A Buss from Lafayette Page 7

  When he finished these tasks, Joss wiped the sweat from his face. But not the frown. “It is deucedly hot work keeping these fires going,” he said.

  “At least you only need come into this oven of a kitchen once in a while, Joseph Hargraves. Just you try stirring for awhile!” I said.

  Joss harrumphed. “Well, if you count all the work I have already done making this charcoal in the first place, then lugging it in here, taking out the ashes, and adding fresh charcoal to the fires, I think I have done my share.”

  I knew he did indeed labor very hard every winter, felling trees and splitting the wood, then covering it with a mound of dirt and leaves and slowly burning it into charcoal. “Yes, but do not forget that Father let you trade two bushels of the charcoal you made at the store to get your ice skates. Not to mention your secret hoard of peppermints,” I added with a sly look.

  Joss put on the most innocent expression he could manage. “Peppermints? Secret hoard? I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

  “Oh, yes, you do, and I know where it is,” I teased in a singsong voice guaranteed to annoy my brother. “By the way, Joss, did you know that our very own stepmother here was actually switched with a ferule by a schoolmistress?”

  “Really? Stings like the very devil, does it not, ma’am?” Joss winced at the memory.

  Father came into the kitchen and took a concerned look at his wife. “Priscilla, you should not be stirring that. You need to get off your feet, my dear.”

  “But it needs constant stirring, Samuel.”

  “Joss will take over for you,” Father said decidedly.

  “Father!” exclaimed Joss. “Cooking is women’s work! It is bad enough that I had to pick strawberries all day yesterday!”

  Father said that he had important business with the bank in Concord, or he himself would stir the jam. “Now help your mother, son,” he said in a tone that brooked no refusal.

  Joss grudgingly picked up the long-handled spoon.

  “I will cut up the paper to cover the jars,” Prissy said, with an apologetic look at Joss. “I should be able to handle that chore sitting down!”

  “And you must take off that silly mobcap, Priscilla,” Father went on. “It is broiling hot in here. You need to uncover your head to stay as cool as possible. And take that silly betsy off your neck as well. There is no need to be so modest on such a hot, hot day!”

  “That would be most unladylike, Samuel,” she protested.

  Father laughed. “Who cares? Nobody in this kitchen does, believe me! I would rather have you bareheaded and bare-necked, no matter how scandalous that might seem to you, than to have you faint dead away on the floor. It is especially sticky today, with all this spilled sugar syrup and crushed strawberries and such. You would not enjoy hitting this floor, my dear. Not at all.”

  He was right about the floor. Joss and I were even wearing our shoes to protect our feet from all the stickiness.

  Prissy looked at her husband reproachfully, but reached up and pulled off her white cap and ruffled collar. After the betsy came off, I could see the gold locket that she always wore on a chain around her neck. I knew that within it was a miniature portrait of her sister. My mother.

  How I wish that locket were mine, I thought, as I always did on the rare occasions I saw it.

  “Do you know, ma’am,” said Joss. “I have never actually seen your hair in full daylight before. It is a very pretty color. The exact same color as our mother’s.”

  “You and Mother were lucky enough to be blonde and not strawberry blonde,” I said, sulking a little.

  Prissy blushed and put her hand to her head. “I feel very uncomfortable appearing before you all like this.”

  “You just feel uncomfortable receiving compliments, my dear. You should get used to it,” Father said.

  “Well, Caroline was the family beauty,” she said quietly. “Everyone knows that.”

  “There’s room for more than one beauty in a family.” Father placed his hand on Prissy’s cheek and looked into her eyes, which were green like Mother’s and mine. “Joss is right. Your hair is lovely, my dear. Like the rest of you. Inside and out.”

  Joss and I looked away from them and madly stirred our pots of preserves. What was going on? We had never heard our father talk to his new wife with such affection. I could tell it made Joss feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. I felt that way, too—not to mention more than a little bit resentful.

  Father turned to us. “You must both promise me that you will not let your mama put her cap or betsy back on, or stand at the stove, for the rest of the day.”

  “All right, Father,” Joss and I chorused.

  He said he would be back late and not to wait supper for him, and went out the door.

  I briskly stirred the preserves in the copper pot, trying hard not to look as smug as I felt that my brother had to share yet another “girlish” task.

  CHAPTER 16

  Prissy looked at Joss and sighed. “I truly am sorry, Joseph, that you have been dragooned into this.”

  “That’s all right, ma’am,” said my brother. “After all, I have always wanted to be a dragoon!” He grinned as he stirred the boiling preserves so vigorously that the mixture slopped over the side of the pot.

  I noticed that our stepmother did not admonish him to stir more gently. She probably thinks it better not to correct his stirring technique, under the circumstances, I thought, smiling a little to myself. Before I could explore this idea any further, Joss changed the subject.

  “Perhaps you could help us pass the time, ma’am. Tell us about Grandfather. Mother never said much about what he experienced in the War for Independence. Was he at Valley Forge, too?”

  “Yes. He used to talk about Baron von Steuben, the Prussian officer whom Benjamin Franklin sent to help us. Father thought the man was a genius, setting up the ‘School of the Soldier’ at Valley Forge and all.”

  “You mean he made the soldiers go to school? Were they not grown men?” asked Joss, looking puzzled.

  “Yes, but they did not know how to move around as an army,” Prissy explained. “That is one reason the British won at Brandywine. When Cornwallis, the British general, sneaked around the upper ford and attacked our General Sullivan’s forces from behind, there was no way to turn the untrained Continentals around to face the enemy.”

  “Continentals?” I asked.

  Prissy said that the trained soldiers of our army came to be called “Continentals” because they came from different colonies, but were all from the same continent.

  I nodded. “And when Lafayette heard that the British were flanking our Continentals, he raced up there to rally Sullivan’s men, to spur them on to fight back against the British attack. That was when Lafayette was shot in the leg.”

  Joss glanced at me. “I thought you did not learn about Lafayette in school, Clarie.”

  “There are other ways to learn things, you know,” I retorted.

  Our stepmother quickly interceded before our interchange escalated to our usual brangle. “All that marching around you do in militia musters, Joseph? That is largely based on von Steuben’s training manual.”

  She explained how officers must be able to send troops where they are needed on the battlefield without having them bump into each other or go the wrong direction. Both the officers and the men under their command must know the maneuvers and be able to carry them out, even when under fire.

  “Ah, so that is what all the marching is about. I thought it was rather pointless, myself,” Joss said with a shrug. “Although I do like firing the guns, even when it is only blanks.”

  “You would certainly not think the marching so pointless if, God forbid, you found yourself in a real battle and needed to know your fellow soldiers would stay at your side no matter where you were ordered to go.”

  “You’re probably right,” Joss admitted, then pointed out with a grin that soon he would be riding Flame in the Troop, instead of marching with our local m
ilitia.

  “Well, whether you are marching or riding, Joseph, the principle is the same: you must get to the proper place in the proper time,” Prissy said.

  “So what about this ‘School of the Soldier,’ then?” I asked.

  “Well, Baron von Steuben had the idea to start by training a few men, then have those men train others, who would in turn train others, and so forth. That was the ‘School of the Soldier.’”

  “Smart idea,” said Joss.

  “Now I shall tell you something a little, well, vulgar. But it is as much a part of history as General Washington’s language at the battle of Monmouth, so I suppose it is all right,” Prissy said, with a hint of a smile.

  Prissy told us that the men had actually liked it when von Steuben himself worked with them, because he would swear up a storm in German or French when they marched in the wrong direction, and would then ask his aide to swear at them in English. “Our soldiers thought it very funny, but it worked! By the end of that terrible winter, Washington’s army was a skilled fighting force. Lafayette’s nimble escape from the British at Barren Hill was the first test of von Steuben’s training, and it worked beautifully, if such a thing can be said about a military maneuver.”

  “Did Grandfather see the celebration at Valley Forge when the French alliance was announced?” queried Joss eagerly. “It sounds as if it was very exciting!”

  “He did indeed,” Prissy said. “But when everyone was cheering at Valley Forge, they little suspected how difficult it would be for the French and American military leaders to work together. They were a little like you two: supposedly on the same side, but as prickly as porcupines!”

  Joss and I exchanged a glance.

  Prissy said that although the French government had been sending us secret loans and supplies since 1776, the first overt aid they sent over was a fleet of warships in July, 1778. This French fleet was ordered to blockade Rhode Island to help the American commander, General Sullivan, dislodge the British there. D’Estaing, the French admiral, may have been rather offended at this, because no one had consulted with him beforehand about the planned venture.

  “Therefore, after initially assisting the Continentals in their attack,” our stepmother said, sounding more and more like a schoolmarm, “D’Estaing and his fleet sailed away towards New York. He did seek to engage a British naval squadron after he left, but his departure left the American forces in Rhode Island to face the enemy without French support.”

  Joss snorted. “I am sure we Americans did not like that!”

  Our stepmother explained that before D’Estaing encountered the British squadron, he ran into a storm that damaged his fleet. Afterwards—again without consulting the Americans—the French admiral had sailed off to Boston to make repairs to his ships, which further offended our commanders. “I doubt the alliance would have worked in the end if not for Lafayette,” she concluded.

  “He smoothed down everyone’s ‘quills?’” I asked.

  “Yes, Lafayette hurried to Boston to smooth things over. He got permission to return to France to try and get more ships and soldiers to help the Americans, and he succeeded. He was able to return and tell Washington that six thousand more troops under Rochambeau, the French general, were on the way. I know I said the other night that Lafayette did not actually win any major battles, but getting support from the French and making the alliance work? That was a major battle in itself!”

  We three worked on together in the oppressively hot kitchen filled with the sweet smell of strawberries and sugar syrup. I thought it actually smelled sticky, but I suspected that was only my imagination. Or my imagination combined with the condition of my fingers and the soles of my shoes.

  Joss and I kept stirring the jam until it was ready, then ladled it carefully into the glass jars. Our stepmother covered each jar with letter paper soaked in brandy then tied on layers of softer paper with a length of string.

  Our joint efforts demanded so much concentration that I did not once stop to remember how much I disliked Prissy and her efforts to “ladify” me.

  CHAPTER 17

  It was late in the afternoon when Joss and I carefully poured the last of the preserves into the last jar and our stepmother tied the last paper cover securely in place.

  Prissy stood up, put her hands to her back, and surveyed the rows and rows of filled jars. “You have both done an excellent job. I think you have earned a cooling dip in the pond. Yes, you too, Clara. We shall not worry about your being a lady today. I must confess, I would like to dive into that pond, myself. I am afraid I would never manage to climb out again, however, given my current size and shape. Maybe I can at least sit on the edge and cool off my feet.”

  Joss and I looked at each other. Then, without a word, we kicked off our shoes, sprinted out the kitchen door, and headed for the pond.

  By the time our stepmother, ungainly as she was, arrived, we had shucked off most of our clothes and were blissfully floating on our backs in the cool pond water.

  We watched in amazement as Prissy carefully lowered herself down at the side of the pond. She removed her own shoes, raised her skirt to her knees, and slid her feet into the water.

  “This feels like heaven. I can see why you like it, Clara. Perhaps it might be possible for you to keep swimming here, when there is no one else around to witness it. And, by the way . . .” She paused, thinking. “What Clara said about your father giving you some charcoal to trade at the store, Joss? It has given me an idea. Each of you may have—let me see—five jars of preserves to use to buy something special for yourself. You have certainly earned it!”

  I was staring up at the sky as her words floated down over me. Suddenly, I realized what they meant for carrying out my plan.

  I stood straight up out of the water. “May I please take my five jars to the store right now? There is something very special that I wish to buy!”

  “But the preserves are still too hot to handle, my dear. You cannot carry them all that way without burning your arms.”

  “I shall put them in a basket lined with cloth. Please, ma’am. It would mean so much to me.”

  “If it makes you happy to lug hot preserves to the store, I shall not stand in your way,” Prissy said, kicking her feet gently in the pond. “How you remind me of Caroline! When she got an idea in her head, there was no way to dislodge it! But you must hurry up. I see thunderheads coming in from the west.”

  Joss started swimming towards the edge of the pond. “Actually, ma’am, I want to go to Towne’s store, too. Put down my jars of preserves for credit towards my Troop uniform, you know,” he said. “I will hitch Fury up to the whisky so we can get there before the storm hits.”

  “Thank you, Joss!” I cried. “Let’s go right now.” I clambered out of the water and raced into the house.

  Changing into a clean dress and pantalettes in record time, I paused to glance into my looking glass. “Goodbye, ‘pumpkin head!’” I said, saluting my own image.

  I raced down the stairs to the kitchen. There I packed up ten jars of jam in a large wicker basket, then I rushed out of the house lugging the heavy basket in my arms.

  I found Joss out in the barnyard with Fury and the two-wheeled shay—sometimes called a “whisky” because it could “whisk” around other, heavier vehicles—ready to go. Not that our little town had much in the way of traffic to whisk around.

  He playfully bowed to me. “Your carriage awaits, milady.” He reached for the basket and put it behind the seat. “I would put up the top, but I think we should get going right away.”

  I glanced at the threatening sky, then clambered up over the wheel as quickly as I could—not an easy thing to do in a dress—and sat down on the seat next to my brother.

  Without another word, Joss drove down the hill, passed the Putney Tavern, and turned onto the main road that sloped towards the village.

  “Thank you for driving me to the store, Joss. How I wish I could just drive myself sometimes! I do not think it is
fair that you get to drive the whisky and the wagon and the sledge all the time, and Father never lets me do any of it.”

  “Would you like to try, Clarie? Fury is a quiet horse, despite her name. Here, take the ribbons.”

  Joss handed me the reins. Just as I closed my hands around them and he let them go, however, there was a blinding flash of lightning and a deafening crack of thunder.

  At this, Fury shied. All four of her feet left the ground, and when they came down again it was at a full run. I was so startled that I dropped the reins, and then watched in growing alarm as they flapped along the ground, far, far out of reach. The whisky careered towards the village, picking up speed as it went down the hill.

  Then, as if to prove that things actually could get worse, the skies opened into a torrential downpour.

  “What will we do, Joss?” I shouted, trying to be heard over the sound of the deafening thunder and the rain pounding on the road.

  “Hold on for dear life!” Joss shouted back. “And pray that the rise in the road before the common will slow us down!” He peered intently through the wall of rain. “Wait, I think I see Dickon Weeks coming toward us. Maybe he can stop Fury. Maybe.”

  We desperately watched Dickon gallop towards us through the rain. As he got closer, we saw him wheel Lancelot around to head the same direction as we were going. Then, when we drew even with him, Dickon spurred his horse alongside and reached over to grab Fury’s bridle. With great effort, he held on to that bridle and gradually brought the panicked horse safely to a stop, just short of the village common.

  “That was a close call, Dickon!” exclaimed Joss, his voice shaking a little. “We are much obliged to you! It was the lightning that did it. Fury takes great exception to lightning.”