"And have you no white neighbors?" asked Barrett, who had seated himself upon the trunk, where he sat loosening his dusty leggins.
"There is 'Old Milly'." Mordecai's hazel eyes twinkled a little. "She is the wife of an English soldier who deserted from the army during the Revolution. After her husband's death she took up her abode here. She is a woman of strong and resolute character and has considerable power over the Indians of this district, who stand greatly in awe of her. She lately married a red man and is really a great person in our little community, for she owns several slaves and many horses and cattle. Tomorrow I will introduce you to my only white neighbor. But here is Becky with the water," as the squaw entered with the brimming pail. "Wash the dust from your faces that we may sit and eat, for you must be nearly famished."
The travelers, having washed in the wooden basin that stood on one of the chairs and shaken some of the dust from their garments, now came eagerly enough to the table, which the silent Becky had prepared for them. Upon the bare boards she had set several mugs and heavy crockery bowls, pewter forks and a large, steaming vessel of the stew which she had taken from the fire, as well as several cakes made of corn flour and cooked in the ashes. Such fare was familiar enough to the pioneers, but the two guests could not help staring at the book that lay at each plate, a worn Sidur (prayer book), the ancient Hebrew characters looking strangely foreign in the primitive forests of America. Abram Mordecai saw the two men exchange glances and flushed a little beneath his tan.
"A foolish thought of mine," he murmured. "When I left my father's house in Pennsylvania I carried one of these in my pack, wrapped in the talith (praying shawl), he had brought with him from Germany. And later I found the two others in the bundle of a Jewish peddlar murdered by the Indians. The Indian agent at St. Mary's sent me to ransom him and several other captives taken by the Creeks, but I came too late. Somehow, I could not bear to throw them away or destroy them. They have been with me in all my wanderings and more than once when I thought it about time for the fall holy days have I read the prayers and wished that I might have a few of my brethren with me to observe them aright. And tonight—" for a moment the confident, self-reliant adventurer seemed as embarrassed as a bashful child, "and tonight I hoped that since there would be three of us at grace, we might read the benedictions together—if you care to—and I would know how it feels to be a Jew again."
Barrett laughed, his hearty school boy laugh, as he flung himself unceremoniously into a chair beside the table. "It's many a day since I've said or heard a brocha (blessing)," he said, "but I'll go through it without any book, thank you."
Lyon said nothing, as he took the place Mordecai assigned him at the foot of the table, but there was a tender look about his grave mouth. Perhaps he realized how difficult it had been for Mordecai to confess his loneliness for the customs of his people; but, according to his wont, he said nothing.
Smiling almost childishly, Mordecai passed a bowl of water to each of his guests that they might wash their hands, which they did, murmuring the blessing as they did so. Then, taking his place at the head of the table, he poured water over his own hands, saying the Hebrew benediction as he wiped them upon a faded red napkin which lay beside his Sidur. Somehow, after his brief confession, he felt ashamed to tell his guests that the napkin had belonged to his mother and had rested beside the neglected Sidur for so many years. Then, breaking a bit from the bread and handing it to each of the men, he repeated the blessing for which, although he had not recited it for so many years, he need no prompting from the worn black book beside his plate.
"Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who bringest forth bread from the earth," he said in Hebrew.
Becky, as her husband called her, stood in the background as silent as a bronze statute until the little ceremony was over. If she was impressed by the strangeness of it all, she gave no sign. For so many of the customs of her husband's alien race were strange to her that she had long ago ceased to wonder or desire any explanation. Now at a sign from Mordecai, she took away the bowl of water, and, filling a plate with the savoury stew, took it to the corner of the hut, here, crouched upon the blankets, she ate her supper, quite content to watch the white strangers from a distance.
Mordecai served his guests, then himself, and over the stew and corn bread the men exchanged stories of their experiences in the wilderness. The host told a little of his own adventures since leaving the east, of his life as a trader with the Indians, of the peace treaty he had brought about with the Chickasaw nation, of his journeys south to New Orleans and Mobile, his furs and medicinal barks piled high in the barge with no companions but the painted savages to assist him. A life of highly-colored adventure with variety enough to satisfy any spirit, but even now Mordecai was growing restless and longed for another enterprise to occupy him after the cotton gin should be completed.