My unaccustomed knapsack and the truck with which I was hung weighed heavily on me; and the others, I suspected, were in no better case, for there began to be complaints among them concerning their dryness: hoarse suggestions as to the quality of toddy to be had at Pike’s Tavern and the large size of the beer mugs at Storer’s Tavern.

Nason turned and eyed them coldly. “There’ll be no lally-gagging for liquor till we reach Littlefield’s Ordinary,” he announced. “The sooner you get there, the sooner you’ll get it, and the sooner we’ll get started on the road to St. John’s.”

In the moment the last words fell from his lips I had a picture in my mind of how Marie de Sabrevois had stood with Nathaniel before our London lodgings, her hand resting on his sleeve and her blue eyes raised to his, telling him that some day she might be in St. John’s. I looked over at him quickly: caught his furtive glance across my mother’s head; and then I remembered another thing. It was immediately after Cap Huff had spoken of going to Canada by way of the Winooski River and St. John’s that Nathaniel had agreed to go to the war with me. I called myself a fool to have such thoughts—such petty and ungenerous thoughts; but still they buzzed within my brain like the flies that followed us to light again and again and yet again on nose or cheek or neck.

The post-rider came up behind us, clopping westward for Portsmouth, his saddlebags and elbows a-flop as though he aimed in time to rise and fly. He made what he conceived to be an Indian whooping, howling dolefully and breaking the howls by slapping a hand briskly against his open mouth. “Ice was late going out of the lakes,” he shouted. “Six regiments got through to St. John’s a week ago!”

He flopped onward, leaving me agape at his mention of St. John’s at the very moment when the name of that distant town had come to fill my wandering mind with odd fancies about my brother.

When we passed the first log huts of Wells, the talkativeness came back to the women who walked beside us. My sisters gabbled to Tom Bickford. My mother reminded us of this and that: to air our blankets, lest the moisture cling in them and chill us into sleeplessness at night: to keep our feet dry: to read the Bible regularly and give thanks to Providence for all blessings: to drop wild cherries in our canteens against the flux.