In the year 1754, the French and English are officially at it again.
In North America, it's called the French-Indian War (1754 - 1763).
In Europe, the ultimate event (1756 - 1763) is referred to as the Seven Years War.
Wherever one is, sides are being taken, strategies tested, and people are dying. The English will eventually prevail and the French concede, the terms set by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. France ceded its northern, Canadian, possessions to Britain, and surrendered any claims to land east of the Mississippi River. France also surrendered French Louisiana to its ally Spain, as compensation for their losses. Great Britain was now the dominant colonial power in North America.
Twenty years earlier, and eleven years prior to the official outbreak of hostilities in North America, relations between the French and English were far from cordial, and that is the year that the story of Calico Bush begins.
Marguerite Ledoux, a few months shy of her thirteenth birthday, is a Bound-out girl to the Sargent family; father Joel, his son Caleb by his first wife, Joel's second wife Dolly, and five young children, the six-year old twins Becky and Susan, four year-old Patty, three-year old Jacob, and the baby, eight-month old Deborah. Joel's brother Ira also lives with the family.
Nearly a year previous, Marguerite, Grand'mère, and her Oncle Pierre had sailed from the port of New Havre in France with the intention of settling in the French colonial city of New Orleans. But, Pierre died of sickness during the ocean crossing, and was buried at sea along with all his possessions, including his fiddle. When the ship landed in Marblehead, Marguerite and her grandmother survived on the little money that they had, but when that ran out, they were consigned to the Poor Farm. The ladies there were kind to them, and admired Marguerite's fine sewing, a skill she had been taught by the sisters at the convent school she attended in Le Havre. They also tutored Marguerite in English. But when her grandmother died, she was told that to earn her "board and keep", she would be bound-out to work for a family for a set number of years.
Despite the need for extra hands, many families declined to take her on because she was French, and considered flighty and even a possible enemy, what with the poor relations back in Europe between the English and the French.
However, the Sargent's need for help was so severe that they took her in spite of her being French. She would be bound to the family until her eighteenth birthday, and henceforth be known as Maggie.
And that is how Marguerite, now Maggie, found herself on the Isabelle B., sailing north along the coast to the with the Sargent family, en route to a claim purchased by Joel Sargent from the previous owner, Flint, located on the coast of northern Maine, a wild, unsettled area claimed by both the British as York county and the French as Acadia. It was also the ancestral home of the Wolastokuk. Put any combination of the three together, and nobody's singing Kumbaya.
It's tense.
The voyage is difficult. Multiple islands dot the coast, and even when the weather is fair, it's difficult sailing. When a violent storm breaks out, Marguerite, despite being ordered below by Captain Hunt, fights her way over to the livestock pen, where Caleb is engaged in a losing fight with the waves to keep the animals from being swept away. She keeps a grip on one of the sheep, and never lets go, despite the pain in her arms and the pounding of the waves. When the squall suddenly stops, she and Caleb have managed to save a few of the animals. The captain and others compliment her on her "grit" - despite how she was raised.
The Sargents lost half of their household goods, and most of their hens, and the ship suffered the partial loss of its front railing, but, as Joel reminds his wife, no one lost their life.
When they reach Falmouth, Caleb remarks on the fort's cannon, and Ira says the fort's there to keep a sharp watch out for French and Indians. Caleb teases Marguerite that it might be fired at her. When young Jacob get upset at his remark, Dolly tells him not to get worried, that they'll be no shooting, and it's "... only Injuns and the wicked French in Canada they're after."
This remark, and many others like it, are difficult for Marguerite to hear, and leave a constant sore spot in her heart.
Later, when Caleb, Maggie, and the children go ashore to gather grass for the livestock for the rest of the voyage, Caleb goes off on his own. Marguerite and the children set about gathering wild strawberries. They encounter a stray dog and tall man with a musket, who asks them where they're from, where they're going, after which the man leaves them to speak to Caleb. When the man departs, he remarks under his breath that, "...might's well know what they're in for now, 'fore there's any scalps lost."
Marguerite over hears some of their conversation. The man is warning Caleb that the woods are full of Indians, and says that just men had been killed plowing their fields, and another family was carried away into captivity, after the father was shot in the doorway of his own house.
It's a subdued group, plus dog, that return to the ship, carrying tales of the tall man's account, and even the fresh food from Falmouth for dinner after weeks of eating cod did little to raise anyone's spirits. There was much discussion amongst the adults, Dolly expressing the most concern, but Joel was determined to carry on as planned. He assures Dolly that the house on the claim is well-built, and plenty of other people raise families there just fine.
When the ship arrives at the final destination, the Sargents are greeted by the site of a burnt down house, and the news that in the face of renewed and more frequent attacks by the Indians, the Tarratines, the previous owner Flint had made the decision to sell his claim and leave. All of this information comes from the Sargent's nearest neighbors, spread across the small islands along the coast.
The first neighbors to appear were Seth Jordan and his son Ethan, from nearby Sunday Island. They were the ones who informed the Sargents of the Indian attacks, as well as the fact that the land of Joel's claim was regarded by the Indians as a place for ghosts and spirits, or Passageewakeag. They urge Joel to settle on one of the nearby islands, but Joel is adamant to work his claim. The Jordan's remind him that it isn't only his and his family's safety to consider, but the safety of his neighbors as well. They then invite the Sargents to their island, where they can meet Seth's Aunt Hespa.
The visit takes place, but not before another event that could have ended in tragedy. Since the house was gone, the family again spent the night on board. The next day, the men are already chopping down trees to build a new one. The issue of getting the remaining livestock off the ship and onto the claim was discussed. The decision was made to dump them overboard and let them swim to shore. While everyone else rowed to shore, It was left to Caleb and Ira to land the cattle.
At first, the plan worked. The sheep were thrown overboard, and swam to shore, where Marguerite and the children caught hold, and thethered them. The problem was the cow and her calf. The cow resisted, so the men threw the calf overboard first, on the assumption the cow would then follow the calf and the two would swim to shore.
But the calf swam into the direction of the open channel, and its mother followed. Seeing this, Marguerite jumped into the skiff, rowed out to the two animals, and guided them over to Sunday Island, the closest land and home to the Jordans. Aching and exhausted, she was taken to the Jordan home by Aunt Hespa. There, Marguerite's spirits are lifted by the sight of a flower garden by the dooryard.
The Jordan's homestead consists of a well-built house and outbuildings for the animals and Aunt Hespa's loom and spinning wheel. Aunt Hespa, 84 years old, feeds Marguerite in the kitchen and tells her of her own history and that of the nearest neighbors, who live on the other islands: the Stanleys, the Morses, and the Welleses, the youngest is a year-old baby. Abigail Welles is eighteen, and Aunt Hespa informs Marguerite that Ethan is over there to visit her every chance he gets.
Aunt Hespa insists that Marguerite spend the night, and Ira makes no objection. Marguerite is able to bathe properly, after which she and Aunt Hespa gathered medicinal plants from the pasture and woods. She tells Marguerite that the Injuns learned more from growing plants than most doctors and apothecaries she's ever known. One of the plants was sheep laurel, also called Calico Bush. Aunt Hespa says that there is a ballad about the plant, and later that night, sings it to Marguerite with Seth Jordan accompanying on his fiddle.
The next day, Marguerite returns to the Sargents, and the story turns from Spring to Fall.
The log house is nearly finished, and the cornfield prepared. The neighbors arrive for a Raising, an all day event when the neighbors arrive to raise the roof on the house and celebrate with food and visiting. Captain Hunt will be leaving right after, and several of the islanders will accompany him to bring back supplies from Portsmouth. Dolly and Marguerite have been busy preparing foodstuffs to store for the winter, including the dried cod from Caleb's many fishing expeditions.
When the neighbors arrive, Aunt Hespa gives Marguerite a pair of knit grey stockings. Marguerite, embarrassed by her worn and too short dress, a feeling brought home by the appearance of a well dressed Abigail, feels a rush of gratitude.
Marguerite is charged with watching the children. After the feast she takes them on a walk, where they come face-to-face with a great black bear. Marguerite's quick action scares the bear into a retreat, and her quick action wins her praise from the others. Then young Jacob is hit by a falling hammer, and it is up to Marguerite and Aunt Vespa to stitch the wound. Some of those gathered remarked that a bloodletting on a new house bode ill for the inhabitants, but not within earshot of the Sargents. At the end of the day, the Isabelle B. set sail.
The rest of autumn is spent completing the house and preparing for winter. Aunt Hespa often calls upon Marguerite for company, and with her guidance Marguerite learns how to spin and weave patterns with the loom. Aunt Hespa possesses a great deal of useful advice, most often followed, but not always. Aunt Hespa tells Dolly Sargent that she must let the baby, Deborah, burn herself at the fireplace once, so she will learn not to ever approach the flames again. Dolly cannot bring herself to do it, resulting in a family tragedy.
One day, Marguerite, Caleb, and the children venture into the woods to gather witch hazel, a medicinal plant. While out gathering, Caleb goes off to hunt squirrels, but when he fails to return on time, Marguerite takes the children and begins to retrace their steps back home. It starts to rain, and they take shelter in a cave. Marguerite tells the children to wait by the opening, while she explores further. But the cave is an evil place, with unfamiliar markings, a strange smell, and piles of bones. When Marguerite picks up a a shiny object, a belt buckle, she also picks up a long stand of human hair that is stiff and dark at its roots.
She grabs the children and leaves the cave, refusing to answer their questions as to her hurry or her ashen complexion. They meet up again with Caleb, and return home. That night, after the children are asleep, Marguerite tells the Sargents what happened, and gives the buckle and hair to Joel. Joel tells everyone to not say a word to anyone of the discovery. He doesn't want the neighbors to increase their disapproval of his settling there, because despite their recent friendliness, the disapproval is still evident.
When they later go to find the cave's location, they are unsuccessful. Later on, Marguerite and the twins head over to Aunt Hespa's to help with the weaving, and while there, witness the Aurora Borealis. Seth tells her the Indian's believe that it's a sign or war and famine, But Aunt Hespa's hushes him and says it's a sign of a cold winter coming.
The story now turns from Fall to Winter. The family attends a corn-shelling bee at the Jordans, along with the other neighbors. After the feast, Seth broke out his fiddle for music and dancing. Marguerite, moved by the music, performed a dance, the pavane. much to Dolly's and Hannah Welles (Abigail's mother) dismay, but to the encouragement of Aunt Hespa. When others also expressed their disapproval, in derogatory terms of the French, Aunt Hespa put an end to it, but Marguerite, after reveling in the dance, became tired and low-spirited.
Staring out the window to avoid facing the others, she sees a wisp of smoke in the direction of Sargent's point. Alerting Caleb, the others were soon made aware, and the verdict was Indians. Five men went over to investigate, and three stayed behind as guards. When the men returned the next day, the house was intact, but the cow and her calf had been taken, along with a sack of meal. The dog was also missing.
The Sargent family returned to their home, as did the others, under the threat of a storm. When the winds and rains came, the house was filled with smoke from the fireplace due to rain coming in through the chimney. the one happy note was the return of Pumpkin, the dog, whose jaws had been bound by leather thongs, and who suffered an open gash on his side.
The cold made visiting more difficult. Marguerite learns, much to her dismay, that the Sargents did not celebrate Christmas, and she yearns for the Christmases of her childhood. When Dolly overheard her telling the children about them, she told her to keep her Popishness to herself.
On Christmas Eve day, Marguerite leaves late in the afternoon to collect cones for the fire, singing French carols to herself as she works. An Indian appears and repeats one of the words of the carol, Noël. She makes out from his words and signs that he had lived with the French in Quebec. Le Péres Gris had cured him, he told her, pointing to a deep scar that ran across his cheek, and making the sign of the cross.
Marguerite took the button that came from her Oncle Pierre's coat and offered it to the Indian. Pour un souvenir de Noël, she told him, the turned and heading back to the house. She said nothing to the Sargents of the encounter.
It was one of the harshest winters of memory that year. In February the channel froze solid over, and everyone had lost weight due to the careful rationing of supplies.
One particularly bitter cold night, the family slept in a semi-circle in front of the fireplace. That night, Debby crawled away from her sleeping mother to the fire, and was quickly covered in flames. The dog attempted to tear off the burning cloth, Dolly beat the flames with her bare hands, Joel smothered the flames with a blanket and Ira doused the child with a bucket of water. Despite the cold, Marguerite on her own decides to make for Aunt Hespa's, and Caleb comes with her. When they tumble, frostbitten and windblown, on the Jordan's doorstep, the two could have passed for ghosts, themselves.
Aunt Hespa, Seth, and Ethan go to the point using the Jordan's wood sled, leaving Marguerite behind in bed and Caleb by the fire. But the child's burns are too severe, and she dies before they even arrive.
The story now turns from Winter to Spring. After the last of the big storms, the family goes tapping the sugar maples for their sap, which they turn into syrup and molasses. Ira then takes Marguerite with him to the Welles place, telling her that Abigail would like to be taught some of the fancy stitching at which Marguerite excels.
Ira brings along a bucket of syrup, and that, combined with the long visitor-less winter, helped to warm Mrs. Welles to their presence. Later, Abagail brings out material for the new dresses she'll be sewing, and Marguerite demonstrates some fancy embroidery stitches. When Marguerite and Ira leave, Abigail gives Marguerite materials for doll dresses and a hood for herself.
By mid-April, the frost was still not fully out of the ground, so the families focused on replenishing supplies before the planting season began. Ammunition was low, and the harsh winter had depleted all of their corn and potatoes, with none left for planting. When a ship entered the channel - the Fortunate Star - the captain informed them that they were looking for a man to replace their injured mate on their voyage to Boston. In the end, both Ira and Caleb sailed with them to Boston.
The days pass, and Marguerite tells the children of the May Day celebration back in France. She and all of the children are pressing into helping with the early planting. When Caleb and Ira returned with supplies, there would be an additional planting, but for now, it was just them, and Joel works from sun-up to sun-down. One day, a tree he was cutting down fell on him. His leg was injured - crushed and broken - and his head sustained a nasty bruise. Dolly and Marguerite fashioned splints, and brewed a tea that might help him sleep.
After Debby's fatal encounter with fire, it was agreed that a white sheet hung on a pole would be a sign to the Jordon's on Sunday Island that their help was needed. But the next day, the fog was so heavy that there was no visibility, and neither Marguerite nor Dolly had the navigational skills to make it to Sunday Island in those conditions.
After two days with no clearing, and Joel, in a state of delirium, Marguerite remembered that Aunt Hespa told her that there were healing properties in the brown kelp by the shore. She and the children set off to collect some, but were alerted by the actions of the dog that they were not alone. Telling the children to wait, Marguerite went on ahead and saw several canoes full of Indians landing in the cove.
Returning to the house, Marguerite comes up with the plan to offer the Indians food, to forstall any possible violence. Dolly thinks the idea is insane, but Marguerite takes control of the situation, placing all of the food outside the house. When the Indians arrive, it is Marguerite who distributes the food until it is all gone. The eight or so men still don't leave, and Marguerite can tell that there is dissent among them as to their next step, so she decides to make a Maypole.
Calling the children outside, they help her assemble the pole, and they all being to dance, Marguerite instructing both the children and the Indians on the dance. When the pole collapsed, she gathered the children and ran towards the house. At all figure stood in her path, and they stopped. The figure spoke. Noël. Smiled, and then gestured for them to go back to the house.
The children told Dolly what happened, but Marguerite was too spent to say a word, collapsing in a corner. When Seth and Ethan Jordan appeared, the fog had lifted during the morning and they had come over, they were amazed at what she had done. Dolly told them that Marguerite had saved them all.
Aunt Hespa and the Jordan's were over every day, aiding with chores and the healing of Joel's leg. It was on one of those days that Marguerite told Dolly and them about her Christmas encounter with the Indian, impressing them all favorably.
In June, the Fortunate Son returned, with Caleb and Ira bringing presents for all. Caleb had picked out a box with a painted bird on the lid, just for her.
The neighbors, seeing the ship in the channel, began to make their way ove.r to the Sargents. When Ira and Caleb took the children over to visit the ship, Joel Sargent tells Marguerite that, in view of all she's done, that they are freeing her to return to her own people, either in Quebec or France, once the chance arises. He is having the mate on the ship draw up the official termination of her contract.
Marguerite decides to stay.
***
This book is wonderful. If you don't have a copy in your collections, I recommend that you use some of the precious few dollars in your budget and purchase a copy. It is that good.
My opinion is that the hardest of all genres to write for children (and adults) is historical fiction. It's difficult not to veer off into textbook land when attempting to combine the recreation of a bygone age with an interesting plot. I'm not saying that there is a lot of bad historical fiction out there, but there is a fair amount of less than compelling attempts. I name no names, and offer no titles. Everyone is trying their best. As I said before, it's a hard genre to write.
But Rachel Field does a masterful job in Calico Bush, and this was not her first attempt. Calico Bush was published in 1931, and was a Newbery Honor Book. Two years prior, another of her books, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, won the Newbery Medal.
There is absolutely nothing textbook about Calico Bush. Field draws you in immediately with well-written characters, realistic action, and a presentation of the mindset of the people of the time without an overlay of present-day judgement. Field skillfully introduces by example the skills necessary for survival in the mid-eighteenth century without overloading the technical details. Weaving, fishing, syrup-making, the practice of medicine, all are integral to the story as it flows through the four seasons. Enjoy!
Rachel Field was born in 1894 in New York City, and died in 1942 after complications from surgery. She was buried in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the ancestral home of the Field family. She attended Radcliffe College from 1924 - 1918, and held a number of editorial positions before focusing on writing full-time. According to Something About the Author, she wrote over twenty-one books for children, numerous plays, six adult novels, including All This and Heaven Too in 1938, books of poetry, and screenplays.
From an early age, she had a love of islands. "There's something about islands. I don't know what it is, but I simply cannot keep them out of things I write." (SATA, Volume 15, page 107)
Lucky for us.
***
The book's illustrations are four wood prints by artist Allen Lewis. Here is a link to his biography and samples of his work.
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I've recently embarked on the journey of self-publication. It's been an education. If you're interested in the process, check out my other blog On the Trail of Rogue Lits ...
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