Cattle Kate

by Jana Bommersbach

  “Ma, what’s wrong?” I was crying now and more scared than I’d ever been because it seemed like Ma couldn’t stand up and certainly couldn’t walk.

  “My water broke. Our baby is coming. Help me to the bed.”

  I had been so happy knowing a baby was growing in Mother’s stomach, but now that happiness turned to fear and I changed my mind and decided I didn’t want a new baby at all.

  “It’s going to be all right, Ellen.”

  Mother only used my given name when she wanted to be serious.

  “By tonight, we’ll forget all this and we’ll be laughing with our new baby. Just like when we got Jimmy. Now, you be my big girl and help me get ready.”

  I couldn’t remember anything like this happening when Jimmy was born, but then Pa and Mrs. O’Malley were both there, and maybe that made the difference.

  Katie O’Malley was twice in age and size of my Ma, but she knew everything there was about birthing a baby. Sure enough, the two-shot signal brought her hightailin’ it into our yard.

  I’d later learn she had been trained as a midwife by her own Ma back home in Ireland. She liked to say “us rural girls learned birthing and baking while town girls learned linen and lace.”

  “Now, there’s nothin’ to cry about,” she clucked at my brothers who were crying on the front porch. “Your Mama’s gonna have a baby, that’s all. And while you wait, look what I brought you. It’s a molasses cookie and I heard those Watson boys just love molasses cookies.”

  They did, and the cookies shut them up.

  “Franny, I need your help,” Mrs. O’Malley said over her shoulder as she marched right into the bedroom to check on Ma. “Get me all the towels you have and pile them on the table.”

  Mrs. O’Malley came out and grabbed the biggest pot she could find—it was more a bucket than a pot—and ladled water from the crock next to the sink. She stoked up the fire in the cast iron stove and put the pot on to boil. She used one smooth motion, like she’d done it every day of her life. As the pot was cooking, with all the towels stacked on the table, Mrs. O’Malley took the last cookie out of her pocket and handed it to me.

  “Now child, you did real good getting me those towels, but now I need you to go out and watch your brothers.”

  “But Ma might need me…”

  “Yes, your Ma needs you to mind your brothers. She’s gonna be busy having this baby.”

  “I hope it’s a girl, I already have brothers.”

  “I hope so too, but right now she wouldn’t want anything to happen to her other children, would she?

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Fine. Now, you might hear your Ma yell, but that’s just part of bringing a baby into the world and it’s nothin’ to worry about, so don’t get upset if you hear her yell some. And when you hear a baby cry, you’ll know you have a little brother or sister.”

  “I don’t want another brother. I want a sister.”

  “Sure you do. Now outside with you and watch those boys.”

  It seemed like we sat there forever before I hear Ma’s first cries of pain. I closed my eyes, hoping the pain wasn’t bad. More cries. More. I was holding my breath, praying for the cries to end. And then I heard a new noise. A little cry. My new sister!! I wanted to run in, but thought better of that and knew Mother would send Mrs. O’Malley to get me. And then, there was a second cry—a very different cry. It didn’t sound like it came from the same baby at all. I was very confused now—the boys were busy with the last crumbs of their cookies and they weren’t paying any attention at all. I couldn’t wait any longer.

  “You stay here and don’t you move from this stoop,” I barked at them and ran into the house. Outside the bedroom door, I called out to Ma, and Mrs. O’Malley yelled back, “Just a second, honey, just wait outside a second.”

  The minute Katie O’Malley opened the door, I flew into the room, stopped short, and stared. There in Mother’s arms were two babies. They were so red, I thought somebody had smeared them with raspberry jam. And they were so small—half the size I remembered Jimmy being.

  “We have twins,” mother announced. “That means two babies born at the same time. They’re both girls.”

  I could hardly contain my glee—not one, but two sisters all at once! I slowly walked toward the bed, smiling at the little red girls and gently touching one tiny hand and then another. It amazed me that you could have two babies at one time. Even Bessie in the barn only had one calf at a time. But here were two new sisters. I was crying with joy.

  “What will we name them, Ma?”

  “We’ll wait on Pa for that.”

  “Come on, now, lass, let’s let your mother rest. She’s had a busy day. We’ll go outside and let her sleep. You can tell your brothers.”

  The unnamed babies died within a few hours. One after another. Pa wasn’t even home from town yet when it was all over. My heart was broken. I had two baby sisters. And now I had none.

  By the next morning, the house was filled with neighbors who brought hot dishes and biscuits and cookies for us children. Ma was so heartbroken she could barely get out of bed. Pa was upright, but he spent most of his time in the barn. He was making the coffins.

  I took charge of the boys and the house, because I had to take my mother’s place.

  “Thank you for the cake, Mrs. Adams.”

  “Thank you for the stew, Mrs. Hardt.”

  “This is beautiful jam, Mrs. Ballinger.”

  “Thank you for the bread, Mrs. Beckstrom.’

  “Fresh eggs, how nice, Mrs. Hanson.”

  “Mother is asleep.”

  “Mother will see you now.”

  Now and then, I would go off to the corner of the living room and stare into the fireplace and cry for my dead sisters. I had wanted a sister so badly. I had hoped we’d name her Judith Ann, because I thought that was such a sweet name for a first little sister. A sister would even up the odds with the boys. They already had their own little club with their own little secrets, and I didn’t like being left out. And then for a split second, I had two sisters and that meant there were more girls than boys! It was like having two living dolls of my own, because I was going to be right there at Mother’s side to help every day. But then they were taken away and I had never felt a hole inside me like that.

  But most of the time, I was busy doing what Mother would want. I was puzzled by the people who kept coming, always with something in hand. We’d been to a church picnic and seen most of these people, but few had ever been inside our home until now. I was glad they were here, but I wasn’t sure why they’d come.

  I asked Mother as we curled up together one morning.

  “They’re being good neighbors,” Mother explained. “If one of them had trouble like this, you and I would be there helping them. Remember when we went to the Lehnis’ house when Julie was so ill? That’s what it means to be a neighbor. You’re there to help. Remember the birthday party we had at Mrs. Cother’s? And the christening for that darling Christina? We were there to celebrate. That’s being a good neighbor, too. You’re there in good times and bad. Especially bad.”

  I would never forget that.

  ***

  I prayed for a girl again when Mother got pregnant the next time, but Andrew came instead in January of 1868. By then, John and I were in school two miles away, a one-room schoolhouse that would eventually enroll six of us Watson kids. Father helped build the wooden structure—how fun the roof-raising party was!—and then had built most of the desks. Mr. Specht showed off his fine woodworking skills with the teacher’s table, and someone donated the potbellied stove that kept us warm in the winter. For many years, I thought all schools looked like this.

  I was a good student, better at reading than math, better at history than geography. I helped my brothers with their homework and even tried, unsuccessfully, to teach my parents to re
ad. “That’s why we have children we send to school,” Father joked.

  “Ellen, read us a story.” Pa often requested that after he put down his fiddle after dinner. I always reached for the one book I was allowed to carry home, a history book that told the proud stories of how Canada came to be. And then Pa would tell us children how his family and Ma’s family had come here on big boats, looking for a better life. Some nights he’d tell how terrible the passage over was, being stuck down below, where it was hot and stinky and where you couldn’t get a breath of fresh air. But on those occasions, Ma would shush him and say that was just the price they paid for this new life.

  Now and then, Ma would hand me the family Bible to read out loud—the only book the family ever owned. It was in this book that I recorded the dates and memories of my family. Mother would recite the dates and I would inscribe them with a neat hand.

  There was only one time I paused, the pen already dipped, wondering if Ma really wanted me to write it down. That was when she recited her wedding date as May 15, 1861. My own birthday was July 2, 1860.

  I looked up at Ma and she looked away.

  “You can’t lie in the family Bible,” she said.

  Neither one of us ever spoke of it again.

  In that Bible, I recorded John’s birthday on November 5, 1861. Jimmy’s on October 10, 1864. Andrew’s on January 6, 1868. Frances’ on October 9, 1869—this girl now wore the family nickname of Franny, which I was more than ready to give up because it is a little girl’s name. Annie’s on September 20, 1872. Mary’s on May 12, 1874.

  The only dates that weren’t recorded with certainty were the deaths. “Just put down 1865 for the twins, that’s enough,” Mother said. So in 1873 when another set of twins—this time a boy and a girl—also died, I didn’t even wait for Ma to instruct me on the Bible notation. Nor did I wait in 1875 when two of the triplets died instantly, although I left a space to put in the exact date—June 12—in hopes Elizabeth would survive.

  All six babies were buried, side by side, near a tree by the pasture, with plain crosses standing vigil.

  Ma spread wildflower seeds around the graves and in the spring, they bloomed in profusion.

  Chapter Three—I Agreed with Pa

  We hardly ever got a letter, nobody did, so every one was a big occasion.

  When one came from the Old Country, women carried it around in their apron pockets and read it aloud to everyone around them—or had me read it, if they couldn’t, which was most of the time. It didn’t matter that their neighbors didn’t know the people in the letter, news from back home was news, and it was shared.

  I wish I could say those letters were filled with joyful news of relatives who might someday come here and join their kin—the dream of them all, for all those left behind—and sometimes, it was. But more often, it was a letter of sorrow because someone they already missed and would never see again had died. By the time I was seventeen, I’d read more death letters than I’d ever thought I’d read in my entire life.

  “With great sorrow, I must tell you Mother Rose has gone to her eternal reward.”

  “It is with a sad heart I write that Father Leo died in May.”

  “Our precious Grandma Peterschick passed away.”

  But sometimes there was happy news: “Mr. and Mrs. Shaheen had a beautiful baby girl they named Megan.”

  “Our Gracie is engaged to the nicest Stahl boy from the next village.”

  “The crops were so good, cousin Jay took on another section for next year.”

  “Everyone here is fine, thank the Lord.”

  I had to read the whole letter real quick to know which kind it was, so I’d know what voice to use as I read it out loud. And I was as overjoyed as they were when I could announce, “Oh, this is a happy one!”

  They say it’s the women who treasure letters from home, but that isn’t true. I think the men cherish them even more. Those pieces of paper would be in tatters before a man would retire it to the family Bible or the keepsake box or wherever their family kept their precious things. I’ve seen grown men who couldn’t read a word, just sitting there staring at a piece of paper from someone back home they loved. Here in Bruce County, Ontario, everyone shared every word of every letter.

  But the letter from Bruce MacDonald was different. I saw the anxious faces of my parents when I opened the envelope and told them there was both a letter and a story cut out of the newspaper. “From who, from who?” Pa asked anxiously, and then their faces lit up when I looked for a signature and told them it was from Mr. MacDonald.

  “He’s a real good friend,” Pa explained, and Ma added, “His wife was in my quilting circle.”

  “Dear Tom and Frances,” it began, and I wondered when you were old enough to call adults by just their first names. “Estelle and I are settled. The trip was trying but we made it in one piece. There is good land here.”

  My father leaned back on his chair as he listened to those words and my mother’s hand cuffed her mouth. Pa looked up at her. “There’s good land,” is all he said.

  She shook her head. “Ellen, read what else.”

  “Somebody must be writing this for him,” I told them, as the next words made that clear, and they both shrugged because they knew their friend couldn’t read or write so they’d already figured that part out.

  “Read, read,” Pa pushed, and I knew that if he could read himself, he’d have already devoured the words that came in this envelope.

  “Mr. MacDonald wants me to tell you that if you come, he will scout out a claim for your family. He says that is all I need to write and you will understand, but Mrs. MacDonald wants a few words, too,” it read.

  Pa laughed then, “Just like Bruce,” and Ma smiled in agreement.

  “Frances, this is a good place,” the message from Mrs. MacDonald began. “Very different from home. People are nice. All kinds. I had a boy in February.”

  Ma exclaimed with delight, “After five girls, she has a boy! Oh, I know how happy she must be.” Pa was smiling, too, and guessed correctly that the child would carry his father’s name.

  Mr. and Mrs. MacDonald might be people of few words, but the letter-writer wasn’t, and so she added her own message:

  “We have been happy to welcome the MacDonald family into our community in Pawnee Township, Smith County, Kansas. I can report everyone is in good health and prospering. I believe you will like Kansas, and don’t listen to the bad stories about us, because all that is far away from here. This part of Kansas is already Dry. We are God Fearing people. From what they tell of your family, we would be proud to have you in our community, which is growing. I am a neighbor and can read any letter you return.” Then she signed it “Mrs. Duane Heytens on behalf of the MacDonald family.”

  Pa was on his feet by now and he reached out to Ma like he was asking her to dance and she scoffed, “Oh, Pa,” but she was laughing. For a second, I actually thought she would dance with him right then and there. It made me want to laugh myself. I’d watched my folks at barn dances and they could really raise the dust, but here, in our kitchen? Not the right place for a dance, and that’s what Ma decided as she shooed Pa away. But they kept looking at each other like there was a message trying to get through, and then they remembered the newspaper.

  “What does the paper say?” Pa asked, and I unfolded the gray paper and read to them the stack of headlines that spread halfway down the page: “Homestead Act of 1862. Free Land a Rousing Success. 160-acre Promise a Magnet. From Here and Abroad. Flocking to the West.”

  The news was finally getting through to me, and I looked up at my parents and thought, “They can’t possibly…” but the wonderment on my father’s face told me they could.

  “Read it all, read it all,” they said, and so I read them the article that changed all our lives.

  During the Civil War, when the southern congressmen went home, no
rthern congressmen finally passed a bill that had been blocked for a long time. It did for America just what Queen Victoria had done for Canada. And that wonderful President Lincoln had signed it into law.

  “The Homestead Acts provides that any adult citizen, or intended citizen, who has never borne arms against the United States government, can claim one hundred sixty acres of surveyed government land,” the article said. “Claimants are required to improve the plot by building a dwelling and cultivating the land. After 5 years on the land, the original filer is entitled to the property, free and clear, except for a small registration fee. Title can also be acquired after a 6-month residency, provided the claimant pays the government $1.25 an acre.”

  “How much is that?” Pa asked, although if he hadn’t been flustered he would have worked out the numbers in his head himself.

  My brother John, who was always looking for Pa’s favor, chimed in real quick: “That’s two hundred dollars, Pa.”

  Pa looked at Ma. She shook her head as if saying, that’s-too-bad, and Pa returned with, “Five years is not so long.”

  I knew right then that no matter what objections my Ma could find, Pa would find an answer and we were going to Kansas.

  She started right off. “That law came in years ago. By now, all the good land is gone.”

  Pa was right there to remind her that Mr. and Mrs. MacDonald had only moved on three years ago, “and he says there’s still good land and he’ll help us with the claim.”

  “We’ve got a nice life here, with good people around us.”

  Pa reminded her the lady who wrote that letter had gone out of her way—“out of her way, Mother”—to say how welcomed we’d be by new friends.

  “Don’t they call it ‘Bleeding Kansas’?” Obviously, some busybody neighbor lady was feeding my Ma information. Pa didn’t have an answer.

  I did, because we had a lesson on the big, powerful country we bordered. “That was a long time ago, before the Civil War,” I told them. “Before I was born. When Kansas was still a Territory. But it’s been a state for years now.” Even Ma had to admit that ancient-history bleeding didn’t count anymore.