With careful stitches, I hemmed the newly cut edges and restrung each section with a piece of the long tie. Now I had two cinchers, each about six inches long, one to wear, and one to spare. If it didn’t work, maybe I could sew the pieces back together and reinsert the boning.
I stepped into the halved corset and wriggled it up so it circled me beneath my armpits. Then I pulled the laces good and tight, and my breasts flattened obediently against my chest. It almost felt . . . good.
What an odd feeling to be bound on top and free at my middle! I knotted the ties, tucked the ends beneath the band, and bounced on my toes, watching my reflection and marveling at the lack of movement. I raised my arms, danced a little jig, and almost laughed out loud. It felt right.
With the shirt on, it was even more impressive. The swell was not any different from that of a man with a bit of muscle on his chest. My shoulders weren’t broad, but they weren’t narrow either. I’d developed enough strength in my back to create a tapering from my shoulders to my ribs, and my hips were narrow in the breeches I secured around my waist.
“My bottom is a bit too round,” I worried, palming my backside. I thought about cinching it too, and how I might accomplish such a thing, then dismissed the idea. Most young men had no idea what a woman’s bottom looked like beneath her skirts, and they certainly had no idea how one looked in breeches. I giggled, the sound high-pitched and nervous, almost a keening, and I immediately swallowed the bubble of mirth. Laughing was out. Crying too.
I was going to see the local muster man. If I was successful, I would return before morning and finish the last two weeks of school while I awaited my reporting day—I knew by now how it was done—and no one would be the wiser.
I went to town without a word or a note to the Thomases. They wouldn’t worry. Mrs. Thomas knew I was grieving. If she noticed me gone at all, she would think I’d taken a walk in the woods or climbed to the top of my hill, as was my habit.
I’d added Reverend Conant’s vest and coat to my ensemble, along with the deacon’s Sunday hat. I would buy my own when I got into town and return his to the hook by the door. My shoes were Reverend Conant’s too, and they needed new buckles to cinch them up tight—I had a narrow foot—but they too would do until I got into town. A soldier needed good shoes.
I walked past the tavern and onto the green, past the First Congregational Church, strolling along with legs unhampered, arms swinging at my sides. No one stared. Wagons rolled past. I did not wave. I was a stranger, I told myself, and I did not shrink or pick up my stride.
Master Israel Wood, the muster man who had enlisted every one of the Thomas sons, looked directly into my face and saw me not at all. Did a skirt wield that much power? Or were a pair of breeches so convincing a disguise? I could not believe it. Yet no one studied me with any interest.
I signed the enlistment rolls with the name Elias Paterson, a name I’d settled on during my walk into town, and was given sixty pounds, which I didn’t stop to count. Instead, I purchased a pair of shoes and a hat with a green cockade, and stared at myself in the glass. I looked like a dandy, but I didn’t look like a woman.
No one even questioned me. They looked me square in the eyes and no recognition flickered. I might have laughed if I wasn’t so stunned. I had not altered my face. I’d simply changed my hair and donned a hat and the clothes of a man. Yet no one saw Deborah. No one saw a woman.
I marched into Sproat’s Tavern and sat myself upon a stool, not looking to the right or left. I reminded myself to lounge with my knees wide and my elbows on the bar, as though I had much on my mind and something substantial between my legs.
I’d spent months in the backroom of the tavern with my loom producing bolts of cloth for the army with donations from the townspeople. I had never sat at the bar and I had never had a drink, but if I could pass the test here, I could pass it anywhere.
“What’ll you have, young man?”
Sproat didn’t even turn around, and I grunted out, “Rum, please,” without squeaking. I didn’t think I liked rum. But I didn’t know, and whether I liked it or not, I was going to down it like a man, a free man, a solitary man, and then ask for another. I drank them both, suppressing the body-length shudder that they induced, and asked for one more.
“So you’re off with the others?” Sproat asked. “Maybe you’ll see my son, Ebenezer. He’s with the Fourth. They’ve made him a colonel.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and belched just like Jeremiah taught me. I set my hat on the bar, growing ever more confident, and ran my hands over my tidy queue.