The Trials of Nellie Belle

by Sydney Avey

  Nellie’s parents had no way of knowing about the deep wound she nursed over the loss of her first love the year before her wedding. Jessie had kept her confidence. Although Nellie had banished the wealthy Easterner from her hopes and dreams, his parting words were never far from her thoughts.

  As he handed her a gift, the smile on his lips had stolen her breath. Feeling his eyes upon her, she had lifted the shiny object from the velvet box.

  “It’s a solid silver dipping pen,” he said.

  A friendly hand dropped down on her shoulder. She stared at the weighty object through tears she willed herself not to spill.

  “You write so well; I thought it would be the perfect token of my gratitude.”

  Gratitude? That’s it?

  Perhaps she had agreed to marry John to bury the shame of that moment. She was a girl who would take what she could get. That included praise. She never forgot Eustace’s genuine praise of her abilities. The new journal she had started began on a cautious note of hope, but all too soon its pages were crowded with bitterness and disappointment.

  Dear Diary,

  Although John is old, he is not unattractive. He recommends himself well to Father because he is an excellent ranch manager. Evidently, Father believes he can keep John in his employ if he indentures his eldest daughter to him in marriage. No one seems to care what I want.

  I want to leave this locust-infested land! I want to see some of the world I only read about in books. I want to travel and have adventures, if not in the East, then in the West. John is well traveled. He came here from Canada; why should he not want to go west where there are real opportunities?

  I am determined to be a good wife to John and help him make something of himself.

  Nellie had taken the twinkle in John’s eye for a smitten heart. His careful manners made her feel safe. His furtive kisses thrilled her. Only after the wedding did she discover that the gleam she mistook for true affection was, in fact, a cockiness born of hard times, hard work, and hard living.

  Dear Diary,

  As Mother instructed, I am a dutiful wife in bed. I always allow John to have his way. He certainly seems to enjoy what we do, but if there is pleasure in it for me, I don’t know how to find it.

  That his parents came from Canada for our wedding and are still with us does not help the situation! When John reaches for me, all I can think about is Rebecca and Jobe sleeping on the other side of our thin bedroom wall. I try not to make a sound, but John is not so cautious. The only saving grace is that he is quick. Afterward, he sleeps like the dead. I lay awake for hours, wiping away tears that trickle from my eyes and plug up my ears.

  What did I expect? I thought I might find some deep comfort for the uneasiness in my body in the arms of my husband. Perhaps one day, if we ever have time alone.

  R

  John’s parents never did return to Canada. Shortly after Mabel’s birth, Nellie cornered her husband out behind the barn where he was supervising a delivery of limestone.

  “I can’t live like this, John.”

  “Nellie, can’t you see I’m busy?” John checked an inventory list while the farmhands unloaded pallets of boulders and slabs.

  “You are always busy.” The pallet hit the ground with a thwack and raised dust that stung her eyes. She stomped her foot and shouted above the din. “I have to talk to you now.”

  “Not now, Nellie. Wait until I make sure this order is complete.” He waved her away as if she were a pesky fly.

  Nellie marched past the soddy where they lived, down to the pasture where she could sit in the shade underneath the eastern cottonwood tree. She removed her straw hat and set it on the grass, then lifted her hair and let a small passing breeze cool the back of her neck.

  From the house, Mabel’s wailing was all but lost in the wind that blew through the tall grass. She should be napping. Undoubtedly, Rebecca would pick the baby up if she kept hollering.

  Nellie put her hands to her ears and laid her head on her bent knees. Marriage was not the escape she had hoped and prayed for. She was still her parents’ daughter, and now she was her husband’s wife, her baby’s mother, and her in-laws’ servant. Not fair. Rebecca and Jobe helped out, but they had old ways of doing things that drove her mad. Take soap: you could buy it cheap these days, but Rebecca insisted on making her own. That was work and mess on top of the work and mess Nellie already had keeping her house and baby clean and her husband and the hired help fed.

  The breeze stilled, and the air around Nellie closed in. She raised her head and opened her eyes. There was John, squatting down in front of her. He touched her cheek with his rough, calloused hand.

  “Nellie, I know this is tough on you, but you know what I’m doing up there?” He nodded in the direction of the barn. “That delivery is material for a new limestone house I’m going to build for us.”

  Nellie stared at her husband. Hot tears sprang to her eyes. “You are building a house?” She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with the palms of her hands. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  John smiled the way he used to when he was courting her, but she knew better now. He had given no thought to her desires, had no idea what she wanted—not then, not now. She shook her head violently.

  “I don’t want to stay here.”

  John rose to his feet and offered her his hand. “Come back up to the house, then. I’ll knock off early, and we’ll talk.”

  She slapped his hand away and leaped to her feet. “John! I don’t mean I don’t want to stay here under this tree; I don’t want to stay here on the farm. I don’t want to stay here, in …” She spat the word. “Kansas!”

  He took off the flat-brimmed nut-brown hat she had bought him as a wedding present, looked up into the tree, and ran a hand through his hair. Facing her, he placed the hat over his heart and bowed his head. “Nellie, I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you first. But you know, you’ll feel better when you have your own house. You will.” Then he walked up the gentle slope toward the soddy.

  Nellie took several deep breaths. The afternoon sun passed from behind the tree to the open sky and glared down on the back of her neck. Was John right? Would having her own place make a difference? She tried to imagine herself the mistress of a house like her mother’s, but her mind offered no picture.

  From the paddock at the other end of the pasture, she heard her pony squeal, a noise he made when someone approached him too aggressively. She tried to return her thoughts to the home John proposed to build for her. I don’t want a house of my own. I want freedom. So clear as to almost be audible, this thought shook her from her heated stupor. She reached down and picked up her hat, set it on her head to relieve the discomfort at the back of her neck, and went to see about her pony.

  R

  Eight years passed and the family grew. One late afternoon, Mabel played with her younger brother Johnny in the house while Nellie rested in her rocker on the porch that wrapped around the house John had built for her. She was pregnant again.

  To blot out awareness of the pain in her lower back, Nellie closed her eyes and paid attention to the catch in the rhythm of the rockers as they moved across the uneven floor joists. The groan and squeal reminded her of the onset of labor pains that would begin any day now. She didn’t want to think about that. She opened her eyes and looked across the pasture to the empty paddock where her pony used to exercise. John had offered to buy her another horse after Patches died, but she said no—they had enough mouths to feed. She didn’t want to think about that either.

  For as far as she could see, dead grass, deserted outbuildings, and dusty farm equipment moldered in the sun. Their neighbors were moving off debt-ridden farms into small towns springing up nearby.

  Nellie’s head began to nod. She was slipping into a familiar dream when a crash inside the house brought her to her feet. In the kitchen, broken glass littered the counter and Mabel stood in a puddle of milk, crying. No blood, thank the Lord.

  “I’m sorry, Momm
a, I was trying to get dinner started for you, but Johnny grabbed for a slice of cheese and knocked over the milk before I could cream the potatoes.” Mabel grabbed a dishrag and dropped down to wipe up the mess. “I’m not very good at this.” She glared at Johnny, who was hiding under the kitchen table.

  A sharp pain in the small of her back alerted Nellie that she had best settle things quickly. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” she told her oldest. “Your father won’t be home for dinner tonight, so let’s just have some cheese toast and finish up the corn soup.”

  “Ewww.” Johnny pulled a face. “It’s got cabbage in it. I hate cabbage.” He scooted out from under the table and ran outside.

  After the children had been fed and put to bed, Nellie returned to her porch rocker. In her hand rested the silver pen she usually kept wrapped in its turquoise-colored satiny gift paper and buried in her letterbox. She loved feeling the weight of it resting in her palm, loved rolling her treasure gently between her fingers and the palm of her hand. She opened the journal that lay propped on her large belly and began to write.

  Dear Diary,

  While John stays out nights carousing with what few farmhands we have left, I sit here in this deserted wasteland and wonder what is to become of us? Rebecca dead and Jobe off courting a widow woman—in Michigan of all places. The old coot! My poor brother, Louis, lost to us from influenza before he was twenty. Frank and Jessie, married and gone. Even mother and father have moved to town. What am I to do with myself?

  Mother comes to visit and play with the children, but she never stays long. She has made a remarkable transition from farm wife to townswoman. How I envy her.

  Never would I have imagined that John and I would be the last holdouts. I must get him to see the folly of fighting the times.

  When John stumbled home later that evening, Nellie handed him a mug of coffee and raised the subject again. His answer was the same.

  “We can weather this, Nellie. I ain’t leaving this land. It’s all we got.” He looked at her swollen belly and shook his head. “Things will turn around. They always do.”

  Nellie shivered and pulled a knit shawl tight across her shoulders. She lowered herself into a chair and tried to ignore the rolling twinges in her abdomen. “We have no indication that will happen anytime soon, John. We’ve not had cattle to run since the Great Die-Up. We can’t sell our crops. We can’t even sell our land. Let’s just go. Now, before winter sets in.”

  John stood at the window, peering out into the darkness of a starless night. He raised the mug to his lips and drank the murky brew down to the dregs. “That’s bitter, woman.” He set the cup down on the windowsill.” What did you do to it?”

  “I double-brewed it.”

  “You used twice the amount of coffee?

  “I reused the grounds from this morning.”

  John grimaced. “You trying to poison me?”

  “I’m trying to sober you up and talk some sense into you, John. We could do better if we left this farm.”

  He continued to stare into the darkness. “I don’t know.”

  Nellie pushed herself up out of her chair and duck-walked over to her husband. She touched his arm, and when he turned to face her, she ran her hand gently across his furrowed brow.

  “John, this will be an adventure.” With effort, she raised up onto the tips of her toes as far as she could carrying the weight of their child, kissed him lightly, and smiled. “You used to be so adventurous. Don’t you remember?”

  John put his arms around her shoulders and held her in an awkward embrace. He whispered in her ear whiskey-soaked words that turned her stomach but brightened her hopes. “Adventurous enough to father three children on you, Nellie Belle. I suppose if you want to raise them in a town, we might think about taking ourselves a little trip out West to see what all the fuss is about.”

  Nellie took a sharp, inward breath and waited for her husband to release her. The light in the room was nearly gone, the temperature dropping. Cold air slipped in through gaps in the doors and windows, and groans and squeaks from the cast-iron radiator signaled bedtime. John stepped away and searched her face for a reaction.

  Passing her hand over her ear, chilled now with the dampness of his breath, she tried not to sound like a little girl who had just been promised a trip to the circus. “Out West?”

  “Sure. I got a brother in Los Angeles who wrote me. He’s got something going there. Says he can fix me up with work if I want.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  John frowned. “Because this is my decision, Nellie.”

  Nellie hugged herself, not from the cold but excitement. California! Land of opportunity. I can’t wait to see the ocean! At just that moment, a warm rush of water gushed from between her legs.

  “John, it’s time.”

  He frowned at her. “I say when it’s time.”

  She laughed and then gasped as a contraction started. “Not in this instance.”

  John sent one of the farmhands for the midwife, and a baby girl was born early the next morning. They named her Opal.

  R

  In the months that followed, letters from John’s brother Samuel were full of assurances that work was plentiful for skilled laborers and tradespeople. Surely trade labor would be a step up from farm labor, but Nellie kept a tight lip on any suggestion that John should consider what skills might be required out West and set his mind to learning a new trade. He did not take kindly to advice she offered unless he asked for it. He didn’t ask. Neither did he seem in any hurry to make the move to which they’d agreed.

  One day, Nellie found a letter l on John’s desk informing him that a construction job was open. You better move quickly on this one, Samuel had written. He had found them a house to rent in East Los Angeles.

  Nellie read the letter through carefully, looking for a hint that Samuel had any idea about the housing needs of a growing family. She found no such sensibility, only ramblings about a happy reunion of the clannish Scott brothers. It had not occurred to Nellie that a new opportunity for their family to prosper was not as strong a draw for John as a chance to be with his brothers again.

  If she and John were indeed to have a fresh start, she needed to make her feelings clear to her husband. She waited until the older children left for school and baby Opal was down for a nap. When John came into the kitchen from the morning’s chores, she handed him a cup of coffee. He raised the mug to his nose and sniffed cautiously.

  “It’s a fresh cup.” She laughed. “Single brew.” She poured a cup for herself and sat down at the table. “John, when we move, I want us to choose our own neighborhood. This time, I want to choose the house.” She held up the letter she had found on his desk and tried to muster a smile that communicated a confidence in him she didn’t have. “And wouldn’t you like a say in what kind of employment you accept?”

  “Accept?” John sputtered and set his mug down so hard that hot coffee splashed onto the tablecloth and ate through the starch, spreading into an ugly brown stain. He grabbed the letter from her hand, balled it up in his fist, and threw it on the floor. Then he loomed over her, jabbing his finger inches from her face.

  “Nellie, let’s get one thing straight. The Scott brothers have always looked after each other. Anything Samuel has set up for us we will accept and be grateful that I don’t have to do all the legwork myself.”

  Nellie’s arms stiffened at her sides. She willed herself to say no more, but her will did not serve her well this day. She stood up and backed away so she wouldn’t have to talk to the buttons on his chest. “Listen to me, John. We have an opportunity to improve our station in life. You don’t have to be a farmer. You don’t have to be any kind of laborer. You are a smart man. You’re good with numbers. You can get a better job.”

  “A better job?” He held his rough, calloused hands up to her face. Splaying out his fingers with their dirt-encrusted nails, he dropped his hands for her inspection. “Dirt offends you?”

  He r
otated his palms and stared into them. Then he raised cold, angry eyes to her face. “I work with my hands. These are my tools. They put food on your table and clothes on your back. Don’t you ever tell me what kind of work I should do.”

  Nellie opened her mouth to reply, but a quick run through her reservoir of retorts came up dry.

  The anger in John’s eyes melted into defeat. “I done right by you, Nellie Belle, just like I told your father I would. Remember, this move was not my idea. If it wasn’t for Samuel, I would not be making this move at all.”

  Quietly, Nellie ended the conversation. “May I remind you that you are not making this move alone? You have a family that depends on you. We are all making this move together.” And she said no more.

  4 - A Gypsy Life

  4

  A Gypsy Life

  Idaho, 1907

  Judge Webster had been pleased with Nellie’s report. “It seems that, in addition to filing your reports on time, you have a knack for wheedling information out of people,” he told his protégé. He encouraged Nellie to go ahead and volunteer to accompany him whenever he was scheduled to fill the bench in one of the provisional courthouses. She could look forward to assignments in small Washington, Oregon, and California coastal towns where court convened only once a year and also in newly constructed halls of justice whose growing cities could not staff their legal departments fast enough.

  Nellie was finally free to do as she wished. Her daughter had moved to New York. After recovering from her disappointment that she couldn’t dance her way around the strict height requirement for ballerinas, Opal discovered that vaudeville companies had no such limits. Vaudeville tapped into an audience for character dancing—the folk and national dances of the European immigrants who were hungry for cheap entertainment. This lower form of classical dance might command lower box office receipts, but it was high in demand on stages in New York, Toronto, and Chicago. Vaudeville opened her arms, and Opal stepped in.