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Monday, December 30, 2013

Colonial New Year's Recipe: Hoppin' John

Hello, Elva Martin here. I want to share a great New Year's recipe with you --Hoppin' John!

The South Carolina Encyclopedia describes Hoppin’ John as “a pilaf made with beans and rice.” Typical of the one-pot cooking of the South Carolina Low Country, the Hoppin' John recipe is said to have come directly to America from West Africa. 

The original Charleston version called for “one pound of bacon, one pint of red peas, one pint of rice.” Red peas are cowpeas or dried field peas and were used as cattle feed. Like black-eyed peas, they are not peas but legumes (beans). The culinary scholar Karen Hess said she believes that both recipe and name are derived from Hindi, Persian, and Malay words that mean, simply, “cooked rice and beans.” Whatever the origins, the dish, originally made with pigeon peas in West Africa, became a favorite of the colonial rice plantation owners as well as the enslaved.

The first written appearance of the recipe in English was in Sarah Rutledge’s The Carolina Housewife, or House and Home by a Lady of Charleston, published anonymously in 1847.

Black-eyed peas eventually became the favorite bean used in the South. New Southern Cooking author Natalie Dupree said that the black-eyed peas are said to represent each Confederate soldier who died for the South during the Civil War.

In the southern United States, eating Hoppin' John on New Year's Day is thought to bring a prosperous year filled with luck. The peas are symbolic of pennies or coins, and a coin is sometimes added to the pot or left under the dinner bowls. Collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, chard, kale, cabbage etc. along with this dish are supposed to also add to the wealth since they are the color of money. Another traditional food, cornbread, can also be served to represent wealth, being the color of gold.

On the day after New Year's Day, leftover "Hoppin' John" is called "Skippin' Jenny," and further demonstrates one's frugality, bringing a hope for an even better chance of prosperity in the coming year.

For New Year’s Day or any day Hoppin’ John can be the perfect change of pace for you and your family. It can be a meal in one pot with easy clean up. It’s a hearty, protein rich and low-fat meal. What’s to not like about that? This recipe serves eight but leftovers can easily be frozen for another meal. Here’s the pork version with alternate healthy chicken bouillon that I like to use. (I do make sure I buy bouillon without msg)


Hoppin’ John
¼ lb. ham hock (or substitute 3 bouillon cubes and 1 tbs. vegetable or olive oil)
6 cups water
1 pkg. (16 oz.) frozen Blackeye Peas
2 cups uncooked long-grain rice *
1 cup chopped onions
½ cup chopped green pepper
2 cloves of garlic minced or ½ tsp. garlic powder
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. black pepper
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
1 bay leaf
1 can petite cut tomatoes

If using the ham hock, simmer it first alone in the water about an hour in a Dutch oven or large pot. Remove it and cut meat from bone. Replace the meat (or substitute above) and all the rest of the ingredients except the tomatoes in the Dutch oven. Bring to boil and simmer about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add tomatoes during last 10 minutes. Remove and discard bay leaf. Serve in bowls with cornbread and a side of collards for the New Year.

* I prefer to use Instant Brown Rice which I cook separately. I reduce the water in the rest of the recipe to about three or four cups. I spread the cooked rice on a deep plate or in a spaghetti dish and add the bean and tomato mixture as a topping.

Have you tried Hoppin John? Do you have a different recipe or another favorite New Year’s recipe from Colonial times? Leave a comment. Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed, healthy New Year.




Elva Cobb Martin is a freelance writer and Bible teacher. She is president of the of the American Christian Fiction Writers new South Carolina Chapter. She has been published in Decision, Charisma, and Home Life and is currently working on an inspirational novel. She lives in Anderson, South Carolina, with her family. She can be reached through her web site www.elvamartin.com  and she blogs on the Golden Age of Piracy and other writing topics at  http://carolinaromancewithelvamartin.blogspot.com You can connect with her on Face Book and Twitter @Elvacobbmartin.  
 

Friday, December 27, 2013

Colonial Caroling


(I'm sorry to say the title is a ruse for I have nothing to support the practice!)

A Colonial Christmas was nothing like the holiday we celebrate now, and only a bit similar to the common British Christmas of the 19th century. It was definitely a religious holiday focusing on the Advent of Christ's birth and in some churches, continued through January to the Day of Epiphany.
Sometimes it included decorating with branches and dried herbs, some special meals and singing.

Joy to the World was published in 1719 as a poem by Isaac Watts. For those who used it as a hymn during the Christmas season (or any other time of year) it was a matter of choosing your own tune. The one we know now was not written until 1820. Did the colonials sing this song on Christmas day? It's possible. Via the Colonial Williamsburg website, I found this: A tutor named Philip  Fithian recorded in his journal: 'an enjoyment of Mr. Watt's hymns in good company' on Christmas Eve. But this was 1775 in the home of a wealthy plantation owner.


It's odd to think that the British Parliament actually banned Christmas celebrations in 1647, and the Puritans denounced the celebration because they forbid communal singing and definitely dancing.
No wonder the British settlers  in that and the next generation had qualms about openly celebrating Christ's birth as a holiday.

One particular carol could have been part of winter gatherings: Boar's Head Carol, and old-country favorite from the 1600s, but it doesn't strike me as very Christmassy!



The other great hymn writer, Wesley, published Hark the Herald Angels Sing early enough for our colonial forefathers to enjoy. And they might have, but not with the tune we know which became popular in the 1860s.  The original poem, Hark how all the Welkin Rings was edited a time or two. (Welkin is an obsolete word for The Heavens). The many publications and collections of Wesley hymns often underwent such changes.

Greensleeves is one of the few old tunes that has been a recognizable tune for many centuries. However, even What Child is This (verses) was not written until the 1800s.

So what did the colonials sing to celebrate Christ's birth? No one really knows, according to John Turner, an expert at Colonial Williamsburg. But here is another song to consider:

The Old Year Now Has Fled Away - another song set to "Greensleeves"


Music, poetry, singing and dancing (where allowed) was entertainment and a very large part of social interaction. Times have changed but I think there's nothing more charming than the idea of a gathered group of friends singing together in the home.  I hope you all can enjoy some caroling or hymns with friends this special holiday season!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Be blessed!

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Gather Round the Yule Log


Merry Christmas
from Colonial Quills!

I'm sure everyone has been enjoying the many seasonal posts up this month--I know I have! It's always so interesting to learn the ways our forefathers celebrated.

So as you're enjoying your own traditions on these busy, family-centered days, if you happen by our virtual home, I hope you'll gather round our blazing fire and enjoy a few moments of looking back.

I'd often heard the term "yule log" growing up...and even helped my sister make a cake designed to look like one, once. But I only recently bothered looking up what it was. It seems that back many centuries ago--and on up through colonial days--in order to keep a fire blazing in the hearth for Christmas celebration, families would bring in an entire tree trunk! They would light the end in the fireplace and just keep shoving it in as it burned. Let's hope they were attentive, or more than the trunk would have been consumed, I daresay.

One Monsieur Durand was traveling through Maryland in 1686 and stopped in at a home along the Potomac for Christmas. He reports that he was met with “the largest hospitality. He had store of good wine and other things to drink, and a frolic ensued. He called in three fiddlers, a clown, a tight rope dancer and an acrobatic tumbler, and gave us all the divertisement one would wish. It was very cold but no one thought of going near the fire because they never put less than the trunk of a tree upon it and so the entire room was kept warm. . .the  frolic continued well into the afternoon of the second day. . .”

So from ours to yours, have a frolicking, blessed, and happy Christmas!

Posted by Roseanna M. White

Monday, December 23, 2013

Creches and Cakes

This is the nativity scene my oldest child sets up on my fireplace mantel every Christmas.
Crèches 
Nativity scene by St. Francis at Greccio,
painting by Giotto
St. Francis of Assisi created the first nativity scene in 1223 in Greccio, Italy. A live nativity scene staged in a cave, it had humans and animals cast in the Biblical roles and was an effort on his part to emphasize the worship of Christ rather than upon gift giving. Some say he created the manger scene as an alternative for pilgrims wanting to go to Bethlehem, which was then occupied by the Turks
        Nativity scenes, or crèches (the French word for manger), became so popular that within a hundred years almost every church in Italy had one, though eventually statues replaced the human and animal participants.
        During early colonial times in New England, the Puritans didn’t approve of celebrating Christmas and outlawed it in Boston from 1659 to 1681. (Presbyterians weren't keen on celebrating Christmas either, as it was considered an Anglican tradition.)
        During that time, an English tradition of baking a mince pie in the shape of a manger to hold the Christ child was also banned by specific legislation. The outlaw pies were referred to as “Idolaterie in crust.” The ban was revoked by Governor Edmund Andros.
        Also in America, the tradition of decorative Christmas villages was rooted in the holiday traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch. The construction of a nativity scene, also called a putz, were made at the base of a tree. These scenes, sometimes inspired by the story of Noah’s Ark, could include several hundred carved animals on their way to the ark.

Fruitcakes
        According to lore, the ancient Egyptians placed an early version of the fruitcake on the tombs of loved ones. But it was the Romans who made fruitcake popular by mixing pomegranate seeds, barley mash, and pine nuts and shaping it into a ring. Because of the cake’s shelf life, Roman soldiers would take them to the battlefields. During the Middle Ages, crusaders travelled with the same type of cakes, only they added preserved fruit, spices, and honey. 
Roman soldier's fruitcake.

      In the 16th century, Colonial Americans enhanced the fruitcake recipe with cupfuls of sugar that increased the density of the cake. Also included were fruits from the Mediterranean, which they candied and added to the mixture along with nuts.



Dried fruits and nuts.

        Every century saw additions to the fruitcake including alcohol in the Victorian era, until the cakes became weighty. By the early 18th century, fruitcakes became synonymous with decadence and were outlawed by the Puritans in Europe who proclaimed them “sinfully rich.” That law was eventually repealed, since fruitcake had become an important part of the tea hour.



Fruitcake Recipe 18th Century
Take four pounds of flour dried and sifted, seven pounds of currants washed and rubbed, six pounds of the best fresh butter, two pounds of Jordan almonds blanched, and beaten with orange flower water and sack till fine; then take four pounds of eggs, put half the whites away, three pounds of double-refined sugar beaten and sifted, a quarter of an ounce of mace, the same of cloves and cinnamon, three large nutmegs, all beaten fine, a little ginger, half a pint of sack, half a pint of right French brandy, sweet-meats to your liking, they must be orange, lemon, and citron; work your butter to a cream with your hands before any of your ingredients are in; then put in your sugar, and mix all well together; let your eggs be well beat and strained through a sieve, work in your almonds first, then put in your eggs, beat them together till they look white and thick; then put in your sack, brandy and spices, shake your flour in by degrees, and when your oven is ready, put in your currants and sweet-meats as you put it in your hoop: it will take four hours baking in a quick oven: you must keep it beating with your hand all the while you are mixing of it, and when your currants are well washed and cleaned, let them be kept before the fire, so that they may go warm into your cake. This quantity will bake best in two hoops.
This recipe was in “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy” by Hannah Glasse.

In Manitou Springs, Colorado, there is an annual Great Fruitcake Toss.  It is held the first Saturday in January.  If you don't have a fruitcake, you can "rent" one for a dollar.  Admission is one non-perishable food item.  Fruitcakes can be hurled, tossed, or launched by a non-fuel device. Pictured is a Crusader preparing to catapult a fruitcake. 
 
Whatever your special traditions, I want to extend to you our family's prayers that you will enjoy a very Merry Christmas and that Christ will be in the center of your celebrations. 
 
Susan F. Craft is the author of the SIBA award winning Revolutionary War romantic suspense, The Chamomile.  She is represented by Linda S. Glaz, Hartline Literary Agency.

Friday, December 20, 2013

Strawberry Chapel and the Vanished Town of Childsbury

Front gates, Strawberry Chapel
It all started with a ghost story.

Of course, as a Christian, I don’t officially approve of ghost stories, and this was more the explanation behind a local legend than promulgating tall tales about the supernatural. The melodramatic story of a young girl tied to a gravestone by her vexed schoolmaster and left there overnight is still told around the Lowcountry. It's part of what awakened my curiosity about the Charleston area, and later, my love for the more obscure bits of local history.

Strawberry Chapel, side and rear
 The terrible event took place in the churchyard of Strawberry Chapel, located in rural Berkeley County, South Carolina, miles upriver from Charleston. Built in 1725, the church served as a “chapel of ease,” providing an accessible place of worship to planters and tradesmen downriver from St. John’s Biggin Church, where they were still required to attend services on high holy days. With the trees cleared, Strawberry Chapel would have overlooked the west branch of the Cooper River, but now stands nestled among oaks, screened from the river by thick brush. The adjoining grassy field was once the site of a flourishing trade town, named Childsbury for the English settler James Child, who granted the land and laid out the plans for the town in 1707. A plackard states that among other things, an open-air market and horse races were held here, back in the day. The town served as an important point of contact between native peoples and European settlers. A ferry docked at Strawberry Landing on the Cooper River and connected Childsbury with Charleston.

A school was also located here, attended by Catherine Chicken, the great-granddaughter of James Child, the seven-year-old heroine of the local legend. The most trustworthy accounts tell us that, yes, at the tender age of seven she was tied to one of the tombstones in the Strawberry Chapel churchyard by her schoolmaster for some infraction and left until after nightfall. One of the family’s servants discovered and rescued her, and the offending schoolmaster was run out of town, but the story gave rise to all sorts of embellishments and legends—one of which was that the girl died of fright and her ghost haunts the churchyard, still.
Strawberry Chapel, front

Not so, but the place has suffered under the constant stream of ghost hunters and thrill-seeking teens. During our first visit to Strawberry Chapel in 2006 during a family photography outing, I was shocked to see so many signs of vandalism. Box tombs open or cracked (nothing to see inside; the actual grave is below ground, but this is apparently a popular form of monument in historic Southern cemeteries), broken glass littering the place, especially around the curiously open, arched brick construction a few yards away from the church. But as my first study in original church buildings in the Charleston area, the place enthralled me.

The church itself is a small, white building, covered in weathered plaster, with a shingled jerkin-head roof. (See the photos for exactly what that means—the flattened corners at the “head” of the roof.) Like other historic places, it just smells old, and the churchyard is graced by crape myrtle, camellias, and several sprawling live oaks draped in Spanish moss. Walking through and reading headstones is always a lesson in local history, to me, and in this case just made me hungry to go search out the stories behind the names. No ghosts here, even in the obscure corner where a miniature version of the stars-and-bars decorated the grave of a Confederate veteran.

I later learned that the brick “cave,” pictured above, was not a crypt as we’d originally guessed, but a place to temporarily shelter a coffin in inclement weather. And on one visit, I discovered a peephole in the front door of the chapel, offering a view inside. Plain, dark wood pews and slate floors—and the sunlight slanting in through a window, bathing the sanctuary in a pool of light. The next time, however, the peephole was boarded over.


Over the years, I've noticed the addition of floodlights and surveillance cameras to the churchyard. Because of the worsening vandalism, the caretakers have felt the need to exclude casual visitors. Stories have surfaced of people being asked to leave by caretakers, and a friend’s brother was actually arrested for trespassing. Another friend and I visited one day but weren’t challenged—I hope because we were careful to treat the property with respect.

Despite its long standing as a historic site open to the public, most informational sites online now state that the chapel and churchyard are private property and trespassing will not be tolerated. I'm presuming that permission could be obtained to explore the site for research.

Sunset on the Cooper River
The Childsbury site, however, still welcomes visitors, offering the information kiosk next to a small parking lot and a mowed path down to the old dock. The view there is not to be missed—a particularly lovely section of the Cooper and its old adjoining rice fields. Off to the right, especially at low tide, the planks marking the old Strawberry Ferry landing can still be seen embedded in the mud.

Except for the chapel building, everything else is only a memory.

Playing in the field that was Childsbury
~~~~~~~~



My thanks to the photography talents of Kimberli Buffaloe, and my daughter Breanna McNear.



Wednesday, December 18, 2013

History of the Pineapple in Colonial America


If you were to show your hospitality to guests at your home today, what would you do? Well, in the 18th century having a pineapple in the center of your table, or in a lovely arrangement over your door would be just the thing to impress your guests and show your prowess as a hostess extraordinaire!

The lowly pineapple was popular in colonial America, you say? Absolutely! You mean, the fruit we associate with Hawaii and tropical islands was the king of fruits in the colonies? Sounds crazy, but it's true.

In Colonial America, if you wanted to show your guests just how much they meant to you, or perhaps how much money you spent in preparing a feast, you would make sure you put a pineapple in the center of your table and "wow" your guests upon arrival. But as you can imagine, obtaining said fruit was nothing short of miraculous, which is another reason for its popularity. Bringing shipments to the colonies from the Caribbean often meant that the conditions were hot and perfect for rotting the cargo. So, if you were able to obtain a fresh, juicy pineapple, you might have been the talk of the town. This was especially true for the more northern colonies where shipments of pineapples were typically only brought to Boston.

The fruit didn't arrive in cardboard boxes like it does today,
but I imagine however it came, it was quite a delight to consumers.


But, let's say you are of the middling class and wish to impress your guests but cannot afford to buy a pineapple. No problem. You can rent one! . . . But only for the day. And let's just hope your guests don't find out you are only renting it because that might not do well for your reputation.

In the 18th century, the pineapple became such a widespread symbol of hospitality that it transferred from the table to patters on wallpapers and even as sculptures adorning wooden entryways, among many other things.

So, next time you want to thrill your guests, try putting a pineapple in the middle of the table. I'm sure they will be impressed. *wink*

Monday, December 16, 2013

JOY TO THE WORLD



Christmas was not celebrated as it is today by seventeenth and eighteenth-century colonists.  See my post last year about Advent http://colonialquills.blogspot.com/search/label/Advent

Christmas was primarily a religious period lasting from Advent through Epiphany, without many other festivities. Hymns were sung in some churches, and a fair number of them were being written by the young literary genius, Isaac Watts. Watts, born in Southampton, England in 1674, was the son of a committed religious Nonconformist who had been jailed for his questionable philosophy.

Isaac Watts
By the age of thirteen, Isaac had learned Latin, Greek French and Hebrew, and later studied philosophy and theology. While still a teenager, Watts became critical of the way Psalms were sung in church so his father challenged him to improve the quality of church music by creating his own.

The following Sunday Isaac wrote his first hymn and it was accepted at church with great enthusiasm. He continued to produce a hymn each week for the next two years, and in 1707 he published Hymns and Spiritual Songs. That book and the hymnal he wrote in 1719 were considered the first real hymnals in the English language. With his 600 hymns he became known as the “Father of English Hymnody”.

George Frederick Handel
George Frederick Handel, a friend of Watts, is credited as being the music composer of “Joy To The World”. Handel is best known as the composer of “The Messiah”, which he wrote in just 25 days. These two gifted musical talents were very different in looks and personality. Watts was a plain, diminutive, mild mannered Englishman, while Handel was a vigorous, hot-tempered German. 



“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”                                       Luke 2:10 KJV


"Joy to the World," is often sung at Christmas celebrating Jesus Christ’s first coming, but in actuality it is a hymn that also anticipates, with great joy, Christ's triumphant return at the end of the age. This cherished Christmas carol is probably the most famous of Isaac Watts’ hymns.

The hymn is based upon the last part of Psalm 98.


“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.
Sing unto the Lord with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.
With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the Lord, the King.
Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together
Before the Lord; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.”
                                Psalm 98: 4-9 KJV



JOY TO THE WORLD
Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

To listen to the music:


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Janet Grunst

http://JanetGrunst.com
http://colonialquills.blogspot.com/
Represented By Linda S. Glaz
Hartline Literary Agency

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The Boston Tea Party: A December to Remember


There was a boatswain’s whistle, and in silence one group boarded the Dartmouth. The Eleanor and the Beaver had to be warped in to the wharf. Johnny was close to Mr. Revere’s heels. He heard him calling for the captain, promising him, in the jargon everyone talked that night, that not one thing should be damaged on the ship except only the tea, but the captain and all his crew had best stay in the cabin until the work was over.
Captain Hall shrugged and did as he was told, leaving his cabin boy to hand over the keys to the hold. The boy was grinning with pleasure. The ‘tea party’ was not unexpected.

Excerpt from Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes



And thus began the most famous Tea Party in American history when the underground resistance group known as the Sons of Liberty dumped 90,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor on the 16th of December, 1773. The group of dissenters, dressed up like Mohawk Indians, were spurred on by Samuel Adams as a protest against the Tea Act of 1773. This law, which was enacted by the British Parliament, gave the East India Tea Company a virtual monoply over tea sales in the colonies.

In the eyes of the Massachusetts colonists, who had already endured one tax after another, this was one tax too many. The efforts of Parliament to recoup monies lost in the French and Indian War had now backfired, as the Colonials believed their rights as British citizens were being lost one by one.



Resistance to the Tea Act was active throughout the colonies but the East India Tea Company proceeded to send 500,000 pounds of tea across the Atlantic in September, 1773. Due to pressure from local patriot groups in the cities of Charleston, New York and Philadelphia, shipments of tea from England were refused by the local merchants. But in Boston, several relatives of the Crown-appointed Governor Hutchinson ruled the marketplace and they did not concede to the local patriots who tried to send the tea back to England. The patriots refused to pay the tax on the cargo. But the Governor in Massachusetts insisted that the taxes be paid and the tea stay put.
  
The Sons of Liberty decided otherwise as 342 wooden crates holding tea leaves were hatcheted open in front of thousands of silent observers lining Griffin’s Wharf at midnight.  

 No one was injured in the protest and it is said that the rebels swept up the decks of the ship afterwards. Since the ships were actually owned by Americans, and not the British, the pseudo-Indians had no quarrel with the shipowners.



In The Boston Campaign, April 1775 – March 1776, Victor Brooks writes, “…when the ‘Mohawks’ in Boston responded to this direct challenge by dumping the hated tea in the harbor, each side correctly saw the event as a watershed in the history of Britain’s rule over the colonies and as a clear prelude to military confrontation between parliament and the American provinces.”

 It was just a little over a year later (April of 1775) when full-scale war broke out between the colonies and England. It was a conflict that lasted nearly eight years.

The people of Massachusetts and all the colonies soon acquired a taste for coffee.

The Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, in celebration of this occasion, allow costumed re-enactors to participate in throwing tea into the sea every year on December 16. Watch their video here.

Huzzah!


Monday, December 9, 2013

Excerpt from Elaine Marie Cooper's Fields of the Fatherless

Presented to you by Lisa Norato

Fields of the Fatherless
Revolutionary War and Colonial American Historical Fiction
(Based on a true story)
by Elaine Marie Cooper

Lighthouse of the Carolinas
October 2013






In the early months of 1775, war is brewing in the American colonies. Although frightened, eighteen-year-old Betsy Russell of Menotomy Village, Massachusetts, wants to be prepared in case of attack by the British troops.

Her father, prosperous farmer Jason, is the fourth generation of Russells on this land—yet their very rights as British Colonials are being stripped away one by one. Will the King of England take the Russells’ land as well?

Tensions are growing here in the countryside west of Boston and the outbreak of battle seems almost a certainty. Jason desperately wants to protect his family—his wife, children and grandchildren—and their future. Betsy makes every attempt to be prepared for the worst.

But not even the American militia could have predicted what was about to occur—right on the Russells’ doorstep. If Betsy loses everything she holds dear, are the rights of all the Colonists endangered?

Excerpt

The hissing sound of steam greeted Betsy as Jacob plunged a hot bar of iron into water to cool it down.

Betsy forced a friendly smile. “Good day, Mr. Watson.”

He turned at the sound of her voice.

“I fear my nephew here has acquired a sty under his eye, and father requested I take him to you.”

Jacob revealed a set of white teeth in the middle of his soot-covered face. He placed his burly hands on his hips. His heavy, leather apron squeaked as it rubbed against his massive chest and belly. “Well, now, is that so, young Mr. Josiah?”

The boy nodded and covered his eye while scrunching his face.

“Well, lad, I’ll be with ye soon enough. Why don’t ya come hither and see this axe head I’m forgin’?”

Josiah hesitated, but Betsy urged him forward. “’Tis fine, Josiah. He’ll not let you get too close.”

The boy walked slowly toward Jacob and watched with rapt attention. The smith gripped the piece of iron with a large metal tong and heated it until it was red, then beat it with several blows of the hammer. After the iron submitted to the tool, Jacob plunged the hot piece into the slack tub filled with water, where steam surrounded the worker and his small audience of one. Jacob repeated the process, stoking the fire that he allowed Josiah to look at closely.

Between the steam and the smoke, Josiah’s eyes began to water. The boy must not have noticed, because he never wiped the moisture off his face. When Jacob had completed the axe head, he set his tools on the anvil.

“Now then. Where be this sty your grandsire spoke of?”

Josiah blinked several times and first pointed to one eye, then the other. “I think it was this one, but I am not certain.”

Betsy covered her mouth to keep from laughing. She observed the blacksmith gently push the boy’s head back. “Well, well. Everything looks well enough.” Turning toward Betsy, he winked. “Looks like the steam and smoke did the job right thorough.”

Josiah’s eyes narrowed. “What happened, Aunt Betsy?”

“Looks like the sty has opened and gone away, Josiah. Mr. Watson is quite the sty doctor, is he not?” She picked up his long queue of hair and tugged on it gently. “You are well enough, indeed.”

As if forgetting he was ever in discomfort, Josiah ran out toward the bridge. “I want to throw rocks in the river.”

“Don’t get too close to the water.”

“I won’t, Aunt Betsy.”

Betsy paused for a moment while watching her nephew play. She felt the urge to speak to Mr. Watson about her fears, but she did not know where to begin. Clutching her cloak, she smiled awkwardly and looked at the ground.

Jacob put his hands on his hips. “Somethin’ weighin’ on yer heart, Miss Russell?”

She took in a hurried breath and gathered her courage. “Aye, Mr. Watson. Pray, forgive me for asking you to bear this burden of mine, but there’s no one at home to confide my fears to. Father just keeps telling me ’twill be all right, he’ll watch out for me. And Mother … she ne’er wishes to discuss the possibility that we might go to war with England. It seems the very thought constricts her words.” Betsy’s voice trailed off.
Thoughts of impending war dampened her all-too-brief, lighthearted respite.

I wish there were more jovial moments in my life.

Jacob soberly glanced at the dirt floor of the shop, then looked up. “’Tis difficult for parents to speak of such things to their child, Miss Russell. Yer parents take much delight in their only daughter. To speak of such concerns as the loomin’ war is a frightenin’ talk for a mother and sire. I know. I wish I didna’ have to prepare my family neither.”

Betsy’s eyes looked in earnest at the smith. “Mr. Watson, not speaking of the fear will not change the facts. I want to be ready. I do not wish to be unprepared. My father says he’ll protect us, but what if he’s gone with the militia? Then what? ’Tis certain, I have no way to defend myself or my family.”

She clutched her cloak with tight fingers and felt her heart pounding through the wool.

Jacob’s eyes softened and crinkled with his warm smile. “I know your father does not wish you to carry a musket, lass. ’Tis true that the men will do the fightin’.” He paused and then lowered his voice. “But the women are always in danger as well.” He inhaled sharply and stared at the sky for a moment, seeming to be in deep thought. After a moment, he turned toward her. “Wait here.”

Fields of the Fatherless can be purchased on Amazon for kindle or in paperback.

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Lisa Norato is the multi-published author of Prize of My Heart, an inspirational, seafaring historical from Bethany House, set during the Federal era. A life-long New Englander, Lisa lives in a historic village with homes and churches dating as far back as the eighteenth century.