Westering Women

by Sandra Dallas

  Bessie studied Maggie for a moment, perhaps wondering whether to confide in her. “I have several reasons. One is Evaline.”

  “You are very fond of her.”

  “I have known her since she was quite small. She was the daughter of my cook. When the woman was dying, she begged me to care for the child, who was only five. It was not a hardship. I loved her, and so did Mr. Whitney. We had no children of our own, so we spoiled her, he even more than I. She was never just a servant to us.”

  Bessie paused, scanning the company until she spotted Evaline and smiled. “We raised her almost as if she were a white girl, with the advantages of someone of wealth. She draws and paints and plays the violin beautifully. You have heard her of an evening at the campfire. Perhaps it was not wise of us to treat her so. She will always be a Negro. She will never be allowed to enter the front door of a Chicago mansion and be welcomed by members of society. If anything happens to me, the best she can hope for is to be a personal servant, someone who helps her mistress dress and handles social correspondence. That is a pity, because she is far too intelligent and too talented to be nothing more than a lady’s maid.”

  “She might marry,” Maggie said.

  Bessie nodded. “She could not marry a white man of society, of course. There are a few Negro men who have risen to positions as doctors and solicitors, but not many. I suppose her best hope would be a coachman or a butler.”

  “Perhaps in California,” Maggie suggested. Like Bessie, Maggie was watching Evaline as she walked along playing a game with Clara.

  “That is what I am hoping. You see, she was treated abominably in Chicago. The son of one of my friends accosted her on the street and demanded she go to his lodgings with him. And more than once, when I sent her on an errand, she met hostility and perversion. People look down on a Negro girl who aspires to a higher station. There are those who would make her keep her place. You may recall that, early in our trip, two or three women in this company expected Evaline to do their washing. I had to step in. I hope things will be better in California, where I believe society is less rigid. At least I hope so.”

  “Evaline is a sweet girl,” Maggie said. “She is so kind to Clara.”

  “She is that. I wonder that the indignities she has had to endure have not hardened her. She is too naïve. She trusts everyone. In protecting her and wanting her to have a happy life, I have failed her.”

  “Perhaps not,” Maggie said. “You have shown her love. That is a great gift.”

  “Is it? Love imposes hardship.”

  Maggie considered Bessie’s words and thought of her own situation. Her love for Jesse, brief as it was, had indeed brought anguish and pain, but out of that love had come Dick and Clara, and they were worth every blow of Jesse’s fists. She would not tell Bessie about Jesse, of course. Like the others, Bessie believed Maggie’s husband had been an honorable man. “You mentioned a first husband.”

  Bessie smiled, as if remembering. “He was young and very handsome. I believe I fell in love with him the first time I saw him, perhaps because he talked to me of books.”

  “Was he a businessman like Mr. Whitney?” She had met Bessie’s husband once when she had gone to the Whitney mansion to fit a dress.

  Bessie stared at Maggie a long time and did not reply.

  “I am sorry. I do not mean to intrude.”

  “It is all right. I was just wondering if I should tell you my past. No one else here knows, not even Caroline. They all believe I was highborn, but I was not. My speech once was as crude as Penn’s.” She paused a moment. “Even Evaline does not know the whole of it.”

  “I do not need to know either,” Maggie said. She already was burdened with too many confidences.

  Bessie glanced at Evaline to make sure she was all right, then suggested she and Maggie sit for a few moments. Bessie made her way to a nearby tree and sat down in its shade, her back against the trunk. She stretched out her legs in front of her, then raised her chin and stretched to take the kinks out of her back. “Now you shall know my secret,” she began. “I was born on a poor farm in Massachusetts and was destined to be a hired girl or a farm wife. We were all girls in the family, so I did much of the heavy work—plowing, seeding, harvesting, milking, and tending my sisters. My parents were hard and did not approve of frivolity. They did not believe in education for girls, either, and I did not learn to read and write until I was fourteen. That was when I went to Lowell as a bobbin girl.”

  “You worked in the mill?” Bessie was so refined that Maggie could scarcely believe such a thing.

  “I was good at it. First rate.” She grinned at Maggie. “I lived in a boardinghouse and loved my life. That was the first time I ever slept in a bed. The other girls complained about the food, but I was used to being hungry, and I could not stop eating. The mills had a school for the girls, and I was good at learning, too. I wanted to progress, so I determined to improve my speech, and studied the wives of the supervisors and owners to learn how to talk and dress properly.

  “In time I advanced, but as I became more confident, I realized there was unfairness in the mills. The work of spinning, weaving, drawing-in, and dressing was dangerous and mindless. The girl I shared a bed with lost her finger in the machinery. We girls worked as hard as the men but earned only a fraction of what they were paid. Some protested, but I did not have the courage to do so, because I was afraid of losing my job. My family needed the money. The only other employment I could have gotten was as a domestic, and I might as well have gone back to the farm as do that miserable work.

  “Then I met Abraham Lessing.” Bessie smiled for a moment. “He was delivering supplies to the factory and noticed me because I was carrying a copy of Mr. Cooper’s The Prairie that I had borrowed from the library. He asked if I liked it, and I said, ‘You have read it?’

  “‘Twice. I have read all of Mr. Cooper’s books,’ he told me. I wanted to ask him if he had read Mr. Longfellow’s poems, too, but I dared not risk someone seeing me talking to a man. They were very strict and would have let me go.

  “A week later, I heard someone whisper ‘Miss,’ and saw him sitting under a tree eating his dinner. I had thought of him for days. I sat down beside him, and we talked. After that we met in secret, until the mistress of my boardinghouse caught us and threatened to tell the mill manager or to summon my father. When I told Abraham we had been seen and could no longer meet, he put his arms around me and told me he loved me. He knew of a minister who would say the words over us, and we were married that day.”

  Bessie wiped away a tear. “It did not last long. Barely a year later, he was thrown from his wagon and run over by horses. He was taken away and buried before anyone thought to tell me. I was seventeen and a widow, and I never knew where my husband lay.”

  Maggie reached over and took the woman’s hand. A year! Bessie had had barely a year to love her husband. But then Maggie had loved Jesse for only a few months. “And then you met Mr. Whitney,” Maggie said, when Bessie did not continue.

  “Yes. I could not go back to the mill. Mr. Whitney was a bachelor, and I was employed as his assistant, to write letters and make travel arrangements, to have his clothes pressed and keep his social schedule. He was lonely, and we talked a great deal. He taught me refined ways, how to speak and dress as a woman of society, and he opened his great library to me. We fell in love and were wed. There were those who believed we had had an improper relationship and that I had tricked him into marriage, but that was untrue. When the women in Lowell would not accept me, Mr. Whitney insisted we move to Chicago, where society did not know us. I loved him in a different way from Abraham, but I loved him just as well.”

  * * *

  BESSIE DID NOT seem inclined to say more, so Maggie rose, then held out her hand to help the other woman stand. The wagon train had passed them by, and they hurried to catch up. Suddenly Maggie pointed across the prairie and said, “Look! Indians.” Up ahead of them, the wagons were forming a circle.

&nbs
p; The two women ran for the wagons and reached them just as William yelled, “Ladies, get inside the wagon circle. Fetch your guns.”

  Maggie turned and looked for Clara, then saw that Dora had her by the hand in the center of the circle. She glanced over her shoulder at the Indians coming toward the wagons, thinking that they did not look like warriors. There were women and children with them, and the men were not painted. The lieutenant had said they were not dangerous when they brought their families along.

  Someone must have reminded Joseph of that, but he said, “They are heathen. It could be a trick.”

  Maggie hurried to her wagon, looking about for anything left on the ground that might tempt the Indians. She took out a quilt and went back to where Clara was huddled with Dora. “Put the quilt over her. The Indians must not see her,” she said, and she and Dora spread the cover over Clara. Some of the women hid themselves, too, but most huddled in the wagon circle, watching the Indians approach.

  “They are not gentlemen,” Maggie told Dora. “Observe how the women walk while the men ride horses.”

  “I heard the lieutenant tell us the Indian women are treated like draft animals. They do the drudgery whilst their lord and master plays games or sits and smokes,” Dora replied. “So it is no surprise the men are mounted whilst their wives plod along. Still, look at how dignified the women are. They are quite majestic.”

  “It is clear the men have the best of it in all ways. See how they are dressed in beaded buckskin and fine shirts. The women wear only rags.”

  Dora gave her a sly look. “Indian men are not the only men who have the best of it in all ways.”

  William and Joseph went out to meet the Indians, a dozen of them, from an infant to a man in the prime of life, who did not deign to dismount. William approached him. “We have biscuits.”

  The man held out his hand. “Bis-ket.”

  Maggie went to her wagon to fetch biscuits left over from breakfast. She started toward the man, but instead she handed the pan to an Indian woman who was thin and had a look of hunger on her face. The woman took the biscuits, but rather than eat one of them, she gave the pan to the man on the horse. He shoved two or three into his mouth, then fed one to the horse. He handed a biscuit to a boy beside him and ate the rest himself. Maggie was disgusted.

  “Ko-fee,” the man demanded.

  Maggie brought the coffeepot, a tin cup, and a can of sugar with a spoon and poured coffee left from breakfast into the cup and handed it to the Indian.

  He refused it. “Sugar,” he said.

  Maggie opened the can and added a teaspoon of sugar.

  “More.”

  “No more,” she said, holding out the cup.

  The Indian grabbed it and drank it in one gulp, then made a face. “Cold.”

  Maggie took back the cup and pan and did not offer more. Instead, she touched the woman’s arm and pointed to the wagon. She poured coffee into the cup, then added several spoonsful of sugar before handing the cup to the Indian woman, who gave her a bashful smile and drank.

  “Present,” the woman said.

  Maggie went back to her wagon and looked about for something to give the Indian woman. She had not brought charms or other novelties. She spotted her sewing supplies and took out a safety pin. She had bought a dozen of the new invention when she and Mary had gone to a store for necessities. She had thought they would be useful to hold together torn clothing. Now she went to the Indian woman and fastened a pin onto the woman’s frayed shirt. The Indian ran her finger over the pin and grinned. “Yes,” she said. “More.”

  Maggie would not give away the rest of the pins, however, and shook her head.

  By now Edwin, a driver headed to Salt Lake City, had joined the Indians and spoke to them in their strange language. William asked the warrior’s name, and Edwin shook his head. “I cannot make it out. It sounds like Big Joe. That is not his real name, of course. Likely he was given it by passersby.”

  “That is good enough. Did he say what he wanted?”

  “The usual—coffee, flour, sugar, bacon, trinkets,” Edwin replied. “Guns, knives, and bullets.”

  “We can spare a little flour and sugar, but we will not give him weapons,” William said.

  “Oh, he knows that. It is just wishful thinking on his part. Maybe he believes he will encounter someone foolish enough to part with them. White people believe Indians are stupid because they cannot speak our language, but they are very clever. Sometimes I think them cleverer than us.”

  Big Joe said something in a guttural voice, and Edwin shook his head. The Indian spoke louder, and Edwin said no.

  Big Joe looked angry and shook his head back and forth.

  “What does he want?” William asked.

  “Oh, he is only greedy. It is nothing.”

  “What?”

  Edwin shrugged. “He is asking why there are so many women in our party.”

  The Indian muttered something, and Edwin spoke to him in the native’s language. Then he told William. “I said we are taking the women to California to be wives of the miners.”

  Big Joe pointed to himself, then at a young man near him, uttering a demand.

  Edwin hid a smile. “He wants one of the women for himself. And another for his son. He says he has always desired a white wife. His other wives are Indians.”

  Maggie gasped. “He has more than one wife?” Then she remembered Edwin was a Mormon and that polygamy was not a novelty to him.

  “Ask him what he will pay for one of our women. We have two or three among us who are not compatible,” William said.

  Maggie looked at the minister, astonished, until he said that he was only joking.

  “Perhaps you should not. Sometimes the Indians understand more of our language than they let on. He would take you seriously, and you would offend him if he thought you were playing with him,” Edwin said.

  The Indians had come inside the wagon circle, the women peering into the wagons and begging for food, the children, curious, picking up objects left on the ground. Now Big Joe rode around the circle staring at the women. After a time, he pointed to Mary and said something to Edwin, who shook his head.

  “He wants her. He says she is strong enough to do a woman’s work,” Edwin said. “I told him she was not available.”

  The Indian grunted, making it clear he did not like being turned down.

  “He says he has many horses and two other wives to help with the work,” Edwin told Mary.

  Mary stamped her foot and threw up her hands. “No!” she shouted. “No! No! No!”

  Big Joe watched Mary for a moment, then spoke to Edwin, who translated. “He’s offering three horses.”

  “Is that all!” Mary was offended.

  “I believe you could get five,” Edwin told her.

  Mary let out a great laugh. “Not for all the horses on the prairie,” she said.

  “Then you have priced yourself out of the market.”

  After a lingering glance at Mary, Big Joe shrugged and looked over the other women, finally pointing to one who caught his fancy. She scrambled into her wagon and hid under a blanket.

  “No women,” Edwin said, then told William, “We need to placate him. He is insulted. Perhaps we can give him a slab of bacon.”

  “Perhaps we should give him a kick in the backside,” said Joseph, who had been watching the negotiations.

  “And start an Indian war?” Edwin responded. “Who knows how many Indians may be waiting over the hill. We would be foolish to rile him.”

  Big Joe spotted Evaline then and kicked his horse so that he was next to her. He asked something, and Edwin replied, then said to Joseph, “He wants to know if she is a white woman. He says she looks more like an Indian. If she is an Indian, then you can sell her to him, he says.” Edwin paused. “I believe he has never seen a Negro before.”

  Evaline heard the conversation and shrank back. “No. You won’t sell me, will you, Mrs. Whitney?”

  “Of course not,”
Bessie replied. “Tell the man I would rather marry him myself than send Evaline with him.”

  Edwin shook his head. “No, ma’am. That is not a good idea. He might think you are serious.”

  “The whole subject is preposterous,” Joseph said. “These are Christian women. They will have nothing to do with a heathen.”

  The Indian was insistent. He told Edwin that Evaline belonged with him, not with the company of white women.

  “Get into the wagon and hide under the quilts, Evaline,” Bessie told the girl. Bessie climbed into the wagon behind Evaline and rummaged through the contents of her trunk. “Here, give him this.” She handed Edwin a red silk scarf.

  Edwin ran the scarf through his fingers, then held it up to the sun to let Big Joe see how the light made it shimmer. He raised it above his head, and the wind caught it and blew it around like a banner. Slowly, Edwin tied it around his neck. The Indian stared at the silk, then reached out and grabbed it and wrapped it around his head.

  “You have saved his pride,” Edwin told Bessie.

  They watched as Big Joe pointed to the slab of bacon Joseph had set on the ground, ordering one of the women to pick it up. Then he turned and led his little band away, not so much as thanking them or even turning around to acknowledge the company.

  “A white woman with an ignorant savage. The idea disgusts me,” Joseph said. “How could he think any Christian woman would marry such a man?”

  “You may think him ignorant, but there was a time not far distant when he was a prince. You would think differently if you saw him in his war paint, racing that horse across the prairie. You would be right to fear him then. They were a magnificent race,” Edwin said.

  “What changed him?” Maggie asked.

  “We did. We white people.” Edwin looked off in the direction where the Indians had disappeared. “These Indians are beggars. You have not seen those who are fearless, the cream of a proud and intelligent people. Pray God you never will.”