“Will he die?” The mild serving girl was shocked by the idea, despite her wish to be rid of her abuser. In her experience, punishment came with every attempt at freedom.

“He’ll only disappear.” When the girl continued to appear nervous, Faith added, “To Rhode Island or Connecticut, not to hell, just far enough away not to bother you.”

Faith and Keeper were given two heaping bowls of stew, and by the time they left, the serving girl had managed to unearth the address of the magistrate’s house, south of the courthouse on Washington Street. Faith’s breath came hard as she walked through town. The streets were slippery and the roofs of the houses looked slate-blue in the dusk.

She saw the elm trees before long, the leaves unfurling, the black bark slick and wet with melting ice. The temperature had risen, and the ice storm was all but forgotten. Now that she had returned, Faith remembered the banks of white phlox in bloom and the boy she had waved to and the shock on her mother’s face when she saw him. She felt her heart beat faster as she approached the door. Her heart had been beating just as fast on the day they ran away from the little boy in the garden and the woman who was calling out to him.

Keeper went off toward the woods where he could go unnoticed, for he certainly would not be welcome here. Faith, however, was just what Ruth Gardner Hathorne had been looking for. There was a hired woman who came to help with the laundry and another to cook on the Sabbath, but the household work was never done. When Ruth opened the door to find a lovely girl in need of work, one who declared herself an orphan, but solemnly promised that she could cook and bake and clean as well as anyone, and had no aversion to using strong lye and washing sheets in the large kettle set over a fire pit in the yard, Ruth Hathorne thanked the Lord for this day and for His wisdom. Caring for six children had worn her down. This girl with nowhere to go was a godsend.

“You must be freezing,” Ruth said, as she drew the girl inside. “Snow in April means a hot summer to come.”