Chapter Thirteen
The days became a blur of pain and toil. The c***k of a cane and the bray of “sotweed!” grew as constant as the drone of flies. At night men collapsed onto the sleeping racks but in the small hours Duncan often heard them talking in their sleep to loved ones they might never see again. Friends whispered to each other of simple things, like picking apples with a son or kittens delivered on a hearth on a snowy night. Duncan, lying on his pallet in the dark, found himself spending more and more time thinking of Edentown, and the contentment he had known in the years since the war.
Sarah and Duncan were joined by a young Oneida girl, who skipped between them, holding their hands, as they approached the grove of maple trees. A spring sugar camp was always a joyous time for th
