A Girl Called Samson (22)

“All of my children are well. That has been my only goal.”

I wanted justice—justice for her, justice for me—but as I looked at her, mercy won. It was true. She was right. I was well. I was healthy and strong and grown, just as she’d said. With five young children and no way to support them, she must have feared such a day would never come.

“He came back . . . for a time, just after you went to live with the Thomases,” she added. “He asked about all of you. Where you were and if you were well. I thought he would stay. But he didn’t. And I haven’t seen him since.”

“You let him come back?” Had she welcomed him into her bed with the arms that had once held his dispersed and discarded children?

“Of course I did. It was all I ever wanted.” She didn’t even look up from her stitching.

“Why?” The word was almost a wail.

“Because it would have meant you could come back,” she said quietly.

I sank back into the chair I’d vacated, shamed and heartsore. My mother had given me all that she had. And I was angry that she couldn’t give more.

“Why did you teach me to read?” I asked. “I was so young, and you must have had so many other things demanding your time and attention.”

“I hardly did anything at all. I was teaching the older children, and you learned so quickly.”

I inhaled deeply and let it go. “Thank you.”

Surprise rippled over her guarded face. She had not expected such words from me.

“William Bradford believed all men and women should be able to read the word of God for themselves,” she said.

“Yes. I know. You have always been so proud of your lineage.”

Her back straightened and her chin rose. “Ours is a tree of strong roots and sturdy branches, filled with freedom-loving people.”

I wondered what strong roots and sturdy branches were good for if I was never given the opportunity to grow or to bloom.

“William Bradford arrived in this land more than a century ago,” my mother continued, her voice still ringing with pride. “The compact those Separatists made as a people became the foundation for the war we fight now. It is God’s war. His plan, and His timing. And it started with them.”

I thought of my dream, the one where I flew above the earth, time spread out beneath me. Nothing before, nothing after, everything one, eternal now. I imagined it was how God observed the world, moving the pieces and painting the scenes, forward and back.

“‘I hold the world but as the world, a stage where every man must play a part. And mine is a sad one,’” I quoted. How often had I pondered that line?

My mother looked up at me, her head cocked quizzically. “Every part is a sad one, Deborah. And rarely one of our choosing.”

I could not argue with that.



Milford Crewe was a diminutive man who must have appeared old even when he was not. He was balding on top and attempted to make up for it by allowing his hair to grow long and brush his shoulders in graying blond curls. He swept his wide-brimmed hat from his head and gave me a little bow, one hand at his waist and one in front of him, like we were about to do the minuet. He was not much to look at, it was true, but it was his manner that most repelled me.

My mother had insisted on dressing my hair, and two long curls hung down each side of my face though the style did nothing for my strong features and my square jaw. I’d learned it looked best drawn back in a long, fat plait or coiled neatly around my head underneath my cap. Everything else made me resemble a Christmas goose with a ribbon round its neck.

Upon introduction, Milford Crewe walked around me like he was inspecting a cow, even tugging at the strings of my cap like he wished I would remove it.

“Your eyes are an odd hue, aren’t they?”

I felt my lip begin to curl into a sneer, and I sucked it between my teeth. “I don’t know. What color should they be, Mr. Crewe?”

“Blue or green or brown would be fine. They’re all three, far as I can tell.”

“Yes, well. I’m temperamental. Hard to please. I doubt I’d make a good wife.”

“I don’t know about that.” He said it as though he was bestowing a great compliment.

“I do.”

“You’re tall.”

“Yes. I am. And you’re not.”

He stuck out his jaw and wrinkled his forehead. It made him look a bit like Deacon Thomas’s billy goat. I half expected him to emit an impatient bawl. What a pair we would be. A goose and a goat, honking and bleating at each other, completely unsuited and forced to share the barnyard.

He claimed he was not a loyalist, but he was not a patriot either, and to me, that was unacceptable.

“When it is all said and done, we will have nothing but blood and debt to show for our efforts. I am a pragmatic man, and this war never made any sense to me.” He shrugged. “But children must learn.”

Mr. Crewe stayed all afternoon, chatting with my mother and considering me. He asked me questions only to shift his gaze or become impatient when I gave him more than a simple answer, and my mother grew more and more desperate on my behalf.

He was still in attendance when the Thomases arrived, the wagon wheels signaling their welcome approach. I practically leapt for the door, but my mother stood guard, trying to forestall the inevitable.