The Glassblower

Children’s laughter rang through the trees. Her heart leaping to the playful sound, Meg Jordan increased her pace.

She wanted to tell everyone about her school. In less than two months, she would open the doors of the old building, and every child in Salem County, New Jersey, could learn to read and write, not just those whose parents hired a governess or sent their offspring to boarding schools. Any child wishing to do so would sit before her while she instructed them on the alphabet and sums. If all went well, she would add lessons on the history of the United States of America. For years to come, children in her district of Salem County would enjoy an education. In time all young people could remain home while they learned, instead of being sent away from their families as she had been, despite her protests.

She would start her school, fulfill her promise to her dying mother, as long as her father didn’t make her marry before she was ready to do so.

“Dear Lord, please let Father change his mind.” Her voice rose above the hilarity of the children and sigh of smoke-laden breeze through the bare branches of oaks and conifers. “Please don’t let Mr. Pyle ask for my hand. The children need me.”

And she didn’t like Joseph Pyle, owner of the farm next to her father’s. He was young enough at three and thirty, the same age as the United States and only a dozen years older than Meg. He was certainly handsome with his blond hair and blue eyes. His farm was prosperous. But his smile never reached his eyes, and he always took the most succulent slice of meat off the serving dish.

Meg laughed at herself for assessing a respected man on such flimsy details. Joseph Pyle would make a fine husband. She simply found her school more important to her than getting married. No fourteen-year-old daughter, the age Meg had been, should have to be away while her mother was ill, was dying….

She mustn’t dwell on that. She should be hunting up whoever had dumped a load of soot in the middle of the one-room building. Without windows to the building and both glassworks and charcoal burners plentiful in the area, she could expect some soot to dirty the floor. This, however, was far more than a dusting of grime. This was a mound, as though someone had removed the grate beneath a glasshouse furnace and emptied the contents of the bin in the middle of her floor. Nonsensical mischief, plain and simple, but she didn’t know how she was going to clean it or stop it from happening again, if someone was set on tomfoolery around the as yet unused building.

“I need windows,” she declared aloud. “They can even be crown glass.”

Most houses had crown glass. It was thick in the middle, and though one could only see clearly through it on the edges, it let in light and kept out the elements. It would keep out undesirable persons who sabotaged a mostly unused building, since she would be able to lock the door.

Ahead of her, the laughter of the young people shifted to yells and shrieks. Meg slowed. If the game they were playing was boisterous, she didn’t want to charge into the midst of it.

She reached the bend in the road, where a lightning-struck pine leaned over the burbling creek like an old woman drawing water. The lane widened there with a narrow track leading to several small farms and the furnaces of the charcoal burners. In the midst of the Y-shaped intersection, half a dozen boys raced from corner to corner in pursuit of several kittens.

“You’re herding cats?” Meg stopped to stare at the game.

If it was a game. It appeared more like chaos with each youth—from the youngest of perhaps five years to the eldest of somewhere around twelve—diving, ducking, and careening into one another as they charged after tiny balls of black-and-white fur. The felines also lacked a plan for their escape. They darted one way, lashed out needlelike claws to fend off a reaching hand, then sprang in the opposite direction. Boys yelled over scratches and laughed at cats somersaulting over one another.

“If you just stand still—”

Two boys no older than five or six streaked past her, jostling her to the edge of the road, and dove onto one of the kittens.

“Bring it here,” an older child called.

Meg glanced his way and caught her breath. “No, you can’t.”

The boy held up a burlap bag that bulged and wriggled, proclaiming the cat now on its way to the sack was not going to be the first occupant.

“Let them go,” Meg cried.

The boys swung toward her and froze. The still-free cats vanished from sight.

“Now look what you’ve done.” The boy with the bag glared at Meg. “They’re gettin’ away.”

“Of course they are.” Meg stared right back at him. “Would you want someone to put you in a sack?”

“I’m not a cat.” The youth of perhaps twelve years shook the bag.

A pitiful yowling rose from inside the rough fabric. “Let them go.” Meg threw back her shoulders—in an effort to make herself appear taller, more authoritative, more menacing if possible—and narrowed her eyes. “You must never harm an animal.”

“But Pa said we was to get rid of them.” One of the younger boys stuck out his lower lip. “We can’t disobey Pa.”

Meg winced. The child was right. If their father told them to do something, then they should do it. But stuffing kittens into a sack was unacceptable.

“Did he say how”—she swallowed—”you should get rid of them?”

“Nope.” The eldest boy ground the toe of his clog into the sand. “He just gave us the bag of kittens and said to take ‘em away.”

“But Davy dropped the bag and they got away,” another boy said.

“Then you should have left it at that.” Meg crossed her arms. “Indeed, set the bag down and let the others go free.”

“Can’t,” the eldest boy insisted. “It’s too close to home, and they’ll just go back.”

“Pa says they’re a menace,” another youth piped up. “He tripped over one and burned his arm on the charcoal burner.”

“Dear me.” Meg tapped her foot.

From the corner of her eye, she caught movement in the lightning-struck tree. Gray wings blended into cloudy sky as a dove took flight. In response, a plaintive
ma–row
drifted from the branches.

Meg’s heart sank. No doubt the kitten didn’t know how to get down from the tree or would slip and fall into the foaming water. It was so tiny it couldn’t possibly survive on its own.

None of them appeared old enough to survive on their own. Even if the boys let them go and the cats didn’t get back home, they probably wouldn’t live.

“All right.” Meg took a deep breath. “Round up the kittens, and I’ll take them to my father’s farm. We have so many—”

The boys’ shouts drowned out her claim that her father wouldn’t notice more cats in the barn or stable. Rough shoe-clad feet thumping and white paws flashing, boys and cats set up their game of tag. Meg watched, half amused, half concerned. Kittens scratched, and two of the boys cried out in protest then held up bleeding hands. Shortly, however, far faster than their earlier efforts, the children held all but one kitten inside the bag.

That bag pulsed and writhed in the eldest child’s hand. The
me–ews
emanating from it were enough to break Meg’s heart, and she began to wonder just how she was going to get the sack home.

“How will we get the last kitten?” the youngest boy asked, pointing to the lightning-shot pine.

Meg followed the direction of the jabbing finger and drew her brows together. The tiny cat still clung to a sturdy branch, well out over the rushing waters of the creek.

“One of you will have to climb up and get him?” The statement came out as a question and not as the suggestion she intended.

The children met it with blank faces and shakes of their identical blond heads.

“No, miss,” the eldest one finally said. “Pa don’t allow us to climb that tree.”

“Father
doesn’t
let you,” Meg said, correcting his grammar.

“That’s right, miss.” The boy nodded. “He don’t.”

Meg tightened the corners of her mouth to keep herself from smiling at his impudence. But her amusement died with a plaintive
me–ew
from the tree.

“We can’t leave him there.” She sounded about as mournful as the cat. “Please—” She snapped her lips together.

She couldn’t ask the boys to disobey their father. Nor could she let the kitten remain in the tree. It was so small an owl might get it after dark, or if it grew tired and fell, it would drown in the creek.

She glanced down at her muslin skirt. The gown was an old one she’d worn to inspect the progress of the work on the school. She could do it little harm. And what was a gown or her dignity in comparison to the life of a cat?

“I suppose there’s no help for it.” She glanced at the boys, the eldest one still holding the sack. “Leave the kittens on the edge of the road and run along home.”

At least they didn’t need to watch her make a fool of herself, and the narrowness and remoteness of the road assured her no one else would come along to witness it either. The hour was still too early for one of the Jordan or Pyle farmworkers or men from her father’s glassworks to travel home that way.

“You can assure your father the cats are gone.”

“Yes, miss.” The eldest youth drew the drawstring tight around the neck of the bag and laid it on the grassy verge of the road. Then, with shouts rather like victory cries, he raced up the track to the charcoal burners. His brothers followed. Just as they disappeared through the trees, the youngest one paused, turned back, and waved.

Meg waved back, thinking how much the children needed her school.

Yowls from the sack and a piteous squeal from the tree reminded her she’d better hurry if she intended to rescue the last kitten. First reassuring herself no one was coming along the road, she dropped her cloak next to the bag of kittens then drew the back of her skirt between her ankles up to the front and tucked it into the ribbon tied around the high waist of her gown. Shivering in the chilly October wind, she headed for the tree.

The pine was dead, seared by lightning from the previous summer. Most of the needles had long since swirled away down the stream, but the remaining branches appeared sturdy and close enough together for easy climbing. She simply hadn’t climbed a tree since she and her dearest friend, Sarah, had been fourteen. They’d hidden from some boy who wanted to cut off their plaits. Meg had climbed plenty of trees before that day when she’d decided if she was old enough for boys to flirt with her, however roughly, she was too old for hoydenish antics. She supposed no one truly forgot how to climb, except she’d never climbed a tree leaning precariously over foaming water and sharp rocks.