Hogarth II Read online

  Hogarth II

  Vicky Saari

  iUniverse, Inc.

  Bloomington

  Hogarth II

  Copyright © 2012 by Vicky Saari

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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  ISBN: 978-1-4759-2409-1 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-4759-2410-7 (e)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012908144

  iUniverse rev. date: 06/14/2012

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Acknowledgments

  As with any work, the author does not work completely alone. This work is no less beholden to its initial readers: Ashley Mills, Sandra Denniston, Will Fisher, Lori Barnes, and Kayla Snyder. Their input has been invaluable in preparing the final manuscript.

  Many thanks are also due to Donna and George East, who kindly allowed me to use their log cabin for the front cover, and to Ray Koch, who did the photography on both the front and back covers.

  Enjoy.

  Prologue

  Hogarth was bored. Ice hung from his eaves. Snow had drifted up to his windowsills. Wind whistled around, him, and even the birds had flown south. The only sign of life he had seen in days had been a fox chasing a rabbit across the field. Not even blue skies and sunshine could cheer him up. Trouble was, he missed his family.

  “Hrumph,” he grumbled to himself. “I’m just a summer house!” With that thought, his memories drifted back to the days when he was a full-time home. Days of Caleb and Jessie and the people of Sethsburg who had once made him an important part of their lives.

  Chapter 1

  Jessie Hogarth was bent over her workbench sealing the last jar of ointment that she was making for the apothecary shop in the village. As she settled the earthen jar in the wooden box with the others, she arched her back and rolled her shoulders. Caleb or Jed would take them into the village on their next trip. For fifteen years, she had supplied the village apothecary shop with hundreds of herbs, roots and potions, which were often sent east to Philadelphia to be used for medicines by eastern doctors. She was becoming tired of the business and was hoping that her daughter might begin to carry it on.

  Jessie had learned her trade from her mother and grandmother long before she settled in Indiana. Since coming west, she had used her healing powers to help many, including broken bones, accidental injuries, and illness. She had delivered babies, including her own grandchildren. But she considered herself lucky that in her fiftieth year, she had never been seriously challenged as others had by outbreaks of epidemics or truly serious illnesses. Indeed, she had only lost one patient, and that was her young neighbor, Brad Parson. He and his young wife had settled next to their homestead during their first summer in the Indiana Territory in 1816. He was clearing brush on his land and found himself trapped in a nest of copperhead snakes. She couldn’t count the number of bites she found on him, but by the time she got to him, it was too late. Nothing could have saved him. He left behind Sarah and a newborn son, little Brad, whom she had delivered only a few weeks before. Jessie worked hard to shake this memory.

  She turned back to her workbench and began sorting and organizing the seeds she would need to plant in the next week. It was garden time, and she would have little time to think about much else once the work began. She already had planted a few of her early vegetables, including her peas, which were just beginning to sprout. The rest would be done as soon as Caleb turned over the big part of her garden. But right now he was more concerned with getting his corn field planted.

  “Ma, Jed’s pigs are in the garden again,” a breathless voice called from the kitchen door, then disappeared.

  Jessie rose and picked up the bucket she kept by the door to dispose of her kitchen refuse. She followed her daughter’s voice to her newly planted garden and found one of the fence posts lying on the ground. Her peas, lettuce, onions, and radishes were just peeking out, and all she needed was to have her son’s pigs tearing them up. “Someday I’m gonna wring your brother’s neck for all the trouble his pigs keep causin’,” she lamented. The pigs were Jed’s, but her younger son, Zeke, had brought the first pigs to the farm six years ago. That was shortly before Jed and Sarah were married, and they ended up being a kind of wedding present. She tapped the side of the slop bucket with a wooden spoon to get the pigs’ attention and turned toward the path, leading the pigs back to Jed and Sarah’s place and leaving her daughter to mend the fence around the garden.

  “They may chase off snakes, but they sure make a mess of the garden and your pa’s cornfield,” she grumbled as she began the climb up the hill. Jed had built a pole fence for them, but they were too smart to be kept penned up for long. If they didn’t dig under the fence, the little ones tried to climb over it. She just wished they’d stay put. Still, it was some comfort to have them around, and since they came, not only did they kill snakes, but they also brought variety to everyone’s diets. So too had the cattle and sheep; all of them Jed had bought with his road money—when he finally got it. In the years since, their herds had grown and were almost as much trouble as the deer and occasional bear had been.

  *****

  Hogarth remembered the incident quite well. He winced at the memory of all Jed’s trials and tribulations. The summer after Brad Parson died, Jed took on a job for the state building a five-mile section of road along their property. He completed the road in 1823, but it was not until 1826 that the state had enough money to h
onor its contract and pay him for his work. Once Jed had made good on his debts, he married the widow Parson and began investing in livestock in addition to the pigs. His younger brother, Zeke, had earned the pigs as pay for a blacksmithing job he did while serving as an apprentice in the old village. Mindful of how Sarah’s husband had died, he had made a special trip home to deliver the piglets.

  *****

  “Jessie!” Caleb called as he came into the house from the field. “Jessie!” he called again, to no avail. The house was empty.

  “Ma’s gone over to Jed’s,” young Jessie cried from the garden, where she was struggling with a rock and a shovel to reset a fence post.

  “Jed’s hogs, again?” He knew the minute the words were out that he shouldn’t have said it. His daughter cast him a dirty look, and he hurriedly turned in the direction of the path to Jed’s house.

  Little Jessie had just finished tamping dirt down around the fence post and was rolling a big rock into place to try and support it when she heard her name being called. “Oh Brad!” She felt like she had just been caught in some kind of indecent act when she glanced down at the dirt on her dress and knew her face had to be mud streaked. She ran into the kitchen and poured a dipper of water into the basin and began wiping her face clean. She then ran to her mother’s room, grabbed her comb to rake through her hair, and quickly dusted off her dress. Brad was waiting for her at the back door.

  “Oh hi, Brad,” she said coyly. “What’s up?”

  “Grandma said to tell you to get the kettle of stew she left cooking and bring it over. You’re all eating dinner at our house,” he said matter-of-fact-like. In response, young Jessie took a kitchen towel and reached into the fireplace to remove the kettle from the spit. Brad took a second towel and grabbed hold of the other side of the bail, and the two set off slowly up the hill.

  *****

  Hogarth chuckled at his memory of the two sixteen-year-olds as they disappeared into the forest. Both had been born in the old cabin that once sat down the hill toward the creek. It was no longer there. It had been destroyed by a tornado many years before. But he still missed it, for much had happened there that had much bearing on his current train of thought.

  Beginning early in the summer of 1832 with the unexpected arrival of Morgan Hodges, brother of neighbor Seth Hodges and father of Priscilla Parson, a series of unrelated events were put into play that threatened the lives and livelihood of the entire community. Priscilla’s husband, Jacob, had built Hogarth’s stone tower, for which Caleb had repaid him with a couple acres of land along Jed’s road. It was there that their neighbors had built them a store building with living quarters attached in the rear. As Hogarth pondered those events, he realized that much of what he knew had not come of his own witness but had been the result of the stories that had been told and retold over the years by one generation to the next.

  Chapter 2

  While Jessie and Caleb entertained themselves with their grandchildren, Hogarth’s thoughts wandered toward what had once been the Hodges’ homestead. His memories of Seth and Martha Hodges always brought a smile to his hearth. The last thing anyone might have expected of those two was that they should become a pioneer family. Both had come from lives of privilege in Louisville; but with the support and guidance of Caleb and Jessie Hogarth, they had carved a comfortable life for themselves and their family in the wilderness. He remembered their story in this way:

  *****

  Martha Hodges had spent the entire day in her weaving room, which Seth had hired Caleb to build. By the time the light was too weak to keep on working it was too late to cook a big dinner. Fortunately, she had plenty of leftovers in the springhouse. So she hurriedly picked up the iron kettle she had stored there and ran into the house to set it on her ten-plate iron cook stove. She then began setting the table.

  While Martha worked in the house, Seth unhitched his team and led them to their stalls, where he brushed them down and forked hay into their feedbox. He brushed fresh hay from his trousers and rested a moment against the fence. At the end of each day it had become his habit, a ritual, if you will, to rest beside his barn and simply admire his homestead. In the distance he could hear his cattle lowing as they wandered from the meadow across the creek down to the water, where they would stand for hours cooling off in the heat. Ten years ago, he and Hiram had just begun to clear the field. Now his herd had grown to almost twenty head, not counting the ones they butchered every fall and spring. Another neighbor, an Indian woman named Minnie Bascom, had taught his wife how to dry and preserve much of their meat. Then Jed and their son-in-law, Zeke, had built them a smokehouse and icehouse, just as they had for Caleb and Jessie. During their years in the wilderness, his wife, Martha, never ceased to amaze him. She had adapted to pioneer life in surprising ways. Even his own brother hadn’t recognized his sister-in-law when he first came to visit. That was ten years ago, soon after Jacob and Priscilla had married, and at a time when Baby Alice was still in diapers.

  Martha had dinner almost on the table when she heard what sounded like a team of horses arriving. When she looked out and saw the shiny black coach with matching horses and a uniformed coachman approaching the house she began to worry. She had planned a simple supper of leftovers for the four of them and didn’t have much ready to serve any extras. She wasn’t sure how Seth’s brother and his wife would react to such simple fare. They were definitely not simple people. She loved Morgan Hodges, but his wife, Mary, was so much like she had once been that she could hardly stand her own memories. They would expect service in grand style, but for tonight they would have to share in the leftovers, she reckoned. Martha amended her plans quickly by running to the root cellar for extra potatoes to roast in the hot coals of her cookstove. An afterthought caused her to run into the icehouse for a chunk of ice for refreshments. If nothing else, she would offer her guests ice-cold water while they waited for their dinner.

  Seth turned toward the drive and thought it kind of odd when he saw the coach. Normally, his brother, Morgan, sent him a letter a month before he arrived. This gave him cause for worry, and already he wondered what was wrong. The first thing he noticed as the visitors drew nearer was that Morgan was alone. A cold chill shuddered through him as he approached his brother’s carriage, a feeling that grew in intensity when he saw the withered form of a man who had been so robust all of his life. The moment their eyes met, Seth could see the tears, and words were not needed. He simply took his brother’s frail form into his arms and held him tightly. Hiram directed Morgan’s driver and team to the barn and took the darkie to his quarters in the lean-to alongside the barn, where he had installed an extra cot for such occasions. Young Luke stared in awe at his uncle. Never in his wildest imaginings could he have ever pictured his favored uncle in such a delicate condition. Without knowing exactly why, he understood why his uncle had chosen to come to their house first. Obviously, he needed support in breaking bad news to Cousin Priscilla.

  Martha was hustling about in her kitchen when she heard the men come through the front door. She turned to welcome her in-laws and was aghast at what she saw. This was not good, and very quickly Morgan filled them in on what had happened to his wife, Mary. “She took ill on our way home after our last visit with the kids. The doctor called it dropsy. I think she just died of a broken heart. She had tried so hard to talk Priscilla into coming back to Louisville with us, but she had refused. The doctors tried everything; they bled her and used leeches, and they filled her with tonics and nostrums, but nothing worked. She just wasted away until she didn’t even have the strength to get out of bed.” He paused and winced at his memories. “We buried her beside her mother in the same cemetery where your mom lies.” He looked at Martha as he spoke.

  This last reminder caused a pang of guilt to surge through Martha, as she, too, had refused to return to Kentucky with her mom, and she, likewise, had died soon afterward. By the time Martha got the new
s, it was too late to go home for the funeral. Instead, she went back a month later, at which time she and her brother had divided her mother’s possessions and sold her house. He took their ma’s slaves and went back to Atlanta and his plantation; Martha went back to her weaving room in Sethsburg, Indiana.

  “How are we gonna break the news to Priscilla?” Seth asked. “Do you want me to take you over tomorrow?”

  “That’s not the only problem that I came to see you about.” Morgan grew more serious. “I need someone who can take over all of my business interests. By rights, it will all soon belong to Priscilla and her family. Would I dare ask them to go back to Louisville with me?”

  “Why don’t I go to the store and have a little talk with Jacob first, then you come along later. We’ll be with you when you tell her about her mother,” Seth advised. “Give her time to deal with her grief before you ask her about moving back.”

  “I’ll go with you too,” Martha chimed in before she disappeared up the stairs to make up the bed in the girls’ old room. “Seth, dinner’s on the table. Make sure Morgan eats. He needs to build up his strength.”

  ******

  There was a time when, in any direction, Hogarth couldn’t see anything but trees. Now all he could see was miles of snow-covered fields. Not only had all signs of the Hodges homestead disappeared, so too had all traces of the Parsons’ place and the village of Sethsburg. The village was named for the man who planned the town, and, like thousands of towns and villages that had once emerged from the wilderness, Sethsburg had become a ghost of a town—places where towns and villages had rose and flourished, and then died away and disappeared. Hogarth once again settled with a deep sigh and let his thoughts drift back to Jessie and Caleb. He wasn’t sure which was more depressing, their past or his present.