Brookland Read Online Free PDF Page B

be,—if you do not remember this about your brother because of the strapping fellow he’s become,—but Pearl’s affliction made her doubly so. Remember, too, that her very existence had spelled the end to my childhood freedoms. As Pearl could not shout out when in danger or pain, she was never trusted to her own devices as I had been. Thus, while Tem babbled to herself and banged on pots, I followed Pearl as another child might follow a push toy, as she rolled & lurched about the house. She came to like onion grass as much as I did, but if she accompanied me outdoors to dig it up, I could not stand idly by dreaming, lest some accident befall her there at the edge of the bluff. She showed stealth in hunting down the eggs of the fractious hen who laid outside her box, and was of great assistance in chasing the motley-patterned, six-toed kittens who roamed our yard; but I could not have explained to her how when I caught them, I was entranced by the way their hearts beat fast within their delicate ribs, or how I wished I could cut one open, to lay bare the clockwork within. (—Never fear; I desisted.)
    I learned my letters & numbers and the rudiments of natural philosophy of my father, & begged him to teach me to distill, which he said I could not learn, being female. I had desultory shouted lessons in sewing and cookery from Johanna. I roughhoused with Ben and Isaiah, the sons of my father’s overseer, Israel Horsfield. Father’s cooper, Scipio Jones, taught me to make up a paste of whiting and linseed oil,—after I pled with him, having seen Mrs. Livingston’s men do likewise when re-fixing her old glass to new window sashes,—to fill the holes in Nell’s head. This gave her bruised scalp enough solidity to support more yarn hair, and Scipio praised her beauty lavishly. I straightaway attached myself to the cooperage, whose staves could be used for all manner ofminiature building projects, now I had returned my stolen hammer. When my father sent a wagon down to Luquer’s mill to retrieve the day’s yeast and ground grain and to leave off the spent wash to fatten Mrs. Luquer’s pigs, I would ride down to the pond, where oysters then grew as large as the span of my two hands. One of the men would prize them open for Cornelis and me, so we might slurp the sweet, springy flesh off the shells. Interesting things were, then as now, wont to wash up in the logs of the millrace’s trash rack, and old Nicolaas Luquer,—who died when you were yet small,—would lay them out to dry on the rack’s small pitched roof, for the delight of his children. When I arrived in my father’s wagon, he would sometimes take me down by the plashing water wheel, and we would squat together on that low roof, marveling over a bloated single shoe or a rusted hinge. He would show me these treasures with conspiratorial glee, as if Cornelis & Jens were nowhere near so temperamentally well suited as I to appreciate the curious bounty our river brought him.
    But again, I digress; or realize, rather, I am growing old, and have begun to fear my memories of Brookland & my childhood,—which are among my dearest possessions,—will dissipate along with my breath and spirit when my bones are laid in the confines of the grave. I shall leave you half a thriving manufactory; but how I wish I could also bequeath you that vanished world and the people you have never known, who were so dear to me.
    You see! You promise a grandchild to a gloomy old woman whose heart has ever seemed to you devoted singularly to business, and in an instant she waxes sentimental. You asked of my bridge, your father’s bridge, and here I sit, telling you a whole novel’s worth of Johanna & Nell & Pearl. Perhaps I should say, in conclusion upon those topicks,—for this letter, at least,—that my sisters kept my hands busy, and, as the domine had promised, this kept me if not altogether clear of the