The Last Days of Dogtown
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Abraham’s death would hasten that likely guess into a mystic prediction and strengthen Tammy’s terrifying effect on the foolish believers who already feared her reputed powers.
After Mary quieted down, Easter served helpings of boiled cabbage and potatoes. The ladies huddled by the fire set their little china pipes on the floor and exclaimed over the plain fare like it was a wedding feast. Easter spooned more onto their plates even before they’d finished, knowing it would be their only hot meal that day and possibly the next.
Easter was one of Judy’s favorites. No more than four and a half feet in her shoes, Easter had a long, beaky nose flanked by small, squinted eyes. But the face under her old-fashioned cap beamed whenever people were under her roof, especially when it was younger folks holding court and calling her “Mother.”
It was Easter who’d come up with the name “Judy
Rhines,” and in her mouth it sounded like an endearment.
Most women were called by their family name, like Granny Day or Widow Lurvey. Up in the woods, unmarried women like Easter were sometimes known by their given names, rather like naughty children. But Easter had taken a shine to the sound of “Judy Rhines” and it stuck.
It had been so long since Judy had heard “Judith Elizabeth Ryan,” that if someone had addressed her so, she might not remember to answer. Judith Elizabeth Ryan sounded like a woman who owned a Sunday dress, a flowered wool carpet, and a white teapot, not someone who had often made a supper from berries and roots dug out of the woods, or who cleaned other people’s houses for a length of cotton, or who kept a half-wild dog at her feet to keep from freezing on winter nights.
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Just as Judy was about to take some of Easter’s stew for herself, the door flew open again, hitting the wall with a bang that caused the ladies to jump and then coo at the sight of little Sammy Stanley, borne in like a scrap of driftwood on a wave of three wet skirts and a peal of laughter. Dark Molly Jacobs and fair Sally Phipps rushed for the fire, reaching their four red hands to the glow, while Mrs.
Stanley closed the door with a polite flourish and walked directly to the center of the room. When she was certain that all eyes were fixed on her, she pulled a bottle from inside a ragged raccoon muff.
“What a welcome sight you are,” said Tammy,
addressing herself to the rum.
“In memory of Master Wharf,” said Mrs. Stanley.
“Too bad the poor old fart ain’t here to enjoy it,”
Tammy said.
Oliver laughed at the rude word, a boyish reflex he tried to swallow when he saw Judy shake her head. But Mrs. Stanley turned her famous smile in his direction as she removed her hood. Yellow curls cascaded out, unbound like a girl’s, and spread out in pretty ringlets over a shirt so white it nearly glowed in the dim room.
Mrs. Stanley—no one had ever heard her Christian name—carried herself like the great beauty she’d once been. Blue-eyed and blonde, she triumphed over the wrinkles at her eyes and the slack line of her chin by batting her lashes, pursing her lips, and placing a soft hand upon the forearm of any fellow who drew near enough to catch her nearsighted gaze.
Tammy leered. “Rum, eh? What sailor got lucky?”
“Oh, goodness,” Mrs. Stanley replied. “Let’s not tread
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that path, shall we, lest your own misplaced steps come into question.”
“You old whore,” Tammy said. “You’ve got more brass than the whole of Boston sets on its tables come Election Day.”
Mrs. Stanley shrugged and walked over to see the body, pulling the reluctant child behind her. She placed a hand on her bosom and bowed her head as she pulled off Sammy’s cap, revealing a matching tumble of blond hair that hung down to the boy’s shoulders. Oliver started to laugh at the girlish locks, but stopped when he saw Judy Rhines frowning in his direction.