New York - The Novel

good to me. The Boss made sure I had things to keep me busy, and he made sure that Hudson was working too. He was right to do that. As for the Mistress, she didn’t say much, but you could see that she was very shocked about the killing of Meinheer Leisler.
    One day, as I was working in the yard, the Mistress came and stood beside me. She was looking sad. After a while, she said: “You and Naomi were happy together, weren’t you?” So I said, yes. “You didn’t quarrel?”
    “We never had a cross word,” I answered.
    She was quiet for a moment or two. Then she said: “Cruel words are a terrible thing, Quash. Sometimes you regret them. But what’s been said cannot be unsaid.”
    I hardly knew how to answer that, so I kept working. After another moment or two, she nodded to herself, and went indoors.

    Late that year, the Mistress got another slave woman to take the place of Naomi, and I believe she thought maybe I’d take up with her instead. Butalthough she wasn’t a bad woman, we didn’t get along so well; and truth to tell, I don’t think anyone could have replaced Naomi.
    Young Hudson was a great consolation to me. There being just the two of us, we spent a lot of time together. He was a handsome boy, and a good son. He never got tired of being at the waterfront. He’d get the sailors to teach him knots. I believe he knew every way to tie a rope there was. He could even make patterns with them. I taught him all I could, and I did tell him that I hoped that one day, if the Boss allowed it, we might both be free. But I did not speak of that much, for I did not want to raise his hopes too high, or for him to suffer disappointment if I was not able to get our freedom yet awhile. It always gave me joy to have him walking at my side. Often, as I was walking and talking to him, I’d rest my hand on his shoulder; and as he grew taller, sometimes he’d reach up and rest his hand on mine.
    Those were difficult times for the Mistress, though. She was still a handsome woman. Her yellow hair had gone gray, but her face hadn’t changed so much. In these years, however, the lines started crowding her face, and when she was sad, she started to look old. It seemed that nothing was going her way. For although most people were still speaking Dutch in the city, every year there seemed to be more English laws.
    Then the English wanted their Church—the Anglican Church as they call it—to be the leading religion of the place. And the governor said that no matter what church you went to, you still had to pay money to support the Anglican priests. That made a lot of people angry, especially the Mistress. But some of the dominies were so anxious to please the governor that they didn’t complain, and even offered to share their churches with the Anglicans until they could build their own.
    She had her family at least. But the Boss, although he was more than sixty years of age, was always busy. Since King William’s War against the French was still continuing, there were plenty of privateers going out; and the Boss and Mr. Master were busy with those. Sometimes he’d go upriver for furs. Once he went away with Mr. Master down the coast to Virginia.
    She would be often at Jan’s house, which was not far off, seeing her grandchildren. And Clara was a comfort to her. But Clara was often out of the house, and I reckon the Mistress was lonely.

    It was a summer afternoon soon after the Boss and Mr. Master had returned from Virginia that the family all gathered in the house for dinner. Jan and his wife Lysbet were there and their daughters, and Miss Clara. Hudson and I were serving at table. Everybody was cheerful. And we had just brought in the Madeira at the end of the meal when Miss Clara stood up and told them she had an announcement to make.
    “I have good news,” she said, looking around at them all. “I am to be married.”
    The Mistress looked quite astonished, and asked whom she was wanting to marry.
    “I’m going to marry young Henry Master,” she said.
    Well, I had a plate in my hand, and I almost dropped it. As for the Mistress, she looked at Miss Clara, disbelieving.
    “The Master boy,” she cried. “He’s not even Dutch.”
    “I know,” said Miss Clara.
    “He’s much younger than you,” the Mistress said.
    “Plenty of women in this town have married younger men,” Miss Clara countered. And she named a rich Dutch lady who’d had three young husbands.
    “Have you spoken to the