The baby came that night, a tiny stillborn boy with a clubfoot. Sally didn’t make a sound through it all, and she slept for three days after. On the fourth day, she sat up, melted Easter with her brightest smile, and asked, “You got any porridge, Missus?”
Easter made a big pot of corn mush and put the last of her currants in for a treat. She gave the girls a pallet in the back corner of her big drafty parlor while Sally recovered and Molly did everything she could to be of use, weeding the garden and washing up after Easter’s young people stopped by to drink and flirt. She learned a few of the Dogtown paths and was working up to ask Easter about building a second chicken coop so they could sell eggs down in Gloucester. The fact that Easter let the strange black woman live in the attic fed her hope that Easter might take them in, too.
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But one sweet-smelling evening when the three of them were sitting at the table, Easter said, “It’s been fine having you girls here, but now that Sally is up and around, you got to be thinking about moving on.”
The look on Molly’s face gave Easter a moment’s pause.
“I’m sorry, dearie, but your business is, well, I just can’t stand to have that going on under my roof. Not that I judge you for it, but it’s just too sad for me to be anywhere near it.
Too sad by half.”
“Couldn’t we do something else for you?” Molly asked, without much conviction. “You know I’m not afraid of hard work, outside or inside. And I’m real good with chickens. Or we could hire out as housemaids, Sally and me.
We’d give you half of what we earn. More than half.”
Easter shook her head. “Stanwood already spread the word about you two, and you know, good as me, that there’s only one way a girl’s reputation can turn, and it ain’t from black to white.”
Sally took her finger out of her mouth. “Johnny told us we could live in one of those empty houses.”
“Or we
could try to head north,” Molly said. “I was thinking of going all the way to Portsmouth. This was the only coach I could afford.”
“That’s a thought, dearie,” said Easter, who felt bad about turning them back to whoring. “Let Sally build up her blood and you can try again. Meanwhile, I’ll loan you some things for housekeeping.” Easter made the offer on her way down to the potato cellar, returning with an armload of chipped cups, wooden ladles, ironware, chamber pots, and some forks. “Just some odds and ends I saved over the years.”
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Sally smiled. “Ain’t you a sweetheart?” She turned to Molly. “Ain’t she?”
But Molly was barely able to nod.
Stanwood brought a wheelbarrow for Molly’s few
possessions and Easter’s rusty gifts. He led them up an even rougher road to what used to be the Pierce house, which was set off in a hollow, on the way to Sandy Bay.
“Real private,” he said.
The house was small even by Dogtown standards, with two cramped rooms, front and back, and all of it a mess of pine needles, mouse droppings, and broken glass. Molly groaned, but Sally rolled her sleeves, hitched up her skirt, and started sweeping with the broom they’d borrowed from Easter. “Johnny?” she said, stretching out his name so long, it was like she was sucking on it. “You go ask Easter for a bucket and a mop, won’t you, Johnny?”
Johnny was leaning up against a wall, trying to figure out which girl he’d have first.
“You know it will be worth your while.” She winked at him.
He moved up to her and put his hands on her breasts and said, “It better be, because I don’t fetch for women. Not even my own damn wife!”
As he left, Molly stared openmouthed at Sally.
“What the matter, darlin’?” Sally asked.