“How long did that go on, then, Father Steed?” Lydia asked.
“Till we were about four or five. Then the boys were ‘breeched,’ as it was called. They got to wear trousers like grown-up men. That was a big day, I’ll tell you. I can still remember my breeching day. I was prouder than a mare with a new foal. I strutted around the house and the neighborhood all afternoon in my new pants. I was big stuff.”
“It was a big day for the girls too,” Mary Ann came in. “Instead of the simple dress that was the same for both boys and girls, we got to wear hooped petticoats and corsets, just like our mothers and sisters.”
Nathan chuckled. “And that was something to look forward to? I’d just as soon be tied behind a horse and dragged as wear a corset.”
Mark Griffith yawned mightily and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his fists. Jessica, now sitting beside the two boys, pushed him gently down to the blankets. He didn’t protest. Luke, watching, immediately curled up beside his brother. “I think it’s time you go to sleep,” Jessica said.
Rachel looked at her mother. “We wanna hear Grandma talk more about when she was a little girl,” she implored.
Mary Ann nodded sagely. “All right, but why don’t you all lie down. Then you can hear Grandma better.”
Even Emily accepted that as a good idea. In moments they looked like spokes on a wagon wheel—heads nearly touching as they faced Mary Ann, bodies and feet pointing away from her.
“Tell them about the Sabbath and Sunday toys,” Benjamin suggested, once they were all settled.
“Oh yes, Sunday toys. I had almost forgotten about those.” She spoke softly now, soothing them with her voice. “We all had what we called Sunday toys back then.”
Nathan and Lydia sat down beside Emily and young Joshua. Lydia began gently rubbing Emily’s back. Rebecca and Derek also found a place and made themselves comfortable. The adults were as interested in this as the children.
“You see,” Benjamin explained, “you have to remember that back then, in some parts of New England, the Sabbath day was observed very strictly.”
“In our town,” Mary Ann broke in, “it was against the law to even laugh on Sunday.”
“Oh!” young Joshua breathed.
“Really?” Emily and Rachel were likewise suitably impressed.
Mary Ann nodded and went on. “As children we weren’t allowed to whistle, to go outside and play, to have friends over, or anything like that on the Sabbath. So even the best of children got pretty hard to handle on Sunday afternoons.” She chuckled. “I’m sure now that it was out of parental desperation that Sunday toys were born.”
“So that’s why they called them Sunday toys?” Lydia asked. “Could you use them only on Sundays?”
Mary Ann nodded. “Yes, but it was more than that. They were toys that always had a religious theme. They were designed to teach something about religion or the Bible.”
“Like what?” Nathan asked.
“There were music boxes that played hymns, blocks for building toy churches. My parents gave us a game, kind of like checkers, only it was called the Game of Christian Endeavor. As we moved our pieces, it would teach us the rewards of virtue or the punishments for sins.”
She paused, her eyes softening with the memories. “But the favorite of all the Sunday toys was the Noah’s ark set.”
“Like Noah’s ark in the Bible?” Rachel asked.
“Yes, exactly,” Benjamin answered. “I can still remember. My father came back from a trip once. He had stopped at a wood-carver’s shop somewhere and bought us a Noah’s ark. Oh, it was wonderful. The ark had windows in it and a ramp you could move.” His eyes were soft with remembrance. “And Noah!”
Mary Ann laughed, looking at the adults. “I guess the carver was from England. In my set, Noah had on a black suit and string tie and a bowler hat. Derek would have loved it. I can still picture him, all formal and proper-looking. And his wife looked like an English mistress.”
“Did it have animals, Grandma?” Rachel asked, her eyes wide as she tried to imagine what it must have been like.
“Oh yes,” Mary Ann breathed, “hundreds of them. All of them in pairs. There were cows and horses . . .”
Mary Ann talked more slowly now, and let her voice drop even lower. She began to describe the animals in detail. Emily didn’t make it past the pigs and chickens. Rachel hung on through the lions and tigers and other jungle animals. Young Joshua, stubborn and fierce-willed as always, nearly made it through the mythical animals that were purely the creation of the wood-carver’s imagination. But eventually even he gave up. Mary Ann let her voice trail off to silence. She stood, and one by one the adults tiptoed through the curtain and back to their beds.
As they quietly found their places and settled in, Nathan reached across to Mary Ann’s bed and touched his mother’s arm. “That was wonderful, Mama, and not just because it got the children to sleep. I didn’t know any of that about you and Pa.”
“Yes,” Lydia agreed instantly, “it was fascinating.”
Rebecca grunted a little as she shifted the awkwardness of her weight so she could look at her parents. “I want you to do that again sometime, Mama.”
Mary Ann was surprised by the reaction of her children. “All we were doing was reminiscing a little.”
Rebecca shook her head. “Didn’t you see their eyes as you talked to them? They were seeing their grandma and grandpa in a whole new light.” She touched the bulging roundness of her stomach. “And I want our child to have that experience too.”
“Amen,” Derek said solemnly.
Mary Ann was pleased. They were crowded here in this cabin, and even in the day they were in one another’s way. But a large part of the family was together and that meant a great deal. “Thank you, children,” she said. “If that’s what you’d like, we’ll do it again sometime.”
Will Steed looked up. Though he was in near-total darkness inside the storage locker, he could tell the ship had begun to move, slowly, almost imperceptibly. It came as no surprise. He had been listening to the cry of the deckhands and the answering shouts of the dockworkers as they cast off the lines that moored the packet ship to the wharf in Savannah, Georgia.
Stiffly, Will got to his feet. The storage locker was cramped at best, and there was very little room to move around. Seventy-two hours was a long time in such narrow quarters. He reached out in the darkness, feeling for the bucket that was used for swabbing the deck and that hung from one beam. Having cracked his head on the bucket several times during his confinement, he didn’t move about until he had it located.
As he stretched, working the kinks out of his legs, he felt the current catch the bow and begin to turn the ship around. Above him, he could hear the creak of winches and the hum of rope whipping through the pulleys. They were hoisting the sails. He nodded, again not surprised. Each day about this time there was always a seaward breeze. The captain would be a fool not to capitalize on it in getting back downriver.
Will felt that last shred of hope blowing away, like sand sifting between his fingers. For a moment he was tempted to press his eye to one of the cracks of light around the door, but he knew it was futile. He had tried it numerous times. The largest crack was big enough to let him know whether it was night or day outside, but that was all. He could see nothing. Besides, he didn’t need to. He could picture the scenes outside his cell as clearly as though seeing them. Closest to the ship would be River Street, with its warehouses and shouting stevedores, with its cotton wagons rattling on cobblestones and slaves sweating in the heat and humidity until their faces glistened like the polished ebony of his mother’s piano. And directly behind the warehouses would be Factors’ Walk, where the men who bought and sold the cotton crops would come out of their offices, stand on the iron bridges that spanned the street below in a dozen places, and buy a ten- or twenty-thousand-dollar crop with the flick of a finger or the raise of an eyebrow. Factors’ Walk—where he had stood with the stranger from Missouri named Joshua Steed and introduced him to Savannah.
He swung away from the door, the utter sense of loss suddenly too intense to bear any longer. They weren’t coming. He had to face that. His mother had not gotten his letter. At least not in time. Will turned and slammed his clenched fist down against the wooden door, exulting in the stab of pain that shot through his wrist where he had broken it. It was the only real evidence he had left of his vast stupidity. He smashed it against the wood again, wincing sharply, wanting to punish himself.
Finally, reaching out to ward off the bucket, he moved back to the corner and the pile of musty blankets. He sat down heavily, cradling his throbbing arm against his chest. For almost two months now, ever since he had learned that the ship would be stopping in Savannah, thoughts of that city had sustained him, had kept him going. For almost two months now he had planned and schemed and waited for this time. Now those hopes were cruelly dashed.
He cocked his head, no longer able to hear the sounds of the waterfront. They had left Savannah. Soon they would slip past Salter’s Island and the silent walls and cannon of Fort Jackson. From there, it was only fifteen miles or so to the open sea and fully beyond any final chance of deliverance.
Feeling sick to his stomach, Will Steed dropped his head between his knees. A great and desolate sense of loneliness roared in his ears now, drowning out any last sounds that might have come had he been listening.
Chapter 2
Caroline closed the door to Olivia’s bedroom softly, then tiptoed down the hall past Savannah’s room. The door there was still open about a foot or so. Caroline glanced at it as she went by, but was not tempted to pull it shut.
As she came down the stairs, Joshua looked up from where he was reading a newspaper. His cane lay on the floor beside him. “They asleep?”
“Not Livvy. But she’s about there. She’s daydreaming about Matthew again.”
Joshua sighed. “She’s not twelve yet. When is she going to get over this silly crush?”
Caroline shrugged. “When Matthew announces he’s going to marry Jenny, I guess. That will hit her hard, but it will also be the cure.”
“You think he will?” Joshua asked.
Caroline nodded emphatically. “Haven’t you watched them together? They’ll marry. And soon, I think.”
“Well,” he said, tossing the paper aside, “if they do, they have my blessing.” He sobered noticeably. “If Jenny’s mother hadn’t hid me while I was recovering . . .” He brushed it aside, not wanting to think about the consequences. He owed a lot to the McIntires. Then Joshua remembered something. “You didn’t shut Savannah’s door, did you?”
She smiled as she shook her head. Caroline knew better than that. For being only two years old, Savannah had an incredible ability to sense, even in her sleep, when anyone violated the solemn covenant she had extracted from them never to shut her door. Caroline and Joshua had learned that no matter how quietly they managed to do it, invariably the little red head would shoot up off the pillow, there would be an angry cry of betrayal, and it would take an hour or more to settle her down again. So even after they went to bed and turned out the lamp in the hallway, they always left her door open. It wasn’t the dark that bothered her. She just did not like the thought of being shut up inside the room.
Caroline’s smile broadened. Savannah didn’t like the thought of being shut up anywhere. To even hold her in your arms was a major accomplishment. This one was like a colt, too full of life to be fettered by bonds of any kind.
Joshua was watching her. “What?” he asked.
She went to stand behind him, laying a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes softened. “I was just thinking about Savannah.”
“What about her?”
“Is she yours or mine?”
He laughed. “There’s no red hair in
my
line.”
That was true enough. Caroline’s hair wasn’t the fiery red that Savannah’s was, but it was a deep auburn. Caroline had inherited that from her mother and had also passed it on to Olivia. “Maybe not, but she’s got
your
mother’s eyes.”
Now it was Joshua who nodded. His eyes were dark brown. Caroline’s were a startling green, a gift which she had also bequeathed to Olivia. But Savannah’s were of that same clear blue purity as Mary Ann’s. He chuckled softly. “She may have gotten her grandmother’s eyes,” he agreed, “but I think she got her grandfather’s stubbornness.”
“Ha!” Caroline cried, slapping him on the shoulder. “I think you skipped a generation there, sir.”
He looked offended. “Me? Stubborn?” He pushed back his chair, grabbed her and pulled her down into his lap, then kissed her soundly. “You better watch your tongue, woman.”
“You don’t think you’re stubborn?”
“I bristle at the very suggestion.”
“Then let’s talk about moving upriver so we can be close to your family.”
The humor died in him instantly and his mouth pulled down. “Caroline, I . . . we’ve already been over that again and . . .”
His words died as she began to laugh merrily. She had trapped him neatly. She touched his nose and pushed away from him. “I rest my case, your honor.” She jumped off his lap before he could reply. “How much longer are you going to be? I’m going to write to Lydia.”
“Oh, I need to check some correspondence Samuelson sent over. Maybe half an hour.”
“All right. I’ll be upstairs.”
Caroline stared up into the darkness. Beside her, Joshua was breathing evenly, but she knew he wasn’t asleep yet. She could feel the warmth of the tears as they squeezed out from the corners of her eyes and ran down the sides of her face. After a moment, she reached out and found his hand. She held it tightly, and he, guessing at her thoughts, held her hand just as tightly.
“Why haven’t we heard from him, Joshua?”
They had gone over this again and again too. “I don’t know, Caroline.” In the past three months since they had returned to St. Louis, they had exhausted every possibility. They had scoured St. Louis and the small towns round about. Letters had been sent to Savannah and to Independence. Joshua offered a small fortune for any information about the whereabouts of his son, or the wharf rat named Charlie Patterson. It had all proved fruitless. Though he never expressed his thoughts to Caroline, he was realist enough to know that it was like looking for one pebble in a hundred miles of creek bed. His only hope was that Will would either show up in Savannah or write to his mother there. And there had been nothing. Absolutely nothing. In the last week or so, he found himself losing hope. Three months was a long time. Maybe something dreadful had happened.