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Lilac Spring

By Ruth Axtell Morren

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PROLOGUE

Haven’s End, Maine, 1861

“You’re the new ’prentice, aren’t you?” Cherish asked the boy hunched over one of Papa’s drafting tables.

He twisted around, a startled look on his thin face, as if she’d caught him doing something wrong.

She stepped through the doorway of the boat shop and approached the table, her rag doll, Annie, swinging back and forth from one hand.

He swiped the edge of his palm against the corner of his eye, watching her silently as she neared.

“Aren’t you?”

Staring at her through disconcertingly gray eyes, he finally answered, “Yes.”

“Why’re you crying?”

“I’m not crying!”

“Yes, you are. I can tell. Your eyes are all red.” It suddenly occurred to her that maybe, being a big boy, he didn’t want to admit to crying. She never minded crying; it usually made her feel better afterwards. The only problem was it usually followed a spanking.

“Whatcha’ doin’?” she asked curiously, peering beyond him to the drafting table.

“Nothin’. Just looking.”

“That’s Papa’s model.” She stood on tiptoe at the edge of the table, eyeing the wooden half-hull sliced in sections like a loaf of bread cut lengthwise.

She dragged another stool over to the table and climbed up on it. “I waited ’til Papa was down at the yard ’fore I came over this morning. It was a long time! Then I was ’fraid Mama wouldn’t let me walk over.” She smiled. “She thinks I’m outside playing with my kitty-cat.”

The boy said nothing.

“I cried yesterday,” she told him, settling Annie on her lap. “Mama sent me to my room.”

He continued eyeing her as if deciding whether she was friend or foe. He had nice eyes, she decided. Green-tinged gray, like a choppy sea. “What did you do?” he asked.

“I pulled kitty’s tail. I was trying to tie her to my dolly’s stroller, but she wouldn’t ’bey me.”

She could see the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips and that made her glad.

“Kitty scratched me. See?” She pushed up her sleeve and showed him the bright red line running up her forearm.

“Papa never sends me to my room or spanks me. Mama says I’ll be spoiled if someone don’t spank me. Papa says I’m his little lady and should never be spanked.”

The two sat quietly for a few moments. The boy’s attention, she could see, had returned to the pieces of carved wood on the table. “Are you from far away?” she asked, shifting on the hard stool.

“Real far,” he murmured.

“Where?” she asked, finding it hard to picture anything beyond Haven’s End.

“Swan’s Island.”

“Swan’s Island,” she repeated in awe. Her mama had just read her a story about a swan the night before. She imagined a beautiful island full of snowy white swans.

“Do you have a mama and papa?” she asked when he said nothing more.

“Just a mama. Papa was lost at sea,” he added in a fierce tone, as if proud of the fact.

“That’s too bad.”

He sniffed, rubbing the back of his hand against his nose. His thick golden hair fell over his forehead as he bent over the smooth pieces of wood that fit together in descending order.

“Are you your mama’s little gent’man now your papa’s gone to Heaven?”

He scoffed. “I’m too big to be a little gentleman.”

“Are you going to be a gent’man when you grow up?” Papa said she was going to marry a gentleman when she grew up.

“Naw! I’m going to build boats.”

She smiled. “I am, too!”

He turned his head toward her. Instead of laughing at her the way Papa did whenever she told him, he looked interested, as if he were really seeing her for the first time. “You like boats?”

“I love boats!”

“Your father is going to teach me how to build boats.”

She nodded. She’d heard Papa talking about the apprentice.

He focused on the model again, running his forefinger down the sheer of the gunwale. “Some day I’m going to design them, too,” he said softly, reverently. He seemed not to be talking to her, but to himself.

“Me, too,” she replied at once, wanting to bring his attention back to her, although she wasn’t quite sure what ‘design’ meant. That was okay. If the new boy could do it, so could she.

“What’s your name?” she asked, taking a liking to him despite his aloofness. He was nice, not like those big bullies at the schoolhouse.

“Silas.”

“I’m Cherish.”

“Cherish.” He turned his gray eyes on her again. “That’s a funny name.”

“It is not!”

He grinned, revealing even white teeth against the honey-hued skin of his face. “Do people call you Cherry?”

“No! My name is Cherish ’lizabeth Winslow.”

“Cherish Elizabeth Winslow,” he repeated. “That sounds too grown-up for you. How old are you, Cherry?”

“Cherish,” she corrected and held up her fingers. “I’m five and a half.”

He nodded.

“How old are you?”

His thin chest puffed out. “I’m twelve.”

She remembered his red-rimmed eyes. He hadn’t seemed so grown up then. She looked down at her doll. “Here. You can have Annie. She’s good for wiping tears. See?” She picked up a limp rag arm and wiped her eyelid in pretend fashion. “I use her a lot.”

He frowned, forced to take the doll she’d thrust at him. Before he had a chance to do anything with it, they were interrupted by her father’s voice.

“Silas! What are you up to?”

Silas jumped down from the stool he’d been straddling. “Nothing, sir.”

“You’re not here to loaf but to learn a trade. Now, go stow your gear upstairs and report down at the yard.”

“Hello, Papa.” Cherish climbed down more slowly from the stool. “I was talking with Silas.”

Her father gave her cheek a soft pinch when she reached him. “Cherish, sweetheart, haven’t I told you more than once to stay out of Papa’s boat shop? This is a place for men.”

“I’m going to ’sign boats,” she told him, ignoring the scolding.

He chuckled, taking her by the hand and leading her toward the door. “You’re going to learn to be a lady and marry a handsome gentleman. Run on home now to Mama. Papa’ll see you at dinner.”

As he walked her to the door, she realized her other hand was empty and she remembered she’d given Annie away. She gave one last, longing look toward the drafting table, but there was no sign of her doll. She remembered Silas’ hunched back and the sight of red-rimmed eyes and she shrugged away her sense of loss. He needed Annie more than she right now.

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