Caleb's Crossing Read Online Free PDF

the words—sasumuneash for cranberry, tunockuquas for frog. So many things grew and lived here that were strange to us, because they had not been in England. We named the things of this place in reference to things that were not of this place—cat briar for the thickets of vine whose thorns were narrow and claw-like; lambskill for the low-growing laurel that had proved poisonous to some of our hard-got tegs. But there had been no cats or lambs here until we brought them. So when he named a plant or a creature, I felt that I heard the true name of the thing for the first time.
    Always, we made a great pretense that we had met by chance, and feigned amazement that our tracks had crossed each other’s. And yet he was certain to let me know, in such a way as to make nothing of it, where he had a mind to be fishing or hunting at this or that phase of the moon, and such or so height of the sun. Every time, I would tell myself some falsehood as to why my day’s wanderings took me in that very direction at that very hour. Once I was in the general place, it was a small matter for him to track me: he told me, later, that I left a trail plainer than a herd of running deer.
    I justified the hours with him in the baskets of delicacies that I carried home. It was my duty, was it not, to help provide for my family? As I watched the jars of preserves fill the shelf, the strings of drying cranberries crisscross the rafters, and the strips of smoked shellfish laid in against a hungry winter, I felt satisfied in my self-deception.
    The truth, now, set down here, before God: I loved the hours I spent with him. In very short season he had filled the empty space that Zuriel had left in my heart. I had never had such a friend before. As a child I had not needed any, since Zuriel was always at my side, all the companion I wanted. When he died, I was without whatever knack it requires to draw someone close. In any case, the only girl of an age to have been my friend was an Alden, of the one family in the settlement with which we Mayfields were at odds. To have formed any kind of easy association with the few English boys my age would have been an unthinkable affront to modesty. But this boy was a different thing entirely. He had soon become more of a brother to me than Makepeace, whose concern for my proper bearing made him severe. I had learned to expect no word from Makepeace but to correct or to command. No playful banter, no genuine opening of our heart one to the other.
    At first, I followed this wild boy hungering after his knowledge of the island—his deep understanding of everything that bloomed or swam or flew. Soon enough, a curiosity about an untamed soul had kindled, and this, too, caused me to seek him out. But it was his light temper and his easy laugh that drew me close to him, over time, until I forgot he was a half-naked, sassafras-scented heathen anointed with raccoon grease. He was, quite simply, my dearest friend.
    And yet, I told no one this, not even myself. I knew that I deceived others, but the extent of my self-deception only became patent to me much later. I took pains that no one ever saw us together, forgoing meeting him if I thought there was the slightest chance that someone might come in our way. I did not take home the cuts of venison he offered, when he had killed and dressed a deer, since I could not have explained how I came by them. But I ate from a roasted haunch with him, and it was delicious. Another day, he led me to dunes rich with ripening beach plums, and as I picked them, he waded out, spear in hand, to inspect his fish traps, returning with a fine bass writhing in his hands. I heard him thank the fish for its life as he dispatched it with a quick blow. I had never thought of such a thing, and that day, I recall that it seemed to me outlandish. He said we wouId eat it, and I said it was not meal time. He laughed at that, and said that he had heard that the English needed a bell to tell them when they