The Witch of Blackbird Pond - Elizabeth George Speare [27]
"What if the river floods?"
"It did, four years ago, and her house was covered right over. No one knows where she hid, but when the water went down, there she was again. She cleaned out the mud and went right on as though nothing had happened. She's been there as long as I can remember."
"All alone?"
"With her cats. There's always a cat or so around. People say she's a witch."
"Do you believe in witches, Judith?"
"Maybe not," said Judith doubtfully. "All the same, it gives me a creepy feeling to look at her. She's queer, that's certain, and she never comes to Meeting. I'd just rather not get any closer."
Kit looked back at the gray figure bent over a kettle, stirring something with a long stick. Her spine prickled. It might be only soap, of course. She'd stirred a kettle herself just yesterday; goodness knows her arms still ached from it. But that lonely figure in the ragged flapping shawl—it was easy enough to imagine any sort of mysterious brew in that pot! She quickened her step to catch up with Judith.
The long rows of onions looked endless, their sharp green shoots already half hidden by encroaching weeds. Judith plumped matter-of-factly to her knees and began to pull vigorously. Kit could never get over her amazement at her cousin. Judith, so proud and uppity, so vain of the curls that fell just so on her shoulder, so finicky about the snowy linen collar that was the only vanity allowed her, kneeling in the dirt doing work that a high-class slave in Barbados would rebel at. What a strange country this was!
"Well, what are you standing there for?" Judith demanded. "Father says we have to do three rows before we can go home for dinner." Kit lowered herself gingerly and gathered a halfhearted handful. At the second tug an onion shoot came too, and glancing to see if Judith had noticed, she guiltily thrust the tiny root back into the earth and patted it firm. Bother the things, she would have to keep her mind on them! All at once tears of self-pity brimmed her eyes. What was she doing here anyway, Sir Francis Tyler's granddaughter, squatting in an onion patch?
She jerked at the weeds. If she should marry William Ashby, would he expect her to weed his vegetables for him? Her hands stopped moving at all while she considered this. No, she was quite certain he never would. Did it seem likely that his mother, who sat so elegantly in meeting, had ever touched a choke-weed? There were no blisters under those soft gloves, Kit wagered. She knew by now that the humble folk who sat in the very back of the Meeting House were servants of the fine families of Wethersfield. William would own servants himself, beyond a doubt. She wiped a grimy hand across her eyes. Perhaps she could endure this work for a time if the future offered an escape.
A more immediate escape offered itself that very noontime. The two girls returned home to find Mercy brimming with excitement, her gray eyes sparkling.
"The most wonderful thing, Kit! Dr. Bulkeley has recommended to the selectmen that you help me with the school this summer."
"A school?" echoed Kit. "Do you teach a school, Mercy?"
"Just the dame school. For the younger children, in the summer months. With you to help me I can take more pupils."
"What do you teach them?"
"Their letters, and to read and write their names. They can't go to the grammer school, you know, till they can read, and many of their parents can't teach them."
"Where is this school?"
"Right here in the kitchen."
"I don't know much about children," said Kit dubiously.
"You know how to read, don't you? John Holbrook told Dr. Bulkeley you can read as well as he can."
Kit started. Had John repeated to Dr. Bulkeley that conversation on the Dolphin? Likely not, or he would never have recommended her. She had never dared to mention books in this household, where there was no book at all except the Holy Bible.
"Yes, of course I can read," she admitted cautiously.
"Well, they are going to send Mr. Eleazer