rhythm. Saving Simus saving Simus.
The two running girls ran on into the field and beyond it through prickly bushes that snapped at their arms and legs. They did not stop to speak to Bett’s master or the field workers, who were also slaves. Their feet pounded at the ground. They slid across the creek and ran on through the mud that was stickier now than it had been and sucked at their boots but they pulled them up and out and kept on running, running. Mary was panting but she did not hear Bett take in or let out breath. Her legs ached. Her shoes were too tight. One braid had come loose. She did not stop until Bett was crouched over Simus with a curled-down look on her face.
Both Daniel and the wounded boy looked at her in surprise. “But where is Jester Fox?” asked Daniel.
“Papa, this is Bett and she can heal a stone.”
The boy did not move, but the cries he now made sounded animal strange.
Bett looked hard at the leg. She moved her hands just above it, then took a broken shoe off his foot and rolled him gently onto his side. By the time he finished screaming, she had cleaned the bone splinters out of the gash, tucked the bone inside its torn covering of skin, closed the opening using careful fingers, and asked for clean water from the creek. With that she began to make a clay paste out of the mud they were sitting in. She sent Mary for two pieces of wood that were thin and straight and commenced to humming in order to calm her patient.
Daniel had pulled himself up on his wobbly feet. He had been on his knees, quite unnoticed in the crisis of setting the leg, and he had watched Bett’s skill with astonishment. While he stood over Simus, Mary carefully moved the boy’s head onto a pillow of leaves and ran all the way back to the house site before Daniel could blink. She took up a thin piece of oak that had been hewn and set aside for pegs all the while feeling she was breathing a stranger’s breath, watching what happened around her through a stranger’s eyes.
In the clearing, Bett drew a flat bandage from her bag. It had been cut into tails on both sides and these she lapped across the front of the leg. Next, the clay paste and finally, when Mary came back, the splints. These were tied with straps while Mary held the boy’s head in her lap again and brushed her fingers across his closed eyelids.
Daniel’s plan was to get the boy up to the house site, where he could be kept dry and fed, but Bett said firmly that it mustn’t be that way. “His leg must just set now, sir, for a number of dayswithout jostling. Best put up a shelter,” she instructed while she rummaged in her bag and then brought out a tin full of powder and a bottle that gave off a smell when she loosened its cork. She mixed powder and liquid in a tiny tin cup from her bag and told Simus to swallow it. “All up.”
Daniel went back to the house site while Mary marched through the timber lot looking for pieces of wood. All around were the sounds of the forest, for the sun was angled and the trees were hospitable to living things. They were alive now with almost returning spring, and the boy who was going to help build a house for them was lying in the timber lot and she had found him and saved him and her heart was light.
D aniel looked at his hands as if anything they touched would break. He knew a moment of self-pity but swallowed it back. Since Rebecca had gone … had died … had disappeared into her grave … nothing, ever … He was sorry to be thinking of the two hundred and fifty dollars he needed and the house to be built instead of the injured boy and his pain. He was sorry to be thinking of his unsheltered children who would lack a house as well as a mother here in Virginia when there was a boy lying on icy cold ground down in the timber lot with a shattered leg. He was sorry he had come to Virginia, although what choice did he have? The Elders had drawn the new map of his ruined life when an unschooled Methodist girl
The two running girls ran on into the field and beyond it through prickly bushes that snapped at their arms and legs. They did not stop to speak to Bett’s master or the field workers, who were also slaves. Their feet pounded at the ground. They slid across the creek and ran on through the mud that was stickier now than it had been and sucked at their boots but they pulled them up and out and kept on running, running. Mary was panting but she did not hear Bett take in or let out breath. Her legs ached. Her shoes were too tight. One braid had come loose. She did not stop until Bett was crouched over Simus with a curled-down look on her face.
Both Daniel and the wounded boy looked at her in surprise. “But where is Jester Fox?” asked Daniel.
“Papa, this is Bett and she can heal a stone.”
The boy did not move, but the cries he now made sounded animal strange.
Bett looked hard at the leg. She moved her hands just above it, then took a broken shoe off his foot and rolled him gently onto his side. By the time he finished screaming, she had cleaned the bone splinters out of the gash, tucked the bone inside its torn covering of skin, closed the opening using careful fingers, and asked for clean water from the creek. With that she began to make a clay paste out of the mud they were sitting in. She sent Mary for two pieces of wood that were thin and straight and commenced to humming in order to calm her patient.
Daniel had pulled himself up on his wobbly feet. He had been on his knees, quite unnoticed in the crisis of setting the leg, and he had watched Bett’s skill with astonishment. While he stood over Simus, Mary carefully moved the boy’s head onto a pillow of leaves and ran all the way back to the house site before Daniel could blink. She took up a thin piece of oak that had been hewn and set aside for pegs all the while feeling she was breathing a stranger’s breath, watching what happened around her through a stranger’s eyes.
In the clearing, Bett drew a flat bandage from her bag. It had been cut into tails on both sides and these she lapped across the front of the leg. Next, the clay paste and finally, when Mary came back, the splints. These were tied with straps while Mary held the boy’s head in her lap again and brushed her fingers across his closed eyelids.
Daniel’s plan was to get the boy up to the house site, where he could be kept dry and fed, but Bett said firmly that it mustn’t be that way. “His leg must just set now, sir, for a number of dayswithout jostling. Best put up a shelter,” she instructed while she rummaged in her bag and then brought out a tin full of powder and a bottle that gave off a smell when she loosened its cork. She mixed powder and liquid in a tiny tin cup from her bag and told Simus to swallow it. “All up.”
Daniel went back to the house site while Mary marched through the timber lot looking for pieces of wood. All around were the sounds of the forest, for the sun was angled and the trees were hospitable to living things. They were alive now with almost returning spring, and the boy who was going to help build a house for them was lying in the timber lot and she had found him and saved him and her heart was light.
D aniel looked at his hands as if anything they touched would break. He knew a moment of self-pity but swallowed it back. Since Rebecca had gone … had died … had disappeared into her grave … nothing, ever … He was sorry to be thinking of the two hundred and fifty dollars he needed and the house to be built instead of the injured boy and his pain. He was sorry to be thinking of his unsheltered children who would lack a house as well as a mother here in Virginia when there was a boy lying on icy cold ground down in the timber lot with a shattered leg. He was sorry he had come to Virginia, although what choice did he have? The Elders had drawn the new map of his ruined life when an unschooled Methodist girl