A Gathering of Days Read online

“Do you suppose we ought to’ve asked if she wished a bit of cyder?”

  Matty, too, had a question to ask; hers not of her own devising. “Are you going to marry Aunt Lucy? Sophy says her mother says that’s what you ought to do.”

  “You tell Sophy,” Father said, and poked a thread through his needle, “you tell Sophy and her mother we’re doing fine just as we are. Would you not say so, Cath’erine?”

  I nodded contentedly in agreement, liking the way he said my name, and pleased by his approval. “So if the ladies are wanting a wedding—” I rose and swung the kettle back, as he continued speaking—”they’ll have to find them another man, if not another maid.” He looked as if he might go on; did not, and fell to stitching. Presently he began to sing, putting in hums where he missed the words which for Father happens often.

  Wednesday, December 1, 1830

  I can not think what has transpired; still is my lesson book missing. Fortunately none seemed to notice that I wrote my lessons on foolscap pages. I was in fear of discovery all the day.

  Did another scholar mistake it? Surely he would have brought it to school—unless kept home on some account, & will bring it tomorrow?

  The pond ice being thick and black, as will happen when cold persists with no snow between, we disported there after school. When we girls grew weary of skating, the boys cut branches of evergreens, and quickly pronounced them royal sleighs upon which we might ride. How festively we laughed and called, pretending we were ermine’d queens, and leaning back against the boughs while, before us, the boys’ long strokes carried us over the ice.

  Among us only Sophy was spilt. Worse than that, when she tumbled over, you could see her pantaloons! I should have died of shame, I know, had it befallen me. And worse, still, than the pantaloons, it was revealed to one and all that Sophy ties, around her stocking, a piece of scarlet ribbon.

  Thursday, December 2, 1830

  Lo! my lesson book is returned, and in the queerest way!

  There is a nubbly boundary stone that separates the school house lot from the woods that belong to Wally Piper where both lots front the road. My book was there at the close of school, just as plain as any thing, as if it had been set down. At first I dared not trust my eyes, certain it could not have fallen there, and who, I asked, would place it thus, and in such risk of harm?

  However, I dwelt not on such thoughts, but taking it gladly in to my hands turned the familiar pages, each of them a friend. Then, on the cover’s inner side, just below my name and the place, a stranger and intruder amidst that company:

  PLEEZ MISS

  TAKE PITTY

  I AM COLD

  The letters seem drawn with charcoal and are raggedly formed. I know not what to make of it, nor can wait to tell Cassie and Asa.

  Friday, December 3, 1830

  I could not speak with them. Sophy met up with us on the way & dogged our steps to school. Returning, Matty had a cough; must go directly home. I supposed she had taken a chill, the weather being harsh of late, and she but a bit of a child.

  Arriving, I blew the fire up, then out to the pump to fill the kettle, and hung it to the flames. While we waited for it to heat I rubbed her feet between my hands and kept her warm with blankets. The water ready, I wrung out a flannel, sprinkled it lightly with turpentine, and laid it on her chest. This I did to prevent the cold from taking firmer hold.

  Mrs. Shipman, hearing of illness, came ’round to offer help. However, she found all I’d done in order and did not amend the treatment.

  M. is resting now.

  Father ought to be soon returned, as it is close to dark. Today he is logging with Mr. Shipman, down toward the pond, I think.

  Saturday, December 4, 1830

  When I stepped out to the yard this morning a bit of paper held beneath a stone promptly attracted my eye. Altho’ my fingers were clumsy with cold I hastened to smooth it open.

  “Wait at the rock,” it said. Altho’ it lacked a signature, I knew the writer was Asa.

  What rock, however, and when ought I wait? No other meaning seeming to fit, at last I concluded that A. knew some thing about my lesson book. Could he be the one to have taken it? No, it seemed not likely. Mayhap, its reappearance? I knew I could not puzzle it out; therefore with what eagerness did I await our meeting! How hard it was to not begrudge Father and Matty the time they took with their preparations and the morning meal. ’Twas a little of this and a little of that and “Catherine do stop fidgeting, it makes a man uneasy!” I thought he never had tarried so long over common meat and cakes—and asked for bacon too! At last with all in tidiness I set out for school.

  The sky had brightened, giving light, when I came to the rock. The wind, tho’ light, seemed to glaze my cheek, and brought tears to my eyes. I stood there clapping my feet together—they taking turns to be clapper and clapped—and marking how thin are the soles of my boots, never intended for frozen ground or standing about of a morning. Had he been there before me or would he not come? Had I misread Asa’s message? At last I heard the school bell ring and knew I could wait no longer. Public mortification now compounded my woes. On account of my late arrival I must pass before all the scholars, and so to my place. My face turned red as a smithy’s in summer! Teacher Holt did not rebuke me. He must have seen the extent of my shame, considered it sufficient.

  During the recess interchange, when girls going out meet boys coming in, Asa contrived to approach me. “After school! In the same place.” Then he must pass on.

  There is so much more to tell. But I can write no longer now; shall resume tomorrow.

  The next day

  I followed A. in to the woods, he having appeared as he said he would, and soon showed me the boot prints he’d found near where I’d seen my phantom. They were sharp, and deeply imprinted, as if they’d been made when the ground was soft, then caught fast by a freeze. Clearly a man’s boots they were as to size; the prints themselves being widely spaced to suggest a long-legged stride.

  “Whose?” I asked.

  “O, Cath! You know! Your phantom and no other!”

  “But this would be a real man, Asa; no mere vision’d phantom. What manner of man do you suppose—”

  “A black man you said, at least dark complected. I’d supposed a run-away slave come to here for hiding.”

  “A Negro, Asa? We’ve had none before, neither slave nor free. So I couldn’t know what it might mean to call him dark complected.” Tho’ I tried to give lively argument I knew him to be right. “Any man will leave prints where he walks, and these say naught of his colour. Perhaps it was just a run-away lad not liking his indenture.”

  What Asa liked not was my timid suggestion. “No,” he asserted, “it need not be a poor Negro slave! It might be a thief, or a man convicted. Maybe he was meant to hang, and escaped to our woods? Is that what you would have him be, rather than a slave? Besides, what difference would it make—”

  Behind Asa’s figure I saw tall trees, and hidden by them what manner of man; where in these woods might he be? Then Asa looked at me levelly and I, staring back, to return his gaze, noticed as I never had that one of his eyes is lighter in colour than is its companion!

  “It doesn’t really matter,” he said. “Suppose that he was wrongly convicted and this his hope of freedom, a good life later on.”

  I was in such a whirl! Asa was saying, “Whoever he is, he’s cold and needs us to help him, Cath. Who are we to judge?”

  Thus was it revealed to me that Asa had found my book on the rock and read the inscription there.

  But Asa’s father had not said, “Turn him out and turn him over.”

  “Asa,” I said, “we must go home. I have to think on it.”

  (I have not spoken to Cassie yet; intend to do so tomorrow.)

  IV

  Sabbath-day, December 12, 1830

  I could not speak with C. today, her mother keeping close by her side at morning service, and after.

  I am so mindful of the stranger—every thing r
eminds me of him—the cold we felt on going out, the grateful warmth of home. Yet sadly I am in no way nearer to knowing what is right, in this instance, and what I ought to do.

  “Please, miss . . . I am cold.” Sinned against or dangerous sinner? I do so long to speak of it, yet who can give me counsel? “I am cold . . . Take pity.” I wish he had never come to our place, disturbing the quiet of our woods, enforcing his words in my book!

  Monday, December 13, 1830

  Some of the Shipmans’ pies are stolen, that had been put in the buttery after Thanksgiving meal. They were meant to freeze and keep, and would have been good till March.

  Asa, whose sweet tooth is well known, was thrashed for the offense. Cassie, who does not know of the phantom, observes that A. protested but little, and that this is a confirmation he was indeed the culprit. As I am quite certain ’tis the phantom’s work, again are wrong and right confused, and by what plausible signs.

  Asa’s brother David noted that the footprints in the snow matched not Asa’s boots. But there was Asa, accepting guilt—this to protect the phantom I’m sure—and Asa’s father brushing him off, saying that yesterday’s snowfall was fine and, what with the wind and drifting over, no print would hold its shape. “Besides,” he said, “like charity, stealing begins at home.”

  Tuesday, December 14, 1830

  In this day, under skies so blue they seemed entirely to mock me, I have despaired, have been enlightened; and, at what ought have been the height of my joy, been again cast down. I have so sorely offended Cassie she will not speak to me. I can not remember that this has happened before.

  Before a chance was provided to me Asa spoke with Cassie about what we had seen in the woods. I knew when I crossed the school house sill, how terribly she disapproved; the eyes that found me were dark and troubled, and scarce consented to mine.

  My mind, as I took my seat, was distress’d—and not with the lessons ahead. To disregard both Father and Cassie? I thought I could not do it. But how could I refuse the pleas of Asa and the stranger? The first of these so fully persuaded, the other so much in need?

  Teacher Holt took his usual place, setting out precepts for the youngest to read in words of one syllable.

  “Give to them that want,” he wrote. The text seeming chosen to address my dilemma, how my heart leapt up! I poked at Cassie in the row ahead and she, tho’ slightly, nodded.

  Several other precepts appeared below the wondrous first. Then:

  “Speak the truth and lie not.”

  Cassie turned to me at this, sorrowful & rebuking. Forgetting myself I exclaimed aloud, “But no lie is asked!”

  Thus was our teacher’s attention drawn and, I composing my face the faster, Cassie was chastised.

  “Think you, Miss Shipman,” said Teacher Holt, making the title a taunt, “think you, Miss Shipman, that you, or I, or indeed any of us outgrow these simple school room teachings? No, ’tis their very simplicity that makes them last, and last, and last. And therefore will I have you write—one hundred times that you may remember: teach me to do Thy will.”

  Cassie, the purest in spirit of all to be so cruelly shamed! Slowly, how slowly, the day wore on. I could not risk a sign or gesture and this was truer punishment than any a teacher might have devised to fit the circumstances.

  For Cassie, it now seemed to me, had been in the right. The very concealment were a lie; and Cassie, because obedient and good, had known at once what I, and Asa, were so slow to see.

  Going home I walked abreast of her, carefully matching my step to hers, hoping she might send me a glance that I might return with a smile. But she, so gentle, was adamant; and turned at her gate without speaking.

  Cassie! Cassie! Will you hear your friend? Cassie, will you forgive me?

  O! in the morning will all be told, and will you then accept me back who am so undeserving?

  Thursday, December 16, 1830

  Cassie said, “Forgive me, Catherine.”

  “No, ’tis I,” I begged.

  At length, amidst what stinging tears, we each of us heard the other out—for even as I had taken her view, so surely had she, in sleepless hours, come to accord with mine. Such turnabout evoked wan smiles; and when, at last, we spoke again Cassie said so quietly it was nearly a whisper, “Kindness must be the highest virtue—don’t let me forget that ever. Were I to strive for one thing only ’twould be to be kind to others, as you are, Catherine.”

  Friday, December 17, 1830

  Cassie and I this afternoon selected one of my mother’s quilts—one with plenty of warmth in it yet tho’ some parts worn and faded. This would be our answer to the fugitive’s appeal. (Could he have known when he wrote in my book that I, tho’ a child, had been installed in my mother’s place? If so, were he a local man? Did Providence guide his hand?) Folding the quilt as small as we might, & wrapping some sausage and apples within, we crossed behind the Shipmans’ house, reached the road, and thence proceeded to the phantom’s stone. (Asa dubbed it thus one day, and the name has taken.)

  As part of our plan I carried along the fateful lesson book. Should we be seen, or questioned, by neighbours I was well rehearsed to say that I was in search of a certain tree which I intended sketching. Cassie had come to companion me; and see, she carried a worn-out quilt should we become too cold. A pat excuse, we all believed, to fit the situation. A second purpose might be served by taking the book in hand: should we meet the stranger himself he’d know our purpose instantly; thus would not, likely, harm us.

  The woods, as ever, were still and cold; the only sound the clacking of branches as, frozen, they touched one another. Sketchbook or no we did not tarry and tho’ we saw no human sign, sped about our errand.

  I turned but once as we left the spot where A. had discovered the fugitive’s prints and which he’d occasioned to show to me along with a fire’s remains. Of this I shall remember forever the look of that cold & wintry clearing, the quilt tucked in the foot of a tree & folded carefully to display a patch of brightest scarlet. I meant it also as a greeting—a flash of colour, a bit of warmth; the only thing man made, or brought, to that desolation.

  Asa was at the gate. “Did you do it,” he asked, low-voiced. “Yes,” we said; and all of a sudden hot tears over-flowed. Again I saw that patch of scarlet and remembered my mother’s voice, as she told her stories. “That grey,” she’d said, “was a waistcoat once, the drab’s my father’s trousers. ’Tis said the pieces of scarlet are old, cut from the back of a Hessian’s coat left behind in battle . . .”

  “There, there, Cath,” said Asa at last. Then he shifted from foot to foot, reached out for the edge of my cloak, and with it, wiped my cheek.

  Saturday, December 18, 1830

  The bread today was over-baked; the beans were barely softened. “Who loves you now?” teazed Father. (If he but knew the real, true cause of my present distraction!)

  Monday, December 20, 1830

  No more can I take my mind from the phantom than dare to re-enter the woods. Yesterday when a tree burst open, the cold and frost being very severe, the explosive sound set my heart to pounding—so certain was I the report was a rifle’s, and my phantom discovered.

  V

  Thursday, December 23, 1830

  We hear that even Winnipissogga is now frozen over. On our pond each afternoon the older boys gather after school to try their skill at skating. They boast that when they are dry and thirsty they only kneel at the edge of the ice and there find water to drink. These occur at the Northern part where underground streams flow through the Winter and run in to the lake. ’Tis icy water, and clear—

  I told Father of their sport and that I thought it foolishness to skate there where the ice is thin, risking, likely, life and limb to slake a simple thirst. He only laughed and rumpled my hair. “There now, miss, I did the same and lived to tell about it.” I think he’d not make light of it were I to be the skater.

  Friday, December 24, 1830

  When I came down to the kitchen thi
s morning I discovered the following, deftly penned by Father:

  It requires but little discernment to discover the imperfections of others; but much humility to acknowledge our own.

  Under it, ever so lightly sketched, the figure of a skater disported; and the initials, C.H., which are both Father’s and mine.

  Saturday, December 25, 1830

  We attended services, this being Christmas Day. Can there, I wonder, be a chill more fierce than that which gathers in a building all week, then hurls itself, as if too long caged, at those who venture in. Although we wore our heaviest clothing it availed us not. The wooden pews gave forth great chill and the flooring, tightly laid, creaked when we walked across it. ’Tis much like a Winter Sabbath misplaced, and Sabbath it is tomorrow!

  Later, our father read from the Bible as he often does. When it came time to prepare our meal Matty helped me to set things out: a loaf of bread baked yesterday, mugs of cyder, and our own good soup which I made in November, and we’ve had frozen in the buttery for these Winter days. So we dined most plentifully; grateful for the warmth of home, all mindful of the newborn babe born in Bethlehem long ago and the sweet young mother.

  Monday, December 27, 1830

  I was startled to think, this morning, I saw my phantom again! This time it proved a phantom phantom!—an upright stump seen through flung snow, revealed as being naught but that when the wind subsided!

  Asa promises, the first he can, that he will venture in to the woods to see if the quilt be taken. There have been, these two weeks past, reports of modest thefts. A chicken here, some dried roots there, the largest of the Shipman pies. We presume this the work of our phantom, and do not speak of it.

  Once I asked Asa about his thrashing and had it been very painful? “Skin soon cools,” he said with a shrug, “and I had rather accept a beating than, by my denial, risk another’s life.”

  Wednesday, December 29, 1830