Catch the Wind: My Journey with Caroline

As we approach the inn, a gray-haired woman steps out its front door to ask what we need. Caroline explains that we watched a little girl duck into the tavern. The woman doesn’t look the least bit surprised, guessing right away that it must be Annie, off chasing her father again, before marching inside without another word.

Minutes later she’s back, dragging a large man out by the ear and scolding him the whole way for drinking away money his family needs. He whines and calls her Mrs. Allen, but her grip doesn’t loosen at all. Right behind them, Annie slips out, too, clutching a man’s hat. The three of them head off down the street together, Mrs. Allen’s fingers still clamped to his ear. Seeing kids caught in the middle of trouble like that makes me sad, though at least it’s a relief that one grown-up in this town knows exactly how to handle it.

With that resolved, Caroline and I turn back to the reason we came, getting me some kind of work. Round-faced and dark-haired, the young woman who answers the door introduces herself as Mrs. Bailey. Something mischievous in her expression reminds me of one of my sisters right before she gets into trouble. Before Caroline even finishes explaining that I need a job, Mrs. Bailey says she could use the help and tells me to get started right away.

She rushes us through a tour of the place: a dining room with a long table and benches where two meals are served each day, a parlor furnished with a few small tables, and upstairs, two cramped rooms under the eaves where mattresses and blankets cover the floor. She tells us nineteen boarders sleep here now, nearly twice what she’d planned for, but with the town this crowded she can’t turn anyone away. Inside the sweltering kitchen, a kettle of stew bubbles over the fire beside a scrap bucket near the worktable. I do the math in my head: two meals a day for twenty people comes to forty meals a day, not even counting the laundry and cleaning piled on top of that.

I ask how she manages all of it alone. Mrs. Bailey tells me it’s a lot of hard work, but she’s lucky to be able to have a place to run at all. She grew up following her father’s army from camp to camp, sleeping wherever there was space while her mother rigged up blankets for a little privacy. She and her sisters hauled water and did laundry the moment they were old enough to lift a pail. Just picturing Sasha and Britney attempting that makes me wince in sympathy. At sixteen she married a soldier, lost him to fever within a year, and poured their savings into renting this inn, which she intends to own outright one day. When I tell her she should be proud of everything she’s built, she simply says that she is.

Before we can talk about a real job, she needs help finishing the day’s chores, starting with the dining room floor. She shows us to the empty buckets, rags, and lye soap. She fills the buckets with water from the kettle, and Caroline grabs one without a word of complaint, so I follow her lead. Mrs. Bailey makes a game of it, offering a treat to whoever finishes her half first. Grinning, Caroline calls out that she’ll beat me, and we both drop to our knees on the rough boards. I reach the far wall just barely ahead of her, though something tells me she let me win.

Satisfied with our work, Mrs. Bailey decides we’ve both earned something sweet. In the kitchen, she hands us two lumpy brown blobs that turn out to be maple sugar. Caroline pops hers straight into her mouth, delighted. I know my parents normally wouldn’t want me to eat raw sugar like this, but they aren’t here right now, so I pop mine into my mouth and let it melt on my tongue.

While Caroline and Mrs. Bailey chat about maple sugaring, I notice all the small touches of care tucked around the kitchen: flowers crammed into a crock, a candlestick polished until it shines, lace drying near the fire. Clearly, this is a woman who’s lived through real hardship without ever letting it show. It makes me think about how much I’ve sulked over a few extra chores with Mom about to leave, when I’ve never once thought to turn them into a game for the twins the way Mrs. Bailey just did for us.

Mrs. Bailey pulls me out of my thoughts to repeat her offer. She can’t promise steady work, but she’d welcome my help now and then and pay with coins, not maple sugar. Honestly, I tell her I’d like that, but I have no idea how long I’ll actually be in Sackets Harbor. Caroline starts to argue, then remembers that I never actually said I’d be in Sackets Harbor forever—she’d just hoped that.

Mrs. Bailey says she understands and then turns to Caroline. She’d like to extend the same offer to her as well. Startled, then pleased, Caroline decides her mother won’t mind if she helps out between shipyard and home chores.

We say our goodbyes and start walking home. Caroline still can hardly believe she has a real job, admitting she never would have thought to look for one if I hadn’t turned up in Sackets Harbor. Maybe she can even save enough to buy her grandmother a warm shawl for her aching bones. I tell her I’m glad, meaning every word of it.

Caroline asks whether I’ll ever come back. Reaching into my pocket, I close my fingers around the compass that carried me here. I know that it’s time for me to leave, but I can’t bear the thought of leaving for good. So I promise her that I will come back someday.