A Girl Called Samson (4)

“You won’t, Jeremiah. You’re seven years old. And we’re twins now, remember?”

“We don’t look like twins . . . but that’s okay, isn’t it?” Jerry was small and dark, and I was tall and blonde, as different as night and day.

“Looks don’t matter at all if your hearts are the same,” I declared, hoping it was true.

He’d grinned at me like I’d given him the world. I suppose I had. At least the little bit of the world that was mine. I doted on him like a mother and treated him like a prince, and he got me into all manner of trouble I would not have dared get into alone. Jeremiah was the first to call me Rob—short for Deborah—and the reason I answered to it without hesitation later on.

The Thomases did not treat me poorly. I was not family, but I was valued. The work was never-ending with so many mouths to feed and bodies to clothe. Reverend Conant was right. I was greatly needed, and I could not be spared for school, but no matter how many chores I was given or tasks I completed, I could not shake the restlessness that consumed me. I squeezed the Thomas boys for every drop of learning they would share, often doing their chores and mine for a peek at their primers.

And Reverend Conant did not forget me.

Over the following year, he brought me several books. My favorites were a collection by Shakespeare and a four-part work called Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. Reverend Conant called it Gulliver’s Travels. I read it after supper to the brothers and was lauded as a great orator.

Reverend Conant was quite the orator himself, and I sat on the pews of the First Congregational Church with the Thomases and listened to him preach. He believed every word he said. In a way, he radicalized me too, if faith can be called radical. I’ve come to think it might be the most rebellious thing of all.

I don’t know why Reverend Conant cared about my learning or my happiness, but he did, and it was because of him—a man who loved God and loved me, two ends of the mighty spectrum—that I began to see what a father’s love looked like. To him I was simply Deborah, worthy of expectation and affection, and the things that mattered to him came to matter deeply to me.

“You must continue with your memorization. I have known no greater comfort in my life than to be able to call upon God’s words when I am at a loss for my own,” he would frequently say, and I memorized everything, just to show him I could. Just to hear his praise. He also found me a tutor of sorts, an “epistolatory correspondent” in Farmington, Connecticut.

“Her name is Elizabeth. She’s my sister’s daughter. My niece. She is grown, a young wife and a mother, and a woman of consequence. I have asked her if she will engage in correspondence with you, to expose you to the wider world, and she has happily agreed.”

“What will I say?” I cried. I thrilled and quaked at the idea. I was not yet a woman and could not imagine what interest she would have in someone like me.

“You must say whatever you wish.”

“Is she . . . kind?” I did not want to exchange letters with someone who would scold me.

“Yes. Very kind. You will learn from her what I can’t teach and even what Mrs. Thomas can’t teach.”

“Mrs. Thomas can read and write, though her writing isn’t fine,” I said, wanting to defend the woman who treated me so well. It was not her fault she was not a woman of “consequence.”

“Yes, but you live with Mrs. Thomas. No need to write her letters,” Reverend Conant said, always judicious. I’d never heard him mutter a bad word about anyone, especially good people, and the Thomases were good people.

“How many letters may I write?” I asked, breathless.

“You may write as often as you like, as often as you’re able.”

“That will be a great many. I like practicing.”

His eyes crinkled, but he didn’t laugh at me. “Yes. I know you do. And Elizabeth will welcome your letters.”

“What should I call her? Cousin Elizabeth . . . or Mrs. Paterson . . . or maybe I can call her Lady Elizabeth?” The thought thrilled me.

“She’s not a duchess, Deborah. We don’t have titles in America. I’m sure Elizabeth will do.”

“Why do they have titles in England?”

“Tradition. England is married to tradition and enamored with station. It is different here. A man is what he makes of himself. It is not something bestowed on him.” The reverend sounded so proud.

“And women too?”

“What?”

“Is a woman what she makes of herself?”

“Yes. A woman is what she makes of herself . . . with God’s direction, of course. We all need God’s direction.”

“But what if we don’t want to go in the direction God wants for us?”

“Then I suppose we’re on our own. I shouldn’t like to be on my own. Not completely.”

“No,” I whispered, though I often felt on my own. Completely. “What about King George?” I pressed.

“What about him?”

“You said we don’t have titles here. But he is still our king. Isn’t he? After the massacre in Boston, some are saying he shouldn’t be.”

“The only king I worship is the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” Reverend Conant was frowning, and his jaw was tight.