Lyddie Read online

  Dear Lyddie,

  The world hav not come to the end yit. But we can stil hop. Meentime I hav hire you out to M. Cutler at the tavern and fer yr. brother to Bakers mill. The paschur, feelds and sugar bush is lent to M. Wescott to repay dets. Also cow and horse. Lv. at wuns you git this.

  Yr. loving mother,

  Mattie M. Worthen

  Lyddie burst into tears. “I’m sorry, Charlie,” she said to her brother’s amazed and anxious face. “I never expected this. We were doing so good, ey? You and me.”

  He took a deep breath, reached into his pocket, and handed her a ragged kerchief.

  “It’s all right, Lyddie,” he said. “It’s all right.” When she kept her tear-streaked face buried in his kerchief, he gave one of her braids a tweak. “The world have not come to the end yit, ey?” He took the letter from her lap, and when she wiped her face and tried to smile, he grinned anxiously and pointed to their mother’s primitive spelling. “See, we can stil hop.”

  Lyddie laughed uncertainly. Her spelling was no better than their mother’s, so she did not really see the joke at first. But Charlie laughed, and so she began to laugh, though it was the kind of laughter that caught like briars in her chest and felt very much like pain.

  2

  Kindly Friends

  “She didn’t say nothing about the calf,” Lyddie said suddenly in the midst of their sorrowful packing up.

  “She got no cause to,” Charles said. “We never tell her about it.”

  “You know, Charlie, that calf is rightfully ours.”

  He looked at her, his honest head cocked, his eyes dubious.

  “No, truly. We was the ones asked Quaker Stevens to lend us use of his bull. Mama didn’t have nothing to do with it.”

  “But if they’s debts …”

  “She’s letting out the fields and the horse and cow. She’s sending you to be a miller’s boy and me to housemaid. She’s got us body and soul. We got no call to give her the calf.” She set one hand on her waist and straightened her aching back.

  “What do you aim to do with it?”

  “Hush. I’m studying on it.” Obediently, he quieted and stared in the same direction at the spindly maples that made up their stand of sugar bush.

  “It’s a nice fat heifer,” she said. “We kept it so long on its mother’s milk. We’ll get a good price for it.”

  “We’d be bound to give the money to her.”

  “No.” Her voice was sharper than she meant, ground as it was on three years of unspoken anger. “We always done that and look where it’s got us. No,” she said again, this time softly. “The money don’t go there. She’ll give it away to Uncle Judah, who’ll give it to that preacher who says you don’t need nothing ’cause the world is going to end.” She turned to her brother. “Charlie, you and me can’t think about that. We got to think about keeping this farm for when Papa comes back. We should take that money and bury it someplace, so when we get free we can come back here and have a little seed cash to start over with.”

  “Maybe she’ll sell the farm.”

  “She can’t. Not so long as Papa’s alive.”

  “But maybe …”

  “We don’t know that, now do we? We got to believe he’s coming back—or he’s sending for us.”

  “I hope he don’t send for us.”

  “We’ll persuade him to stay,” she said. She wanted for a minute to put her arm around his thin shoulders, but she held back. She didn’t want him to think that she considered him less than the man he had so bravely sought to be. “We’re a good team, ey, Charlie?”

  “Ox or mule?” he asked, grinning.

  “A little of both, I reckon.”

  They cleaned the cabin and swept out the splintery plank floor. They knew it was a rough and homely place compared to the farmhouses along the road and the ample mansions around the village green. But their father, the seventh son of a poor Connecticut Valley farmer, had bought the land and built the cabin with his own hands before their birth, promising every year to sell enough maple sugar, or oats, or potash to build a larger, proper house with a real barn attached instead of a shed which must be found through rain or blizzard. His sugar bush was scraggly and his oat crop barely enough to feed his growing family. There were stumps to burn aplenty as he cleared the land, but suddenly there was no need for potash in England and hardly any demand in Vermont. He borrowed heavily to buy himself three sheep, and the bottom dropped out of the wool market the very year he had had enough wool to think of it as a cash crop. He was an unlucky man. Even his children sensed that, but he loved them and worked hard for them, and they loved him fiercely in return.

  Pulling shut the door, which, despite all Charles’s efforts, still did not close quite flush, they remembered the bear and wondered how they could keep the wild creatures from destroying the cabin in their absence. Finally, Charles suggested that they take all the wood left in the woodpile and stack it in front of the door. It took them close to an hour to accomplish the move, but, sweating and breathing hard, they admired their fortress effect.

  That made it a little easier for them to go. Charlie rode bareback astride the plow horse, his brown heels dug into the horse’s wide flanks. Lyddie, leading the cow, followed close by. She carried a gunnysack, which held her other dress and night shift. Her outgrown boots were joined by the laces and slung over her shoulder. The long walk would be more easily done with her feet free and bare. There was no need to tie the calf. It danced around its mother’s backside, bleating constantly for her to stand still long enough for a meal.

  It was the end of May. The mud was drying in the deeply rutted roadway, but Lyddie did not watch her feet. Birds were playing in and out of the tall trees on either side of the road, calling and singing in the pale lacy greens and rusts of the new growth and the deep green of the pines and firs. Here and there wildflowers dared to dance in full summer dress, forgetting that any night might bring a killing frost.

  Lyddie breathed in the sweet air. “It’s spring,” she said. Charles nodded.

  “Do you mind too much going to the mill?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t rightly know. Don’t seem too bad. Dusty, I reckon. And not much time to be lazy, ey?”

  She laughed. “You wouldn’t know how to be lazy, Charlie.”

  He smiled at the compliment. “I’d rather be home.”

  She sighed. “We’ll be back, Charlie, I promise.” They were both quiet a moment remembering their father saying almost the same words. “Truly,” she added. “I’m sure of it.”

  He smiled. “Sure,” he said.

  They were in sight now of Quaker Stevens’s farm. They could see him, his broad-brimmed straight black hat surrounded by the black hats of his three grown sons. They had the oxen yoked to a sled, which was already half loaded with stones, and were digging away at more stones buried in a newly cleared field.

  Their farmhouse, close to the road, had been added onto over the years. The outlines of the first saltbox could be made out on the northern end, which melted on the backside into a larger frame Cape Cod, then an ell that served as shed, storage, privy, and corridor to two barns, the larger one growing out of the smaller. They were rich for all their Quaker adherence to the simple life.

  Envy crept up like a noxious vine. Lyddie snapped it off, but the roots were deep and beyond her reach.

  Before they called out, the farmer had seen them. He waved, took off his hat to wipe his head and face on the sleeve of his homespun shirt, replaced his hat, and made his way across the field to the road.

  “I see my bull served thee well,” he said, smiling. His face was broad and red, his hair curly and gray about his ears. Great caterpillar eyebrows crowned his kindly eyes.

  “We come to thank you,” Lyddie began, thinking fast, wanting to be fair and honest but at the same time wanting a large price for the calf that she knew in her heart
was partly his.

  “Thee brought these beasts five miles down the road for that?” he asked, his woolly eyebrows high up on his forehead.

  Lyddie blushed. “The truth is, we’re taking the horse and cow to Mr. Westcott—in payment of debt, and we’re obliged to sell off this pretty calf straight away. Our mother’s put us out to work.”

  “Thee’s leaving thy land?”

  “It’s let as well,” she said, allowing just a tiny hint of sadness to creep into her voice. “Charles here and I was waiting for our father to come back from the West, but …”

  “Thee’s been alone all winter, just thee two children?”

  She could feel Charles stiffen beside her. “We managed fine,” she said.

  He took off his hat again and wiped his face and neck. “I should have come to call on my neighbors,” he said quietly.

  She sensed a weakness. “You wouldn’t be interested … no, surely not. You got a mighty herd already.”

  “I’ll give thee twenty dollars for the calf,” he said quickly. “No, twenty-five. I know the sire and he’s of a good line.” He smiled.

  Lyddie pretended to think. “Seems mighty high,” she said.

  “She’s half yours by rights,” Charles blurted out before Lyddie could elbow him quiet. His honesty would be her death yet.

  But the kind man persisted. “It’s a fair price for a nice fat little heifer. Thee’s kept her well.”

  He invited them in to complete their business transaction and, before they were done, they found themselves eating a hearty noon dinner with the family. The room they sat down in was larger than the whole cabin with the shed thrown in. It was kitchen and parlor with a corner for spinning and weaving. The Quakers were rich enough to own their own loom. The meal spread out on the long oak table looked like a king’s feast to children who, until the cow freshened, had lived mostly on rabbit and bark soup, and the last of the moldy potatoes from the year before.

  The Quaker’s wife was as large and red-faced as her husband, and equally kind. She urged them to eat, for they still had a long walk ahead of them. This reminded Quaker Stevens that he needed nails. One of the boys could take them to the mill and then on to the village, he said. The cow and horse must be tethered to the back of the wagon, so it would be nearly as slow as walking until they got to Westcott’s, but, if they’d care for the ride …

  The sons had removed their hats for the meal. They looked much younger and less stern than she remembered them. The youngest, Luke, she had seen more often, back in the days when she had gone to school. He had been one of the enormous boys who sat in the back of the schoolroom—sixteen or so when she was a tiny one in the front row. She hadn’t gone to school at all since her father left. She hadn’t dared to leave the babies alone with their mother. Charles had gone for most of the four-month term up until this past winter—until it had seemed too hard. She hoped the miller would let him do some schooling. He had a good mind, not so stubborn against learning as hers seemed to be.

  Luke Stevens tied the horse and cow to the back of the wagon and then came around to give Lyddie a hand up, but she pretended not to see. She couldn’t have the man thinking she was a child or a helpless female. She jumped up the high step into the wagon and then realized she’d be squeezed between Luke and Charles on the narrow seat. She sat as tightly into herself as she could. She wasn’t used to brushing bodies with near strangers. They hardly touched one another in the family. It made her feel small and tongue-tied to be so close to this great hulk of a man.

  He wasn’t much of a talker either. He leaned forward from time to time and talked around her to Charles. He asked if Charlie knew much about the mill where he’d be working. Charles’s sweet, high-pitched boyish tones made him seem heartbreakingly young against the deep male voice of his questioner. It was so unfair. This man had both father and mother and older brothers to live with and to care for him, while little Charlie must make his way in the world alone. She felt around the bottom of the gunnysack until her fingers found the lump of coinage. She pinched the money hard to remind herself not to cry.

  “Then the farm will just lie fallow?” Luke was asking Charles.

  “No, it’s let—the fields and pasture and sugar bush for the debt. The house and shed we’ll just leave be. I hope the snow don’t do in the roofs.” Charles’s anxious concern was almost too much for Lyddie to bear.

  “Oh, they’ll be all right. And we’ll be back in a couple of years.”

  “I could stop by. Would thee like me to stop by? Shovel the snow off the roof if need be?”

  “No need …” she started, but Charles was already thanking him for his kindness.

  “I’d be obliged,” he said. “It would take the worry off. Lyddie and me aim to keep it standing against Papa’s return. Don’t make it trouble for yourself, though.”

  “It’d be no trouble,” Luke said kindly.

  “Ain’t nobody to pack down the track come snow.”

  He ignored her grumpy tone, smiling at her. “I can snowshoe it. Nothing better than a good hike on my own. That house gets mighty crowded come winter.” The way he spoke made Lyddie feel that she was the child and Charles the responsible one.

  The horse and cow were safely delivered to Mr. Westcott. His farm lay in the river plain and was already alive with shoots of new corn. Lyddie watched Mr. Westcott lead their old cow and horse away. Next to Westcott’s sleek stock, they’d look like hungry sparrows pecking in a hen yard.

  At a livelier clip they took the river road toward Baker’s Mill. “I can walk from here easy,” Charles protested, but Luke shook him off. “Faster I get home, sooner I’m hauling rocks,” he said, laughing.

  She didn’t want Luke Stevens watching while she bid Charles good-bye, but again maybe it was better. She might weaken if they were alone, and that would never do.

  “I’ll only be in the village,” she said. “Maybe you can drop up.”

  Charles put his little hand on her arm. “You mustn’t worry, ey Lyddie,” he said. “You’ll be all right.”

  She nearly laughed. He was trying to comfort her. Or maybe she nearly cried. She watched the gaping mouth of the mill swallow up his small form. He turned in the immense doorway—it was large enough to drive a high wagon through—and waved. “Let’s be going,” she said. “It’s late.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Luke nodded his head with a dip of his funny black hat. “This here is Cutler’s Tavern,” he said. They hadn’t spoken since they left the mill. “Shall I come to the door with thee?” The wagon had stopped before a low stone wall, hung with a rail gate.

  She was horrified. “No, no need,” she said. “They might not understand me riding up with a …” She scrambled to the ground.

  He grinned. “I hope to see thee before too much time is up,” he said. “Meantime, I’ll see to thy house.” He leaned over the seat. “I’ll give a look in on thy Charlie, too,” he said. “He’s a good boy.”

  She didn’t know whether to be pleased or annoyed, but he clicked his tongue and the wagon pulled away, leaving her alone in her new life.

  3

  Cutler’s Tavern

  Lyddie stood outside the gate, waiting until Luke and his wagon disappeared around the curve of the road. Then she watched a pair of swallows dive and soar around the huge chimney in the center of the main house. The tavern was larger than the Stevenses’ farmhouse. Addition after addition, porch, shed, and a couple of barns, the end one at least four stories high. The whole complex, recently painted with a mix of red ochre and buttermilk, stood against the sky like a row of giant beets popped clear of the earth.

  The pastures, a lush new green, were dotted with merino sheep and fat milk cows. There was a huge sugar maple in front of what must be the parlor door, and another at the porch, which, from the presence of churns and cooling pans, must lead into the kitchen.

  Once I walk in th
at gate, I ain’t free anymore, she thought. No matter how handsome the house, once I enter I’m a servant girl—no more than a black slave. She had been queen of the cabin and the straggly fields and sugar bush up there on the hill. But now someone else would call the tune. How could her mother have done such a thing? She was sure her father would be horrified—she and Charlie drudges on someone else’s place. It didn’t matter that plenty of poor people put out their children for hire to save having to feed them. She and Charlie could have fed themselves—just one good harvest—one good sugaring—that was all they needed. And they could have stayed together.

  She was startled out of her dreaming by a hideous roar, and before she could figure out what animal could have made such a noise, a stagecoach appeared, drawn by two spans of sweating Morgan horses, shaking their great heads, showing their fierce teeth, saliva foaming on their iron bits. The coach had rounded the curve, its horn bellowing.

  The driver was yelling as well, and then, just in time, she realized that he was yelling at her. She jumped hard against the wall. He was still yelling back at her as he pulled up the reins, the coach itself now on the very spot where she had been standing seconds before.

  Should she apologize? No, he wasn’t paying her any attention now. He was turning the team over to a boy who had run out of the shed. A woman was hurrying out of the kitchen door to welcome the passengers, who were climbing stiffly from the coach. Lyddie stared. They were very grand looking. One of the gentlemen, a man in a beaver hat and frilled shirt, turned to hand a woman down the coach step. The lady’s face was hidden by a fancy straw bonnet, the brim decorated with roses that matched her gown. Was it silk? Lyddie couldn’t be sure, never having seen a real silk dress before, but it was smooth and pink like a baby’s cheek. Around her shoulders the lady wore a shawl woven in a deeper shade of pink. Lyddie marveled that the woman would wear something so delicate for a ride to the northland in a dusty coach.