Day 29 – Wednesday, October 1st, 2014
I’d awoken from a nightmare of lost child, of a little blue hand
that broke when I’d picked it up. It was
set in the day of touch-tone phones. In
the dream, I was over-heated with anxiety.
I was happy to get out of that dream and be sung to by Dean from across
the screen tent.
Within the tent, I dressed quickly: bathing suit, rain pants
and rain coat. Ate eggs and toast under
the orange, nylon tarp. Unusually I was
ready first. We only have 8 more miles
to go before we reach Historic Deerfield.
It took an hour of driving to get to our starting point.
Dean took a photo of Pauline and I at starting point as per usual.
And off we went while Dean moved the car up. He would move the car up 4 km. unless he
first found the road leading to Eunice Williams’ tombstone. The usual sounds this morning, insects, boots
& walking stick in contact with asphalt, and the added swish of our rain
pants and raincoats.
Dean was back not long into the walk. He’d driven 600 meters and found the off-road
leading to the tombstone. It was 300 meters
in (and out), so I decided we’d walk it.
As we turned off the bi-way, I felt it: the emotion of going to see this
place. Mehitable, Abigail’s mother, had
been killed the fourth day into the march.
Back, but while we were in Bellows Falls, I did not even
think of it. The grey stone was close to
the river on an embankment. It was dated
1884 and told us that Eunice had been killed on March 1, 1704, therefore on the
first day of the march. Those who put up
the stone had had it engraved with words written by her husband, the Reverend
Williams whose book continues to be published to this day.
·
There is also another unrelated marker to the left of the
stone: this brass marker lists the many workers who reconstructed the covered
bridge in 1972.The covered bridge was actually being worked on, on the land next to another sign about Eunice. We spoke with the 3 construction workers there and I shook hands with them. Jason was the most talkative one.
All 3 Vermonters were friendly. We found out that a kid had burned down the covered bridge in 1972. This time, it was simply maintenance. The town of Greenfield was paying for the work. Only 5 workers were needed in this day and age, with lots of technology. I also noted that Jason spit out something brown. Chewing tobacco? Yes. Grizzly? Pauline had noticed and recognized chewing tobacco cans along the road. I told him I’d even photographed some. When Antonio the engineer came along, we got him to take a photo of the three of us together, this being only the second one of Dean, Pauline and I.
Before we left, I walked down to the river bank. I didn’t have my rubber boots with me. The river was rocky so I walked carefully to
be amid the river. The 1704 group had
walked along Deerfield River first. I
chose a small rock: it was black with small blood-like reddish-brown marks. I
placed it in my rainjacket pocket and zipped it for safe keeping.
We walked back the 300 metres and set off again. The only unusual thing for me was that I did
not take any breaks when we got to the car.
I was energized by the end in sight and the wetness of the day. When we
got to Greenfield’s Main Street, I decide to ask to use the washroom at a nail
salon. It was run by American citizens
of Asian descendance. There was a row of
foot-bath chairs like so many treadmills.
The attendants wore surgical masks while doing foot and nail care. One client sat with her child in her lap
while on one of the foot-bath chairs. I
saw small children that must have been the children. Once in the back, I looked
for the toilet door. One door said Magic
Child. How intriguing! I refrained from turning the door knob.
When I came out on the street again, Pauline was nowhere to
be seen. I knew that we were looking for
a "xxx Court" where we would turn left.
Pauline had the directions. (Dean was the one who planned out the route
and made changes as we went along, whenever we heard of a trail or better
route. Pauline read the map each
morning. At one point, I worried that I
wasn’t more involved in figuring our route.
I did assist in interpreting what was on Pauline’s paper, as in the
previous day’s walk. When I thought of
3-year old Abigail, who was likely carried along, I realized there was no need
for me to worry about the map and the route.)
I heard Pauline call out my name from behind me. She was behind the door of The Magic Child, a
toy store. Pauline had finally found
something to her liking to put all the change she’d been collecting along the
road. (The most recent find had been the day before, where she pried two dimes
out of the rubberized material used to repairs cracks in the asphalt.)
As Pauline made her purchase, the woman asked my
friend if she was local. So I told her
of our walk. She shared that Deerfield
had had plays about the raid. The
audience played parts. One play they
would be the captives. Another night the
audience would play the part of the natives going through the woods.
Pauline found the Court Square where we had to turn: we only
knew by the sign. Walked downhill and
under an underpass. We hesitated: which way were we to turn? There was no “Old
Main Street” was to be seen. A woman
with a broken umbrella made a psst sound. I turned and asked her. She walked
with us explaining how to get to Greenfield.
She would have liked to take us there by car. She would have liked to give me her book
about the boy who was taken to Canada and buy herself another copy but she
wasn’t sure where she had it. I said I would look for it when we got to the
Deerfield Bookstore. As a newspaper reporter approached us, she dropped back
and was gone. Were we in front of her
house?
And a minute later, Dean was with us. The reporter had had a
call from the saleswoman at The Magic Child.
He had another interview to conduct but he took a few notes, including
how to contact us, and he took a photo of the 3 of us.
RAVioli was parked in Historic Deerfield. The three of us
continued to walk. We came to a bridge over
a river. There was a sign about
Deerfield announcing it was incorporated in 1673. It had been a frontier town back in 1704.
Pauline was ahead again at that point.
When we saw the sign for Historic Deerfield, Pauline asked
me to take her photo with her ipad.
I had let Dean take my iphone to the car for fear it would
get too wet within the zipped pocket of my rainjacket. Dean had a camera and he took a photo. We were now on route 5. The traffic was
moving fast. My right foot hurt. I was getting keen on arriving.
Finally we came to Old Main Street. I had no patience to wait. Without hesitation, I stuck out my walking
stick. The traffic stopped first from my left and then on the right. We crossed.
We walked a ways before arriving at the street lined with
historic houses. I did not notice that
the RAVioli was parked there. Passed
couples of people walking casually with umbrellas open. There were markers indicating who had lived
there back in 1704. No Nims house to be
found. At one point we came to the
Museum. I told the attendant behind the
counter that we had just walked in from Montreal and that I was a direct
descendant of Abigail Nims. So he got
out a map circled where the Nims house was.
He said that they did not own that home; it was privately owned. It was painted yellow. Then he circled
another museum where Sally, a direct Nims descendant worked. He said she would be able to show me the
stone where a house had been hidden in the snow on that fateful day. I knew he was referring to the Munn’s,
Abigail’s sister and her brother-in-law, who lived in a “temporary shelter” and
who was saved because their house was not seen.
I walked down the sidewalk with determination. I saw the yellow house whose walls were not
perpendicular to the ground. This was the house that John, Abigail’s brother
rebuilt in 1710 in place of their home that had been burned February 29, 1704.
This was where the walk would end officially.
I might not be able to go inside the house but I was going to go up the
walkway and sit on the step in front of the house.
The rainiest day of our walk seemed suitable as I completed
my art performance, my “life performance” (Deborah at Earthstar Pottery) of Abigail Nims who was
twice baptized.
