Bread and Dreams: Mina in America

PART ONE THE ATLANTIC OCEAN My strength is my own even if it be faint. On Wednesday, October 11, 1848, weMr. Serle and Iset sail from Liverpool on the ship Victoria bound for New York City. We have been on the ocean for almost a week now, and today, at last, I found time to begin my journal. Crouched between the foremast and the cookhouse, out of the wind, I balance my book on my knees and hold the bottle of ink between my bare feet so it will not slide away across the scrubbed planks of the ship into the great Atlantic Ocean I almost lost the ink bottle overboard as the ship suddenly tilted in a gust of wind. It would have gone if not for Phoebe, who caught it just in time. "There you are, Daniel," she said, handing me the square glass bottle. Even as I thanked her, Phoebe hurried away with her chin tucked down. She is a young African girl, twelve perhaps, ser- vant of Mr. and Mrs. Horatio Greene. Every morning she fetches their early tea, sparing me the trouble of carrying it to their cabin. Perhaps I should write all that happened within the span of the last year, but the sadness of it daunts me. The green meadows of Ireland, the smell of rotting praties, the starving village, the fever deaths of my sister, Eliza, and of my parents, the burning of the house where I was born still come back to me in dreams, still wake me in the empty silence of the night. That and my escape from the burning ship, the Abigail, and from the Liverpool people who would have enslaved me, my finding my friend Mr. Serle in the bounty of the kitchen in the great house in England and his taking me as an apprentice cookmemory overwhelms me. In a future time of peace and reflection, I will record the aching pain and the birth of hope. Someday. Today my pen scratches its way across this paper, and today is what I wish to capture. Today and tomorrowthe adventure and the fear of going to America. And now the shipI write quickly for there is much to do and moments such as this with calm seas and light sail hoisted are few. The passengers, the fifteen who sleep in the cabins, perambulate about the quarterdeck taking the air and stare down at the steerage passengers. Those one hundred and fifty or so poor souls who live crammed below in the steerage are outdoors on the part of the main deck they are allowed to use. Mr. Serle and the crew's cook, Seymour, handed out their rations for the day, and they wait turns at the two big galley stoves lashed by the main cargo hatches. Sailors watch them so no fire will escape. Mr. Serle and I cook for the cabin passengers: special dishes such as boiled mutton with capers, apple and preserved cherry pies, puddings, and the punch and cakes that the gentlemen like after their evening card games. The fat, dark-skinned man called Seymour boils the crew's salt pork and cabbage, which he calls their grub. Seymour is half African and half Mohawk Indian and half Irish, he told me, and he laughed until his belly shook when I said that is impossible, he can't be one and a half altogether. He is mankind's child, he claims, and when he finds an oriental lady to marry, he will be complete. WeMr. Serle, Seymour, and I as cook's assistantwork around each other in the cramped cookhouse that is almost filled by the bulk of the great iron range. The owners of the ship told the captainwho told Mr. Serlethat it is important for a sailing packet to have a reputation for fine food so that cabin passengers will recommend it. The steamships take many of the wealthy travelers now, and the captain does not want to be left with the cargoes of emigrants and their diseases, even though there is great profit in the emigrant transport.[read more]