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Bluebird of Brockport, A Novel of the Erie Canal (Great Lakes Romances) (Volume 16)

By Donna Winters

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Chapter 1


Brockport, New York
Friday, April 30, 1830

Lucina Willcox could hardly keep from shouting for joy. Today, she and her mama and papa and younger sister and brother would move their belongings onto their canal boat. Tomorrow, they’d start hauling freight on the Erie Canal. For the past seven years, since the age of eleven, she’d dreamed of leaving their wheat farm a few miles north of the village to go canalling. Now, her dream was about to come true!
Her heart pattered faster as their farm wagon, filled with furniture, kegs, crates, and firkins, bumped and rattled up the hill, past blooming dogwood that sweetened the balmy air, and onto the Main Street Bridge. Suddenly, she caught sight of the boat that she’d carried in her mind since their trip to town a month ago to buy it used from Mr. Brockway. It had been in dry dock then for repairs. Now, it floated in a boat basin near the bridge, glistening in the bright sun with a new coat of bluebird-tweetin’-blue paint.
From her seat on a keg in the bed of the wagon she tried to read the name painted on the boat’s stern. But her reading and writing started and stopped with her own name, and she knew it wasn’t Lucina Maria Willcox that she saw.
“Papa!” she hollered. “What’re those words on the end of our boat?”
He looked back over his shoulder, his blue eyes gleaming beneath the brim of his brown hat, a smile lifting the silver-blond mustache that drooped at the corners of his mouth. “What’ve you been calling it since your last trip here, gal?”
“Bluebird of Brockport.”
“That’s tweetin’ right, gal! Bluebird of Brockport!”
“Jumping Johnny Appleseed! You named her Bluebird of Brockport after all!” For a month, her folks had told her that the only name they’d allow on the boat’s hind end was her mama’s, Maria. Turned out they’d been joking her. Tears of joy pricked her eyes.
“Shoulda known you’d get your way,” claimed her seventeen-year-old sister, Susan.
“What do you care?” Myron, their thirteen-year-old brother, pushed back his straw hat and glared.
Susan answered him with a scowl that could have soured a pail of milk.
Lucina ignored their exchange, her gaze settling on a tall, broad-shouldered fella who almost always wore a red shirt. Ezra Lockwood. Twenty-four years old and every inch a man. Had to be him. In the seven years she’d known him, he’d seldom worn a shirt of a different color, red being his favorite. He and a crew of men pounded planks onto the frame of a boat not far from the Bluebird of Brockport. She’d thought of Ezra more than a time or two since their last encounter a month ago. At night when she’d close her eyes, there he’d be with his coffee-colored hair dipping in a wave across his forehead, his side whiskers, full and curly, hiding half his cheeks. Then she’d gaze straight into his chocolate eyes and the warmth of them would melt her heart.
The wagon lurched to a stop alongside the Bluebird of Brockport, spilling thoughts of Ezra from her mind. The task of moving was her biggest concern now. Not waiting for a hand down from the wagon bed, she climbed over crates and firkins, gathered her skirt, and jumped. Just when she was about to fall flat on her face, a strong hand caught her by the elbow and steadied her.
“You ought to take more care. A young lady could hurt herself coming off a wagon that way.”
Lucina gazed up into those chocolate eyes that a moment before had been only a memory and her pulse raced. Her heart gave a jump and a hop and her tongue tied in knots. Warmth rushed to her cheeks and she was sure they matched the brilliant red of his shirt.
With her best effort to ease into a smile and a conversation, she somehow loosened her tongue. “Thank you, Ezra, for rescuing my pride and increasing my wisdom.”
“All in a day’s work, Lucina. May I give you a hand moving onto the Bluebird of Brockport?”
All but Susan had joined them, Papa making a reply. “We can use all the help we can get, Ezra. Mighty generous of you to offer.”
Susan’s singsong voice entered the conversation from her perch aboard the wagon. “Dearest Papa, if you will help me down, I’ll carry my bag onto the boat.”
Lucina cringed at Susan’s patronizing tone, a silly air she’d put on for Ezra. She hadn’t spoken that sweet to Papa, or anyone else in the family for weeks, maybe months.
Abel, Lucina’s oldest brother who would drive the empty wagon back to the farm, stepped up to lift Susan from the bed. His muscles bulged beneath his dark green shirt as he grasped her about the waist and set her, none too gently, on the ground. When she reached for her valise, Mama spoke up.
“Afore we haul things onto the boat, I’d like to see if Ezra painted the cabin and blacked the stove to my satisfaction.” She tucked a strand of graying brown hair beneath her bonnet.
“I followed your instructions exactly,” Ezra said with a smile. “Let me show you.” He started toward the boat.
When he had stepped on deck and lowered the fall board, Lucina rushed ahead and lifted the hatch to the cabin. The smell of paint wafted up. She hurried down the ladder, followed by her mother. Blue walls, ceiling, and floor encased them, and Lucina’s heart danced at the fresh, new look of the cabin. “What do you think, Mama? Bluebird-tweetin’ blue! Ain’t it gorgeous?”
“If you like blue, this might well be paradise,” she coolly observed.
“What do you mean ‘if you like blue’? You like blue near as much as me, ain’t that a fact?”
Mama grinned, her hazel eyes dancing. “I was just teasing. You know I do.” She gave Lucina a quick hug. “In fact, I’d say this here cabin, with its blue paint and blacked stove, is fit for Governor Throop himself!”
Ezra joined them in time to hear the compliment. “I’m glad to know it meets your approval, Mrs. Willcox. We can’t have the captain’s wife unhappy.”
Lucina caught sight of a stiff paper propped on a shelf and grabbed hold of it to take a close look. It was an ink sketch of a canal boat, and though she couldn’t exactly read the name on the stern, she thought it bore a close resemblance to the letters on the Bluebird of Brockport.
“Ezra, is this here our boat?” she said, delighted.
He nodded. “I hope you like it.”
“Like don’t tell the half of it. I love it! You are one clever fella to draw such a perfect picture of this here boat.” She’d seen his drawings in years past when visiting her cousins who used to live next door to Ezra. His earlier pictures were good, but this one outdid them all. “Look, Mama! We need to tack this up where we can see it all the time!”
Mama studied the drawing and nodded. “It’ll give this cabin a real touch of class! Now that I’ve seen this place, we’d best move in.”
She turned to climb the ladder, but had to wait while Susan came down. Standing in the center of the cabin, Susan’s blue eyes darkened as she turned full circle. “I still can’t believe this is where we’re gonna live. I can touch the walls!” She extended her arms.
Mama shook her finger. “You can’t touch the walls, and I don’t want to hear a word of complaint or you’ll be sleeping on top of the cargo hold tonight.”
Susan whirled around and pointed to the sleeping cuddy. “I get the bottom bunk!”
Lucina shook her head. “Papa gets the bottom, Mama, the second one—”
Susan cut in. “—then I get the third. You can have the top!” She untied her yellow bonnet and set it on her bunk, flipping golden tresses behind her shoulder.
Reluctant to enter into a spat, Lucina changed the topic. “Mama says we’d best get on with the moving. Come, Susan, I’ll help you lug your looking glass over to the boat.” She couldn’t resist teasing her sister, even though the mirror was no bigger than the lid on a keg and no heavier than a peck of apples.
Susan gazed heavenward. “Ha, ha. You’re about as funny as a mudchunker under a colic root.”
As Lucina turned to climb the ladder, she took secret pleasure at watching Ezra attempt, without much success, to suppress a grin. He had three younger sisters of his own, close in age to her and Susan, and she’d seen him react the same way to them in years past.
For the rest of the morning, she helped her mother and sister set up the cabin while the menfolk hauled aboard crates, kegs, chests, and barrels of belongings and supplies. On a shelf near the stove, Lucina arranged Mama’s flatiron, kettle, and rolling pin. Hooks nearby held her long-handled spoon and spatula. The chamber pot found a new home underneath the bottom bunk.
After a pause for the midday meal that Mama had brought from home—sausages and cornbread smothered in maple syrup, Lucina’s favorite sharp cheese, and Susan’s tender raisin cakes—work resumed. By mid-afternoon, the remaining containers were offloaded from the wagon and set alongside the Bluebird of Brockport so Abel could start the journey back to the farm.
Ezra continued to help her father and Myron, and Lucina paused in her own work to watch him from time to time. How easily he hoisted a heavy crate to his shoulder, balancing it there until gently lowering it to the floor of the storage room. Lucina noticed the smug look on Susan’s face.
“Don’t get no fool notions about Ezra,” she warned. “You’ll never be anything more to him than the girl who played with his sisters when you visited Aunt Nancy and Uncle Wes each summer.”
“Oh, hush, Susan. How do you know what my chances are?”
“I ain’t seen him giving you no calf-eyed stare yet. And why would he? That faded blue calico dress of yours don’t exactly make you a picture of beauty. Besides—”
Mama cut into the chatter. “Susan, light the stove so we can cook dinner, please. Lucina, I could use a hand hanging this curtain.”
The familiar scent of pine smoke drifted from the stove as Lucina gladly helped with the new curtain she’d hemmed to hide the sleeping cuddy. The blue cotton matched the cabin walls, and she’d even gone so far as to embroider a bluebird in the center of it. Hanging from the rod, it looked right smart, if she didn’t pay too close attention to the bird. But the bright color of the curtain made her realize Susan was right. Her dress had faded. Had Ezra noticed? Would he even care? She pushed the questions aside.

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