Tho i be mute, p.11
'Tho I Be Mute, page 11
“I hope you want to be a farmer’s wife. Granted, it is a large farm. You’ll also be a lawyer’s wife. There is nothing wrong with you; it’s me they disapprove of. If I were white, your parents would share their elation with everyone. Never would they attempt to prevent our union. Your parents hoped time and distance would end what we barely began. Now, though, you must see the danger and risk to becoming my wife. I cannot blame your parents for their reservations, nor can I argue against them. I would never force upon you a choice only you could know, but I am fervent in my will to be your husband.”
“I want to be spoken to, John. When I ask you a question, you’ve never failed to answer while not making me appear ridiculous for asking.”
“Then, it is good Cherokee men seek partners, not servants. Our culture shares the harvest with all, instead of biting with jealousy at those who grew the corn.”
He knelt without pain at my feet. “You’ve never made me feel alone, Sarah. You’ve sat beside me, never allowing it. When I was at home, I was lonely in ways I never understood before first coming here. I missed you, not your family, or school, or living as white—you.”
“It has been a long two years.” Courage seeped from me; my stores were empty from my time spent in solitude.
“An eternity.” His honest eyes no longer held anger.
The Eagle’s accusations grazed in valleys, shaded by mountains of assumption and misunderstanding. Our connection was to one another’s character, not to one another’s culture. Although, I was beginning to understand how one was made by the other. I understood John’s silences, and he valued my thoughts, complete together. I stood with a realization of what we could do.
“I have an idea. I need you to help me, though. Would you?” I grabbed the candle flickering on the mantle, and he took my other hand in his.
I rushed him through the hallway, past the stairs, across Jane’s kitchen, and grabbed the key with the yellow tassel. It was a quiet space, one where I spent hours with John, a room I loved. We both guarded the candle’s light with our bodies as we traveled the last steps to his sick room.
Shuffling through the door, John knelt to begin lighting a fire while I stood beside the desk, using one candle to ignite another.
“I remember that chair, the most uncomfortable in this house,” he commented as I sat and retrieved paper and pencil from the single drawer.
“I sat in it all night when I first met you. That night was frigid too,” I said, shivering.
“I pretended to be asleep to hear you sing.” He struck flint to steel.
“You didn’t.” Embarrassed, I was sure my cheeks were pink, not from the cold.
He smirked with a foxlike grin and changed the subject. “Our winters are bitter cold too, but do not linger. I cannot wait for you to see our land in the spring.”
“Tell me . . .”
John took a position unlike any I had ever seen him do. He sat on his heels, knees bent, with his back to me and lit kindling for the fire.
“My parent’s home has an awning where vines twist and gather. In April, we picnic underneath it and pull cherries for dessert. Wild geranium grows there too, and Cora Belle of such color. The house is narrow, built of rough-hewn logs, with a small front porch and a second story. The orchards surround the house, extending to the river. At night, the river’s sounds remind us we are never alone.”
He laughed then, remembering. “By the banks, Father, Elias, and I built a canoe out of a fallen log when we were old enough to use sharp tools. It was small, not well balanced, but ours. Anyone who wanted to use the canoe had to help in its making. Once the tree fell, we knew we had to begin, so the bark would be easier to remove. Elias sharpened one end of the log while I worked on the other. All the while, we talked of our future adventures far away from home. That tree was a symbol of our granted freedom, or so we assumed at the time. Elias talked more than he helped, so he didn’t hesitate when I told him he had to row on the maiden voyage.
Father burned the top surface and along the bottom to make it flat. We ate deer jerky until late in the evening with smoke in our faces, packing mud on the sides to guide the flame. Elias’ father, my Uncle Oo-Watie, brought us bear grease to make it waterproof as a gift for our diligence. The lesson was not one of canoe building but of patience. I might need to make another to remind myself.” John chuckled again, much needed after the revelations of the evening.
Upon the parchment, I wrote as he talked:
Come with me, my white girl fair
O, come where Mobile’s sources flow
With me, my Indian blanket share,
And share with me my bark canoe;
We’ll build our cabin in the wild,
Beneath the forest’s lofty shade,
With log on logs transversely piled
And barks on barks obliquely laid.
Seeing my quick script, John stood and read the words over my shoulder. I looked up at him, “We might help them understand by giving them some of what they seek, twisting their suspicions more toward the sun.” I replied. “At least, it might make me feel better.”
“So, you haven’t changed your mind?” He smiled, and I offered him the quill from my hand. He dipped it in ink to add a verse. He leaned beside me and wrote while I inhaled his smell.
O come with me, my white girl fair,
Come seek with me the southern clime,
and dwell with me securely there,
for there, my arm shall round thee twine;
The olive is thy favorite hue,
But sweet to me thy lily face;
O, sweet to both, when both shall view
These colors mingled in our race.
He returned the quill, kissing me with the exchange. “Your turn,” he said with a grin from one side of his mouth. He untied the cravat at his neck, went back to the fireplace, and sat on his heels. Watching the tilt of his head and the thickness of his hair, I knew I could live and love this man’s honesty for the rest of my life.
At that moment, I realized how much John anticipated of our arrival at his home. But, with the stressors of judgment here, I wondered whether I might face the same from the Cherokee. He reassured me this would not be the case. I worried about meeting his mother.
“On your land, in your culture, what does a Cherokee man do when he wishes to marry a Cherokee woman?” Why hadn't I asked this before now?
He turned his head and stood, reaching for the mantle to aid his rise. His head towered mine. “After I secured permission from your mother and mine, I would go hunting and kill a deer and bring the meat to your door. If you cooked it for me and in exchange gave me corn, then we would marry.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes, that is all. Wives and mothers allow marriages. Married couples on the wife’s land. If a wife decides she doesn't want to be married any longer, she takes her husband’s tools and places them outside the door to their home.”
I reached for his hand to bring him closer. “So, if I didn’t want to be married to you any longer, I should put your ink well with all your parchment on the porch?”
At that, he laughed. “Exactly, and the law books, although you might need some help to take them outside. That would make it official. I hope you never have need to do so, Sarah.” He kissed my palm, entrapping it with his free hand.
Then come with me, my white girl fair,
And thou a hunter’s bride shall be;
For thee, I’ll chase the roebuck there,
And thou shall dress the feast for me:
O, wild and sweet our feast shall be,
The feast of love and joy is ours,
Then come, my white girl fair, with me,
O, come and bless my sylvan bowers.
An hour later, the fire roared, and our verse, completed, John walked familiar circles on the floor.
“How shall we sign it? Should we put our names?” I inquired.
“No. If people knew, we might face further threats. Think of a pseudonym.”
“A what?”
“Choose a man’s name or the paper won’t print it. Choose a name from the Bible, someone who gave decrees.”
I wrote Silas on the line under the last of our verse.
With that, he turned the paper to himself and wrote,
“MacAlpine. Let’s make him Scottish. I’ll post it tomorrow.”
Chapter 13: Hearth and Home, Happiness and Hope
Sarah Bird Northrup Ridge
January 27, 1824
Cornwall, Connecticut
S
tanding in the parlor, before the minister, John slid the ring over my knuckle. He’d bought me the moon—amethyst gems surrounding a white pearl set in gold. He whispered in my ear, “May I chase you through the heavens for all eternity?” A new blush painted my cheeks, like the sun’s elegant gown at dusk.
Harriet was the first to meet us in our receiving line after the ceremony. She placed her hands in mine and pulled me to the window beside the fireplace. She whispered, “I have not spoken to you much since John returned. I was working on this, and I wanted you to have it.” In my hand, she placed a handkerchief embroidered with a scripted H. “The H is my wish for a safe home, warm hearth, long health and happiness for you and John.” Embroidered with violet thread, the white linen was impeccably stitched.
“Thank you, Harriet. It is a treasure.” Honored, I took a breath. There was such sincerity behind her blessing. We were leaving shortly, and this gift might be my only memento of Harriet. “I hope to see you again,” I leaned to her and placed my mouth beside her ear, “… riding beside Cousin Elias, somewhat south of here. Ask him about his horse.”
“I can’t ride!” She leaned back and spoke out loud and blushed, turning the heads of those standing around her.
“Neither can I. Perhaps we both will learn.”
John stepped between us, placing me behind him. Everyone’s attention, except Harriet’s and my own, had been focused outside the parlor’s rectangular glass window. A throng of men walked towards the house from the street, led by Mister Kellogg. I could tell it was him from his fine clothes. Others hid their faces behind large, brimmed hats or rags tied around their faces. Some held mauls, some pitchforks, some stones. Mister Kellogg held a lit torch, although the mantle clock just struck 11:00 in the morning.
Through the glass, the men raised their voices. “Come out, Ridge.”
John edged me into the corner as Colonel Gold exchanged places with his daughter. Gold shouted, “He will not. You are too late. They are already husband and wife.”
“Then, she will be a widow. Send him now, or we will burn you out!” Once Mister Kellogg spoke, others shouted indiscernible insults amidst profanity, drowning in their fervor. We stood blind and deaf to their next actions, but their intent was clear.
With their increasing clamor, Father opened the billows door beside the fireplace, and pulled from it a rectangular wooden box. Inside were two flintlock pistols, ancient but effective. Father handed John one pistol and carried the other one himself. Apparently, this was a wedding provision the men prepared. Mother seemed to know, although I am sure she foresaw no need for them, predicting no eruption to this extreme.
Father ordered our sparse guests to exit the house by the kitchen, most doing so without hesitation.
Harriet nodded to me, to her father, and rushed her mother toward the back of the house.
John packed the lead ball in front of scentless gunpowder.
Jane tried to take Mother from the room. She stilled, stoic from fear but was determined to be in the right. Adamant that her house might burn around her, she would budge from the rug. She grabbed our family’s Bible, clutching it to her chest, as if protecting names of unknown grandchildren yet to be conceived or born.
“Go, Jane,” I whispered, and she hesitantly retreated through her haven, to leave the five of us to our fate.
Gold bellowed from the window, dodging behind curtains. “Your anger is unnecessary. This is none of your concern.” His voice finished with a command, learned from years of motivating soldiers with his voice. “Set down your weapons. Go home.”
John looked down the barrel, resting the pistol on his other arm to steady his aim. Gold held up his hand to encourage delay. This sight was so foreign to me. Of course, John knew how to handle guns. I had just never seen him with violence in his hands.
Outside, the men stepped around the cedar tree, dividing their ranks only to regroup on the other side, mere feet from the house. In my line of sight, one man tossed a granite stone in the air, only to catch it again and repeat his toss. A familiar voice shouted, “You’ve always thought you were better than us, Ridge, with your fancy clothes and your father’s money. Gold, Ridge is a savage. He’s endangering and stealing Miss Sarah from Cornwall. She should be with one of us, not married to him, bearing him half-breed children.” At that declaration, the voice from the yard launched the stone, shattering the parlor’s window glass.
The stone ceased its destruction in the middle of the floor, spraying a crashing array of shards and slivers. John turned to block me from the spray. Mother screamed as the day’s frost swirled around her like an icy shroud.
John looked down at me as we both recognized the bellowing ignorant voice from the yard—Samuel.
“Come out, Ridge, and we will leave the Northrups alone. You’re only marrying her because she’s white. You think it’ll get you somewhere. It won’t.” Samuel’s voice was bitter and jealous, deep and sarcastic.
John said, “He’s hated me from the moment I arrived—before I met you.” Father did not retreat from the threat as I thought he might; instead, he took our place beside the window, shielded by curtains and angular glass. Wind blew, forcing the cold into the safest place I had ever known.
Colonel Gold took charge and whispered, “Northrup, go upstairs. They will think there are more of us if we must return fire.”
Father answered with only a nod.
“We may have no choice.” Gold’s words offered no consolation but hoped Mother would accept the seriousness of our situation. Her panic made her breathing audible and rapid.
Unspoken commands stretched from one man to another while Mother and I tried to interpret our protector’s gestures.
Father stopped short of the staircase to return and kiss my mother’s forehead. Then, he said, “John, take the women from here before they fire the house.” Father’s command exchanged doubt with trust in my new husband.
No one moved, listening to increased rumblings outside.
John didn’t look at me. Instead, he said to my mother, “I will go. If I delay any longer, they will surround the house, if they haven’t already.”
Mother answered, “They cannot have you, John.”
We were trapped. Gold threw his voice outside the fragmented glass, encouraging the mob’s delay, hoping for wiser choices made by angry men. “Be reasonable. Do the Christian thing. Sarah has made her choice. God has blessed their union. It is over.”
Someone shouted from outside, “When Ridge swings from this tree, it will be over.”
I held Harriet’s handkerchief to my mouth; the image made me nauseous.
I gripped John’s lapel. “Don’t walk through the door to them… you cannot.” But nothing I would say could stop him if he chose to protect us with his sacrifice.
One of John’s hands held a weapon; the other held onto me. “I will if I must.”
Gold countered the mob again, “If you care for Sarah, why would you want her hurt? There are women here. Think of their safety.”
Mother whispered, “How will we escape?” Her faith kept her rooted to the ground while fright encouraged her to flee.
Without warning, window glass fell above us. A lead ball from Father’s pistol embedded in the bark of the cedar tree just above Samuel’s head. The house shuddered with the pistol’s report.
I knew we only had one alternative. “We won’t. Could we hide in the root cellar?”
“If they think we left, they might not fire the house.” John understood.
“And, if they think we are hiding?” Mother questioned.
“They might burn the house around us.” We’d die from breathing in the smoke.
Colonel Gold approved of the plan. “Your husband and I will hide upstairs, Mistress Northrup. John, take the women below ground.” He surveyed the grounds once more before leaving the room, affirming that the mob had thinned into lines and encircled the house.
John didn’t let go of me as he rushed us to the kitchen and peered through the window, checking for men. “I don’t see anyone yet.”
I opened the root cellar door in the floor and encouraged Mother to descend the narrow staircase. She clutched her Bible to her chest as she crossed into the dank dark. John pushed open the back door and then joined me by the stairs.
“Why leave the door open for them?” His actions confused me.
“If they think we’ve fled, they may leave and search the woods instead.” We descended with a backward pull on the rope behind us, closing the hidden door in the kitchen floor.
First, there was silence. Then the front door opened and never closed. The sound of running boots buffered the shouting above us. The cellar’s air smelled stale, old. Onions and dirt mixed, burned and watered our eyes. Darkness squeezed me tight. My ears pierced a sound only I could hear. My chest pushed against my stays, not allowing me to fully expand my lungs. My heart pounded in my throat. I reached for my chest, trying to slow my heart. My fingers tingled. My feet were heavy. My eyes searched for a focal point, any light in the dark. Near to fainting, my eyes tried to close. Noise escaped my lips as I couldn’t find enough air.
