I’m grateful for it. But the boys are a problem, too.”
“I had no idea Will was so serious about this girl. Aren’t they awfully young?”
“Not really. They just seem young to us. Do you think Will is man enough to run a farm?”
“A farm? What farm? Where?”
“There’s a place in North Marysburgh. The farmer wants to get out of farming, but he doesn’t want to let the land go. He’s willing to rent it out, and there’s a nice house on the place.”
“You mean it for Will to run?”
“And for all of you to live there. I’d be willing to sign the lease if Will agrees to have you there. It’s a good farm. If he applies himself, he can grow enough to pay the rent, and with a place that’s been well-established for so many years there should be no difficulty feeding you all. It’s not like starting out back in the clearings. If the two younger boys pitch in, there’s no reason it wouldn’t work.”
“And you’d go off to Leeds?”
“I’d get back as often as I could. The problem is, with everything in such a state of upheaval, I’m apt to be there for a year, somewhere else for a year, then somewhere else again the year after that.”
“And where would you live?”
He shrugged. “I’m on the road and staying in other people’s houses most of the time anyway. What do I need a home for? The thing is, Betsy, I don’t think you’re ever going to be well until you can settle in one place for a time. And if we set Will up, the girl can take over with Martha and give you a hand in the house. I’ll be sorry to be without you, but I’d rather have you away from me and getting better than with me and sick all the time.”
She hesitated, and then spoke her mind, as he expected she would. “The only problem I see is whether or not the girl will be happy with it. It will be her household, really, and I don’t know her well enough to tell whether or not we can live under the same roof.”
“Then we’d better get to know her, hadn’t we?” Privately he thought Betsy was overstating the case somewhat. Many a family welcomed a daughter-in-law into the fold with little bother. It was what his own sisters had done — married and gone to live with their husband’s folks. Occasionally there might be minor conflicts, but these were usually sorted out with a little compromise. He knew of a couple of cases where the issue was resolved by the simple expedient of building more house, so that everyone could have their privacy. He was sure everything would be fine.
Abigail Howe, known to all as Nabby, turned out to be a pretty, seemingly tractable young girl, who was obviously smitten with Will. She was excited at the prospect that the way to marriage was being smoothed so handily, and stated that she was perfectly willing to share a kitchen with her mother-in-law.
“It will be wonderful to have someone there to give me advice,” she said. “I’m not really confident about running a household all by myself. I’m sure I’ll need all the help you’re willing to give me, Mother Lewis.”
She couldn’t have said anything that would have mollified Betsy more.
Marrying his eldest son was one of the last things Lewis did before he left the Hallowell Circuit. With the boys’ help, and a wagon borrowed from a neighbour, they had moved their household effects into the small but comfortable house the farmer had built on his hundred-acre holding. It was decided that Martha was to sleep in the little slip room off the kitchen with Betsy, Will and Nabby would have the bigger main floor room, and the two boys would take the attic. The kitchen was large and spacious, with a good stove, and there was even a small front parlour, although they had no furniture for it. The farmer had not neglected his outbuildings. There was an excellent barn for the cow and a snug henhouse with a thriving flock of chickens. The orchard was well-established with mature trees. They would have apples, pears, and plums in abundance, and a row of currant bushes encircled the kitchen garden off the back stoop. Nearly everything they needed was right at hand, and if Will could produce a good crop of wheat, there would be money in hand, too.
Lewis did as much as he could to help Betsy get the household settled before the wedding. There would be no time afterward. He would leave for Elizabethtown the day after the ceremony.
Lewis had been quite proud of the little farm he had leased until he saw Nabby’s father’s place. The Howes’ three-hundred-acre farm was in full production — there were twenty head of cattle, a large flock of sheep, and a huge orchard. The house had not one parlour, but two, and the Howes had furniture for both of them. Lewis wondered that Howe could manage it all, for he had no sons, just five girls — two older than Nabby, two younger.
“The two oldest were married last year,” the farmer told Lewis. “Nabby’s been in a fever to get married ever since. “ He laughed a little. “I hope she’s wedding because she likes your son and not just because she wanted a new dress and all the attention the other two got.”
“They both seem quite sincere,” Lewis replied, but the statement took him a little aback.
“Oh, now I’m just joshing you, Preacher. Although I must admit it was a surprise to me to hear that you’ve settled them on a farm. I’m not sure that Nabby could ever manage if your Missus wasn’t there to prod her along a little.”
Lewis had little time to digest this information before the ceremony began, and then he was caught up in the memory of the first child he had sent into a marriage. His vision blurred a little as he thought of Sarah, and then of Rachel. He had hoped to say the plain Methodist words for her as well, but had never got the chance.
After the wedding breakfast, which was substantial and impressive, he helped Moses and Luke load Nabby’s enormous trunk into her father’s wagon, along with the bed that had been her parents’ wedding gift. The girl had seemed a little put out at how quickly the celebration ended, but she was young and, he was beginning to think, a little flighty at times. That was probably just wedding nerves, nothing else. No doubt she would settle with time and Betsy’s tutelage.
The next day he set off for Leeds not entirely convinced that his brilliant scheme was so clever after all.
III
There was a biting wind in Lewis’s face as he rode along, a promise of the winter to come, but he was feeling content nonetheless. Support for the Methodists, and in particular the Methodist Episcopals, was strong on this circuit. Everywhere he went the lay preachers were well organized, with several class meetings and Sunday schools established. It made his job easier to simply fall in with the routine that was there, presiding at meetings on a regular rotation, counting on the located and lay preachers to carry on in the meantime. He was well fed and well housed everywhere he went, and the saving on rent allowed him to accumulate the small sums of money he sometimes received at marriages, funerals, and christenings. He found the scenery pleasant as he rode, the trees still clutching the reds and yellows of their autumn crowns, the rail fences marching in tidy protective lines around the pumpkins which had appeared as if by magic with the frosting of their vines. The cold wind notwithstanding, it was his favourite time of year, the trails solid and the bugs banished, the harvest gathered and wood smoke scenting the air.
Other than a worried curiosity about Sarah and Rachel’s deaths that continued to flirt around the edges of his thoughts, his only real annoyance, and it was a minor one, was Morgan Spicer, who had refused to take the rejection of his aspirations seriously. He appeared to be travelling the length and breadth of the colony holding his own
