A Buss from Lafayette Page 2

  “He was only nineteen when he came from France, and they made him a major general!” Joss set down his knife. “That’s a very high rank. Only General Washington himself had a higher rank.”

  Father said, “Yes, they did give him a high rank. But they did not give him any troops to command, not at first, anyway.”

  “Wait a minute. A Frenchman in our army? That does not make any sense,” I protested.

  “He came to fight alongside Washington, of course. When he heard about the American conflict with England, our cause inspired him so much he came to help us. He hated the English because when he was a small child, his father had been killed in one of the wars between France and Britain,” Joss explained in a know-it-all tone.

  I narrowed my eyes. I hated it when Joss knew more than I did about anything. He had been able to keep going to school, while I had stayed home to assist with the housework and to care for our mother when she had fallen ill with consumption. I bathed her, fed her, and read to her when she could no longer get out of bed. I was happy that I had been able to help, but losing her broke my heart. It has never mended.

  After Mother died, however, I had to stay home from school to assist a citified stepmother who did not know the first thing about being a farmer’s wife. Things had only gotten worse when she had sickened with pregnancy and stayed so for most of the winter, when school was in session for older pupils. When Father had asked me to forego schooling to help her, he had said that bearing a babe at the age of forty-two was what made it so difficult for her. He had not seemed to understand how difficult it was for me to miss so much school.

  “So what battles did Lafayette win, Mr. Know-All?” I asked, with an edge to my voice.

  Joss hesitated. “Battles? Er . . . I am not sure.”

  Father looked over at his wife. “Can you remember? You are the schoolteacher, after all.”

  Prissy patted her mouth daintily with her napkin, then explained that, like Washington himself, Lafayette had won very few actual battles but was still a great leader. He had been one of the richest men in France and knew the French queen well. His father-in-law, an extremely powerful aristocrat, had not wanted him to go to America, so sent Lafayette off to England, hoping to change his mind. During his brief visit there, Lafayette had met the English king, George the Third, as well as General Clinton, who later was the commander of all the British forces fighting against us in the War of Independence. Even this did not budge Lafayette from his determination to help America, however.

  “So Lafayette’s connections were of the highest, even with the British, ironically enough,” she finished.

  Father chuckled. “Yes, I suspect that those high connections were certainly part of the reason Congress and Washington gave him such a high rank. They thought such connections might help our cause. Not to mention that the young nobleman’s pockets were well-nigh lined with gold!”

  “But I have also heard that the young man was most charming,” my stepmother said. “Tall and gangly as a beanpole, but still most charming.”

  “So it was charm that won our revolution, my dear?” Father said with a grin.

  The corners of Prissy’s mouth were curved upwards ever so slightly as she said, “It never hurts to have a little charm, Samuel.”

  “And he ended up doing just fine as a soldier, though he was so young,” Joss put in.

  “Well, I did not have the chance to learn about him, Joss, so stop showing off!” I exclaimed.

  “I am not, you ninnyhammer!”

  “You are too, you sapskull!”

  “Not!”

  “Are!”

  My stepmother put her hand to her head and sighed. “Please stop arguing, you two. You’re making my head ache. I declare! It is like living under the same roof with two feuding porcupines!”

  I turned to Joss and stuck out my tongue.

  “Clara Summer Hargraves! You are far too old to stick out your tongue like that! You are old enough to start behaving like a lady!” Prissy exclaimed.

  I glared at her, but all I said was, “Yes . . . Mother.”

  “Speak to her, Samuel.”

  Father regarded me with a stern look on his face. “Yes, my dear. You are too old for such childish actions. After all, you are thirteen years of age.”

  “Fourteen,” I muttered.

  “Fourteen? Last time I checked you were but thirteen.”

  “Then you have not checked today, Father. Today I am fourteen. Mother would have remembered, though it has apparently slipped your mind. You remembered the anniversary of replacing her in our family easily enough, however.”

  My outburst shocked even me. “Oh, I am so sorry, Father,” I said. “I did not mean to say that. Truly, I did not. It just popped out. Do forgive me, sir.”

  I held my breath, waiting to see what Father would say.

  CHAPTER 3

  I was greatly relieved when Father reached over and patted my hand. “Apology accepted, Clara. We did not mean to ignore your birthday, my dear. I can see how much this has upset you. But we have not forgotten that you are fourteen today, no indeed. Fourteen! You are now almost a woman!” He turned to his wife.

  “Yes, indeed. If you will go into my bedroom, Clara, you will find a wrapped packet on top of my bookcase.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Grinning, I jumped out of my chair and raced out of the room.

  “In a more ladylike manner, if you please, Clara. You must stop galloping about like an ill-trained horse!” Prissy called after me, but I ignored her.

  The room my stepmother referred to was not the upstairs bedroom she shared with Father. For the last two months, she had found difficulty in climbing the very steep stairs, so we had emptied out the large pantry next to the kitchen at the back of the house. We had set up a temporary bedroom for her there, containing only a narrow bed, a small chest of drawers, and a low bookcase.

  I grabbed the packet on the bookcase and minced carefully back to the table. Then I threw myself down on my chair in my usual headlong way.

  “You may open it now, if you wish,” Prissy said. “I picked it out especially to go with your hair, my dear. And it also matches your eyes.”

  Carefully pulling off the paper, inside I found a dark green hair ribbon, long and glossy. I tried to look pleased. After all, my father’s wife knew nothing of my exciting plan. I suppose she is trying her best to help me look pretty despite my awful red hair, I thought. But soon I would no longer have to wear only green and blue ribbons suitable for a “carroty pate.” I would be able to wear pink and red and orange and any other color I wanted.

  My father frowned at me. “Clara, do you have something to say to Priscilla?”

  “Oh yes, sir.” I stood up, held out my pinafore, and curtsied deeply to my stepmother, rather more in obedience to Father than in gratitude to Prissy. “I thank you so very, very much for this beautiful green ribbon, ma’am,” I said.

  Father got to his feet and pulled a small leather pouch from his pocket. “I have something for you too, Clara. Put out your hand, my girl.”

  I held out my hand and watched Father place pennies on my palm, as he did on each of my birthdays. “Twelve, thirteen, and . . . fourteen. One for each year of your life! My goodness, girl, you’re practically as rich as Lafayette! What are you going to spend them on?”

  “Oh, I have a plan for them. I do indeed!” I replied, brimming with excitement. Together with the six pennies I had earned weeding Widow Boodle’s vegetable garden, I might now have enough to carry out my plan. Maybe today was the day I could buy the metal comb that would take the “carrots” out of my hair!

  I curtsied to my father, and thanked him for the birthday pennies. I then reached through the slit in my skirt and carefully placed the pennies into the linen pocket that hung underneath by strings tied around my waist. My cousin Hetty scorned the old-fashioned pocket, saying that all young ladies these days carried embroidered reticules on their wrists instead. But this old-fashioned pocket had belonged to
my mother, whose name was Caroline. She had embroidered it with the words, “Carrie, Her Pocket” in the staggering stitches of a young girl. I would never trade it for a fashionable little wrist bag, especially when this cherished pocket might now hold what I needed to fulfill my greatest dream.

  “Actually, besides the ribbon and pennies, there will be another, much bigger gift by Saturday, Clara. It was not quite finished for today, but I think you will like it very much,” Prissy said.

  I could feel my father’s eyes on me, so I managed to say, “I thank you, ma’am. I am sure I shall.”

  I was also sure that no gift, no matter how big, would make any difference at all in how I felt about this woman. How dare she think she could so easily replace my dearest, funny, beautiful, loving mother!

  CHAPTER 4

  I was so excited about fulfilling my plan soon that I did not mind at all when Father turned our discussion back to Lafayette.

  Pulling a folded newspaper out of his pocket, he said, “There’s a fine description in the Concord Patriot of the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Lafayette was the guest of honor at the dedication of the new monument there. Nearly a hundred thousand people were in Boston for that ceremony. One hundred thousand! Can you imagine the size of that crowd?”

  His wife asked him where Lafayette was going to visit in New Hampshire.

  Father looked over the newspaper. “Derry today, and then staying tonight in Pembroke. He will travel to Concord for a huge celebration there tomorrow. I wish we could go see him, but with your confinement so near, you must stick close to home, my dear. I do not want to go without you.”

  “I wish you would go, Samuel,” she said. “I do hate for you to miss seeing such a famous man.”

  “Perhaps he will travel through Hopkinton when he goes to Vermont, and we might see him then. No, Priscilla, I will not miss going into Concord in all this heat. I am sure it will be mobbed with people. I will take my chances on seeing him later.”

  “But if he is stopping in Derry, perhaps your brother and his wife will see him. And their daughter, too, of course,” Prissy said. “How thrilling for Henrietta if she catches even a glimpse of such a historic figure!”

  “Oh, yes, thrilling,” I muttered. “I shall never hear the end of it if she does!”

  Unfortunately, my sarcastic words apparently turned Prissy’s thoughts away from Lafayette and straight back to me.

  “Really, Clara,” she said. “why you are so unfriendly with a cousin so close to your own age is a mystery to me. Henrietta is a most accomplished young lady, and you would do well to be more like her. Her embroidery is exquisite!”

  “Would you be friendly with someone who calls you ‘pumpkin head’ and says you have stringy orange hair and boasts about her magnificent black curls? And who brags about going to that hoity-toity Adams Female Academy instead of to a village school? She knows very well that Hopkinton does not have an academy for older students, and still she makes fun of me. Besides, she’s not anywhere near my age. She’s seventeen. And the only things she cares about are boys.”

  Joss looked offended. “What’s wrong with that? She’s mighty pretty and she knows how to talk to boys right. Not like you.”

  “I really hate her!”

  My stepmother awkwardly got to her feet and started to clear the dishes off the dining table. “‘Hate’ is not a word ladies use, Clara. It is far too strong. It is time you started moderating your language.”

  “Well, then,” I said, standing up to help, “I detest, loathe, and abhor her.”

  Father started to laugh, then choked it off into a cough when his wife gave him a reproving look.

  She shook her head, though whether it was at Father or me was not clear. “I am afraid that’s not much of an improvement. Perhaps you could simply say you and Henrietta are not close, should anyone ask you about her.”

  I started to pick up my brother’s dinner plate, but Joss held onto it and filled it with another helping of salmagundi. “You’re just mad because last time Hetty was here, she threatened to fetch Dr. Flagg,” he said scornfully.

  Dr. Flagg was a semi-itinerant, often rum-soaked, physician who sometimes treated people in Hopkinton—mostly when none of the other doctors were available.

  “And you’re the one who told her that Dr. Flagg was ‘out to get’ redheaded children. Well, I am not actually a child anymore, Joseph Hargraves, and I no longer believe that Dr. Flagg is a bogeyman. Though the man certainly does not like my hair. He sniffs whenever he looks at me.”

  Joss snickered. “Perhaps he is sniffing for another reason entirely, little sister. Perhaps it is time you started taking a bath more often.”

  “I do not need to take a bath every single Saturday night when I can jump in the pond to wash off any time I like, at least in the summertime.”

  Prissy glanced at Father again. “Yes, I have been meaning to speak to you about that, Clara. Now that you are a young lady, you must not swim in the pond any longer. It is not seemly.”

  I looked at my stepmother in disbelief. “It is seemly enough, ma’am. I wear my chemise, and Joss’s old breeches, if anyone is around, so I am well-covered.”

  “That’s another thing. Now that you are fourteen, you are too old to wear Joss’s clothes anymore,” she said.

  “Not even to ride astride?”

  “Especially not to ride astride. You are not to do so any more.”

  “Wear the breeches or ride astride?”

  “Both.”

  “But . . .”

  Father spoke up. “No ‘buts,’ my girl, you heard your mama. She knows how young ladies must behave. If she says you must ride sidesaddle from now on, that is what you must do.”

  “Sidesaddle? But that is so silly!” I protested. “I cannot hold on properly with only one knee around the horse. It is like riding half a horse!”

  Father leaned over and patted my hand. “Nevertheless, daughter, you must use Priscilla’s sidesaddle whenever you ride Feather.” He turned to his wife. “Although that will not be for much longer, I am afraid. I have found a buyer for Feather in Warner. I am taking her up there on Monday. We can certainly use the extra money, with the new baby coming and all.”

  “But, Father, there is no other horse I can ride! Fury is getting to be too old for anything but pulling the whisky. And Flame is barely trained to the bridle, let alone any kind of saddle. She’s not even two years old yet!”

  “She will be two in a couple of weeks, daughter. Perhaps by the time she is trained, you will have learned to ride properly on your mother’s sidesaddle.”

  Something about the way Father said this made my temper flare.

  “If you insist, Father. But . . . but she is not my mother, she is only my aunt! My real mother’s old maid sister!” I jumped from my chair and ran from the room, leaving shocked silence behind me.

  Wednesday, June 22, 1825

  Father threatened to take away my birthday pennies this morning because of what I said about his wife last night. He only let me keep them after I apologized profusely to Prissy. But fulfilling my dream requires sacrifices, so I did what I had to do to keep my pennies safely in my linen pocket. (And believe me, I shall not be so careless as to lose my precious pocket like that addlepated Lucy Locket in the nursery rhyme!)

  CHAPTER 5

  Prissy pumped water into the sink to rinse the last plate from breakfast. The shallow granite slab, with its small pump and its drain to the outside, was one of the modern conveniences Father had installed in our old colonial house when he had married Mother. Another was the Rumford range on the opposite wall, a brick structure with two round holes for cooking, each with a closely fitted metal pot resting over a firebox below it. Of course, there was still a large stone fireplace big enough for me to stand up in on the other wall. Except for baking bread in the small ovens flanking it, however, we did not use it much, especially in the summer.

  As I took the plate from Prissy and dried it,
she said, “I need you to go to Towne’s Store this morning, Clara. You had best do so early, before it gets really hot. Besides, you need to get there well before the southbound stagecoach comes through the village.”

  I could not believe my good luck. A trip to Towne’s was exactly what I had been hoping to do. Of course, I did not want to appear too willing to help my father’s wife do anything. So all I said was, “I thought Father went to the store yesterday.”

  “He did, but one item we need for making the strawberry preserves is something that Mr. Towne does not keep in stock and will most likely have to order from Boston.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Sugar house syrup from the West Indies. Using ready-made syrup will be much easier than pounding loaves of sugar for making the jam. Especially in all this heat!”

  I thought about how much work it was to hammer chips off the rock-hard, cone-shaped sugar loaves from the store. I did often hammer off a few chips to keep in my pocket as treats for the horses, but that was more for fun.

  “When our arms were sore from pounding sugar, Mother used to say that she finally understood why folks measured the stuff in pounds.” I smiled at the memory.

  “Yes, that sounds like something my little sister would say,” Prissy replied. “Caroline had a clever wit. She made me laugh all the time. I do miss that.”

  “So do I.” I tried, without success, to picture Prissy laughing at all, let alone “all the time.”

  I carried the plate into the dining room and carefully placed it in a corner cupboard.

  When I returned to the kitchen, my stepmother told me that I had better be on my way, because it would take time for Mr. Towne to prepare the order to send on the stagecoach to Boston.

  “We need at least ten gallons of syrup by Friday, Clara. The strawberries are ripening fast in this heat; we shall have to make them into preserves before this weekend. Oh, and tell Mr. Towne we need at least ten dozen glass jars, a ream of letter paper, a big roll of soft paper, and one large bottle of brandy.”