Fitcher's Brides by Gregory Frost Page B

contemplating their collected belongings, muttered, “We don’t have enough chairs for company.”
    The girls wanted to haul down the sofa and chairs from the attic room, which would make a very presentable parlor, one with enough seating for family and guests, but they met with immediate opposition. Lavinia insisted the furniture belonged to someone else and should be kept stored in case the owners returned. It wouldn’t do to have them arrive and find the family using the belongings as their own, she said, and so for the time being the attic furnishings were left alone. The one overturned chair in the second-floor hall the girls captured and took into their room.
    With the letter rediscovered and read, they still hadn’t had breakfast. Amy and Lavinia returned to the kitchen, and the other two girls assisted their father in distributing the furnishings and boxes around the house. They soon discovered that his worktable had been damaged in transit. One leg was split. Mr. Charter patted the table as if it were an old dog and said, “We’ll have to take it into the village and find some local craftsman to repair it. There’ll be someone who can work wood.”
    They set the table aside then, and decided they should start by carrying the larger pieces up the stairs, notably Lavinia’s black walnut bureau. Amy wanted to know why Lavinia hadn’t had the stevedores do it the night before, but she knew better than to ask. At least after moving that, everything else would seem easier. Even before they’d cleared a path wide enough to carry it to the stairs, a voice called from outside: “Halloo! Is there someone who can move this for me?”
    Mr. Charter turned immediately and went out. Kate and Vern wrapped themselves in shawls and followed after him.
    A small wagon sat before the pole blocking the road. The driver wore a large floppy hat. He was mud-stained and unshaven, his eyes red with exhaustion. The team of two horses looked as if they had been run nearly to death. Their nostrils smoked in the air. In the back of the wagon lay a woman. She stared up in their direction with sunken eyes dulled by illness, and seemed to see nothing. Her hands, which gripped a blanket up to her chin, trembled. Like her face, they were thin and bony.
    â€œI got to get her to Harbinger to be cured,” the driver explained. “This be the road, yes?”
    â€œIt is,” said Mr. Charter.
    â€œThere’s a toll, then, that I have to pay?”
    â€œThere is and I collect it for Harbinger.”
    The man sagged a little. “There are barriers everywhere, it seems,” he replied.
    â€œIt’s a half dollar, the toll.”
    â€œIs it so much?”
    Mr. Charter replied as the Reverend Fitcher had instructed him: “Since you’ve come here to renounce the outside, and offering all of your worldly possessions to the community, why, it is a very small price, sir. Hardly more than a pair of socks.”
    The man leaned into the back of the wagon and pawed through the belongings tied up beside the woman. When he turned back he was holding a pepperbox revolver. For a moment the family stood frozen, not knowing how to respond. Then he let go of the gun so that it flipped and dangled on his finger in the trigger guard. “Here,” he said, leaning toward Mr. Charter. “I’ve no use for it now we’re this close. And it’s worth far more than half a dollar.”
    Mr. Charter accepted the revolver. “I don’t know,” he said.
    â€œSir, we’ve gone day and night from Delaware to get here in time. You wouldn’t hold us up so close?”
    Mr. Charter shook his head. “No, I’m certain the reverend wouldn’t want that.” He leaned on the pole. The upright had been notched so that it could be levered easily. He kept it raised while the wagon rolled beneath.
    â€œI’m much obliged to you, then,” the man called