Gunpowder and Tea Cakes: My Journey with Felicity

I agree to the boy’s help. I figure they can get Ezra to a doctor. Felicity and I watch them go on their way, and then I tell Felicity I’d like to help the girl. The girl has drawn up her knees and buried her face in her arms. Her head jerks up when I touch her shoulder. She has tear-stained cheeks. When she sees us, she starts to get up to leave, and I tell her we’re not here to make her leave. Felicity asks if we can walk her home. She shakes her head. When I ask her name, she answer Sibyl. I don’t know why she doesn’t have a last name, but Felicity asks her if she is an indentured servant. She shrugs.

Felicity asks if she ran away, and she says simply that she won’t stay in a household where she’s beaten for waking up. I feel like crying. When learning about indentured servants in school, I learned that for many, it was as bad as slavery. I ask Sibyl if she can go back to her parents. Sibyl explains she’s an orphan. She shrugs, as if it doesn’t matter, but I can tell from the look in her eyes that it does.

I can still hear men bellowing at the Magazine, and Sibyl hesitates as she hears a roar. Then, she slides her hand into a pocket that hangs around her waist. I try to encourage her by saying we’re just trying to help. Finally, she pulls her hand from her pocket holding a grubby scrap of cloth. Sibyl says she was left at the foundling home in London when she was a baby. I don’t know what “foundling” means, but I’m pretty sure it’s an orphanage. Sibyl continues on that her mother said she’d come back for her. She tore a bit of cloth from her dress and left it as a token for the day she’d return. But she never did.

Sibyl was trained to be a servant until she was seven and bound to a family named Clarke. They moved to the colonies and brought Sibyl with them. But two years ago, Sibyl grew tired of the beatings and left. Sibyl adds that the Clarkes don’t live in Williamsburg, and she won’t go back to them.

Felicity assures Sibyl that she won’t make her go back to the Clarkes. I whisper to Felicity that we must find a way to help. Maybe a good meal? Felicity narrows her eyes, thinking hard. Then she nods, and tells Sibyl that she looks like a strong girl. Sibyl nods and says she’s chopped wood and hoed corn since she was young. She says as long as she’s treated fairly, she doesn’t mind hard work.

Felicity takes Sibyl’s hand. She has an idea.