Where Lilacs Still Bloom

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  TWENTY-FOUR

  RUTH

  1906

  Ruth’s figure, even at thirteen, was like an hourglass with too much sand. All the Klagers were tall people, shaped straight as porch posts. Ruth was stocky. Her father used the word, and it made her feel like the pony who ripped at grass in the Johnson’s field when she walked by to take her piano lessons. Stocky. Still, she had the strength to carry the buckets all day, if necessary, and some days it was. Mrs. Klager had a million bushes and bulbs. Well, maybe not a million, but enough to fill two circus tents, not that Ruth had ever been to a circus, but she’d seen the tents in the distance.

  What she loved about the Klagers is that they listened when she spoke up, which wasn’t often. If she followed Mrs. Klager’s directions for the day, she was left alone in silence to do her work. She loved the feel of earth in her palms and never minded putting cuttings into piles or later loading them by the armful into the wheelbarrow. She could eavesdrop, being curious without being nosy. No one asked her what she was thinking or suggested there was anything wrong with her silence. At first Mrs. Klager dictated her rules, but soon there was no stern, only serene. This garden of the Klagers was the safest place she’d ever been.

  A place of refuge was worth the grilling she endured when she returned home on the weekends. Her father worried that she was being “shaped” in ways that took her from Scripture.

  “We never speak about religion,” Ruth told him the very first weekend after she’d stayed with the Klagers. Her father had consented to her living at the garden only because the teacher at Martin’s Bluff had gotten married at Christmas, and they hadn’t yet replaced her. Ruth’s mother insisted Ruth be allowed to continue her studies in Woodland, and her father had given in.

  “Maybe not overtly.” Her father pointed his fork, with a piece of ham stuck on it, directly at her. She decided she’d have to ask Miss Martha what overtly meant. She certainly wasn’t going to ask her father. “Do you talk with her about how she changes those flowers, how she can do it better than God did, eh?” Her father glanced at her mother, and Ruth noticed that her mother’s face was the color of roses.

  “She says we are created in God’s image, and that means our interest in how things work is normal, necessary even. You bring sheep into the yard to keep the weeds down, but they weren’t weeds before you built the house. They were pretty wildflowers.”

  “What are you saying? You have these conversations?”

  Ruth swallowed. “She’s unlocking secrets, and doesn’t Scripture say there is ‘nothing new under the sun’? She’s just trying to find what’s already there.”

  “Finding out what’s already there.” He grunted.

  The Klagers didn’t speak much about pollination and whatnot, but one day as Mrs. Klager hummed a tune, Ruth said, “You like flowers as I like music.”

  “Yes, I guess that’s so.” Butterflies dipped and fluttered around the woman as much as her plants. “How are your piano lessons coming? I hear you practice at school, during your recesses.”

  Ruth shrugged. Her father decided he didn’t want her at the Presbyterian church anymore. She was grateful he still let Miss Lizzie instruct her and that her schoolteacher allowed her to remain inside to practice her scales while other students played Pom-Pom-Pull-Away outside. Ruth dreamed that one day she’d play on a stage in front of a pyramid of seats, filled with people brought close by the notes she played. Imagining the pyramid shape of a stadium gave her pleasure, and she knew that the dream was worth the cost of schoolgirl teasing if they eavesdropped on her practices. And maybe, just maybe, her father might one day find in her the shape of a child worth listening to.

  Mrs. Klager didn’t push further on the subject. Nelia might have told her that she practiced during recess, but it didn’t matter. The woman accepted her shrug.

  There’d been changes in the two years that she’d been helping the Klagers, the most recent being the day Miss Lizzie returned. Everyone joked and laughed when the daughter carried in her suitcase, and Fritz—such a nice-looking boy, that Fritz—brought in a trunk of personal items from the house Miss Lizzie had sold. The sun shone on all the glassy green lilac leaves shaped like spears. It was a sunny February day. Miss Delia visited too. She was the shape of a snowman, as she was just starting to show she carried a baby. Her husband, Nell Irving, was still ill, and he’d been told to rest. Delia said he might have to go away to a sanitarium to get his coughing under control. Edmond Wilke, Lizzie’s brother-in-law and a nice-looking man, tall with broad shoulders, helped Delia milk her cows now that she was pregnant.

  Ruth brought in a bag of Lizzie’s shoes and belts from the wagon and carried them upstairs. Ruth and Nelia had already moved their own things out of the north bedroom into the smaller room across the hall. Nelia had been living there for the past year too. Fritz would live in the barn tack room. He’d share the building with the horse and the men when they gathered for their liquor and smokes on Saturday night. Martha and Lizzie would settle into the north bedroom, while the senior Klagers continued to occupy the south. Ruth didn’t mind the change, but she wondered how Martha felt about not having her own room when she’d had it for almost two years.

  “You girls stop and have a rest,” Mrs. Klager told Ruth and Nelia. They’d been digging up a new bed for more lilac cultivars. “There’s still plenty to do, you know. But we all need little breaks now and then.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Ruth said. Nelia nodded.

  “Your father’s coming by at five, isn’t he, Ruth?” Ruth hadn’t known this, and a lump the shape of a rock grew in her throat. Maybe they didn’t need her anymore with Miss Lizzie back home. She wondered if Nelia was worried. She looked over at the dark-haired girl with a hair ribbon the shape of a wide smile. She was in the process of talking Mrs. Klager into a cup of hot chocolate. Ruth would have preferred the cocoa herself, but it never occurred to her to ask for it. She lived with the philosophy that if she didn’t expect anything good to happen to her, she would never be disappointed and she’d occasionally have a nice surprise. Like her parents allowing her to work for the Klagers and now stay with them too, except on weekends. But what did Mrs. Klager want with her father?

  The afternoon pulled taut as a rope holding a ship to the Pekin dock as Ruth waited for her father to appear. When he did, Ruth stood straight, prepared for the worst.

  “I’d like to speak with him in private,” Mrs. Klager told her. “Would you please wait a moment before joining us?”

  Ruth wiped her wet fingers on her wool skirt and watched as Mrs. Klager approached her father.

  Mrs. Klager would invite him in, and her father would refuse.

  Ruth heard the horse stomp at the buggy, wiggle his flank to annoy the flies, and then Mrs. Klager stepped aside and motioned to Fritz, who signaled his father and several other men who had been working on the railroad line going in behind the Klagers’ house. Ruth wasn’t sure why the men were needed now, since the buckboard with Miss Lizzie’s things stood empty at last.

  But now another wagon rattled around from behind the barn. Ruth squinted, stared. Could that be? A piano!

  The tall, black rectangle bumped along in the wagon, pulling up outside the picket fence. “Good thing it has wheels on it.” Fritz winked at Ruth and she blushed, even though he often winked at her and Nelia. They were like sisters to him.

  He and the other men, Mrs. Klager’s brother and Frank and Edmond, helped too. The Tesches, from Martin’s Bluff, and their oldest boys put two boards up to make a ramp behind the wagon. Then with grunts and groans and cautions of “Don’t split your gut” or “Hang on to it!” the men began to push the piano down the makeshift wagon ramp.

  The piano, with its white, smiling rectangular teeth rolled along the path toward the house, digging up bark chips with its weight. Ruth stood off to the side.

  “Close your mouth,” her father said. She hadn’t been aware that he’d stepped inside the yard and stood beside her, watching the pia
no parade. “Not ladylike to look as though you’ve lost your wits.” Then he added, “I’ve lost mine letting that woman bring a piano right to her doorstep and bringing the teacher to you too.”

  Ruth turned to him. “Mrs. Klager isn’t upset with me?”

  “Why would you think that, eh? No. Mrs. Klager wants you to practice here evenings and to have your recesses free for playing and talking or whatever it is young girls do, or so she tells me. And your lessons are to be here. Seems Mrs. Klager wants to learn to play, so that expands your piano teacher’s duties. Letting you have lessons here is a favor I’m granting. She says it’s a mighty help. I imagine before long that other girl”—he nodded toward Nelia—“will take up the instrument as well. She’ll have a regular music school here.” He growled, but Ruth could tell he wasn’t all that upset. Her father cleared his throat, then turned his head to spit.

  “The woman could negotiate with the fire and talk it out of burning.” He looked at Ruth who bore a confused expression. “She’s gonna pay for your lessons, eh?” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “A frugal man can hardly turn that down.”

  She couldn’t believe her good fortune. She’d remember this day, and she promised herself in the future she would look for the shape of hope in her life instead of the shape of disappointment.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  PLANTING FOR THE FUTURE

  Hulda, 1906

  Dear Mrs. Klager,

  Thank you so much for your kindness in responding to my naive questions about the nature of gardening. My readers were so pleased with your comments about a garden having a spirit of its own. This proved quite an encouragement to at least one Sacramento resident who had wondered whether a garden could thrive even if its caretaker only watered the plants when the spirit moved her. Another was pleased with your answer about plowing and how good and regular mulching can prevent the need to hire a horse and plow master.

  I must tell you that this year, for the first time, I planted a small box garden on my back porch. Just a few tomato plants and a row of lettuce. I planted pansy seeds and look forward to their happy colorful faces greeting me on a morning.

  As spring brings new questions, please know how grateful I am to have a competent source of answers so that my readers will not be led astray. Also, should you care to receive a copy of the column, to ensure that I in no way misquote your guidance, I would be happy to send it to you. Again, thank you for your generous assistance.

  Yours sincerely,

  Cornelia Givens, Columnist

  I felt guilty receiving such accolades from Miss Givens when all I did was write a letter to her now and then, answering her questions. I liked the writing part but the real thrill was helping people become better acquainted with the landscape they surrounded themselves with. It also gave me courage to write again to Luther Burbank.

  I’d sent the latest letter before Lizzie moved back with us, which was good because once she arrived, my days were focused on making her comfortable here and preparing for the spring rush that my dear plantings required. I pushed the season by planting dozens of seeds in my sun porch, taking great pleasure in checking several times a day to see how a thin line pressing against the dirt ever so carefully would unfold, curling open to a nubbin of green, and make me squeal, inviting Ruth and Nelia to “Come see!” They tired of this after a bit, and that’s when I decided to write to Mr. Burbank to ask about his work with roses and lilacs. He’d responded kindly, treating me as someone with knowledge this time, which I appreciated. But he also told me that his greater interest was in hybridizing plants that would help feed the world. I felt a little put down by that, as though working with flowers was a frivolous task. He might not have meant that, but it’s how I took it.

  Still, I wrote back, after a reasonable pause. I didn’t want to presume on his time. I told him of my lilac passion and mentioned something I hadn’t told even Frank: I had a dream that people would one day come to Woodland to see my lilacs, and I’d not only share my garden with them—just as people came to visit Mr. Burbank’s Experimental Farm in Santa Rosa—but I’d give them starts of my new varieties and spread beauty to a wider world. Perhaps that thought went beyond my station, but sharing my garden truly added a dimension to the hybridizing. I suspected that was so for Mr. Burbank too.

  Mr. Burbank wasted no time in responding to me:

  My dear Mrs. Klager,

  Your generous spirit is admirable, but you must also consider your purse. Selling to a nursery or two so that your varieties—should you stumble onto one—will bring in a measure of income will not only please your husband no doubt, but it will also enable you to give flowers away, as you choose to do. Nursery sales extend the outcome of your painstaking work to new markets where you will discover from gardeners in other climes just how well your varieties travel. This will compound the work we do in ways that individually giving a start here and there simply cannot. I give visitors various starts myself, but then I receive thousands of visitors each year, something I suspect will not be the case in your little Woodland. Our work is worthy of its pay, Mrs. Klager. Do not underestimate your efforts.

  I read that last line, “Do not underestimate your efforts,” and yet right before that, it seemed he had underestimated mine. His words stung. I might not have thousands come to see my garden, but that didn’t prevent me from imagining it.

  March roared in with heavy rain and spits of snow and hail, the latter threatening to shred the rhododendron leaves on the more than a dozen bushes I’d planted in strategic places throughout the garden. With the rain and cold pelleting the sun-porch windows, I drew a garden plot plan, deciding where I’d move what plants, where I’d transplant the seed starts from my sun-porch nursery. This was a hopeful time, knowing I’d soon have hands in dirt, and blossoms would brighten the garden and my world. I liked having Lizzie back home. She seemed happy. She liked talking with Ruth and Nelia in the evening; she and Martha baked together, and I often heard laughter from the room next-door when Frank and I prepared for bed. I didn’t like Fritz living in the tack room, but it was all fixed up nice for a young man, and he had books on steamboats that Lizzie had given him from Fred’s collection. Fritz said he liked the privacy without hearing all the “giggling girls.” Frank said he had pictures of girls up on his wall. I didn’t ask for details of how he’d gotten them or of what they might look like. I never went in there.

  My chicks were all settled on an afternoon, with Lizzie stitching, Martha teaching, and the girls and Fritz in school. Delia had looked healthy when we’d moved Lizzie back home. When we saw them at church on Sunday—well, just Delia came because Nell Irving had been moved to a sanitarium. She said how glad she was that her morning sickness had moved on to another poor pregnant soul. But I could tell she was worried about Nell Irving.

  “A sanitarium?” Fritz said.

  “Nell Irving is doing better, I think.” Delia didn’t use the dreaded word phthisis and covered her worry by saying, “It’s a better place for him to get well. I hate it that I can’t see him now. They’re worried about me getting ill or the baby, so it’ll be a bit before we can speak face to face. But by the time the baby’s due in July, he’ll be back. I’m sure of it.”

  I didn’t tell her that the Presbyterian church had discontinued communion with a common cup after Nell Irving became ill. I hoped he hadn’t contracted the disease there, but so far no one else had become ill with tuberculosis.

  As a family, we walked with her to the buggy she’d driven to town. “How’s Edmond doing with the milking?” Fritz asked. “I could come do that for you, if you want.”

  “Fine. Edmond used to help Bertha and Carl, you know.” Delia shrugged. “He’s good conversation over coffee before he leaves for his work and someone to cook a light supper for when he finishes the evening chores.”

  “Just so you know,” Fritz told her. “I’d help.”

  She hugged her younger brother and brushed at his hair. “Don’t you have a girl to cou
rt to keep you occupied?”

  He blushed, looked sideways at me. “Mama frowns on me courting much until I’m old enough to vote, I guess.”

  I thought of our Sunday afternoon conversation as I worked on my garden plan. I surely hoped Delia was right about her husband’s health. I’d heard of lots of people coming back from sanitariums, and I prayed Nell Irving would be yet another. I’d plant a flowering crab-apple tree near the gate in honor of his homecoming. I’d written to cheer him. It was a small thing I could do. With the Lemoine-bred lilacs looking good, perhaps I’d name a new variety for him. I planned to name my new varieties for special friends and family, when the time came. But right now, a flowering crab would give an array of color year-round but begin each spring with those vibrant pink blossoms that always spoke of good health to me: a blend of beauty, robustness, and sweet fragrance, all in one!

  That’s what I was doing when the phone rang, drawing a circle on my plot plan to mark that tree. The brazen sounds of two long rings and two short ones still caused me to jump a foot.

  “I’ll get it,” Lizzie said.

  I heard her cheery voice say, “Hi, Delia.” A pause then, “Are you crying? What’s wrong?” followed by silence, then, “No, no. Oh, Delia, no.”

  “What is it?” I rose from the sun porch and stepped up into the dining room. “Is it the baby? What’s happened?” I was beginning to dislike that phone machine always bringing bad news.

  Lizzie gripped the mouthpiece of the contraption. “We’ll come right now. Oh, Delia, what can I say?” A pause and then, “We’ll be there soon.”

  Lizzie’s face was white when she hung the receiver up on its holder. She still gripped the mouthpiece as though if she released it, she’d collapse.

  “What? Is it the baby?”

  Lizzie shook her head, tears already tracking down her pale cheeks. “It’s Nell Irving, Mama. He’s … he just died. Of tuberculosis.”