The Indentured Heart Page 6

  “My sisters were all tall, and Father used to say he had sixty feet of daughters!” Edwards remarked, then turned to listen to what Jerusha had to tell him.

  It was a strange meal for Adam, for while the children never interrupted the adults, they were encouraged to take part in the conversation. He picked at his food, and once when Edwards made a little joke, with the last line in Latin, even Mary laughed! It made him feel stupid, and he wished he could go back and split more wood.

  After the meal, however, Edwards asked, “Now, sir, would you go with me to my study? We’ll see if your brain is as strong as those sturdy arms of yours!”

  Adam gave a despairing look at William, who threw him an encouraging smile, and followed the minister out of the dining room into a small study down a narrow hall. The walls were lined with books, and the single large desk that took up most of the room was piled high with neatly organized papers.

  “Sit there, Adam, and read me a little of this.”

  Adam took the book gingerly and opened it. His heart sank when he saw that it was a book he’d never seen, and for one moment his mind went completely blank—he could not have read one word of it if it meant to save his soul.

  Edwards’ penetrating eyes searched the boy’s face, and he said quickly, “You know, before we start, I have a book here that I have not read myself, but it’s just the sort of thing a handy young fellow like you would probably like. Let me get it.” Standing to his feet, he reached up and pulled down a plainly bound reddish book, opened it then shook his head. “I never can quite grasp how these things work, Adam. Perhaps you can give me a clue.”

  He put the book down in front of the boy, and Adam saw on the opened page a very fine mechanical drawing of a pistol. He picked it up eagerly, never dreaming that William had told Edwards of his interest in such things, and said excitedly, “Oh, this is a good drawing, sir! Look, this is the frizzen, and this part here is the pan . . .!” He kept his eyes glued on the book, his finger tracing the lines, while Edwards’ kind, luminous eyes watched carefully.

  “So that’s the way it works, Reverend,” he finished at last.

  “My, you’re so quick at that sort of thing! And you’ve made even a poor mechanical mind such as mine understand it! Well, let me show you how this page of Latin can be almost as easy for you as that drawing.”

  Then with easy patience, Edwards drew the boy’s attention back to the book, and soon Adam found that he did remember some of it, and by the end of an hour, he was doing better than he had dreamed. He did not understand how much that was due to the skill of the tall man in front of him, who said at last, “Why, you did very well, Adam! Very well, indeed!” He got up, and smiled, leading Adam to the door. “You need a great deal of work—but then I’ve got a great deal of wood, so by the time the woodpile is gone, you’ll be reading Tacitus like a scholar!”

  “I—I never thought I’d—” Adam broke off and the minister finished his sentence.

  “You never thought you’d like Latin? Well, you’ll find a great deal to like in this world, my boy. It’s a great world the Lord has made for us to study, and I can see you’re not going to let much get by you!”

  When they stepped back into the main part of the house, they were met by a conspiracy. Mrs. Edwards put her hand on Adam’s shoulder as she spoke to her husband. “No more woodcutting today! The girls have to have a ride on Adam’s new mare.” Then she put her arm around the startled boy, who had never been hugged by anyone except Rachel and Mercy, and she said warmly, “Happy birthday, Adam!”

  “Birthday, is it?” Edwards smiled. “I didn’t know that! How old are you?”

  “Fourteen, sir.”

  “Well, many happy returns—but you are trapped, sir, trapped! No escaping these women—so go give them a ride. The wood can wait for another time.”

  Adam went outside, and William asked, “How did he do?”

  “Oh, very well for a beginning—but his heart is in science.”

  “Yes, and Father could never understand that. I appreciate your interest in the boy.” He hesitated, then taking a plunge, told Edwards the problems Adam had at home.

  Edwards frowned, then remarked, “Usually, it’s best for a boy to be at home, but this is an exception. He will be better off here.”

  Outside, the object of their conversation was besieged, every young Edwards claiming the right to ride the mare first. Finally Mary said, “Me first, Adam! You stood up for me at dinner, so you have to let me ride first!”

  Adam stared at her bewildered, but he was to learn very quickly that Mary Edwards had a gift with words, and that she was quite likely to get her way even if her logic was sometimes a little fuzzy.

  He lifted her on, swung up behind her, and the mare moved obediently down the road. “What’s his name?” Mary asked.

  Adam laughed suddenly. “It’s not a he—and she doesn’t have a name. I just got her this morning.”

  Mary turned around and stared at him in astonishment. “You’ve got to give this poor horse a name, Adam.”

  “There’s no hurry.”

  “Yes, there is! And I’m going to help you—I can think of lots of names!”

  “I don’t need help to name my own horse!”

  “Yes, I can think of better names than you can,” she cried out, and then she began kicking her heels against the mare’s sides, calling out, “Faster! Faster!” She was not satisfied until they galloped at a fast clip down the road.

  All afternoon he took the Edwards’ children on short rides, and in doing so he learned their names—and he found out that they were all very intelligent. But it was a fine time for him as well as for them, and when William came up and said, “Time to go home, Adam,” he was surprised at how quickly the afternoon had gone.

  The Edwardses lined up to bid them goodbye, and Mary scurried over to Adam and threw her arms around his neck, pulling him down to whisper in his ear.

  “Her name is Abishag!” she said fiercely. Then she kissed his cheek and murmured, “I’m sorry you got hurt.”

  They left, and the arrangement was made that Adam would ride over three times a week for his lesson and to chop wood.

  “How’d you like the family?” William asked on the way home.

  “All right.”

  William was accustomed to his brother’s taciturn ways, but he saw the glow on Adam’s face. “You’ll have to think of a name for your mare,” he remarked carelessly.

  They said nothing until they were almost home, and then as they slipped to the ground, Adam reached up and stroked the mare’s velvety nose.

  “Her name is Abishag!”

  William’s eyes blinked in surprise, and then he smiled and went over to pat the mare’s neck. “Well, one thing about a name like that—you won’t find any other horses with that title!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A FAMILY AFFAIR

  “Adam, how long will it take you to get ready to go to Boston?”

  “Boston?” Adam was sighting down the barrel of a long rifle, carefully bringing the tiny silver bead into the lowest spot of the rear notch until it was aimed on the eye of one of Little’s fine cows, a quarter of a mile away. He snapped the trigger, grunted with satisfaction, then glanced over at William, who had come into the blacksmith shop late in the afternoon. “You’re all excited about something,” he remarked, taking in his brother’s flushed face and bright eyes.

  “I’ve got a letter from Father.” He extracted a rumpled sheet from his pocket, smoothed it out and read: I’ve agreed on a price with Hunter. Bring Adam to Boston with you and the papers will be ready. You can have your own way, I suppose, about Oxford.

  Adam wrapped the rifle in a piece of soft leather, then turned to face William. There was something slow and methodical in his movements, and though he lacked three inches of his brother’s height, there was a thickness and breadth in his torso that William lacked. His chest swelled against the homespun shirt, deep and very broad, and there was a suggestion of powe
r in every move he made. His thighs were heavy and his thick wrists and forearms swelled the sleeves of his shirt—the product of three years at the forge swinging a ten-pound hammer.

  “What’s this all about, William?” His voice was quiet, his words slow and even. “I don’t want to leave right now—need to work on this breech mechanism some more.”

  “Oh, you’d never be ready to leave this smoky forge!” William gave a half laugh, then sobered, saying, “Two things, Adam. First of all, Father’s going to buy the Hunter place, and I suspect he wants you to have a hand working it.”

  “I’d rather be a blacksmith, William—and I don’t know all that much about farming.”

  “You can learn, can’t you? And I’ve been wanting to go to Oxford to do some study for years. So now Father’s agreed to finance me for a year. Come on, Adam, let’s get ready so we can leave early in the morning. I’m packing all the things I’ll need at Oxford, and that’ll include a trunk of books.”

  He turned and Adam followed him out, but there was a stubborn look on his square face. As they mounted up and started for the house, he thought about the letter, but he said nothing until late that night after William’s things were packed.

  When everything was ready, he stated, “I’ll go with you to Boston, but I don’t like the idea of working on that farm.”

  William considered Adam’s sturdy form, and after a moment replied, “It could be a good thing for you.”

  “I don’t want to be a farmer, William. I want to be a blacksmith.”

  William stared at him, then smiled. “You’ve changed a great deal in the last three years, Adam. You’ve done well studying with Mr. Edwards, and Little says you’ve got the best hands of any man he ever saw for work at the forge—and I guess you’ve become a pretty stubborn young man as well.”

  Adam shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t want to be quarrelsome; I think I can be good at making things, but not much good at farming.”

  William shrugged and said, “Well, you can explain it to Father, not me.”

  The next morning they pulled out early, the buggy piled high with William’s luggage. “I’ve got to take this box of books to Edwards, Adam.”

  They pulled up in front of the house, and William left Adam in the buggy while he took the books inside. As he went in, Mary came sailing out like a whirlwind. She swarmed up the side of the buggy and began chattering at once like a magpie.

  “Why didn’t you come last Wednesday like you said, Adam? I waited all day, and then I had to try to go find those eggs all by myself—and I did find them, too!—all except the woodpecker. Let’s go get that one now, Adam! I know right where it is . . .!”

  He smiled down at her, marveling how her tiny ten-year-old frame could hold so much energy—and how that head could hold so much knowledge. She had attached herself to him like a leech since the first day three years ago when she had named his mare, and he realized that her talkative way and unbridled curiosity had been good for him, especially in the first months at Amherst.

  As she chatted on, he watched her mobile face and intent eyes, startled somewhat to think of how many of his memories were connected with her.

  She had led him through a thousand paths in the woods around Northampton seeking birds’ eggs for her collection—she chattering like a squirrel to his silence. Many times he had spent the night at her home, sitting at the feet of her father, leaning against her as Edwards told Bible stories. Every time he attended church at Northampton or went with William to a nearby church where Edwards preached, Mary always wedged herself beside him.

  He thought suddenly of his first real fight, a bloody, awkward brawl with a tall, rawboned youth named Landon. He had made Mary cry, and the two of them had fought until neither of them could stand!

  He had been with Mary that morning in Enfield when her father had preached a sermon with the frightening title, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” and Mary had clung to him with fear as many of the hearers fell to the floor shaking with terror! He had been badly shaken himself, he thought with a sudden grin, but he had not let her see it.

  “I can’t go with you today, Mary,” he interrupted her steady flow of words. “I’m going to Boston with William.”

  “Boston? Why? When are you coming back?”

  “Don’t know,” he answered. Looking up, he saw William hurrying out of the house. “I guess I won’t be gone too long. Maybe I’ll be back day after tomorrow. Then we’ll get that egg from that redheaded woodpecker. Jump down now!”

  She threw her arms around him, delivered a moist kiss on his cheek, then hopped down like a grasshopper, calling after them as Adam whipped the team into a trot, “I’ll see you Friday! Don’t be late!”

  William looked at Adam with amusement. “That child dotes on you, but you shouldn’t have told her you’d see her Friday.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, Father’s business may take longer than you think.”

  Adam gave a rare smile, his teeth bright against his heavy tan. The long white scar across his face and neck puckered slightly with the movement of his jaw. “Won’t take long for me to say what I’ve got to say, William. How long does it take to say ‘No thank you’?” He touched the team with his whip, leaned back and shook his head, saying, “You’ll be on your way to England Friday—and I’ll be hunting a woodpecker egg!”

  * * *

  “When was the last time you were home, Adam? Last year?”

  Adam had drawn the buggy up in front of the house and was getting out as William asked the question. He thought quickly, then said, “No, it’s been nearly two years.”

  “So long as that?” William shook his head, and as they mounted the steps, he murmured, “That’s too long, Adam. Father’s getting on—we’re going to have to come home more often.”

  Adam could have replied that he had not been invited, but he said nothing. He stood there as William knocked, and when the door opened, the sight of his father shocked him.

  “Come in, come in!” Miles took them both by the hand, and to Adam the bones felt thin and brittle as the bones of a bird. His father had lost much weight, and his stoop was so pronounced now that he was little more than Adam’s height. There were brown spots on his face, his cheeks were sunken, and his rheumy eyes gave the picture of a man in bad health. He’s sixty-nine years old, Adam thought, and he could only say briefly, “How are you, Father?” so great was the shock; the last two years had changed Winslow from a healthy man to a sick one with the smell of death about him.

  “William! Come in here—and don’t waste any of your preaching on me!” Charles stepped forward, his eyes sparkling, and after shaking William’s hand, he turned to Adam. His eyes narrowed, and then he smiled. “Why, you’ve become a man, brother! Look at those hands!” he grinned. “Strong as vises, I’d say!” But he seemed glad to see Adam and gave him a hearty shake.

  “Hello, Charles.”

  “Adam—It’s been a long time.”

  Adam looked into the eyes of Martha Winslow, seeing that she was not changed. Indeed, she looked stronger, if anything, as if somehow she had drawn all the health and strength out of her husband for her own use. Her eyes, he saw, suddenly fixed on the white scar that ran along his jaw and he smiled, saying, “Hello. You’re looking well.”

  “Thank you,” she replied quietly. “Come in and sit down, both of you. You must be tired.”

  “I’ll send Sampson after Rachel and Saul,” Miles said. “They’re required for this business.” He left the room, and William remarked quietly, “He doesn’t look well.”

  “He was bad a month ago—ague, I think it was,” Martha nodded. “He hasn’t been able to get his strength back.” She turned, saying, “Come into the kitchen. I’ve got something for you to eat.”

  As they ate, Charles sat across from them, full of the news of Boston. “Did you know I’d been working with Saul, Adam?”

  “William told me. Do you like business, Charles?”

 
“Yes!” Charles looked far older than his sixteen years, and as he spoke it was clear that he was intoxicated with the world of finance. His blue eyes flashed and his hands cut through the air with eloquent gestures as he told a story of how he had, with the help of Saul, been able to pull off a very successful deal in furs from Canada. Adam understood little of it, and he was depressed to think how much Charles knew and how little he had learned since he had left home.

  They had just finished eating and had risen when they heard voices. Rachel came to greet them. “Adam! You’ve grown so much!”

  “Not so tall as Charles, Aunt Rachel,” he smiled. She looked more fragile than he remembered her, and the lines around her eyes were etched more deeply, but there was still a vitality about her that was missing in his father.

  Saul advanced, gave Adam a critical look, then remarked with a smile, “You look strong as a bull, Adam. It’s good to see you.”

  He made his reply to his cousin and to Esther; then Miles entered, saying, “Let’s go into the parlor. I’ve got a lot to say.”

  Adam followed them into the parlor and sat near the window on a straight-backed chair as his father took a stand beside the tiger-striped oak table in the center of the wall and looked around the room. His voice sounded a little weak, but it grew stronger as he spoke.

  “It’s good to see you—all of you. It’s been a long time since the Winslows have been together—and I regret it. A family is the best thing on earth next to God, isn’t it? And we’ve wasted some time.”

  He paused, then shook his head almost imperceptibly. Looking across the room he continued: “William, this meeting is for you and for Adam. The rest of us have done a lot of thinking and considerable planning. I’ve called us all together so that we can agree on which direction the family business ought to go. Saul’s been talking a lot about making some changes, and perhaps we ought to listen to him. Saul?”

  Saul looked around but did not stand up as he said, “We’ve done very well, I think, for the past few years. Uncle Miles did a fine job of getting the fur business established. But these are new times, and if we survive, we’re going to have to adjust.”