Chapter 9

Thank God, they finally made it! Everybody was pleased to meet Turtle's new wives, and John offered to let them stay in the tavern. Blue Jay and Redbird flatly refused to stay in the White man's house. They insisted on having their accustomed hut, and that fit in with what Turtle wanted, too.

The two Nipmuck women looked over the hut that Turtle had been living in and snorted something to the effect of "What could you expect from a man?" They tore down what Turtle had built and assembled the traveling hut as a temporary dwelling until they could build what they really wanted. The three Indians spent the night in their hut and ate their own food. Neither of the women were enticed by the food that Cookie fixed. I think that Turtle was happier with the food, too.

The next day, the women were busy constructing a proper permanent dwelling while the three men were out hunting. They were pleased and impressed with the game that was brought in, and they insisted that they should be the ones to skin and dress the meat before it was sold. Those two women did a damned nice job, and all of the customers were pleased with what they delivered that day. The customers also appreciated not having to bother with skinning and butchering the meat.

The women had drying racks installed and were working on preparing the best looking deer skins in the community. Joe made the women formal employees and paid them for their work. They were astounded at that, but were very happy to collect their wages. Joe paid them on a piece-work basis because that was what they were most comfortable with. The little company ate the cost of the first few skins so that they could be used in making the second, insulating wall for the hut. The interior of the hut was pleasantly warm when that second wall was installed. The second wall would be removed during the summer, but it was a big help in the cold weather.

Mary was good at sewing, but Blue Jay and Redbird had her beat when it came to working with deer skin. In fact, she was the one who suggested it, and Joe had them make a full set of clothes from deer skin for both Ed and him. Joe had those innovative pockets added to the design, and both Indian women were impressed when they finally caught on to what the pockets were good for. As a gift for their husband, they even made a set of clothes for Turtle, and he wore them with pride.

They did have a little trouble when the townsfolk found out that a Nipmuck family had joined the community. John quashed any of the complaints he heard with the statement that his Indian friends were free to settle on his property, and anybody who didn't like it could stick his opinion where it would be very uncomfortable. Furthermore, that person was not going to be welcome at the tavern until he changed his mind. Joe thought that the latter condition was what made the final push in the destruction of the complaints.

Overall, they had a very pleasant winter, or as pleasant as a colonial winter in Massachusetts could be. The winter was "open" enough that they were able to hunt almost every day, and nobody went hungry that season.

Parson Jacobs continued his ban on Joe attending his church, and he extended the ban to Mary, declaring that she was living with Joe in sin since they had not been married in his church by him. This upset Martha and John so much that they, too, refused to attend the local church. At one point, Parson Jacobs made a remark to John about how he was taking his family to an eternity in Hell because of the way he had permitted his daughter to associate with Joe. That finally did it, and John slapped the parson so hard in the mouth that the man's jaw was broken. That was the last straw for the parson, so he wrote a letter of complaint to the church leaders in Boston.

As soon as the weather would permit the travel, three investigators showed up to examine the facts of the matter. Striking a member of the church hierarchy was a very serious matter, and could result in a public flogging of the guilty party. John was a bit concerned, but Joe resolved that it was going to take an army to make that happen.

Anyway, some inquiries were made over a period of three weeks. The investigators did stay in John's tavern while they were in town, and Joe thought that was hilariously ironic, but Joe was the only one to see that as funny. The investigators didn't say anything to anybody in town, but returned to Boston to make their report.

About a month later, a replacement parson showed up. They never did hear what happened to Parson Jacobs, but Parson Adams moved smoothly in to the job and turned out to be a very likeable man. John was invited to return to the church and to bring Joe along with the rest of his family. However, John did have to be punished for striking a parson: a letter of official rebuke was read from the pulpit the first Sunday that he showed up. Everybody agreed that the letter was appropriate and the matter was dropped, never to be mentioned again.

Both Mary's and Martha's pregnancies were progressing normally, and the local midwife, who happened to be Mistress Esther, pronounced them to be in excellent shape, though she joked to Martha that she was big enough to be carrying twins! Both women had long since reached that stage when they were "confined" so that they would not exhibit their pregnancy to the town. Joe suspected that this custom was based on an old superstition of not attracting the attention of demons or other evil spirits to the defenseless unborn children. Whatever the reason, the women never left their rooms, other than to visit with each other, during the latter part of their pregnancies. Besides talk, they caught up on their sewing, etc. Joe don't know how they stood it—he would have gone stir-crazy under similar circumstances.

Mary finally had her child as they moved into May. It was a boy she named Joseph, and Joe called Little Joe. She did not care for that name very much, but she bore up under it as a dutiful wife should do. It didn't take Joe long to realize his mistake, so he was also calling the baby Joseph before he was two weeks old. When Joe saw how much Mary appreciated that, he kicked myself for his lack of feeling.

Martha's child was delivered only three weeks later, and it was also a boy. She named him Johnathon, which delighted her husband. John now had an heir to inherit the tavern, and this was a great relief to both John and Martha. Martha felt that she had at last done her duty toward her husband, and secretly hoped that she would not have to go through that again. This she had confided to Mary, which was how Joe found out. Joe was pretty sure that her husband felt the same way, but neither one said anything about it to the other one. They both just reveled in the birth of the baby boy.

Now that Mary was nursing, Joseph spent a lot of time in their bed. That took some getting used to, but Joe managed to maintain a satisfactory sex life despite the company. Mary did not think that there was anything unusual about the situation, so Joe was committed to going along with it. After all, Elizabeth had been in a crib in the same room with them all along, so Joe guessed that Joseph didn't add that much to the crowd.

They were now into the summer of 1676, which was the climactic year of King Philip's War. This war did not seem like such a big deal to the people of Joe's original era, but it was the most destructive of all of the Indian wars ever fought on the continent. More Indians and Whites died, and there was more destruction of property than anything seen since. If Metacom (King Philip) had been a better leader, the New England colonies might have been wiped out. As it was, it was a close thing.

They were very lucky in that they did not have to withstand a major raid with an army of Indians attacking them all at once, but 1676 saw a lot of small raids which killed some of the community's residents and saw some property destroyed. One such raid took place in April just as the weather finally became warm enough to allow comfortable movement out of doors.