A Girl Called Samson (7)

I folded the letter carefully and put it in the growing stack of communications from Elizabeth. I had so few possessions, and I cherished each one. My Bible, the one my mother had given me, sat beside the pile. My mother had neatly recorded her lineage on the inside cover from the marriage of William Bradford and Alice Carpenter in 1623 to the union of Deborah Bradford and Jonathan Samson in 1751. My mother was a Deborah too.

I’d added my siblings—Robert, Ephraim, Sylvia, Dorothy—and myself in a neat line beneath my parents’ names, an effort to connect us to the branch and to each other, even though we’d been snipped and scattered.

I turned to Proverbs 31 and read it through, trying to imagine myself being a woman more valuable than rubies, a woman who spoke with wisdom and clothed herself in honor and strength. I clothed myself in homespun cloth and borrowed breeches, at least when I could get away with it. The boys had never tattled on me, though Phineas had threatened to after I’d bested him in a wrestling match.

I certainly did not eat the bread of idleness. That should count for something.

I closed the Bible and took out my ledger. I added headstrong to my list of faults and stared at it before crossing it out and adding it to the other side. I wrote Of strong mind. That’s what I was. I was of strong mind. And that was not a sin.

I left the ledger open to dry and left my room, determined to looketh well to the ways of the household, at least until I was eighteen.



Middleborough was a small community about thirty miles south of Boston, but the people boasted two churches: the First Congregational Church, where Reverend Conant presided, and the Third Baptist Church, which seemed to have an equal and passionate following. I once asked what the difference was, besides the minister, and Mrs. Thomas said one was true and one was not. I asked which one, and Mrs. Thomas was not amused, though I wasn’t trying to be humorous.

I did like that there was a choice and no one was forced to attend either—except if one was a child or an indentured servant—though choosing not to attend one or the other seemed to make folks wary and strain relationships. Both read the Bible, both sang similar hymns, and both prayed to a similar God, according to Reverend Conant. The reverend seemed more concerned by the presence of British troops in Boston than he was by the existence of another church in Middleborough, so I didn’t concern myself overmuch either, though my insatiable curiosity had me listening to debates in the public square after Sunday meetings when most of the other young people wandered away.

But the arguments about which church was true and which version of God even truer paled in comparison to the political fervor that had gripped the colonies, or at least Massachusetts. In a letter, Elizabeth claimed it was everywhere.

July 28, 1773

My dear Deborah,

Many of John’s associates and our friends want no part of the rebellion brewing in Boston, but as John says, the trouble in one colony affects all colonies. A clear delineation is brewing between the wealthy and the common folk, those who don’t profit from trade with Britain and who resent the taxes, regulation, and orders from on high.

John worries what the troubles will mean for our future and the future of every colony. He says oppression not resisted eventually becomes slavery, and he has begun preparations to move the family to a place called Lenox in western Massachusetts. His cousin lives there, and John wants the family away from the conflict if there is to be one, though he is likely to get pulled into the fray, wherever we go. He has wide shoulders, a level head, and a patriotic heart.

Lenox sits on the edge of the frontier, and I confess to not being enthusiastic about the move. But I suppose if John’s mother and his sisters and their families come with us, I will not mind it. Of course my daughters will keep me busy.

I cannot fathom how circumstances continue to devolve. Surely, England does not want war. John says the British do not think the colonists capable of prolonged resistance or organized revolt. They are disdainful of us and call us pestilents. A certain British lord, I cannot remember his name at present, boasted that he could flatten all the rebellion in the colonies by nightfall with a single regiment and not suffer a wrinkle or a scratch.

You are so young, and I do not want to frighten you. I often forget that you are but thirteen! Your questions are those of a scholar, and I confess to not having the answers much of the time. Perhaps I will entreat John to write to you on subjects in which I am not well versed.

We must also write of simpler things, more pleasant things. There is little you or I can do about the trouble brewing, so we must not let it darken our correspondence. The doctor has just confirmed I am with child again and we want to be settled in Lenox before the baby is born. Our home is almost finished. John promises it will be grand, and I will bring culture and civilization to that place, though given the size of the town, I don’t think that will be difficult.

I remain your constant friend,

Elizabeth



The Patersons moved to Lenox and Elizabeth gave birth to her third daughter, Ruth, named after John’s favorite sister. Baby Ruth joined four-year-old Hannah and two-year-old Polly in the Paterson brood. John had four sisters, all older than he, and Elizabeth said he was destined to be surrounded by females. She still managed to write regularly, though the letters were slow, and I often wrote three to every one of hers.

I had only my own thoughts to fill the pages, but she didn’t seem to mind. She indulged my analysis of Shakespeare and offered some of her own. She shared my disappointment in Othello—he killed Desdemona!—and enjoyed my defense of poor Shylock from The Merchant of Venice, though she did not share my sense of injustice in his case. I had a soft spot when it came to the outcast, even when the outcast was portrayed as the villain. I thought it most likely because I was one as well.