by Ron Carter
Margaret nodded approval. “Ten pounds.”
With practiced eyes the twins dug one-third of the hard grease from the buckets and dropped the large chunks into the kettle, then stepped back away from the fire to listen for the popping sounds of grease against hot metal. The women worked the grease with a large stick until it melted, and then Margaret turned to the tub that had nearly filled with leached lye water from the water barrel. They measured it into the molten grease by the gallon, and stirred until the mixture congealed.
Margaret turned to Brigitte. “Get the egg.”
One minute later Brigitte returned from the root cellar with a fresh chicken egg, and they all four gathered around the kettle to watch. Hard experience had taught all of them that the most critical part of making soap lay in leaching the lye water to a strength sufficient to congeal the molten grease enough to float a chicken egg, with just a portion of the shell showing on the surface. Margaret set the white egg in a long handled wooden spoon, and lowered it into the thick mix of lye water and grease. It bobbed out of sight for a moment, then rose and remained on the surface, showing a spot of shell just less than an inch across.
They all grinned at once, and Margaret bobbed her head in satisfaction as she dipped the egg from the kettle. “Very good. Fetch the soap buckets.”
Six empty soap buckets were stored in the root cellar, and it took the twins three trips to get them all. Margaret and Brigitte used long-handled ladles to dip the mix smoking from the kettle to fill two of the buckets. For a time the four of them stood beside the two filled buckets, watching in fascination as the mass cooled, and once again the combination of lye from the ashes and grease worked its miracle. As it cooled, the turgid mixture became clear, congealing gradually into a soft, gelatinous texture.
A sense of pride rose among them. Transforming ashes, water, and grease into clear, soft laundry soap was still a work of wonder to them. They glanced at each other, smiling, before Margaret turned to Brigitte.
“Better get dressed for work. Charity Pratt depends on you.”
Brigitte turned on her heel and hurried to the house as Margaret took a deep breath and spoke.
“Two more bushels of ashes and ten more pounds of grease. I’ll get the water.”
Ten minutes later they paused to look as the kitchen door slammed and Brigitte trotted out to them. She was dressed in a plain white blouse, pleated up the front, tight to her throat and wrists, and a full-length tan cotton skirt. Her long, honey-colored hair was combed back and caught with a white ribbon. Margaret looked at her, admiring the blue eyes, the small, turned-up nose, and beautifully shaped mouth.
“Ready?”
Brigitte nodded. Margaret’s face softened as she inspected her daughter.
“You look nice. Come home as soon as you can. Got to put the soap in the cellar and clean up the yard.”
“I know. I’ll hurry.” Brigitte was back inside the kitchen when Margaret called to her, “What time is it?”
“Ten o’clock. Five after ten o’clock.”
“You be careful.”
By one o’clock, the breeze had died, and they had dipped the second cooking into the next two soap buckets and gone into the house to eat bread with cold sliced mutton and cheese, and drink buttermilk. While Margaret covered the cooled tarts, Adam laid on the floor before the cold hearth and was instantly asleep, while Prissy collapsed in an overstuffed chair nearby and closed her eyes. Margaret quietly put away the remains of the meal, set the dishes in the pan to be washed, and went to check the bedrooms. All the beds were made.
She sat at the dining table, gently rubbing her hands together, studying the tough, hard skin of her palms and the tiny cracks that had slowly appeared in the creases, often to bleed. She had rubbed cream, then butter into them to soften them, and then a sharp smelling ointment given her by Doctor Soderquist. But the steady working with lye soap and the scrub board, and the constant grasping and twisting of heavy, dripping clothing had taken its toll. Her hands—her once beautiful hands—had been sacrificed for her children. She drew and exhaled a deep breath, set her elbows on the table, buried her face in her hands, and allowed herself ten minutes to sit in the quiet, thinking of nothing.
She stood and called, “Still one cooking to go.”
It was twenty minutes before five o’clock when Margaret pulled the cover from her hair and wiped perspiration from her forehead. At her feet were six large wooden buckets of finished soap, the last two cooling and beginning to clarify.
“Finished,” she said. “Brigitte’ll be home soon and we’ll move the soap to the root cellar. Get washed and help with supper.”
Margaret sliced cold ham and cheese while Adam fetched cool cider from the root cellar and Prissy sliced bread. They were setting their supper on the table when Brigitte opened the door and walked in. They waited while she changed clothes, then went to their knees beside their chairs for their evening prayer before they ate.
Brigitte made hot chocolate on the kitchen stove while Margaret finished the supper dishes. She was lifting the last of them into the cupboard when Prissy shouted from the parlor window, “They’re coming! They’re coming!” She ran to the door and threw it open while Dorothy Weems and her eleven-year-old daughter, Trudy, were opening the front gate in the glow of sunset. Prissy ran down the front path to meet them, and the two girls trotted arm in arm back to the house, with Dorothy following.
With the innocent abandon of children who were lifelong friends, the two girls skipped through the parlor, down the hall, into Prissy’s bedroom. Dorothy slowed as she approached the open front door. Shorter than Margaret, husky, round-faced and plain, the lines in her face and her prematurely gray hair told much of the story of her life. She had married Bartholomew Weems, a huge, homely bull of a man who had spent his life on the sea as first mate on a Massachusetts fishing boat, the only man who ever came to her door to court her. For all his rough ways, he loved her with all his heart, and she him. They named their first child Billy, who was a slightly smaller copy of his father. Trudy came along nearly ten years later, and shortly thereafter a man in the garb of a seaman knocked on Dorothy’s door and stood on her doorstep working his cap between his hands, refusing to raise his eyes as he delivered the message dreaded by every woman with a fisherman husband or son. Bartholomew Weems had gone down with his fishing boat off the Grand Banks east of Nova Scotia. Resolutely, widow Weems shouldered the task of raising her two children while she mourned the loss of her husband. She became skilled at creating beautiful braided rugs and was an accomplished seamstress.
Billy, stocky, strong as an ox, sandy hair, round, homely, open face, and Matthew Dunson, two blocks up the street, tall, dark, intense, handsome, became inseparable. Matthew was the brother Billy never had. Neither bothered to knock when they came visiting; they simply walked in the front door as though they were home. Margaret and Dorothy grew as close as sisters, and when their sons left to take up arms in the fight for liberty, every letter from them was eagerly shared.
Margaret hurried across the parlor to meet Dorothy at the open door. “Come in, come in, come in,” she exclaimed. “We made soap all day, and I’m sure we look like it, and you can probably smell the grease.”
Dorothy smiled. “You look fine.”
“Here. Sit here at the dining table. We can read the letters.”
The two women sat facing each other across the table and passed the two letters. Brigitte and Adam came to sit beside them, quietly waiting and watching as the two women read in silence. Adam saw his mother suddenly tense and her breathing slow as she reread something, then continued. The two children waited until the two women finished their silent reading and raised their heads.
Sobered, shocked, Margaret spoke first. “Billy found Caleb. Says he is well and unhurt. If that’s true, why hasn’t Caleb written?”
Dorothy saw the deep pain in Margaret’s face. “Anger. He lost John, and Matthew went away. He has to work out the anger. Give him time.”<
br />
Margaret’s chin trembled for a moment. “I worry. Only the Almighty knows how much.” She put it behind her and raised the letter. “I’ve never read such things. Valley Forge. Those poor men! Barefooted in the snow. No food. No clothing. Freezing and starving to death. Three thousand of them died, Billy said. Dead from sickness and cold. I can hardly bear thinking of Billy and Caleb there.”
Dorothy’s eyes fell and she slowly shook her head. “Nor can I.” For a moment both women were lost in their thoughts, feeling that peculiar wrenching of the heart that nature has reserved only for mothers.
After a moment, Dorothy brightened. “Billy said the worst is past. The spring run of shad in the Schuylkill River gave them food. That German general—Von Steuben?—Billy says has worked a miracle with the army. Trained them. Billy sounded proud.”
Brigitte reached for the letter from Billy, read it attentively, then passed it to Adam.
Dorothy asked, “Have you heard anything about Kathleen? That poor child. Her father a traitor. Doctor Henry Thorpe! A trusted member of our Committee of Safety. Sworn to protect us, and he turned coat in favor of the British. I still can’t believe it.”
Margaret shook her head. “Not a word about Kathleen since she left for England. I worry about her mother, Phoebe. She was not in her right mind when she found out about Henry, you know.”
Dorothy nodded. “I know. And Charles and Faith. Kathleen’s going to have to raise them. Phoebe isn’t capable.”
Adam raised his head from the letter. “It says here that Billy’s friend has been a scout for George Washington. Eli Stroud? Is that his name?”
Dorothy answered, “Yes. Eli Stroud.”
“He’s part Indian?” Adam’s eyes were wide.
“No. He’s white. His parents were taken by the Indians when he was two. He was raised Iroquois.”
“Billy says Eli Stroud has taught him a lot about the forest.”
“Yes. They went north together, up to Fort Stanwix. They were together at the battle of Saratoga last fall. Eli and Billy. They were with Benedict Arnold when he attacked that big cannon place named after a German general. Breymann? Was that it? General Arnold was badly wounded, but they won.”
Adam was instantly lost in mental images of Billy Weems and Eli Stroud conquering endless German Hessian soldiers, with General Benedict Arnold far in the distance behind them.
Brigitte broke in. “Billy said the British general—Howe—resigned, and that his officers are planning a tremendous farewell party for him.”
Dorothy turned to her. “Yes. I read about it three weeks ago, in a newspaper from Philadelphia. The last of this month. It’s supposed to be the biggest affair ever. Some British officer named John André is planning it. Thousands of pounds in money spent on it. Costumes, balls, banquets—things we’ve never heard of.”
“Billy says they’re calling it a meschianza? What’s a meschianza?”
Dorothy shrugged. “I’ve never heard the word until now.”
Margaret tossed up a hand and let it fall. “Neither have I. You’d think the British had something better to do with their time and money.”
“Not the British. They love their pomp and ceremony.”
Adam interrupted. “Billy says here that Caleb’s learned boxing. Is that part of being a soldier?”
Margaret heaved a sigh. “No. Heaven only knows why Caleb would learn boxing. Boxing is fighting, and fighting like that is for ruffians. It’s a worry.”
Dorothy glanced at the window. “It’s getting dark. We should be going soon. I didn’t bring a lantern.”
Adam turned anxious eyes to Margaret. “Hot chocolate?”
Margaret quickly stood. “My goodness, I nearly forgot. Brigitte, bring the chocolate. Adam, get those two girls out of the bedroom. Who knows what mischief they’re into, and how many of Prissy’s clothes they’ve tried on. I’ll get the tarts. Dorothy, would you get the cups and saucers? You know where they are.”
Dorothy rose from her chair. “You still have the backyard to straighten up for the Sabbath?”
“We can do it after dark.”
“Trudy and I will stay and help.”
Notes
The Dunson and the Weems families are fictional, used for purposes of portraying the Revolutionary War through their experiences.
The art of soap making as described herein was a practice common in New England, wherein housewives used ashes from their fireplaces, hot water, and grease and tallow saved from cooking to make ‘soft’ laundry soap.
The rattle-watch was a common figure in colonial New England, as he walked the streets at nightly intervals, calling out the time and weather. Most adult men in the community took their turn at “rattle-watch,” along with one boy of teenage years, to train him (see Earle, Home Life in Colonial Days, pp. 253–55; pp. 362–63).
Philadelphia
Mid-May 1778
CHAPTER II
* * *
Major Jeremy Pelham, short, muscular, aide-de-camp to Brigadier General Horace Easton, paused before the large library door to glance at his spotless British uniform, square his shoulders, and rap twice. No one was more aware than he that this morning was going to be testy. General Easton was one of two generals charged with the responsibility of staging the farewell extravaganza for the departure of General William Howe, commander in chief for British forces in the colonies. Easton was assigned to oversee the finances for the grand event, and nothing in his forty-one year military career had run so sorely against his grain.
A disgusted General Howe had signed his letter of resignation on October 22, 1777, and sent it to Parliament. May 8, 1778, General Henry Clinton was designated his successor. Howe was sailing for England early in June. His officers had voluntarily undertaken to create a farewell to surpass anything in the annals of military history. For the previous eight days, bills from the event had trickled onto General Easton’s desk, each more outrageous than the last. Yesterday Easton had exploded in profanities and stormed into the hall of the mansion serving as his headquarters, bellowing for Major Pelham.
“Get the man responsible for this debacle into my office at ten o’clock in the morning,” he had demanded.
The man responsible was Captain John André. Pelham’s frantic search for him ended at twenty minutes past four o’clock p.m. when he found André at the firm of Coffin and Anderson, negotiating for cloth and materials exceeding 12,000 pounds sterling in value. André, with an assistant, was now waiting in Easton’s anteroom with at least thirty detailed documents residing in two large leather folders.
Major Pelham stood waiting at the door with a stack of correspondence in his sweaty right hand. Ten seconds passed before the brusque, raspy voice came from within.
“Enter!”
Pelham turned the carved brass handle and pushed the polished oak door open into the library, then marched to within two paces of the handhewn, polished desk. He came to the standard British military halt with his left boot slamming down beside the right, heels touching, polished boot tips five inches apart. His shoulders were back, chest out, chin sucked in, mustache bristling, gray eyes riveted on the rock wall behind the General. Pelham was giving Easton no chance for complaint with him.
“Sir. I have the morning’s correspondence.”
Easton gestured, and Pelham set the papers on their designated corner of the desk, then snapped back to rigid attention.
“Sir. Captain John André has arrived for his appointment as ordered. With him is Captain Amos Broadhead.”
Easton laid a large quill pen on the desk and leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “Broadhead? Who is Broadhead?”
“Sir. I am informed that Captain Broadhead is to assist Captain André in responding to your questions about the . . uh . . meschianza.”
Easton’s face contorted, and he tossed one hand in the air to let it fall thumping to the desk. “Meschianza! The King’s English is apparently deficient, so we find ourselves plagued with this foreign word, mesch
ianza. Italian! Mind you, Italian! Do you know the translation? Medley! In English, it’s medley.” He gestured to two folders of papers near his right elbow and tapped the larger of the two with an index finger. “Medley? Some of the bills have arrived—in this folder. Outrageous! Nothing to do with a medley. Just the most expensive nonsense in the history of the Empire!”
“Yes, sir.” Pelham had not lowered his eyes from the far wall.
Easton came ramrod straight in his overstuffed chair. Average height, wiry, hawk-nosed, he paused to rub his eyes for a moment, then straightened his powered wig, and visibly brought himself under fragile control.
“Show them in.”
“Yes, sir.”
Easton stared at the door as it closed behind Pelham, oblivious to the opulence that surrounded him. The library was a large, ornately decorated room. Two walls were occupied by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on which he had found stored most of the classics of philosophy, art, mathematics, science, astrology, astronomy, and religions from the world over. The carpet was thick and intricately designed, and made by the hands of master weavers from India. A great stone fireplace filled the wall behind him. To his left, French doors with leaded glass panes let sunlight from a glorious Philadelphia May morning flood the room. The ornate wooden door into the hallway interrupted the book shelving in the wall opposite his desk. The mansion that Easton had commandeered for his quarters was a two-storied, six-bedroom Philadelphia masterpiece.
Easton preferred to view his acquisition of the structure philosophically: to the victor go the spoils. It sounded much less brutal and arbitrary than to argue that a conquering army had the established right to commit piracy, thievery, mayhem, and murder. By convention, they could seize whatever they wished—homes, estates, horses, carriages, food, money, drink—turn the owners out, shoot those who resisted, and surround themselves with whatever wealth and pleasures captured their fancy.