Esther Hudson here has a terrible fascination for knittin, and an abundant fascination with sheep.I fear sometimes for her sanity, as she spends much of the evening sketchin cats on her slate and showing em to me. Cats, sheep, and knittin are much of her conversation and I wonder if she will ever be settled in a home of her own. I durst not send her away, as her father is at sea, and knowing what might befall her, given her simple ways, I think it best to keep her close. She is fond, as you can see, of dressin, but refuses utterly to quarter a fowle. She will beat a fine pound cake, but the coarser tasks of the kitchen she finds distasteful, preferrin to dress the ladies’ hair. Of her future, I do sometimes despair.
Mrs Smith and Miss Smith
My cousin, Miss Eliza Smith, has donned her new dress to come up to town from her beloved Newport to see about a position. The family with whom she has found employment these many years has suffert in that city’s decline since the late war, and she seeks a new future in Providence. She writes a fine letter, and with excellent references, Miss Smith would be well suited to manage a household for Mrs Brown’s youngest daughter, the recently married Mrs Mason. Miss Smith seems also to steady Esther, whose conversation grows more sensible when she is not with me. Perhaps after speaking with Mrs Mason, Esther, Eliza and I can slip away to enjoy some of the newly pickt apples she has brought up from Rhode Island.
Mrs Smith at day’s end
At the end of a long day filled with visitors– every stage has stopt at our house, some mistaking it, I think, for that questionable establishment operated by ‘Mrs’ Mary Bowen on South Main Street–I was ready to remove my soild apron (thankfully Esther has a spare) and venture down the hill to seek refreshment with my frinds. I may chanst to hear some news of the Ann & Hope, bound for Canton, and on which my son is a sailor. Or perhaps, before the light fails, I may read a bit of Mr Defoe’s most moral tale, Moll Flanders, and think in gratitude that my late husband’s family has seen fit to give me employ. I cant read at home, for if Mrs Brown catchs me readin that book agin, I will surely be trouble.
(Top photo thanks to the Providence Journal; bottom two thanks to Sharon Ann Burnston, our Mrs Brown)
I don’t think we can be very much more ready. It’s a bit of madness, really, when the actors are also the stage managers, press agents, prop masters, and set designers, but that’s how these things work. (The local paper says we’re presenting a play; it’s somewhere between a reenactment in the larger, looser sense and improv theatre, but never mind.) I have only myself to blame, and Mister Mason and his interest in Sleep No More, for all this. Aware of Mister Mason’s interest, I should have realized what might happen when I said, “Can’t we just occupy the house for a day?” with all the fluidity of the Occupy movement in mind.
That’s last Saturday, outside the Old State House, for the “People of 1763” event. Sew 18th Century and I provided a material culture/ladies’ clothing presentation in the Hands on History room. The guys drilled outside, had their photos taken, and represented the militia. The Bostonian Society had over 1200 people in the museum last Saturday, which is a pretty respectable number for a small place. It can also leave you feeling somewhat overrun. (All my photos turned out fuzzy: all I had was a shaky hand and my phone. Chalk it up to needing more sleep.)
Gossip!
This coming Saturday is What Cheer Day at the John Brown House Museum, and my sewing and research and house prep continues, if not apace, at a steady pace. Mannequins have been put away, furniture moved, and the accents practiced. By the time we were trying to say, “These are not the droids you’re looking for” with 18th century Maine vowels, we knew it was time to go home. Why this and not “I’ll put the kettle on to boil,” I do not know.
It’s still hard for me to get a handle on my character, and not so much her background as her attitude. I’m not very good at being servile or lady-like, which is why, if I’m still working for the Browns, I must be a relative of some kind.
My husband’s dead; he died in 1788, not long after the Browns moved into their new house; wounded in the Revolution, he never quite recovered and despite the best ministrations of Dr Bowen, Mr S succumbed at last. My son, now 18, was born not long after Mr S returned from the war (Mr S enlisted ‘for 3 years or the war’). Curiously, the chaplain of his regiment is also the pastor at the Congregational church in Providence.
I am a nearly non-observant Anglican, but I recognize Reverend Hitchcock, and know the work he has done in support of free public education. Mr Brown and his brother disagree on many things, but they have at least agreed upon the importance of free public education. My son and I can read, but if Tom had been better educated, perhaps he would not have gone away to sea.
Next I have to think about my cousin from Newport, and the Brown women, and what I think about them.
And there’s still the small matter of sewing two hems, three buttons and three button loops and hoping the whole business will fit properly. At least my friend finished my cap for me. I get just so far, and then I hate caps.
Wow. Yet another learning experience up on the Hudson River this past weekend. It was as up-and-down a weekend as the rutted field in which we were camped, where walking felt more like swimming over the ground, and social calls were well nigh impossible. Also, we had considerable wind. By Sunday, Mrs P said we should feel grateful we never camp with a dining fly, because we knew it was wrong to feel smug that we hadn’t had to chase a fly down. Yes, every possible pun of “fly” got an outing.
The Coats, Grouped Around their Colors, Prepare for Action.
The coats turned out quite well, and there would have been one for the Young Mr if only I had not spent the past two weeks on a petticoat and patterning a gown for What Cheer Day at work. I have some regrets about that, just because they looked so very well in those unusual coats. They weren’t just a fashion statement, either: I know Mr Cooke answered a lot of questions about them, and I did, too (women ask women about the guys…). They’re a really good interpretive hook to talk about supplying the troops, and the differences in uniforms over time, and the kinds of documents historians and costume historians use in their work. Also, those coats are just plain handsome.
Down in the corner, in a lovely white gown, holding her hat on head, is Cassidy. The wind was hard on headwear.
The Battle, well, there was chaos on the public side of the battlefield, and it was difficult to see. The wrenching ground made visiting difficult (and we don’t have much of a parlor in our camp) so I did get to meet Cassidy in person but not much more.
Mr S, the Young Mr and I were grateful for Mr H’s excellent assistance with the fire.
My friend Mrs H and her husband, Mr H, and I walked back from the battlefield to work on dinner. I’m not sure what we’re contemplating here, but the kettle is on and we’re thinking about something (probably what to add next).
As you can see in the photo, we had no iron “s” hooks. I don’t know what box they’re in, but they weren’t in the kitchen box. Mr FC made us hooks from branches he discovered on the way back from his car. They held up well, and were even better and more authentic than the “s” hooks would have been. With this, we were all delighted and not at all smug.
After dinner and washing up, we participated in the hospital vignette for the public tours. (By ‘participate,’ I do sort of mean ‘first person bombed’ the scenario.) In working this out, the Adjutant wondered which of the men was the smallest and lightest. His first thought was the Young Mr, but Mr S and I soon disabused him of that notion, and after I said, “It’s you, Mr C,” and we determined that even skinny Mr S was 5 pounds heavier than Mr C, we had our victim: Mr C. He became the wounded captain carried up by Mr S, the Young Mr, Mr FC and Mr McC on a litter made from a tent and poles. I carried the lantern.
At the hospital tent, we demanded attention for our wounded captain, who had taken shot in the groin, ‘near the back.’ (We covered the wound with a coat.) The men and I were insistent upon the Captain receiving attention, despite the enlisted men requiring attention to their head wounds and amputations. Although he was given laudanum, and the ball removed (ba-thump, yes, we’re here all weekend, tip your waitress), the captain developed a fever. We demanded rum and water, but he vomited upon the very noisy private with a head wound, while down the line another private cried out, “Why, captain? Why did you do this to us?”
After he vomited, the captain’s delirium increased, and the doctor bled him. He called for his wife, and reached for me, though I am but the lowly woman with the army. I held his hand and stroked his head to ease his passing while he talked of his wife and his son, “with the angels now.” After he died, the men were summoned again to remove him from the hospital and they carried him away.
Ready to leave with the entire kitchen on my back and in my hands.
The captain’s story may have been too quiet and subtle for the public to see in the dark, but around us nurses and doctors were busy and patients were yelling, and the scene presented was one of chaos and misery (and some humor). I’ll have to analyze it more later, because there’s a strand for the reenactors and another for the public and it’s hard, sometimes, to know if they combine satisfactorily for all. I know we were pleased with our dying captain, and the boundaries it pushed for those of us newer to the first person world.
On Sunday–well, less said the better, perhaps–some of us failed to eat or drink enough and felt quite ill until mid-morning and a second cup of coffee. It’s a lesson in having protein bars stashed in pockets and haversacks, and in how wretched the soldiers and women must have felt, and how limited their decision-making capacities. That’s the argument for officers getting better food and accommodations: they make the decisions, so they need fuel and rest for their brains. The rest of us just go where we’re told.
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
You must be logged in to post a comment.