The Newcomer Read online

  “Bostoners love molasses.”

  “Aye, they do. They use it in everythin’. Baked beans and brown bread.”

  “I heard Bostoners like it best in Demon Rum.”

  Bairn whipped his head around. “Where did you hear such a thing?”

  “From the sailors. They said Boston is famous for rum.” Felix smiled his naughty-boy smile. “One called it Oh Be Joyful. Then the other one, the one with the weird glass eye—”

  “Squivvers. Mr. Squivvers to you. He’s second mate. And just look at the good eye so you don’t lose track of what yer tryin’ to say.” Poor Squivvers had a very ill-fitting glass eye.

  “Understood. So Mr. Squivvers with the weird glass eye called it Rumbullion. And still another called it Kill-Devil.”

  Bairn sighed. Anna would be horrified. The boy needed schooling. He needed someone to watch over him. He needed a family. The heel of his boot bumped against his trunk stored under his bunk. He bent over the bunk, pulled out the trunk, and opened it. “Felix, we’re going to start your schooling. Today.”

  “Thank you, no. I do not care for schooling.”

  “I dinnae give y’ a choice.”

  Felix sat upright. “What? You’re serious? But I don’t need any more lessons.”

  “Nae, y’ do. Despite not being overburdened by the need for an education, y’ need things to fill that busy mind of yours. Yer going t’ read English books, so you keep practicin’ the language. That church needs English speakers, even if they think they dinnae.” He pulled out an old newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, that could be used for scratch paper and vocabulary building. “Sums too. Addin’ and subtractin’.” He dug under a folded sweater and found a map of the world. “And geography.”

  Felix’s face crumpled with frustration. “Schooling will take up my valuable time.”

  Bairn stifled a laugh and handed him the rolled-up map of the world. “First assignment. Find Boston Harbor. Second assignment. Decipher that German letter.”

  “But Anna wants me to learn English!”

  “You’re getting plenty of English when y’ prowl around the ship and get in the sailors’ way.” He pointed at Felix. “And those aren’t the words y’ should be committing to memory.” He grinned. “But I’ll make you a deal. You help me with the dialect and I’ll help y’ with the English.”

  “No one understands you. You speak the dialect with a Scottish accent.” Felix giggled. “Even your English is hard to understand. Remember, back in Philadelphia, when you told Catrina to tell her mother that you were going to the shops over there?” He mimicked Bairn’s accent. “Am gan tae the shoaps oor air.” He burst out with a laugh. “She told Maria that you headed out to shock wheat.”

  “Aye, I remember. When I returned, she saw the loaves of bread in me hands and asked if I’d baked them meself.” Bairn chuckled. “But that’s enough of yer mockin’, lad. At least I am workin’ on bein’ understood. We both need schoolin’.”

  The laddie pressed his face into his hands hard, then took a deep, groaning breath and slowly raised his head. “I’m thirsty.” He jumped off the bunk and went to the bucket of water. “Empty. Schooling will have to wait.” The cat stretched and yawned, then curled into a ball on top of Bairn’s pillow. “The cat has a shock of white on its forehead just like that fellow.”

  “Which fellow?”

  “The newcomer. The man who joined up with the church.”

  Bairn stilled.

  Felix set the empty bucket on the ground. “Do you remember when the Charming Nancy stopped in Plymouth to water the ship?”

  Bairn was only half listening as he tucked the letter back into the envelope. “Aye. It’s the first and most important task before the long sea journey.”

  “Why hasn’t the captain watered the ship?”

  “Probably because he wants to wait to fill up in Boston.”

  “Maybe . . . but the cargo hold is already full. Big heavy barrels.”

  “With water?”

  “No. Not water. I could tell when I knocked on them.”

  Bairn sighed. “You should nae be down in the cargo hold at all.”

  But something Felix had said triggered that odd feeling to dance again on the edge of Bairn’s consciousness, a little hunch that was about to become a full-blown thought, when he heard the bells ring, sounding the watch change.

  “Time for supper!” Felix jumped off the bunk and ran to the door.

  And the thought was gone.

  12

  Jacob’s Cabin

  October 26, 1737

  The log cabin was crude, dark and dim inside, but it was watertight, snug, and well constructed, as Anna would have expected from Jacob Bauer. It measured sixteen feet wide by twenty-four feet in length. There was one door and two small windows. A large open-hearth stone fireplace at one end of the cabin furnished heat and was the only source for cooking. The walls were fairly crammed with trunks stacked on top of each other, and barrels filled the corners. A loft above served both as sleeping quarters and a place for storage of dried hay that the men would bring in from the meadow.

  It was a fine cabin for one family, but crowded and claustrophobic with five families, plus Anna. Plus the newcomer.

  On this morning, Anna’s first full day at the new land, she was outside by the fire pit, stoking it to get the flames going. The sun was shining and the wind was gently blowing—an ideal day to wash clothes. She probably should be inside helping the other women clean up after breakfast, but Maria was in a snit about something or other.

  She had asked Anna about the newcomer. “So what’s he like then, this man?”

  Anna wondered herself, and had no answer to satisfy Maria’s nosiness.

  “But you’ve just spent days with him!”

  Still, Anna had nothing much to say about the newcomer, nor did she want to share her thoughts with gossipy Maria. Her reluctance only convinced the minister’s wife that there was something she was holding back—she wasn’t!—and the morning skidded downhill from there. After months on a small ship with Maria’s moodiness, Anna preferred to stay clear.

  She picked up the fire iron and poked at the logs, studying the fire. Bairn’s face flickered in the flames. She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes. Bairn, Bairn, how could you do this, how could you have left us? How could you have left me? She opened her eyes, forcing herself to shift to the matters of the day as she lifted the heavy cauldron of water onto the trammel. She looked around for something else to do while the water heated. If she could stay busy with ordinary things, maybe she would be able to convince herself that nothing was wrong. Bairn and Felix would return, Jacob and Dorothea would come up the path through the woods today, and all would be well.

  Catrina was suddenly at her side, handing her a tin of hot coffee. “Mama said you seemed out of sorts today. She said it would be just the thing to help you get over Bairn’s desertion. You know, since he only drinks tea.”

  “I don’t need help to get over anything, as I haven’t gotten under anything to begin with.” Exasperation clipped her voice.

  “Oh.” Catrina spoke in a quiet, wounded tone.

  Anna’s sharp reply had clearly hurt her and her conscience smote her. “Catrina, I am sorry.” She cradled the tin between her hands. “I didn’t sleep well last night. Forgive me for being short with you.”

  Maybe it wasn’t Maria’s moodiness that was the problem, but hers. Bairn’s absence in this place did make her feel brittle and blue.

  The newcomer stood at the cabin door with his hands on his hips, staring at the forest as the sun limned the top of the trees. “Your bishop chose well. This is a pioneer’s paradise.”

  Anna glanced briefly at him, then looked again, longer this time. The open narrative of his face drew her right in, his warmth and cheerfulness.

  “To be among the first to settle in an untouched wilderness, especially in a setting as blessed with natural assets as this land. Surely this was how Adam and Eve must have
felt at the dawn of creation. Surely God is in this place.”

  Christian joined the newcomer at the door’s threshold. “And God will be with us today as we sickle the hay in that meadow.”

  The newcomer stepped outside to make way for him. “Is that the best way our time should be spent, sickling hay? It seems we should concentrate our efforts on scouting out the land, to choose building sites. To start building cabins.”

  “That is what Jacob Bauer talked about doing. To mow the hay, rake it, and leave it to dry.”

  “And then what?”

  “I suppose, to build fences for the livestock.” Christian seemed perplexed. “Unless Jacob has something else in mind. He should be here soon. Any day. Maybe even today.”

  Josef Gerber chimed into the discussion, his head appearing at the door behind both men. He was an energetic man, small and thin, like his wife, Barbara. “I think we should prepare the meadow to sow crops before winter arrives.” All three men peered up at the azure sky, empty of clouds.

  Christian nodded. “Yes, that should be done, as well.” He sighed a tired sigh. “There’s so much to be done.”

  “But spending all that time and energy on sowing crops doesn’t seem necessary, Josef,” the newcomer said. “Not this first year, anyway. There’s an abundance of wild animals to hunt for food. Just look.” As if on cue, a V-formation of honking geese passed overhead. “Ducks, geese, they’re filling the sky as they head south for the winter. And there’s plenty of fish in the creek.”

  Isaac appeared at the door. “So what do you propose, newcomer?” There was a tone in Isaac’s voice that made Anna stop stoking the fire and turn toward the men.

  “We don’t have long before winter settles in, a few weeks at the most. I think that our time would be best spent felling trees to clear land and build shelters for each family, and also for the livestock. With everyone helping, we can build cabins in no time. Most of the building materials are right here—logs, stones, sand, lime, and clay. Ready for the taking, if we all worked together. If we lack for anything, nails or windows or iron hinges, I will go to Germantown.”

  Isaac gave him a doubtful look. “Always eager to run off to the city, aren’t you?”

  “Just to get supplies to help keep the work going. That’s our way, is it not? Neighbor helps neighbor. There will be time enough for farming.”

  Isaac’s eyes narrowed. “So, newcomer, you think you know more than our bishop?”

  “No, not at all.” Henrik looked surprised at Isaac’s harsh tone, but Anna knew what lay behind it. Isaac blamed them both for Peter’s unexpected departure.

  “Then we will wait until Jacob arrives before we start building shelters. And in his absence, we will do what he wants us to do. That’s our way.”

  Henrik acknowledged Isaac with a slight dip of his chin, nothing more, a sign of humility, Anna thought, before he went inside the cabin. She overheard Isaac grumble to Christian, “That boy doesn’t know anything about sickling hay or felling trees. Have you seen his hands? They are not the hands of a farmer.”

  Christian looked out at the forest. “Perhaps he’s right, though. We’re spending precious days bringing in hay for livestock we don’t have.”

  Isaac lifted his eyes to the sky. “Jacob always knows what is best.” When he lowered his head, he caught Anna staring, but she didn’t look away.

  Did Jacob always know what’s best? She wasn’t sure. Isaac frowned at her and turned on his heel to start off to the meadow, saying over his shoulder, “There’s plenty of hay that needs cutting, if that newcomer can stop talking long enough to get himself down to the meadow to work.”

  Henrik had returned to the cabin’s door and heard Isaac’s biting words. His gaze followed the man’s stiff back as he stomped down the path to the meadow.

  “Don’t pay him any mind,” Anna said, walking up to him. “He’s upset about Peter.”

  Henrik rolled his shoulders in a half shrug. “I suppose I don’t blame him.”

  A soft breeze plucked at her loose capstrings, making them dance. She tossed them out of the way, over her shoulders, then tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear. He watched her, half smiling, and she wondered what sort of look she was wearing on her own face that he felt he had to smile at her in that way.

  “No doubt I’d be just as tetchy if I were in his shoes,” he said. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a son depart his family, without warning or explanation. A betrayal to everything—everything—a father holds dear.”

  But were they still talking about Peter Mast?

  Lady Luck, Atlantic Ocean

  October 27, 1737

  Bairn walked the entire deck, checking spars and halyards. He had finished making the midnight bearing with the sextants, wrote it in the logbook, while Felix was fast asleep. This was the time that Bairn felt completely at ease. The only sound to be heard was the slapping of the waves and the sharp prow of the ship cutting through the sea. Something about the inky black of the sky around him released the tangled thoughts Bairn held tight.

  On duty, he held himself responsible to the captain and crew and gave the ship his whole attention. He liked keeping watch, walking the ship, knowing what was working and where trouble might be brewing. He liked to see the sun coming up. He walked around the upper deck with a lantern in his hand, stopping to breathe deeply of the salt air, to gaze out over the black surface of the water. He realized someone was at his elbow. A seaman stood beside him, waiting to be noticed.

  Squivvers.

  “Do y’ always take the night watch?”

  “No sir. Captain Berwick just puts me on it, sir.” Squivvers remained standing at attention, looking uncomfortable. But then, he was a nervous sort.

  “What’s on yer mind, Squivvers?”

  “Sir, are you missing someone?”

  “What makes you ask that?”

  “You’re standing at the stern of the ship. Most men of the sea face the bow. It occurred to me that you might be looking for someone.”

  A rock of truth dropped between them. Bairn dropped his chin to his chest. “Aye, yer right.” He would not have expected such a deep thought from a curiously odd, simpleminded sailor like Squivvers. “I had a family. Right there, right in my hands. Everything I’d ever wanted—a family, a woman to love. And I walked away from it.”

  Bairn’s life story spilled out of him, all of it, including that he had thought he would marry Anna and remain with the church. “But with each passin’ day, the walls began to close in on me. I started to feel my life narrow down. Everything I had wanted, everything I would miss—opportunities, money, ambition, success. Mostly, my freedom and independence. It was all disappearin’.”

  Bairn explained how he had thought he could sail away with an easy conscience, or at least that the guilt would quickly fade. But even now his spirit remained troubled. His heart was not in this journey, but it was too late to turn back.

  He gave a sharp look at Squivvers and caught the uncertainty in his one good eye. Almost a frantic look.

  “I ken what yer thinkin’, Squivvers. I’ve had those same thoughts.”

  “No, sir, I was just—”

  “Y’ dinnae have to apologize. Yer absolutely right. I was on the edge of the Promised Land and turned back to go to Egypt, just like those Israelites. As a boy, listenin’ to my father’s sermons on Moses, I’d often wondered why those Israelites were ready to turn tail so quickly.” Bairn pounded his fists on the railing. “Now I understand. Returnin’ to Egypt felt safe. It was known. Even misery felt safe. They preferred the habit of slavery to arduous freedom.”

  Habits. Egyptian habits. Slavery.

  It was a difficult thing to be free.

  Squivvers’s face had gone bright red. He shifted from one foot to the other, acutely uncomfortable. “Sir, are you finished?”

  He glanced at Squivvers. He might have said more than he intended to the sailor, but what did it matter? Perhaps there might be something wi
se inside of that curiously odd sailor’s head. Something profound, something to help him set things straight. “Aye.”

  “I was just asking in case you had thought your brother might have gone overboard.” He tipped his head toward the stern’s railing.

  “Why? Is the laddie not sound asleep?”

  “No, sir. Cook found him rifling through the biscuit tin and locked him in the galley.”

  Aha. Bairn cleared his throat, mortified. So then, Squivvers hadn’t been asking him if he was missing someone on land.

  Jacob’s Cabin

  Another day had passed with no sign of Jacob and Dorothea and the infant. Anna could see that Christian, a malleable man with little confidence in his own opinions, had no idea what to do next. Jacob was the one they all depended on for guidance and direction. Josef Gerber felt they should send out a search party, but Christian was fearful that the search party could find themselves lost too. Isaac Mast insisted that the hay get mown, and that was a difficult chore to ignore. It was what Jacob had wanted them to do, and it made them feel like they were doing something. There was no time to waste.

  But what, Henrik kept persisting, about Jacob and Dorothea? Did the church not care about their time? About their lives? Of course they did. Of course, they all insisted, but there was no plan of action. The newcomer volunteered to go searching, but Christian and Isaac wouldn’t let him go—they needed his strong young back to help sickle the hay.

  All they could do was pray, Isaac said, and Christian agreed.

  Anna felt a tug at her sleeve and looked down to see Catrina by her side. “Where do you think they are?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna said. “Jacob knows these woods, though. He must’ve walked everywhere to place boundary markers.” It was unfortunate he had not communicated such vital information to anyone. Nobody doubted that Jacob had found a beautiful land for them—they just didn’t know where it started or ended.

  The newcomer, more than anyone, waxed eloquent over the terrain. “This land Jacob Bauer chose, no doubt it’s the best land in all the New World,” Henrik said. “Tucked between two rivers—the Schuylkill and the Susquehanna. Excellent irrigation, excellent fertility. Lush soil, dark and moist, like crumbled cake. I imagine it’s similar to the first Garden, set between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers.”