Chapter Sixteen #2
But out of my mouth flew the words “And you shall have your liberty, sir. I cannot begrudge you taking a higher wage elsewhere. Not during trying times such as these. I release you
from any obligation.”
The man startled, so offended that he spat. “You won’t find anybody else willing to take orders from a woman at a lower price.
Any man with pride would rather work his own land if he could get a parcel.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said, now convinced of my decision to send him packing even if all I’d have to eat in the coming
year was pride. But I was not going to be insulted on our own family land. A man wouldn’t stand for it, so why should I? “Indeed,
I may have to let every single worker on this farm go. You’re merely the first. I wish you good luck, sir, and a fine day.”
With that, I turned back for the house, raining curses down upon myself with every step. What would I do now? How was my family
to live?
As was my habit when vexed, I strode directly to the larder to count my bottles of cider and jars of pickled eggs and vegetables.
I still had sacks of cornmeal and wheels of cheese in the milk house, so these could be stretched for some time. And the small
investments of my pin money were proving fruitful.
That might sustain us. But wouldn’t pay the tax bill.
Ruefully, I remembered the words of the farmhand. Any man with pride would rather work his own land if he could get a parcel.
The farm was our most important asset, but I couldn’t sell John’s land. For one thing, even if I could arrange the legal niceties, it was a moral precept of the Adamses that they never sold land.
Still, I thought, with sudden inspiration, there are plenty of men without land. And they could rent ours. Farmhands might not wish to follow my orders, but tenants worked for themselves. The idea spun
in the web of my mind until I was entirely caught up in it. And now I knew what to do.
Since moving to Braintree, Mary and her daughter Betsy often made the trip by horse and buggy to visit me and share family
gossip. Now she said, “Uncle Tufts says you’ve let go of all your hired help. But I wouldn’t have believed it until now to
see you boiling your own brew.”
Stirring a pot of peppermint, chamomile, and rose hips, I said, “I hope it is drinkable. But I haven’t let go all my help. I still have two domestics. One is at market, and the other is out back with laundry.”
Mary looked out the window. “And who are those men working your fields?”
“Tenant farmers. Uncle Tufts helped me find two brothers just starting out. They’re going to pay me half of anything they
make.”
Mary, who took on boarders to make ends meet, looked suitably impressed. “Without having to manage a farm, I suppose it leaves
your mind free for other pursuits?”
I decided to confide my latest scheme, even if she might think me a fool. “I’m going into trade with European goods. Linen.
Glassware. Spice, sugar, and paper. If John could send these goods to me from France—”
“You’ll be a shopkeeper?” Mary interrupted, eyes wide, for this would be considered quite unseemly.
“Not precisely,” I replied. “I shall use some goods for barter, as goods are likely to hold value better than paper currency.
But Uncle Tufts will see that the rest is sold to shopkeepers. That is, if the goods I order can make it past a British blockade.”
Mary winced. “What if they do not? Oh, Abigail, you risk losing your whole investment sunk to the bottom of the sea!”
I swallowed, knowing it wasn’t the kind of gamble either of my sisters would’ve been able to stomach.
But I believed it had to be tried. Trying to project an air of confidence, I said, “Well, Uncle Tufts likes the idea. And now with France on our side of the war, we’re sure to break the British blockade. ”
“What does Mr. Adams say?”
“Precious little from France,” I replied, taking the pot off the fire. “Mostly he writes to reassure me of the welfare of
the boys.”
“How did my nephews enjoy their adventures at sea? They will have tales to tell . . .”
“Oh yes. They nearly wrecked in a storm—the mast was split. Then there was a skirmish with a British ship, one so serious
that my husband grabbed a musket and took up his place with the marines. All to say nothing of a cannon exploding and killing
an officer on board.”
My staid sister blinked in obvious horror. “Oh, how glad you must be to have remained on land.”
“To the contrary! When I think of my helpless little boys tossed on the ocean with cannons exploding around them, I wish a
thousand times I’d gone with them.”
“Well, as your older sister, I do not wish it.”
“In any case, they are safe now,” I said, pouring the oddly colored brew into a teapot. With that, I called, “Nabby! Fetch
cups and cornbread.”
When my daughter did not reply, I looked up to realize she was nowhere to be found. “Now where have those girls gone?”
Mary laughed, again peeking out the window past my lace curtain. “Who can guess? Our daughters are thick as thieves these
days.”
We both took pleasure in the closeness of these two cousins; I’d always wanted it, even before I knew Nabby would never have
a sister of her own. And now Mary leaned forward to confide, “I have it on some authority that our daughters have staked out
a tree on a hill between our homes where they climb into the foliage to share their secrets.”
“Secrets?” I asked, somewhat shocked by the notion that my daughter might be old enough to have secrets, much less keep them from me.
Mary gave a knowing smile. “She’s almost thirteen, Abigail. Surely you remember how we were at that age.”
I did remember. Mary had been motherly and obedient. Elizabeth had been bright and precocious. And I had been tart and defiant.
“Thankfully, Nabby takes more after you than me.”
Placing cups on the table, Mary smiled and said, “You know, our girls are about to start upon the serious business of courting . . .”
“Nabby is too young.”
“You were only fifteen when you met Mr. Adams,” Mary reminded me. “Our girls should begin training in the necessary arts of
attracting a worthy beau.”
I’d been teaching my daughter needlework and how to write elegant correspondence. What’s more, Nabby was already an excellent
housekeeper. But I knew my daughter would need to be more accomplished to attract the right kind of suitor.
Mrs. Warren had provided her lessons in the refined arts of poetry and literature, but she’d also need to know how to sing
or to play a musical instrument. Her social graces ought to be enhanced with lessons in elocution. She ought to dress fashionably
with a bit of the fripperies that other girls her age prized.
Thinking on it, I said, “I suppose as a birthday gift, I shall have to scrape together a few coins and send her to Boston
for dance lessons.”
Mary nodded approvingly. “A wise investment. Betsy wants to learn to play the piano, but we can’t afford it. Especially now
that our brother has vanished and it shall fall to us to help support his family.”
I sighed in commiseration.
Released from captivity, our brother had returned only long enough to drink and gamble away what savings he had, abandoning
his family altogether. Last week, one of his creditors had come banging on my door looking for him, and I’d had to fend the
man off with my broom. “Do you think Bill is gone for good?”
“I do. Our father has sent letters to reason with him, offering forgiveness to a prodigal son, yet there comes no reply.”
It was an altogether too common happenstance for a husband to abandon wife and children, but never did I think to see it in my own family. “The imprisonment must have done something terrible to our brother’s mind.”
“Oh, he was always the proverbial black sheep. You remember the furor when he forfeited his opportunity to go to Harvard.”
“I remember it well, for I wished aloud that I could go in his place, and he mocked me.”
Mary smiled wryly at that old family story. “You’d have done better at Harvard than he would have. You know our brother and
his weaknesses.”
I did. But must we now pick up the pieces of the life he’d shattered? I tried in vain to summon the hard-heartedness I had
found within my breast when dismissing my workmen. But all I felt now was a melting sympathy for my brother’s children, who
were left abandoned through no fault of their own.
If there were still jars of vegetables and bottles of cider in my larder, I could never turn them away. I would support them.
I would, if necessary, take them in. And without word from John, I made this decision like I made all the others recently:
on my own.