vintage clothes. She walked over and stood on tiptoe to take it down, and when she opened it, she found a very well-preserved hat. It had a double black-lace-scalloped border and a shiny black bow in the back. She opened the door to the musty closet and indeed there were hangers full of dresses, and more boxes on the floor. She touched a gauzy pink skirt topped with a narrow bodice and it nearly came apart in her hand, delicate and brittle and worn through from age and neglect.
Crouching, she opened a few of the boxes to find shoes in a size that seemed impossibly small. In a taller square box with a plain white card affixed to the top she uncovered something else: a pile of leather-bound books, all tied together with a black ribbon with a round locket at the end of it. She opened the locket. Inside there was whatappeared to be a small clump of lint, but no, that wasnât it. It was hair that looked like it had come from two different heads, tied in a bow. On the inside of the locket someone had written R & C in a beautiful calligraphic hand. She snapped it shut.
The books beneath the ribbon turned out to be journals. Pages and pages all written in that same elegant handwriting she had read over as a girl, some of the pages dark with mold, the pages completely illegible; others were perfectly preserved. It was remarkable. Her mother had given her Fideliaâs journal from when she was in her early teens, and here Gretchen was, nearly grown herself, discovering the rest of them. The years that chronicled Fideliaâs days of cooking and sewing and caring for children. She cracked another one open. And breathed in the smell of decaying paper and fading inkâand her heart raced.
February 17, 1860
Last night James returned with a young manâor perhaps not a man yet, still a child. He wore coarse fabric over his head like a hood to cover himself, and he had taken off his shirt to cover an old woman. She was so small that at first I thought he was holding only a checkered cloth in his arms. I said to follow me, but he indicated that he could not, another was still to come, and soon she ran from the trees in a dress too long for her. Perhaps five years of age, with bright eyes as if a candle had been lit behind them. I had no time to ask her name, only to tell her to hurry after me. I felt shame and rage that anyone could treat a person as sheâd been treated. George told me this morning that these three belong to a Mr. Grant, of Baltimore, who offers one hundred dollars of reward for the return of the boy and the girl together. Or fifty dollars each. The old woman he no longer needs.
She stood for a moment, stunned to be holding this kind of artifact in her hands. Esther wasnât just making things up. Gretchen thought about her ancestorsâhow good they were, or maybe simply so guilty they couldnât bear to watch any more pain. She looked up again at the portrait of Fidelia and for the first time felt a connection to her roots, or maybe to the roots of all women fighting for something they believed in.
Gretchen checked her phone, dying to talk to Simon, andâat last!âthere was full reception in this room.
She took a picture with her phone of the wall of books and portraits, the rosebush just visible out the window and tattered curtains blowing in the breeze, and sent it to Simon with the understated message Iâm here. Three seconds later he replied, OMFG insane!
âYou donât know the half of it,â she whispered, then headed downstairs.
Dear James,
How are your studies? I was happy to hear you received the mittens! I bought so much wool from Eliasâs farm that I have been knitting up a storm. Itâs good to have something to do with my hands as I find myself quite restless. Reading the papers you send is a joy, though it makes me even more eager to be by your side. To be engaged in meaningful work.
Iâm wondering if it would not be too presumptuous of me to
Crouching, she opened a few of the boxes to find shoes in a size that seemed impossibly small. In a taller square box with a plain white card affixed to the top she uncovered something else: a pile of leather-bound books, all tied together with a black ribbon with a round locket at the end of it. She opened the locket. Inside there was whatappeared to be a small clump of lint, but no, that wasnât it. It was hair that looked like it had come from two different heads, tied in a bow. On the inside of the locket someone had written R & C in a beautiful calligraphic hand. She snapped it shut.
The books beneath the ribbon turned out to be journals. Pages and pages all written in that same elegant handwriting she had read over as a girl, some of the pages dark with mold, the pages completely illegible; others were perfectly preserved. It was remarkable. Her mother had given her Fideliaâs journal from when she was in her early teens, and here Gretchen was, nearly grown herself, discovering the rest of them. The years that chronicled Fideliaâs days of cooking and sewing and caring for children. She cracked another one open. And breathed in the smell of decaying paper and fading inkâand her heart raced.
February 17, 1860
Last night James returned with a young manâor perhaps not a man yet, still a child. He wore coarse fabric over his head like a hood to cover himself, and he had taken off his shirt to cover an old woman. She was so small that at first I thought he was holding only a checkered cloth in his arms. I said to follow me, but he indicated that he could not, another was still to come, and soon she ran from the trees in a dress too long for her. Perhaps five years of age, with bright eyes as if a candle had been lit behind them. I had no time to ask her name, only to tell her to hurry after me. I felt shame and rage that anyone could treat a person as sheâd been treated. George told me this morning that these three belong to a Mr. Grant, of Baltimore, who offers one hundred dollars of reward for the return of the boy and the girl together. Or fifty dollars each. The old woman he no longer needs.
She stood for a moment, stunned to be holding this kind of artifact in her hands. Esther wasnât just making things up. Gretchen thought about her ancestorsâhow good they were, or maybe simply so guilty they couldnât bear to watch any more pain. She looked up again at the portrait of Fidelia and for the first time felt a connection to her roots, or maybe to the roots of all women fighting for something they believed in.
Gretchen checked her phone, dying to talk to Simon, andâat last!âthere was full reception in this room.
She took a picture with her phone of the wall of books and portraits, the rosebush just visible out the window and tattered curtains blowing in the breeze, and sent it to Simon with the understated message Iâm here. Three seconds later he replied, OMFG insane!
âYou donât know the half of it,â she whispered, then headed downstairs.
Dear James,
How are your studies? I was happy to hear you received the mittens! I bought so much wool from Eliasâs farm that I have been knitting up a storm. Itâs good to have something to do with my hands as I find myself quite restless. Reading the papers you send is a joy, though it makes me even more eager to be by your side. To be engaged in meaningful work.
Iâm wondering if it would not be too presumptuous of me to
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