3stalwarts (60 page)

Bellinger told Gil that the women had remained at McKlennar’s, for there had not been a single alarm throughout the valley. It was now generally admitted that a powerful campaign was going to be carried on against the Iroquois that summer. Quartermasters were scouring the valley for supplies. In Schenectady they were constructing numberless bateaux. It was believed that one wing of the army would muster at Canajoharie within six weeks. James Clinton was the brigadier appointed to command it-fifteen hundred men. But that was only the wing. The main army would muster in Pennsylvania and come up the Susquehanna. The expedition Gil had just returned from was no more than a preliminary demonstration.

As he walked down the road from the fort after dark, Gil felt a strange sense of peace. The air had turned warm on a southerly wind. It was damp, and it felt like more rain; but a rain from the south would be a growing rain. He was walking alone, for Joe had accepted an invitation to drink, and Adam, having caught sight of Polly Bowers at the corner of the fort, had been overwhelmed with the desire to describe the Indian country to her. Gil was glad to be alone, just then.

The house was quite dark. Either they had gone to bed or they had closed the blinds. He thought that perhaps in a few months it would be safe for people to burn candles in their houses once more, without darkening the windows.

He was startled when a dog rushed barking down the slope. Then he realized that John Weaver must be staying at the farm and he whistled to the dog. The dog recognized him and jumped about his legs, and the next moment the door opened and Lana was pushing her way past John. “It’s Gil. I know it’s Gil. Let me out,” she was saying.

He jumped up the porch steps and put his arms round her. She was whispering, “I was sure you were coming home tonight. I knew it, Gil, but they wouldn’t believe me.”

He pulled her through the door and they walked together into the kitchen, where Daisy was holding a splinter to the coals and blowing through her thick lips at it. It took only a moment to get the light. It was good to be home, to see women’s faces, people he loved. He shook John’s hand. John said, “We heard you’d gone against the Indians.”

“Yes,” said Gil, “we burned the towns. We took some prisoners, but the men were mostly away. It wasn’t much but marching.”

John’s face colored.

“Now you’re back,” he said, “maybe it would be all right for me to get on home.”

“Yes, yes, go ahead, John. And thank you for all you’ve done.” Mrs. McKlennar grinned at his retreating back. “I keep forgetting John’s a married man.”

They sat down together while John whistled to his dog and set out for Fort Dayton.

“You look healthy,” observed Mrs. McKlennar.

“I’m fine,” said Gil. He felt Lana pressing his hand under cover of her petticoat. “How have you all been? How’s Gilly?”

“Everything’s been fine.”

“How’s the cow?”

“She freshened day before yesterday. She’s in good shape,” said Mrs. McKlennar.

“What was it?”

Lana smiled.

“A heifer. A nice one. Brown and white.”

“That’s fine.” It was better than fine. It would have been tragic if the cow had dropped a bull calf. With the few remaining cows in German Flats one bull was enough for service for the entire district.

The next evening at sundown the army came from the west, a long line of bateaux rowing steadily down the river. They camped on Getman’s farm, and in the morning they continued for the east. Two days later their munition wagons hauled through with a company for escort. The commanding officer brought an order to Colonel Bellinger demanding levies to fill out one squad, and the militia was mustered and lots drawn.

Gil was miserable with the dread of having to leave the farm again; but he did not draw a long straw; and he was able then to feel sorry that young John Weaver was one of the unlucky ones. He could see Mary’s face, thin and tragic; and he thought of how Lana would have looked if John’s bad luck had happened to him. He tried to cheer John, telling him that he would draw pay for the three months and get a campaign coat, but John only nodded. He had almost an hour to see if he could buy himself off, but having no money to trade with, he was unable to interest anyone else.

He went to see Demooth about it. The captain said he would get Mary for his housekeeper, so that at least she should be taken care of. John marched at sunrise.

In May, having planted his corn and squash and pumpkins, Gil finished the barn roof. It was a great day on the farm. Mrs. McKlennar got out a bottle of Madeira, the last she had, and they drank it together.

Then in June the news came that the army was mustering at Canajoharie. They would have been slow to believe it had not Mary Weaver had a letter from John. She brought it up to McKlennar’s to have it read, and Mrs. McKlennar read it aloud to them all. John wrote badly, but his letter was confirmation of the report.

Dear wife Mary I am now at CONJHARY I am in Col Willets regiment Cap bleeckers comp. Hav a new blew cote am well Nothing remarkabel has happened we have 1500 men, & Pars rifle comp, They say we will merch for Springfeld nex Satday the 19 i think I think of you Mary & wonder if you have found out you are to have a baby yet I send my love with this and also beg you will give love to ma and Cobus

Your husband, recpectfully,

John Weaver

There was a silence in the kitchen after Mrs. McKlennar finished. They could hear outside a man far away whetting his scythe, and across the river Casler shouting to his team as he brought in logs for his cabin. Casler was rebuilding.

“It’s a good, manly letter, Mary,” said Mrs. McKlennar.

“Yes,” the girl gave a sort of gasp. She reached out for the letter and folded it over and over and stuck it inside her dress. She seemed to be ready to cry. Gil went outdoors. It was no place for a man. He drove down to the hayfield with the mare and cart.

When the bumping and creaking had died away, Mary looked up at Mrs. McKlennar and blushed painfully.

“Colonel Bellinger said he had to send an express down tomorrow and I could send a letter, but I can’t write.”

“Would you like me to write for you?”

“Yes. Please. John’s mother can’t write either, and I couldn’t ask any-one else.”

Mrs. McKlennar snorted softly as she fetched her desk and ink. She sat down again opposite Mary with the desk on her knees, and dipped the quill.

“Now what would you like to tell him? You just say it and I’ll write it down.”

“Dear husband John—” and then, appalled, she listened to the scratching of the quill and saw Mrs. McKlennar’s capable wrist arching along the paper, and she burst into a flood of tears.

“Now, now, child. You mustn’t act like that. Remember that he’s probably homesick and wants this letter more than anything in the world.”

“I can’t do it. I can’t. I don’t know how,” wailed Mary.

“Well, what do you want to tell him? He’s anxious, you know.”

“Yes, he was worried about it. About me having a baby. He didn’t know how we could buy flannel for it. His mother doesn’t think I could ever be a good breast feeder and we’ve got no cow.”

“Well, dear, are you going to have a baby?”

Mary shook her head. Her face crimsoned, and suddenly she covered it with her hands.

“Then tell him.” Mrs. McKlennar drew herself up, without being aware of it, and looked formidable. “Just imagine I’m John and say it to me.”

With an effort Mary governed herself. “I’ll try.”

And Mrs. McKlennar wrote: —

Dear husband John,

I am well and I hope you are really well. -I am not going to have the baby now but will surely some day. I am sure I could feed a baby even though your mother thinks not. She is well and so is Cobus. I am keeping house for Capt Demooth and he is nice to me but it is not nice to cook for him like cooking for you. I think of you every night and do you think of me? It is my hope to see you home safe soon. I pray for you, and that is my prayer.

Your loving wife …

“Would you say ‘Mary Weaver,’ or just ‘Mary’?”

Her breast was rising and falling as if she had run.

“I would say just ‘Mary,’ I think, myself, though the other is dignified.”

“I think John would like ‘Mary Weaver’ best.”

Mrs. McKlennar wrote “Mary Weaver.”

They did not hear from John again, except through general news of the movement of the army. On the twenty-third the word came by an express to Colonel Van Schaick at Fort Stanwix that the army was not to march west through the Mohawk Valley, as many people hoped, but to join Major

General Sullivan’s huge corps at Tioga. Clinton had already started his first troops south from Canajoharie and was hauling bateaux overland to the head of Otsego Lake.

The same express coming east again the following day reported to Colonel Bellinger that Oneida Indians had brought news to Fort Stanwix that John Butler was taking an army up the Genesee, planning to cross above the Indian Lakes and mobilize the Indians at Tioga. That John Butler not only knew of the American rendezvous but knew the names of all regiments and the numbers of men contained in them. As proof, the Indian named what he could remember, and his figures were correct. That was how Peter Bellinger was first informed of the numbers and personnel of the southern army, and that was how the people of German Flats first heard of it— information supplied by their own spies from observations of the British.

Five thousand men would move against the Iroquois, with cannon and Morgan’s rifle regiment, and four states supplying the infantry. It was an impressive thing to think of. To people like Demooth, and Gil Martin, and Bellinger, came the first realization that there was a power in their own country, the country that had been made theirs. A power beyond the unlimited muddleheadedness of Yankee politicians.

They felt that now they would be safe from the Indians as long as that army was campaigning in the wilderness. The whole settlement breathed easier. The women went out on the haying parties, and the last of the hay was brought in with a rush. Gil Martin abandoned his first plan of stacking his hay in small lots hidden in the near-by woodland and stacked it all against the barn. The sight of the new barn, and the high mound of hay which Lana had thatched, working in the cool of the late afternoon, was an emblem of their new security.

Towards the middle of July, Joe Boleo and Adam Helmer returned from a scout to the southeast and reported having been all the way to Otsego Lake to see the army.

“We got down beyond Butternuts and there was a lot of Indian signs heading east, and we figured they was watching the army, so we thought we might as well get a look at it ourselves.”

Adam bubbled over with descriptions of the tents, the boats. “They’ve dammed up the entire lake,” he said. “And when they start they’ll bust the dam and have four foot of water to float their boats downriver.” They had seen the execution of two Tory spies and listened to a sermon by the Reverend Mr. Kirkland and had a drink with Marinus Willett, who wanted them to serve with him as scouts. “Joe figured the rum wouldn’t hold out as far as Chinisee,” Adam explained, “so we didn’t go.”

“I wanted to see what fifteen hundred men looked like, all together,” Joe said. “I didn’t want to make it bigger than it was, though. Somebody would have had to go without his rations.”

Bellinger was thankful that they hadn’t gone. He gave them each a present of liquor and a little cash, and after Adam had spent one more fruit-less day with Betsey Small, he and Joe went into the woods again.

Then people heard that the army had set off. They heard it in the prayer of Reverend Rozencrantz, who gave credit to Rimer Van Sickler, who had returned from Otsego. He was one of the levies taken at the same time as John Weaver. He turned up in church and listened to himself being quoted by the domine, and explained to his friends that he had come back to finish his barn. He figured that the army under Clinton could do just about as well with one less man, but that he himself couldn’t get along without a barn next winter. And all it needed was the roofing of one bent, if a log barn could be said to have a bent. It would take him only three days. He said the army had made him lame in the left foot. On Monday he got cheerfully to work. On Tuesday he had finished the roof. He told Bellinger that even if he was a deserter and got taken for it, it was worth more than the regular thirty-dollar fine to roof his barn.

On the night of the twenty-fourth, Lana was restless. She was suffering continually from pains in her legs, and therefore she heard the gallop along the road in time to wake Gil. They sat up side by side in the dark, hearing the furious thudding swell towards them through the night, pass, and die rapidly away.

They got up and went out onto the porch, searching the night instinctively for fires. Mrs. McKlennar woke and came out to join them with an old red coat drawn over her nightdress. They held their breath to listen, but heard nothing except the whimper of the whippoorwills in the wheatfield.

For a while they thought it must have been an ordinary express, though expresses seldom went by at night. But before they had decided to get back to bed, the sound of galloping again was born in the west and swept towards them.

As the horse came round the bend in the road, the rider began shouting, “McKlennar’s! McKlennar’s!”

“Hello!” shouted Gil.

“That you, Mr. Martin?”

“Yes, who’s that?”

They could see him now, the hoofbeats stilling as the horse pulled up, a shadow on the vague pale ribbon of the road.

“Fred Kast. Bellinger says for you to come to the fort. The Onondagas are out! They killed some soldiers up to Stanwix this afternoon.”

Lana gave a choked cry, but Mrs. McKlennar said, “Get the baby. I’ll close and bolt the shutters.”

The horse was stamping. “I’ve got to get to Eldridge’s,” yelled Kast. He was off again.

As he hitched the mare to the cart, Gil had a dull feeling that nothing was any use. The destructives would be there. They would burn his new barn. He couldn’t turn the cow out either, because of the calf. Better to leave them in the barn than chance a bear’s getting the calf. He set down a pail of water for the cow and dragged in some forkfuls of hay.