A Lantern in Her Hand

by Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Other horse and ox teams were hitched to the straw-roofed log stable. Other families were scurrying into the house with smoked hams and batches of bread and valued possessions in their arms. Not far from the back door of the big log house, Abbie, still grasping the hairy chest, stopped to watch a boy of twelve or thirteen caressing the sleek, quivering head of a young deer, tied to a tree by a strap around its neck.

  A small, severe-looking woman in a black calico dress, with a black netting cap tied under her sharply pointed chin, was scolding nervously. “No, Willie, you can’t. I won’t have it. It’s bad enough to have the whole kit ’n’ bilin’ in the country comin’ ’n’ trackin’ up,—all the rag-shag ’n’ bob-tails bringin’ their stuff.”

  “But, Mother,” the boy plead, “I’ll keep her by herself. I’ll get her up the loft stairs.”

  “No,—you sha’n’t, Willie Deal.”

  And then a big, powerful man came out,—a man with only one arm, his left sleeve pinned to the side of his coat. He had a shock of wiry black hair, and an equally wiry beard which gave him an unkempt look. But his eyes were blue and twinkling and kind,—they held the calmness of blue ice, but not its coldness.

  He put his one hand on the boy’s dark head, now, and said quietly, “You’d best let her go, son. She’ll take care of herself,—and it’s only fair to give her her freedom.”

  Without a word the boy cut the strap at the fawn’s throat, and even while he was unloosing the piece around her neck, she darted from him lightly, gracefully, into the hazel-brush.

  Inside the big log house where all seemed confusion, Abbie, after a time, sought out the dark-haired boy.

  “Do you think you’ll ever get her back?” she asked shyly.

  “Get what?”

  “Your little deer.”

  “Naw, . . . never.” The boy turned his head away.

  Abbie’s heart seemed bursting with sorrow for him. There was that word again,—never. It was the saddest word! It made her throat hurt. Willie Deal would never, never have his little deer again.

  With his head still averted, the boy said tensely, “I found her . . . ’n’ raised her . . . myself.”

  Abbie put her hand out gently and touched the boy’s arm.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice held deep sympathy.

  “Aw . . .” He threw up his fine dark head. “I didn’t care.”

  But Abbie knew it was not so. Abbie knew that he cared.

  It seems precarious business to take time to describe Grandpa and Grandma Deal, when a band of disgruntled Indians is reported on its way down the Shell Rock, but, pending its arrival, one ought to know a little of Gideon Deal and his wife. They were not yet out of their forties. Indeed, their youngest daughter, Regina, was only nine, but through older offspring scattered about the community, several grandchildren had been presented to them, and so, to differentiate them from other and younger Deals, the titles “Grandpa” and “Grandma” had been bestowed early upon them.

  To the other settlers Grandpa Deal seemed as substantial as the native hickory timber in whose clearing he had built his house. He was both freighter and farmer. Two of the grown sons worked his place, while he himself drove the six-ox-team over the long trail to Dubuque and back, with freight for the whole community. For this,—and for his reputation as a wit,—he was known far and wide. To fully appreciate his wit, one must have taken Grandma Deal into account, for she was the background against which his droll sayings stood forth. The little wiry woman, fretful, energetic and humorless, was intolerant of wasting time in fun-making. Grandpa Deal, kind, easy-going and jolly, was always picking up every little saying of his partner’s to bandy it about with sly drollness. There was never any loud laughter on his part, just a twinkle in the sharp blue eyes appreciative of his outlook on life. Grandma Deal spent her time hustling about, darting in and out, scolding at Grandpa, finding fault with the children, the well-sweep, the weather, everything that came under her eagle eye or into her busy brain.

  Just now, however, Grandma was not scolding. Grandpa was not joking. The news of impending disaster had brought them to a common ground of fear. Most of the other families of the community had gathered now in the larger and stronger Deal home in response to the rumor of the Indian uprising. Already the men were stationing guns near windows and barring and barricading doors. Several women were running bullets in the little salamander stove, a queer affair whose short legs in front and long legs in the back, gave it the appearance of an inverted giraffe. One woman was hysterical; another a little out of her mind from fear, kept wanting to go back out doors where there was air.

  All night they waited for whatever Fate had in store for them. In the morning, a man rode up on horseback, a young boy, about Willie Deal’s age, behind him in the saddle. It was Doc Matthews, who had come to bring word that the hostile band of Indians had gone north.

  Immediately there was the confusion of getting ready to leave. Grandpa Deal told those who lived farthest away to stay and make a visit for the day. Abbie could hear Grandma Deal sputtering about her husband’s freehanded hospitality.

  The boy who came with Doc Matthews was his son Ed. He had been east all year to a boys’ boarding school. He was dressed in a nice suit and a flat white collar and a little round hat.

  He stood and looked at Willie Deal in his homespun suit. Willie Deal stood and looked at Eddie Matthews from the Philadelphia boarding-school. Their contempt seemed mutual.

  The Indian scare, then, had gone into nothing. The wagons went lumbering back across the prairie and through the damp, dark river road where the hazel-brush and sumac knotted together under the native oaks and hickories.

  All summer long, the Mackenzies lived in the sheep shed, while their own log house was being built. James and Tom Graves were building it, and Dennie was helping, battening the inside with long split saplings and filling the chinks with mud.

  All summer long, Abbie went happily in and out of the sheep shed with the patchwork quilt in front for the door. There were so many lovely things to do that one did not know how to find time for them all. There were flowers in the deep, dark recesses of the Big Woods,—wild honeysuckles and Bouncing-Bets and tall ferns that one could pretend were long, sweeping, white plumes.

  Sometimes Abbie would take one of the longest of the ferns and, with a slender twig, pin it on a wild grapevine leaf or a plantain for a hat. Then she would drape one of her mother’s dark shawls around her sturdy little body, and standing on a grassy hillock in the clearing, pretend she was Isabelle Anders-Mackenzie, the lovely lady.

  And then she had a whole set of dishes hidden in the hollow of an oak at the edge of the timberland. James had made them for her from acorns, removing the nut and whittling little handles for the cups. And she had a child for which she must care constantly. It was an elongated-shaped stone with a small round formation on the end for its head. She put little Basil’s outgrown dress on it and a knitted bonnet. She liked the feeling of the stone against her breast. It seemed heavy and like a real baby. Sometimes in carrying it about, her heart would swell in potential mother love for it. But sometimes there was no need to pretend about a baby, for there was Janet’s real, live one to hold and rock. Janet had a low, wooden trundle-bed for him that pushed under the big bed. It was rough on the outside and the ends were made from the sawed round disks of a tree.

  One afternoon, Willie Deal came up to the Big Woods with his shaggy-haired father to see Tom Graves. Willie Deal had remembered Abbie and brought her a plant in a clay jar he had made. The plant was a green, lacy, fernlike thing, and there were three little, round, scarlet balls on it.

  “Whatever are they?” Abbie wanted to know.

  “They’re love apples,” Willie told her. “But don’t you ever dare put one up to your mouth. They’re tremendous poisonous.”

  Abbie promised that she never, never would so much as touch the poison. For how could Willie Deal and Abbie Mackenzie in the ’fifties know anything about vitamine-filled t
omatoes?

  And then, in the fall, Janet’s baby was not quite well. No one seemed to know what the matter could be. Maggie O’Conner Mackenzie doctored him with castor oil and peppermint. Grandma Deal sent word by Tom Graves to give him sassafras tea and tie a little bag of asafetida around his neck. When he seemed no better, Janet, pale and worried, said maybe they ought to send for Dr. Matthews. Abbie was frightened beyond measure when she heard that, for she well knew that a doctor was the last resort for saving one who was sick. Tom went out immediately to saddle a horse and go for the doctor. Janet told Abbie to hold the baby while she went out to the lean-to kitchen for warm water. Mother Mackenzie had gone over to her own home for flannel cloths.

  And then, Abbie was calling them and crying all in the same breath, “Janet, . . . Mother, . . . come quick . . . oh, come. . . .”

  Janet was in the room like a flash, a wild bittern at the call of its young. Abbie could scarcely talk for crying: “I was just holding him as steady. He acted queer, . . . and threw up his arms. He got kind of bluish. What ought I to ’ve done?”

  Doctor Matthews came with Tom. He said, yes, the baby was dead. Janet was wild with grief. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she rocked the little cold form back and forth in her arms and would not let them take him from her. Rachel, who lives again in every grieving mother, was crying for her child and would not be comforted.

  Over in their own cabin, Abbie sobbed aloud on the bed. Suddenly she sat up, “I hate God,” she said. Maggie Mackenzie hushed her quickly and told her it was tremendous wicked to say that.

  “But he made death. I hate death. I hate it.”

  “The poor colleen,” her mother said to Belle. “She’s smart like the Mackenzies, . . . but faith . . . an’ she has the Irish heart.”

  CHAPTER IV

  By the time Abbie was eleven, she was doing more work. Life was not all play now. One of her tasks was to thread the wicks into candle molds, for her slim fingers were more agile than her mother’s short, thick ones. She had to poke the long wick-string through all of the six molds, and carefully loop the tops over a stick to keep them from slipping. Her mother would then pour the hot tallow into the molds and set it away to harden. Abbie was always anxious to see the finished product slip out. She would watch her mother plunge the molds into hot water to loosen the hard grease, and then, “Let me, . . . let me,” she would call, and sometimes Maggie Mackenzie would let her carefully work the shining cream-colored candles out of their containers.

  There were a dozen other tasks for her to perform,—drive the cows to drink, gather eggs from the chickens’ stolen nests among the sheds and stacks, and the daily one of going to school.

  But even work could take upon itself a mask of fun. One could pretend, when threading the wicks into candle molds, that one was stringing pearls accidentally broken at the ball,—that the long walk through the hazel-brush to the schoolhouse was between rows of admiring spectators who, instead of a mere rustling in the wind, were whispering, “There she goes,—there goes Abbie Mackenzie, the singer.”

  For Abbie was always singing from the elevation of her grassy knoll in the clearing. It made her happy to walk up the little incline, turn and bow to an unseen audience, throw up her head and let forth her emotions in song. Her heart would swell in a feeling of oneness with Nature and the Creator of it, and there would come to her a great longing for things she did not quite know or understand.

  The log school-house sat in a clearing of timber just out of the river’s high-water line. The hazel-brush and sumac tangled together under its windows and there were butternut and black walnut trees behind it. The desks were rough shelves against the walls on three sides of the room, and in front of them were three long benches of equal height, so that a strapping six-foot boy or a tiny six-year-old girl could, with economy, use the same seats.

  While studying, the children sat with their backs toward the teacher, but when it was recitation time they had to put their legs up over the benches and turn to face him. Abbie always crawled over slowly, holding modestly on to her dress and three petticoats. But Regina Deal would flip over daringly in a whirlwind of skirts and pantalets. The cloaks and bonnets were hung on nails on the one side of the room which contained no desk-shelf. The water-pail and dipper were on a bench by the door, which made a sloppily wet corner, excepting on those winter days when the dipper froze in the pail. The room was heated by a stove in the center, and one unhappily roasted or froze in proportion to his proximity to the stove.

  Sometimes the contents of the dinner buckets were also frozen and one had to thaw them out before eating. On fall days, a few of the more adventuresome of the squirrels and chipmunks whisked in and out of the window-opening in the logs, purloining the crumbs for waiting families.

  In the spring, when the maple sap ran, every one crossed the river in flat-bottomed boats and helped in the little sugar camp. Louise and Regina Deal showed Abbie and Mary Mackenzie how to make maple eggs. They took tiny pieces of shell off the small ends of eggs, carefully removed the raw contents, ran the maple sap into the hollow molds, and after it had hardened, picked off the shells,—and behold, there was a platter of candy ready for the winter parties.

  The fall in which Abbie was eleven, the entire crowd of young people on the north side of the river was invited to the Mackenzies’. Already there was a social distinction being drawn between the north, or country side, and the south, or town side, of the river. The party was for Belle, who was soon to be married. Belle had planted her rosebush by the log cabin, but the chickens had pecked at it, and the pigs had rooted under it, and no aristocratic gentleman had come by,—only a plain farmer boy who had hired out to Tom Graves.

  The young folks came in lumber wagons along the river road under the full moon. The few pieces of furniture were set out of doors to make room for the party, and there were tallow candles lighted and placed high up on shelves. In an iron kettle there was taffy cooking to be pulled later, and platters of pop-corn balls and dishes of maple drops, into which hickory nuts, butternuts, hazelnuts or walnuts had been stirred.

  The crowd played dancing games to their own singing and hand-clapping:

  “I won’t have none of your weevily wheat,

    I won’t have none of your barley,

  I won’t have none but the best of wheat,

    To make a cake for Charley.”

  When the fun was at its height, a horse and rider drew up at the door, and some one called out, “Hey there, . . . you.” The young folks, upon going out to see who it was, found Ed Matthews there with a deer carcass, which he had been pulling behind him with a rope. Ed, who was sixteen now, was dressed in “city” hunter top, a leather looking coat and pants and a cap with a long bill in front. His boots were almost hip-high and fitted snugly to his legs.

  When they were crowding around to look at the deer, Abbie first saw the strap drawn taut on its neck. Immediately, she was looking up into the face of Will Deal,—a darkened, flashing face. The young folks all discussed the queer fact of the strap being on the deer’s neck. But Will Deal said nothing. And Abbie, sensing that Will did not want to tell about it, said nothing.

  Regina and Louise and Mary Mackenzie all invited Ed Matthews in to the party. He accepted, and immediately became the center of the games and dancing. But for some reason the party was not so pleasant. For some reason, Ed Matthews, in his city hunter togs, had spoiled the party.

  When the horses were hitched to the wagons and the young folks were all leaving, Abbie touched Will Deal on the arm.

  “It was your little deer, wasn’t it?”

  “I ’spose so.”

  Something intuitive made Abbie say, “I’m sorry he was the one who shot it.”

  Will’s face flashed darkly, “Aw, shucks! . . . I don’t care.”

  But Abbie knew that it was not so. Abbie knew that Will Deal cared.

  Two years later, Grandpa Deal was sent by the county to the General Assembly. Word trickled back to
the settlement that he was well liked by his constituents, and that he was called “Old Blackhawk” and “the wag of the House.”

  Will Deal, eighteen now, had done the freighting from Dubuque all fall during his father’s absence, but when spring came, an older brother assumed the business while Will took over the farm work. Once when Abbie came by, he stopped the team and sat on the plow-handle and called out to her to come and hear a letter from his father. It began, “Dear Friend,” and ended, “This from your affectionate father.” It said that he hoped Will could comfortably till the fields, that there was some talk of dividing two of the counties, that board was tremendous high,—three dollars a week,—that his sister, Harriett, had left on the stage, that the Pikes Peakers were beginning to run, and that he looked for quite a rush this spring for the gold regions. Abbie felt quite proud of the fact that a young man like Will Deal would read his letters to a thirteen-year-old girl.

  It was only a few weeks later, that an old Springfield friend of Grandpa Deal’s was nominated for the presidency of the United States. When Grandpa Deal came home, he said that if you’d known Abe Lincoln as well as he had, you’d never in the world think that he’d have been picked for the nomination, but just the same there was hoss sense inside his long hide.

  All summer long one heard political talk here and there,—about slavery and secessionists and the outcome of the fall election. Men would stop in wagons on the river road and talk so long that their teams would amble a short way into the woods, cropping at the juicy ferns. Grandma Deal scolded all summer about it. Abbie heard her say that she kept dinner hot so many times for Grandpa, who was talking to groups around the store over in town or on the schoolhouse steps, that she had a notion to quit cooking for him altogether.

  All winter the talk grew thicker and more heated. While Abbie did not fully understand it all, she knew in February, when the Southern Confederacy had been established, that things were at some sort of a crisis. But from hearing Grandpa Deal talk, she felt confident that when Abe Lincoln would take his seat in March, everything was going to be all right. And Grandpa Deal was to have plenty of time to talk, for his old job of freighting from Dubuque was to be taken from him. Slowly, but surely, the construction of the Dubuque and Sioux City road was being carried westward.