Our Star | The Beginning

 It was a cold, clear, crisp December day. The bright sun glittering off the new snow made the man squint as he walked from the shadows of the woods into the sunlight. His snowshoes didn’t make a sound as he walked through the soft snow. He came out of the woods about halfway up the mountain. After he had gotten into the sunlight he looked for a tree stump or log so he could unload the buck he was carrying on his back. He spied a log that would suit his purpose. He sat down in front of the log so that the body of the deer would rest on the log. He then pulled the front legs from the slits that he had made between the knee joints and the tendons in the back legs.

To make an efficient deer carry you make the slits and put the front legs through the slits so that when you get the deer on your back the legs are in the front of you and the body is resting on your shoulders making it very easy to carry. After he was free he stood up and walked to the edge of the bluff he had came out on. He stood there for a few minutes with his hands resting on the muzzle of his rifle. He was sweating from the carry he had just made so the coolness of the day felt good to him.

He was an average sized man, and you could tell by the crow’s feet around his eyes that he was accustomed to spending most of his time outdoors. He was dressed all in buckskins, except that he had heavy leather boots. On his head was a cap, which he had made from a couple of muskrat furs. His powder horn hung on his one side, on the other side there was a large knife stuck in his belt. His dress and his accouterments made him look like he was in complete harmony with the environment.

As he stood there looking over the panorama before him, his mind went back to his first look at this country that he loved. He had arrived in the New World a couple of years before the revolution. He was only fourteen when his parents had died leaving young Henry Bowers alone. It was some kind of plague that had killed his parents and left him to make his way in the world. No one seemed to care what happened to him, so he sold and traded everything that had belonged to his parents to get enough money to get passage to Boston. He arrived in the New World broke, and alone. The first few nights he slept in an empty crate on the dock and scrounged food to keep alive. Every day he went looking for work. After a few days he got a job working for a local paper. He was a jack of all trades; he swept the floors, delivered the papers and did whatever needed to be done. It was a paper that was strongly in favor of the rebel cause, so as a runner for the paper he became very involved in the patriot’s cause. When the rebellion finally erupted into an outright war, he was one of the first to join. He fought in quite a few engagements. The major one was the battle of Saratoga. After that battle he stayed in Saratoga for a few months and fell in love with the surrounding country, and made a promise to himself that if he lived through the war Saratoga would be the place he would call home

He did survive the war, one of the few lucky ones who escaped with no injuries. After the war he went back to Boston and to his old job, but it didn’t seem to have the appeal it once had. He met a young lady, whom he fell in love with and they got married. Her name was Esther Ormsbee. After about a year of trying to make a life in Boston he convinced her they should move, and of course Saratoga was where they would head. It was his dream.

That year as the winter started to break they began sorting through their things, making two piles, one would be sold; the other would go with them. . Most of their possessions were sold because they would have to walk to Saratoga. Esther did take one prized possession with her. It was a teapot her mother gave to her when she got married. Her mother had brought it from England when she was a girl. Esther, despite her husband’s misgivings was determined to take it with her. It was her last tie to the life she was leaving behind.

It was a long and arduous journey, taking weeks of plodding along with all their belongings in the packs that they carried. They spent most of their first summer cutting trees to make a log cabin and gathering food for the winter. It was a very difficult time for them. The next year they cleared more land and made the cabin more comfortable and homelike. A son was also born that summer. He was named Obijiah but was called Bige. The next couple of year’s things got better and now they were quite comfortable in comparison to the first winter they had spent after arriving from Boston

The sound of a shot brought Henry out of his reverie and he was instantly alert. The sound had come from down in the valley. He pinpointed the location at about where his neighbor John Hayward lived. The valley had been quiet for a few years, but you couldn’t be too careful in these times. He loaded the venison on his back and made his way down into the valley towards the Hayward cabin. When he got where he could see the cabin he noticed no smoke from the chimney. That made him even more cautious, because on a day as cold as this there should have been a fire. He made his way very cautiously to the door. He could hear a child crying inside. He pushed the door open and gingerly stepped inside. He saw a baby in the corner with a blanket pulled around it and on the bed lay a man whom he recognized as John. He went to where John laid and found him unconscious. From the looks of things John hadn’t been injured for to long.

He went back outside and unloaded his venison, went back inside, checked the baby and found he was just cold and hungry. The first thing that would have to be done would be a fire. He poked at the ashes and found them to be still warm, and down in the bottom he found a few coals. After breaking up some small branches, and finding some dry leaves he got the fire going. He found the iron kettle that was the standard cooking utensil for all frontier homes, filled it with snow and hung it on the arm over the fire. He brought the baby close to the fire to get him warm. Afterward he would take some of the venison and make a thin soup for the child. He knew the child’s name was Daniel and that his mother had died during childbirth. When the cabin got warm Henry went outside and cut some of the venison into small pieces and put it into the kettle with the melted snow. While the soup was cooking Henry went and took a closer look at John. He found he had a broken leg and some other bruises. He knew he would have to set the leg so he looked for a couple of straight limbs about two inches in diameter that he could use for splints. He found them and then he started looking for some cloth he could cut into strips to tie the splints on the broken leg. When he had gathered all of the stuff together he went to the bunk where John laid. John hadn’t come to yet, which was good because this was going to be painful. Henry felt very carefully and found where the break was and also what he would have to do to get the bones aligned so they would heal so John could walk again. Henry got down to the foot of the bunk and grabbed John’s foot and pulled and twisted. He felt the bones go back in place. John screamed aloud as the pain brought him back to consciousness. Henry talked to him as he worked putting his makeshift splints in place on John’s leg. After he had the leg splinted and the pain had subsided to where John could understand what was going on. He told Henry that he had been cutting down a tree for wood when a gust of wind had caught the tree and it had twisted and fell on John’s leg breaking it. He had managed to pull himself free and crawl back to the cabin and get onto the bunk where he had passed out. His injury had happened yesterday, late in the afternoon. He had came to in the morning and managed to get his rifle and fire the one shot that Henry had heard, and then he passed out again. He also told Henry that there were some vegetables in the root cellar under the cabin. Henry went and got some of the vegetables and put them in with the venison that was simmering over the fire. When the soup was cooked Henry fed Dan and made sure he was all right. Knowing that both of them were tended to and that the fire had plenty of wood to last for a few hours he told them he was going home and would be back before dark, and stay the night with them. Before he left he took a hindquarter of the venison and hung it in a tree by the cabin. He put his snowshoes on, loaded the rest of the venison on his shoulders and started the two-mile walk down the river to home.

When he arrived at home his wife and son met him and wanted to know where he had been for so long. He told them what had happened, and also said he would have to go back later that afternoon. His wife said "you are not going back alone we are all going, that child needs attention so we are all going together". They gathered everything that would be needed and started back to the Hayward cabin. Henry not only carried a full pack, but also had Bige sitting on the top of everything. Esther had her roots and herbs for poultices and teas, and of course she had her teapot. She had her needle and thread and cloth strips for bandages. She also had snowshoes on and trudged along in the path that her husband made. It was an uneventful trip and in a couple of hours they reach the Haywards. To Bige it was a big trip and very adventurous and exciting to a boy of two. When they got there, things had to be done. The first thing was to get more wood for the fire. In a little while the cabin was warm and the water was being heated in the kettle. Esther had taken over the cooking and cleaning the cabin. Bige and Dan were playing and getting in the way. John was feeling better but still couldn’t get around. Henry looked and finally found a limb with a crotch that would make a crutch for John. He cut it the right length and got a piece of cloth from his wife to pad the crutch and John demonstrated that he could navigate around the cabin and keep the fire going and feed his son. By the time that supper was over and everything was put back in order it was too late to start home that night. It was kind of cramped quarters but they managed and everybody found a place to sleep. The next day was spent getting enough wood cut and stacked inside so John could keep a fire going for a few days. Esther made a big kettle of venison stew and arranged the cabin so that John could take care of himself and his son. As Henry and Esther were packing there thing to go home Bige and Dan started asking their parents if tomorrow was Christmas. It was decided that the boys were right, so plans were made to come back tomorrow and celebrate Christmas together. It was after dark when they started for home. Their packs were almost empty so Bige stood in his father’s pack with his hands on his dad’s shoulders. Of course his mind was on Christmas and what the day might bring, maybe some maple candy and he was almost certain there would be a big turkey with mom’s bread stuffing. He daydreamed as he rode in dad’s pack. The anticipation of Christmas dinner was making his mouth water. As they neared home Bige looked up and saw a bright star in the sky. He tapped his dad on the shoulder and asked, "Dad is that star, the star that the wise men followed to find Jesus". Henry looked at the star and said "Son, I really don’t know, but I do know that it is our star and will lead us home". In the darkness with just the crunching of the snowshoes and the creaking of the pack breaking the stillness of the night the boy stood in his father’s pack, enraptured by the beauty of the night sky and wondered if it had been a night like this when Jesus was born, then sleep overcame him and he sagged down in his dad’s pack, warm and snug, knowing that he was loved and wanted, certain that mom and dad would make everything come out right.