Love's Pursuit by Siri Mitchell

took her a moment to register my presence. “Oh. Well. Greetings, Goody Smyth.”
    I nodded.
    As she left, Thomas stared after her in wonder. “She must be going blind.”
    I shrugged. I was used to it. Depended upon it. Poor Thomas, it was only he who saw aright.

    By the time our flax had been retted, beaten, and scutched, the scorching days of July had drawn to a close. The morning of the last day of the month, Mother sent me to the miller with a portion of newly harvested grain. Upon arriving, I joined the tail of a long line of women. We waited, all of us, for the first fruits of the harvest to be milled. But we did not wait silently.
    “They say there’s a new milliner come to Newham.”
    “From England?”
    “From Boston. But she gets her goods direct from London.”
    From Boston! I still considered Boston my home. I had been born there, had lived my life there, had in fact left half of my heart there when we had moved. But I knew, even after all of this time, that it was safe in my grandfather’s keeping.
    Three years it had been since I had last seen my mother’s father. And in all that time, no one had ever called me Susannah in quite the same way, or listened to me with such gravity, or bothered to read the Bible to me in Latin just so I could hear how it sounded. He was a minister and often about God’s work, but he seemed to have all the time in the world for me.
    Not unlike the captain.
    In fact, strange as it might seem, I suspected that should providence ever give them an opportunity to meet, they would find much to admire in each other. I heard myself sigh. I missed my grandfather. I let my thoughts drift toward Boston as conversations swirled about me.
    “My girl says there’s apples ripening in the wood.”
    “And what would she be doing in the wood with savages lurking about?”
    “ ’Twas that captain who told her.”
    “I hear Goody Metcalf is with child.”
    “So soon after her wedding?”
    “No sooner than is proper.”
    “And when will you be wed, Susannah Phillips?”
    All eyes turned toward me, and caught mooning, I could do naught but blush and sputter.
    “ ’Tis not a fair question.” God bless Goody Blake! “Is it not for the man to do the asking and the deciding?”
    “But come now, Susannah, there are ways to hurry a man along. . . .”
    Somewhere, one of the women hooted. Were it possible, my cheeks grew even more red.
    “ ‘And now, my daughter, fear not. . . .’ ” The quavering voice that spoke the words paused for a moment, then began again. “ ‘I will do to thee all that thou requires: for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman.’ ”
    In front of me, the women stood on the tips of their toes, straining to see who it was that spoke. And then, as one, they fell back from the line, revealing Mistress Wright. She was standing there, frail and hunched, and she was looking straight at me.
    “ ‘A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones.’ ” She stood still as a stone for one long moment, watching me, and then she collected her sack, left the line, and walked slowly toward her home.
    It was some time before anyone dared to break the silence. But even then, no one said anything else to me about John Prescotte.
    Those heat-soaked days of August soon gave way to the more moderate temperatures of September. The captain still left every morning on his watch. The men still stood double watches with double men, but there had been no other signs of savages since the attack. And so we were able to put to the side that threat, for a far greater danger had been loosed upon us. The pigeons had come to nest.
    They came by the thousands, winging overhead hour after hour. And after they had come, they settled in the wood. It seemed a benign invasion, but then they began to litter the ground with their droppings. So great was their output that it seemed an early frost had come. So many