A Lion to Guard Us (4 page)

“I only asked for the money.”

“What money?”

“Father left it when he went away. Mistress Trippett was keeping it. I don't see why I was wrong to ask for it.”

“You weren't wrong,” he said.

“But we'll never get it now, and we need it—to go to America. Ships will be going soon.”

“How soon?”

“Next month.”

He had finished his supper.

“Shall I clear the things away?” she asked.

“No. Sit awhile.” He asked, “Is your father happy in the New World?”

“I don't know, sir.”

“Doesn't he write to you?”

“He never learned writing or reading,” she answered. “None of us ever learned. There may be a school in Jamestown one day, and then—”

“Jamestown,” he said. “That's where your father is?”

“Yes, sir.” She looked at Jemmy and Meg. They had gone to sleep, with their heads on the table. She was so tired she wanted to lay her head beside theirs.

Dr. Crider pushed back his chair. “Time for bed,” he said.

He gave them a room of their own. It had a bed, not just a pallet on the floor.

“Lie down,” he said. “There—I'll tuck you in.”

That was the last thing Amanda remembered before she went to sleep.

It was morning when she woke. Dr. Crider was in the doorway, dressed to go out.

“I'll be back soon,” he said. “Do you know how to make breakfast? Of course, you do. Have whatever you can find in the kitchen. I've already eaten.”

He was gone.

Jemmy and Meg were still asleep. She went out into the kitchen. A small fire burned in the grate. She swung the kettle over it. Almost at once it began to sing. She set out a plate of biscuits. She made tea in a round blue pot.

Jemmy and Meg came to the door. Their hair was on end. Their eyes were sleepy.

“Where is this place?” asked Jemmy.

“Don't you remember?” said Amanda. “Dr. Crider brought us here. Come and have your tea. See? Here's a biscuit to dip in it. There's one for you, too, Meg.”

They came to the table. Something clanked as Jemmy sat down.

“What was that?” asked Amanda.

“The knock-knock,” said Meg.

Jemmy put his hand into his pocket and took out the little brass door knocker.

“Jemmy!” said Amanda. “You had it all the time.”

“I keep it in my pocket,” he said. “Aren't you glad? Now Mistress Trippett and Fat Randolph won't get it.”

“You can't carry it that way,” said Amanda. “You'll wear out your pocket.”

“How
shall
I carry it?”

“I don't know. We'll think of a way. Put it on the table for now.”

He put the lion's head down beside his cup. Amanda thought of what Father had said. “A lion to guard you . . .”

After breakfast she set to work. Jemmy and Meg helped her, and they cleaned the kitchen.

Amanda said, “Dr. Crider will be surprised.”

But when he came in, he hardly looked at the kitchen. For a while he hardly looked at them. He sat down with his hat and cloak on. His eyes were bright, and there was color in his cheeks.

Amanda spoke to him twice before he answered.

“Yes? What is it?”

“Will you have tea?” she asked.

“Tea? No, no,” he said. “Amanda—?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Am I an old man?”

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

“I am?”

“I mean—not a
very
old man, but—”

“I know how I must look to you, but don't believe what you see. Today I'm young again. I'm young, Amanda! . . . You don't understand me, do you?”

“No, sir.”

“I've just been to see Sir Thomas Smythe on Philpot Lane. We've talked about ships to the New World. Nine are leaving next month. Nine ships, Amanda, leaving in June. And you'll be on one of them.”

“I will? Truly?”

“Yes. And Jemmy and Meg, too.”

She said, “I know. You went to Mistress Trippett's. You got the money.”

“No. Poor Mistress Trippett,” he said, “shut up in her big house. Poor Mistress Trippett with her bags of money—let her keep it all. There's a great world outside, and she'll never know it. But
we'll
know it, Amanda.”

He was on his feet, walking up and down. “They want me in Jamestown. They
need
me there. They want doctors, and they don't care how old I am. There's nothing to keep me here, and I'm going. We're all going to the New World together!”

The time was short, and there was much to do. Dr. Crider had to sell his house. There were things they needed to buy. He made a list.

“We need sea chests,” he said. “One for my medicines, two for our clothes.”

“Jemmy and Meg and I—we won't need a chest,” said Amanda. “We've no clothes besides what we're wearing.”

“This will change,” said Dr. Crider.

He took them to a street of shops. There they bought dresses and petticoats, breeches and shirts, shoes and stockings.

“If I had cloth, I could sew for us all,” said Amanda.

So they looked at cloth and bought some. She turned away from the stripes and flowers that were so beautiful. She chose plain browns and greens.

And one day, in the dark of the morning, they were on their way. A coach took them along the river to where a boat was waiting. They went aboard.

It was an old tub of a boat, small and crowded with people.

“Are we going to America on
this
?” asked Jemmy.

“No, child,” said Dr. Crider. “This is only a packet.”

A packet, he told them, was a boat that carried people and mail along the coast. “This will take us to the southwest of England. That is where Plymouth is, and Plymouth is where the ships are.”

The packet was slow. It was the evening of the fifth day before they came to the town of Plymouth. Ships, large and small, filled the harbor.

“One of them is ours,” said Dr. Crider.

They stayed at an inn that night. When Amanda woke the next morning, Meg was sleeping beside her. Jemmy was up and leaning out the window. Dr. Crider was gone.

“Come and look,” said Jemmy. “You never saw so many ships. And little boats are going out to them and coming back again. I think they're loading things on the ships. Come and see, Amanda. Meg, come and see!”

All three were at the window when Dr. Crider came in.

“News, wonderful news!” he said. “Our ship is the
Sea Adventure
. We're sailing with the admiral!”

They were quiet, looking at him.

“You don't know what that means, do you?” he asked.

“No, sir,” said Amanda.

“I'll tell you what it means. There are nine ships sailing to Virginia. Each one has a captain. Do you know what a captain is?”

“The captain is the master,” said Jemmy.

“Of course, he is. He is master of his ship. But on our voyage, one man is admiral. The admiral is master of all the captains.”

“Like a king?” asked Jemmy.

“Yes, in a way. And the admiral of all nine ships is Sir George Somers. He is sailing on the
Sea Adventure
and we are sailing with him.” Dr. Crider pointed out the window. “See the ship with the blue stripe? That's the
Sea Adventure
.”

“It's the biggest one,” said Jemmy.

“The most beautiful, too,” said Dr. Crider, “and she's going to be our home. Think of it. She'll be our home all the way to Virginia!”

Another day, another night, and the ships were ready. They were loaded with food and water. Everyone bound for America was on board. At sunrise on that gray morning—the morning of June 2—the
Sea Adventure
set sail. The other ships swung slowly into line behind her.

Dr. Crider stood on the main deck. Amanda, Jemmy, and Meg stood near him. People on board were weeping as they waved to people on shore.

“Why are they crying?” asked Jemmy.

“Sometimes it's sad to say good-bye,” said Amanda.

“I'm glad to be going,” said Jemmy. “Aren't you glad?”

She was looking out to sea at the clouds and mist that hid the sky.

He pulled at her sleeve. “Aren't you glad, Amanda?”

“Yes,” she said. “I'm glad.”

Jemmy liked to be on deck. “Why can't we stay up here all the time?” he asked.

“Sometimes it rains. We need a roof over us,” said Amanda. “We have to live in the hold.”

The hold was the long room below the deck. They lived there with more than a hundred and fifty others. When they all lay down to sleep, they were crowded together like salt fish in a barrel.

Sometimes Amanda lay awake at night. She saw men, women, and children lying all about her. In the candlelight their faces looked odd and pale. She heard them snore and moan and talk in their sleep. In the middle of the hold was a heap of chests and boxes. Sometimes it moved a little, as if it might tumble down.

Some of the men and women on the voyage were ladies and gentlemen. They lived in rooms beyond a curtain at one end of the hold. Amanda had never seen these rooms. It was said that they had canvas walls and real beds.

Jemmy hated the hold. “The hole,” he called it. When he went into it, he held his nose.

“It's just for a few weeks,” Amanda told him.

“Yes,” said Dr. Crider. “The voyage will be all too short.”

He loved the sea. Almost every night he was gone for an hour or two. Often his hair and clothes were wet when he came down into the hold. “I like to stand by the rail and let the waves break in my face,” he said.

He loved the ship. He was even happy with the food—hard biscuits, cabbages, and salt beef, salt pork, or salt fish.

“When I was a boy,” he said, “I wanted to run away and be a sailor. I wish I had!”

He cared for the sick. Sometimes he was busy day and night.

“Don't you feel tired?” Amanda would ask.

“Never,” he would answer.

After a week they sailed into calm waters. The days were warm.

“Now we don't have to stay in the hole,” said Jemmy.

He and his sisters were on deck every day. They liked to watch the other ships.

“Will they stay together all the way?” Jemmy asked Dr. Crider.

“They will if they can,” said the doctor. He knew the names of the other ships. “There's the
Blessing
,” he would say. “That one is the
Catch
—and I see the
Lion
and the
Virginia
. . .”

Once he showed them three men on the deck of the
Sea Adventure
. “There they are,” he said, “the captain, the governor, and the admiral. The one with the pink face is Christopher Newport. He is the captain. The thin man is Thomas Gates. He will be governor of Virginia when we land there. The man with the red beard is the admiral—Sir George Somers.”

Later that day Amanda was at the rail with Jemmy and Meg when Sir George Somers came by.

“Good-day, Admiral,” said Jemmy.

The man looked surprised. Then he laughed. “Good-day, young sailor,” he said, and he went on up to his cabin.

“Jemmy!” said Amanda. “How did you dare speak to him?”

“He didn't mind,” said Jemmy.

“But he is the admiral!”

Still she felt rather proud of Jemmy. Such a boy would grow up to be a daring man, she thought, and a daring man might have great adventures.

Before many days Amanda knew almost everyone on board.

There was a strong young man named John Rolfe. There was his pretty wife, who looked ill.

There were two young men who often quarreled, yet they were always together. With their long faces and thick, black eyebrows, they looked a little alike. Their names were Robert Waters and Chris Carter.

There was the Hopkins family—Master Stephen Hopkins, his wife, and their two children. Their daughter, Anne, was ten years old. Their son, David, was seven.

The Hopkins children had a ball made from a stocking. The stocking had been rolled up and tied with string. They played with it on deck. They threw it carefully back and forth and never let it fall.

Once Jemmy asked them to throw it to him.

“No,” said Anne. “You might let it go into the sea.”

“Come with us, Jemmy,” said Amanda. “Meg and I are going to see the animals.”

There were farm animals in a pen on deck. There were two goats and two oxen. There were five pigs and a flock of chickens. One of the chickens was beginning to crow. When he crowed, Jemmy crowed back.

Anne Hopkins put the ball into her pocket. She and her brother came to see the animals, too.

“We are going to have an animal farm in Virginia,” she said. “There are horses on one of the other ships. Did you know that?”