A Buss from Lafayette (10 page)

Joss put on the most innocent expression he could manage. “Peppermints? Secret hoard? I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“Oh, yes, you do, and I know where it is,” I teased in a singsong voice guaranteed to annoy my brother. “By the way, Joss, did you know that our very own stepmother here was actually switched with a ferule by a schoolmistress?”

“Really? Stings like the very devil, does it not, ma’am?” Joss winced at the memory.

Father came into the kitchen and took a concerned look at his wife. “Priscilla, you should
not
be stirring that. You need to get off your feet, my dear.”

“But it needs constant stirring, Samuel.”

“Joss will take over for you,” Father said decidedly.

“Father!” exclaimed Joss. “Cooking is women’s work! It is bad enough that I had to pick strawberries all day yesterday!”

Father said that he had important business with the bank in Concord, or he himself would stir the jam.
“Now help your mother, son,” he said in a tone that brooked no refusal.

Joss grudgingly picked up the long-handled spoon.

“I will cut up the paper to cover the jars,” Prissy said, with an apologetic look at Joss. “I should be able to handle
that
chore sitting down!”

“And you must take off that silly mobcap, Priscilla,” Father went on. “It is broiling hot in here. You need to uncover your head to stay as cool as possible. And take that silly betsy off your neck as well. There is no need to be so modest on such a hot, hot day!”

“That would be most unladylike, Samuel,” she protested.

Father laughed. “Who cares? Nobody in this kitchen does, believe me! I would rather have you bareheaded and bare-necked, no matter how scandalous that might seem to you, than to have you faint dead away on the floor. It is especially sticky today, with all this spilled sugar syrup and crushed strawberries and such. You would not enjoy hitting this floor, my dear. Not at all.”

He was right about the floor. Joss and I were even wearing our shoes to protect our feet from all the stickiness.

Prissy looked at her husband reproachfully, but reached up and pulled off her white cap and ruffled collar. After the betsy came off, I could see the gold locket that she always wore on a chain around her
neck. I knew that within it was a miniature portrait of her sister. My mother.

How I wish that locket were mine,
I thought, as I always did on the rare occasions I saw it.

“Do you know, ma’am,” said Joss. “I have never actually seen your hair in full daylight before. It is a very pretty color. The exact same color as our mother’s.”

“You and Mother were lucky enough to be blonde and not
strawberry
blonde,” I said, sulking a little.

Prissy blushed and put her hand to her head. “I feel very uncomfortable appearing before you all like this.”

“You just feel uncomfortable receiving compliments, my dear. You should get used to it,” Father said.

“Well, Caroline was the family beauty,” she said quietly. “Everyone knows that.”

“There’s room for more than one beauty in a family.” Father placed his hand on Prissy’s cheek and looked into her eyes, which were green like Mother’s and mine. “Joss is right. Your hair is lovely, my dear. Like the rest of you. Inside and out.”

Joss and I looked away from them and madly stirred our pots of preserves. What was going on? We had never heard our father talk to his new wife with such affection. I could tell it made Joss feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. I felt that way, too—not to mention more than a little bit resentful.

Father turned to us. “You must both promise me
that you will not let your mama put her cap or betsy back on, or stand at the stove, for the rest of the day.”

“All right, Father,” Joss and I chorused.

He said he would be back late and not to wait supper for him, and went out the door.

I briskly stirred the preserves in the copper pot, trying hard not to look as smug as I felt that my brother had to share yet another “girlish” task.

C
HAPTER 16

Prissy looked at Joss and sighed. “I truly am sorry, Joseph, that you have been dragooned into this.”

“That’s all right, ma’am,” said my brother. “After all, I have always wanted to
be
a dragoon!” He grinned as he stirred the boiling preserves so vigorously that the mixture slopped over the side of the pot.

I noticed that our stepmother did not admonish
him
to stir more gently.
She probably thinks it better not to correct his stirring technique, under the circumstances,
I thought, smiling a little to myself. Before I could explore this idea any further, Joss changed the subject.

“Perhaps you could help us pass the time, ma’am. Tell us about Grandfather. Mother never said much about what he experienced in the War for Independence. Was he at Valley Forge, too?”

“Yes. He used to talk about Baron von Steuben, the Prussian officer whom Benjamin Franklin sent to help us. Father thought the man was a genius, setting up the ‘School of the Soldier’ at Valley Forge and all.”

“You mean he made the soldiers go to
school
? Were they not grown men?” asked Joss, looking puzzled.

“Yes, but they did not know how to move around as an army,” Prissy explained. “That is one reason the British won at Brandywine. When Cornwallis, the British general, sneaked around the upper ford and attacked our General Sullivan’s forces from behind, there was no way to turn the untrained Continentals around to face the enemy.”

“Continentals?” I asked.

Prissy said that the trained soldiers of our army came to be called “Continentals” because they came from different colonies, but were all from the same continent.

I nodded. “And when Lafayette heard that the British were flanking our Continentals, he raced up there to rally Sullivan’s men, to spur them on to fight back against the British attack. That was when Lafayette was shot in the leg.”

Joss glanced at me. “I thought you did not learn about Lafayette in school, Clarie.”

“There are other ways to learn things, you know,” I retorted.

Our stepmother quickly interceded before our interchange escalated to our usual brangle. “All that marching around you do in militia musters, Joseph? That is largely based on von Steuben’s training manual.”

She explained how officers must be able to send
troops where they are needed on the battlefield without having them bump into each other or go the wrong direction. Both the officers and the men under their command must know the maneuvers and be able to carry them out, even when under fire.

“Ah, so
that
is what all the marching is about. I thought it was rather pointless, myself,” Joss said with a shrug. “Although I do like firing the guns, even when it is only blanks.”

“You would certainly not think the marching so pointless if, God forbid, you found yourself in a real battle and needed to know your fellow soldiers would stay at your side no matter where you were ordered to go.”

“You’re probably right,” Joss admitted, then pointed out with a grin that soon he would be riding Flame in the Troop, instead of marching with our local militia.

“Well, whether you are marching or riding, Joseph, the principle is the same: you must get to the proper place in the proper time,” Prissy said.

“So what about this ‘School of the Soldier,’ then?” I asked.

“Well, Baron von Steuben had the idea to start by training a few men, then have those men train others, who would in turn train others, and so forth. That was the ‘School of the Soldier.’”

“Smart idea,” said Joss.

“Now I shall tell you something a little, well, vulgar. But it is as much a part of history as General Washington’s language at the battle of Monmouth, so I suppose it is all right,” Prissy said, with a hint of a smile.

Prissy told us that the men had actually liked it when von Steuben himself worked with them, because he would swear up a storm in German or French when they marched in the wrong direction, and would then ask his aide to swear at them in English. “Our soldiers thought it very funny, but it worked! By the end of that terrible winter, Washington’s army was a skilled fighting force. Lafayette’s nimble escape from the British at Barren Hill was the first test of von Steuben’s training, and it worked
beautifully
, if such a thing can be said about a military maneuver.”

“Did Grandfather see the celebration at Valley Forge when the French alliance was announced?” queried Joss eagerly. “It sounds as if it was very exciting!”

“He did indeed,” Prissy said. “But when everyone was cheering at Valley Forge, they little suspected how difficult it would be for the French and American military leaders to work together. They were a little like you two: supposedly on the same side, but as prickly as porcupines!”

Joss and I exchanged a glance.

Prissy said that although the French government
had been sending us secret loans and supplies since 1776, the first overt aid they sent over was a fleet of warships in July, 1778. This French fleet was ordered to blockade Rhode Island to help the American commander, General Sullivan, dislodge the British there. D’Estaing, the French admiral, may have been rather offended at this, because no one had consulted with him beforehand about the planned venture.

“Therefore, after initially assisting the Continentals in their attack,” our stepmother said, sounding more and more like a schoolmarm, “D’Estaing and his fleet sailed away towards New York. He did seek to engage a British naval squadron after he left, but his departure left the American forces in Rhode Island to face the enemy without French support.”

Joss snorted. “I am sure we Americans did not like
that!
”

Our stepmother explained that before D’Estaing encountered the British squadron, he ran into a storm that damaged his fleet. Afterwards—again without consulting the Americans—the French admiral had sailed off to Boston to make repairs to his ships, which further offended our commanders. “I doubt the alliance would have worked in the end if not for Lafayette,” she concluded.

“He smoothed down everyone’s ‘quills?’” I asked.

“Yes, Lafayette hurried to Boston to smooth things
over. He got permission to return to France to try and get more ships and soldiers to help the Americans, and he succeeded. He was able to return and tell Washington that six thousand more troops under Rochambeau, the French general, were on the way. I know I said the other night that Lafayette did not actually win any major battles, but getting support from the French and making the alliance work? That was a major battle in itself!”

We three worked on together in the oppressively hot kitchen filled with the sweet smell of strawberries and sugar syrup. I thought it actually
smelled
sticky, but I suspected that was only my imagination. Or my imagination combined with the condition of my fingers and the soles of my shoes.

Joss and I kept stirring the jam until it was ready, then ladled it carefully into the glass jars. Our stepmother covered each jar with letter paper soaked in brandy then tied on layers of softer paper with a length of string.

Our joint efforts demanded so much concentration that I did not once stop to remember how much I disliked Prissy and her efforts to “ladify” me.

C
HAPTER 17

It was late in the afternoon when Joss and I carefully poured the last of the preserves into the last jar and our stepmother tied the last paper cover securely in place.

Prissy stood up, put her hands to her back, and surveyed the rows and rows of filled jars. “You have both done an excellent job. I think you have earned a cooling dip in the pond. Yes, you too, Clara. We shall not worry about your being a lady today. I must confess, I would like to dive into that pond, myself. I am afraid I would never manage to climb out again, however, given my current size and shape. Maybe I can at least sit on the edge and cool off my feet.”

Joss and I looked at each other. Then, without a word, we kicked off our shoes, sprinted out the kitchen door, and headed for the pond.