Prairie Widow

by Harold Bakst

  She waited until that evening, after Peter and Emma were tucked away in their corner. Then she brewed herself some of her own sassafras tea and placed a pen, paper, and inkwell on a crate, which was to serve as her desk. She pulled a kitchen chair over, opened a McGuffey reader, and set the book on end to shield the lantern light from her children. The page showed an upside-down engraving of a boy running with a hoop.

  Jennifer sipped her tea from a cup that had been cracked in transit. She checked the two windows, which were black with night. On one sill was the pot of geraniums, which had steadily lost more of their drying petals. A slight breeze, freshened from a light rain, occasionally stirred the sickly flowers. Jennifer turned her attention to her task. She dipped the pen in the inkwell and began to write:

  September 7, 1873

  Dear Poppa,

  Forgive me for not writing to you sooner, but until now I have lived under the illusion that I would not be staying in Kansas long, and that, indeed, I would surely be home as quickly as it would take for a letter to reach you. Alas, that illusion has burst. A commitment I’ve made—perhaps impetuously—will keep me here until the spring. What that commitment is I will tell you shortly, but there is something else I must tell you first-something very painful.

  Please prepare yourself, Poppa, for I know of no gentle way of saying this: Walter has died.

  He contracted a fever several days ago. There are no doctors out here, and so a neighbor treated him, this to no avail. He now lies buried in a little cemetery where grasses grow rank among the tombstones. This hurts me. When I think how there will be no one to tend to his grave when I leave Kansas—I wish I could take his body back with me to Ohio, where it may be interred properly beneath some spreading oak.

  I miss him, Poppa. He was an exasperating man sometimes, but I did love him. And he loved me—though, on reflection, I can’t say why. I was not very supportive of him. I thought only of my own comfort. I never stopped to consider the likelihood that Walter, in coming west, was sacrificing as much as I.

  Of course, these are the contrite words of a widow. It is possible—indeed, probable—that if it had been I who died, then it would have been Walter to feel the contrition for dragging me out here.

  Oh, Poppa, why couldn’t we have stayed in Ohio? I feel like a dandelion seed that has been blown far from home, only to settle on some uncongenial soil. I wish there were no such thing as the West. I wish history had worked out differently, that Thomas Jefferson had never made the Louisiana Purchase. Or I find myself sympathetic to the plight of the local Indians. By all rights, White people shouldn’t be here.

  Yet I know I don’t really care about the Indians. I wish only to let my cowardice appear as something nobler, something righteous. But I will not pretend with you, Poppa. I will tell you outright: I want to come home.

  Sometimes I lie awake at night and pretend that is where I am. I needn ’t even shut my eyes, so dark is it here. Even still, my other senses remind me of the reality, for the prairie wind is always in my ears, and in my own house there is the smell of soil.

  Soil? you wonder. That’s right, Poppa, for I live in a cave. This is no exaggeration. Walter excavated it for us, displacing a badger in the process.

  Do you see now what your daughter has come to? Even as I write, my ceiling—which is little more than the underside of prairie sod—grows damp from rain outside, and the water is seeping into my home. Indeed! Do you see the water mark on this page? It could easily be a tear from me, but it has just fallen from the tangle of roots above my head. And I hear other drops falling upon the floor and furniture in the room. I must pause now, Poppa, and tend to the children…

  Jennifer put her pen down and lay the McGuffey reader flat so that the lantern’s light, though kept on a low flame, filled the room, including the corner where her children slept. The brown floor showed dark dots where the water had struck it. Every so often a glistening drop fell from the mesh of the roots and soil and, with a plop, added another dot to the floor. All the while, outside the two black windows, the rain sizzled.

  Careful not to awaken her children, Jennifer arranged a tent of oilskin over them, with one end tucked under their mattress and the other end hanging over the high backs of two chairs. The drops made a louder plop on the tent than they did on the floor.

  Jennifer then returned to her crate and saw that several more drops had splotched the page, causing the ink to bleed. The letter was ruined. As she stood there, another drop plopped into the tea cup. Jennifer sighed. She was too tired to start all over. So she abandoned the letter, wrapped herself in oilcloth, and sat on her rocker, where the sound of rain and her own gentle rocking soon put her to sleep.

  The next morning, Jennifer awoke to find that her entire floor had turned to mud.

  “Momma, look!” said Emma, standing a few feet away, still in her nightgown. “It’s up to my ankles!” Peter, meanwhile, walked about, making a sucking sound with his feet in the mud.

  Jennifer, still sitting in her rocker and wrapped in the wet oilcloth, gazed at the room, then tossed her head back. “God,” she muttered, “give me strength.”

  All during the rest of that morning, Jennifer and her children lugged all their wet possessions—much of it packed in crates, sacks, and baggage—out of the dugout to dry in the sun. They had help by mid-morning from Joseph Caulder, who rode up on his grey-faced mule. He brought with him a sack of buffalo chips for Jennifer’s cookstove and a couple of rabbits he had shot. These things he gave to Jennifer, whereupon he single-handedly hauled out the kitchen table.

  Soon, everything was set out in the sun, spread out more than it had been in the dugout. The wet clothing was strewn on the drying grass and hung on a line running from the dugout to the wagon. Tired and perspiring, Jennifer sat in her rocker midst her things, and she looked out onto the prairie.

  “It’s going to be a hot one,” said Joseph, standing before her, looking mostly at the ground. “Your stuff’ll be dry before long.”

  Jennifer arched a seemingly disinterested eyebrow. “And my floor?”

  “That’ll take longer,” said Joseph, kicking mud from his shoes. He looked at the wagon. “I’ll grease that axle now.”

  Overhead, the sky was intensely blue with only a few straggling clouds almost becalmed. Among the furniture flitted an orange-and-black butterfly. “Momma, I’m hungry,” said Emma, leaning on the rocker’s armrest.

  “Please, Emma,” snapped Jennifer, “don’t hang on me. I’ll get you your breakfast. Where’s Peter?”

  Emma removed herself from the rocker and pointed at her older brother walking at a distance in the grass.

  “Tell him not to wander off,” said Jennifer, rising from her chair. Emma hurried obediently away. “And put your shoes on!” called Jennifer. She took the sack of buffalo chips and approached her dugout. She considered removing her own shoes to save them from the mud, but she didn’t want to be seen barefoot by Joseph Caulder. She sloshed across the mud to the cookstove.

  Later, she served breakfast to her children and Joseph at the kitchen table under the big sky. “It’s like a picnic!” declared Emma. She propped up her doll, Melissa, to sit at the table. “Do you want any more flapjacks?” she asked her.

  All through breakfast, it was Emma only, conversing with her doll, who enlivened the table. Joseph Caulder, as expected, ate in grim silence, barely looking up from his plate. Peter was still quiet since his father’s death. And Jennifer herself had little urge to speak. “Melissa!” said Emma, shaking her head. “I declare, you are being very sloppy.”

  It was around noon, with Emma playing with a toy tea service, Joseph repairing the ox stalls, and Peter watching him, that Jennifer set out on the cleared kitchen table her inkwell, pen, and a new piece of paper. Once again, she wrote:

  Dear Poppa,

  But she could go no further. There were too many distractions: a warm breeze kept threatening to blow the page way; a sparrow was perched atop a grass stalk, singing in a
high, buzzy voice; the orange-and-black butterfly was still about—or perhaps it was another one—resting on the rocker, its bright wings opening and closing languidly; an occasional bird flew by; and there were the activities of her children and Joseph Caulder.

  But what really stole Jennifer’s attention was that all-encompassing blue sky. Something so enormous seemed fraught with menace. “There’s no telling what’ll fall out of a Kansas sky.” That’s what Bill Wilkes had said.

  So, in the short time she had been in Kansas, she had tried learning to read the sky’s mood, which was made apparent by its complexion. Sometimes, the sky looked ashen, which meant it might loose a fine all-day rain. Sometimes, it was sickly pale, and that meant a still, muggy day. Sometimes, it was dark and low, and that meant, of course, that something was about to fall out of it with a vengeance, like rain, or that hail.

  Then, too, different parts of the sky might be in different shades, betokening the coming or retreating of storms, or of the sun. Jennifer had come to like dawn and dusk, for that’s when the sky showed the rest of its palette: the reds, pinks, and purples.

  Jennifer looked up and noted that the last of the straggling clouds had drifted on. The sky now was blue and uninterrupted. Only a lone, distant turkey vulture, a mere speck, marred the dome. It occurred to Jennifer that if she could see the vulture, the vulture could see her, her children, and Joseph: four specks on the prairie.

  Yet, in the face of all the enormity, one of those specks, Emma, played with her toy tea service on some flattened grass. “Would you like more muffins?” she asked Melissa, who was sitting on a little chair.

  Jennifer watched her daughter, who seemed so much more resilient than Peter about their Poppa’s death. Or was it merely some form of blissful innocence? How much more capable did Emma seem than either her brother or her mother to live contentedly in her own imagination. Here she was, after all, in the midst of a grassy wilderness, and yet she played with her make-believe tea service as if she were in the parlor back home.

  Jennifer was envious. But then she said to herself, “I can play house, too.”

  And so, as soon as the mud was dry, Jennifer had everyone move all the possessions back into the dugout. With everything squeezed into place, she stood by the door and thought hard. “You know, I have much red calico,” she said as everyone else was getting ready to go outside again. “I could use it to cover these ugly walls.”

  “Can I help?” asked Emma, growing excited at the project.

  “Of course,” said Jennifer, sitting herself down at die table to think of other ideas—none of which was likely to make her stay in Kansas enjoyable, but which might at least make it tolerable.

  * * *

  By Monday morning, the first day of school, Jennifer had managed to cover a portion of her dugout walls with different strips of calico, some red and some blue. The dugout seemed so much improved by these modest decorations that, while not especially proud, Jennifer was not ashamed to receive her neighbors’ children.

  There were, including Peter and Emma, seventeen children in her newly bedecked dugout that morning. The youngest among them—Mary Baker—was six years old, and the oldest, as it happened, was Todd Baker, who was sixteen. Some of the children had arrived by horse, but most had walked, covering many miles.

  As they all crowded into the cramped, murky room, each student approached Jennifer with a gift—or rather her payment—before finding some spot to sit or stand. “My maw said to give you this oil,” grumbled Todd, presenting a small tin before shuffling off into a corner to join his brother and sister, clearly annoyed at having to be inside on such a sunny day.

  “Here’s combread for you, Mrs. Vandermeer,” said a little, dark-skinned, black girl, holding the unwrapped loaf in one hand and her younger brother’s hand in the other.

  “My mother baked (his chicken pie for you,” said one of two red-haired twin boys, the other grabbing a chair from a girl at the table.

  “My pa said he’ll bring you some flour when he gets the wheat milled,” said a little blonde girl in pigtails.

  “My fotter und mutter vant me to invite you to dinner,” said a sandy-haired boy.

  Jennifer accepted all these items graciously and placed them where she could among the dugout’s clutter. With her students settled down, she took a moment to note them all. Some, like the twin boys, their red hair slicked back, were dressed in their Sunday best. Most, however, were in patched-together clothing and barefoot. She was surprisingly calm standing before them all. Except for some whispering, and for one boy tugging at the pigtails of the blonde girl, the children were well-behaved. Perhaps their parents had threatened to whump them if they weren’t, or perhaps they were slightly awed at being in a schoolhouse, even one as humble as this. Only one boy made Jennifer nervous. He was a dark, beady-eyed child who stood at the rear of the room and rocked from side to side, grunting every so often. The other children didn’t seem to mind him.

  “I think,” started Jennifer—but she had to stop to clear her throat. “I think we ought to begin by introducing ourselves. As most of you already know, my name is Mrs. Vandermeer.” Jennifer paused. “Um, now why don’t each of you tell us your name—and where you’re from?”

  Each student took a turn telling the class his or her name, and where he or she came from. The blonde girl with the pigtails was named Clara Anderson, and she was from Illinois; the dark-skinned black girl was named Laura Franklin, her brother, Jonathan, and her family was from a Virginia plantation; the twin boys were Michael and James McCormick, and they were from Boston and, before that, Ireland; the sandy-haired boy was Rolf Meyer, and he was from Bavaria; and so on and so forth. Only two children didn’t do as they were asked: the beady-eyed boy, whose name was Jeffrey Hodge, wasn’t sure what state his parents came from; and Peter, who, still so sad, refused to speak.

  Jennifer was angry with her uncooperative son, but she didn’t push the issue. There was a more pressing problem. So involved had she been in sprucing up her dugout that she hadn’t given much thought to how she was going to conduct her class. And Lucy had not come up with a blackboard. It was only now that Jennifer realized what a handicap that was going to be. Indeed, for a painfully long second or two, she wasn’t sure how she was to continue. But then she saw her broom leaning against the wall, and she took it. “Our first lesson will be in Geography.”

  The room fell silent, except for someone’s loud and resigned groan.

  Jennifer positioned herself by the door where there was some space, and, using the broom’s handle, she began to etch something in the dirt. All the children leaned forward to see. “These are the states between Kansas and Ohio,” said Jennifer.

  “Where’s Ireland?” asked one of the McCormick twins.

  “We won’t concern ourselves with that today,” said Jennifer.

  When she had exhausted what she knew about the region under discussion, Jennifer turned the broom around and erased the map. It was all awkward, this teaching business, and Jennifer wasn’t sure she was going about it quite right. The time seemed to pass very slowly. According to the mantel clock sitting on the bureau only fifteen minutes had gone by, and already she had nothing further to say about Geography. So she turned to ciphering, writing the numbers on the floor with the broom handle. But the students became bored and restless after so many minutes. The beady-eyed boy, Jeffrey, groaned loudly and began rocking more violently.

  How long was she supposed to hold class anyway? And even if she did keep the students busy for several hours, they would be back the next day! Then the day after! And the day after that! And on and on!…

  Jennifer spent the rest of the morning using the McGuffey readers. She had only seven copies, and some were in bad condition, being a couple of decades old. But they were more useful than the Bibles some students had brought, since there were too many versions of the Word, a couple being in German.

  When, at last, by morning’s end, Jennifer had taught all she had to teach,
she dismissed her students. They slammed their books closed and, squealing, pushing, and teasing each other, they burst forth from the dugout like seeds of a ripe pod.

  “Come back next Monday!” called Jennifer as they dispersed across the tall grass. She needed time to better plan her next class.

  Emma, meanwhile, waved good-bye to the boys and girls, delighted at having had so many children visit her in her home. “Bye, Mary! Bye, Rolf! Bye Jeremy!…”

  As the children heard their names, they each turned and waved back, even the beady-eyed boy, who tried to return her call: “Bah, Emma!”

  Peter, however, had no part in this. Instead, he walked off alone into the grass and sat down, vanishing.

  Jennifer almost got angry at him again, but she quickly saddened. It broke her heart to see him in class with all the other children, most of whom—including Emma—seemed impatient for class to end just so they could talk and play together. Peter barely acknowledged them. He just stood in his corner, his distant blue eyes avoiding contact with those around him. If another child whispered something in his ear, he turned his head away.

  That night, after dinner, Jennifer said to him, “Peter, I miss Poppa too, but at least I’m talking.”

  Peter didn’t answer. He sat in a corner and sullenly pretended to be reading one of the books.

  “You know, the other children will start to make fun of you if you’re not friendlier.”

  Peter remained tight-jawed. He stared blankly at the pages before him, and only the heavy rise and fall of his chest indicated that some upsetting thought was floating through his young mind.

  “Is there nothing I can do to make you feel better?” asked Jennifer, standing several feet away on the ciphers still etched into the floor.

  Peter’s resolute mouth began to tremble, but he said nothing. Jennifer took a step toward her son. She prayed he might run into her arms. She wanted so badly to hold him. But he was a stubborn little boy. Indeed, reflected Jennifer, he was perhaps being as stubbornly silent as she herself had been on the journey out there.