Read Online Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks - Free Book Online

because of their pawaaws, who profess to be healers. In their minds religion and medicine mean much the same thing. Since they have given up their pawaaw in coming here, I suppose I must do what good I can….”
    The injured man had been eased down onto the mat, and now father tried to remove his moccasin, dark with dried black blood. When he saw that the hide was adhered to the man’s flesh, he called for some warmed water. He soaked off the moccasin and set about cleaning the pus from inflamed, swollen flesh, muttering to himself about the barbarity of such wounds. “To do such as this, not in heat of battle, but deliberately…. Bethia, it must be granted that these are a very sinful people. Iniquity does abound among them. As the scripture says, the love of many waxeth cold .”
    I could see that he needed some clean linen cloths to bind the injured foot, but there were none here. “Should I tear some strips from my placket?” I whispered. He nodded, so I went off into the shelter of some high blueberry bushes and shredded the lower part of my undershift, and brought the cloths back to him.
    He dried the mutilated foot, and was struggling with the cloth, making an awkward business of bandaging. “Shall I do it?” I said. “I have a light hand.” He made way for me, and I wrapped the foot as I had seen mother do when we had cuts or burns. Father nodded his approval and the man rose awkwardly. His face, though drawn and sweaty, had betrayed no sign of discomfort even though he must have been in great pain.
    As he hobbled away, father looked after him and shook his head. “God in his wisdom has not done so much for these as he has for our nation. Satan has had full charge of them. It is a blessing that God now brings us here. We are uncommonly fortunate to be able to bring that little mustard seed of the gospel, and watch it take root here.”
    It was getting near to the noon hour, when father was accustomed to preach. The women were setting down their hoes and the men coming out of the wetus. There were just seven or eight of these huts in the little settlement, domes of bent sapling branches covered in sheets of bark and woven mats, each housing just a family or two. But at the center of the clearing was a long house, with an English door rather than a mat for an entry way. Father said that when the weather was hard he would preach in there, amid a great press of bodies.
    This day was fine, so he asked the people to meet him about a great, swaybacked rock, worn smooth through the years to a kind of curved platform. Upon this, he was accustomed to stand to give his sermon.
    By noon, some twenty souls had gathered, and I stood at the edge of the group, and tried to look at my father through their eyes. He was a lean man, for unlike Makepeace he worked hard on our farm and did not scruple to chop wood or carry water or do any of the several tasks that eased mother’s lot. He favored the sad colors, blacks or dark browns, as befit a minister, and wore his fair hair modestly cropped above the collars that mother kept spotless and starched for him. Though the day was warm, he did not remove his coat; since the Wampanoag set much store in their own regalia when they met in ceremony, he felt that he should retain some formality in dress, as he would if he preached in church or meetinghouse. First, he prayed, putting our familiar forms into their tongue. These he had by rote, well taught him by Iacoomis, and he uttered them without error. Next came his sermon.
    “Friends, hearken to me,” he began. “When we have met here before, we have agreed two truths: That God is, and that he will reward all those who diligently seek him. That the one God is the source of all manit. My friend Iacoomis has shown his heart to you, how it stands towards God, and you have seen how, when he cast off all other false worships, so he has prospered, and gained in health, he and all his family. You have asked what will happen to you when