The Witch of Blackbird Pond (13 page)

CHAPTER 16

"T
HERE WILL BE
no Thanksgiving this week," announced Matthew when he came home at noontime the next day. "It seems we have no authority here in Connecticut to declare our own holidays. His Excellency, the new governor, will declare a Thanksgiving when it pleases him."

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Judith in disappointment. "We had planned such a lovely day. And Mercy has pies baked already."

"We can be thankful among ourselves that we have an abundance to eat and the good health to enjoy it."

"But there won't be any games, and the train band won't drill?"

"There is no occasion to celebrate," he reminded her. "Better for the young people to remember that idleness breeds mischief. A disgraceful thing happened last night. Never since we have lived in Wethersfield has there been such a disturbance on All Hallows Eve.

"I thought I heard some shouting," said Rachel. "It reminded me of home. In England the boys used to light bonfires and march through the streets—"

"Such things are best not mentioned," her husband silenced her. "All Saints' Day is a papist feast. But our own young people had no share in this, thank goodness. 'Twas a rowdy band of rivermen from a trading ship."

"Did they do any damage?"

"Little enough, since we have a constable who is quick to his duty. The three ringleaders are cooling their heels now in his shed, and on Lecture Day they will sit for all to see in the town stocks."

"What did they do, Father?" inquired Judith coolly. Across the table her eyes met Kit's deliberately.

"They came roistering into town just before midnight. I am sorry to tell you, Katherine, that your friend William Ashby seems to have been the only one singled out for their insulting prank."

Kit dared not ask the question, but her uncle went on.

"They illuminated his house," he told them gravely.

"You mean they burned it down?" gasped Rachel.

"No. They well might have. They put lanterns in the window frames that are waiting for the new panes. Lanterns made out of pumpkin heads, with candles inside, and unholy faces cut in the sides to show the light."

"Jack-o-lanterns!" exclaimed Judith. Kit choked suddenly on a giggle that rose unexpectedly from nowhere. Instantly she was horrified at herself, and in mortified confusion kept her eyes on the wooden trencher before her.

Her uncle shot a suspicious glare at the two girls. "Whatever they are called, they are the devil's invention. 'Twas an outrageous piece of blasphemy. I trust they will be dealt with severely."

Thursday Lecture day, the day of public punishment, was two days away. Somehow, Kit knew, she would have to endure the waiting. Though actually, she knew already what she would see. It did no good to remind herself that there were dozens of trading ships on the river, and that the
Dolphin
might well be out to sea by now. Kit had no doubt at all who one at least of the culprits in the stocks would be, and neither, by the smug set of her pretty lips, had Judith.

By Thursday noon Kit gave up trying to keep her mind on her work. No matter how she shrank from the ordeal before her, she knew she could not stay away. The one thing she could not face was the thought of taking that walk to the Meeting House in the presence of Judith. An hour before meeting time, when all the family seemed occupied, she slipped out of the house and set out along High Street with a hard little lump of dread crowding her ribs.

At first she could barely glimpse the stocks. They were surrounded by the usual crowd of idlers and passersby. It was no place for a girl alone, but she had to see. Clenching her fists tight she moved closer.

Yes, they were all three
Dolphin
men, and none of them showed the slightest sign of repentance. One of the three sat with his head down in sullen disgust. Nat and the redheaded seaman who had painted the
Dolphin's
figurehead that morning on the river were cheerfully exchanging insults with a cluster of young bound boys who had stopped to enjoy the spectacle, the two culprits holding their own in an unchastened manner that delighted the onlookers. In spite of their ready answers, the sport had been one-sided, as Kit could see by the daubs of mud that stained the rough boards of the stocks. Even as she watched, an apple core sailed through the air and bounced off Nat's forehead. A cheer went up at such marksmanship, but Nat's comment drew an even louder roar of approval.

"Watch your tongue, you scoundrel!" shouted a farmer, catching sight of Kit's flustered face. "There's a lady present."

Nat twisted his head the inch or so that the boards allowed him and stared at her without the slightest recognition. Her presence had spoiled the sport. The servant boys drifted away, and presently the three prisoners sat for a moment neglected. Impelled by some urge, half pity and half annoyance, Kit came forward from the shelter of the trees.

Nat watched her come without a flicker in his blue eyes. Now that she stood directly in front of him she could see the bruise that the careless missile had left. Suddenly she felt the tears rising.

"Kit, for heaven's sake," Nat hissed in an exasperated whisper, "get away from this place! Quick!"

Deliberately Kit stepped closer. She marked the way the tight boards were chafing the hard brown wrists. "This is horrible, Nat!" she burst out. "I can't bear to see you in this hateful thing!"

"I'm quite comfortable, thank you," he assured her. "Don't waste your pity on me. 'Tis as roomy as many a ship's berth I've slept in."

"Isn't there anything I can do? Are you hungry?"

"You can stop trying to be a lady of mercy. 'Twas well worth it. I'd gladly sit here another five hours for a sight of Sir William's face that evening."

He was impossible! With a flounce of petticoats she turned away. It did not help to note that her foolish concern had been witnessed by a whole group of early Lecturegoers. This would certainly give them something to wag their tongues over. Head held high, she forced herself to keep a ladylike pace. At the door of the Meeting House she stopped to read the posted notice.

That for stealing pumpkins from a field, and for kindling a fire in a dwelling they three shall be seated in the stocks from one hour before the Lecture till one hour after. That they shall pay a fine of forty shillings each, and that they be forbidden hereafter, on certainty of thirty lashes at the whipping post, to enter the boundaries of the township of Wethersfield.

Kit's courage failed her altogether. She simply could not go into that Meeting House. She could not bear to sit there and hear that sentence read aloud. She could not face the family, or the whispering and staring that would turn her own family pew into a pillory. Gathering her skirts about her she hurried across the green, skirted the square in a wide arc, and fled home to her uncle's house. It was the first time since she had come to Wethersfield in the spring that she had dared to miss a Thursday Lecture.

The family had already left for the Meeting House and Mercy, busy at her spinning, did not hear her return. Kit crept up the stairs, but the empty bedchamber was not the refuge she needed. She had to talk to someone. Mercy would listen with gentleness, of course. But how could she ever explain to Mercy about Nat? There was only one person who could understand.

It is a good chance to take Hannah the piece of cloth, anyway, Kit reasoned. At least this one afternoon I can be very sure of not meeting any seafaring friends there. She stole down the stairs again and took a winding path through the back meadows to Blackbird Pond.

"Don't fret, child," Hannah said philosophically, when Kit had poured out the story. "The stocks aren't so dreadful. I've been in them myself."

"But Nat is banished from Wethersfield. He won't be able to leave the ship or to come to see you any more."

"Well now, that is a shame," agreed Hannah, unperturbed. In spite of her woe, Kit had to smile. Why hadn't she remembered that ever since he was eight years old Nat had been finding his way to Blackbird Pond through devious meadow routes? Hannah knew that no threats could keep Nat from coming again. As always, here in this house, things seemed to look much less desperate.

"This William Ashby," Hannah said thoughtfully. "I never heard Nat mention him."

"He had come to call the night that Nat walked home with me. Nat met him there."

"Does thee mean he had come to call on thee?"

"Yes." Why hadn't she ever told Hannah about William?

"Is the young man courting thee, Kit?"

Kit looked down at her hands. "I guess you'd call it that, Hannah."

Hannah's shrewd little eyes studied the girl's downcast face. "Does thee plan to marry him?" she asked gently.

"I—I don't know. They all expect me to."

"Does thee love him?"

"How can I tell, Hannah? He is good, and he's fond of me. Besides," Kit's voice was pleading, "if I don't marry him, how shall I ever escape from my uncle's house?"

"Bless thee, child!" said Hannah softly. "Perhaps 'tis the answer. But remember, thee has never escaped at all if love is not there."

Presently Kit opened the door to Prudence's timid knock and was comforted by the pleasure that rushed into the child's face. Prudence had further news of the culprits.

"Nat won't be able to come to see you," she told Hannah. "They marched the three of them straight to the landing and put them on the
Dolphin.
But Nat waved to me as he went by."

"You know Nat?" Kit asked the child, surprised.

"Of course I know him. He comes to see Hannah. Last time he listened to me read."

Why should it disturb her to think of Nat's sharing the reading lessons? Kit wondered, trying to be reasonable. How many of his visits had she missed? She was a little jealous to think of them all here cozily together while she was hard at work in the cornfield. Annoyed at herself, she picked up the sail-wrapped bundle. "He sent you a present, though," she told Hannah brightly.

Hannah ruefully surveyed the length of gray woolen. "Now isn't that kind of Nat?" she exclaimed. "So soft and tight-woven. Much too fine for the likes of me. But thee knows, the truth is these old eyes of mine can't even see to thread a needle."

"Then Prudence and I will make you a dress," promised Kit blithely.

"Can you sew, truly?" demanded Prudence, overwhelmed at still another accomplishment.

"Of course I can sew. I've never made a woolen dress, but I learned to embroider before I was your age. I'll borrow a pattern and scissors from Mercy and you'll see!"

While the reading lesson began, Kit spread the cloth on the floor, turning it this way and that, as she had seen Mercy do, trying to plan how to use the length to the best advantage. The idea of cutting and sewing a dress by herself was novel and exciting.

"Will you really let me sew some stitches?" asked Prudence, watching her with shining eyes.

"Really and truly," promised Kit, smiling back at her. What fun it would be to make something warm and pretty for Prudence, she thought with longing. Did they never give the child anything decent to wear? Those skimpy sleeves did not even cover her elbows, and the scratchy linsey-woolsey cloth kept her thin shoulders constantly twitching.

She knew she could never give Prudence even the smallest gift. The lessons were risky enough. Looking at the child, Kit felt again a fleeting uneasiness. What misery would be the child's lot if these meetings were discovered? The miracle that had been taking place before their eyes had made it all too easy to forget the danger.

For Prudence was an entirely different child from the woebegone shrinking creature who had stood in the roadway outside the school. The tight little bud that was the real Prudence had steadily opened its petals in the sunshine of Kit's friendship and Hannah's gentle affection. Her mind was quick and eager. She had memorized the hornbook in a few day's time and sped through the primer. After that she had plunged headlong into the only other reading matter available, Hannah's tattered Bible. Kit had chosen the Psalms to begin with, and slowly, syllable by syllable. Prudence was spelling out the lines, while Hannah sat listening, her own lips often moving with the child's in the lines she remembered and could no longer read.

There were days on end, of course, when Kit could not manage to keep the tryst. But Hannah and Prudence were fast friends now, and she knew that the reading went companionably on. There were more frequent days when Prudence could not escape her mother's sharp eye, and other days when her small face looked so pinched and exhausted that Kit wondered painfully if the child had been punished for tasks she had left unfinished. Always before she had been able to shake off her doubts. But today she had had too sharp a lesson in the retribution of this Puritan Colony. For the first time she felt a twinge of real fear.

"Hannah," she said softly over Prudence's head, "I am afraid to go on like this. What would happen if they found us out? Nat is strong enough to take it. But Prudence—"

"Yes," agreed Hannah quietly. "I know that soon thee would begin to consider that."

"What should I do, Hannah?"

"Has thee looked for an answer?"

Prudence looked up. "You won't say I can't come, Kit?" she pleaded. "I don't care what they do to me. I can stand anything, if only you'll let me come!"

"Of course you can come," said Kit, stooping to give the child a reassuring hug. "We'll find an answer, somehow. Look now, I've brought you a present, too." From her pocket she drew three precious objects that had required some ingenuity to gather, a partly used copybook from her trunk, a small bottle of ink, and a quill pen.

"'Tis high time you learned to write," she said.

"Oh Kit! Now? This very minute?"

"This very minute. Watch me carefully." Opening to a clean page she carefully wrote the child's name on the first line. "P-R-U-D-E-N-C-E. Now see if you can copy that."

The small hand trembled so that the first eager stroke sent a great blot of ink sprawling across the page. Prudence raised stricken eyes.

"Oh Kit! I've spoiled your lovely book!"