Girl with Brush and Canvas

by Carolyn Meyer

  I shook my head, unable to think of a thing to say. Mama as a doctor! Imagine!

  “Your mother didn’t get the schooling she wanted—and should have had, in my opinion. That explains why she’s determined to give her children a good education, the best she can afford. The world is your oyster—that’s what your mother says.” She leaned close, as if she was about to tell us a secret. “Ida O’Keeffe doesn’t fit in well with the country people out in Sun Prairie. Some say she has too high an opinion of herself. I used to tell her she ought to move back to Madison. People here are more broad-minded. But no, Ida O’Keeffe is a stubborn woman. You’re the ones she’s counting on. You children will leave Sun Prairie some day—mark my words!”

  Yes, I thought, I might leave some day. But Sun Prairie will always be part of me.

  I wondered what Francis was thinking. I hardly ever knew what was going on inside his head, because he rarely talked about it, but I did know that he didn’t like farming. I wondered if he thought about Lena. If he’d loved her, and maybe still did. If she had ever loved him, and what happened to make her choose lazy, spoiled, dull William Traxler.

  We drank the last of our cocoa, cold now, and said good night. I took the oil lamp and went upstairs. I wrapped myself in a blanket and tried to warm my hands at the lamp. I knelt by the window and gazed out at a wet snow that had just fallen—the first that year—and clung to the bare branches of two large trees. A shiny coin of a moon had sliced through a bank of clouds and blazed a silver trail on the snow. My breath glazed the windowpane with frost, and I rubbed it away with my fist.

  I wanted to paint that scene, but how was I to do that? The snow was white. The paper was white. Then I hit upon a solution: I wouldn’t paint the snow, white on white—I’d paint the shadows that fell on the snow. I got out my watercolors and brushes, cracked the ice on my water pitcher, and stroked black and pale blue and a bit of lavender onto the paper, leaving swaths of white exposed.

  That painting was much better—much truer—than palm trees on a beach beside an ocean with a lighthouse I’d seen only in a geography book. I was painting not just what I saw but what I felt, and that was something new for me.

  It seemed odd: we were going to Sun Prairie for the weekend. We hadn’t planned to go home until Christmas, and it wasn’t yet November. Mama sent the message that Lena’s brother Samuel would pick us up in the John Deere, after he’d collected Ida and Nita. That was odder still: permission was never granted for weekends away from Sacred Heart. The four of us speculated the whole twelve miles about the reason for it, but none of us could come up with an explanation.

  As Danny Boy plodded toward Sun Prairie, Samuel filled us in on farm news, which cows had calved, how many young steers Papa was planning to sell at auction in Milwaukee.

  “Plenty busy, like always,” he volunteered. If something was wrong, some kind of problem we were needed for, he didn’t mention it.

  “How’s Lena?” I asked, sneaking a glance at Francis, who stared straight ahead.

  “Oh, she’s good,” Samuel said.

  We arrived in time for supper, and we were gathered around the table when Papa broke the news. He’d been even more talkative than usual, and Mama kept looking down at her hands in her lap and then glancing over at him with a little smile. Maybe, I thought, she was expecting another baby. Claudie was almost three, so it would be about time for another O’Keeffe.

  But that wasn’t it at all. Our family would be leaving Wisconsin, Papa told us. “We are moving to Virginia!”

  Leaving Sun Prairie? Why? I was stunned. I could tell we all were, but no one dared ask. We gaped and waited.

  “One by one,” Papa said, “my own father and my three brothers have died of consumption.” I remembered when Bernard, the youngest of his brothers, had moved into our house a few years earlier. Mama had nursed him through his last months. “I don’t want to be the next O’Keeffe to die and leave my family alone,” Papa said.

  He blamed their sickness and deaths on the harsh weather. Winters in Wisconsin were fiercely cold. The past February, while Francis and I were in Madison, the water froze in the well in Sun Prairie. Even the food stored in the root cellar froze.

  “I can’t tolerate any more worry like that,” Papa said grimly.

  No one spoke.

  Terrible as the winters were, there was more to it, Papa went on. He had five O’Keeffe daughters—“Lovely girls, beautiful and talented, and I am proud of them,” he always said—but only two sons, Francis, just seventeen, and Alexius, who was barely ten, to help with the work. Hired hands cost money, and even with Lena’s two brothers and William Traxler, my father didn’t have enough hands to take care of the cows, milking them twice a day, and to plant, hoe, and cut tobacco, and harvest the corn, and keep up with all the other farm chores.

  “I’m sick to death of it,” Papa was saying. “It saps a man’s soul clean out of his body.”

  He pulled a well-worn pamphlet out of his pocket and spread it on the table. I was sitting next to him, and I could see the words spelled out in curlicue letters:

  Williamsburg, the Garden Spot of Virginia

  Papa read parts of the pamphlet aloud, his voice trembling with enthusiasm as he described the mild winters of Virginia, the beautiful landscape, the gracious homes, the friendly people. One statement in particular stood out: Inflammatory diseases are very rare, and the absence of tubercular consumption is well authenticated.

  “Our land is worth a lot of money,” he explained. “It’s prime farmland, and it stretches for miles in every direction. I know I can get a good price for it. We’ll have more than enough money from the sale to buy one of those beautiful old houses in Williamsburg, and we’ll have all the room we could ever want.” Then he added, “It will be good for the health of us all,” and he slapped the table with the flat of both hands, as if that put an end to any questions we might have.

  Mama was beaming and nodding, every bit as eager as Papa. “It will be a different kind of life, and I know you children are going to love it. It’s sure to be the best thing in the world for all of us!”

  I tried to visualize the map of the United States I had studied in geography and see Virginia on it. And what had I learned about the state in my history class? One of the original thirteen colonies. Tobacco, which we had plenty of in our part of Wisconsin, and Negroes, which we did not. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it much, let alone love it. Not the way I loved Sun Prairie and the plains stretching all the way to the horizon, the clouds rolling in before a thunderstorm, the snow piling like a thick white blanket during those long winters that Papa said he hated. I loved the wildflowers that rioted everywhere all summer long in colors I didn’t know yet how to mix.

  I didn’t want a different kind of life; I wanted to keep on having the life I already had. Even if Aunt Lola was sure Mama wished for a bigger world for me.

  “We’ll be near a river,” Papa said, “and the ocean is very close.”

  I’d never seen an ocean, but I’d tried to paint as though I had actually walked beside it and watched the waves crash against the rocks. Would there be a lighthouse? That did seem like a new kind of experience.

  “Well, I for one am surely ready for a journey to someplace new,” Auntie declared. “I haven’t done anything this exciting since Ezra and I traveled in a covered wagon all the way to California. Now, that was an adventure!”

  Ida, Nita, and Alexius stared at their dinner plates while our parents discussed their plans for our new life. My sister Catherine and tiny Claudie, still too young to care, kept up a wordless conversation with each other.

  Finally Francis spoke up. “When do we leave, Papa?” His voice sounded hoarse, as though he had a cold.

  “Just as soon as I find a buyer ready to offer me the right price for the farm. I don’t want to spend another winter here, if I can help it. By next summer I expect we’ll be settled in our new home.”

  “You and Georgie will go back to Lola’s, and
Ida and Nita will finish the year at Sacred Heart,” Mama said. “The four of you will join us in Virginia at the end of the school term in June,” she continued. “And so, before you leave for Madison on Sunday, be sure to pack up whatever you absolutely must keep and take it with you. We’re selling everything.”

  “Everything?” I gasped. I couldn’t believe she meant it.

  “Yes—land, house, furniture, animals. All but a few precious belongings, things that can’t be replaced, like my family jewelry and Papa’s violin. We’ll buy whatever we need once we’re there. Everything will be fresh and new.”

  But how could they do such a thing? Our whole lives were being thrown away, as though none of it mattered, nothing was worth saving!

  Unable to look at my mother, I jumped up and began to help Hannah clear away the dishes. Mamie brought in a blackberry crumble and a pitcher of cream, but I don’t think anybody except Papa and Mama and the youngest children ate even a bite of it.

  The following day, Saturday, passed in a blur. O’Keeffe property stretched as far as I could see in every direction, horizon to horizon. I tramped around the boundaries, storing up pictures in my mind of every tree I’d climbed, every bush I’d stripped of berries, every field I’d watched turning from green to gold, every nickering draft horse and cow switching away flies with its tail, every cat that prowled the barn, mewing and hoping for a squirt of fresh milk. Those were the valuables we would not be taking to Virginia.

  I was in the tower room sorting and packing when Lena came by with little Buddy. He was still pale and sickly, but he could finally say a few recognizable words. The rest was gibberish that only Lena understood.

  “So you’re leaving,” Lena said while Buddy jabbered. “All of you? Even Francis?”

  “Yes. Everybody seems happy about it except me, and maybe Francis.”

  Lena opened her mouth and closed it again, before whatever she might have said had a chance to come out. “You’re not glad to be going, Georgie?” she asked finally.

  “No, I’m not! This place—the prairie, the farm, the animals, all of it—it’s part of me. It’s in my blood. I can’t imagine living anywhere else. You don’t know how lucky you are, Lena. Staying here. Marrying William. Your life is all settled.”

  “Yes,” she said, sighing. “That’s the plan, anyway.”

  Buddy was stuffing something in his mouth, and Lena bent to take it away from him. The little boy started to howl, and Lena had to raise her voice to be heard above the racket. When she got up to take Buddy home, she threw her arms around me.

  “Promise you’ll come back someday,” Lena pleaded. Tears glistened in her eyes, and I knew it wouldn’t take much before we’d both be bawling, but maybe for different reasons.

  “I will,” I said. “I’ll come back when I’m an artist. And I’ll paint your picture when I do.”

  I meant it, too.

  By Sunday afternoon my tower room was almost completely cleared out. I stood at the window and gazed out across the frozen fields, the sun already low in the western sky. When would I ever see this sky, this sunset, again? The cow barn, the tobacco barn, the springhouse, the farmhouse, my tower room?

  Mamie, her eyes red and puffy from crying, had prepared a grand feast—roast chickens, corn pudding, the last of the tomatoes that had been wrapped green and stored—but I had no appetite for any of it. Neither did Francis, or Ida or Nita. Only Alexius and Catherine and Claudie, who had no experience of what it was like to be anywhere but Sun Prairie, seemed unbothered by the momentous changes ahead. But our parents were in a fine mood.

  “It seems that I have a buyer, as of this morning,” Papa announced. “Or at least a firm offer. Nothing has been signed yet, there are details to be worked out, but I’m confident it will go through.”

  “Who bought it?” Francis asked after a long silence. “Somebody from Sun Prairie?”

  Papa helped himself to another drumstick. “Jacob Traxler. William will farm it. Live in the house someday, too, I imagine.”

  My eyes searched for Francis’s, but he would not look at me.

  “He’s getting it for a good price,” Papa added.

  “Too good, I’ll bet,” Francis muttered. “You should have held out for a better offer.”

  “I’m satisfied,” Papa said. “I’ll make enough, and I need the cash to start our new life in Virginia.”

  Abruptly, Francis shoved back his chair and left the table. We all stared at the empty place. I was shocked. I’d never heard Francis contradict our father. Never heard him use that tone before.

  “What about Penelope?” I asked, breaking the stunned silence.

  “Oh, don’t worry about her!” Auntie said cheerfully. “Where I go, my horse goes.”

  “And Boots?” Alexius asked, his voice trembling. After I left for Sacred Heart, the cat had transferred his affections to my little brother.

  “Boots stays,” Mama said. “He’ll have a new friend now.”

  Alexius sobbed—he was emotional, like Papa—and Ida and Nita clung to each other, weeping quietly, until seven-year-old Catherine joined in, and then the weeping got noisier. Claudie was only three, but she felt the sadness and began wailing. I sat with my hands in my lap, knotting and unknotting my fingers, trying to be strong, but when I saw tears rolling down Auntie’s face and even Mama dabbing at her eyes, my strength deserted me, and I started sobbing, too.

  “Well, now!” Papa said, looking at us with a pained expression. “No need to take on so!”

  Later, after all of us had more or less quit bawling, I wrapped a slice of apple crumb pie, Francis’s favorite, in a napkin and went looking for him. I found him sitting on a split log by the springhouse, his head bowed and his hands dangling between his knees. I’d never seen him so upset. He took the pie and set it down beside him on the log.

  “I don’t think you should have said what you did,” I told him. “About selling it to Mr. Traxler. Papa got the best price he could.”

  “You don’t know anything about it,” Francis said scornfully.

  That was true, but I didn’t want to admit it. I also thought Francis had a slanted opinion because he disliked William, and maybe because he still loved Lena.

  “Jacob Traxler has no respect for our father,” Francis said. “He’s been spreading it around that Frank O’Keeffe is a poor farmer, that he took advantage of his Irish luck when he inherited land from his brothers and then married a girl with a lot of property, and he didn’t deserve a lick of it because he’s incompetent.” He spit out the word like a bitter seed. “‘An incompetent farmer if there ever was one.’ Those were Jacob Traxler’s exact words.”

  I saw him struggling to control anger that seethed just below the surface. I wanted to ask if his anger also had something to do with Lena, but I could not find the right words, and Francis would not volunteer such information. Instead, I asked, “How do you know all this?”

  “William. We got into a fight. I lost. He’s bigger than me. Heavier.”

  “A fight? When was this?” I couldn’t imagine anyone less likely than Francis to get into a fight.

  “We were at the high school. You were at Sacred Heart.”

  Francis stood up and plinked a pebble against a tree, and then another one. I stayed quiet, waiting for him to say more. The sun had set, and I wished I’d thought to wear my coat.

  “So here’s what’s going to happen,” Francis said. “This farm is one of the biggest in the county. Jacob Traxler will probably give the house and fifty acres or so to William and sell off the rest piece by piece. Doing it that way, he’ll make a huge profit.”

  Bad enough that Papa had sold the farm. Worse, that he’d sold it to Jacob Traxler.

  “Couldn’t Papa have done the same thing? Sold it in pieces and gotten more money?”

  “He could have. But you heard what he said,” Francis said angrily. He shoved his hands in his pockets and started back to the house.

  I hurried after him. “You’ve forgotten
your pie!”

  5

  Madison, Wisconsin—Winter 1902

  TEARS WERE POURING DOWN MY FACE WHEN I LEFT my tower room for the last time, and again when Papa drove the John Deere down the lane for the last time, taking stony-faced Francis and me and our sisters back to Madison—Nita and Ida to Sacred Heart, Francis and me to Aunt Lola’s.

  My classes were generally uninteresting. The only one that mattered to me and held my attention was Miss Fellers’s art class; she let me draw or paint whatever I wanted. I’d made no real friends—friends like Maureen and Agnes. At Sacred Heart we’d lived together, eaten together, spent all our free time together after classes. But at Madison High School everyone scattered when the last bell rang, and I didn’t see them again until the next day.

  Francis focused entirely on his schoolwork and got high grades. He was sure to be a success someday. “I never wanted to be a farmer,” he told me after that last trip to Sun Prairie, “but it’s what Papa would have expected. So I’m glad he’s sold the farm.”

  He still sounded angry. Just not to Jacob Traxler, I thought.

  Papa had probably never wanted to be a farmer either, but he’d seen it as his duty, and he’d done it. It wasn’t Irish luck that put so much responsibility in his hands—Jacob Traxler was wrong about that. It was bad luck that did it, when Papa’s father and his three brothers died, one by one, of consumption. If we stayed in Sun Prairie, Papa might die of consumption, too, and then it would be up to Francis and Alexius to run the farm. Papa didn’t want to pass that burden on to his sons. He was betting that the move to Virginia would change his luck, and theirs.

  Mama never mentioned that she’d once dreamed of becoming a doctor. She was expected to marry, just as Papa was expected to take over the farm. It was her duty, and she did it without complaining. I knew she hoped I’d become an artist, and it was what I wanted to do. But Mama also made it clear that I was going to have to earn a living. Most likely I’d become a teacher, she said, like Aunt Lola. I thought of Miss Fellers and Sister Angelique, and tried to picture myself in front of a class, probably mostly girls, showing them chromos or plaster casts or real flowers and explaining how to make a picture.