Day after day in this dark hole, I am blest with dry biscuit and cup of water. The disease is ragin’. Many of the crew are blind, lie helpless on the deck. I can hear their moaning. My eyes are very bad. I am all down to the foot of the hill and I don’t suppose I shall soon git better.
More smudges and smears of ink. Morgan held the book closer as he read a legible paragraph on another page.
We had a very heavy gale of wind two nights ago. I fear the ship has lost its rudder and no hand is at the helm as the ship lunges with little purpose. We are like a phantom ship now on the ocean. We are truly at God’s mercy. Who knows what will happen to us. Below me, I can hear the cries of despair and the wailing of the sick. I no longer have the strength to tolerate this cruelty. This is truly the Devil’s own ship from hell. . . . So many have died already. I wish that I could be at home. I fear the trials I soon shall have to pass through. The flogging and beating I received was nothing. May we ever remember, whether in pain or suffering, prosperity or adversity that we all have to die.
The next page was made days later. Morgan read on.
I slept none all night. I woke with a bad case of the fidgets and hysterics. There is no help for it. I don’t know if John Taylor is still unaffected by this cursed disease. I will give him this journal the next time he comes to see me. I hope he will bring it to my mother if I am never to leave this place and he is to survive.
At that point the writing stopped. The next page was blank. Morgan poured himself another glass of rum. His eyes began to tear up as he pictured his brother in the dark hold of that ship. “Poor Abraham,” he moaned. “Oh, my God, my poor brother.” He held his head down between his hands. He felt a wall of grief overwhelm him as he began to feel the thin strand of hope that had maintained him all these years slip away.
21
The steamboat’s whistle was deafening. As the old Connecticut River side-wheeler, the Water Witch, approached the landing area, Morgan scanned the docks where a small crowd was waiting. Only a few brown leaves were clinging to the branches of the oak trees scattered around the riverbanks. The temperatures seemed to be dropping, not surprising for late November. He could see the square-bowed sailing barge crossing the river ahead of them with a full load of livestock. He told Eliza that the Whittlesey family had been running that ferry service for well over one hundred years. He buttoned his coat tightly and put his arm around her, pulling her close. He’d been away for so long, he wondered if Lyme would seem like a foreign place. No one would recognize him. It had been thirteen years since he’d left.
His brother had written him that they were all eagerly awaiting his arrival over Thanksgiving. Some of his sisters might be there. He was looking forward to seeing them, but then he thought of his father and his emotions deadened, and he braced himself. Soon he would have to confront him and face that critical stare filled with disapproval. His guilt over abandoning the family farm so many years ago suddenly swept over him like a fast-moving wave. The thought of that coming encounter made him want to turn around and go back to New York. It was Eliza’s smiling face that restored his sense of optimism.
The steamboat’s crew hurled the docking lines onto the wharf, and some of the locals fastened the thick strands of heavy rope to the posts. Morgan spotted his brother in the crowd. It was an emotional moment for him. Josiah was standing atop the family’s wagon scanning the crowd on deck and waving his handkerchief. Next to him was a woman dressed in a long cotton dress with a calico bonnet. Morgan pointed them out to Eliza.
“Look, there’s my brother. That must be his wife, Amanda.”
Both of them waved back, and upon seeing them Josiah immediately turned to another woman in a gingham bonnet, who looked up at the steamship for several seconds and then also began waving her white handkerchief enthusiastically. He almost hadn’t recognized her because of her silver hair, and how much she had aged.
“My mother!” he told Eliza excitedly. With a mixture of disappointment and relief, he added, “I don’t see anyone else.”
There were scores of people waiting to pick up family members returning from New York or to load much-needed supplies onto their wagons. The arrival of the steamboat was a major event. He and Eliza picked their way through the crowd. When his mother caught sight of him, her hands went up to her mouth and she ran toward him. She hugged him for what seemed like an eternity before she turned to Eliza, holding her daughter-in-law’s hands tightly as she welcomed her to the Connecticut River Valley. She then turned back to Ely, her hands touching his weathered rough cheeks and said, “Now let me look at you long and hard to make sure this is not a dream. My son, a packet shipmaster of a London liner, home at last!”