“Samson himself could not knock it down,” I confessed. “Samson herself.”
29
THIS DECLARATION
My mother died without ever knowing my story. She lived out her days in her sister’s home in Plympton. She did not seek to visit me, nor did she request that I visit her. She never inquired where I’d been or what I’d done after I left the Thomases, and I assumed she didn’t want to know. I assumed no one really wanted to know. Better it be left unsaid. I wrote her letters without shape or color, consisting of short, bloodless details that encompassed my whole life, and she never asked for more.
I have married General John Paterson of Lenox, Massachusetts, a widower whom I became acquainted with many years ago. He has a fine home and three daughters. I am well. —Deborah
I have given birth to a son. We have named him John Paterson after his father and his grandfather. I am well. —Deborah
I have delivered a daughter. We have named her Elizabeth. We are all well. —Deborah
She wrote back in much the same way, giving me a brief accounting of the siblings I didn’t know and townspeople I could not remember. And she always ended the letters the way I did—“I am well”—and we never discussed whether or not that was true.
Back and forth, across the miles. Across the years. Until I received a letter from her sister that was not much different from all of the other communications I’d ever sent or received. It was short and emotionless, but it ended with a slight variation.
“Your mother died Tuesday last. I doubt it will come as a shock. She has not been well.”
I sent money for her burial and a bit of extra for my aunt and uncle, and received a thank-you, a bundle of letters, and a history my mother had compiled from William Bradford’s journals. An inscription inside said, For Deborah from Mother in a wobbling hand. The letters were the ones I had written her, all bound in a ribbon, a chronicle of fifteen years. Beyond my name and careful penmanship—perfect swells and slants—there was little of me on each page. I couldn’t imagine why she’d kept them.
I tried to read the history, but each word was a wound, a chastisement, and I put it in Elizabeth’s chest at the foot of my bed, the place where she’d kept my letters. Over the years, I’d added my treasures to Elizabeth’s chest as well. My uniform was there.
The coat would not button across my breasts when I tried it on, and it smelled like horse and campfires. Beneath the stench was a hint of lather and hair grease and him, and though I slept at his side each night and carried his name, my belly clenched and my blood warmed. And I missed him.
I missed me.
The uniform breeches were like old stockings, snug in places and worn through in others, but I left them on as I donned my cap. The green plume was nothing more than a wilted weed, but if I closed my eyes and nodded my head so that it brushed my cheek, it wasn’t hard to remember.
The general’s uniform still hung in a cloth bag at the back of the wardrobe. He’d worn it a few times. When Washington was elected president in ’89 and when he went home to Mount Vernon in ’97, John went to Philadelphia for the swearing in and the send-off, but I’d refused to go with him both times. I wanted to protect him, even from myself.
I made a new pair of breeches that looked just like the ones I’d worn. It took me a few attempts to get the fit right, but once I did, I fashioned more. Then I made myself a shirt and a waistcoat too, white with plain white buttons. I bought a green plume—a dozen of them—in Lenox and a black tricorn hat and tall black boots. I dyed nine yards of woolen cloth colonial blue, and lied and said it was for a new dress. I had no reason to lie, but I wasn’t ready to talk, and for weeks I mulled and mourned and pondered and planned until one day Agrippa Hull stopped by to see the general and caught me chopping wood in my brand-new breeches.
“Bonny, good grief. What are you doing?” he asked, collapsing into the rocking chair on my back porch.
“I’m chopping wood, Agrippa.”
“Someone might see you. Think of the general!”
“Do you suppose some people might be willing to pay to see me in breeches, Grippy?” I mused.
His jaw dropped.
I realized belatedly how that might have sounded. “I would like to put on a small production. And sell tickets. I would wear my uniform and talk about the war from the female perspective. I would call it ‘Deborah Samson, the Girl Who Went to War.’ Or ‘Secret Soldier.’ Or something similar.”
He cocked his head, incredulous. “Now why would you go and do that?”