maisie looked down at her jeans and fleece vest. “The colonies,” she answered.
The woman tsked.
“We’re looking for Alexander,” Maisie said. “Hamilton?”
“He’s already down at Beekman and Cruger,” the woman said. “There’s an auction today, and he had to get ready.”
Felix had gone to an auction once with their mother. Some rich person had died and all of her belongings were up for sale. Fancy clocks and ornate silverware, china and ugly paintings, carpets and jewelry. The auctioneer had talked very quickly, so quickly that every time he spoke, Felix had giggled.
“Can kids go to the auction, too?” Felix asked the woman.
“Most everyone does,” the woman said.
She rolled the rug up and stuck it under her arm. But instead of going back inside, she stared at Maisie and Felix a bit longer.
“Would you children like some breakfast?” she asked finally.
“Yes!” Maisie said.
“Please!” Felix added.
“Come inside then,” she said.
Without hesitating, Maisie and Felix did just that.
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After eating eggs and fried bread and bananas, Maisie and Felix made their way back to King’s Street and Beekman and Cruger.
“I wonder if there’s pirate booty for auction,” Felix said.
“Doubloons!” Maisie said.
“Rubies!”
“Swords!”
Excited, they entered the building with the number 56-57 on it. Just like the day before, the large main room was empty. But from outside behind the store, they heard shouting and cheering. At the door that led out there, all they could see was a thick sea of people.
“It’s already so crowded,” Maisie said. “They must have really great stuff.”
As soon as they stepped out into the yard, they paused, confused.
More than two hundred black men huddled there. Their ribs jutted out from hunger, and their bodies had oozing lesions everywhere. Some men had dried blood on their backs or cheeks. Some had swollen eyes or lips. Burn marks from ropes circled their ankles and wrists.
“What the heck?” Maisie whispered.
A group of white men stood among them, rubbing their skin with oil until it shone in the hot sun.
Once the black men had their skin oiled, they took up hot irons and curled one another’s hair, braiding it with ropes.
“A good lot,” a man standing in front of Maisie and Felix said.
They recognized him from last night. He’d taken them to the Stevenses’ house.
“Prime slaves, they are,” he added.
“Slaves!” Maisie blurted. “You mean they’re auctioning men?”
The people around her laughed.
“Men? Hardly,” someone scoffed.
“These slaves have come from the Gold Coast and won’t even go for thirty pounds,” someone else said.
“A good mule costs more than one of these,” the man said, sending everyone into laughter again.
“You can’t have slaves!” Maisie shouted. “It’s immoral! These are human beings, you know, you can’t—”
A strong hand clapped over her mouth from behind, silencing her. Another hand gripped her arm and dragged her, kicking, out of the yard and into the store.
Once inside, she was released. She spun around and found Alexander Hamilton standing there.
“Are you a slave trader?” she demanded.
“My boss Cruger is,” he said.
“But you must stop it. Did you see how sick those men are? How hungry?”
Alexander set his violet-blue eyes on her, his face solemn.
“Don’t you think I know that?” he said quietly. “I live here. I see how these poor men have to live and the work they have to do, while the rich men sit in their fancy houses on their mahogany chairs, eating French cheeses and drinking French wine. But Nicholas Cruger is my employer. And I need this job.”
Maisie remembered what the man had told them last night. Alexander was an orphan, alone in the world.
“Still,” she said.
“Saint Croix is a neutral Danish port,” he continued. “Cargo can move through here without fussing with British laws, which tax everything that passes through there.”
“Cargo?” Maisie said. “They’re human beings. They have mothers and fathers and . . .” She stopped herself. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know that your mother died.”
“What of it?” he asked angrily. “Do you believe that being an orphan dictates my life? That I’ll be sitting here on that stool forever?”
“I just meant—”
“You just need to mind your own business,” he said. “And keep your mouth shut with all your opinions about how things should work here.”
With that, he stormed off.
The Royal Danish-American Gazette
“I hate Alexander Hamilton,” Maisie said when Felix met her outside Beekman and Cruger.
“Sure you do,” Felix said. He felt queasy after what he’d just seen. Of course he knew that people used to own slaves. He knew they treated slaves brutally. But he had never imagined anything like what he had witnessed out back.
“You okay?” Maisie asked gently. “You’re pale.”
Tears welled up in Felix’s eyes. “I can’t stand how people treated one another,” he managed to say.
“It’s terrible,” Maisie said, wrapping her arm around her brother.
“I want to go home,” Felix said through his tears.
“We are. There’s a ship tomorrow, and we’re going to be on it.”
Felix freed himself from her grasp. “No!” he said. “I want to go back to Newport. I want it to be the twenty-first century, and I want Mom making dinner and you across the hall on the computer—”
“And Dad across the world in Doha?” Maisie said.
Felix took a deep breath. “I don’t want that, but that’s how it is, Maisie. And we have to get used to it.”
“Used to it?” Maisie said angrily. “I’ll never get used to it! I don’t want Mom and Dad to be divorced. I hate it!”
Now Maisie was crying, and it was Felix’s turn to comfort her.
“I’m not saying I like it,” he said softly as he patted her back. “I’m just saying we have to accept it.”
“No!” Maisie said even more adamantly than before.
A shadow fell across them.
“What’s wrong this time?” Alexander Hamilton said.
Maisie glared at him. “Get lost!” she said. “You’re . . . you’re . . . disgusting!!”
Alexander grinned. “Quite a temper on this one,” he said to Felix.
“Nothing is fair,” Maisie cried. “Not what’s going on out back or what’s going on in my family.”
Alexander’s face grew serious. “You’re right,” he said. “But it’s our job to not be defeated by injustice. I got angry at you back there because you showed me sympathy. If I spent every day being pitied and feeling sorry for myself, I would never get to New York to study.”
Maisie wiped her eyes and nodded.
“I intend to change the world,” Alexander said.
“How are you going to do that?” Maisie said.
“I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “Maybe become a physician like Neddy. Maybe by writing great things. I still have so much more learning to do. I’ve read most of Plutarch and Pope, and of course Virgil and Horace, but I’m desperate to read everything.”
From down King’s Street came a voice calling, “Alexander! Alexander Hamilton!”
“That’s Reverend Knox,” Alexander explained.
“Here!” he called to the man.
“Ah!” Reverend Knox said. He waved a newspaper as he neared. “They printed your letter about the hurricane and how it devastated our island, Alexander! And already all of Christiansted is talking about it.” The reverend, a tall man with severe posture, spoke with a thick Scottish accent. “You must come with me to my office. Everyone is gathered there, and they want to see you.”
Alexander’s eyes sparkled. “This could be it, Reverend,” he said. “What I’ve been waiting for.”
Reverend Knox stood in front of them now, nodding. “You need to leave the islands, son,” he said, “in order to get the education you deserve. This could be your ticket to t
he colonies.”
He handed Alexander the newspaper, which he had open to the page with the letter printed on it.
As Alexander read, Maisie and Felix peered over his shoulder, reading along with him.
“I appreciate your introduction to my letter,” Alexander said.
“All true,” the reverend said.
Even though the letter was about the hurricane that had hit Saint Croix two months earlier, the language Alexander used was so overdramatic that Maisie had to try hard not to laugh. It was all dost thou and vile this and vile that, with lots of exclamation points, which her teacher back home, Mrs. Witherspoon, said were the sign of a bad writer.
But when Alexander looked up from the newspaper, he was clearly moved.
“My gratitude—” he began.
“Nonsense!” Reverend Knox said, holding up his hand as if to stop Alexander’s apology.
Alexander clutched the reverend’s hand in his own, and the older man took him into an embrace.
When they parted, Alexander turned to Maisie.
“Did you read it?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she lied.
“Then you saw the final line? Ye who revel in affluence? You see now that I am aware of this gap?”
Felix had read the whole thing and was totally impressed by it. Sure, the language was old-fashioned and even flowery, but he could recognize how well written the piece was and how passionate Alexander felt. “Yes!” he said. “It’s wonderful!”
“Thank you,” Alexander said, keeping his eyes on Maisie.
“My teacher said exclamation points are a sign of a bad writer,” Maisie blurted.
Alexander and the reverend burst into laughter.
“Who is this child?” Reverend Knox asked.
“Maisie Robbins,” Maisie said. “And I’m not a child. I’m almost thirteen”
The reverend laughed again. “That would make you twelve then, wouldn’t it?”
“They’ve come from the colonies,” Alexander explained. “Rhode Island.”
“Rhode Island,” the reverend said, nodding. “I did my undergraduate studies at Yale, in Connecticut, and my postgraduate at the College of New Jersey. And I lived in Delaware for a time. So tell me, how are things in the colonies?”