Leave a comment for the author I was a starry-eyed young lass, but I was no fainting maid. I'd been schooled well in how to handle men by my father and a fencing teacher he hired. It must have been my Irish blood, but I developed young and that plus my red hair seemed to gather the young men's attention. The first man I ever put to the floor, I was thirteen. Andrew went to church with me, and he had been pulling my pigtails for a while. At last, the week after my mother was buried, I tired of it. Outside of the church I turned. "My plaits are not yours to grab at, Andrew Stuart, and I'll thank you to leave them be. Andrew snickered a little; he was sixteen, and thought he had nothing to fear from a little girl like me. "Make me." So I did. I'd been taught a little Indian wrestling by the stableboys on the farm. My maid put a stop to that when she saw the boys paying a little more attention to my developing body than they should have. I must have caught Andrew by surprise when I seized his left arm and, in a practiced move, kicked his legs out from under him. I had him flipped onto his stomach eating dirt by the time he opened his mouth to scream. Oh, he bellowed! And my papa came running, half aghast and half amused to see me sitting on the back of a boy twice my size grinding his face into the dirt. "Annie, Annie, what am I to do with you?" he half-lamented, grinning. "Come, up from the dirt, my lass." A small crowd had already gathered, other boys Andrew's age jeering at him and at me. I stood, ladylike, and brushed the stray dust off my dress. I'd hardly any dirt on me, for I hated brushing my clothes out, and my maid would have required me to clean that myself for sure. Pa stuck a hand down to help Andrew up, and gave him a handkerchief to wipe his runny nose and dirty face. He had a lovely cut on his forehead where he'd hit a rock on the way down. "That's a nasty gash you've got there, lad. Why don't you go in to Bess and ask her to take care of that, and this little incident will remain our secret." Andrew sniffled and limped away, and I smiled at Papa. "He was pulling my braids, and I got tired of it." "Lads do that to girls they like." The crowd started drifting away, most of the lads following Andrew over to Bess's house. "Well, it's annoying." "Mph." Papa looked me up and down, and the next day I started fencing lessons, learning to fight without rolling in the dirt. I proved so adept that he had to hire a French master from Charleston to come out and teach me - I couldn't take classes with the boys, of course, but I practiced with the master and with Papa, and later with some of the master's best students, for he called me a unique challenge. That bit of training set me far above most of the pirates and tars I have been around since, and many have been glad of the few things I could teach them. * * * We arrived in New Providence in choppy waters. I was dismayed when I looked around. I was used to the bustling harbors of Charleston, with the clean wide streets just beyond the docks and the whitewashed houses of the landowners not too far back, set on red brick streets that were well-traveled by horses drawing carts or carriages, ladies with parasols and bright-colored dresses lining the raised sidewalks. New Providence was a frontier town. The only ladies in finery were doxies, who were wearing the most interesting clothing down on the piers; I think a couple of them were men looking fine in a lady's dress. Later, I found this to be commonplace, but coming into port it was quite shocking to me. There were some sick and lame horses drawing wagons, but most of the portage was done by strong men of every color, stripped to the waist in the sultry tropical air. The port area had carved only a small patch out of the jungle, and birds of every color screamed from the trees that grew up to shade the distant streets. A soft wind blew off the ocean, shivering the trees and me. James was behind me, his arm around my waist, and I leaned back against him, enjoying the familiar sharp smells of fish and molasses that perfumed the air. "This is home, then." |
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