Chapter 3

Anne opened her pearl-handled penknife and sharpened her favorite quill, a look of concentration on her lightly freckled face. She looked sad but determined. A tattered rider had delivered a folded and wax-sealed letter from Billy Fields, and the girl had snatched it from Moses, read it three times and even dropped a tear on the smudged paper before she put it aside.

Billy was sick, feared he might be dying and had pledged her his love, foreswearing all others. Anne almost laughed at that, knowing how many biddies there were fluttering in his wake. At first she thought he might be joshing her, but on a second reading became convinced he was deadly serious and very ill. He wrote that many other men were ailing and that the army, what little was left of it, was cold and starving in crude huts up in the Jersey hills.

She sniffed, swallowed and wrote, "Dearest Billy" and then stopped, balled up the sheet of well-laid paper and threw it across the room. The cat on her bed lifted one ear and opened one eye. She dipped her pen again, wiped the tip carefully and wrote, "Sir," and then she stopped, bit her lip, took a deep breath and crushed that sheet in her fist and tossed it over her shoulder. She blotted her third try and dropped that to the floor. On the next attempt she wrote: "Private Fields - I received your fine letter which came through Head of Elk, by way of Mr. Paca's rider, and was sorry to learn that you were not well. I hope this note finds you, and your misguided companions, in better health." She stopped, read over what she had penned, squirmed in her chair and drew a large X several times across the page, tore it in half and tossed the pieces away. "Damn," she said aloud and beat her feet on the floor. "Damn, damn!" The cat hissed and scurried away.

She stomped down the wide staircase and trotted to the kitchen where it was warm, picked up a freshly-made biscuit and plunked herself down on the tall stool the cook used when she was stirring batter. "Bess," she said to the wide black woman resting near the open hearth, "Got a problem, a big problem." She sighed, loudly.

"Fus' time ever," said the big woman with a smile. She had known and liked the willful red-headed girl all her life.

"There's this boy, this man, young man, you probably know him, know his family, Billy Fields?" She sighed again, a bit louder than was necessary.

"Uh huh, I knows him. Got'a good head on his shoulders, that boy. Kind'a nice looking feller, ain' he?"

Anne smiled and scrunched up her befreckled nose. "I suppose. Anyroad, he joined the army, the rebel army of course, dumb thing to do, and he says he loves me, the fool. Oh, drat, I'm all confused." She took a deep breath and slumped her shoulders as she tore the fresh biscuit in half.

"It's the times, honey." Bess shook her kerchiefed head. "Lot's a thing all jumbled up. Your poor daddy, he's having all sorts a'problems. Lordy."

Anne nodded and shoved half of the soft, warm biscuit into her mouth. She snorted, chewed, swallowed and wished she had put butter on it. "The thing is, well, he might be gulling me, but I think maybe I love him. And I don't know how to tell, I mean, how to know for sure." She made a face with pursed lips, a scowl, wrinkling her forehead. "It's vexing, that's what it is." She chewed on the biscuit in her mouth.

Bess chuckled deep in her throat, a nearly mechanical sound. "Ain' no way to tell, chile, no way a'tall." She turned the spit slowly and sucked her teeth. "Love's jus' a mystery, uh huh."

"Must be some way to know. People're getting married, having children, living together for years and years, how do they figure it out?"

"They don't, mos' don't nohow," the white-haired woman said, a smile creasing her dark face. "You has to take some chances in this life. Sometimes love grows as y'goes along. Most married folks, by-and-by, they learns to love."

"That's just dumb." Anne rubbed her forefinger across a cake of freshly churned butter and licked it. "Suppose you pick the wrong one, the wrong man?" The other piece of biscuit followed the butter into her mouth, bulging her pale cheeks.

"Oh, that happens. Yes it do. Had t'get shut of one a'mine few years back."

The girl blinked but let that pass. "Somebody tole me, can't remember who, that there's a man for every woman." Anne wondered if the family's cook meant she had married more than one husband or even had two at the same time.

Bess smiled again. "Spoze so. Maybe more'n one." She chuckled, thinking about the numerous men in her long life including the three she wed. She was not sure which one had sired her dutiful daughter.

Anne sighed and went back to her room, licking her greased fingertip, feeling buffle-headed and unsatisfied. She explored her deep vocabulary, seeking the right word for her confusion.