A Gathering of Days: Chapters 1–3

I, Catherine Cabot Hall, aged 13 years, 6 months, 2.9 days, of Meredith in the State of New-Hampshire, do begin this book. It was given to me yesterday, my father returning from Boston, Massachusetts, where he had gone to obtain provisions for the months ahead.

This be the precept the teacher set out today:
...let thy words be plain and true to the thoughts of thy heart.

Teacher Holt commended me for writing with a finer hand than I have displayed before. Still must my capitals be improved, achieving a better flourish.

Before he had gone very far on his way a headless woman rose up before him—spectral, and blocking the path.

But thinking on it when he woke to the morrow, and still much the poorer for the loss of the hogs, he ventured back again.

There he discovered that his apparition was naught but the rooty tangle of a fallen tree!

The lesson, as Father put it to us, is that intelligence must prevail for had the fellow not returned he’d have suffered all his days, victim to an ignorant fear—no better than the meanest man, or least instructed child.

Father could scarce believe ’twas so, but Uncle Jack had read in the paper where a Mr. Sam’l Newell had raised a white potato to better than 24 inches, taken in girth around!

Then nothing would do but down to the cellar to hunt and search for the largest of ours, and carry it up for measure, amidst much speculation.

I shall not forget his words and am resolved that for all my days I shall assay such tasks and virtues as may sustain his comfort and increase his pride.

Also, it being snug for me, I must take up the patterned frock which I have given to Matty.

Mrs. Shipman’s sister in Salem had sent a new receipt for this, but as we had no currants here we had to do without.

Clearly I saw presented to me the dark silhouette of a lanky man, his coat all tattered against the sky, his bony hand above his eye as if to give it shade.

Cassie, ever more prudent, demurred; therefore must I, as the third of the party, cast the deciding ballot.

Cassie, ever more prudent, demurred; therefore must I, as the third of the party, cast the deciding ballot.

Asa, at this, scowled ruefully. But soon thereafter we all joined hands, & in most perfect companionship resumed the homeward journey.

Along the road and in the fields is neither green nor white of snow; all is sere and brown.

Now each week’s Courier displays a greater, and more petulant, number of master’s advertisements.

“But Charlie,” Uncle Jack pursues, “supposing the boy were right to run off—”
“He couldn’t be that, to my way of thinking; bound being bound to stay. Besides, I’d not want to intermeddle—no, you’d have to do it, and do it clean; send the vagrant, whatever his claim, back where he belonged.”

Joshua Nelson was thrashed in school.

I and Cassie were allowed to await her actual arrival. Thus I saw the large trunks she brought, each of them capacious.

As for Asa he cares for her not, and mocks her little simper and nose-that-wrinkles ways.

As the snow continued we did not go to school. Later, when it had abated, I cleared the pathway to the barn as a help to Father.

Weather was inclement. However, we went twice to church where, as he will ever do, Priest Fowle’s dog barked noisily at the late arrivals.

Father queried as he took it if she’d soon be leaving?
“O my no!” she answered him, her voice gone high and not her own and both hands vaguely waving.

Aunt Lucy knows her way at a hearth and, as I’ve observed at the Shipmans’, cooks most tastefully.

Matty, too, had a question to ask; hers not of her own devising. “Are you going to marry Aunt Lucy? Sophy says her mother says that’s what you ought to do.”

I can not think what has transpired; still is my lesson book missing.

The pond ice being thick and black, as will happen when cold persists with no snow between, we disported there after school.

Among us only Sophy was spilt. Worse than that, when she tumbled over, you could see her pantaloons! I should have died of shame, I know, had it befallen me.

Mrs. Shipman, hearing of illness, came ’round to offer help. However, she found all I’d done in order and did not amend the treatment.

How hard it was to not begrudge Father and Matty the time they took with their preparations and the morning meal.

I thought he never had tarried so long over common meat and cakes—and asked for bacon too! At last with all in tidiness I set out for school.

Public mortification now compounded my woes. On account of my late arrival I must pass before all the scholars, and so to my place.

Public mortification now compounded my woes. On account of my late arrival I must pass before all the scholars, and so to my place.

My face turned red as a smithy’s in summer!

Teacher Holt did not rebuke me. He must have seen the extent of my shame, considered it sufficient.

During the recess interchange, when girls going out meet boys coming in, Asa contrived to approach me.

“Any man will leave prints where he walks, and these say naught of his colour. Perhaps it was just a run-away lad not liking his indenture.”

“No,” he asserted, “it need not be a poor Negro slave! It might be a thief, or a man convicted. Maybe he was meant to hang, and escaped to our woods? Is that what you would have him be, rather than a slave? Besides, what difference would it make—”