“And should we die before our journey’s through,
Happy day! All is well!
We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;
With the just we shall dwell!
But if our lives are spared again
To see the Saints their rest obtain,
Oh, how we’ll make this chorus swell—
All is well! All is well!”
Ann took in the scene around her and couldn’t find a dry eye among her fellow Saints. It was a tune they’d known all their lives, but when they’d heard the lyrics that had been given to it from William Clayton a few years earlier, the Saints had fallen in love with the song, and like Elizabeth, most had committed it to memory.
Ann hugged Elizabeth. “What a gift you have given all of us,” Ann whispered. “Your testimony through your voice has done so much good this day.”
Without much of a lull, an older gentleman near them broke into another hymn. When that one finished, someone else started another. Hymn after hymn was sung, and Brother Wheatley and Brother Naylor once again grabbed their fiddles and started accompanying them.
Elizabeth’s music had shifted the entire atmosphere. There was hope again, and though death surely awaited many of these passengers before this journey was through, there was strength in the phrase “all is well.”
Ann needed that hope. She knew it was entirely possible to get lost in her sorrow again, but the light Elizabeth provided had lifted her today. The hymn had reminded her that before the deaths and the storms and the sicknesses, she’d felt compelled to come on this ship. To take this journey.
For weeks she’d told herself that feeling came mostly from the desire to help her family. But as the refrains carried on, an old idea, one that naggedin the back of her mind, came again. It was a question—one that asked if there was a bigger purpose to this journey.
She wiped one more tear from her cheek. She didn’t have an answer.
All she knew was that today, she felt a little closer to God. That He hadn’t forsaken her completely.
Maybe the lyrics were right. Maybe, eventually, allwouldbe well.
Chapter 14
March 15, 1854
22 days at sea
Will wielded his hammerwith practiced, rhythmic consistency as he mended the topsail mast. His legs wove around the rigging like a spider in a web, the ropes acting like a harness as he worked high above the deck. On a naval boat, the first mate may have never worked alongside the carpenter, but on a merchant vessel, every man had to wear multiple hats, especially after a storm and amid a smallpox outbreak.
Next to him, the head carpenter, Mr. Haddock, whistled a tune. It was the same tune the passengers had sung several times in the past few days.
“So you know their music, Mr. Haddock?” Will asked as he lashed a bit of leather around the pole and pulled it tight to reinforce it.
“Theirmusic, Mr. Boyd?” He shook his head as he placed a nail. “I sang it in my church back home for at least the last decade. You don’t recognize the tune? I’d think most Americans would.”
“Can’t say I’ve attended much church in the last decade.” Will shrugged.
“Maybe if you had, you would’ve found a nice young girl to settle down with.” The older carpenter wiped some sweat from his brow.
Will chose not to reply to that comment. “You married, Haddock?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got three daughters, too. Eleven, seven, and five.”
In Will’s estimation, that seemed like a lot of females in one house, but Mr. Haddock seemed quite proud of his little brood. He went back to working, but after a minute he scanned the horizon. “Reckon we’ll see any whales, this trip, Mr. Boyd?” He used his knife to smooth the damaged edge of the pole he was working on.
“One can only hope,” Will answered. “That’s one of my favorite parts of a journey. I think in another life I should’ve been a whaler.” He gazed out and perused the gray-blue sea.
