"Are ye addlebrained as well as careless?"

Jiggy Nye's harsh words cut through the air as Silence slumped to the ground, trying her best to quickly clear the ground of broken glass.

"Do ye hear me?!"

His hands were in her hair now, yanking her to her feet. She grasped her hair and cried out.

"I did not mean to drop it! I was startled!"

"Aye, ye did mean it! Ye are out to ruin me!" He threw her to the ground once more, ranting and yelling to himself as he stormed away

"I told them I wanted a boy, not a useless chit."

Her hands were now bleeding from the glass. They had once been soft and pale, the hands of a lady. Not anymore. The harsh chemicals of the tannery had caused them to peel and crack, revealing little specks of flesh underneath. She was careful not to cut herself any further as she cleaned the remaining glass from the ground.

Her dress was soiled now. It was always soiled these days.

Silence wiped her bloody hands onto her skirts and breathed. "Five years...how shall I survive five years of this?" Many servants did not survive to see their freedom dues be paid. She herself had heard stories of women who became heavy with child before their contract had finished, and subsequently became even more indebted to their masters. Stories of men worked to death upon plantations or young girls whose spirits were crushed and whose dreams vanished. Silence was beginning to believe that she might end up like the latter. She was new to Williamsburg, and to the colony of Virginia, at that. Her mother, may God rest her soul, had desired that she become a proper lady. Her father was killed in the war when she was just a babe, and consequently, it became her mother's sole responsibility to make a fine young lady out of her. When her mother died of the fever when she was 14, Silence had little idea as to what to do for herself. In truth, she was old enough to marry, but who should she marry? She was a quiet girl, and most lads showed no interest in such a painfully quiet girl. She was proper and sweet, but so painfully shy that most did not even try to speak to her, because most often she would not, could not, muster the courage to answer. For a time she lived with an aunt in Yorktown, but soon heard of a man by the name of Mr. Nye who desired a servant to work for him for the tenure of five years. The advertisement had made no indication of what the job may be, or for whom it was intended, but the kind man who owned the newspaper assured her that he believed Mr. Nye to be the owner of a shop. A milliner, perhaps, or a tailor. "Well, some tanners must sew their leather to make goods," she thought, "and so the man was not so terribly wrong."

But in truth, he was. Upon her arrival at the tannery, the first thing she noticed was the awful smell. "Perhaps his shop is in town, and this is only his home. The stalls of the barn may be in need of a cleaning. Yes, that must be the cause for the stench." Silence, of course, knew that a dirtied barn should not smell this way, and she knew that no tailor or milliner kept vats of foul-smelling liquid upon their porches, but she refused to believe that the kind man from the newspaper would have lied to her. He was mistaken. Surely he was mistaken.

Jiggy Nye greeted her that first day with an angry yell and a horsewhip. He did not strike her, of course, but he had believed her to be the Merriman girl attempting another theft of his mare. "Be gone with you! Ye have no business here! I told you I'd skin ye alive if ye stepped foot here again!" Silence shrunk from his words, and from his strong presence. "Sir, I am only here for the advertisement. I was-I was told that you were in need of a servant...for your shop."

"My shop?!," cried Jiggy Nye, confused now more than ever. "Do ye think I own a shop? I am no merchant like that scoundrel Merriman!"

"Y-Yes sir," came the shaky reply. "I was-I was only told that you required a servant, and I was told you owned a shop. I suppose the man was mistaken."

Jiggy Nye's anger had only slightly softened "Why did they send ye? Ye are not a boy! I wanted a boy!"

"I am not, but I shall work hard sir. Very hard indeed, if you shall only give me the chance." He stared at her in hard contemplation. She was small, almost diminutive. Her hands were pale and weak, and her limbs were not much better. She carried herself with such fear and uncertainty that even Jiggy Nye felt the littlest bit of pity for her. Pity that soon vanished when he remembered his anger over not receiving a boy.

"Please, sir. I promise I shall work very hard."

She gazed up at him with uncertain eyes. Please, let him decide to keep me. I shall have nowhere else to live, now that my aunt has gone back to England.

"Do ye like cows?"

Silence furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "Cows?"

"Aye, and horses."

She bit her lip in concentration.

"Well, I suppose so..."

He turned and walked inside the house

"Ye ought to rid yourself of such fancies. You'll be killin' 'em soon."

You'll be killin' 'em soon

Whether he meant the animals or her fancies, she wasn't sure. She still was not sure, and she had been in Williamsburg for 5 weeks now.