The morning after he hit Cal, Will rode Shanty to Jonah’s house. This time he’d asked for permission, and Pa had given it. Pa frowned awhile before agreeing, but Will stood waiting for the answer, ready to do what Pa wanted. It was his way of telling Pa he regretted hitting Cal.
The morning weather was bright, promising warmth later in the day. Will took Maria with him. Sitting behind him on Shanty, Maria chattered as they rode, eager to see her friends Cordelia and Abigail Abercrombie.
When they arrived at the Abercrombie farm, Will checked for Jonah in the barn while Maria ran to the house. Not finding Jonah, Will followed her. Esther shooed him back outside, saying Daniel had the boys tilling the fields already. Will took a hoe from the barn and found them in a cornfield nearby. He started hoeing in the row next to Jonah so they could talk as they worked.
“Pa says I don’t have to go to the academy anymore,” he told Jonah. “But he wants me to go to Harvard.”
“Where’s that?”
“A college in Boston.”
Jonah stopped hoeing and stared at Will. “Boston? In Massachusetts?”
Will nodded.
“That’s awful far.” Jonah started tilling again. “Are you goin’?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m stayin’ right here,” Jonah said. “Daniel’s got plenty of work for me. He’ll pay me a wage, too, he says. Though not a man’s wage, not as long as I live at home. Still, I can save up to wed Iris.”
“Don’t you want your own land?” Will asked, deciding not to comment on Jonah’s plans to marry.
“Sure, but I can’t file a claim till I turn twenty-one. I don’t want to wait that long to marry.”
“Wish I knew what I wanted like you do,” Will said.
Jonah snorted. “Farming is all I can do. Or prospect, but that ain’t certain to earn me nothin.’ Or the Army, but then I might get shot.”
“You’re lucky to have Daniel to help you get started.”
“Hah,” Jonah spat. “You’re the lucky one. Fine house in town. Your pa sendin’ you to college. You’ll see the world. And you got a family. I’m an orphan.”
Will rarely thought of Jonah as an orphan. Jonah’s parents were dead, but Daniel and Esther had raised him along with their brood since birth. He fit in with their family better than Will fit with his. Or so it seemed.
“Are you mad at Daniel?” he asked Jonah.
“I suppose not,” Jonah said. “Though he acts like my pa when he ain’t.”
“He treats you like he does his own children,” Will said, voicing his earlier thought.
“But I ain’t a child no longer. I’m a man, ready for a man’s pay. Ready to start my own family.”
If Jonah was a man, what was Will? He was only a few months younger than Jonah, but he didn’t feel ready to be on his own. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t feel eager to leave for Harvard.
After eating the noon meal with Jonah’s family, Will rode Shanty alongside Esther Abercrombie’s wagon. She had errands in town, so Jonah drove her and some of her younger children. Maria sat in the wagon with Esther until they reached town, where she joined Will on Shanty’s back.
“I’ll visit your ma after I do my shoppin’,” Esther called as Will and Maria turned to ride up the hill to their home. “We’ll see you in a bit.”
When Jenny heard Esther would be there soon, she mixed a batch of muffins. An hour later, Esther and her children arrived. Jenny ushered Esther into the parlor, while Maria took the younger Abercrombies upstairs to play with Maggie. Will and Jonah stayed in the parlor with the women—probably because she offered them warm corn muffins, Jenny thought with a smile as she passed around a tray.
“I stopped at the post office,” Esther said. “Nothin’ for us, but when I asked after your mail, the clerk gave me this.” She took a letter out of her pocket and handed it to Jenny.
Jenny recognized the handwriting. “From my mother,” she said. “She writes so seldom. I wonder what her news is.”
“Do you want to read it now?” Esther asked.
Jenny set the letter on a table and shook her head. “Let’s talk. I can read it later.”
Esther plopped on the divan after taking a muffin. “I don’t know how I’ll bear two more months of this,” she said, with a sigh and a wave at her belly. “Each time I’m carryin’ seems harder.”
“It must be because we’re busier,” Jenny said. “More children, more household to care for.”
“And, of course, we’re gettin’ older.” Esther grinned, then stared at Jenny sharply and whispered, “Are you carryin’, too?”
Jenny glanced across the room at Will and Jonah. Could they hear the women’s conversation? She still hadn’t talked to Mac. She nodded and murmured, “But I haven’t told anyone yet. It’s too soon.”
Esther beamed. “More of our young’uns to be friends.” She tilted her head, gesturing toward the boys. “Like those two.” As usual, Esther lumped Jonah, her youngest brother, in with her children.
“Yes,” Jenny said. “Will and Jonah have been the best of friends.”
Tired after tilling the fields all morning, Will was glad for the chance to sit in the parlor with Jonah and eat muffins with none of the younger children there to pester them. Mama and Esther Abercrombie talked and nodded across the room, but he couldn’t hear their conversation. He was only half-listening to Jonah, until Jonah asked, “Who are you sweet on?”
“Huh?” Will said. He wasn’t sweet on anyone.
