“I ain’t smart in the other ways,” Sally said. “Can’t sign my name. Can’t read, though I reckon you can.”
“Yes,” said Molly. “I can read.”
“That might come in handy. But this here is going to be all right for us, so don’t fret. I saw some berry bushes outside so come summer we’ll have fruit and there are rose hips for tea and jelly. But right now, we need to see about getting us some tea and cornmeal and such. That Johnny-boy brought nothing with him. We might want to buy a chicken or two, soon as we suck off a few more gents, eh, my dear? I could eat an egg right now, if there was one to hand.”
Molly burst out laughing, and Sally smiled her sunniest, pleased to have lightened her friend’s mood. They walked arm in arm to Easter, whose guilt was still fresh enough to give them three baby chicks as a gift.
By the time the chicks were laying eggs of their own, there was a regular pattern to their lives in Dogtown.
Stanwood would bring two or three sailors on Saturday
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nights, sometimes Friday and mid-week too, depending on the dockings and which day the quartermaster paid out. He was an excellent salesman, sidling up to men in the taverns and whispering, “I’ve got some mouth whores up there in Dogtown. Suckstresses. You ain’t lived till you tried it.
“Worth a walk in the woods, I can tell you. And no risk of the pox,” he winked. He’d get the gobs so worked up, some of them would race ahead of him, half-cocked and unbuttoned when they walked in the door.
Most were far too drunk to notice the misery of the place until they came to the morning after. One sailor opened his eyes and declared it the saddest excuse for a whorehouse he’d ever seen, and swore it was enough to put a man off harlots for good. No one stayed for long.
The house was stark as a jail. Stanwood had scavenged a wormy table and a bench with wobbling leg
s, just so he’d have somewhere to bend his elbow. Molly filled a few of the chinks with mud, but there wasn’t much clay to it, so the stuff crumbled onto the floor. The chickens roamed in and out as they liked.
There were eggs most days, and corn mush and game, which some of the local boys offered instead of money. Sally did the gutting and plucking but wouldn’t cook. With only one pot in the place, Molly boiled everything to a tasteless mess. They rinsed their shifts once in a while, letting them dry in the sun while they waited, naked, under dirt-stiffened dresses. There wasn’t a speck of beauty in their lives, and Molly tried not to think about what would happen to them come winter.
But Mrs. Stanley moved in before the first snow, and everything changed.
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Stanwood saw her on her first day in Gloucester, sitting in a tavern where her alabaster throat and corn-silk hair seemed to light up the dim room. When she fixed her eyes on him and smiled, he was a goner. He brought her to the cabin with three crates filled with clothes, bedding, and china.
“These are the girls I told you about,” said Stanwood.
“The dark one is Molly?”
Molly stared at the deep-bosomed woman, wearing kid gloves and a silk skirt.
“Who the hell are you?” said Sally.
Stanwood slapped her face so fast, she barely knew what had happened. “You never talk to Mrs. Stanley like that.”
Mrs. Stanley watched this exchange without comment, and then walked the four steps up and down the front room.
Her lips tightened. “The chickens go outside,” she said.
“Build a pen, or a coop, or whatever you like. I will not live in a barn.”
She turned to the back room. “I’ll be wanting a real door there,” and pointed to the blanket tacked over the empty frame. “You’ll be wanting a door, too, if you want to see any more of me.”
Stanwood scowled but knew he’d do anything she