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The Adventures of Andwan Wingsweep

By Andrea Camoriano

Chapter 4: Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, To Williamsburg We Go

          “Thank you very kindly, sir,” Andwan said in her British accent as she paid the carter.

          They’d stayed in Boston for almost a week, busking for their bread.  Andwan’s tambourines, it turned out, had been painted green---she’d evidently been suffering from a bout of mania for the Beetles when she’d been preparing for the trip and had remembered their song, Green Tambourine.  Seeing these two real green tambourines, and remembering from her early childhood that they were a very easy instrument to play, she had bought them; even someone who was tone-deaf as a two-year-old could bang on a tambourine and come up with at least an interesting sound.  So they’d used one for a kind of impromptu “hat” and played church hymns with their other instruments---leaving the other tambourine safely in Andwan’s pack.  They’d use it if they felt the occasion warranted and they required an extra “hat.”

          At long last, they’d earned enough Massachusetts tender to pay for a cart, a double harness, three bridles, three lead ropes, three sacks of cracked corn and three sacks of sweet feed.  Barbara Vicars had taught them that this was an acceptable dinner for a horse, and Andwan decided that by rationing it carefully, they wouldn’t need to even need to forage or buy food for themselves.  They could just have Rusty turn them into horses and they could all live on sweet feed and cracked corn.  Or if they were going to have visitors, they could just do without the sweet feed and live on the cracked corn.

          But now they had the supplies they needed, and in the week they’d been in Boston, they’d learned the way down to Williamsburg.  It had been a simple matter, really.  On their first day, they just told the carter they were new arrivals in the colonies and had heard that Williamsburg was worth visiting.  Who knew, maybe they could find a job there.

          The carter, on hearing this, told them he’d give them a job in his stables by day---they could learn to handle their horses better (they’d told him they had three horses they were keeping in the woods because they couldn’t afford stabling fees).  Would they like to stable their horses in his stables?  No, thank you, their horses were of a hardy breed and they’d rigged a rough shelter for themselves and their animals in the woods.  It wasn’t much, but it would do until they could afford their cart.  That was what they were saving for---a cart to earn a living from.  Maybe they could start their own carting business once they got to Williamsburg.

          The carter had been understanding, and had given them the job.  Then he began asking them questions about their past.  The boys had deferred to Andwan, saying that they “weren’t very good at speech-making” and that she had inherited her parents’ gifts with words.

          Andwan had spun her web like the best of spiders.  Where were their parents?  Dead, several months ago---they’d lost track of how long.  What was their reason for coming to America?  To make a better life for themselves---they’d heard America called “the land of opportunity” and had wanted to take advantage of some of this good opportunity.  But how had they paid their way across the Atlantic?  Why, they’d sold everything except a few musical instruments, bought the cheapest tickets they could as passengers aboard a freight ship, and landed here in Pennsylvania.  And what were their future plans?  Well, they’d heard Virginia offered some good trade opportunities, and were curious to see if what they’d heard was true.  Did they have any of their essentials yet?  Oh, they had found three wild horses running wild in the woods.  The horses had not been branded or marked in any way, so they had kept the beasts and tamed them.  When they asked, the carter told them such an act was perfectly legal---finders keepers, and all that.  Where were the horses now?  Oh, they had found a hill with a copse of trees that kept the horses out of the worst weather, and had some browse.  Since they didn’t want to take up the carter’s stables with their own beasts when the stalls could be put to better use stabling paying customers, could they borrow the needed materials to put a roof over the heads of their horses and themselves out in the tree copses?  Yes, the carter would help them by lending them a large oiled cloth to keep out the rain and some rope to lash it to some branches.  Would they need any help erecting the structure?  Oh, no, once they got poles of the right length, they’d be able to create a reasonable shelter.  The carter had told them that he had a relative in Williamsburg who also ran a stable and that if they impressed him with their work in their first week, he’d give them the materials they needed to make the journey to Williamsburg and a reference to his cousin Nebulon.  “Just tell him George Dellsmith from Boston sent you and show him the reference,” he told them.  “He’ll hire you on the spot if you do that; he knows I don’t hire or give references to slackers.”

          So the five teens had worked hard in the stables, grateful now that Mrs. Vicars had taught them the needed material in advance.  The carter wouldn’t even allow Andwan near the horses, which saved them having to spin a tale for him about a strange rock that had damaged Andwan as a fetus.  Of course, there hadn’t really been any uranium, but even though they figured that telling him about an “evil” rock which had affected her bone structure might be a bad idea, it was the only one they could come up with.  And it was the one story they’d neglected to come up with an explanation for.  How on earth did you explain a girl not even in her twenties yet with bones that broke like an octogenarian’s?  Some kind of poisoning was the only explanation they could come up with.  If not uranium, then maybe arsenic---their father had been a missionary, and someone had hated him enough that they had tried to take that which he loved most---his wife.  But the attempt had failed, although not entirely.  The unborn child had been left with a skeleton as weak as an old lady’s bones.

          While they decided on this story, they worked with the animals.  Andwan, being forbidden contact with the horses, was set to work raking out stalls and throwing down armloads of fresh straw bedding and hay for feed.  Then the boys would split the tasks between them, two of them currying the horses and two of them hauling water, while Andwan fetched the sweet feed for the carter’s animals.

          For a week—hauling, raking, fetching, carrying, feeding, and polishing---they worked for the carter, and then at nights, they would sing to the carter’s family for their supper, and then they would retreat to their quite real copse of trees on the hillside where they had erected their makeshift shelter.  Andwan supposed they could count themselves lucky there hadn’t been a real storm yet, or they’d have had to bring their “horses” to the carter’s stables and come inside themselves.  Or maybe they could just tell the carter their horses were easily excitable and that they needed to stay in the stables with the animals.

          But the weather held, and so did their luck and shelter.  Then, at the end of their first week in the past---during which they had behaved like good little Bostonian children and worked themselves half to death---the carter told them they were ready.  He presented them with a cart big enough for the five of them to sleep in, if they didn’t mind being a bit cramped, and their six bags of feed and their horse equipment.  He also gave Andwan their reference to his cousin in Williamsburg.

          “Just go straight along the Main Street like you did here,” he said.  “Nebulon’s Stables, it’s called.  You can’t possibly miss it.”

          Andwan smiled at him.  “Thank you again, sir,” she said.  “Mayhap if we meet again, we’ll own a few more horses to pull our cart and relieve our three.”

          The carter frowned.  “I do not know why you have not allowed me to see these three beasts of yours, but ’tis your choice.”

          “We’ll show them to the farrier as soon as we can, sir,” Andwan said.  “We can’t afford to have them shod yet, and we’ll not beg for kindness.  We feel the need to earn our comforts.  And our horses’ hooves seem sound yet; if we go easy, they should be fine.  Would you have a map of the way to spare?  I fear we may be lost easily.”  The carter smiled and handed her a folded piece of parchment.  She took it and curtsied.  Then they were off, pulling their new cart behind, loaded with their gear.  It was heavy, but they’d be able to deal with that once they were out of sight of town again---the carter had given them the oiled cloth and rope they’d used for their shelter to keep their gear dry, so they’d take it down on their way out.

          As soon as they were out of earshot of town and in the woods, they began to talk.

          “Can you believe our luck?” Andwan whispered.  “I can’t believe we’ve made it so far already!”

          “But we haven’t accomplished our assignment yet, guys,” Ritis cautioned.  “We’re not out of the woods yet.”  Everyone laughed at Ritis’ unintended pun.  Even Ritis smiled.  Then he elaborated.

          “I have a hunch we may have a shadow that’s not one of ours---we might’ve picked up a human tail when we left town.”

          The laughter ceased immediately.  “Distie---“ Andwan began.

          “I’m on it,” he said, and he assumed the unfeignable impression of a bloodhound on the scent as he left off pushing the cart and circled around behind, using all the lessons he’d received in tracking from Mr. Elfreth, the instructor for such things at their school.

          The image of a bloodhound was an accurate one---one of Distie’s abilities was to be able to track something---it was said he could nearly track over water and through the rain.

          They kept walking for another hour until they reached their tree copse.  They’d managed to erect the oilcloth in a kind of dome over a small patch of ground in an oversized makeshift pup tent large enough to keep them all dry.  Now, they took the whole thing down and tied it down to form a roof over their wagon.  Now their gear would be kept dry if it rained.  Thankfully, the carter had given them one of the good wagons, the kind with a frame over the top for making a covered wagon, and he’d given them instructions on how to do just that.  As they finished, Distie came back.

          “We had a tail,” he said, “a small hunting party.  But they split off about a mile back---even so, I recommend we hitch up and move out now!  Rusty, if you wouldn’t mind?”  Rusty nodded, and, touching himself, Distie and Hannon on the forehead, he transformed the three of them into large, sturdy quarter horses.

          All of them had done this at least once before.  Even during the past week, Andwan had watched while the boys had harnessed other horses.  Now, she and Ritis swiftly hitched Rusty and Hannon to the cart and used a lead rope to attach Distie’s halter to the back of the cart---he was saddled and bridled, in case one of them needed to become an outrider in a pinch.  Within half an hour, they were on their way out of the woods and aiming for the road, Ritis leading, Andwan on Distie’s back until they made it to the road.   Once they made it to the road, Andwan dismounted, and she and Ritis got on the cart’s buckboard.  Ritis took the reins and they began to drive for Williamsburg.  It was time to begin the next stage of their journey.

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