Fairer than Morning (6 page)

“Oakum boy, ain't ye?” said Mr. Fogarty, rubbing his side-whiskers and giving a great snort as if to clear his nose. “I guess the men'll be needing to go down and get it.”

“Yes, sir.” Will breathed through his mouth to avoid nausea. His frozen fingers tingled with a first premonition of pain as they thawed. “It's in the cart at the bottom of the hill.”

Fogarty scrutinized Will. “You take an armful to the women in the main house, you hear?” The overseer pointed at one of the men. “You there! And you on the first trough! Go pick up the tarred rope this one brought. He can show you where it is.”

The men looked up, their gray faces weary. They dropped their bars with a clang into the trough as they staggered to their feet. One man furtively picked a shred of meat from the ground and popped it in his mouth, making a terrible face as he chewed. Will's gorge rose, and he turned and fumbled for the gate.

He emerged gasping into the open air and light, stepping quickly away from the shack in the hope that the odor would fade. After him the men shuffled like ghouls over the dead grass, all still bent from labor. One stumped on a wooden leg; another had a torn sleeve that dangled empty by his side.

Somehow they all made it down the hill. Even the bitter cold was better than the awful scene of the workhouse. The crippled men and three younger ones—about Will's age—hefted the lengths of tarred rope. They did not speak, just turned and made their grim, bent way back up the hill. Will scooped up the last ropes and began the arduous climb for what he hoped was the last time. He was getting tired; his breath came in shorter puffs and his legs felt the strain of every stair.

Of course, there would be no penny for this delivery. There never was. Master Good received the credit for his public-spirited munificence in picking up the oakum from the dock and delivering it to the poorhouse, and Will received nothing but chilblains.

When he made his way back to the main building, the same old woman came to let him in. She opened the door wider and beckoned him through with a palsied arm.

In the long hallway, only one candle flickered in a wall sconce to light their way. The old woman led him down to the far end and into a large room.

Five or six women sat at tables, already picking oakum. The orange light of the fire revealed half of each woman's face, leaving the other half in shadow. Their movements were slow and their cheeks sagged with bitterness and pain.

“Put the oakum over there,” the old woman said, pointing to a large basket half full of oakum close to the fire. Will walked over and without ceremony cast the oakum in his arms down into the basket. He turned to go.

Sitting at the end of the table closest to him was a girl of about his own age. Even in the eerie half-light, her face was not ugly with suffering like the others, though she was terribly thin. She looked up at Will from under a fringe of light hair that escaped the edges of her grimy bonnet.

“Good day,” he said.

She did not reply, but nodded slightly.

The old woman snickered. “Don't be a-courtin' our girls, young man.”

Will hesitated. This girl shouldn't be in this grim place, but he knew of no way to help. He raised his voice to answer the crone. “I'm just bringing them some more work, ma'am.” Bending to the basket, he selected a piece of oakum and moved a few steps to hand it to the girl.

She reached for the length of twisted rope, revealing fingers blistered and torn from her work. Pity sliced through Will and he searched for anything he might say. “God bless you and take you away from here soon.”

Both of their hands held the rope, and for a moment it was as if he looked from the deck of a ship and saw a soul tossed on the waves. He held on to the rope, wishing he could take her with him, feeling the gentle pull of her hand on the other end. But he had nowhere to take her.

“Stop dawdling!” The old woman's voice was harsher. Will let go of the oakum and walked away. He didn't look back for fear he would be moved to do something foolish.

When he finally walked in the kitchen door of the Good home, Jane Good was standing over a chunk of spitted meat, turning it with a handle over the fire. She did not look up.

“I need some water,” she said.

Will bit his lip, turned, and scooped the bucket from the porch. He could not feel the handle cutting into his palm, and in his cold-weakened state, he found he had to use both hands. Stumbling across the yard, he threw the bucket down under the pump and grabbed the handle, working it hard. The faster he finished, the sooner he would get inside. He dreaded the pain that always came with thawing his fingers, but he had to warm them up soon. He knew boys who had lost fingers to the cold.

The barn door opened and Tom came out, eyes shadowed, his coat as thin as Will's, and only a rag around his neck to keep out the wind. “Are you getting back inside?” Tom asked, when he was close enough not to be overheard by anyone in the house or barn.

“Just the water now,” Will said. After two years together under Master Good, they hardly needed words to communicate.

Tom eyed Will's hands. “Go ahead. I'll get it.”

“It's not worth it.” Will hoisted the full bucket and turned toward the house. They both knew that if Tom came with the water instead of Will, Mistress Good might report it to the master.

Once inside, Will deposited the bucket carefully on the hearth and retreated to the kitchen table. Tom followed close behind and collapsed next to Will on the bench. The boys always ate there, while the Goods took their supper at the formal dining table around the corner at the far end of the room.

The front door opened and closed, and boots trod heavily in the entry. The master. He emerged into the open great room and scanned it.

“Loitering at the table, boys? Isn't there enough work to do?”

Will despised the word
boys
, at least when the master said it. Will was eighteen and Tom sixteen—old enough for more respect. But that was why Master Good did it, of course.

“Will just returned from the workhouse and Tom from the barn,” Mistress Jane said. “They'll need a minute to warm up if we want them to tend the pigs later.”

That was the way of the mistress. No kindness, just ruthless practicality.

Frowning, Master Good shrugged out of his coat. Jane hurried to take it for him and disappeared into the hall. The master always walked right past the coat pegs and still expected his wife to take his coat and go back to hang it up for him.

“Supper is ready,” Jane said as she came back to the hearth. Her long, thin arms moved like a windmill as she removed the spit from the fire, picked a fork from its wall hook, and pushed the meat onto a platter.

Will tried not to think of how that roast beef would taste as the aroma sent pangs through his empty belly. He and Tom would not be eating that meat. A pot of watery broth hung on the hook over the fire. The mistress usually boiled the inedible parts of the cow for the apprentices, threw in some old potatoes, and called it stew.

“I have news,” Master Good said to his wife. “The saddler from Rushville is coming to town.” He looked at her significantly. “He will be staying with Dr. Loftin while he completes the commission.”

“Indeed?” Jane asked. “It's beyond me why the O'Hara woman wants that man to do the work, when she could have yours instead. And yours is so superior.”

“It's an insult,” the master said.

Jane slopped some stew in the bowls, then thrust them in front of the boys at the table. She never allowed them to serve themselves—she said they would take more than their share.

The master turned toward Will. “While the other saddler is here, I have a task for you.” He cracked his knuckles. “You must gain every scrap of knowledge about how he works the leather and attempt to learn his style. I'm determined that we will take any future O'Hara commissions from him. Appeal to his heart, make him pity you, so he holds back nothing.”

Will was silent. Bad as it was to go cold and hungry much of the time, it was worse to be subject to this man's every command.

“What's that? I didn't hear your answer. Look sharp.” The master spoke evenly, but he moved a step closer to the corner where the whip leaned.

“Yes, sir.” Will didn't know whom he hated more at that moment—his master, or himself.

Six

C
INCINNATI
1st March 1826

T
HEY WERE BEING FOLLOWED; ANN WAS CERTAIN OF
it. The man with the beaver hat pulled down over his brow—she had seen him three or four times now as they made their way through Cincinnati's streets to the dock. On each occasion, he slipped behind buildings or into open doorways as soon as she caught sight of him. She would never even have noticed him among the crowds were it not for his furtive manner.

But immediately she chided herself. Who would pursue them all the way from Rushville to Cincinnati by stagecoach? No one could possibly have such interest in their little family, nor would anyone know to seek them here on the busy wharf at the steamboat packet office.

As her father finished with the clerk and turned back to the girls, tickets in hand, a cry rang out from the edge of the waterfront.

“Packet a-comin'! All passengers to dock!” A mustached man in a red uniform held his head high and bellowed his summons with satisfaction.

The steamboat loomed behind him on the river, jaunty minstrel music drifting down from a piano buried somewhere in her towering decks. Steam gushed from her escape valves with a giant sigh; she glided inch by inch toward the dock. Black smoke billowed from twin chimneys, and an iron bell clanged from the pilot house.

“Stop her! Stop her! Stabboard reverse! Labboard reverse!”

The paddlewheels in back ceased, then began a slow backward revolution. At the bow and stern, two deckhands threw ropes to the waiting dockmen.

Ann had never seen a three-deck boat before. The lowest deck teemed with rough-clad men running this way and that, untying freight, carrying wood, shouting commands. Under the protected veranda of the middle deck, fashionable cabin passengers crowded to the ornately carved guardrails. A couple of young ladies in fur coats waved gaily to the Miller girls.

Mabel tugged at her father's sleeve without taking her eyes from the steamer
Emissary
. “Look, look, Father!”

“Can we go aboard now?” Susan asked at his other elbow.

“Be patient,” he said. “They must unload the freight first.” He smiled, his new top hat distinguished among the hats on the dock. The other hats flocked together like different species of birds. Over there were flat woolen caps on working men. Here, a bright bevy of fine ladies' hats fluttered on the passengers who could pay higher prices for cabin passage. Though a few top hats stood proudly with their fair companions, a much larger number hobnobbed together in masculine solidarity behind the women. Their owners variously smoked pipes, stamped feet, and nodded to one another as they watched the boat with anticipation.

“I'd better whistle up a stevedore,” her father said, lifting his arm in the air. Across the wharf, a line of men marched like soldiers, back and forth, carrying boxes, bales, and baggage. Ten yards away, a light-brown man cast his crate on the dock with a thud. He noticed Ann's father, raised a hand in return, and made his way through the steady stream of waterfront traffic.

“Yessir?” he said. “You need these moved to the
Emissary
, sir?”

“Yes.” Her father fished in his waistcoat and came up with a coin.

The man took it and stuffed it in his pocket. “She'll be lowering her gangplank soon.”

Even as he spoke, the wide gangplank dropped into place, and a stream of men poured off it—some carrying freight, others yelling boisterously to one another or simply hurrying up the levee to disappear into the bustling streets. Down the boat's front staircase came six or seven of the more refined passengers, followed by crew members toting their belongings. As the cabin passengers disembarked, they nodded and smiled at their peers who were waiting to board.

“She's fast as the best of 'em,” one gentleman proclaimed, tipping his hat to the ladies as he stepped from the gangplank to solid ground.

“Beautiful,” one lady said to Ann, as if confiding a secret. “You will enjoy it.”

A bearded man in a blue coat with brass buttons stepped to the curlicued railing, resting one hand on the white top rail. “Welcome, ladies,” he said to the small cluster of women. “I'm Captain Pruitt. If you care to follow me, I will escort you to your cabin.”

As four or five ladies gathered their skirts in hand and followed the captain, Ann glanced at her father. “We'll travel separately?”

“Yes,” he said. “I'll go to the men's staterooms at the bow. You'll be in your own staterooms at the stern, by the ladies' salon. But we'll meet on the promenade, and at meals.” He handed her three of the tickets.

“Very well,” she said. “Girls, come with me. Mind your step.”

She started up the gentle incline, the heels of her boots clicking on the wood. When she turned to ensure that Susan and Mabel were following safely, she glanced over their heads at the wharf. Again, there was that man in the beaver hat, standing with the deck passengers, head still lowered, face obscured. A ripple of unease passed through her.