Chapter Text
The adversity of the righteous is better than the prosperity of the wicked. The afflictions of the righteous, they are moderated and made easy to them; in that the everlasting arms of God are near to them. Yet they are sweetened to them. We glory in tribulation.
- Sermon given by Mr. Ben Woodbridge, October 5th 1679
The parsonage was naturally close to the meetinghouse, which meant it was no short walk from their little house, but Caleb Wittebane had spent most of his life keeping a very careful ear to the timbre of the village (a necessary skill, when servant to Mr. Nurse as a child) and he knew how important it was that their minister be well provisioned with wood, especially when they first arrived.
Philip had wanted to come too, but after that tumble chasing their cow and her calf when last they got out, he was obliged to stay and rest his ankle. Even with the rough crutch Caleb had whittled for him, the walk was currently too far. When Sunday came, Caleb hoped his brother would have rested enough to make the walk himself, or perhaps they would have to go beg Goodman Prince if he would let Philip ride pillion on his horse.
Shrugging the load of firewood onto a better position on his shoulders, Caleb shook his head. It wasn’t worth worrying about yet, Philip was usually happy to sit in one place, provided he had a notebook or their careworn copy of the Bible, his ankle would be able to get him there. Caleb had made sure he had both, before shouldering the bundle and starting the long walk.
The firewood wasn’t even that necessary, there were official deliveries as part of the salary paid to a minister, but Caleb and Philip had come to Gravesfield as orphans and they knew the importance of getting whoever was in a position of power to accept you. Here, there was the distinct advantage that Mr. Foster was also a newcomer – from Hartford, even – and was less inclined to look at the Wittebane Brothers as just the orphans Mr. Nurse the Magistrate had taken in as servants. They may but rent their small number of acres from Goodman Prince, but they were hardly those children anymore. They even had church membership, which some who had been born in Gravesfield could not lay claim to.
The day was bright and the autumn was just beginning to enfold them, the air becoming brisk once more. The meetinghouse would be quite pleasant for a bit, without the sweltering heat that made sweat run uncomfortably down his neck, and it would not be so cold that they would have to move service to the tavern for at least a good two months. The walk was long, as it always was, and not made shorter by the load on his back. But Philip had a sermon notebook and he had taken to reading Mr. Cheever’s old sermons aloud of an evening, until their new minister had come. Last night, the sermon had been on the joy and ease found in hardship, and Caleb kept it in mind as he walked.
Trials were God’s work, and if even Jesus asked in the Garden to be freed from the cup, then Caleb could manage carrying firewood a few miles.
By the time the parsonage appeared, though, he was still grateful that he would be able to set it down.
It was a larger home than Caleb’s own, to be certain, but not so grand as Mr. Nurse had complained of in Hartford. Perhaps the new minister approved of it. Caleb hoped he did, at least. There was no barn immediately attached, as a minister was provided a salary, but there was an industrious kitchen garden, which Mrs. Foster was supervising her children at work in, her gently swelling belly preventing her from being able to weed.
“Good morrow!” called Caleb as he approached, smiling at the minister’s wife.
“Good morrow, neighbor,” she returned. “Whither are you going?”
“To see your husband, Mrs. Foster. I’ve a load of firewood for you.”
“But we have received a delivery from the town not three days hence.”
“This is a freewill gift from my brother and I,” assured Caleb. “Our gesture of welcome to our new minister.”
“How very generous. Come inside, then. Mercy, Giles, I desire that all those weeds be gone when I return.”
“Yes, mother,” chorused the children, who had been peering at Caleb with interest. When Mrs. Foster turned around, Caleb indulged them, making the sort of face that used to send Philip into fits of giggles as a child. And they did too, hiding their mirth behind dirty hands as they returned to their chores.
“I confess, I know not your name,” said Mrs. Foster as they moved to the house. “I desire to know all my husband’s congregants, of course…”
“Caleb Wittebane,” he introduced himself. “I live with my brother Philip just past Goodman Prince’s land.”
She opened the door and bade him come in, and directed him to the hearth, where a girl roughly Philip’s age was tending to a cauldron over the fire, the heat flushing her pale face. She looked surprised, but obligingly moved out of the way so Caleb could finally set down his load next to the fire. “Sarah, is Mr. Foster yet at his writing?” asked Mrs. Foster.
“Aye, ma’am,” answered the girl. “Shall I fetch him for you?” At her mistress’ nod, the girl was off, darting towards the stairs to the second floor.
“Your servant?” asked Caleb, as he unbound the wood and began to stack them amid the neat (if low) pile.
“Indeed. She came with us from Hartford, we had bought the remainder of her contract from my brother. Poor girl was orphaned in an Indian attack.”
Caleb made the usual and appropriate notions of sympathy to hear it. The tales that were told of such events were frightening enough for anyone, even when safe. He could not imagine the fear one would feel, to have such hatred bearing down upon you and all you loved. What would be worse, to die in such an attack, or outlive your loved ones?
From the second floor there were presently footsteps, and the servant girl returned, hurrying back to her cooking, followed by the more measured gait of a one who did not leave something unattended at the fire. Mr. Joseph Foster had yet to preach to Gravesfield, but he had been seen in the Inn, with Mr. Nurse ensuring he was known to all there. Philip had seen him, and come home with his usual descriptions, and Caleb thus felt he already knew him.
Mr. Foster was of middling height, with a stern mouth framed by deep lines that seemed quite natural to his face, rather than the product of constant frowning wrinkling the face into such a shape, and the same almost-golden-almost-red hair that one of the children in the kitchen garden had. His eyes were a blueish-green, and skittered over Caleb’s whole body before an almost excessively quizzical folding of his brow asked the silent question.
“Goodman Caleb Wittebane, husband,” said Mrs. Foster, already half drifting to supervise the servant girl to her duties. “He brought a gift of firewood from himself and his brother.”
“I have received a delivery of wood but a few days hence,” commented Mr. Foster, stepping forward towards Caleb. “Surely Gravesfield keeps better record of payment towards its ministers than that.”
“That we do, sir,” agreed Caleb, very glad that autumn was starting all around them, rather than the height of summer rendering him sweaty and undignified. “My brother Philip and I have little to give, but our land is wooded enough and we do know the importance of light and heat, to keep the ink from freezing as you write your sermons, sir.”
That made a little smile quirk the minister’s lips, as he nodded for Caleb to follow him, not upstairs but out a back door, where they could hear the children (Mercy and Giles, he remembered) singing some sort of little rhyme as they worked, or perhaps didn’t, the way children did. They were too young to be expected to understand such things, but solemnity would come in time.
“God ensured Caleb would live a long life, one of those Moses sent ahead, and the only one with any bravery in him,” said Mr. Foster. “He was forty when he went ahead to the Promised Land, and eighty-five when Joshua gave him Hebron.”
“He brought back grapes and pomegranates, the fruit of the land,” agreed Caleb. His namesake appeared only briefly, but he knew of Caleb’s long life and great bravery.
“And your brother, Philip?”
“‘I have been so long time with you, and hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me, hath seen my Father.’”
Mr. Foster nodded, seemingly pleased with their namesakes and their knowledge of them, before he said, “Mr. Nurse brought me to Noyes’ Inn, and if I recall, he did point out to me a Philip Wittebane. You and your brother were once in service to him, as I understand?”
“Aye, we were. My brother and I came to Gravesfield as orphans, Mr. Nurse took us in as servants.”
“Indian attack?”
“Nothing so violent. Our village was struck by illness, and our parents were among the dead. We had no family left, and I took care of my brother. I was eleven.”
Mr. Foster regarded him a little differently at that. Caleb had worked harder than he ever had in his life, at age eleven, to make certain his little brother had food and shelter. He had done all he could to hide it, too, Pip had been so very young and Caleb had been able to hide the nights he could not beg admittance to a barn or home with games of hunting witches in the forest, but when Pip was asleep, Caleb had cried, young and frightened.
When Mr. Thomas Nurse had come to New Haven, Pip had been the one who managed to get them both noticed by the visiting magistrate from Gravesfield, and where he impressed the stern man with his knowledge of Scripture (from the careworn Bible that marked all that was left of their life in Saybrook), Caleb had been the one who got the man to agree to take them on as servants.
Looking back, Caleb was both intensely proud of how well he had done for them both, and immeasurably sad for the boy he had been, who had to step up and care for his little brother while still so little himself. He hadn’t seen himself as young at the time, but now he looked at eleven year old children and wondered how he had done it.
Philip might realize the extent of it, now that they were both grown, but they never talked about those years beyond vague references to their Desert Years, like the wandering of the Israelites. Sometimes Caleb wondered if Philip remembered Saybrook or their parents at all, or if his memories began in scattered barns and woods, playing witch-hunter and doing odd jobs. He never could stomach asking.
Consideringly, Mr. Foster quoted, his voice soft, “‘For the Lord said unto them, They shall die in the wilderness: so there was not left a man of them, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.’”
At once, Caleb shook his head. “I bear no especial blessing of God. If it pleased God to see my brother and I safely to Gravesfield, then I rejoice in His works, to be among the saints here.”
“You and your brother both are church members, so I have seen.”
“It is an honor we know we are not able to repay.”
“And yet, not one other member of this church living closer than you has thought of needing light by which to pen my sermons.”
Caleb flushed to hear it – Mr. Foster clearly thought he and his brother were the sort of visible saint everyone looked for in their communities and in themselves. The sort of person who would do such a thing with no hint of thought of reward. But he and Philip had talked about it, when Philip came home from the tavern that day, of the need to have their new minister think well of them where Mr. Cheever had always seemed suspicious that two boys from elsewhere could speak of conversion where one born in Gravesfield had been deemed a witch and hanged for it. How could virtue come from without? he had pondered in the pulpit, and Caleb and Philip knew it had been towards them.
This gift was not meant to trick Mr. Foster into being more willing to think well of them, only to introduce themselves as best they could. Now Caleb feared that it had been a vile trick, even unintentionally.
“I am certain another would think to do the same,” he hastily said. “Only that my brother and I brought anything first.”
“Is your brother here, Goodman Wittebane?” asked Mr. Foster, a halfway smile pulling at one side of his broad mouth, creasing the lines of his face.
“Had he not injured his ankle chasing after our cow, he would be. In fact the only reason he did not endeavor to come with his crutch regardless was for the desire to come to service on Sunday. He is quite intent on putting your first sermon into his notebook.”
“I but merely saw him across the way, when at Noyes’ Inn. I shall make certain to meet a man who should hobble some miles to hear the Word of God.”
“I am most certain he would be grateful for such a meeting, Mr. Foster.”
“Papa!” cried a little voice, and Mercy, the little girl with her father’s hair, came running around the house, her hands and skirt dirty. “A man on a black horse is here!”
“I will take my leave, then. I know better than to place myself amid discussion of a minister and a magistrate.”
“You know it to be Mr. Nurse?” asked Mr. Foster.
“I saddled that horse myself many times, and I know it has no twin in all of Gravesfield. Unless you have expected a visitor from Hartford, I can guess who arrives on a black horse.”
Indeed it was Mr. Nurse, who had blustered himself into the parsonage in all his usual way, very certain of his position as magistrate. That certainty had been mistaken for sinful pride before, and caused Goodman Phelps to draw a faction against his nomination for minister and managed to get Mr. Foster instead. Caleb knew Mr. Nurse and his ways by now, after years of listening close to village opinion of the man and the man’s opinion of various villagers, and he knew Mr. Nurse was trying to make it apparent to all those around them that he had never opposed their minister and was instead united with him in all things.
Caleb supposed that it very well might be true, even. Perhaps now that he had met Mr. Foster, the magistrate wholeheartedly agreed, even if he opposed Goodman Phelps’ original nomination on principle. Caleb certainly liked their new minister, and duty and debt had made him advocate for Mr. Cary from New Haven instead.
Slipping out with the usual deference to his old master, Caleb found Sarah the servant girl tying the horse to the fence and little Giles Foster all but lying in wait, leaping out to catch Caleb about the leg and ask, “Where do you live? I have not seen you before!”
“That does not surprise me, my brother and I live three miles from here, and you are newly arrived,” said Caleb. He had always liked children, and was known to indulge them more than was best. Even Philip sometimes despaired of him, but held his tongue lest Caleb remind him that Caleb had been perfectly able to rear him while still a child himself.
“And you walked all that way bearing all that wood?”
“How else ought I have brought it, if I have no horse?”
“Come Giles,” sighed Sarah the servant girl. “Must you pester every visitor your father receives? I wonder at you.”
“It is no trouble,” assured Caleb with a smile. She blushed, just a little, and Caleb very much hoped she was only blushing at kindness, not at him. “I bid you good day,” he hastily added, and started off towards home.
Well, off towards Noyes’ Inn first, Caleb had taken a bit of coin with him, and the long walk back was sweetened this time not by burdens, but by the promise of sitting down with ale and whatever food Philip was able to make with limited motion. The stew bubbling in the parsonage had smelled quite fine, but he had known better than assuming Mr. Nurse would let his former servant sit down at the same table as him, church member or not.
When Caleb got home, he found Philip had made a much thinner soup than what a minister could afford, and gave him a warning glance to not ask questions until he had sat down and started eating. After all, Philip hadn’t walked six miles that morning.
When he had a bowl of soup and a hunk of bread in front of him, had poured ale for the two of them, and had agreeably bowed his head as Philip said grace, finally Caleb said, “Have at it Pip, ask your questions.”
“I am hardly a child anymore,” said his brother, somewhere between a sigh and a snap before he rallied and asked, “Did Mr. Foster accept it? Did it go well? Or does he think of us as Mr. Cheever did?”
“He does not think of us as Mr. Cheever did. Nor could he, as Mr. Cheever never trusted anyone who wasn’t born in Gravesfield, and Mr. Foster brought his family and servant from Hartford. It went quite well, I met Mrs. Foster outside, and she introduced me to him, and he was happy to talk. He has already read through the church registry, he knows we are members, and he tested me a bit on scripture, if we knew our namesakes.”
“Does he care about that?”
“Apparently. I imagine he was seeing if we had gotten education under Mr. Nurse.”
“I could read before Mr. Nurse took us on,” dismissed Philip in his usual way. “You taught me well enough.”
“Each sermon in your notebook gives me assurance of that,” agreed Caleb. Philip had ridden with Mr. Noyes to New Haven just recently, taking the opportunity to have another sheaf of paper added into it, now that Mr. Foster had come. “Our new minister gives the impression of a godly, well learned man. I told him of your ankle, and he expressed that he desires to meet you, come the Sabbath. That you would walk six miles for service struck him well.”
Philip looked pleased at that, as Caleb knew he would be, and turned back to his meal. Caleb, however, stirred his spoon within his soup, thinking a moment before he said, “Philip, I fear we oughtn’t have brought Mr. Foster that wood at all.”
“Wherefore would you think so?” asked Philip, setting down his drink. “We heard Mr. Cheever complain in the pulpit about his lack of firewood enough times, and it introduced us to our new minister better than we could manage at the meetinghouse. And more than that, you agreed when we spoke of it.”
“Aye, when we spoke of it. In practice, when he looked at me…Mr. Foster saw something in us that frightened me that we have played a vile trick on him. Do you know, I mentioned to him our days in the desert, and he quoted to me of Caleb’s survival.”
“You are not eighty five.”
“It was not age, but virtue. He spoke to me and I fear he believed us perfect visible saints.”
“Caleb, by the estimation of those like Goody Williams, we are visible saints. She has yet to experience conversion and her eldest is nearly grown.”
“I take no stock in our membership assuring us of anything at all and well you know it. When Betty died, her father mentioned to me at her funeral that he feared it was because he loved her too much, and they were both church members. I carried that wood all the way to the parsonage as a gift, but I fear that in presenting myself to Mr. Foster like that, he believes us holier than we are. We sin just as much as anyone else.”
Philip didn’t quite sigh at him, but it was all but. Had he actually sighed, Caleb would have reminded him that while they had no mother and father to honor, Philip had him to honor and obey. He rarely enforced it, but if Philip were to outright sigh at him while Caleb spoke towards the fear of pretending sainthood they had not achieved, Caleb might not bring a switch to his hands but he would do something of the ilk.
“The Elect are visible in a community through their actions, are they not?” he asked, in the manner he had learned from Mr. Nurse and his preference for using the Shorter Catechism as their main theological instruction. Philip had certainly never spoken like that before Gravesfield. “And no one can fully know the Elect until God reveals His will.”
“Philip, if you are to treat me as a child who needs to be reminded to pray…”
“I do not mean that. All I mean is that when we speak of God’s Elect, we speak of saints who are visible in their conduct and piety. None of the Elect would come up with the idea of gifting firewood to their minister and then decide not to bring it. We desired to bring wood to the parsonage, and so you did.”
“But our reasons for that desire were not blameless.”
“We cannot control what others think of us, only present ourselves so they see the good in us first. You did not hesitate when we thought of the idea.”
“Many only realize sin after it has happened. No man would have intent to sin, save the truly lost.”
“Then after supper, let us pray forgiveness,” agreed Philip, easy as anything. Whether or not he felt that their actions warranted such supplication, he was still willing to kneel with Caleb and pray. Caleb loved his brother dearly, and at times like this, he was reminded why.
When they finished eating, Philip obligingly listened when Caleb prayed for forgiveness for sins that were hidden, the sins they did not realize they were committing. And then spoke up himself to pray for wisdom enough to recognize the hidden work of the Prince of the Air and the strength to thwart him before his designs could come to pass.
They arose from prayer and Caleb was in finer spirits for it, leaving Philip to tend to the house while he, now fed and hearty once more, went to tend to the cow and her calf and perhaps cast through their kitchen garden for weeds – seeing the Foster children at their simple labors reminded him to do the same.
For better or for worse, he reflected as he stepped out to work, Mr. Foster was likely to think well of him and his brother now. And it was not a bad thing, to have someone think well of you. As for if it was been a trick he never meant to play, well, they had the rest of their lives to settle the initial error. Unless his first sermon on Sunday was an abject failure, the new minister would be around long enough to learn the virtues and vices of both Caleb and his brother, and if he thought of virtue before vice, that was not necessarily a bad thing.
He was disturbed from his thoughts by a rustling in the woods that tightly bordered their home, and Caleb stood straighter, hands tightening around his hoe. If it was a wolf, he would likely have to scream for Philip and hope his brother could somehow help him defend both their cow and their own lives. The sound was too big to be squirrels or rabbits, after all. Instead, a deer moved past, with stately horns curving upwards. Caleb had half a mind to call Philip anyway, his brother had always loved stags more than any other animal. Assured that the motion he had heard was the deer, Caleb relaxed, and let his head track the flight of a bright red cardinal to the top of the house, where it sang out its long warbling notes and chattered. He whistled back to it, in as best an approximation as he could, heartened when it seemed to sing back.
“Caleb, stop trying to speak to the birds!” called Philip from the narrow window he had opened specifically to frown at his brother. “Lest someone call it your familiar and you a witch!”
“Peace, Philip, it was only a musical fancy. A natural psalm.” Philip still frowned, his blue eyes narrowed in the same silent chastisement he had given as but a baby who disapproved of whatever he had intended to put in his mouth being taken from him. But he did step away from the window, and Caleb stopped whistling, instead returning to his labors in the garden.
But even if he did not whistle back, he did keep one ear trained on the cheerful song of the red bird atop the house, happy for the cheerful companionship and content in his labors. Prayer had eased him, God’s chorister was singing for him, what more could he ever ask for?