She opened her eyes. “Then you go. I will stay behind and come with the others.”
Jacob turned to face her, surprise etched into his face. “Are you angry?”
“Yes!”
He gave her a look heavy with meaning. “I promised you that I would not leave you again.”
Seething with frustration, she clenched her fist. She wanted to lash out and pound his chest, but she could do nothing with the men and women and children that shared these confined surroundings with them. She struggled to keep her voice low. “You are determined?”
“We’ll leave at sunup.”
She stiffened at something she heard in her husband’s voice—sharp conviction, pointed and relentless.
Jacob gave her a brief, distracted glance, and attempted to smile. “It’s only for a few days, Dorothea. Then we have a lifetime ahead of us.” Jacob rubbed the back of his neck. “God reunited us with our son. He has not failed us. Why should He fail us on the morrow?”
Her husband’s face filled with resolute calmness and she knew there would be no more debate. She was long resigned to her husband’s strong will. “I’ll find Felix. We’ll get packing.”
A guilty look flashed through Jacob’s eyes before he dropped his gaze and she braced herself. “Our Felix wants to remain behind. To stay with the others, with our Hans. To practice his English. I gave him my consent.”
At that moment, something within Dorothea weakened.
4
Philadelphia
October 18, 1737
As soon as the sun rose that morning, Jacob and Dorothea started the journey up the Schuylkill. In Dorothea’s arms was the wee babe, a scrawny little boy child, whom she seemed devoted to. The boy’s father, sixteen-year-old Peter Mast, was as equally undevoted to him. Had Anna not told him that Peter was the babe’s father, Bairn would not have discerned it. It filled him with disgust. How could men turn away from their sons so easily?
Bairn watched his parents leave with a lump in his throat. For all Jacob Bauer’s stern and serious ways, he did take the red Mutza with him. It was Bairn’s treasured possession, the only memento he had to link to his family after he was separated from them. When the time came to say goodbye, Jacob held up the red Mutza. The coat would be their beacon, a symbol to bring them together again. He raised his eyebrows at Bairn, but said nothing. His expression wore only its perpetually tired look, deep creases lining it like the rings of a tree. They shook hands, parting, he supposed, in a type of peace.
Bairn waved to them, to his imposing father and his timid mother, telling himself everything would be fine when he felt anything but. He stared up the road until there was nothing left to see.
“So that’s that, then,” Anna said.
She looked at him, waiting for him to speak. But he couldn’t seem to get his tongue to work, even to get enough air into his lungs to breathe.
That’s that, then. His parents had actually left.
Anna gave him an intense look, as if she had much to say but knew to tread carefully. “Bairn, is everything all right? I mean, the quarrel with your father . . .”
He smiled reassuringly. “All mended.” But it wasn’t. Politeness soaked his voice, but he knew that Anna could hear the undertone of doubt.
Leaving ahead of the group was naught but selfish of his father. Christian and the others could not speak English; they had no idea of how to navigate through the complicated process of immigration. They would struggle to negotiate fair prices for horses and wagons. Jacob Bauer did not waste time on such worries. He was content to leave those details to someone else.
The truth was, Bairn was grateful to have time away from his father. To think, to adjust, to sift through these monumental changes he was facing. He felt such turmoil within and had no idea how to manage such conflicting emotions. It wasn’t that turmoil was new to Bairn, but on a ship, there was little time to dwell on restless inner thoughts.
He lifted his hat from where it sat on the rock wall, paused with it in his hands, turning it around and around by the brim. “I’m headed to the Court House to see if I can find an understanding clerk and get this matter straightened out.”
“Bairn, when exactly did you become a citizen? You’ve never told me.”
“Long ago, when I was made cabin boy to Captain John Stedman. Anyone working on an English ship had to swear loyalty to the king. The captain held up a Bible, I put my hand on it, he asked if I was loyal to the crown, I said I was, and that was that.”
That was that. As if it was nothing. To Bairn, a young cabin boy on a ship, separated from his family and assuming he’d never see them again, it was nothing, just a formality. Yet it was the very thing that kept stalling the immigrants. They couldn’t go forward, they couldn’t go back, not until this issue was resolved.
She nodded. “Are you taking Felix with you?”
“Nae,” Bairn said. “Nae, I dinnae want to worry about losin’ him.” His brother was famous for disappearing. A few days ago, he spent the better part of the afternoon looking for him down by the ships, only to find him strolling behind a funeral procession that was emerging out of Christ Church. That brother of his, bright and curious and lacking in common sense, he troubled Bairn. Aye, and he also impressed him. The laddie was entirely uncomplicated.
Was he ever like Felix? He could not remember a time when he did not feel a burden for his fragile mother, his restless father.
A shudder rippled through Bairn. He did not like to revisit his childhood. Those memories quickly sent him down a spiral of despair and doubts. Suddenly he needed to go. Needed to get away from Anna, away from those heavy memories. He tipped his hat to her and strode down the gangplank of the Charming Nancy, picking up his pace with every step.
Northwest of Philadelphia
October 18, 1737
They had taken their leave in the morning, by sunup, just as Jacob intended. Dorothea had settled the baby into the pouch in front of her and gathered the reins of the mule, keeping her eyes fixed on its long brown ears.
She had said goodbye to her two sons, giving Felix multiple warnings to behave. Hans had not looked her in the eyes as she said goodbye. A public display of affection was unlikely from him, but could a son not show that he loved his mother? She was about to kick the mule to begin their journey but stopped when she felt a gentle pressure on her foot. She turned to her left and saw her firstborn son, now a man she hardly knew, standing by her side. “Take care, then.”
For a moment Dorothea was too startled to react. She tried to speak when he looked up, but her voice clogged with emotions. She knew he was suffering, knew he was torn between two worlds. Yet how does a mother pave the road of life for her son? Life, she knew, was a young man’s best teacher. But it was a harsh master.
Her boy had been changed by what had happened to him, scarred, altered deep, in ways that Dorothea didn’t understand. It frightened her, for her son seemed more lost than ever, lost to God and the church. Lost to her.
If she forced things, tried to make amends between son and father, to attempt to have the two better understand each other, her son might resent her intrusion. Her husband certainly would. Yet if she did nothing, she left her son to suffer alone.
There was so much she wanted to say to her son. And yet she could say nothing, for fear of saying too much.
And then it was too late. Jacob tugged on the mule’s reins and they were on their way north.
Philadelphia
When Bairn reached the steps of the Court House, he took them two at a time, eager to weave his way through to the front. This was a moment when his height was a great blessing, as the crowd of immigrants parted way for him. Soon, he caught the eye of the clerk and asked his advice. The clerk told him to go talk to a man named Christoph Saur in Germantown about a petition.
“Christoph Saur?”
Bairn wheeled around to face a well-dressed man. “Be y’ him?”
“Not in any way, shape, or form,” the man said, a
s if Bairn had insulted him. “But I have had dealings with him. What do you want of Mr. Saur? If it’s printing you need, I can save you the trip to Germantown. I have a print shop just a few blocks away.”
“Nae, ’tis not a print job I need. My business with Christoph Saur has to do with German immigrants. I was told he had filed a petition to allow the German Mennonites to naturalize without havin’ to swear allegiance t’ the king.”
The printer nodded. “Yes. I’m aware of that petition.” He peered up at the sky, eyes squinting behind his spectacles, as if he was sorting through files to find information. “February 1728. I wrote a story about it in the Pennsylvania Gazette. A group of Mennonites petitioned the Chester County Court—now Lancaster County—to change some wording and allow them to naturalize while meeting the dictates of their conscience. As I recall, two court officials rode forty miles on horseback to meet with the Mennonites and they came up with a solution for all.” The printer pulled out his watch piece from his pocket. “You don’t need to go all the way to Germantown to find out about it. I have some business to finish at the Court House, but I should be done by half past eleven. If you’ll meet me at my print shop, over on Market Street, between Third and Fourth Street, I believe I can locate that article for you.”
“I’ll be there. Half past eleven. I thank you.” Pleased, Bairn wove his way out of the jammed Court House and down the steps. He had a wee bit of time to himself before meeting the printer at his shop, so he veered down to Front Street to walk along the river’s edge, to breathe in the brackish air, to look downriver toward the ocean.
This was the only place he felt he wasn’t wearing a collar that was two sizes too small, just tight enough to slowly choke him. Near the water.
Far from the wilderness.
The thought of spending his life hacking and hewing his way into clearing land, backbreaking, exhausting hours spent carving farms out of forest with ax and oxcart, digging stones, hoeing weeds, felling trees—the same dull round of chores, labor and hoe. He felt a great dread.
What would Anna say if he confessed he wasn’t sure he could be the man she wanted him to be? He was accustomed to the solitary life. The only ones he answered to were the captain and the first mate. His one ambition in life was to be the captain—to not have to answer to anyone. Anna wanted a partner. A farmer. An Amish farmer. Which meant that he would be responsible to an entire community of naïve, narrow-minded farmers.
She wanted him to believe the way she believed, to accept what he could not understand without doubts. She was so pious, a woman without a single doubt. He was riddled with doubts.
What if he were to lose her? That was something he could not bear. Even more than his family, he could not lose Anna. She was like the keel to his sails, keeping him balanced and setting his course in the right direction.
Everything would be all right, he told himself. He would adjust to a plowman’s life. He would be the son his father expected, the son his mother wanted, the brother Felix needed, the husband Anna hoped for. He could do this. He would stifle his doubts. He must.
He heard church bells ring the quarter hour and turned around to walk toward Market Street, past the hustle and bustle of the warehouses, and search out the storefront to the printer’s shop. He heard someone call his name and looked across the street to see Captain Stedman, the captain of the Charming Nancy, wave frantically to him. Beside him was a thin man with a dour-looking face, intense eyes, and hair graying at his temples. The man stopped to sneeze violently into his handkerchief.
Captain Stedman crossed the street, hurrying toward him. “Bairn! Bairn! I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Felix was in no hurry to leave Philadelphia. He had developed an ideal routine for his morning: to the bake shop on Second Street just as the baker brought cookies out of the oven and offered him one, to the print shop on Market Street as the printer’s wife stopped for morning tea and offered him biscuits, to the farmer’s cart on the corner of Fourth and Market as the farmer prepared to head home and gave Felix the bruised apples that he couldn’t sell.
Felix had just finished his cookie, wiped buttery fingers on his pants, and brushed crumbs off his face as he reached the print shop. He stopped at the doorjamb and waited until the printer noticed him.
“Well, hello, my boy! Come in, come in. I’ve received another letter from that sour Christoph Saur. Here, can you interpret it for me?” He handed the letter to Felix.
It warmed Felix’s heart to be considered important. He felt as if he grew a foot in the presence of Benjamin Franklin. He read through the letter once, twice. “He wants to buy paper.”
“Yes, but why?”
Felix reread it. “He wants to make a German paper, to use German font. He does not like your Roman font, he says.”
“Ah, I see.” He took a deep breath. “At least I’ll get a new customer out of this.”
The printer took a coin out of his pants pocket and tossed it at Felix. “Thank you, son.” He reached toward a stack of paperback books, bound in the center with two large stitches, and handed one off the top to Felix. “Keep working on your English. I could have used your help when I printed the Prelude to the New World for Conrad Biessel.”
“Who is that?”
“Who’s that? Why, he’s the leader of the Ephrata Cloister. A weird or wonderful place to be, depending on your point of view. Any chance you’re heading up that way?”
Felix shook his head. “No. We are going far, far away. Soon, I think.”
“To Germantown?”
“No, but we are supposed to get wagon and horses in Germantown.” His father had said not to trust anyone unless they lived in Germantown, and even then, only trust them partially, because they weren’t Amish. He overheard his father tell Christian and Isaac about how good the food was in Germantown—that a man could close his eyes and breathe in deeply and he would be transported back to the homeland. Felix thought they should just settle in Germantown, if the food was that good.
The printer was called away by his wife to examine a board filled with tiny metal letters. “Come back before you leave for the faraway place, my boy. I’m sure I’ll be getting another letter from sour Mr. Saur. Perhaps when you’re a bit older, I’ll make you my printing apprentice. I apprenticed for my brother, until, ahem”—he winked at Felix—“he lost patience with my charming persona.”
Felix walked slowly out of the store, reluctant to leave the smell of ink and industry. He loved this city. Loved, loved, loved it.
Across the street, he caught sight of his tall brother striding down the sidewalk. Felix darted back behind the doorjamb of the Printing Office. He had to be mindful not to let Bairn see him. Two days ago, his brother found him trailing a funeral procession out of Christ Church and gave him a scolding not to cause undue worry for their mother.
But Mem was always worried.
Sometimes Felix wondered what Mem might have been like as a young woman, before tragedy swept into her life and swept away her happiness. Papa said she was always laughing. He could not imagine his mem laughing. Even when she learned that Bairn was not just the ship’s carpenter, but he was Hans Bauer, their long-lost son—even then, Mem wept. So did Papa. Anna said they were tears of joy, but to Felix, tears were tears. If you were happy, you smiled and laughed. If you were sad, you cried. It was as simple as that. When he had found out he had a brother in Bairn, he laughed. He danced! He did a jig on the docks, a little jig that a sailor had taught him. Even his papa had laughed at his little jig.
That’s how a man showed his happiness. Not with crying!
He saw Bairn stop and spin around, as if somehow he knew Felix was nearby, so he darted out of the doorway and behind a wagon. But it wasn’t Felix whom Bairn was after, it was the short, round Captain Stedman from the Charming Nancy. He had been walking up Market Street and called Bairn’s name. Felix crept under the wagon wheel to remain unnoticed.
In the gabble of greetings, Bairn and the captain s
topped to speak right at the wagon—Felix could have reached out through the wheel spokes to polish their boot tops. Circumstances couldn’t be more ideal to eavesdrop on their conversation, to sift through fragments of English words and phrases he could recognize and knit them together. Wasn’t his father always telling him to learn as much English as he could while he was in Philadelphia? They would need his English-speaking skills on the frontier, his father said, and it made Felix feel rather important. His father should try to learn English; it wasn’t very hard. Many words in their dialect sounded like English. Butter, Budder. Vater, Mater. Night, Nacht. It wasn’t so hard.
And then Felix’s happiness popped like a bubble of soap. He heard the words “ship . . . need a first mate . . . opportunity . . . and . . . money.”
Felix connected the dots. Bairn was going to go on a ship. His brother was leaving. A week ago, he didn’t even know he had a brother. And now he was leaving again. How could he do such a thing? To his parents. To Anna. To him!
But then Felix felt a wrench of excitement. He had an idea.
5
Philadelphia
October 18, 1737
Anna hurried down the gangplank of the Charming Nancy to meet Bairn as he walked toward the ship. By his determined stride, she could see he had news to tell. “Did you find a way around the oath?”
“Aye.” Bairn took off his hat and raked a hand through his hair. “The credit does not belong to me but to the combination of a kind clerk at the Court House who told me of a petition that had been filed for the Mennonites. And then I happened upon a printer on Market Street who had a copy of the petition. I think the men will be satisfied with this petition . . . and the clerks at the Court House will be satisfied. It doesn’t involve swearing an oath of allegiance to the king, but it does affirm loyalty to England.”
The Newcomer Page 4