“I’m pleased to see thee sit up, Friend Jamie,” Silvia Hardman remarked, bringing him a plate filled with sausage, fried onions, and johnnycake. “Your back is some better, I collect?” She smiled at him.
“Somewhat,” he managed, and smiled back as well as he could while trying not to groan. “You—have fresh food, I see.”
“Yes, God be thanked,” she said fervently. “I sent Pru and Patience out to the main road at dawn to watch for wagons coming in to the market in Philadelphia, and they came back with a pound of sausage, two of cornmeal, a sack of oats, and a dozen eggs. Eat up!” She placed the wooden plate on the bed beside him, with a wooden spoon.
Jamie could see Prudence and Patience behind their mother, industriously wiping sausage grease from their empty plates with chunks of johnnycake. Easing himself gingerly around in order to put his back against the wall, he stretched out his legs, picked up the plate, and followed their example.
The food filled him with a surprising sense of well-being, and he put down the empty plate determined upon enterprise.
“I propose to visit your privy, Friend Silvia. But I may need some assistance to rise.”
Once on his feet, he found that he could make shift to stagger a few inches at a time, and Prudence and Patience at once rushed up to seize him by the elbows, in the manner of small flying buttresses.
“Don’t worry,” Prudence advised him, squaring her puny shoulders and looking confidently up at him. “We won’t let thee fall.”
“I’m sure ye won’t,” he said gravely. In fact, the little girls had a wiry strength that belied their fragile appearance, and he found their presence an actual help, as they provided something for him to hold on to for balance when it was necessary to stop—as it was every few feet.
“Tell me about the wagons that go into Philadelphia,” he said at one such stop, as much to make conversation as because he required the information. “Do they come only in the early morning?”
“Mostly,” Patience said. “They go back empty an hour or two before sunset.” She set her feet wider, bracing herself. “It’s all right,” she assured him. “Lean on me. Thee seems summat shaky.”
He squeezed her shoulder gently in thanks and let her take a very little of his weight. Shaky, indeed. It was more than half a mile to the main road; it would take over an hour to totter that far, even with the girls’ assistance, and the likelihood of his back freezing again and stranding him midway was yet too high to risk it. To say nothing of the risk of arriving in Philadelphia completely unable to move. By tomorrow, though . . .
“And did ye see soldiers on the road?” he asked, essaying a ginger step that shot pain from hip to foot. “Ow!”
“We did,” Patience said, taking a tighter grip on his elbow. “Courage, Friend. Thee will prevail. We saw two companies of militia, and one Continental officer on a mule.”
“We saw some British solders, too, though,” Prudence put in, eager not to be overlooked. “They were with a train of carts, going in the other direction.”
“The other—away from Philadelphia?” Jamie asked, his heart jumping. Was the evacuation of the British army already begun? “Could you see what was in the carts?”
Prudence shrugged. “Furniture. Trunks and baskets. There were ladies riding atop some of the carts, though mostly they walked alongside. No room,” she clarified. “Guard thy shirttail, Friend, or thy modesty will be at risk.” The morning was cool and breezy, and an errant gust of wind had risen up, bellying his shirt—wonderful on his sweating body, but definitely a risk to maiden eyes.
“Shall I knot the tails between thy legs?” Patience inquired. “I can tie a granny knot, an overhand knot, or a square knot. My daddy taught me!”
“Don’t be silly, Patience,” her sister said crossly. “If thee knots his shirt, how will he lift it to shit? No one can untie her knots,” she confided to Jamie. “She always makes them too tight.”
“Oh, I do not, liar!”
“Fie upon thee, sister! I’ll tell Mummy what thee said!”
“Where is your father?” Jamie interrupted, wanting to stop the acrimony before they began pulling each other’s hair. They did stop and glanced at each other for a moment before replying.
“We don’t know,” Prudence said, her voice small and sad. “He went a-hunting one day a year ago and didn’t come back.”
“It might be that Indians took him,” Patience said, trying to sound hopeful. “If so, may be that he’ll escape one day and come home.”
Prudence sighed.
“Maybe,” she said flatly. “Mummy thinks the militia shot him.”
“Why?” Jamie asked, looking down at her. “Why would they shoot him?”
“For being a Friend,” Patience explained. “He wouldn’t fight, and so they said he was a Loyalist.”
“I see. Was—er, I mean—is he?”
Prudence looked at him, grateful for the “is.”
“I don’t think so. But Mummy says Philadelphia yearly meeting told everyone that all Friends should be for the King, as the King would keep peace and the Rebels seek to break it. So”—she shrugged—“people think all Friends are Loyalists.”
“Daddy wasn’t—isn’t,” Patience put in. “He used to say all kinds of things about the King, and Mummy would get worried and beg him to hold his tongue. Here’s the privy,” she announced unnecessarily, letting go of Jamie’s elbow in order to open the door. “Don’t wipe thyself with the towel; it’s for hands. There are corncobs in the basket.”