The L A S T D AY S of D O G TOW N
Fletcher was embarrassed at what he’d paid and promised to use her again.
In fact, Ruth had been ashamed of the work she’d done for him, which seemed clumsy and awkward to her.
Mending a wall is harder than building one, especially one piled up as a slag heap for the nuisance of rocks plowed up, year after year. And these refuse rocks had presented her with a new kind of trial, for Ruth had learned her craft on Rhode Island schist, a soft stone that broke into two-inch slabs and stacked up neat as slices of bread. Granite was much harder and crotchety, and she’d bruised her fingers and blackened her nails as she hurried to master it. After a few bad days, she slowed down, remembering to let the stone call the tune for the heavy dance of lifting and dropping.
The night she finished Fletcher’s wall, Ruth dreamed about the crisp click of granite hitting granite, and she woke up longing to build something else. But there was nothing for many months, leaving her little to do but dig clams and pick rose hips for Easter, and mend whatever she could to keep the house from falling down.
Ruth’s fortunes rose when the wife of the minister at Fourth Parish at Riverview sent word that she wished a pen for a newly plowed vegetable garden beside the parsonage.
As soon as the enthusiastic Mrs. Pembrooke heard that the mysterious female stonemason called John Woodman had not stepped foot in a church since arriving in Cape Ann, she made it her mission to save the African’s immortal soul.
Ruth, whose hands itched at the prospect of working on a project of her own, quickly agreed to the price offered by the pallid, gap-toothed woman.
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As she walked the boundary of the garden, measuring it heel-to-toe, Ruth promised herself that she’d be more patient than she had been at Fletcher’s. She would consider every stone before lifting it; for as she’d been taught, only a child or a fool picked up the same rock twice.
Ruth decided she would make a double wall, though it was hardly necessary to fashion anything so sturdy for the purpose. But she needed the challenge and liked the fact that it would take longer, as the days weighed heavily when she had no work.
Even the drudgery of digging the foundation delighted her, and Mrs. Pembrooke thought she detected the hint of a smile as the African knelt to carve a trench and place the heavy, flat rocks belowground. Ruth set the ground stones an inch apart for drainage, with enough slag in between to make an even base.
While she was on her knees, Ruth hit upon the idea of building from found stone only and decided she would touch neither the stone feathers nor her sharp stone points to cut and shape. She would use nothing but her hands and her eyes.
No chocks or shims, either—those little bits and pieces that balance the bigger ones. Only stone on stone, two upon one, one upon two.
Ruth held her breath as she placed the first stones aboveground, since each of those carried consequences.
After that, the wall would tell her what was needed next. As the wall grew, it filled her mind with the particular shapes it called for. Her head was full of holes, she realized, and nearly laughed at the idea.
She walked with downcast eyes, her head swiveling left
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to right and back again, putting Mrs. Pembrooke in mind of a lighthouse as she watched Ruth arrive one morning, carrying what looked like a man’s skull under her arm.
On fine days, the parson’s wife would spend several hours near Ru
th, reading aloud from the Bible. Her student tried to ignore the breathy babble, and whenever the lady returned to her house, Ruth gave silent thanks and tuned her ear to the sound of stone dropping into place, each granite kiss creating a permanent home, two upon one, one upon two.
In her dreams, the stones all fell effortlessly, landing with a satisfied tock.
When the wall was finished, Mrs. Pembrooke handed Ruth five dollars and placed a hand on her sleeve. “I trust I’ll see you at church,” she said. “Soon. As we discussed.”
Ruth nodded, wondering what the pale little woman was talking about. Back in her room, she considered the prospect of the empty days ahead and felt a dark fogbank gather around her.
As it turned out, Mrs. Pembrooke did become a source of salvation for Ruth, though not of the sort she’d intended.
A distant cousin of hers, a wealthy matron in town, was charmed by the lovely wall and declared that she must have one just like it. She sent word through Easter that she wished to hire the mason for her Gloucester garden, one of the largest in town, and made no objection when Easter quoted a price four times higher than what the clergyman’s wife had paid.