Acts of Courage (14 page)

EIGHTEEN

It’s a bloody disgrace,” said James. “Sheaffe should have stood his ground and fought, instead of destroying his own ship and running with his troops.”

Spring had finally come and with it the unexpected news that York had been invaded and captured. A Canadian frigate, the
Isaac Brock
, had been burned in the harbour by order of Major General Sheaffe before he withdrew his men. Within a day, the Americans had taken over. Now James was sitting in the armchair beside the kitchen window, fuming over what he felt was an act of great cowardice.

“Thank God for Strachan up there at York. If he hadn’t taken over and negotiated with the enemy, it would have been even worse. Imagine an Anglican priest having to take charge instead of the military.”

“The poor people,” Laura said as she thought of the looting.

“The Reverend Doctor blames the plundering on our own leader, Sheaffe. When the fleeing British army blew up the York magazine, a huge boulder killed several Americans and their leader, General Pike, just as he was moving in to take York. The American soldiers were furious at the loss and spent their anger against the people and property of York.”

“Please don’t concern yourself with it, James. Nothing can be done now.”

“Strachan’s right, Laura. He’s right. The country will be ruined by Sheaffe’s defensive warfare. We need another Brock with the courage to lead his men. His offensive tactics worked. Sheaffe will not only bring us defeat, he’ll make us a laughingstock while he’s at it.”

Laura was not sure who was right, but she was certain that James’s irritation wasn’t doing him any good. His shoulder wound had healed, but he was still unable to put his full weight on the leg with the wounded knee. Even after the long winter, it had not healed. In fact, just lately, the wound seemed to have become more infected. James had spent most of his time in their room with his leg stretched out on a fat feather pillow. The throbbing pain was unbearable when he stood.

Laura helped James back up to his room and had just returned to the kitchen when she heard a heavy pounding on the front door. She set down the bread pans she was bringing out and reached for a cloth to wipe her hands. Who would be passing by so early in the morning?

She pulled open the door and stood in surprise as three grey-coated American soldiers stared at her. Word had come to Queenston that the American forces were moving around the western tip of Lake Ontario to Burlington Bay and toward Newark, but she had not expected to see enemy soldiers at Queenston. Perhaps these were advance scouts.

“May we have water and food, Missus?” one of the soldiers asked politely.

She noticed how boyish they looked. They reminded Laura of her brother Charles. “Yes,” she replied.

They were armed so she had to do as they said. She prayed that James would not call out for her. They might become alarmed if they heard a man’s voice and shoot her husband before they realized how weak he was. And if she volunteered to tell them about him, would they believe her or would they think it was a trick?

They followed her directly into the kitchen. Laura was surprised to see them take their shakos from their heads and put them on the hall table as they passed through. Then the three young soldiers sat down quietly on the bench beside the kitchen table as she laid out dishes for their meal. She noticed that they were looking around the room with admiration. One nudged the other and pointed to her glassed-in cabinet in the corner. Most of the good dishes displayed there had come from Great Barrington and had belonged to her mother before her. She took in a deep breath and watched them as her anger grew. Yet she said nothing.

“I must go out to the cellar to get meat,” she said quietly. She hoped they would not follow to see where she kept their food supply, so she added, “You might like to sit in the parlour while you wait.”

They nodded and followed her as she led them into her best room. They smiled with satisfaction, and two of them slumped down on the sofa while the third sat in the large chair nearer the warmth of the fireplace. As he leaned back in comfort, he stretched out his long legs until they nearly reached the hearth.

“Reminds me of home,” he said to the other two.

Seeing them quietly settled, Laura ran out the back door to Bob and Fan, who were working at the large oven in the bakehouse. She told them about the soldiers and gave instructions for the meal.

Laura saw Charlotte and her other children returning from the store. “Go back to our store,” she said, after explaining what had happened.

“Shall I take Charles with us?” Charlotte asked.

“No, he’ll be fine with me. You run along now. Go to the other side of the shed and don’t pass where they can see you from the parlour window.” Charlotte was now a beautiful girl of fifteen with curly dark hair. She looked very much like her cousin Phoebe.

Laura took the fresh coffee pot from the hearth, put it on a tray with three cups, and took the tray in to the men in the front room.

“Your meal will be ready soon,” she told them.

“Thank you, Missus,” they said.

“You’d think I’d invited them to dinner,” Laura grumbled to herself.

She shut the door behind her as she came out of the parlour, then silently went up the stairs and across to James’s room. She held her finger to her lips, and James, alerted by her pale countenance, knew that all was not well. She quickly whispered into his ear and left.

She brought a fresh apron down from the linen cupboard in case the men had seen her and wondered why she had gone upstairs. To her relief, the door to the parlour was still closed. They had probably not noticed anything.

She had not been in her kitchen long when Bob and Fan came in with the steaming food. They had prepared fresh creamed potatoes and carrots, and pork fried in maple syrup. Some apple pies were baking now, to be ready by the time the Americans had finished their first course. Bob and Fan set the serving dishes on the table and went back out to the bakehouse.

Laura took out some of her best dishes. Perhaps if she
treated the soldiers well, they would leave her house without taking anything. She could not forget the stories she had heard of the plundering of York, even after a peace treaty was signed. The American officers had not been able to control their men, or had pretended they were not able.

The three young soldiers ate as though they hadn’t had a good meal in weeks. When Fan came in with steaming apple pies, Laura added a large chunk of cheese to each plate.

“It’s just like Ma’s pie,” the youngest one said when he ate his first bite. He smiled openly at Laura. “I’ll be glad, Missus, when this is all over, and we can go back home.”

“Not me,” his older friend said.
“When we come for good to this country, we’ll divide the land, and I’ll take this here for my share.” He looked around the room and rested his eyes on Laura’s built-in china cabinet.

Suddenly, unable to contain her outrage, Laura burst out,
“You scoundrel, all you’ll ever get here will be six feet of earth.”

They were silent after that. She was no longer the hostess, and they her guests. They were the enemy. The soldiers looked at Laura suspiciously as they finished their last few mouthfuls of pie and left without losing any time.

As Laura watched them go, she regretted her outburst.

“I was wrong to be so vindictive,” she said to James when she had gone back upstairs. “They were mostly polite and took nothing from me except food, which I would gladly give to any hungry strangers. I had no right to speak to them the way I did, even if they were enemy scouts.” Laura was not sure that they really were scouts, and she could not leave James to find out.

She heard soon enough. A few days later, on May 27, 1813, the Americans attacked and took Newark. The soldiers must have been advance scouts. Her brother Charles had been at Newark with the Provincial Dragoons, trying to defend the town. It had been a bloody battle, with heavy losses on both sides. The British had been outnumbered four to one.

Two days after news of the battle reached her, Laura had gone to St. David’s to see if Charles’s fiancée, Elizabeth, or her mother, Hannah, had received any word from Charles. She was surprised to find Charles there himself. He had been injured and was resting in one of the bedrooms upstairs. He described the slaughter to Laura. “In one plot of land no wider than fifteen feet and no longer than two hundred yards, there were at least four hundred wounded and dead men. If my friend William had not seen me lying there and dragged me to safety and taken me on the back of his horse, I’d have died.”

“Rest now, Charles,” Laura had said.

Glassy-eyed with fever, Charles insisted on continuing. “Brigadier-General Vincent—”

“Who’s he?”

“The commander of the Centre Division. He ordered us out. He said the fort was lost. He ordered the magazine blown up and started us on the road to Queenston. Then he directed us across by St. David’s. William brought me right here to the Secords. I’d never have made it on my own.”

Elizabeth walked into the room with a bowl of water and clean towels.

“I know you’ll take good care of him,” Laura said to Charles’s frail fiancée, who looked almost as pale as Charles.

“He’ll be fine,” Elizabeth said, for Charles’s sake, as she tried to smile.

***

Although the doctor had not been able to take the bullet out of her husband’s knee, his salves had been helping the wound lately, and James had been able to sit for a short time each day. Laura hurried home because he would be ready to get up. She wanted to tell him the news about Newark before someone else did. She hoped it would not set him back again.

When she came to her backyard, Laura noticed two horses tied by the fence. She hurried toward her house, wondering who had come for a meal this time.

From the hallway, Laura could hear the voice of the young enemy soldier who had liked her apple pie.

“So, they’ve come back to claim this here property,” she thought.

As she passed through the hall, Laura saw two shakos on the
hall table. In the kitchen, Fan rushed around preparing food.

As Laura approached the soldiers, she controlled her feelings and greeted them as if they had just come by on a visit. “So, you’ve come back for more of that pie like your ma’s,” she said to the younger one.

He smiled and said a bit bashfully, “Thank you, Missus. We’d like that.” They were sitting on the bench beside the table.

“And where’s your other friend? There were three of you last time.”

The young soldier looked down.
“You were right about the six feet of earth, Missus.”

The third man had been killed at Newark.

NINETEEN

I’ve come for some of your baking, Missus,” the old woman spoke in a squeaky voice that did not seem quite real.

Laura stared at the large, bent figure standing at her kitchen door. A close-knit woollen shawl covered her head and crossed over her short gown. The front of a beribboned mob cap poked out over her forehead. Her heavy petticoat hung well over her shoes as she waited on the back stoop, holding her empty round basket.

Laura did not hesitate to welcome the old woman, for she had never forgotten her outburst against the three young American soldiers. Now she kept food prepared and ready to serve to anyone who passed her way. Most often it was the enemy. Praise for Laura Secord’s apple pie and candied maple sugar spread through the lines as more and more American soldiers received her hospitality. So Laura was not surprised to see this woman at her door.

“What would you like?” Laura said in a pleasant voice. The coarse-featured old lady shifted from one foot to the other. It was late at night, and Laura could see that she was tired. James and the children were already in bed, and the servants, Bob and Fan, had retired to their quarters.

“I’d pay for a bite to eat, Missus,” the woman continued in a squeaky voice. The woman looked down and shifted uncomfortably again.

Laura looked sadly at the bent figure and said, “Come in, please. If you wish, you may rest in the kitchen while I prepare you a bite.” The woman stepped forward and hurried inside.

She sat down heavily in the rocking chair by the window, and Laura began to warm potatoes and cook eggs in an iron frying pan over a low fire in the hearth. This war had made her unduly suspicious, she decided, for she couldn’t help wondering about the old woman. Why was she far from home? They were at war.

When Laura turned from stirring her potatoes, the woman said, “Do you have extra butter? I supply butter regularly to the troops stationed out of town, and I have none left.”

“And where is your home?” Laura asked.

“Eh?” the woman asked. She cupped one hand around her ear as she looked up at Laura.

“Your home? Where are you from?”

“Near Stoney Creek. Have you any butter for sale?”

“I’ll get a few bowlfuls from the fruit cellar later. You are a long way from home.”

Laura hurried about the room. Well, at least the woman had offered to pay. She sighed as she took a tin plate from the cupboard and placed it on the table. With a long wooden ladle, she pushed the hot potatoes and eggs onto the large plate. She was just about to tell the woman to sit at the table when she noticed her at the other side of the room, peering into the china cabinet.

“Your food is ready,” Laura said a little crisply.

The woman turned around quickly then, but spoke in the same shaky voice. “You must have brought these dishes from the old country.” She slid along the bench seat beside the table. Her long unfashionable petticoats dragged along the floor.

“No, they came from Great Barrington, Massachusetts,” said Laura. “They were my mother’s.”

The woman suddenly choked on the huge mouthful she had just scooped up, and Laura rushed over to a pail on the bake table. She dipped out a cup of water and handed it to her.

“Here,” she said. “This may help. You needn’t hurry. Take your time eating.” She was beginning to feel sorry for the woman.

Laura bent over the fireplace to cover the coals with ashes, for it was a warm day in late May, and she hoped the fire would not heat the rest of the house. In this position, squatting over the hearth, she glimpsed across at the woman, who was still clearing her throat. Beneath the table, her feet were spread wide apart and her boots were not a woman’s.

She knew that sometimes women wore their husband’s boots, but these boots were different; they were military boots. A British soldier would not try to hide his identity, and neither would an American soldier. A cold chill gripped her as she realized he must be a scavenger. He could well be more dangerous than the enemy, but she knew she must feed him anyway.

She stayed crouched there, poking the ashes and trying to compose herself. She would have to go along with his disguise for now. She needed to figure out a way to lure him outside, give him the butter, and then hurry back inside and lock the door. Maybe she would come to no harm. She slowly straightened up and turned toward the table.

His plate was empty.

“Let’s go out for the butter now,” she said quietly. But her hand shook a little as she picked up the plate from the table. She felt the eyes of the scavenger close upon her.

“Don’t be afraid, Laura Ingersoll,” said a low, smooth voice.

Laura turned and stared at the figure before her. She had not been called Laura Ingersoll for years now. Who was this person?

“I was Laura Ingersoll before I married. My husband is James Secord, a sergeant with the first Lincoln Militia.”

“Laura…I’m Red,” the man said in a strong masculine voice, pulling the heavy grey wig from his head and letting his shock of thick red hair fall over his forehead.

Laura stared in disbelief. The man’s unruly hair was standing on end, just as it had when she had first met him, and his face, though fuller now, had broken into that lopsided smile she could never forget. It truly was Red.

“Red!” she shouted and rushed over to him, but hesitated and dropped her arms without throwing them around him.

Still smiling, he said in a low voice, “Be quiet, Laura. I’m on the run again.” He grabbed the wig from the table and pulled it back over his head. “But tell me about yourself.”

“First, I’ll get you some of my apple pie,” she said, cutting him a huge wedge.

“Thank you,” he said. “Now, tell me.”

“Well, we came to Upper Canada in 1795,” said Laura, taking a chair by the window. “Father ran the tavern at Queenston at first. Then he set up farming out at La Tranche River.”

Red was eating pie slowly as she talked. “He must be torn by this war,” he said.

“Yes, he would have been. He had many friends in America, as well as Mira and her husband and family. But he died just as it began. He never knew.”

“And Sally?”

“She’s at Port Credit, running the inn there. They lost the farm.” She swallowed as she thought about her father. Then she looked up at Red and asked, “And you, Red, why didn’t you ever write? I haunted the mailbox.”

“I did. I wrote to the judge, and I wrote to you, too.”

“There was no return address on your letter to the judge, and I never received any letters.”

“I didn’t write you at the same time as I wrote the judge. But I wrote you not long afterwards. My letter must have been lost. Then I wrote again a few years after that. I guess you’d moved to Canada by then. I never forgot you, Laura, but I gave up hope of ever seeing you again.” His voice was deep with emotion as he stared at her, and his fork lay still beside his plate.

Red was a handsome man, she thought, probably a few years younger than James—more her age. He adjusted his wig with one hand, and his pale green eyes swept softly across her face. She had forgotten that she had removed her mob cap before he had come, and her shining brown hair hung down long across her back and shoulders. He silently admired her as she sat there by the window, with the evening shadows falling across her face.

They sat in silence for a few minutes as though the years had not passed between them. Finally, he stood and walked over to her. He took her hand in both of his and said simply, “Thank you again, Laura.”

She looked up into his handsome face and remembered the boy she had cared so much about and had waited and waited to hear from.

“Mama!” It was Charles, crying out in his sleep.

Laura came back to the present with a start and pulled her hand free. The child did not call out again. Then she looked back at Red, still standing there, and she wondered why Red was running again.

“And you, Red,” she asked. “Where are you going?”

Then, in a lower voice, “I mean, who or what are you running from this time?” There was no sting in her tone.

“I’m sorry. I can’t explain.” He sounded embarrassed.

She knew he was hiding from someone, or he would not have been dressed as he was. Suddenly, her feelings changed and she said, “There was some excuse then, but now you’re a man. What justifies your running now?”

His voice became guarded.

“You’re right,” he said. “And I must go. May I buy the butter?”

He grabbed his large basket and handed it to her. She knew he wanted it for a cover, as it was not unusual for peddlers to go through a camp of soldiers, selling their goods. This way, he would pass undetected.

“I’ll fill it from the cold cellar.” She walked briskly to the door.

In about five minutes, she was back. He was sitting on the back stoop. She handed him the basket filled with wooden bowls of butter packed in ice chips and sawdust.

He put a handful of money in her hand, but she did not even look at it as she saw him go out the door. For some reason, he had irritated her. Perhaps it was his irresponsibility. It seemed he would never grow up.

Then her heart softened as she thought of the poor shivering boy back on the road to Great Barrington. “God go with you,” she called out gently.

He turned then and smiled. “We’ll meet again, Laura. I will come back to see you.”

She smiled sadly at Red, limping like an old woman as he went along the road to St. David’s. She was quite sure she would never see him again.