Spider in a Tree Read online

  Leah stayed near the window, watching Jerusha. The girl had embraced the messy work of tending to Brainerd’s illness with a passion which Leah suspected had less to do with him than with the relief of expending some of her pent-up energy. When the doctor had recommended a trip to Boston on the theory that horseback riding might break up the congestion in Brainerd’s consumptive lungs, Jerusha had traveled with him, caring for him and sending detailed reports on the state of his health back to her father in Northampton. Brainerd had almost died in Boston, but Jerusha had managed to get him home with her.

  When he was able to look up from the basin, Brainerd gazed at Jerusha. Damp hair was falling into his face; it was time to shave his head again. He settled into a strangling hiccough, but seemed determined to speak. Jerusha stayed close, nodding at his gurgles as if she already understood anything he might say.

  Whispering to Leah one night in the hallway, Jerusha had said, “He speaks so beautifully about giving all to God that it makes my skin seem to melt away.” She had leaned on the wall. “Listening to him, I seem to rise like a cloud of dust in a ray of sunlight.”

  Leah had paused to make sure that they both were hearing the slow rasps of breath from the sickroom and the sounds of other breathing coming from everywhere in the house. Then she said, “The last time I saw you in a cloud of dust was when you spilled that sack of flour. We were picking broom straws out of the biscuits for a month.”

  Alone in the dark hallway, they had laughed. Leah was pretty sure that Jerusha’s heart was in no danger except from the brutalities of death, which no one could escape. It occurred to her that the girl, with both parents and all of her brothers and sisters living, had never really known loss. Leah, whose life had been otherwise, could not imagine what that might be like.

  She did not have a poetic response to young Mr. Brainerd, but, like Jerusha, she knew both his talk and his illness intimately. She had never been more tired than she felt now as she brought Jerusha another towel to wipe the blood from the corners of his mouth. She had been coughing in the night, herself. The previous night, it had been so persistent as to cause her to sleep on the floor of the cabin instead of up the ladder, where she had feared that she would wake her husband. She had lain on her old pallet worrying about Saul, who had started taking shifts with the militia, patrolling the outlying fields with a musket so that Southampton men would not be too afraid to work their crops.

  Leah was resting her elbows on the back of a chair as she wrung out another towel when, with evident effort, David Brainerd stopped coughing, raised up in bed, and said to Jerusha, “I am quite willing to part with you.”

  Jerusha was used to feverish talk of scorpions, but she was taken aback at the rudeness. She stepped away from the head of the bed, but allowed the faintest suggestion of flirtation into her voice as she moved to wipe new ooze from the places where the skin of his heels had ripped. “Mr. Brainerd, I thank you for not encouraging me in any sin of vanity.”

  Leah was startled as Mr. Edwards walked into the room. He waited out a spasm of the young man’s cough, then said, “No doubt Mr. Brainerd means that he is ready to leave every person he loves in the natural world, even his brothers, even you, since he has assurances that we will spend eternity together.”

  Brainerd stopped struggling to speak. Jerusha summoned her most formal voice to say, “Of course, Father.”

  She gave one more pat to Brainerd’s swollen feet, set the basin with its dark stains on the table beside the bed, and swiftly left the room. At a glance from Mr. Edwards, Leah followed her, wet towel in hand.

  Mr. Edwards watched them go before he sat in a chair and drew it close to the bed. “How are you today, sir?”

  Brainerd attempted a brisk nod. “Fine, sir. And you?”

  Mr. Edwards spoke lightly about the donations of money and Bibles which had been pouring in from Boston in the dying missionary’s honor, thinking as he did so how composed Mr. Brainerd was for a young man with fresh blood on his pillowcase. Mr. Edwards had been urging men—Joseph Hawley, Timothy and Simeon Root, Bernard Bartlett, all the Pomeroys, and every other Northampton man who had become careless or defiant—to visit. He wanted the men to think of their own bodies filled with putrefaction until their skin was tight, their lungs drowned, and their feet too watery to give them purchase on the ground. He wanted their arrogance to burst like so many blisters. So far, only Joseph, who had known Brainerd at Yale, had come.

  Brainerd, who had been overtaken by hiccoughs, steadied himself and said, suddenly, “You have never heard me preach.”

  Mr. Edwards offered him a sip of water. “Have I not?”

  Brainerd waved the cup away. “If I were ever to take the pulpit again, I would wish to share it with you.”

  Mr. Edwards leaned toward Brainerd, who sat up and looked at him earnestly. Sick as he was, the young man was clearly smitten by his elder’s fame as a preacher. Mr. Edwards knew that he should draw Brainerd’s attention to his own many flaws, his profound unworthiness, and send the young man’s dreams back to their deeply grooved channel flowing toward heaven and God, but it was such a simple desire, so nearly able to be achieved. In fact, they could have preached together if Brainerd had aired the ambition before his illness had reached this point.

  Mr. Edwards said, “It would be my honor.” He meant it.

  He felt strangely shy, and fell silent, holding his breath with Brainerd’s coughs. Finally, he said, “Would you like to go out?”

  Brainerd wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yes.”

  Mr. Edwards stepped into the hall, calling for Leah and Jerusha. They sent Lucy to find Saul. They carried Brainerd, with his blanket and basin, out to the yard. They set him down under the elm tree, and Mr. Edwards sat on a corner of the blanket beside him, so that, together, they might take in some air.

  Eight ministers, seventeen gentlemen of liberal education, and a great concourse of people came to David Brainerd’s funeral in October. Mr. Edwards had sent word as quickly as he could by way of an excellent rider with a fast horse. As he stood before them, he was both stricken and comforted. Brainerd was, surely, reaping the promises. His illness had been grueling, especially for Jerusha, who, at the funeral, was so closely surrounded by her sisters that it looked as if they were wearing one great cloak. Leah stayed home to make a meal for the mourners.

  Mr. Edwards closed his eyes and breathed on his own hands to warm them before he began to preach. “True saints, when absent from the body, are present with the Lord.”

  Joseph tarried near the crossroads of Market and North on a bright January day. He kept a bit back from the road, but thought that if anyone should hail him, he could say that he was doing some sort of surveying as part of his work for the select board on a matter concerning the roads and the schools. They just had the one school building, of course, but they had every intention of passing a resolution to build more. He thought that here near the burying grounds and the minister’s sequestered land would be a good site, so anything he might say about it would be true. At twenty-four, Joseph had developed great confidence in the power of his tone and station to lead most conversations in the direction he wished them to go.

  He stomped his feet in the grass, which was stiff with frost, and tucked his hands under his arms inside his cloak to keep them warm. He imagined smoke coming from the chimney of the proposed school. This gave him satisfaction, since heat had been an ongoing problem in the little school building in front of the courthouse until he had helped Colonel Stoddard push through an edict that families had to provide a cord of wood for every scholar they enrolled.

  One afternoon last month, Joseph’s mother had put a pound of butter into one of her best bowls, covered it with a cloth, and handed it to Colonel Stoddard, her brother, who had been pulling on his great coat and protesting. “Surely just the cloth would do, Rebekah. I would not rob yo
u of your china.”

  Rebekah, who wanted to keep in close touch with military news and gossip such as might affect Elisha, had said, “Take it. Prudence can bring it back to me for more butter when you’re finished with that.” She had reached out and jiggled the chain of his fancy gold watch with familiarity only a sister was allowed. “Joseph tells me that he’d been wanting to talk with you about our Elisha. I trust that everything has been worked out in a way that seems satisfactory.”

  Colonel Stoddard had tucked the butter bowl into his satchel. “The government has ordered forty men to the Fort, some of whom are already on their way. Ephraim Williams will command them, I think, but he is not yet back from Boston.”

  “So I heard,” Rebekah had said.

  Colonel Stoddard had continued on to something else that Rebekah would have heard. “Joseph thinks that Elisha might like to be our cousin Ephraim’s second-in-command. I am satisfied with that if Captain Williams agrees.”

  Rebekah had been satisfied, too, but she had pressed again. “And supplies? For all of those new men? He writes of shortages.”

  “Snow shoes and moccasins,” Colonel Stoddard had said. “The recruits will replace the men currently there, who can come home.”

  Joseph had been lingering in the study to give his mother time to grill her brother. He hurried to join her when she called him to the table a few minutes after Colonel Stoddard was gone.

  Rebekah, who disapproved of the drinking of tea, with its sugar tongs and fancy cups, had taken a good gulp of hot cider. “It’s an honor for Elisha, Joseph, but do you think he should take it? He does seem hungry and miserable, and there’s no doubt of the danger.”

  Joseph had halved an apple to show the star of seeds in the middle, just as she had taught them to do when they were boys. He had not mentioned to Colonel Stoddard that it would be of benefit to the family to keep Elisha in honorable service far from Northampton while his role in the lives of Martha Root and her surviving child was in dispute, but both men had been aware that this was true. He handed her the big half of the apple. “He would not be free of danger at home.”

  Rebekah had taken a bite, thinking of the babies, her grandchildren; the one who had died and the one still living, whose name was Anne, and who, she had heard, was sickly. She had not let them linger in her mind. She never did, if she could help it. She didn’t want to risk Elisha, who had not yet proved himself to be tempered with her toughness, seeing the child—and her mother—at meeting every Sabbath day. “I suppose he’s better off at the fort.”

  Now, out at the crossroads, the wind made Joseph hunch his shoulders. An image came into his mind of doing sums as boy while his younger brother had slipped him pumpkin seeds under the desk and spit the shells in a high arc over his head; how irritated, envious, indebted, and fed his brother could make him feel.

  Lately, Elisha had written in a letter that he had been thinking of their father running the family shop as he himself meted out rations of bread and rum by the ounce to the men under him. He said he felt like a shopkeeper, a stingy one with his thumb on the scales. The amount of food each man got was set by printed order of the General Court in Boston, which was very far from his men and their hunger. Sometimes they had a little tea, sugar, or tobacco, but he was constantly on the verge of running out of stores.

  When Joseph had finally decided to tell Elisha that one of Martha Root’s babies had died, he had not written a letter but sent word with a newly conscripted soldier along with a bundle of shirts and stockings from Rebekah. He was furious whenever he saw the child in her mother’s arms, and beneath the anger, confused and disturbed. In the course of protecting his brother, Joseph had been fighting to keep his babies from having a father. In way, with the child who had died, he had already won. The thought made him miserable. He didn’t trust himself to write to Elisha about it in a professional way.

  He was staring across the burying ground at the bare trees, thinking that they looked like letters in an alphabet written upside down to make browsing easier for God, when he saw Martha Root coming up North Street. He had hoped that he might be able to intercept her as she returned from taking milk to the dock on the Connecticut. She sold a bucket to the ferryman every week. He had been watching her. She had the empty bucket in her hand. He stepped into the road and walked a little way toward her. As he approached, he saw her stiffen. When he was near enough to speak, he said, “Mrs. Root, may I have a word?” He spoke cordially and used the title to indicate respectful intent, but Martha flinched and would have hurried on if he hadn’t raised his hand in front of her. “A word?” he asked again, still mildly, as if he were sipping frivolous tea in a parlor rather than accosting the mother of his brother’s unclaimed child by the side of the road.

  Martha, who was not easily shamed, recovered and stood erect, resting the bucket on the ground. “What do you have to say to me, sir, that cannot be said at my parents’ house, with others present?”

  Joseph, who had a feeling that the setting she had just described might have been best for this conversation, after all, held on to his cloak, which was as blue as hers, to keep it from flapping. “I’ve seen you where paths meet so often that I felt that that the crossroads would be the best place to find you. Clearly, I was not wrong.”

  Ghosts of criminals who had been hung there haunted crossroads, as did prostitutes and strangers whose birth and place were not known. Martha picked up the bucket and hung the handle across her arm. “I won’t wait in the cold for your insults. The court will be in session soon enough.”

  She started walking quickly, and he fell into stride beside her.

  “That is just it. You know that I am trained in the law and will have every advantage in the courtroom. My brother is protecting the people of this colony at great risk to himself. He is willing to offer a substantial consideration for the upkeep of your child, but the one hundred and fifty pounds that your family is asking is too much. I thought you might prefer to spare us all further misery and make a settlement for a more reasonable amount.”

  “I won’t be bullied out of a good life for my daughter. We’re asking one hundred and fifty pounds, and you will find me no less adamant than my father in that regard.” She stopped at the gate to the minister’s sequestered land. “And I won’t be seen walking through town with you, sir, but will traipse through pastures all day if I must.”

  Flushed with cold and frustration, Joseph watched her walk in amongst the Edwardses’ cattle, which came toward her with her bucket as if they were her own white-faced herd.

  Chapter 19: February 1748

  Timothy went instead of Leah (who was tired enough that her slowness had been noticed in the family) the first time that Sarah sent for a doctor for Jerusha. After that, the doctors came of their own accord, alone and in consultation with each other. They agreed that the illness was a pleuretic disorder. They tried leeches and plasters to raise blisters on her chest, which stung Sarah’s hands as she applied them. Her other daughters cooked and cared for the younger ones. Everybody prayed.

  On the second afternoon of Jerusha’s illness, Mr. Edwards thought to scrape coals from the fire and fill a warming pan to try to abate the cold that Sarah had told him was consuming their daughter’s extremities, despite the fever. He filled the long-handled pan in the kitchen, where Leah wrapped the handle in a towel so that he could carry it upstairs. She worried, as she did it, that he might trip and burn the stairs or his hands, but what Mr. Edwards lacked in physical grace, he made up for in clarity of purpose. She did not offer warnings or to carry it herself.

  He climbed the stairs slowly, shoulders hunched. The doctors were gone, for now, but the whole family was gathered in the chamber. They couldn’t all stay in there all day, but Jerusha was so suddenly so sick. It drew them to her. The children stood when he came into the room, as they always did. Sally, older than her mother had been when sh
e herself had been born, made soothing noises to the baby. Esther clutched a paper fan. Mary had been sharing a chair with her arm around Lucy, and Johnny slid off their combined laps. Sukey and Eunice stood very close together. Timothy, who was a favorite with Jerusha, let go of Sarah’s chair and stepped back among his sisters.

  Sarah had not eaten supper or come to bed the night before, but had slept in the chair where she sat beside the bed. Mr. Edwards had awoken in the middle of the night to the sound drifting through the house of his wife singing softly to their daughter. Now Sarah rose and took the warming pan from him, nodding to the children that they could sit, since he had forgotten. She wrapped the heater in another towel, then tucked it carefully under the coverlet near Jerusha’s feet, saying to him, “It’s dangerous, but we’ll watch it.”

  His eyes were on Jerusha’s face. She was conscious, gasping for breath. He was relieved that she seemed to recognize him. His quick Jerusha, much distracted with pain, had spent the morning vaporous and confused. If it were up to him, and he well knew that it wasn’t, even one hour would be too long for her to be suffering this way. He stood close by Sarah, bending toward the bed with her as she wiped the blood and spit that funneled down the side of Jerusha’s mouth. He wanted to pray, but felt a terrible dryness.

  Esther, who was turning sixteen in two days, brought her chair next Sarah’s so that her father could sit down. For a moment, she fluttered the fan in the air above her sister. Jerusha, burning even as her feet froze, shifted in the bed.

  Esther offered the fan to her father, but, just then, Jerusha tried to speak. He brought his face close to hers, thinking, as he did it, of the patience with which she had hovered over Brainerd. His eyes took up hers as they had all her life, but his chin was shaking.