S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 7 1 1 7 Fiction Gravestone Artwear Boston By Michael Kimball think, but I’ve since lost sight of her, except the night she died. She caught the smallpox and was laid by the fire, and I made my way to her on the hearth, though I was admon- ished not to. When I touched the droplets on her forehead, her face filled with light, and she sneezed. I saw the spirit jump out of her and spin up above the flames, then fly away with the sparks to heaven. Then she was still. (Moody has dozed off.) Your Lucy. May I ask, is she— [York Jail Interior. Dusk. Late Winter 1735] A dungeon in dim lantern light. Moody, in his hat and overcoat, sits against the chim- ney. Patience sits at his feet wrapped in her blanket. MOODY: I have never known an Indian. I find it strange. PATIENCE: I am strange. MOODY: Strange–to have lived amongst you. All my life. And never call one friend. PATIENCE: Myself, I’ve known only one or two. MOODY: Indians? PATIENCE: Servants. Vagrants. Jail-mates. I do know your peo- ple. Quite well. MOODY: Your opinion of us must not be high. PATIENCE: I have no opinion, Mr. Moody. I know that you stand with my Lord Jesus, and I’ve nev- er had a greater love for anyone. MOODY: Jesus. Yes. (His eyes will close.) PATIENCE: I did love my mother, I MOODY: (waking) Yes! PATIENCE: Your father says she is a patient wife. Your Lucy. MOODY: Oh, more than patient. Tolerant, I would say. Exceedingly tolerant of my ab- sences, my absentmindedness. PATIENCE: She makes you a good partner then. MOODY: Oh yes. Industrious, thrifty–a sea- soned negotiator in all matters. An inven- tive cook and seamstress. Attentive mother to our children. At times she seems to de- light in their company. PATIENCE: And yours? MOODY: My company? She–tol- erates. We enjoy, if I may say, an agreeable marriage, though she’d be the first to attest to my imper- fections. PATIENCE: My husband seemed to delight in mine. MOODY: Your company? PATIENCE: Imperfections. Fool. Till I took it out of him. MOODY: In what way? T he town of York, Maine, claims two notorious characters from its past: Patience Boston and Reverend Joseph Moody. In 1735, Patience Boston was a 23-year-old Native American servant sentenced to hang for drowning her master’s grandson in a well. Joseph Moody was the Puritan preacher who ministered to her for seven months, until she gave birth and could be hanged. Two years later, Moody would succumb to a profound breakdown and spend his remaining years stalking the town shrouded under a black veil. Today, southern Mainers remember the haunted preacher only as “Handkerchief Moody.” This excerpt from Kimball’s play portrays the Joseph Moody of his early journals, as an earnest young preacher trying to reconcile earthly and heavenly turmoil in the anxious peacetime following witch trials and Indian raids. Patience