Caleb's Crossing

by Geraldine Brooks

Suddenly, it seemed, we saw a good deal of Noah Merry in Great Harbor. Whenever his family was in want of supplies or due to pay grandfather his share of receipts from the grist mill, it was no longer Jacob or Josiah who could best be spared from the farm, but always Noah. Whatever business brought him, he generally contrived to drive his cart past our dooryard just as I was setting board for dinner. Each time, father would tell me to make another place.

Love triaNgle!

But since Noah was clearly no square cap, conversation in his presence went on differently. The chatter might be of village matters: comings and goings to the mainland, a new family making the crossing to join us, a birth or a death, who had published their names to marry, who had bought a cow, and such small, pleasant bits of news.

Caleb seemed out of sorts, and answered tersely. I thought this odd, until I reflected that talk of his old life might bring unwelcome memories. But then it came to me that he often was reserved when Noah joined us, no matter what the subject. I concluded that he had not yet learned to be at ease with any English person outside of our family. I could not see any other reason for his coldness.

Omg

There is factory here, enough to rob the peace—tanner, brick maker, smith and shipbuilder fill the daylight hours with their clamor—yet not enough to bring prosperity.

Since the townsfolk do not trouble where they tip their slops, the air reeks, and everywhere the middens rise, rotting in steaming piles of clutter and muck. The creek is brackish, but even were it not, its waters would be unwholesome, since the township uses it as a drain. One must, in consequence, drink only the small beer, which makes my head ache and I cannot think helps the boys, especially the youngest, two of whom are not yet nine years old.

MiszerAble

galls me, when I catch a stray remark from the master, or between the older English pupils, to the effect that the Indians are uncommonly fortunate to be here. I have come to think it is a fault in us, to credit what we give in such a case, and never to consider what must be given up in order to receive it. And

Caleb fares better, his body seasoned to yearly cycles of plentiful summers and leaner winters. How he will do, in time, with the constant and continuing privations of this place, I cannot say. Yet each day he gains another graceful turn of phrase or gentlemanly gesture, and his height and natural bearing give him a great distinction. He brims like a stream in spate, gathering all the knowledge that

This night, I read over what I have set down here, and resolved to be more clear in my account going forward. I must not jump hither and yon, as I did in my writing yester eve.

Does this keep happening or am i nuts

Even when a rough-footed hen crossed my path in early morning, which all know for a token of fell tidings, I discounted the omen.

she stirred before my return, Makepeace would gather her up and jostle and coo at her for the short time necessary. He never shirked or complained of this: Solace was the one being with whom he did not feel constrained in expressing his true affections. Also, as I now think, it gave him some relief during the lesson; some cover for his slowness. This is how we went on every day, and I had no reason to question the arrangement.

I interrupted father to ask where she might be. He looked at me, startled, and then glanced all about him in confusion. “She was here just now presently. She woke, and was making a fret, so I told Makepeace to set her down here, by me. . . .” Caleb and Makepeace were already on their feet, followed by Joel. Makepeace did as I had already done, and searched round and about him. We all of us moved in confusion, increasingly frantic, calling her name. But Caleb went straight as an arrow to the place, covering the short way in a few long strides. She was facedown in the shallow hole, not yet three feet deep, that was to have been our new well.

There was rainwater from the night’s shower puddled there, inches merely. Yet somehow enough to steal breath from a babe who crawled to the edge, tottered on her unsteady little feet, and tumbled in. Caleb snatched up her limp, muddy little body and ran back to where I stood with father in the garth. He was crying out in Wampanaontoaonk. Makepeace, coming from the house, saw, and howled like a wounded beast. As Caleb handed her into father’s outstretched arms, I remember the water, dripping off her hem and sluicing from her silky hair. I remember that the droplets sparkled in the sunlight, as if an angel scattered gems in the way of her ascending soul.

Omg

It was like Zuriel’s death, lived a second time. Father had blamed himself then—I think, groundlessly—for running the wain over Zuriel, and now he blamed himself for lack of attention to Solace when she was in his care.

Indeed, the loss of the babe stripped the scab that had formed over the wound of losing mother.

But this time his body proved less mighty than his will, so that his very skin broke into canker sores and his hair commenced to fall out in small clumps.

On the day following her burial, upon her grave I found evergreen sprigs, which surely was no English doing. I feel sure Caleb was behind this, for Joel was not raised in the heathen traditions of his people, which say that their god made man and woman from a pine tree, and even if he did know of them in a general way, I do not think he would have felt moved to perform such things unprompted.

In the morning, I went privily to Caleb and asked what he had done, fearing that whatever he had put into her hand might be an unChristian thing. He told me that it was a scrap of parchment on which he had made a fair copy of the scripture of our Lord, Suffer the little children . . . He had tied it up with his own wampum-beaded thong of deer hide, around the peg doll that Makepeace had fashioned for her and that had been her chief plaything in her last month among the living.

reached out and put his hands on mine, unclenching them gently. His own hands had grown less rough in the months since he had come to us.

but then also lust, which did surprise me, until I looked at him with something other than a sister’s eyes, and reflected that he was in truth a boy no longer. I found myself wondering if his lust had an object, and if so, who it might be. I followed his gaze after with greater attention, but did not learn anything by it. He made strenuous efforts to reform himself of the first two categories of sin, becoming quite abstemious at board and applying himself in an uncommon way to his chores. I do not know how he fared with regard to the other, and if his affections were engaged somewhere, I was not sharp-eyed enough to discern it.

Oh no

overheard as he and father talked late into the night, Makepeace urging him to caution, but to no effect. That night, it was father who could not command his tongue. I could hear him quite clearly through the blanket that divided us,

Tequamuck hated father’s prayers, saying they were spells crafted to lead the people away from their own gods. He warned that once father had contrived to strip them of their protecting spirits, the English would destroy them utterly. I do not know if Tequamuck truly thought my father so malign. I do think he hated him, as one man will hate another who draws off the affections of a beloved. Tequamuck burned with a jealous rage that Caleb studied with father to serve the English God. Word came to us from time to time of terrible threats against my father’s life. But if these troubled father, he gave no sign of it.

was a few paces behind father and grandfather, and I am sure they had forgot that I was there.

Like so sad

But by that evening it was decided that father would indeed set sail for England as soon as it was practicable to go.

For propriety’s sake— meaning mine—Caleb was to board with Joel during father’s absence, and Makepeace would oversee lessons, with grandfather reviewing the work as and when his heavy obligations allowed. I was left to keep house for Makepeace. It would be but light huswifery, tending to the needs of one other only. I hoped we would do tolerably together, and resolved to help him in whatever manner I could and to give him no cause for complaint.

Ut oh???

So it would be with the great love he bore them, he said. Although he would be gone from their sight across the seas through several moons, his love would be with them and they would be ever in his thoughts.

Def dies

It was only when the sails were set and the anchor weighed that I turned to go and saw Tequamuck, on the bluff above the hole, his feather cloak billowing in the summer breeze, his arms outstretched in an invocation. Although he was too far off for me to make out the words he chanted, I knew that they were not benign. Soon the Wampanoag on the beach saw him, too. They began murmuring among themselves. Some cried out against him in their own tongue. Others knelt in the sand and threw their hands up to heaven. But most of the crowd melted away faster than I would have thought possible for so large a gathering.

It took Makepeace a little time to register the cause of the sudden disarray, but once he knew its source he turned towards the bluff and cried out: “Cease your foul and clamorous noise! You offend the ears of the holy God! Cast yourself down upon the Earth before God and beg he would humble you!”

Kidnapped? Like hostage?

Speckle

The horse!

fortnight

I touched you

Not so my Solace, who made no mark upon the world. Nights I can barely sleep for the loss of her weight against my body. In dark of night, I hear her cry, and start awake. But it is a voice of my dream only, and it wakes me to an aching loneliness. Now, all these months since her death, I think of her, and how she would have grown and changed. I see her walking beside me with a rolling gait, reaching out a plump hand to clasp my fingers. I see her hair lengthened and curling about her face. I imagine the sound of her voice as she says her first words, the small frown at her brow as she puzzles at something, a glimpse of her milk teeth as she smiles.

In the days that followed the discovery of the wreck,

The dad. Where is caleb

Although we felt ourselves orphans, we were not yet so: without a body, under the terms of the law, father could not be considered dead until the court ruled upon

Why, there is no limit to what great things might be done, what Caleb, highborn among them, might—” “Caleb!” He spat out the name, kicking up a clod of turf with the toe of his boot. “I am weary of hearing about Caleb and his greatness. This same Caleb, who is of such brutish stock that his own uncle consorts with Satan daily. Oh yes: blood will tell, sister. But it is not princely blood that runs strong in his veins. It is wizard blood. His own people knew well enough, when they sent him out to live with that servant of darkness who is his uncle. I can hardly tolerate to sit at board and take a vessel from his hands. It is like being pricked all over with thorns, I tell you, to have him by me in meeting, mouthing God’s word, he, who was not so long ago in the wilderness, calling forth Satan. And yet all about me all I hear are paeans to his pregnant wit: ‘Caleb can construe Virgil . . .

“There is nothing in the least degree of that nature in my feelings for Caleb.”

Since I could not tell him, in truth, what the nature of my feelings was—that I did love Caleb, as the brother that he, Makepeace, had never been to me—I turned my back on him and went to untie Speckle.

Do I need to recall to you that grandfather is my guardian? Not you. If you believe the truth of what you say, then go to grandfather and make your report of it. I dare you to do so.”

I am sadly not in purse to provide the usual fees, Master Corlett confides that there may be a way to waive them, if . . .” And here grandfather’s gaze shifted, unexpectedly, to me. “If you, Bethia, agree to be indentured to Mr. Corlett, as housekeeper at the school.” “Indentured?”

For one thing, the term would be short—just four years, not the more customary eight.

And I had no wish at all to be his wife, or any man’s wife. For one thing, I was in mourning. Each death, coming so swift on the heels of the last, had left me adrift.

When mother died I thought I was meant to raise Solace—that this would be the larger part of my life’s work. When Solace died I thought that I was meant to support father, to keep his house so that he could pursue his mission untroubled by daily concerns. His death had left me utterly rudderless. Perhaps this service with Master Corlett, unwelcome as it seemed to me now, was meant to give me some new bearing. Since I was banned, by my sex, from the work of ministry, perhaps God meant to use me as the instrument by which my brother might follow that path.

“Mr. Corlett writes that he is but recently widowed and is in want of a gentlewoman to assist him in the running of the school. He has a number of boys b...

“Consider, Bethia. You would be doing a service, not just for your brother, but for the other boys resident there, including young Joel and Caleb, in whose fortunes I know you take an interest.” Makepeace shot me a look at that. I answered his glance with a withering glare.

You will pour across this land, and we will be smothered. Your stone walls, your dead trees, the hooves of your strange beasts trampling the clam beds. My uncle sees these things, here and now. And in his trance, he sees that worse is coming. Your walls will rise everywhere until they shut us out. You will turn the land upside down with your ploughs until all the hunting grounds are gone. This, and more, my uncle sees.” Caleb slapped his hand down upon the sand, then he drew it into a fist. “And yet he refuses to see that God prospers you, and protects you, and keeps from you the sicknesses against which his powers are as nothing.

You know full well your brother is a dullard. He will not profit from this schooling, even though you give your freedom to buy it.”

“You taught me once that names might serve for a season or two, then pass away. The season of Storm Eyes has passed. It is time we both of us stopped looking behind us and set our faces to the toil ahead. I told you once, long ago, that Bethia means God’s Servant.

A man must take power where he finds it. If I find it in your books, I will take it. If I find it in visions brought to me by my familiar, then I will take that, too.

Gizmo!

“Power? Does not a lightning bolt have power? Reach for it, and become a blackened husk. . . .” My voice cracked.

When I glanced back, my hand raised in farewell, he had melted into the trees, invisible. He had not lost the art.

During which time Elijah Corlett covenants to use all means in his power to provide for said Bethia Mayfield boarding and lodging and such attendance as is necessary to her keep and care in health and sickness and further covenants to afford her brother, Makepeace Mayfield, full scholar’s privileges, board and lodging at the Cambridge Latin School and to educate him in Literature as he is capable.

carter

Is this what the name carter means?