A Buss from Lafayette (6 page)

C
HAPTER 9

The egg-shaped stagecoach came into view at the other end of the village, and the driver soon pulled his four horses to a stop in front of the store. The leather curtains on the sides of the coach were all rolled up, so we could see that the inside seats were jammed with passengers.

The old veteran bowed to me. On a sudden impulse, I said: “
I
shall give you a buss, sir, to honor your service to our country, but I fear I have no posy to give you.”

He chuckled and bent over.

After I gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek, he climbed up to the box on the coach and sat next to the driver.

As the coachman cracked the whip above the backs of his team and the stage rumbled away, I clearly heard the veteran say to the man at his side: “You will never guess who I was mistook for yesterday.”

Now he has a truly captive audience,
I thought with a smile.
And I can buy my comb. At last!
I quickly reentered the store.

Mr. Towne had gone back behind the counter.
“Now, then, Miss Clara Hargraves. What can I do for you today?” he said in a cheerful tone.

I gave him the order and explained that we would be paying with strawberry jam in the near future.

Mr. Towne nodded and wrote down all the items in his huge ledger book. Its pages were covered with complicated patterns of words and numbers in red and black ink.

“Anything else?” the storekeeper asked briskly.

Once again, I gathered my courage. “Um . . . Mr. Towne, do you still have the Simeon Combs for sale?”

“Yes, indeed.” He stood on a ladder to reach the top shelf and took down a box. “I have them in horn, bone, ivory, tin, and lead. Do you want to buy one?”

“Yes, if I have enough money. How much do the lead ones cost?” I asked, holding my breath in suspense as I pulled the coins out of my pocket.

“Thirty cents.”

My heart sank. “Thirty? No, not today, sir.”

“I have some nice tortoise shell ones for only fifteen cents.”

I slipped the coins back through the slit in my skirt. “No. No, thank you. Good morning, sir.”

Flooded with disappointment, I managed a polite farewell curtsy to Mr. Towne and went out to where Feather was tied to the post. My distress was so great that it took me a few moments to realize that there was
no mounting block in front of the store. As there was no way I could climb up to the sidesaddle unaided—at least in any remotely “ladylike” manner—I took hold of Feather’s reins and started trudging towards home.

I soon arrived back at Dolloff’s Brook, where I led Feather to the stream for another loud slurp of a drink and took one myself. Once again I removed my bonnet. I splashed water on my face and wet down my braids. Then I took off my shoes so that I could dip my feet in the cooling water. If had to walk home, I would jolly well go with my feet and head bare, I decided. It was only reasonable in all this heat. And, after all, I had only promised to wear my shoes and bonnet in the village. Technically, I was not in the village anymore.

Suddenly I heard the sound of a large wagon coming down the hill. I peeked through the trees to the road and saw that the wagon driver was the very person who had been my chief tormentor and my brother’s best friend ever since I was in leading strings: Dickon Weeks.

At least I never followed him around like a puppy
, I thought.
But then again, maybe I did.

I hurriedly threw on my bonnet, tucked my dripping plaits beneath it, and turned away, hoping the provoking boy would not notice me.

But the provoking boy did notice me. “Well, if it is not Miss Clara Hargraves, trying to hide all her ginger hair inside her bonnet!”

I turned around and saw him sweep his wide-brimmed straw hat off his dark hair and give me a mock bow from atop the wagon seat. He jumped down from the wagon and walked over to me.

I looked up at him. Way, way up. Dickon Weeks, although only a couple of years older than me, was so tall that it hurt my neck to look so far up. Had he grown even taller since I saw him last? Under his well-patched smock, his cotton trousers barely reached his ankles, which certainly hinted that he had.
He is starting to appear as “tall and gangly” as Lafayette,
I thought.
Although he certainly lacks the Frenchman’s reputed charm.

“I just have it under my bonnet because it is cooler that way.” My tone was as frosty as I could manage, given the temperature of the air around us.

His blue eyes twinkled. “Tell me another story, Clara. There are drops of sweat coming down your neck. All that hair piled up on top of your head must make it hot as Hades inside your hat!”

“Dickon Weeks! You must not use such language in front of a girl.”

“But you do not act like any other girl I know. Remember, I have seen you dive into the pond and ride
Feather bareback and play baseball. You have a wicked arm with the bat, and your pitching is excellent, too!”

“Well, I fear you will not be seeing me do any of those things from now on. My father is selling Feather, and my stepmother says I am not to swim in the pond, or ride any horse but with a sidesaddle. She will probably add playing baseball to the list of things I must not do. Says I must learn to be a lady,” I said with a grimace.

“A lady? You?” Dickon said with a grin. “I see that Feather is wearing a sidesaddle today. How do you plan to climb up there like a lady?”

“That is none of your business, sir.”

“I can give you a leg up.”

“No, thank you. I shall do just fine by myself. I do not need any favors from you.”

“But it is uphill all the way back to your house from here. And our thermometer at home told me it is one hundred degrees today,” he said, the picture of perhaps not-so-earnest concern.

“It is uphill to our house from both the upper and lower villages, so I am used to walking uphill, no matter what the weather. Besides, it is easier on Feather if I walk beside her on such a hot day.”

“’Feather’ is a ridiculous name for a horse,” Dickon scoffed. “I have always thought so, although I do enjoy teasing Joss when he rides her. Such a silly name!”

As I had named Feather myself when I was a little girl because I thought her coat was soft as a feather, his comment riled me.

“I do not think it is ridiculous at all, and I do not care what you think about it, Dickon Weeks! Besides, your horse is named ‘Lancelot’, for heaven’s sake. A horse cannot be a knight, you know. That is just as silly a name for a horse as ‘Feather.’”

Dickon started to say something, but hesitated. Then, to my amazement, he actually blushed like . . . well . . . like a girl.

“Did you have something else to say to me, Dickon?”

“Um . . . yes, well . . . that is . . . I wondered if you are going to the dance at the Perkins Tavern on Saturday night.” Dickon fixed his blue eyes on his large, rather dirty, bare feet.

“Of course not. I hate dancing. Why ever would you think I would go to a dance?”

“Well, they say that folks of all ages are invited to come. It is to celebrate the beginning of summer, or something like that.”

“I do not really celebrate summer anymore. Not since I got too old to attend school in the summertime.”

Dickon shook his head. “How anyone can miss going to school—especially in the summer—is a mystery to me. You are such a Goody Two Shoes!”

Of all the names he could call me, “Goody Two Shoes” was the very worst. I did my best to hold onto my temper, but failed utterly.

“It is pointless to argue with ignorance, Dickon. I must get home,” I snapped.

“Wait, Clara.” Dickon put his hand to his collar as if it were suddenly too tight for him. “Um . . . if you do go to the dance, will you save a d-d-dance for me?”

This stammered request left me quite speechless—not something that happened to me often. No one had ever asked me to dance before, let alone asked me to save a dance.

I looked at Dickon suspiciously. “With you? What, so you can put a frog down my back or pull my pigtails or something?”

“No. Nothing like that. Oh, forget I said anything.”

“Yes, I will. I always do, since all you ever say are insults.”

“Insults? Me? Ha! Why would I ever bother to insult a ‘pumpkin head’ like you?” He climbed back onto his wagon seat with a rather forced laugh, then chirruped his team to move along.

For a moment, I stood and watched Dickon drive away, puzzled by his odd behavior. Then, with a shrug, I took Feather’s reins and started what promised to be an extremely long, exceedingly hot, distressingly uphill walk home.

Thursday, June 23, 1825

Unfortunately, that provoking boy was right: I could
not
get onto Feather by myself on the public road wearing a dress and pantalettes, and I
did
have to trudge all the way home. It seemed to me that the boiling white sun stretched the distance from the village to my home like hot taffy.

And it did not help that I myself was boiling over with emotions as I walked along. Was Dickon somehow making fun of me, as he had a hundred times before, or did he really want to dance with me? And did I want to dance with him? I did not know the answers to any of these questions, except, perhaps, to the last one.

You would think that my difficulties riding Feather sidesaddle yesterday would have convinced my father’s wife that it is silly for me to do so! But no, she just says it will take some time to become accustomed and that she will not allow me to ride astride again. Nor wear Joss’s breeches. Nor swim in the pond. No, no, no!!!!

But her “yesses” are worse still. Yes, I must practice my confounded embroidery stitches every single day. Yes, I must brush my hair one hundred strokes with the pig bristle brush every single night before going to bed. She keeps
saying that she knows how hard it is to do so, but since washing it with soap is far too harsh on the hair to do often, this is the only way to keep it clean and soft. I shall not mind doing this with my Simeon’s Lead Comb, but using a brush does nothing but make my arms sore and my hair as bristly as the brush.

She also has decreed that since I am not to swim in the pond, I must take a bath in the tin tub
every
single
Saturday
night!
Where will it all end?

C
HAPTER 10

Joss and I started working in the strawberry patch early in the morning. Except for a brief rest at lunchtime, we picked strawberries, strawberries, and
more
strawberries all day. We stored all of them in the springhouse, which was cooled by the water bubbling up from the ground underneath it.

The strawberries were a lovely red color, and they smelled and tasted wonderful. Still, as we filled basket after basket, the charm of the berries quickly faded. Unfortunately, the crop was all too plentiful this year and the sun all too hot. The only thing making it bearable was the absence of black flies. Luckily, what my family called “the dread black fly season” was over.

Hmm
, I thought,
Hetty is like a black fly. A really enormous black fly. You can seldom see her stings coming, but the pain of them lasts for days and days and days.

Picturing my black-haired cousin zooming in like a black fly made me chuckle as I straightened up and stretched, trying to ease the ache in my back. Sweat was pouring down my face, running in proverbial rivulets from under my straw bonnet.

Well
, I thought,
at least for once, Joss has to do “women’s work.” How wonderful that Father forbade his wife to work under the hot sun and ordered Joss to pick the strawberries with me! Prissy would not have been able to bend over in her present condition, anyway.

“Well, I have been looking for it all day, and here it is—finally!” Joss suddenly said, holding a strawberry high above his head as if in celebration of something.

“What’s that?”

“The very last strawberry. I think I have found it! Or at least it is the last one for me. I am going to take a swim in the pond. I have definitely earned it today, slaving away in this awful heat. I do not know why I had to do girl’s work, anyway. I am glad none of my friends happened by. That would have been humiliating!”

“There’s still half a row to go, Joss! You cannot leave now and make me finish alone. That’s not fair!”

“Well, it is not fair to make me pick strawberries all day, my girl, not after all the regular chores I had to do before we even started.”

“I do chores, too!”

Joss rolled his eyes. “Girl chores. That’s no work at all. Washing a few dishes, scattering a little chicken feed, milking one cow, gathering a few eggs and whatnot.”

“Do not forget weeding the garden every week, and
washing all our clothes in the tub once a month, then pressing them with the sadiron. That is very, very hard and hot work, my boy!” I protested. But it occurred to me that perhaps Joss did have a point. His work was usually much more physically laborious than mine, from plowing fields behind Humpty and Dumpty in the springtime to swinging a scythe in the autumn. He had also been driving our wagon to market in Concord since he was thirteen, younger than I was now.