The Gardener (29 page)

Or….

He picked Abigail up, still wrapped in blankets. Sensing her surprise, he lied reassuringly. “It is all right. We shall make it.”

Ducking his head against the onslaught, he hurried while carefully guarding his defenseless burden. The mud was thick, and more than once he nearly lost his footing, but he managed to stay upright. For once, Tom was glad of his long legs that ate up the distance until at last the neighbors' cabin rose up before them. He pounded on the door with his free hand and, almost before it opened, stumbled inside.

“Where's the bed?” Tom demanded gruffly without greeting his sleepy hosts. His eyes darted about the small room.

Ruth was pulling a dressing gown over her sleeping clothes in the light of the small fire. The glow warmed the rough walls of the single room, no bigger than that of the cabin they had left. The Quaker woman took in the situation at once.

“Lay her down over there,” she ordered. “Obadiah, tear up the clean rags in the basket over there.”

Abigail lay doubled over on the mattress, eyes squeezed shut with pain. Her body trembled. Too late, Tom thought dully. Too late to save her.

Ruth glared at him. “Obadiah, get this fellow out of here. Men are never of use in a situation like this.”

“But I—” Tom began, jutting out his jaw belligerently. No one was going to separate him from his wife. Not
now
. Not during their last moments together.

“Where did thee leave thy wagon?” Obadiah’s hand closed around Tom's upper arm like an iron manacle, despite the man's shorter stature. Tom felt surprise cut through his rage. "Surely thee did not walk the entire distance."

“Half a mile away,” Tom said automatically. “The wheel hit a rock, and it—”

“We cannot leave thy poor, helpless animals out in that storm,” Obadiah pointed out calmly. “We must fetch them and stable them in the barn for the night. My son will help. Come on, let's go, thee and me. There’s no good we can do here.”

Tom resisted at first, but Obadiah’s calm persistence finally broke through his stubbornness. The Quakers were right. With a last glance over his shoulder as Ruth busied herself with his wife, Tom allowed himself to be dragged back out into the rain. Young Zebulon, who appeared sleepily from the loft, accompanied them wrapped in his father’s oversized coat and holding a lantern.

Tom plodded alongside them, too weary to resist. Ruth was right: he was of no use there. Yet he knew that when they returned, they would enter a house of death.

*     *     *

After the men returned with the pair of grays, the worst of the gale seemed to have passed. They fed the animals and Tom collapsed on a pile of hay, resting his head on his hands. Every ounce of strength had spilled out of him. He was reluctant to go into the cabin, knowing what he would find.

Obadiah waited for him patiently until Tom could find no more excuse to tarry. Shoulders slumped, he followed the other man and ducked his head under the low lintel from habit as they entered the cabin.

The room seemed more cramped than ever. There were not enough chairs for everyone to sit, even after Zebulon, yawning, climbed back into the sleeping loft. Ruth’s back was to them as she bent over the still form. The long, sweat-soaked reddish hair spilling across the pillow was the only note of color in the shadow-decked room.

“There you men are. Just in time.” Ruth turned from the bed with sweat beading on her broad forehead, her brown hair disheveled. Her eyes were tired as she held out a small, limp bundle.             

Chapter Twenty-one

Tom stared down, speechlessly. So it was over. Just like before…. Then the tightly wrapped bundle jerked violently and a small red face emitted a piercing squall.

Startled, he looked up and met Ruth Muller's laughing eyes. “Well, Tom," she said. "Say hello to thy new daughter.”

He gazed down at the baby again, dumbstruck. Judging by its lungs, the baby seemed healthy enough. It barely filled his palm, but it wiggled vigorously.

Then he remembered Abigail and in two strides, still holding the warm bundle next to his chest, he reached the bed. She lay motionless against the pillow, face pale, eyes closed. Just then, her eyes opened and she smiled tiredly at him.

“Hello, Tom,” she murmured.

Tom couldn't think of anything to say. Alive—both of them? He handed the baby back to Ruth and swept Abigail into his arms, clinging to her as if she would disappear if he let go. “Abigail … Abby. You’re not d—” He stopped, catching himself. “You—you are well?”

“Of course,” she smiled, tightening her arms around his neck. “You cannot get rid of me as easily as that.”

He laughed, and the muscles in his face felt awkward, strange, as if unused too long. He bent his head and whispered in her ear, “I am sorry, Abby. For so much. Can you forgive me?”

She pushed him away so she could see his face. Her gray eyes grew serious and questioning. “Forgive you?”

He nodded and swallowed hard. “If only I had known sooner….” He struggled to find the right words, feeling like a blind man regaining his sight and trying to make sense of the gray masses taking shape around him. Tom tried again, impelled to try make sense of it all. “You see, I … I was so afraid losing you that I did not dare care.”

She was watching him intently. He took her hand in his. The words came easier now, as things began to grow clear. “I
could not
care, Abby, lest you be taken away from me like every other woman I have loved.” He remembered with an inward groan some of the cruel things he had said in an attempt to drive her away. “When I think of how I treated you, Abby … I am ashamed.” He bent his lips to her hand. “I shall spend the rest of my life making it up to you, I swear it, if you will forgive me.” He paused, took a breath and held it. “I love you.”

"You love me?" Her voice sounded stunned.

Tom tightened his grip, then realized he was crushing her hand. He loosened his fingers.

Ruth, who had been hovering behind him pretending not to listen, shoved a stool in his direction. “Sit down,” she ordered. “It has been a long night, and several hours remain till morning. I cannot think why the pair of you were fools enough to come all this way in the rain. 'Twas the easiest birth I have ever assisted at.”

Tom looked up. “Easy? But I thought ....”

“Thee silly man,” Ruth said affectionately. “I know thy kind. Always making things worse than ever they needed to be. I'd say thee are the one most in danger right now, being wet to the bone. Obadiah, give Tom some dry clothes and bundle him up. He can share the bed with his wife and babe, and we can share the loft with Zebulon. Otherwise, I assure you not one of us will sleep a wink this night.”

*     *     *

After the Quaker couple climbed the ladder and extinguished the candle, Tom lay in the unfamiliar bed under the soft patchwork quilt, listening to the soft sounds of the new baby suckling, the squeak of the wood frame as Abigail shifted her weight. He could not sleep, not with so many thoughts running through his head.

He had been so certain this day would end in tragedy. Longstanding pessimism reminded him something could still happen: life was full of uncertainty. Nevertheless, the fact remained that for this moment he and his new family were together, and a warm feeling washed over Tom. Happiness. For the first time in months, perhaps years, he allowed himself to fully submit to it. Stretching his arm around his wife and their newborn baby, he thought with wonder perhaps Abigail was right all along. Maybe opening his heart was worth the risk of pain.

As Tom finally fell asleep, however, his last thoughts were of the Quaker couple who took them in. Once, he thought sleepily, he'd considered all Americans savages. How wrong that was! Abigail's father, Miles Woodbury had proven more civilized than any of the lofty Marlowes, and these simple Quakers showed the same inner nobility that the old gardener, Lemley, exhibited under his patched and faded smock. What else might Tom be wrong about?

*     *     *

That autumn, Tom stood by Abigail surveying with satisfaction the harvested fields that spread out before him. He had never labored so hard in his life as he had to clear and plant those fields, and more remained for him to do. Nevertheless, the task had been pleasure, not drudgery, for he had been laboring for himself and his small family.

Mabel Rose lay contentedly in Abigail's arms, blinking up at him from dark-blue eyes. She was chubby and pink-cheeked, with coppery hair, soft as swan’s down. Tom gave his daughter one of his fingers to grasp while he turned to study the cabin, and felt another surge of satisfaction as she squeezed it with a giggle.

Somehow he'd found time to add another room to the small structure and to fashion a few additional pieces of furniture, although their possessions were still sparse, with few comforts. There was nothing lovely about the house except the rolling green landscape beyond, much of it still covered thickly with trees, birch, alder, ash, and of course, plenty of low-growing buckeyes — trees that someday would be felled to make room for more plowed fields. And, of course, the blooming Damask rosebushes flanking the door. Abigail had planted them as soon as he'd finished building the cabin, before Mabel Rose was born, and now the roses' perfume filled the air.

“Betty was right,” Tom said, under his breath. “I'd rather be here, breaking my back in hard labor, than back in slavery, however comfortable and luxurious the setting.”

Slavery? Abigail wondered what her husband was talking about. And who was Betty? Yet another woman from her husband’s mysterious past? She still had a lot to learn about the tall man who stood by her. Someday she would ask him, but not today. Today belonged to her and Tom and little Mabel Rose.

Abigail heaved a sigh of contentment as Tom’s strong arm came around her waist, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. There was no other place she would rather be, either. If only things could stay like this forever! But a stirring inside her made her clutch Mabel Rose a little harder, and for some reason she shivered. How could things stay the same, when things around them were changing every day? New cabins were being built beyond the Muller's property and the strangers' chimney smoke filled the air. Change was in the wind, but she prayed with every fiber of her being that it would pass them by and spare Tom's dream.

Chapter Twenty-two

Spring 1802

For five years the town of Zanesville had grown steadily, prospering along with that of Tom and Abigail West’s farm. Tom was disappointed when dozens of other settlers threw up homes on nearby lots and the wilderness took on the look of a community, but as the Mullers reminded him, there were advantages to having neighbors. At least Abigail seemed happy, and so did little Mabel Rose, who liked nothing better than to ride with him in the wagon to their house to play with little Hans Muller, Zebulon's new little brother.

When the chores were done, even Tom found he enjoyed riding to town and meeting with the other men in the alehouse to discuss the weather, tips on growing things, and politics. He was surprised to find others listened to him, as if his opinions on things mattered. Long ago at Blackgrave Manor, Lemley had theorized that plants grew easily under Tom's touch because he had "magic" in his fingers. Sometimes he wondered about his himself. It was true that his crops grew taller and fatter than anyone else’s, so perhaps it was natural when the others turned to him for advice. Tom's experience at blacksmithing hadn’t hurt his rise in prestige either, it being a rare and valued skill so far from the rest of civilization.

At one of the alehouse's tables sat the owner of one of the largest farms in the county, a ruddy-faced, broad-shouldered man with thick graying hair who, twenty years earlier, had served as an officer in the Revolutionary War, and who had received his land in partial repayment. Nathaniel Johnson was an important man in the community, one whom Tom respected.

“Nathaniel,” Tom said with pleasure, pulling up a spindle-backed chair. “I haven’t seen you lately.”

“Been surveying new lots up north,” Johnson said, raising his tankard in a friendly greeting. “The new surveyor general, Rufus Putnam, has arrived from Washington to draw up maps for another thousand acres in the west. But we've run into trouble.”

“Trouble? How so?” Tom asked, sipping his ale interestedly.

Nathaniel slapped the table with frustration. “It's the accursed curvature of the earth. It is throwing our measurements off!”

“The curvature of the earth?”  Tom remembered his old discussions of science with Mr. Woodbury, and how Abigail's father would pull down his old globe and show him how the earth rotated on its axis, and point out lines of latitude and longitude. “What has the curvature of the earth got to do with surveying townships in Ohio Territory?"

Nathaniel drew a long sigh of frustration. “The problem is it makes straight lines cursedly difficult to draw on a map. If you imagine this is the earth ….” He took out a pencil and scratched a rough circle onto the wood table, then swiftly drew two intersecting lines, one vertical and the other horizontal. He stabbed at the drawing with his pencil. “This is the prime meridian in Greenwich, England, and here’s the equator. I'll pencil in the longitudinal lines. Do you see? There’s more land the farther south you go, and less land the farther north you go. That means there's no way to create six-mile townships perfectly square. Makes it infernally difficult to divide things up equitably.”

Tom frowned, looking at the rough scrawl, and scratched his chin in puzzlement. “I don't understand why you include land north and south of Ohio in the calculations," he commented after a moment. "Doesn't that unnecessarily complicate the issue?” He took out a handkerchief and dabbed ale froth from the corners of his mouth before tucking the piece of cloth away again. He couldn’t bring himself to draw his sleeve across his face like the other farmers did, even when they chuckled at his fine manners. Nor could he change the fact that he liked to bathe every day, or, when he was away from the plow, to dress in his best breeches and frockcoat. Two years under the tutelage of the exacting Mr. Blodgett had left a permanent mark.

“What do you mean, 'unnecessarily complicate the issue'?” Nathaniel asked, his thick eyebrows lowering over shrewd black eyes.

“Just this: wouldn't it be easier to create an arbitrary meridian—say, here…” Tom took the pencil and drew his own line through the part of the scrawl that represented Ohio. “…And start measuring from that? Why bother using the meridian in Greenwich, England? This will make your results far more accurate.”

There was no response. After a moment's silence, Tom looked up to find Johnson staring at him, eyebrows almost disappearing into the hairline, thick lips slightly parted.

Tom studied the drawing again, frowning as he tried to find the weakness in his solution. Perhaps reading too much ancient history and half-understood mathematics had gone to his head, he thought with a sinking heart. He mustn’t forget who he really was—a mere plowman and former servant who had no business giving advice to more learned men.

He quickly drained his tankard and stood up. “I just remembered, I need to milk my cows,” Tom mumbled, although two hours remained before the sun would reach the horizon. “Please remember me to your wife, Nathaniel.”

Outside, Tom put on his hat and unhitched his horse from the post, wishing with all his heart he had not come to town. When would he finally learn to follow the old gardener Lemley's advice and not stick his head out?

*     *     *

When the two men came to the West farm, it was early spring. Mabel Rose, a sturdy five-year-old, was playing with her two little brothers, Richard and James, in the yard after dinner.

Tom was sitting by the hearth reading another of the books Abigail had smuggled into the wagon before their journey west. How little she had known him, to think he would object to her bringing them along! he thought. And how little he had known her.

Tonight, he was poring over Plutarch for the second time, amazed that words which had once been so difficult to understand now made perfect sense. He’d plowed through most of the other books by now, tomes on politics and law.

Lately, however, he had to snatch time to read. He was kept busy not only with the farm, whose success promised to make him a wealthy man, but with affairs of Zanesville. As the families flocking to the region learned of his blacksmithing skills, they brought horses that had cast shoes, or square nails to be straightened out, too rare and precious to throw away. Tom was surprised but gratified to discover he had become an important man in the community.

Ruefully he remembered his intentions to keep a low profile, to stick to his farm and his new family, but as usual, fate had not complied with his plans. The night Mabel Rose was born, Tom had learned neighbors on the frontier needed each other, and so, grudgingly and with much nudging from Abigail, he’d accepted that fact and did what he could to assist the others.

Now he looked up as his wife welcomed their visitors, then quickly got to his feet, setting aside his book. “Mr. Johnson, Mr. Putnam! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Rufus Putnam was a powerful man, a former Revolutionary War general, well known in the Northwest Territories. He was one of the founders of the Ohio Company and, as Nathaniel Johnson had informed him, was serving as the United States’ first surveyor general. What were he and Nathaniel Johnson doing here in his modest home?

Of course, the structure was not as modest as it had been. As the farm prospered, Tom expanded the rough cabin into a comfortable four-room house with glass windows ordered from back east, a new shake roof, and plastered walls. Lately he was even considering adding a second story and, perhaps, a forge out back, for his new blacksmithing business. As the visitors doffed tall beaver hats and bowed to Abigail, Tom was glad he did not have to be ashamed. He waved them to the pair of wingback chairs flanking the fireplace and pulled up one of the old wooden chairs for himself.

Putnam, a stocky, gray-haired man with a long nose, receding chin, and smiling eyes, waved to his companion. “Well, Nathaniel, you tell him why we're here.”

Nathaniel Johnson cleared his throat and puffed out his chest. “As you know, Tom, the population of Ohio is growing rapidly,” he said, sounding uncharacteristically pompous. “By the time the application for statehood is completed, we shall have the requisite sixty thousand residents. Ohio will be the first new state admitted under the terms set forth by President Jefferson.”

Tom nodded. He knew these facts. Like everyone else, he was fiercely interested in the progress of the soon-to-be seventeenth state.

“The fact is,” interjected Putnam, producing a pipe and pouch from his pocket and carefully tamping down the tobacco, “we are sending a delegation to Congress to finalize the process. I need a man on my staff familiar with the geography and history of the state, one who can help plan its future. Someone like you.”

"Me?" It took a moment for Tom to absorb this. “Gentlemen, surely you are not serious! I am flattered, naturally, but would it not be better to pick someone better educated?”

Putnam gestured at the book of Plutarch Tom had left open on the table. “Many of our greatest men are self-taught," he pointed out. "I served under General Washington, who had fewer years of formal schooling than my hare-lipped aunt had suitors." He winked. "Was it not our current President Jefferson who said, ‘State a problem to a ploughman and a professor, and the former will decide it often better than the latter’?”

A
grin broadened Johnson's features. “Do you remember the idea you proposed while we sat over tankards not long ago, Tom? About the problem of surveying new lands in this territory?”

“Er … yes." Tom sat up straighter in his seat, studying both his visitors' faces in turn. He remembered the conversation well, although it had taken place nearly a year ago. “You refer to the problem of keeping townships exactly six-miles square despite the earth's curvature?”

Johnson nodded. “You said, ‘Why not establish an arbitrary meridian and measure from there? And I thought, 'Why indeed not!'” He chuckled. "It worked like a charm."

“Are you saying you actually adopted the method?”

Putnam slapped his hand on his knee again. “And you have the nerve to call yourself uneducated, Mr. West! It was a brilliant idea! Beautifully simple. Cannot imagine why I did not think of it before. It goes to prove that common sense is anything but common.” The two visitors chuckled again, before Putnam leaned back and crossed his ankle on his knee, his face growing serious.

“We are not asking you to run for elected office, which I know you would refuse. But please consider joining my staff—at least until I finish dividing the Northwest Territory into townships.”

Tom frowned as he contemplated what Rufus Putnam was asking.
Tear myself away from the farm Abby and I established with so much sweat and labor?
Submit myself again to the leadership of another man? I swore I would never serve anyone but myself.

“What work would you have me do, Mr. Putnam?” he asked, stalling for time.

Rufus Putnam removed his pipe from his mouth and waved it for emphasis. “Next month I must meet with President Jefferson before surveying the rest of the territory. You know the terrain around here far better than me, and your experience and advice will be valuable. The president is a farmer himself, you know, and has written several treatises on farming.”

President Jefferson!
Tom remembered his long evening talks with Professor Woodbury, who knew the man, admired him, and quoted him often. What an honor to lay eyes on the president, perhaps even to stand in the same room and hear him speak….

Abigail stood across the room, hands folded in front of her, listening.  Tom looked up and met her eyes. She nodded slightly.

Tom turned back to his guests, his heart pumping faster. “I shall consider it.”

“I am pleased. From what I hear, you excel at whatever you turn your hand to,” said Putnam, winking as he got to his feet.

After shaking hands all around, Tom watched in a daze as the men left, then turned to Abigail. Mabel Rose ran between them and raised her arms, clamoring to be picked up. Absent-mindedly he did so, rubbing his cheek against her softly scented copper hair.

“Well, Abby, what do you say? How can I just walk away from the farm after we put so much work into it?”

“It will not be forever. A year or two, maybe. And we could lease the land while we are gone. With so many people flowing into the area, it should not be hard to find someone willing to take over while you’re away.”

Tom turned away, still holding Mabel Rose, and looked into the fire’s leaping flames. “As a matter of fact, I am tempted by the offer,” he admitted, thinking of the chance he might have to actually see the president with his own eyes. “But why should they ask
me
?”

“Why
not
you?” Flames reflected from the fireplace danced in Abigail’s gray eyes, making them sparkle. “You are always coming up with new ideas about increasing crop yields or making a more efficient plow, and naturally the neighbors have noticed. I suppose Mr. Putnam hopes you can apply your ingenuity to helping prepare the rest of the Northwest Territories for settlement.”

He shrugged away the flattery as a darker thought made him frown. “There’s another problem that prevents me from accepting their offer.”

“What could that be?” Watching him, Abigail's smile faded. She took Mabel Rose from his arms and sent her outside, with a gentle swat to the rear. “Run outside and play, dear. Your father and I have something important to discuss.”