I may not have the letter but I remember your words and the hotel name. Every day I wait to hear from you and hope that you will write with money so that I may take a stagecoach—or many stages—to reach Racine.
Sal came by for a visit this summer—the first she has made since she run off, though Toledo is not very far away. She has a child now, a boy she calls Paul. So you are Uncle Robert and I am Aunt Martha. She did not say who the father is. Paul was naughty. He pulled the dog’s tail and threw cinders from the fire onto the floor. Then Sal beat him though he is only little. I told Sal about your letter. Though she did not say anything, I am sure she would want me to say hello from her.
You will be pleased to hear that I found the Golden Pippin tree you planted on the Injun Trail. It is doing all right even with no one to prune it. I was able to pick some apples from it to carry back to the Days. We ate them and they tasted so sharp and sweet, do you remember?
I am going to go out to the road to Perrysburg tomorrow with this letter and hope to find someone to take it for me. I hope you are keeping well and that you will write to me soonest.
I am your sister
Martha
Days’ Farm
Black Swamp
Near Perrysburg
Ohio
August 15, 1845
Gilbert Hotel
Racine
Wisconsin Territory
Dear Robert,
It has taken me a while to write because I did not have any paper and did not want to ask Mrs. Day for some as I do not want her to know that I am writing to you. I have stopped asking her about letters from you when she comes back from the general store because she began to act funny about it. I suspect she worries one day I will leave to join you and she will not have anyone to work for her. Still I am hoping for that letter. I am wondering if you are still in Racine or if you have gone somewhere else. People move around so much now. Every day we see people passing through on their way west. The road is better now than when we were young. Remember the mud and how we got stuck. Since it was macadamized it is not too bad.
It is very hot here and the mosquitoes have come early. The Days are both in bed with fever and I am looking after them, and also putting up the garden and looking after the animals. The hay is not in and if Mr. Day isn’t better soon I will have to ask Caleb to help. He is still at the farm and has a woman living there now, so he is a little nicer to me. I do not know her name.
I think maybe you have gone west and I will write on the outside of the letter for the hotel owner to send it on if he knows where you are. But maybe you are still there. I have been thinking that I would try to get there to you. I have begun saving so that I can take myself on the stage, though it is hard as the Days give me no money. I earned a little finishing off a quilt for a woman who had fever in the eyes that made her blind for a time, and looking after the baby of neighbors nearby. I have 31 cents so far. I will have to give some to the neighbors who mail letters for me. But I will keep saving and then one day I will find a way to get to you.
I am your sister
Martha
Days’ Farm
Black Swamp
Near Perrysburg
Ohio
January 1, 1846
Gilbert Hotel
Racine
Wisconsin Territory
Dear Robert,
I am writing to wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year. I hope you are keeping well.
I am doing all right. I have now saved 75 cents towards a stagecoach trip to Racine. I talked to some settlers passing through about the route and I now know I will need to go to Fort Wayne and Valparaiso Indiana and to Chicago, then on to Racine. I was glad to get this information and wrote it down, to ready myself for the journey. But I need at least 5 dollars, and a letter from you to say you are there and would like me to come.
I miss family.
I am your sister
Martha
Days’ Farm
Black Swamp
Near Perrysburg
Ohio
May 2, 1846
Gilbert Hotel
Racine
Wisconsin Territory
Dear Sir,
I am looking for my brother, Robert Goodenough, age 17. I once had a letter from him saying he worked at your hotel, in the stables. Please can you tell me is he still there, and if not where he has gone. If he is still there, could you give him the message that his sister Martha would like to hear from him.
I am sincerely
Martha Goodenough
Days’ Farm
Black Swamp
Near Perrysburg
Ohio
May 15, 1847
Fort Leavenworth
Near the Missouri River
Missouri Territory
Dear Robert,
I was full of the best kind of joy when I received your letter from Fort Leavenworth. Though it has been 3 years since your last letter, I never gave up hope that I would hear from you again—even after the hotel owner in Racine wrote and said you had left 2 years before and sent me back all the letters I had written to you. He said you had gone west but he did not know more. The west is very big, the word covers a lot of territory. That was a great blow to me but I still believed you would write again one day, even though you never got my letters.
I was not expecting a letter when I went to Perrysburg with Mrs. Day. She took me with her to carry the heavy sacks of flour and cornmeal she was buying, as her back troubled her. I know you must remember me as small and weak but I am stronger than you think. Remember you told me that once. I have never forgotten, and those words have seen me through some hard times. So there was your letter at the general store, sitting on the shelf behind the new owner, Mr. Malone. I saw it while he was talking to Mrs. Day, and I nearly screamed. But instead I held my breath and read “Goodenough’ and knew it was your writing even though I have only seen that writing once before.
I didn’t want to ask for it in front of Mrs. Day because she is funny about the Goodenoughs and wants to pretend I am a Day. I have been with her and Mr. Day almost 8 years now but I am still a Goodenough. So when we left I dropped my handkerchief and went back for it. Then I asked Mr. Malone for the letter. He looked surprised and I reminded him I’m a Goodenough, not a Day. At first he said no, to wait for Caleb or his woman. But I said that could take a long time and that I’d take it to Caleb, and so Mr. Malone gave it to me.
I will not spend ink and paper on describing all that has gone on these 9 years since you left. I will just say: Nathan died of fever. Sal lives in Toledo and has 2 children. She works in a hotel, I guess you could say. Caleb is on the farm and a woman lives with him and they have a baby. So you are Uncle Robert and I am Aunt Martha. I live with Mr. and Mrs. Day who still live 2 miles from the Goodenough farm. I work hard for them, to take the place of the children they never had and the help they can’t afford to hire.
I have been saving the little money I earn here and there to pay for a stagecoach to take me west to you. I now have $4.86 but I do not think it is anywhere near enough to get to you now you are even further away than Racine. I do not even know where the Missouri River is but I am going to find out. Please write and tell me where you are going and I will meet you there, if you can send me money for some of the fare. Or I will ask Sal, she might lend me some, though I never see her.
I am thinking of you and hoping that before long we will meet again.
I am your sister
Martha
Days’ Farm
Black Swamp
Near Perrysburg
Ohio
July 7, 1848
Fort Leavenworth
Near the Missouri River
Missouri Territory
Dear Mr. General,
I am writing to ask about my brother, Robert Goodenough. He worked in the stables at Fort Leavenworth, and I had a letter from him dated January 1, 1847. Since then I have not heard from him and I am trying to find him. P
lease, Sir, can you tell me if he is still working there, or do you know where he has gone? He is the person who means the most to me in this world, and I would like to find him.
I am sincerely
Martha Goodenough
Days’ Farm
Black Swamp
Near Perrysburg
Ohio
January 1, 1850
Fort Leavenworth
Near the Missouri River
Missouri Territory
Dear Robert,
I am writing to wish you a very happy New Year. I am sending this letter to Fort Leavenworth even though I suspect you are not there. I wrote to the General there about you but never heard back. But I want to write anyway and I don’t know where else to send it except the place where I know you’ve been.
I have sad news to tell you of the Goodenoughs. Our sister Sal died in the summer, leaving 2 children. I should take them as I am their aunt but the Days are not willing to have them. Too many mouths to feed and too much trouble, Mrs. Day said. She did not suggest they go to Caleb, though, as she understands that would not be good for them. His woman and child left him and he is back to his old ways. So they have gone to an orphanage in Toledo. I am real sorry about that. It makes me grateful that the Days took me in. Though they can be a trial at times, it would have been much worse in an orphanage.
I wish I knew where you were. America is such a big country, you could be anywhere. If I could find you we could take the children and make a new Goodenough family, and give them a better life than they are destined for.
I will keep hoping to hear from you, though it is hard. I am still saving my money ($7.31 now!) and can pack and leave the moment I get your letter.
I am your sister
Martha
Goodenough Farm
Black Swamp
Near Perrysburg
Ohio
March 11, 1855
Fort Leavenworth
Near the Missouri River
Missouri Territory
Dear Robert,
It has been almost 8 years since I received a letter from you. I do not know where you are, or if you are alive. All of the letters I sent to Fort Leavenworth were returned to me in one bundle. It made me cry to get them back. But I wanted you to know where I am, so I am writing anyway, because maybe you will come back one day to the fort, and if so, this letter will be there for you.
I am back living on the farm with Caleb. Mrs. Day died of a tumor last summer, and after that it was difficult living with Mr. Day. I am sorry to say that I was going to have a child, though it came much too early and was dead. After that I hoped Mr. Day would leave me be, but it became clear he intended to be unkind again, and so I had no choice but to come back home.
It has been many years since I lived here. The house is drafty and very dirty, for Caleb lives like an animal. I am trying to clean it. I am going to dig the old garden too, and I even pruned the apple trees to see if I can get them to produce better. I remember what Pa taught you, because I was listening too. I am looking forward to seeing the blossoms in May. Two of the Golden Pippin trees are still alive and seem to be all right. I look forward to that sweet fruit.
It feels better to write, even if you never see this letter. I hope beyond hope that somewhere out in the world it reaches you yet.
I am your sister
Martha
Water Street Guest House
Water Street
New York City
New York
February 2, 1856
Mrs. Bienenstock’s Guest House
Montgomery and California Streets
San Francisco
California
Dear Robert,
I have wanted to write to you since November but I have not had a moment to do so until now. I am in New York City, waiting for the river to unfreeze so that I can get on a steamship that will take me to you. For at last I know where you are! I am sending this letter in case it arrives before I do to let you know that I am coming.
There are many things I would like to tell you but they can wait until I see you in California. I will just say that these past months have been a trial almost beyond what a Goodenough can bear. But I am still alive. And you are alive too. I have been able to read all of your letters, for Caleb had them. It was strange that he kept them, though he could not even read and he had no feeling for the family. I was living back at the farm with him after Mrs. Day’s death and Mr. Day was unkind. Caleb was also unkind, but he is family and I had nowhere else to go. Of course you do not know: Sal and Nathan are both long dead.
One day in November when I was at the general store, Mr. Malone said there was a letter for me. It turned out to be the last letter I sent to you in Fort Leavenworth, returned to me. I was so disappointed I shed a tear or two right there. Then Mr. Malone said something about a letter for the Goodenoughs some months back, and that he had given it to Caleb. When I got back to the farm I asked Caleb, who denied it, but when he was passed out—for he has taken to applejack same as Ma—I searched and finally found that letter, and all of your letters, under a loose stone in the chimney. I was so angry that Caleb had kept them from me all these years that I did something foolish—I woke him up and shouted at him. I know I should have “let sleeping dogs lie,” but I was so angry I couldn’t help it. When Caleb realized I’d found the letters he got mad too and was unkind. That made me do something else foolish, and then I had to leave the Black Swamp in a hurry.
I walked to Toledo, where I thought I would try to get a stage going west. I would just keep going west, changing stages wherever I could, to get to California. But in Toledo a man who had been out to California himself for the gold explained to me about America, how it is huge with many long rolling plains and a big mountain range in the middle. And he told me there weren’t stages much past Chicago, but wagons across all those plains and mountains, and that I would be better off going by water: Lake Erie, then the canal to New York City, and finally a ship that will go all the way around South America to San Francisco. He drew a map for me so that I would understand where I was going. It seemed strange to go east and south in order to go west, but my life has been strange for so long that I knew I had to do it.
It has been frightening because I have never been out of the Black Swamp since I was a little girl, but at times it has been exciting, and for the most part people have been helpful. Now I am waiting for the ship that will take me to California. It is a very long journey but I trust in God to bring me safely to you. For a while there in the Black Swamp I lost sight of Him, but now I have faith again.
I am always your sister
Martha
California
1856
MARTHA COULD NOT STOP holding on to Robert. His sister kept her hand on his arm all the while they sat under the Orphans sequoias and he read the packet of letters she handed to him. He did not really want to read them—his reading was slow even when he wasn’t distracted—but Martha insisted. “They explain better than I can now what happened to me, when it happened,” she said. “Besides, it tickles me to see you read them at last.”
“But how?” he kept repeating even after he’d skimmed the letters, not fully taking them in. “How did you find me?” He’d known—or had thought he’d known—exactly where she was, but he’d never imagined his sister could find him in such a vast country.
“It wasn’t so hard,” she explained patiently. “I had the address of Mrs. Bienenstock’s boardinghouse from your letter, so I knew where I was aiming for. There are two ways you can do it: overland or by sea. It was winter and I didn’t want to travel through all that snow, so I knew I’d have to go by sea. So I got up to Lake Erie and took a boat over to Buffalo, then got a barge along the Erie Canal to New York. I was lucky, ’cause it wasn’t cold enough yet to freeze the canal, otherwise I would’ve been stuck in Buffalo all winter waiting for the thaw.”
“You went east?”
“Yes, first I had to go east so I c
ould then go west to find you. I know it is strange,” she added as Robert shook his head, “but sometimes that’s what you have to do—go back to go forward. Then I went by ship all the way around South America and up again to San Francisco. It took six months.” Martha tucked stray hairs behind her ears, pulling out her bonnet to reach them; Robert recognized the gesture from childhood and it almost made him cry. She seemed so fragile, and yet she spoke confidently of America and how to navigate its tricky expanse.
“When did you leave Ohio?”
“Middle of November. I had to wait in New York City for some weeks ’cause I was ill with—” Martha gestured at her belly. “Once I was better I got on a ship, but it all took such a long time. You know I even wrote to you from New York, but the letter ended up on the same ship as me! It arrived at Mrs. Bienenstock’s just an hour after I did.”
“How did you pay for the passage on the ship? It’s not cheap.”
“There was some money at home.”
“Caleb know you used it?”
His sister’s hand tightened around his arm in a fierce grip and she fixed her gray eyes on him. “Don’t you ever say his name again.”
Robert looked away and took a deep breath, then ran his eyes up and down a ponderosa pine, following the deep cracks in its yellow-gray bark. What he really wanted to ask was the most obvious question: who was the father? But it seemed she had given him the answer. Suddenly he understood how a man might feel able to kill another man.
“How’d you know I was up here?” he asked when he was calmer.
“Mrs. Bienenstock told me you’d gone to Calaveras Grove. She’s real efficient—found me a steamboat to Stockton and even paid for the ticket, saying she’d get it back from you. I hope you don’t mind.”
At the Edge of the Orchard Page 17