We practiced our letters, did our figures, and made a study of the maps in our possession. It was not a Yale education, but I didn’t do too badly, and I had only to level my “fearsome” gaze on the children and they did as they were instructed, for the most part.
I had inherited all Reverend Conant’s books, and I was generous with them, but the children—I was glad to see almost as many girls as boys—weren’t ready for Shakespeare. I told them the stories instead, reading sections and adding my own narrative.
We had arm wrestles and footraces at recess, and I did not let any of them best me. It was not dignified, but the boys were quite impressed and the little girls delighted.
I dedicated a small portion of our time each day to learning sundry things: tying knots and learning stitches and identifying the local flora and fauna. An education was about more than reading and arithmetic. It was about wonder too, and becoming able and useful people.
I told the children they need not enjoy or be good at everything, though I felt a right hypocrite, given that I had always demanded excellence from myself in all things. There were no lessons or assignments tailored to just the boys or only the girls. All my instruction was for every child, and surprisingly, there was very little resistance, even from the parents.
Perhaps they had low expectations of the female schoolteacher. Perhaps they knew it was only temporary, and when the war ended and life “returned to normal” I would be gone. But “normal” changed, and though I was the first female schoolteacher in Middleborough, I doubted I would be the last. It only took one person to climb a mountain or reach a summit before others followed and sought new heights.
To Elizabeth I wrote:
I am finally attending school, a place so long denied me, and I am ecstatic. It is only in the winter months for a few hours a day, and I am still able to do my weaving and assist the Thomases in the evenings and in the early mornings before school starts.
Jeremiah is the oldest of my students, and it is a joy to have him there, grinning at me from the back row. I don’t know how long he’ll attend. He is aching to join the fight, and I have no doubt that when he is of age, he will go as all the others have done, though I am praying he doesn’t. I will miss him too much.
Teaching has helped to ease my restlessness and given me purpose. I am striving to be a Proverbs 31 woman, as you are, but Romans 12:2 is more to my liking: “And be not conformed to this world: but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
I fear I will be conformed to my very small world forever, but perhaps the boundaries are not as rigid or unforgiving as I once believed. It will not come as a surprise to you that I am enjoying pushing up against them.
I think of you every day, my friend, and pray for you, your daughters, and your beloved John. You must write and reassure me that you are well.
—Deborah
The summer of 1780 brought longer days and a journey to Plympton to see my mother for the first time in the decade since I’d left. She’d sent for me, begging me to come to her, and Deacon and Mrs. Thomas accompanied me there before continuing on to Boston to see the deacon’s brother, whom they’d not seen since before the siege had gutted the town in the early days of the war.
My mother was not greatly changed, though the brown of her hair was woven with sprigs of gray and the ruts between her eyes and around her lips were more pronounced. She took my hands and peered up into my face, perhaps searching for the girl I’d been.
“You are so tall,” she worried, the grooves deepening with her frown. It was not how I had imagined her greeting me after so long.
“Y-yes.”
“I don’t know if Mr. Crewe will approve.”
“Mr. Crewe?”
“Our neighbor to the north. I have told him all about you. He is quite well off, and he’s looking for a wife, Deborah.”
“Is that . . . why you told me to come?” I asked.
“Yes. It is an opportunity for you. You are released from your bond, and you are twenty years old. You must marry.”
She thought she was helping me. I could see it in her eyes and feel it in her eager touch. The knowledge helped me maintain my composure even as my stomach clenched with disappointment and dread.
My aunt greeted me kindly, her husband too, but they left us to visit at the small table set with a bit of butter and bread and sliced tomatoes from the garden. We ate in silence, strangers to each other, and she eventually returned to the subject of Mr. Crewe.
“You say you have told him all about me. What did you tell him?” I asked, lifting my eyes from my supper.