Parsley Sage, Rosemary and Time by Jane Louise Curry

Author:Jane Louise Curry [Curry, Jane Louise]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: KMWillis
Published: 2014-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

Too Late

“ME? ACCUSED FOR A WITCH? Oh, dear! Oh dear, oh dear! And to think my Goodman warned me to be wary of the parson, and I paid no heed.”

Goody Cake­bread and the wheeled cart she used for collecting fire­wood had been fetched by Baba who had run on ahead. Wim bounced along in the cart behind Baba and the old lady, howling in pro­test at every bump. Rosemary, exhausted from carrying him so far, stumbled behind.

“Hush, hush, child,” warned the old lady. She took up her cart rope again. “If ’twere heard, any­one would say your cater­wauling comes of my sticking you with pins. Do hush!”

Wim did hush--so abruptly that Baba snapped, “She didn’t say she would stick you with pin, you baby. Only that you sounded like it.”

Rosemary’s voice was still a wheeze, but she managed to ask, “Why do they call you ‘Goody’ if they think you’re so dreadful?”

The old lady looked more stricken than before. “It means only ‘Goodwife,’ being not so polite as ‘Mistress.’ Where can you be from that you do not know that? No, no. Best not tell me. I fear to know.”

When they reached the path to Goody Cake­bread’s house, the narrow cart bumped so wildly that Wim was set down to walk. The old lady led the way, and when she came to the two great elm trees, she followed the well-worn path around the left-hand one instead of the fainter path that led directly between the two. Rosemary dimly noticed the detour, but thought it no odder than anything else. There were more impor­tant things to think of.

Like getting back to Wychwood, late for dinner or not.

And explaining Baba and Wim when she got there.

Goody Cakebread pushed open her low door and stepped down into a dim, low-beamed room warmed by a tiny fire in a wide stone fire­place. Rosemary saw why the little house had looked so oddly squatty: it was little more than a cellar with a roof on. In the corner nearest the fire­place, a low bed with a puffy mattress stood with a battered leather trunk at its foot. There was a table with some covered dishes, a rocker, an old carved oak “press” cup­board with two doors above and two below, and that was all—except for the pots and herbs hanging from the beams and a few odd dishes and cups on the mantel.

“Oliver? Oliver! Dear me, that cat’s off again.” Goody Cake­bread hurried to the trunk and began to root in it.

“Where are you going to go?” asked Rosemary.

“Up to the Saco Valley to my friends the Soko-kis,” the old lady answered. She stuffed a night­gown, warm hose, and three woolen petticoats into a pillow case.

“The So-kokeys? Who are they?”

“Indians, of course. The Sokokis aren’t fair-weather friends, like some.” She sniffed. “When my dear Miller Cake­bread was alive and we lived in a wide house by the mill, Bennick­port was glad enough of us. But be a widow and poor, with a son run off to sea .

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