Free All the Tea in China by Jane Orcutt Page B

poor creatures, so I settled in. I had no fear of the great beasts, as I had often insisted on helping the dairy man with his chores when I was a girl—much to his delight. Of course I had been forced to cease the practice once I attained the age of young lady, but I could not forget the warmth of a bovine flank nor the gratefulness of expression when the milking had concluded.
    “Here now,” I said soothingly, rubbing the shoulder of one overly frightened Guernsey. “You will be cooped up for quite a while before you see true land again, I am sure, but you will be fed regularly and milked. Would you not like to be a Chinese cow? For that is where you are headed.”
    Bossy stared at me with large brown eyes as if she understood. The other cows quieted too, but the pigs squealed uproariously.
    “Traitors,” I mumbled. “Cowards.” I had never liked pigs. Loathsome, dirty brutes.
    After I had tired of admiring the cows, which took all of twenty minutes, I found a tidy corner to sit in and began to consider my present predicament. Poor Flora must be watching and waiting for me. How could I leave her stranded at the dock that way?
    Remorse set in with a vengeance. I braced my hand against the wooden rail to rise and was suddenly thrown back to the straw. The ship moved!
    “In for a penny, in for a pound,” I muttered. “My decision is made. Again, Providence, I am sure.”
    Though my heart felt resolved, I mourned Flora. In the unlikely event that my plan failed, our reunion would be all the sweeter and our laughter all the heartier. She would scold me for being impetuous, then we would be on good footing once again.
    But surely my mission would not be deterred.
    As the hours wore on, boredom sank in. I had the Chinese Gospel According to St. Luke tucked in my pocket to keep me company, and from my memory of some of the verses, I studied the characters as though deciphering a code. I was pleased to find several symbols repeated in several places. I could learn this language!
    When I tired of this, I realized my stomach was rumbling. I had no notion of the time of day nor how I would ease my hunger pains. I weighed the prospect of venturing above deck in search of food, then realized that if I were found, I would no doubt be smartly put ashore at Gravesend, perhaps without ever seeing Snowe. I could not bear the thought of all my efforts ending in vain, so I ignored the rumblings and sang softly to myself.
    At some point I realized that I faced danger of discovery on another front. Someone was bound to feed and water the cattle sometime, and then my presence would certainly become known.
    “Perhaps if I feed you on occasion,” I murmured to the nearest cow, “anyone coming below deck to check on you will find you already fed and assume that someone else has seen to the task.” I paused. “Perhaps.”
    It did seem to be a totty-headed scheme, but it was all I could concoct at the moment.
    Surely I would be safe for today, so I would not worry about feeding the cattle until tomorrow. If only I knew for certain when that might be . . .

4
    I dozed off and on, disoriented by the lack of sunlight or a timepiece. I had no notion what day it was or whether we were yet in England or Timbuktu. One thing of which I was certain: I knew with a certain smugness that I was not prone to seasickness as so many had recounted in literary works. I must be made of sterner stuff. That was altogether a good thing, since I would no doubt encounter a dreadfully long voyage to China.
    Only one person had entered my hiding area, and I am not sure but that he took the wrong turn. I cowered behind a trough, but when he heard the cows moo, he uttered a curse and stamped loudly back up the stairs. To ensure that no one took me unawares while I slept, I remained behind the trough, cramped in an unnatural position with my limbs pulled to my chest and my arms tight around my knees.
    At some point I awoke with a start and, after recollecting
my