Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons (25 page)

"A silence falls over everyone when Washington rides by on that white horse of his," John was saying. "They stop what they're doing, stop their fighting and lolling. They snap to attention. They know he's not hunting foxes now. The roughest Kentucky rifleman stands tall. At the same time everyone gets becalmed. He looks at you and you cringe. Like you would if God looked at you. But there is kindness, too, in that face. Oh, Phillis, I tell you, this is a man who will do good things for us all."

"The Fox Hunter," I said again.

"Yes, that's what they call him."

"I would like to see him," I said.

Still, I did not write the poem. And then, in October, the British burned the town of Falmouth in Maine, laying waste to wharves, houses, shoppes, leaving people without shelter. A Captain Mowat, who led the shelling, said he was ordered to destroy all the coastal towns. And said Portsmouth would be next.

Here was wanton savagery. Englishmen burning the village of other Englishmen. Everyone was in a panic. And no one had doubts anymore as to what side they were on.

I wrote the poem. And a letter. John Peters personally delivered both to Cambridge. By now he knew some officers there. They got my correspondence into Washington's hands.

At the beginning of December I had a letter from General Washington himself, inviting me to Cambridge to meet with him.

John Peters sat erect and proud on the wagon seat as we drove down the main road of the camp at Cambridge.

It had snowed a bit the night before, but this afternoon the sun was out in a sky that was a blue bowl overhead. And the sun was warm.

The scene around me made me cower close to John.

For as far as the eye could see were men, rough men in shirtsleeves. I heard curses, shouts. Some, in leather leggings and shirts, seemed fierce and raw. They spit tobacco. They wore all manner of things slung on their persons, everything from powder horns to slabs of bacon.

Some were drilling. Others cooking. They had no uniform but wore all manner of clothing—red worsted caps, hats of beaver, tricorns of black with clay pipes stuck in them. Some wore uniforms from the French war. All carried guns. Some of the guns were seven feet long. Others were ancient flintlocks.

John Peters knew his way around. He pointed things out to me. "We're at the foot of Prospect Hill. That two-story farm house is called Hobgoblin Hall. It's headquarters for Charles Lee. He commands the left wing of the army. Artemas Ward has the right. Israel Putnam, the old Indian fighter, has the center. He's fifty-six years old."

"Who are those young men drilling there on the green?"

He laughed. "Yale students."

Drums were throbbing, men shouting orders. I could smell wood smoke and gunpowder. Men were bending over steaming camp kettles, waving smoke away from their faces. I heard some fifes in the distance. And there were flags everywhere, flags of different sorts, snapping in the breeze.

I felt very small and lost, riding on the wagon next to John. Like all my concerns and worries were of no account. Like all my life I'd been thinking only of my own needs, while these rough-and-tumble men were thinking of the good of us all.

Something was happening here. Something grander than I could ever conceive with all my fancy words. Something outside my ken.

"I feel lost, John," I said.

"Don't worry, we're here." He drew the horse's reins up in front of a large house with shuttered windows. "This is Craigie House, Washington's headquarters."

Immediately we were surrounded by young officers wearing blue and buff. The reins were taken from John's hands.

"State your business," one young officer said.

John gave him Washington's letter. The officer read it and looked up at me, then helped me down. "Move this wagon. Get it out of sight. Supplies are coming in," he ordered.

John clucked to the horse and drove away. I stood watching him, a helpless, strangled feeling in my throat.

I was once supposed to be presented to the king and queen of England at the Court of Saint James. I do not know how I would have abided the glittering court, the pageantry.

This house was no court. By English standards it was a rude country home. But my heart hammered inside me nevertheless. Things were happening here. There was an air of purposefulness, even power.

Inside, all was aflutter. Dozens of people, some of them officers, seemed to be moving things about. Two were carrying a heavy clothespress up the main stairway. Two others were bringing in a pianoforte. A man stood at the back door with an armload of evergreens. Behind him someone was unloading a cart of firewood.

The officer and I stood outside a closed, polished door. "The general is busy at the moment," the officer said. "We'll just wait here."

It was drafty in the large hall. I shivered and looked up. On the landing a man was fastening evergreens to the fat cherry banister.

"Are they preparing for Christmas?" I asked.

The officer smiled. "Yes. And for the arrival of Mrs. Washington. They expect her coach tomorrow."

Washington had slaves. John Peters had told me that. How would he receive me, then? Had he ever met a free nigra woman?

The door opened. I held my breath. A tall, broad-shouldered man in full dress uniform came out. I made ready to curtsy.

The officer put a restraining hand on my arm. "That's General Greene," he said.

I watched the general walk down the hall. Then the officer stood in the half-open door for a moment and, having been acknowledged, went inside.

I heard his boots walking across the wooden floor, heard murmurings, then a man's voice raised in surprised pleasantry.

Again the footsteps; and from behind the half-open door, the officer nodded to me. "He'll see you now," he said.

The room was large and welcoming. A fire burned in the hearth. The wainscoting was seasoned and burnished, the rugs somewhat faded, the desk piled with papers. It was an old house and it had that look of solid, even shabby comfort that was the watermark of so many New England homes. No fancy furbelows like in England.

There was pleasant clutter, candleholders, books, maps. I felt in familiar surroundings, as if I'd come home.

And there was the man at the window, framed in its light.

The Fox Hunter.

"Ah, Miss Wheatley."

For a moment I was taken aback.
He had called me Miss.
No nigra woman was
ever
addressed as "Miss," be she bound or free. It just was not done.

This man had done it. Lightly, with no effort. Yet the knowledge of what he had done was there in his eyes.

I felt things falling into place inside me. And for the first time in a long while everything seemed of a piece.

I was whole for the first time in my life. I felt becalmed in his presence, with a peculiar sense that everything would be all right.

His voice was as it should be, deep but with a tone of rich amusement. And the eyes—oh yes, they were hunter's eyes.

They were like my father's, missing nothing.

I curtsied. I moved across the Persian carpet. I moved like words across a page, hoping he would read me as I had written myself to be.

He did. "I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me. The poem, I mean."

"It was my pleasure, sir."

He gestured that I should sit. I did.

"Everyone wants to notice me these days, it seems. They come here just to gawk. I hear I am the topic of conversation in every common room from Maine to Georgia. But your elegant lines were written without seeing. Though I am undeserving of your praise."

"You are head of our army, sir, a task that befits your talents."

"I'm the head of an army that has neither food, gunpowder, nor clothes."

"Supplies, sir. They can all be procured. What can never be procured, and what you bring, is leadership. The men all rally around your name."

He nodded approvingly. His eyes took in every aspect of my appearance. I was glad, of a sudden, that I had not accepted Mary Lathrop's offer of her one good velvet frock. My own neat linen and cotton seemed to please him.

"How long have you been in this country?" he asked.

"Since I was seven years old."

"Are you still in bondage?"

"My master freed me."

He sat in a satin-tufted chair. He was a very tall man, I minded. "Would you do the honor of pouring us some tea?" he asked.

I did so.

He took a cup. "There's some gingerbread there. Mrs. Greene sent it. She's always sending things for my comfort. The general has a good woman for a wife. Are you married?"

"No, sir, but I could be if I wished."

He took his tea and a slice of gingerbread. His movements were graceful, in spite of his size. "I miss my Martha. She's due tomorrow. We must have women about. Their presence gives the army civility. Otherwise the men are a pack of hounds braying for the kill."

He smiled at me. "You understand this, I see."

"My father was a hunter."

"Was he?"

"Yes, sir. Where I come from, which is Senegal on the Grain Coast, he was known as a great hunter."

"What did he hunt?"

"The black-legged mongoose." I told him about it then, how it seemed tame and children would try to catch it. And get bitten.

He was much interested, so I elaborated.

"It's very crafty. It lives in termite hills. And it attacks our poultry."

He nodded slowly. "Crafty like our fox. I would like to hunt such a creature."

I told him then how my father also hunted the bat-eared fox, and so then he would know all about the bat-eared fox, too. I told him.

"You miss your father," he said.

Tears came to my eyes. "Yes."

"I was eleven years old when my father died. My half-brother Lawrence saw to my upbringing. He was older by fourteen years—like a father to me, but also my best friend. I would have been schooled in England if I hadn't lost my father. You have been to England, I hear."

"Yes, sir."

"I have never been there. But in my youth I called England home."

"I have many friends there," I told him.

"But we have become a different people. So now it is up to us to find our destiny in our own way."

"That frightens me, sir," I allowed.

"It frightens us all. But we do it because we must. As we Americans have always done things because we must. I have many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep. I pace alone, reflecting on my situation and that of this army."

"You, sir?"

"Yes. But then I think we Americans have always found our own way. And sometimes we must sacrifice to break new ground for those who will follow. I think that is our destiny. Do you know, the volunteers from Virginia and Carolina said they would not fight with free Negroes? I insisted the Negroes remain. And Congress has supported me."

"I was told you had Negro soldiers," I said.

"Yes. We break new ground every day. There is nothing to fear."

His gray-blue eyes met mine. I saw a peace in them, a fatherly concern, a tranquil assurance. And in that quiet moment, while the fire crackled and muffled sounds came from the far reaches of the house, I knew that it was right that I be here this day, that I meet this man, hear the quiet dignity of his words, bear witness to his subdued strength.

I had come for the wrong reasons, written my poem for the wrong reasons. But all that did not matter now.

All that mattered was that I met him.

"When one cultivates the affections of good people and practices domestic virtues, there is nothing to fear," he said again.

We spoke more. He told me of Mount Vernon and how he missed it, of how he never separated his slaves from their families, and someday he would find a way to free them all. Of how he wanted to have my poem about him published, but then it might be considered a mark of his own vanity.

He asked me who my admirer was, whom I might marry if I chose. I told him about John. And my doubts.

"May I give some advice?" he asked.

"Oh, sir, I would be honored."

"Do not look for perfect felicity before you consent to wed. Love is a mighty pretty thing, but like all delicious things, it is cloying. It is too dainty a thing to live on alone, and ought not to be considered more than a necessary ingredient for that happiness that results from a combination of causes. None of which is of greater importance than that the object of your devotion have good sense, a good disposition, and the means of supporting you."

"Thank you, sir," I said.

"The sun grows weak." He stood. "I would talk more, but duty calls," he said.

I stood.

"I am happy to meet a person so favored by the Muses. I wrote poetry when I was young, you know."

"Did you, sir?"

"Yes. To girls. It was grievous bad."

We laughed. He took my hand. "Good-bye, Miss Wheatley."

"Good-bye, General."

"Nature has been liberal and beneficent in her dispensations to you. Use them well."

I did not walk back across the carpet. I floated.

Somehow I found my way out of the house. Somehow, in the confusion of men and officers moving about, I found John, with the wagon, a little way down the hill.

He was grinning at me. "I don't have to ask you how the interview went, Phillis. I can see it went well. Am I right?"

I got into the wagon. I drew my cloak around me. "John," I said, "I can only quote what the Queen of Sheba said on meeting Solomon."

"Very well, Sheba, I'm listening."

"'The half was not told me,'" I said.

I married John Peters. Did I do the right thing? Times I think yes, other times no. But I know this: I am no longer afraid. Always, you see, I recall what the Fox Hunter was trying to tell me that day.

Love is a mighty pretty thing. And too dainty a thing to live on alone. But just an ingredient for that happiness that results from combined causes.

It was what my own father would have told me, I am sure of it.

If I never got the combined causes all of a piece, the fault was mine. It wasn't the Fox Hunter's fault. He tried to tell me.