Hunched against the cold, his feet crackling through dead leaves, Jack mulled over the meeting with a heavy heart. He felt events in his life were building toward some change. His father had really angered people tonight. Deep down he knew that his mother would be readily accepted by most of the townsfolk if it weren’t for his dad. Despite her Cuban heritage, his mother’s features—brown eyes, full lips, and light-olive skin—were attractive, and she radiated a warmth that disarmed people, accent or no. But Ethan’s manner made many uncomfortable. Jack recalled an incident several years earlier in which his father railed against slavery in a public meeting. Although many in the crowd were likeminded, his father’s tone had been accusing and unconvincing. After the meeting, a young hooligan, perhaps sensing the gunsmith was unpopular, lobbed a piece of dried horse dung at the O’Reilly carriage as the family was riding home. It hit his mother in the back of her head. Not quite thirteen at the time, Jack quietly wiped her soiled hair with a kerchief while his father launched into a red-faced tirade, threatening mayhem against the retreating schoolboy. Onlookers shook their heads. Two days later, the ruffian who had offended his mother was spotted extricating himself from a manure pile at Harmon’s Stables with a black eye and bloody nose. He was afraid to name his attacker but no one doubted it was Jack O’Reilly. Short-lived satisfaction, brooded Jack.
Nor was the family’s financial status improving. As talented an artisan as his father was, the diminishing opportunities for fine gun makers was not helped by his outbursts; it seemed life was becoming harder all the time.
A chilled breeze promised an early snow as Jack rounded the next corner. He felt resentment take hold as various signs indicated he was near home: Slocum Dry Goods, Slocum Chandlery, Slocum Livery. He picked up his pace, kicking at rocks and dirt clods in his path. The family lived in two small rooms behind his father’s workshop, which they rented from Slocum. Most craftsmen would have owned their homes and shops after working so many years, but the O’Reillys seemed never to settle more than five years in any one place. Jack tried to shake away the gloom. He broke into a trot to catch up to his father, and they arrived home almost simultaneously.
The O’Reilly family sat huddled in hard-backed chairs around a dying fire after their sparse meal of boiled potatoes and turnips which they had scarcely touched. Ethan stared intently into the weakening flames. Jack’s mother, Pilar, hummed softly.
“Ethan, mi hito, there is no need to despair. Things, they will improve.” Pilar’s dark features wrinkled in concern. “They show only their ignorances by keeping us from their church.”
“They haven’t actually said we can’t attend, Mother,” Jack offered. “But you’re right, their purpose is clear.” Jack wanted to help in some way. “Father, maybe if we traveled to New Haven on a Sunday there would be a Catholic church to attend and—”
“Jackson, don’t speak of things you know nothing of.”
Jack fell silent, feeling as he often did that his father was treating him like a child.
“We must not let this trouble split our family… we must not.” Pilar’s voice was breaking, but filled with resolve.
The group sat engulfed in thought when Ethan rose and slammed his chair on the wood floor. “Damn them!” He stopped as a light from outside refracted across the ceiling. Someone was approaching. Ethan peered out the window.
Pilar jumped to her feet. “Ethan, let Jackson answer the door. You’re not of a condition to let the neighbors see.” His father nodded to his son and reached above the fireplace for his rifle; overreacting, Jack thought. A shout came from the street.
“Jack O’Reilly! Come out here!”
Jack knew the voice. It was Billy Slocum, the middle son of their landlord. The young O’Reilly threw open the door; he saw two figures in the street, their breaths forming clouds in the cool night air. Billy waved the lantern.
“Pa sent David and me down here to give you this note.” He tossed a small crumpled envelope at Jack’s feet and giggled. Unamused, Jack eyed the bit of parchment.
The smaller of the two taunted, “I could tell you what was in the letter but that would spoil the fun of your big-mouthed pa’s look when he reads it to you and your funny-looking ma.”
Jack thought about charging into the pair with his fists but decided it would only make things worse.
“Why didn’t your father come himself, Billy? Was he too busy in the barn, diddling the sheep?” Jack stooped and retrieved the note, slowly straightening the crinkled edges. The Slocum boys continued to shout, but Jack just stood his ground, smiling at them.
Billy backpedaled down the road. “Read the note. You may be living in some other town!” David grabbed a rock from the street; his aim at Jack was on target but Jack stepped easily to one side.
“Who was that?” Ethan emerged at the end of the exchange.
“The Slocum boys.” Jack handed his father the note. Ethan snatched it and walked inside.
The elder O’Reilly stood by the dim light of the fire, reading aloud:
Mr. Ethan O’Reilly, I regret to inform you of the urgent need I have of your rental property number 38 Hamden Town Road. As you are on a month to month arrangement, by all rights I could ask you to leave by October first, but as this is only two weeks away, I shall generously grant you until the first day of November, 1805, to abandon said property. Regards, Peter Slocum.
Ethan spun to face Jack. “What in the hell have you done now? You’ve gotten us evicted by bullying those boys. Now their father is taking it out on your mother and me. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Jack stood in the middle of the room, stunned. “Pa, I—”
“Don’t you ‘Pa’ me, damn you,” Ethan stepped threateningly closer. “I want an answer.”
Pilar came between them, facing her husband. “You must look to yourself on this.” She placed her hand firmly on her husband’s arm. “This is not Jackson’s doing. My love, you often say ‘the truth will set you free,’ but you forget, most people fear the truth and crucify its prophets.” Her tone was pleading and intense. At times such as these, his mother’s strength and intelligence took him off guard, as it did her husband.
Jack watched his father’s anger thaw under her gaze. “I… I’m sorry, Jackson. I’m very sorry.”
Jack watched his father slump into a chair and cradle his head in his hands. When he finally sat up, he said, “It would appear now that we are without funds, prospects… without a home, again.”
Although Ethan was the finest gunsmith for miles, his skill was not appreciated, was not even in demand; instead, he found himself relegated to fabricating barn door hinges and wagon hardware, and repairing common muskets far inferior to the custom firearms for which he was known. A perfectionist, he found it increasingly difficult to compete with the influx of Eli Whitney’s mass-produced weapons that satisfied military demand for shoulder arms. Ethan specialized in the Kentucky rifle, valuable only on the frontier; other smiths, from Pennsylvania, were closer to the wilderness and took most of that business.
But Jack knew his father’s feeling of dejection came from more than that. He saw the land of the free and equal fast building its own class system.
“There is always the land in Cuba,” Jack’s mother offered in a quiet voice. Ethan turned away, grimacing; but Pilar approached him, her voice full of hope and pride. “It is waiting for us, Ethan. It is not America, and it also has its problems, but we would be, how is it they say?… gentry. I love that land… and Jackson would grow to love it, too; after all, it is his birthright. The count assured us in his letter many months ago that in another few years the sugarcane will grow well and provide an income. And remember that in the last Easter greeting from my childhood friend, Dolores, she told me how well the surrounding farms in Matanzas had been doing.”