A Woman so Bold

by L. S. Young

“Neither one of you needs biscuits swimming in cane syrup,” I continued, as Colleen ignored their misbehavior. At last, I stood up and neatly hooked my finger into the handle of the syrup pitcher, taking it out of their reach. Just then, Ezra knocked over his little tin cup of milk, soaking the tablecloth. I groaned, throwing up my hands in exasperation.

  “I’ll get it,” said Lily reluctantly. “Edith, take your nose out of that book and help for once, and finish eating! You’ll be late for school.” Edith looked up, blinking as if entering bright sunlight from a dark room.

  I looked at Will. “Perhaps you should accompany me. I could use the walk after this meal.”

  When the washing was done, I donned my wool shawl and looped the basket filled with goods for Granny over my arm. Will and I walked the footpath through the long leaf pines in companionable silence, and my thoughts turned to the overcast sky, the crunch of dead leaves and needles, and the chill wind. Granny often said my love of autumn was more proof I’d been born a witch and had been saved only by the blood of Christ.

  “Ya ought to turn your heart toward green things in spring, plants come to life, lambs being born. Your love o’dead thangs will lead you to the grave.”

  I always scoffed at her words, but they were dark ones to say to a girl of only twenty. Had I been older, I might have taken them to heart.

  At four months, the baby was bright eyed, cooing, and chubby, and she was christened Effie, a name chosen perhaps for its impermanence more than anything else. Colleen had recovered from her lying-in, so Daddy sent them to Massachusetts to visit her family. I thought it an expense we could not possibly afford, what with the poor corn crop and having lost three calves to foot and mouth, but Daddy set such store by Colleen, I don’t think he could have said no to her if his life depended on it.

  Ezra seemed forlorn in her absence. Having been supplanted as the baby in the family since Effie’s birth, he had done nothing but follow me from room to room, clutching at my skirts and crying to be held when he was tired. I spanked him when he did this, informing him it was nonsense for a boy of four. Lily and I did what we could to occupy him, but he wore on our nerves and received many a scolding for his constant whining, an experience both new and traumatic to a child who had been so coddled. Colleen’s many warnings that he learn to be independent before the baby came had finally rung true, but at twenty I did not see how fair it was for her to leave Lily and me to care for him while she was off gadding with her family for two months.

  The first frosty morning getting into winter, a month after Colleen left, we woke to find one of the hogs missing from their pen. After much confusion, it was discovered that Ephraim had been responsible for putting them away but had improperly latched the gate, making it possible for the animals to escape. Gaining this knowledge, Daddy sent him to search, calling, “Suuuuey! Pig! Pig! Pig!” while the rest of us breakfasted.

  At last they were all present and accounted for, save one. Ephraim returned with news that, judging by her footprints, the sow had wandered into the warm mud of the swamp and gone down in quicksand. Daddy took him behind the woodshed and spanked him so soundly his shrieks reached me where I was hanging wet dishtowels on the line and made me wince.

  When his whipping was over, he limped past me with his head low. I found him horizontal on the rag rug in front of the kitchen stove, sobbing. I let him cry as I washed the breakfast dishes then nudged him gently with my foot.

  “That’s enough,” I said. “Get up and wash your face. I’ll give you something good to eat.”

  He got up and stumbled to the sink without looking at me. When his face and hands were moderately clean, I lifted him around the waist, seated him at the table, and placed half a cold sausage link, a piece of cornbread, and a tin of milk in front of him. “Last pork you’re likely to get for a while. Don’t tell Daddy. You’re not being rewarded, only fed.”

  “He said I’d killed us all,” said Ephraim quietly. “We’ll starve this winter.”

  Esther looked up from the potholder she was knitting with round eyes. “Is that true?”

  “Not in the least. Daddy is prone to be dramatic when he’s angry. But the corn was short and wormy, and we lost those calves in the spring, and now you’ve let some of our bacon go and drown in the swamp. I’d have licked you myself if he hadn’t.”

  “What’ll we do?” asked Esther.

  “Use your heads. The cellar is all stocked with preserves and roots and canned goods. What else do we have a’plenty?”

  “People.”

  “Something we can use, you goose! Something on the farm.”

  “Pecans!” said Ephraim.

  “Yes, and we’ll have money from those. The yield was all decent this year, but we’ve the profit to split with the pickers. What else?”

  Esther shrugged. “Dirt.”

  “Lovely, we’re going to eat dirt. Haven’t you stood out under the oaks when the wind blows? Acorns fall by the dozen. You can’t walk for crushing them.” I took two empty flour sacks from the cupboard and gave one to each twin. “Both of you go outside and fill these with pecans. Ezra!”

  Ezra jumped out from the corner where he’d been stacking his wooden blocks and scampered over, putting his hands up for me to lift him. I put an empty coffee can in them. “Fill it with acorns, baby. Now listen to me, all three of you. Do not come back in the house until you’ve filled those sacks and that can, and I better not find a single rotten nut in the bunch. Mind your work. No one has time to sort them twice.”

  They departed, Ezra beaming with his newfound responsibility. When they were gone, Lily and I turned to one another. “What will we do, really?” she asked, her face quiet with despair.

  “I won’t pretend a few acorns and pecans will make much difference,” I sighed, “but at least it will keep them busy while we figure something out.”

  “We’ll be eating bark before winter’s end.”

  “Don’t make useless suggestions,” I scolded, frowning. “We’re not destitute by any means. There’ll be the money from the late cotton, yet. Let’s take the preserves we rationed for fall and put them in the root cellar. We’ll hold off eating them as long as we can.”

  “We can dig the rest of the sweet potatoes from the garden and store them too. There aren’t many, but they’ll keep.”

  “Yes, and let’s hang the onions we picked yesterday to dry in the attic. There are the apples drying as well. Two pounds of flour left. If only we had our own wheat . . . and Daddy hadn’t wasted money sending Colleen away.”

  Hanging the onions took the better part of the morning. When that was done, we set to work blanching the last of the acre peas and canning them. Daddy came in as we were working and gave us a weary smile.

  “My tried and true girls.” He kissed Lily’s thin cheek. “We’ll have to give you our extras this winter, Pretty,” he said. “Least Landra’s got some meat on her bones.”

  “That’s because I tuck it away like you taught me, and she eats like a bird as she learned from your wife,” I said.

  “Beauty before pleasure,” said Lily.

  “Survival before beauty,” I retorted.

  “Don’t quarrel now, girls. Can’t have that. I’m going to salvage what I can of the corn. Landra?”

  I removed my apron, hung it on its nail in the corner, and followed Daddy to the field. I was stronger than Lily, and with Eric gone, it fell to me to help in the fields. I surveyed my hands and fingers ruefully, red around the cuticles from washing dishes, but shapely and lovely still, they’d be cut and torn to pieces before day’s end.

  I came in from the field around lunchtime, joined by the children. Lily gave them sandwiches made of leftover grits between slices of cornbread, slathered with cane syrup. Esther and Ephraim had filled their flour sacks with pecans and helped Ezra fill his coffee can to ove
rflowing with acorns.

  “What’ll we do with the acerns?” asked Ephraim, his mouth full. The morsel I’d given him after his whipping hadn’t done the trick, and he was stuffing himself as if the world were ending.

  “Eat them, of course.”

  “I thought only squirrels could do that!”

  “No, the Indians do.”

  “Is dey nice to eat?” asked Ezra. This was his favorite question regarding anything small enough to fit in his mouth.

  “Are they, not is dey. And not very, but roasted or mashed with molasses, they’re tolerable.”

  “How will we get them open?” asked Esther. “They’re so small and sound. Not like pecans.”

  I took an acorn from Ezra’s coffee can and found a crack in the shell, prying it open with my fingernails. “See?” I showed them the orange meat inside and broke it apart for them to try. Ezra spat his out, and Esther shook her head, but Ephraim chewed and swallowed his, looking thoughtful. I smiled at him.

  “After lunch, I want you to go down to the spring, Ephraim, and gather a mess of wild cabbage. We’re going to have a swamp cabbage stew for supper tonight.”

  “He might drown!” cried Esther. This was the argument Colleen and I always presented to keep the children from going to the swamp.

  “I know he goes swimming there against your mama’s wishes all the time,” I said. “If he does fall in, so much the better. One less mouth to feed. Take the dog, he’ll know where is safe to walk. Stay near the edges, look out for quicksand, and don’t step anywhere she doesn’t step.”

  “Yes’m.” Ephraim knew better than to argue over a chore that gave him permission to go to the swamp.

  “And when you get back, Edith’s going to teach you and Esther how to shoot squirrels.”

  Ephraim gaped at my words. He was forbidden to touch a gun, but I figured this was as good a time as any for him to learn to shoot. It would mean I could count on him to bring home coons, fowl, and rabbits during a scarce winter. As for teaching Esther, unpromising as she might seem, I had been a decent shot at her age. When quiet Edith’s turn came, she shocked us all by being the best shot in the family. Her aim and eyesight were perfect, and Daddy likened her to sharpshooters he’d known in the Confederate army.

  Sensing his impending importance, Ephraim wolfed down the last of his cornbread and took off, yelling for Ebenezer as soon as he was out the door. The two of them returned three hours later, covered in mud and bearing the mess of cabbage I’d ordered. I stopped him on his way to the breezeway.

  “If you think you’re going in the house like that, you’ve got another think coming. Your mother would sail all the way down here from Massachusetts to give you a piece of her mind. Edith is changing to take you and Esther hunting.”

  He began bouncing around like a cricket at this, and I stilled him with a hand.

  “Now listen! You do just as she tells you. She is a fine shot and very quiet in the woods. If you pay attention you can learn quite a lot from her. No horseplay around guns. That’s how people get killed. Remember Otis Green?”

  He nodded.

  “Good. Don’t end up like him. Or Todd Harmon—two eyes are better than one in most cases.”

  Edith came out tucking a cotton shirt into an old pair of Eric’s riding breeches.

  “Try to bring home at least six,” I told her. “We can fry two and put the rest in the smokehouse.”

  Esther wrinkled her nose. “Smoked squirrel?”

  “You’ll change your tune come February and not even two beans to boil for a soup,” said Lily from the stove, where she was stirring succotash. “Put your shoes on.”

  “I’ll bring back twice as many, Landra. They’re running wild this time of year.”

  True to her word, Edith brought back a dozen squirrels, so I skinned and fried four and put the rest in the smokehouse. It wasn’t the best meal we ever had, but it certainly wasn’t the worst. I was grateful Colleen wasn’t there to complain about eating rodents.

  The next morning, I saddled our plow horse and rode into town to send a telegram. It read:

  Corn crop bad STOP Three cows and sow dead STOP Going to be a hard winter STOP Daddy says will send for you in the spring STOP Stay in Concord STOP All of our love STOP

  The next cold snap meant hog-killing time. Every knife in the house was honed to dreadful sharpness, and I warned the children away from them until they lived in dread of losing a finger. Lily and I scrubbed the kitchen table, and every other inch of space including the countertop, butcher block, and cutting boards. All of Daddy’s hands and tenants came to help, as did a few men from neighboring farms, Will among them.

  The hogs had to be kept cool and quiet in their pen, given water but no food the day before they were to be butchered. They were strung up by one foot and stuck, then left hanging to bleed once beheaded. Once they had drained, they were split with a sharp knife, and cleaning and butchering began. It was a messy, nasty business, but hog-killing time meant sausage in the smoke house, salt pork curing in barrels in the root cellar, and bacon sizzling in the pan. It meant fried pork chops, sugar-glazed ham, and ham hocks in greens. All in all, it meant meat for winter.

  Every year when we slaughtered the hogs, I was reminded of an autumn day when I was fifteen and had visited the Miller farm to find Henry washing at the pump, stripped to the waist and covered head to foot in blood.

  “Here, I’ll pump while you wash,” I said.

  “Don’t wanna ruin you dress,” he said, but he cupped his hands as I worked the lever and brought them to his face, then laved his neck, chest, and arms with soap.

  “I didn’t know you were killing hogs today,” I said, “or I’d not have come calling. But I can help your mama and sisters with the butchering and salting.”

  He shook his head. “Go back to the Mondays, Landra. You ought not to come round here no more.”

  I stepped back, aghast. “Why ever not?”

  “Thangs have come to a pretty pass around here. That was my last hog I just kilt, and you know the place was mortgaged to the bank by Pa.”

  “Henry, my daddy is a farmer. I can work.” I removed my flower-trimmed bonnet and lace mitts to show him that I meant business.

  He paused, squinting up at the pale gray sky. “I know you can, but I can’t give you the things you want.”

  “Don’t you care for me?”

  “Yes. That’s why I want you to go. Marry some rich fella you meet over there and leave Willowbend. You’ll be happier for it.” He turned away from me, wiping his brow with a forearm.

  I left weeping that day, but it wasn’t long before he came calling on me again and we began to go about with one another as we had before. Henry had been right about not being able to give me what I wanted, but Della had given him all he desired, and then some.

  My favorite part of December was always when Eric came home for Christmas. It was certainly one of the brightest things to happen to us that year. Lily and I bundled ourselves into coats, shawls, and scarves and took the wagon into town to meet him at the depot. When he stepped off the train with his brown curls shining in the pale winter light and his eyes brimming with cheer at the sight of us, Lily and I threw ourselves into his arms, giddy with happiness. He lifted us off our feet and swung us around before everyone, and I laughed, carefree as a little girl. He had grown a pair of fashionable muttonchops, and we teased him about them.

  Eric was everything our father was not—patient, gentle, and most of all, jolly. He was a born leader, noble and wise by nature. When we were children, the other boys in our gaggle of friends—Henry Miller and Ida’s brother Clyde—followed his lead with little to no opposition. Daddy never truly appreciated Eric’s good heart and sharp brain, and it never occurred to me to be jealous or resentful of him, only thankful that he was there as a
bright spot in the darkness of our motherless childhood. I mimicked and admired him, wore his old clothes, scuffled with him, and rejoiced when he taught me to ride and shoot.

  “Aren’t you both so pretty!” he said. “What a dandy shawl, Lan.”

  “William gave it to her,” intoned Lily. Eric narrowed his eyes but said nothing until we had reached the wagon.

  “Who is this William Cavendish?” he asked, helping me into the front seat and lifting Lily into the back. “Lily mentions him in her letters, but you never do.”

  He sprang up beside me and took the reins.

  “I’m certain I’ve mentioned him.”

  “Is he your beau?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You suppose?”

  “William is not one to waste words on something that needs no declaration. But if you must have a yes, then there it is.”

  “Well,” Eric glanced at me from the corner of his eye, “it’s good to hear it from the horse’s mouth.”

  “It’s not something one can really put into a letter.”

  “Do I get to meet him?”

  “He’s invited to Christmas dinner.”

  “Good!” Eric chirruped to the horses and leaned back comfortably, holding the reins with one hand and placing a wad of tobacco in his cheek with the other.

  “Still doing that?” I asked with disgust.

  “Can’t seem to kick it.”

  “It seems particular unbecoming for a lawyer to chew ‘baccy,” said Lily.

  “What a spittoon’s for,” said Eric around his chaw. “How’s Ida Monday?”

  “Don’t you get letters from her?”

  “On occasion. You know Ida. She keeps busy. You two still thick as thieves?”

  “They’re stuck together like flies in molasses,” said Lily, leaning over the front seat from her place in the back of the wagon.