He had a second canoe lashed to the first and it was full of pails of little trees. Turned out John Chapman sold apple trees for a livin-little ones, bigger ones and sacks of seeds he gave away for free. Him and James got to talkin right away about apples, which pleased them both no end, and James even stopped work on the cabin and went walkin with John Chapman all over the woods where he was goin to plant an orchard, showin him the bits of tree hed brought from Connecticut and was goin to graft into new trees. John Chapman sold him twenty saplings, sayin it was best to start with them rather than graftin. Its up to God to improve the trees, he said, though gentle like, not forceful about it as hed later become. Would have sold him more saplings but James had so much land to clear he couldnt do it fast enough to get more than twenty trees into the ground.
They was off so long it started to get dark, so I told John Chapman to stay for supper, though we couldnt offer more than some pease and a couple of squirrels Jimmyd shot. Three squirrels dont go far tween nine mouths, and a tenth aint so welcome then. But John Chapman told us he didnt eat meat cause he couldnt stand for somethin livin to be killed jest to keep him alive. Well. None of us had heard such a thing before but it meant we all got more squirrel, so we werent complainin. Even the pease he didnt take much of and drunk water rather than cider.
After supper he walked round as we sat by the fire. That man was a pacer and a talker. Now he werent talkin apples, though. Instead he said, Let me bring you some fresh news right from Heaven. I wouldnt of taken him for one of them types, who got to share their religion like theyre passin round a bottle for everyone to drink from. He started to talk and I confess that first time-in fact the first few times-I didnt understand a word. After a while the children rolled their eyes and wandered off, and James got intent on his whittlin. I didnt mind though cause I liked watchin John Chapman. He didnt want to sleep in the wagon or under the canvas that night but said he was fine in the woods. Wouldnt even borrow an old quilt. Nathan spied on him and came back sayin John Chapman was sleepin in a pile of leaves.
Next day he was gone fore we was up, though he came back a week later with the saplings. We hardly had the money to buy em, havin spent it all to get to Ohio. But James said it was worth it as wed have apples two years sooner than if we planted seeds. Then he was goin to graft the branches hed brought from Connecticut onto some of the saplings, though he never told John Chapman that as hed learned pretty quick how John didnt like graftin cause it tampered with Gods creation.
John Chapman started to pay us visits two or three times a year. Always in the spring when he come up to see how we and our trees had fared over the winter and sell us more if we needed any, and then in the fall when he was checkin on his nursery of trees further up the river. Sometimes in the summer hed stop by too, on his way from one place to another. I liked to think he stopped to see us cause of me, and Id run out to the river whenever I heard him whistle Bob white, Bob white.
John Chapman was a singular man, thats for sure. I never once saw him wear clothes like other men, breeches or trousers and shirt and suspenders. Nor shoes, nor jacket, even when there was frost at night. Dont know what he did for clothes in the winter since we never saw him then. Maybe he holed up like a bear. He was a shaggy man too-shaggy hair and beard, long fingernails, heels like cheese rinds. Bright eyes though that flashed and followed their own conversation.
He always took the time to talk to me, once hed figured out no other Goodenough was gonna listen to his God talk. When he found out I could read a little he used to lend me bits of books hed cut up and given to settlers up and down the rivers. All fired up from his visit, I would take the pages gladly, but once hed gone I couldnt make head nor tail of what was written on them. I never told him but I preferred the revivalist camp meetings we went to now and then when the mud was dry enough and we could walk to Perrysburg. Got to meet a lot of people there and be entertained by a God I understood.
What I liked best about John Chapman was that he didnt judge me like some I wont name did. He never said, Sadie youre drunk. Sadie youre a disgrace. Sadie youre draggin this family down in the swamp. He didnt take the bottle from me, or hide it, or empty it so I had to drink vinegar instead. John Chapman understood the power of apples and the things that come from em. It was he who showed me how apples could be the cure for another of our enemies. That was the swamp fever.
Swamp fever came alongside skeeters. They started bitin in June, but in August they swarmed so bad we had to wrap sheets round our heads and wear gloves, even in the heat, and burn smudge pots day and night so the smoke drove em away. Even then they still got us, bitin so much that our faces and hands and ankles-anything not covered by our clothes-swelled up, hurtin and itchin at the same time. I never seen anything like it. It was enough to drive a person wild as a cat. Patty and Sal had it the worst. Poor Pattys face was so swollen she didnt look like a Goodenough no more, but like a swamp creature.
She was the first to get the fever. Begun to shake so hard her teeth cracked. I held her down in bed and doused her in water, tried mayweed and catnip and rattle root, but nothin worked. Jimmy was taken the next year, and baby Lizzie after that, then baby Tom, then Mary Ann. Did I get that order right? Hard to keep track. Some years we were spared. Sometimes I wished it would take me. I birthed ten children and got five left.
Only Robert werent never touched by swamp fever. But then he never was like the rest of us. I birthed him two months after we settled in the swamp. I was wonderin if Patty or Mary Ann was up to helpin me through the birth, as in those days there werent no neighbors close by. James would have to do, though I never liked men to be at a birth, it was bad luck. As it was I didnt need James or the gals or nobody-I was only jest settlin down with the pain when Robert slipped out so he almost dropped in the dirt. We had walls by then and canvas on the roof, but no floor yet. Robert didnt cry at all and he looked at me right away like he could see me, not all dazed or squinty or squally like the others. He grew up like that too-would give me a straight look that made me a little scared of him and ashamed of myself. I loved him best cause he seemed to come from a different place from the rest of us. Maybe he did. I could never be sure, though I had my suspicions. But I could never show it, couldnt hug him or kiss him cause hed give me that look like he was holdin up a mirror to me to show me jest how bad I was.
Robert had to look after the sick ones during the swamp fever. One October John Chapman come through when all but Robert and Sal was laid up, shiverin and shakin and rattlin the beds till I was sure our neighbors could hear us even though they were a couple miles away. John Chapman had planted stinkin fennel for us near the house to use when we was poorly, but neither that nor nothin else seemed to stop us from rattlin and shakin-nothin cept time or death. This time he helped Robert and Sal with the animals and the cookin, and he picked all our apples for us.
Sadie, this is what you need, he said when he come in with a sack of spitters.
I didnt know what he meant and didnt care at the time cause I was so cold and shaky I jest wanted to die right there.
John Chapman took some of our spitters away in his canoes and paddled all the way down to Port Clinton and come back with five barrels of cider. It wasnt hard yet, that would take some weeks, but John Chapman said to drink it and it would drive the fever out. So I drunk it and you know, I felt better. James said I was improvin by then anyway without the help of the cider. That smart remark of his was the beginnin of our apple fights that last to this day. He didnt like John Chapman payin me attention, was what it was, so he cut under whatever the man said. But John was a man of the woods, hed lived with swamp fever for many years, so why wouldnt he know what he was talkin bout? I ignored James and listened to John Chapman. He told me soft cider was fine against skeeters but hard cider was better and applejack best of all.