blankets and lay them down under the branches. Then you whack the branches with long sticks. It be raining walnuts during the harvest.” He paused and leaned against a tree. “Look, I got no time to be dilly-dallying with the likes of you. The pain’s so bad sometimes that I feels like putting my musket to my head and pulling the trigger. I even feel pain where my leg used to be sometimes. Can’t figure it out. Must be what they calls ghost pain.”
“Maybe you stopped someone else from dying when you took that cannonball.” Arnold mused.
“You been talking to Tom Fletcher?”
Arnold cocked his head. “Who’s he?”
“The fool was standing up firing at the British so I jumped up off the ground and pushed him down. A second later the cannonball took off my leg. He always says that I saved his life. He be one of the folks I knows down Virginia way. Says he’ll help me build a cabin on his land for us to live in. Says we can stay in his house till we gets it built.”
After walking the entire property, the three sat on the porch to rest. Jeremiah used his usual method to establish a price for whenever he sold anything.
“Well how much you got?”
Arnold pulled out his money belt. He had refastened it to his belly loosely after his ordeal of Andrea removing it at the tavern.
“Here. Let me count it up.” After receiving the belt, Jeremiah counted its contents. “Looks to be a little bit short. Tell you what. Either of you ever fix a wagon?”
Arnold pointed at the wagon and turned to Rudolph. “You. Fix. Repair?”
Rudolph frowned. “Fix” and “repair” were not yet a part of his English vocabulary.
“You know. Make it gut.” Arnold used one of the few German words he knew.
“Yah. I make gut.” Rudolph nodded as he wandered over to inspect the broken down wagon. He had a feeling that working on such a small orchard would be easier than his days of growing up on his father’s large farm had been. And making repairs were nothing new to him.
“Good. Okay, then. If you fix our wagon and lets us have half of the apple crop to give to our kids and gives me all the cash you’re carrying the place be yours.”
Arnold stuck out his hand to seal the deal. They moved back inside to the large kitchen that also served as living and dining rooms for the small home. He was certain that Andrea would rejoice because this property was much closer to Pittsfield.
“We’s got us a deal. Ain’t gonna turn down cash any day of the week.” Jeremiah informed Emma, who smiled. She had been ready to move for years. Being in Virginia would place them much closer to their children and grandchildren.
“I must say you seem to have finally at long last changed your mind, Jeremiah.” The doctor observed. “Every other time I brought possible buyers out here, you wouldn’t even show them around.”
“That’s only ‘cause you always brought by the wrong ones, you ninny.”
“What?”
“Emma and I need someone to fix our wagon before we can move away from here. Any fool can see that, plain as day. What’s the matter; don’t your glasses work no more? Arnold here already has Rudolph checking over the wagon.”
“Oh.”
“Another thing. Arnold here is the first one that’s got any where near the money our place be worth. We talked turkey while we walked. If he gives us what be in his money belt and lets us take half of this year’s apple crop to give to our children and all of the cider left over from last year then we has ourselves a deal.”
Miffed that her husband had left her out of the final transaction, Andrea began tapping her fingers loudly on the table. Jeremiah noticed it first.
“Now I never wants it said that I were the cause of strife between a husband and wife. I got enough strife of my own with my wife. No sense in me creating any more of it, right? Arnold and me made one of them kind of preliminary deals which be subject to the approval of Mrs. Thompson of course.”
Arnold wiped his sweating brow. “Thank you, for mentioning that, Jeremiah. Well what do you think, dear?”
“I think you’re like a chicken with its head cut off.” Andrea wagged her finger. “Every chance you got you were running around New England for the last five years looking for a farm while I was stuck in Boston with our daughters. Now you go ahead and buy a place without even talking it out with me. And how will we be furnishing this place?” She folded her arms and sank down in her chair.
Jeremiah vaulted from his chair and started dancing a jig. His peg leg tapped out the rhythm. “That be your only worry?” He danced toward one of the jugs that lined the shelf along the north facing windowless wall of the home. “It be almost time to switch from being fall to being winter. If we gonna make it to Virginia in one piece we has to be traveling light, real light. Half of the apple crop will fill up the wagon so’s we has enough room left for our clothes and such things. We be leaving every stick of furniture here. All my friends and kids down Virginia way been telling us they got extra furniture for us when we gets there.”
Andrea’s head jerked backward as if it had been slapped. “But…”
“And there’s no way possible we can carry all of my preserves,” Emma said. “We’ll take what we need for the journey.”
Andrea’s jaw dropped. She earlier had complimented Emma on her large larder. “But there’s a year’s worth of preserves enough for three people you have stored up.” She pointed at them.
“The jars would break if we took all of them. Then the preserves would spill out and be useless. Even if we could pack them so they wouldn’t break it would make the wagon too heavy for the horses. You can have them. I’ll be leaving my canning pot with you. My daughter wrote to say she’s buying me a new one. Canning is long, hard work. Most haven’t taken to it yet. But I’ll teach you how if you want me to.”
“And I’ll be taking enough deer jerky to get us by on the trip. I’ll leave you the rest of the buck that’s hanging in the smoke house. He dressed out about a hundred pounds or so.” Jeremiah set his largest jug of what he called sipping cider on the table.
This time Arnold’s head jerked as if it had been slapped. “It’s the best meat I ever tasted in me life and I’ve tasted meat from many a land. He gave me and Rudolph a piece to sample when he showed us the smoke house, dear.”
“Secret to that is you got to smoke it slow, real slow like. Brings out the flavor. Doesn’t matter if it’s deer, squirrel, fish, duck, geese, you name it. Smoke it slow.” He glanced around and lowered his voice. “That and the wood you use to smoke it. I only use wood from the apple tree pruning and any that falls off from the walnut trees. Don’t go telling no one. That be our secret, okay. Once you starts getting low on what’s in the smoke house, shoot yourself another buck. Their meat be real gamy tasting and full of muscle and hardly any fat at all. Tastes way better than doe or fawn meat any day of the week.” Jeremiah placed tin cups on the table.
“Well it’s getting late. I need to run these folks over to Pittsfield so they can get a hotel room.” The doctor glanced at his pocket watch. He knew from experience that there was no such thing as one round of drinks in this home if Jeremiah was the server.
“What in tarnation for, doc? Now I knows you needs to get your glasses fixed. Anyone with regular good vision can see we got ourselves two bedrooms. The wife and me don’t fight so much that we sleep in both of them. The Thompsons has to stay here so Rudolph can get the wagon fixed and I can show Arnold how to run the cider press and teach all of them how to harvest the apples and how to prune the trees. Should be out of here and heading south in no more than a week. ‘Fraid poor Rudolph has to sleep in the barn till we leaves though. Speaking of him, where is that boy?”
Arnold rose and called through a window to Rudolph. In a few minutes he came back inside with a list that he handed to Andrea. He sat down to partake in the second toast offered by Jeremiah.
“Here’s to the Thompsons and Rudolph. Welcome to your new home.”
“What did the lad write down, Andrea? It loo
ks to be German from here.”
“It is. It’s a list of the parts he needs to fix the wagon.”
“I knows a smithy in Pittsfield that can fashion anything out of iron.” Jeremiah motioned for everyone’s cups so that he could pour the third round of his cider. “He can forge the hubs and everything else we need. Once Rudolph puts it all together me and Emma will be on our way to our new home.”
7
When Mr. Bates learned that only two-thirds of his expected cargo was with James he raged as one of the nor’easters that batter New England every year does. They were introduced to the dark part of Bates’ soul, which loved money more than God or man. It was the stormiest introduction either Dominic or Thomas yet had experienced.
“What do you mean he got the pox?” Bates waved his hands above his head. “Did you take him on off to a whorehouse?”
“These two fellers says he took up with a girl on the boat, sir.” James shrugged.
“Damn. I don’t get my money back if he makes it as far as America. He best still be alive. Where’d you leave him at?”
James produced the note from the doctor who had attended to Andre. Unwilling to endure any more of Bates’ wrath that day, James excused himself after giving the location of Bates’ absent servant. “Okay if I takes the new boys to their lodgings, sir?”