The Big City

It was a busy, bustling, glorious day in New York City. The warm sun shining boldly was tempered by a breeze of just the right magnitude and temperature to create a June morning taken straight from a painting. The streets were crowded. Carriages and carts clanged and rattled past each other. Men on horses picked their ways among them. Men, women, and children on foot chatted and laughed as they greeted old acquaintances and strolled from store to store, busy on their days errands.

Susannah wasn't originally alone. The streets of New York City were no place for a woman unaccompanied so, of course, mother had sent along a servant. But Susannah liked to be alone. First thing, she sent her servant into a shop to pick up a bit of ribbon and immediately disappeared into the crowd. She had her own errand to run, later in the day – tea with one of her good friends – but she still had several long hours to kill.

She caught the eye of a young gentleman walking towards her and gave him her most charming smile. He returned it with a slight bow but he continued walking without a word. She turned to watch him walk away, a slight frown painted on her face.

”The nerve...” she muttered quietly, wondering what to do next. She looked down at her dress. It was impeccable. A white silk robe a la francaise decorated with little blue flowers the exact color of her eyes. She wore a pale blue and white silk-covered straw hat, perched over her piled up red hair. Green silk gloves and fresh flowers completed the look. She certainly was in looks so that was not the problem. Perhaps she should try doubling back and dropping a glove in front of him. But before she was able to act on that, someone tapped her on the shoulder.

”Milliner and mantua maker?” She looked at the woman. She was clearly well-dressed but she was also clearly very lost. ”I'm afraid you've found yourself very turned around. It's quite a long walk from here.”

She looked back after the young gentleman but he had disappeared into the crowd. Returning her attention, she asked rather more sharply that she had intended. ”And who are you? Where are you from if you're not from New York then?”

Hinke had risen with the sun today, much like every day before and most likely every day after, the rooster had crowed in the yard a few houses down and she had pulled herself out of blissful sleep to prepare for the day. getting dressed was the easiest part, she had only brought two outfits from Friesland, and one was for Sunday worship at the local protestant church with Master Hykela and his family. Her other dress was for every other day, but she loved it all the same. Her mother had bought the fabric from her home town, Hindeloopen, which was famous for it's trade cotton from the Indies. The petticoats had chintz flowers printed on white, and the caraco was a beautiful purple with red and blue flowers. true, the purple had faded with work and time, but she loved it all the same. A cotton print fichu finished the outfit and she was off to start her chores.
After serving Master and Mistress Hykela their breakfast, she set up the boys with their schoolwork, Benjamin was eight and had already mastered his cursive, for which she was very proud, and Samuel was six and was able to spell out full sentences in shaky writing on his slate. Hinke gave each of them a paragraph from a book to write out while she went out on an errand for the Mistress, rubbing each on the head and calling them by their affectionate nicknames of Groete Bonne and Litse Seitse, Big Ben and Little Sam. The two never thought anything of her accent or the funny words she used sometimes, since their father had come from the Nederlands himself when he was a boy to set up his own trading company.
As Hinke set off down the sun warmed streets of New York, she could not help but begin to sing an old song from back home about the beauty of spring.
"Dan komt de maitiid, maitiid yn it lân.
Dan laket alles, alles jin sa oan.
De moaie maitiid mei syn blauwe loft,
is foar minsken en foar blom grif it moaiste skoft,
is foar minsken en foar blom grif it moaiste skoft."

"Look out, Lowlander!" called a voice from the other side of the street, Hinke instinctively stopped and raised a shoulder to protect herself from whatever it was she had to look out for, her hand flying up to cover her mob-cap. The object, it turned out, was a clod of mud; and landed with a splat only inches from her feet. She looked up and saw a group of children, all of whom were enjoying the post-rain effect on the dirt side-streets.
"Sjoch út! Look out!" Hinke called out and the boy who had thrown the mud ball, he looked about 12 years old. "You could have hit someone of importance with dat!" She laughed and stepped over the projectile.
"Maybe, Lowlander, but maybe I wanted to hit you!" Said the boy, taking another mud ball from his friend and striding across the road to stand in front of her.
"And vy vould you want dat? I am in nobody's vay, I am simply out getting fabric for my mistress." She continued to smile, even though the group had started to follow their leader and surround her.
"You are from Holland aren't you?" asked the boy.
"I am from Friesland. It is a province of de Nederlands, Like Holland." Answered Hinke, hopeful that maybe they were just curious about her accent.
"Is that why you are dressed like a drowned rat? Isn't that whole country under water?" laughed a girl, about the same age as the leader boy.
"She's not a drowned rat yet, she's missing something!" one of the boys called from behind her, she turned to face him just as he released his ball of mud. To her sorrow, it landed with a squish on the hip of her petticoat, just below the tail of her jacket. She cried out and dropped her basket to the cobblestones.

Lizbeth folded her arms and raised a skeptical brow knowing this Susannah was not wrong in saying New York was a very fine city indeed, it was not the finest in the colonies. Philadelphia was plenty fine; in fact, its library was magnificent and its buildings were comparable to several Grecian temples... well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration  but close enough, right? Her mother talked of the splendor of her home in Charles Towne, South Carolina and she had even visited it once when she was a small child and, from what little she remembered, it was lovely. Susannah did have a point, though, New York was stunning. She giggled a little bit when Susannah mentioned how everyone was so busy,

"That is, most certainly, correct, miss Frey.  It is a pleasure to meet you in such a place where everyone seems to be in quite the hurry." Frey... Frey Frey Frey... where did she hear that name? She's heard it all the time from all sorts of people... Oh right! She remembered seeing that name on all of the barrels her father would have shipped to his shop as well as the shipments of supplies Mistress Western would bring in, "Right! Quite so, I have heard of your father's company, Miss Frey, for my both my father, a good man who owns a large merchant store in Burlington what is right across the street from the pharmacy, as well as Mistress Western, proprietress of Western Milliner and Mantua Maker at the Sign of Apollo and Duck, receive shipments from the Frey shipping company. I live right by a harbor, so I am quite familiar with ships, myself, though I must confess I am a reader of those horrid pirate novels such as Charles Johnson's." she felt a little embarrassed saying that she liked those sorts of books for she had read them since she was a child. Her mother practically raised her reading the stuff since she came from a little island off the coast of Charles Towne where pirate lore ran rampant through the town like gossip.  Her eyes widened when she mentioned the amount of guns her father's ships, "Wow, with that amount of guns, I am certain that no pirates have ever attacked the Freys."  she said noticing a few unattended children out of the corner of her eye, but thought nothing of it.

"Oh, I have not been in this city but for three days. I am lodging with Mistress Western's aunt, Bridget Allworthy and while she is most accommodating, there is something terribly aloof with her for she had not only failed to accompany me on the journey to meet Mistress Cormac but she also is quite terse with our conversations. Perhaps she is feeling poorly, I know not." Indeed, Mrs. Allworthy has been cold to her upon her arrival and she was worried it was something she had said, though one of the girls she worked with warned her that Mrs. Allworthy was notorious for being aloof to Mistress Western's girls possibly out of jealousy for she was now a spinster in her late forties.

Lizbeth gasped a bit when she saw the young kids throwing mud at a rather foreign looking girl with a  fabulous printed jacket. She glared and put her hands on her hips before giving them her best "Librarian" face and approached them,

"Where, pray, are your parents, hmm?!" she scolded them with a wagging finger. She had sent out unruly children out of the library before, so dealing with them was nothing new to her, "They would be most ashamed of you all if they discovered your whereabouts! Go home, get off with the lot of you!" the high hair alone should have scared them off... She headed back to Susannah who was helping the young lady up, "Here, miss." she said handing her a handkerchief, "Let us get you cleaned up now." she then turned to Susannah, "I may enlighten you as to why so many people are uptight about this war for I understand it completely. I have both an uncle and a cousin on opposing sides of this war and while I wish for order to restored to these colonies, I do not wish ill will upon my family opposing it. Are you all right, miss?" she asked the young lady she and Susannah just helped.