Something Worth Doing

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  He felt a chill and pulled his wolfskin coat around him. Jenny had sewed the coat for him from the hides he’d brought in. He’d gotten a bounty—which helped their finances—but she’d insisted that he hold enough hides back for his coat. In this kind of weather, he was glad for it.

  He realized he had ridden beside the barn when he thought he’d headed out toward the trail to the main road. It was still daylight, nearly dusk he guessed, but the fog made everything unfamiliar. He kept his eyes on the trail now and found the main pathway toward Needy and the doctor.

  She was larger this time than with Clara, even he could see that. And his sister wasn’t one to rush to worry, so her insisting that they needed a doctor wasn’t just a plan to get him out of the way. A second child in less than three years of their marriage. Maybe they were pushing it. He felt her urgency, even if Jenny had minimized it. He did know she’d like having womenfolk around. He’d thought he’d be enough, but she missed her sisters and other women. He guessed he could have taken her along when he headed out to neighbors. But women’s work never quit, as Jenny was fond of reminding him. Farms gave the ladies no rest. His lady. Truth was, he didn’t want to move. They owned this land, had built it up together. One day she’d understand.

  He started singing to keep himself company and to set a pace that would get him to Needy. “Camptown Races” and its line “gwine to run all night” was a favorite tune, and the sound of his voice in the fog echoed with a deep resonance. He crooned out “Home Sweet Home” and “Old Susanna” before belting out the “Alphabet Song,” a move that made him laugh and think of Clara, whom Jenny sang it to as much as he did. Then the fog lifted and he pulled up Biscuit’s reins. The treetops were still misted, but he wasn’t on any trail. “Where are we?”

  He felt a clenching in his gut. “How can a man who lives on horseback and knows this country right and left not be sure where he is?” The horse shook his head, jangling the bit and bridle rings. “Yeah, I don’t know the answer to that either.” He’d have to pick a direction and hope to intersect the trail or come upon the town or another farm or something familiar. He pressed his knees against Biscuit’s sides and reined him to the right. They rode through the timber for an hour or more, easing around treefalls and deadwood. Ben watched in despair as the fog descended again and he could barely see his horse’s ears. He’d been gone at least two hours, and he wasn’t anywhere near the doctor. He didn’t know where he was. He heard a wolf howl and hoped it wouldn’t be answered by a pack. As long as he could take another step, he’d be all right, but the best thing he could do would be to sit tight, build a fire and stay until the fog lifted. But how would he explain to Jenny or his sister that he sat by the fire while she suffered and maybe . . .

  Women died. Jenny told him that childbirth was the greatest cause of death for women. The plight of women was her favorite topic.

  No, he’d have to keep going, even if it was like riding inside a duck.

  Blood everywhere on the bedclothes despite the women’s efforts. “He must weigh ten pounds,” she heard Mary say. So, a boy. She also heard her son cry, and the women oohing that he was healthy as they washed him and laid him on her breast. But they didn’t leave him there long, needing to tend to the hemorrhaging. Anticipating possible problems, Jenny had made a mustard pack and directed Mary to it. She could hear Little Toot talking softly with Clara under the lean-to roof, entertaining her on the child’s feather bed. Their voices soothed her, though they came from a distant shore.

  “It’ll be better after the placenta comes, surely.” One of the neighbor women massaged her abdomen to release the afterbirth, while Mary placed the mustard pack, then removed it with the rush of blood and tissue.

  “You should sew me up.” Jenny panted. “I know I tore. Again.”

  She saw the women look at each other. “I’ll do it,” Mary said.

  “I’ve done the sewing before,” one of the midwives said. “It’s a very large tear. The doctor would be so much better. And he’d have something . . . for pain.”

  “We don’t have a doctor.” Jenny’s breath carried worry over what could have happened to Ben. He’d been gone for hours. She kept her mind from racing to all the possible tragedies, like accidents or wolves or who knew what all. Hadn’t they had a miserable past year with the storm and rebuilding? Prices for wheat and apples were down. Miners in Jacksonville and California were less dependent on Oregon goods. And the Duniways had fewer goods to sell. Why does my mind go to money worries? It’s stitching up I need. “Just sew. There’s laudanum on top the pie chest. I wish I had chloroform.”

  “Or that laughing gas,” Mary said. She had a kerchief tied at the back of her neck, holding her thick hair in check as she ministered to Jenny. “I saw it used at a forum once. Ten boys volunteered. They didn’t remember a thing afterwards, they said, even when the host poked a needle into their fingers and drew blood.”

  “Not the image I’m needing right now,” Jenny moaned. “Give me a small dose of the laudanum and then sew quickly. I want to be able to nurse that boy. Willis, we’ll call him. After my little brother William who died on the trail. He even looks like him a little.”

  The conversation depleted her. Mary dipped the tincture onto Jenny’s tongue. The neighbor put a rag in her mouth to bite on, and the older midwife began to sew within seconds. Jenny remembered little after that. She woke hours later to Ben, looking haggard, leaning over her.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I—the fog was so dense that I got lost. I . . . I still can’t believe it. I finally gave Biscuit his head and the gelding brought us home, though hours it took. I’m so sorry. I—” He knelt beside the bed.

  “Did you meet our son?”

  “I did. And massive he is.”

  Jenny winced. “I’m still bleeding.”

  “Not as much, though it’s likely to continue.” The midwife didn’t look at Jenny when she spoke. She fiddled with her instruments she’d placed in the pan of water no longer boiling. “It’s a clean wound, but there’ll be seepage and you must stay down. No heavy work at all or the bleeding will begin again in earnest.”

  “When the fog lifts, I’ll go fetch your sisters.”

  “Until then,” Mary said, “I’ll stay.” She saw another look pass between Ben and his sister.

  I am worse than I thought. She patted Ben’s hand. “Kate will come and Harriet. Neither have seen the rebuilt cabin.”

  Her sisters would laugh together and tell stories, which is what they did in a week, when March brought on the Willamette Valley spring and the doctor arrived too. He pronounced the sewing a fine stitching. “Any number of folks got discombobulated in that fog, Ben. You shouldn’t feel bad about it.”

  “The outcome was all right,” Ben told him. “I’d never have forgiven myself if Jenny had . . .” His voice caught and he couldn’t finish.

  “Bad things happen to the best of men,” the doctor said. “Things work out.”

  “And sometimes they don’t,” Jenny said.

  She had survived another birthing, but this child left his impression. Jenny spent weeks propped up in bed, frustrated with not being able to do the work that needed doing. After her sisters returned to their homes, Ben served as a good nurse and not a bad cook either, despite his having said he wouldn’t be.

  “My father didn’t lend a kitchen-hand with babies around,” Jenny said. She’d never seen her father pour hot water onto oats for his children to eat nor cut up venison for stew.

  Ben washed their dishes. “He’d be missing out.”

  “You think so?” Household chores were mundane, repetitive, even though she knew they were essential tasks. “I haven’t minded not being able to sweep or scrub.”

  “That’s because you’re destined for bigger things,” he told her. He handed Clara Belle a tin plate. “Wipe it like this.” He showed the child, and the toddler beamed.

  “I help,” she said.

  “Yup, you do.”
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br />   Jenny pondered Ben’s offhand remark. “Destined for bigger things?” Such nonsense.

  “It’s true. You’ve got the kind of mind that thinks past the moment,” he said. “Once you come out of this post-baby fog you’ve been in, you’ll be pondering again. You’re always ponderin’ on something, mostly about women you don’t even know.”

  “You’ve as good a mind as mine.”

  “Don’t think so. Mine is content to brush a horse or scrape dried eggs from the pan.” They turned together toward a crying Willis, lying in his cradle. “I’ll leave it to you to change the world. I’ll just change his diaper.”

  Writing helped ease Jenny’s healing, but what she couldn’t seem to regain after Willis’s birth was her sense of hopefulness, that as Ben said, things really would work out all right. He’d point to how the children thrived, how neighbors had helped them recover, how she healed—though she still bled, often grabbed the table corner, and placed chairs equal-distant so she always had something to hold on to as she moved around the house. Will this be my life now?

  “It’ll get even better once you’re able to let go of all the way stations,” Ben said. “And can join in the neighborhood doings. Go to the horse races, pie fests. You know, participate.”

  “I haven’t felt much like being out. Besides, we need new farm equipment, and I’d love a labor-saving device for washing clothes. And we could use an addition built onto this cabin if we’re going to stay here. We stumble over ourselves. Besides, I’ve no energy for neighboring.”

  “Sure, you do. Being around people feeds you, rubs away some of your cranky edges.”

  “I’m not cranky without reason,” Jenny said.

  “Not arguing that.” Ben held his hands up to ward off her sharp words that could rise as quick as a wind change. “I’m merely seeking a way to buff it into something that restores your high spirits.”

  He’d persisted in his gentle way, and on a Saturday when Willis was a few months old, the Duniways took the buggy to Needy, past the little school Jenny had taught at. They stopped by the Aurora Colony where the communal colonists played music on Saturday afternoon and there were stores the general public could buy from. It was said they had their names on ledger sheets recording what they brought or bought but didn’t need to bring cash or trade. And that women were taught Greek and Latin like the men.

  It was a glorious day in early October and hop harvests were in full swing in the valley, the air fragrant and leaves magically turning green to vermillion. Jenny ran into friends who commented on how well she looked (Do I?) or how they’d missed hearing her side of issues in the cloakroom while men discussed potential statehood at the local schoolhouse. She had to admit, she missed those conversations too, especially when they spoke of subjects of import and not only about the value of packaged yeast over sourdough starter.

  Heading home with a bit more grit, she realized Ben had been right about her getting out. She did appreciate the compliments about the children looking well and healthy, and she liked hearing Ben’s laughter as the men exchanged stories of horseflesh or hunting. There was life beyond the cabin walls harboring wet diapers and the daily drudge of churning. She breathed in the soapy smell of Clara’s hair as the child leaned against her on the buckboard seat. Willis reached out to pat his older sister’s arm and rocked himself back and forth as he sat on Jenny’s lap. “Gentle,” she cautioned.

  She wondered if all women in fact found sustenance not only from things nearby, like the hug of a child, but also from things outside the domestic realm. Both near and far were necessary to withstand daily demands, she supposed, and vowed that evening to write about it, to continue to fill up on a day that had reminded her of her resilience. And friends. The future wasn’t so bleak after all.

  Ben chirped the team forward as dusk settled onto the roadway. Jenny leaned her head onto her husband’s shoulder.

  “That was a good idea, Ben, to get out.”

  “I have a few now and then.”

  “That you do.” She needed to remember that.

  After the inspiring day, they drove the wagon up the last incline, and Ben held the team back as they started down the grade. He sniffed the air. Jenny did too. Smoke.

  EIGHT

  Brooms of the World

  1857

  _______

  Their cabin was a pile of burnt timbers and black rubble.

  Things don’t always turn out well. “Now we have to move,” she said.

  Jenny was insistent, and so they moved—temporarily—into the barn.

  After locating the andirons, arranging for how they’d cook and sleep, and while she nursed Willis, Jenny gave her requirements to what a new farm would need. “Within a mile—no more than two—of some kind of village where I can sell eggs and butter, take in some sewing. And horrors be, laundry.”

  “I’d suggest land with fruit tree possibilities,” Ben said. “A place for the sheep and horses of course.” Ben’s requirements were of the soil, the land, Jenny’s of connection, family.

  “And a southern exposure,” Jenny said. “I need sun whenever it appears.”

  “I have your list branded in my brain,” Ben told her.

  “When you’ve found one, come get me before you make any offer, all right?”

  “Agreed.”

  He had found a farm in Yamhill County, and when Jenny and the children rode up to the gate in the wagon, her spirits lifted. The sun shone on the cleared fields, and at the top of the hill, a two-story frame house with a covered porch beckoned them to this harbor on the hillside. She named it Sunny Hillside Farm and it was all she’d ever dreamed of, she told Ben.

  Moving day arrived and her sisters—minus Maggie, who had delivered her second child on the Oregon coast—arrived to assist. Even her brother Harvey came. He drove one of the teams and a wagon to the new farm about twenty miles distant from their old one. Harvey had enlisted to fight in the Yakima Wars and would leave soon. She was grateful Ben hadn’t decided to go with him. The danger seemed far away and he was needed closer to home.

  “Two moves are as good as a fire,” Fanny told Jenny. The sisters raked up ashes, seeking anything of value that might remain. Ben had determined that it was a spark from the hearth that caused it—who knew what had been left close enough to catch aflame. The stone memorializing Jenny’s mother was black as tar pitch.

  Several brass buttons appeared through the swept ashes. A pair of earrings—not the ones Shirley Ellis had helped push through Jenny’s ears on the trail, thank goodness. Those Jenny had worn the day of the fire. Her Primer, the book she’d managed to sneak along on the trip west despite her father’s wishes, was stored in a trunk in the barn along with pages of a manuscript she’d been working on. When they’d arrived to what was left that day, she went into the barn to make certain the trunk was there. She pressed two poems to her breast from it, pieces she’d written during her convalescence after Willis’s arrival. She’d stored old newspapers there too, including an issue of the Argus, an agricultural paper that she thought could use a woman’s touch. She had a poem in mind to send the editor. There must be other women who suffered loss and struggled, who might find comfort in her words.

  Writing something for publication caused a small conflict for her, which had kept her from submitting her poems. Her words in print would make her both a public and a private woman. She hadn’t yet shared that concern with anyone, including Ben. Writing had become a balm, different from being a reader. Hadn’t she found solace and been challenged by Shakespeare or that Lily woman, Amelia Bloomer? Amelia also edited a newspaper, something a bit scandalous for a woman to do. Yet when Jenny was a child learning to read, her parents took subscriptions to such newspapers. And the world had become more than simply a home on the frontier.

  At the same time, her father had impressed upon her that respectable women ought to keep themselves from public display. “A woman’s reputation is all she has,” he said. And a man can ruin his without consequenc
e because he is accepted in the public arena. Her father had cautioned all his daughters about avoiding public spheres. Women were to be unnoticeable, subservient. She’d carried that attitude like a proper platter served up for herself and younger sisters on how they ought to best behave. What would happen if she wrote something controversial, not that she was intending that. Just a little poem. Yet words put into the open could arrive as something unintended by the poet.

  But when she watched Clara Belle prance around the room, singing, she wondered why such joy should be kept only in the kitchen or in a church choir. Why were women with gifts not allowed to show them? And she could hear that her daughter had a gifted singing voice.

  “It’s good that Ben found a claim so quickly, one with a frame house bigger than your log cabin was anyway.” Kate’s words brought Jenny back to the cabin ruins. Kate removed her work gloves. The women all wore wrappers to protect their day dresses. The Scott girls liked color, and each wrapper was dyed differently: yellow from daffodils, blue from berries, red from blood, and if Maggie had been with them, bleached white as a baby’s tooth with embroidery around the edges.

  “It’s the perfect time of year to move,” Kate continued. April daffodils dotted the pathway between the barn and their former house, and Kate had dug up the bulbs for planting at the Duniways’ new farm.

  “Take a few for yourself,” Jenny said. She entered what was left of the house, swept the old hearth once more. “You can plant them in pots until you know where you and John will settle.” Kate planned to marry a steamboat captain in June.