Read Online King's Mountain by Sharyn McCrumb - Free Book Online Page B

perhaps he had decided that the commander had not seen us enter.
    He did glance up then, only for a moment, and then he bent over his paper again and scratched another line or two, and then signed his name grandly with a flourish before he laid aside the quill and turned to look at us. “Well, Powell, what is it?”
    The little manservant was as meek with his master as he had been high and mighty with me, and I saw that he was one of those weak terrier fellows who tailor their tempers to the measure of those about them. I had no intention of bowing and scraping to the man, not even if he had been the king’s son instead of a Scotchman, so I kept my eyes steady on him, for I didn’t see there was much that he could do to me however I behaved.
    Powell shifted from one foot to the other, still keeping his gaze directed at the dirt floor. “Begging your pardon, sir. This here young woman has presented herself here at camp, asking to be taken on in some capacity, and I thought I’d bring her along to you, to see if she would suit.”
    Without a word the officer looked over at me, and found me staring back at him, bold as brass. I doubt if he’d have stood it from a man, but he didn’t seem to mind it from me. He took care not to show even a flicker of a smile.
    â€œSo, you are a servant of the king, are you, girl?”
    â€œOnly if he pays me wages,” I said. “Same as anybody.”
    Powell edged me aside. “She’s only a simple girl, sir, and the rights of this conflict are beyond her ken. But she might suit as a maid of all work.”
    The officer was still looking at me, and he said to me—not to Elias Powell—“Well, what use are you? We have no cows to milk and no floors to scrub.”
    If he meant to frighten me, he had made a poor job of it. All that time he had kept us waiting while he wrote had given me time to think up my piece, for I knew he’d be asking me something of the sort, and I had my answer ready. “You’ve clothes, haven’t you? I don’t reckon you wash them yourself when they get dirty.”
    â€œWe engaged a washerwoman already.”
    â€œMending, then. I am a dab hand with a needle, sir. And I can be useful tending the sick. I done that before.”
    â€œStill, I suppose there is enough work at camp for you to do, helping the cook as well as the laundress. And if you can be of any assistance to Dr. Johnson, there is some value in that.”
    â€œI can do all of that well enough.” I would have told him I could break horses and mend cannons if it would have made him take me on. But I judged that a womanly silence would do more for my cause than any further arguments about my skills.
    He thought the matter over for what seemed like a good long while to me, holding my breath, but at last he said, “Well, young woman, if you are in my service, I should expect you to comport yourself properly. No goings-on with the soldiers, no drunkenness, or slatternly habits. Do you understand?”
    I nodded, and forced myself not to grin.
    â€œSee that you do, because if you do not abide by my rules, you will be dismissed at once.”
    â€œAs long as I have my keep, I’ll do what you say,” I told him, and that was true enough. I might miss taking a drink now and again, but I don’t reckon anybody would make free with a smelly bunch of soldiers if they had any other choice.
    He looked back at his manservant. “All right, Powell, I suppose her keep will cost us little enough. She may stay if she behaves herself.”
    â€œI’ll see to it, sir,” said Powell, shooing me out of the tent ahead of him.
    So that’s how I came to be on the king’s side in this war. Maybe if I had chanced upon an encampment of the other side that day, I might have cast my lot with the Americans, for I never yet had a conviction—political, religious, or heartfelt—that could not be scotched