Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

while there could be no mistaking it, his labored breathing eased. An hour passed, and then, miracle! He opened his eyes and looked about, asking where he was and, in some agitation, who we were. His son Nanaakomin gave a great cry of joy and embraced his father. It startled me when he cried out, so like was his voice to Caleb’s.
    The Takemmy sonquem spoke up then, and told him the whole of it, from the time he had fallen ill: of their own pawaaw’s failure to turn back the sickness, and of sending for Tequamuck and that man’s day-long, fruitless efforts. Then he pointed to my father and described how heat magic (the poultice) and blood magic, partnered with spells addressed to the English God, had returned him from the brink of death.
    “Manitoo!” breathed Nahnoso, and fell back on his mat. Father turned to me then and spoke in English. “I would like to stay and see to his care, but I do not want you to pass the night here.”
    “Why not, father?”
    “Because there is no wetu in which you might lay your head without risk of witnessing some indecency. I will ask Momonequem to return us to the Merrys and then I will come back here with him.”
    “You need not escort me, father. I am quite prepared to go with Momonequem.”
    “By no means. Even if the youth is honorable, which I have no reason to doubt, I would not put your reputation at risk. What would the Merrys make of such a thing? You, alone in a boat with … no, it is unthinkable.”
    I thought of all the hours I had spent alone with Caleb. Innocent hours that would make a harlot of me in my father’s reckoning, and in the eyes of our society. It was well that no one knew of them.
     
     
    We rowed back to the Merry farm by rushlight. Jacob Merry insisted on ceding his place to me, so I lay down with Sofia as my bedfellow. Her featherbed was twice as wide and lofty as my straw-and-rag-filled shakedown. Though I fell straight to sleep I was awakened many times by fell dreams. I had to resort to the necessary several times throughout the night. When Sofia asked what ailed me, I blamed my bowels’ distress on the corn mash I had taken from the common pot in the wetu.
    In the morning I rose, weary, and gave a hand to Sofia with her chores until the men came in for bever. I felt Jacob Merry’s eyes upon me as I helped Sofia serve out cider and slices of crusty bread spread thick with new-churned butter. I tried to hide the tremor in my hands.
    “Noah, as Mistress Mayfield is detained here for some hours, perhaps she would like to see the farm. Why do you not show it her?”
    “I will, father,” said Josiah brightly.
    “Not you, Josiah, I can’t spare you. I want your help at the mill.”
    “But we already ground…”
    Jacob Merry pushed his chair back noisily and glared at his eldest son.
    “I am in want of your help.”
    “Very well, father.” As Josiah rose obediently from his seat, I saw him wink at his brother and punch him lightly on the arm. Noah flushed.
    Whatever consciousness he might have felt, he quickly shook it off as we walked the fields. I tried to attend to him, but my mind was still occupied with the prior day’s madness and my thoughts were as scattered as blown chaff. Noah’s zeal for farming was patent. If only I shared it, how much simpler my life would be. I let his remarks about the forage virtues of timothy and vetch flow over me, exclaimed where it seemed required at the remarkable number of twins the ewes had produced at last lambing and nodded sagely as he outlined his plans for orchards, a creamery and all manner of improvements. “Josiah’s interests are with the mill, and developing that enterprise will be his main pursuit. My concern is the farm. In time, father and I hope to have the means to expand, if the sonquem will sell more land to us. There are fertile bottoms in yonder woods that would yield easily to the hoe. It does seem strange to leave them a wasteland…”
    As he prattled, my mind was on Nahnoso. I