Skirting Tradition

by Kay Moser

“Give her to me, Sally. Just give her to me.”

  “Ain’t no need for that, Jana,” the midwife objected. “Ain’t no need to get yourself all—”

  “Get out!” Mama screamed. “Leave me with my girls.”

  The midwife rolled her eyes as she shook her head. “I’ll be back in a little. Don’t upset yourself any more ’n you got to.”

  “Give her to me, Sally,” Jana coaxed.

  Sarah handed the baby to her mother, who cradled the tiny girl in one arm and pulled Sarah down into her other arm. Together they wept, their tears mingling and flowing down each other’s necks.

  “We’ll call her Rose,” Mama’s voice quavered.

  “But she died.” Sarah sobbed. “She never even had a chance to bloom. How can we name her Rose?”

  “She’s just blooming somewhere else, Sally. We gotta believe that.”

  “It’s my fault.”

  “Now, how can that be? No. It ain’t your fault, honey. It’s God’s will. He decides who stays and who goes. And when you were born, He decided you would stay and make this a better world, and He’s counting on you to do that, and so am I.”

  “How can I think about books and exams and—”

  Mama lifted Sarah’s chin and met her eyes. “How can you not? Don’t you see that God controls everything, and He is the one who gave you Miss Victoria? Don’t you see that it was God who made you the way you are? He did that for a reason, and you’re bound to follow Him wherever He takes you.”

  “I don’t understand God.”

  “You don’t have to. You just follow.” Mama looked down at little Rose, and a ragged sigh escaped her lips. “Take her now, Sarah, and see to it that she’s buried proper. Your pa isn’t very sentimental. Don’t let him treat her like she’s nobody, ’cause she isn’t nobody.” Mama’s features sagged. “I’m so very tired ...”

  Sarah unwrapped herself from her mother and, swiping at her wet face, struggled to stand. After searching through the bureau, she found the crocheted blanket Mrs. Boyd had made. She turned and held it up for her mother to see. Mama nodded just as the midwife burst through the door with a basin of water.

  “I ain’t got all day, Jana. My own washin’s waiting for me. Give me the baby and—”

  “No!” Sarah stepped in front of the heavy women. “I’m going to bathe Rose and prepare her for burial.”

  “Now, Sally, ain’t no need to make a big deal outta this. These things happen.”

  “Rose is not a thing. She’s a person, and I’ll take care of her.”

  “You ain’t thinking of using that pretty blanket? Why, that’s crazy!”

  “Rose is going to have the best we have.”

  “Perfect waste is what it is.”

  “Leave Sally alone,” Mama directed. “Just do your work and go.”

  “Them books of hers ain’t done nothing but made her crazy. Well, never mind. I’ll get you cleaned up, Jana.” She jerked the soiled sheets off the bed and piled them at Sarah’s feet. “You know your part, girl.”

  Sarah stiffened. “I do. Take the sheets outside and leave them next to the wash pot.”

  “I ain’t got time—”

  “Do it!”

  “Lord a mercy!” The woman scooped up the sheets and stomped out of the room.

  Her face sagging with sadness, Mama kissed Rose good-bye and handed the infant to Sarah.

  No amount of Sarah’s begging could convince Pa to build a coffin for the baby or to send for the preacher.

  “Just ain’t no use in it,” was his response to every request. “We can’t make a big to-do over ever’ baby that don’t live. We got work to do. Gotta get on with feeding the living.”

  So Sarah bathed the baby, wrapped her in the soft blanket, and followed her pa up the hill while the boys stayed in the fields working.

  When Sarah placed the precious bundle in the hole her pa had dug, she wept and silently vowed, I will not forget you, Rose. I will fight harder because you can’t fight at all. I will change this world!

  “Well, now, that’s done,” Pa said as he mounded the dirt back in place.

  “We must pray and mark the grave!”

  “Ain’t no use in—”

  “Don’t say that to me again! I want her grave marked.”

  “She don’t even have a name.”

  “Her name is Rose.”

  “Ain’t no use in naming a dead baby, Sally. I see that you’re real upset about this, but it’s all just part of life, and we best just move on. There’ll be other babies. Now, let’s go on back to the house. The boys will be wanting some dinner when they come in from the fields, and you’ve got washing to do. Good sunny day—sheets oughta dry real fast.”

  Sarah stared up at him in disbelief.

  “I ain’t trying to be mean, Sally. Life is just what it is, and a man can’t work if he don’t eat. And your ma needs her rest. You don’t want her getting out of bed to cook.”

  The idea of her mother getting up prompted Sarah to rise and silently follow her pa down the hill, but when she had covered the table with ham and eggs and hot cornbread, she turned away in disgust and went to check on Mama.

  ***

  Just as she had done after Kazi’s birth, Sarah stirred the boiling pot of sheets, but when she surveyed the crest of the hill this time, she was not longingly following her brothers’ progress into town to school. Instead, she was spotting the place beneath a lone pine where Rose lay.

  Why? The single word invaded her mind, holding her in such rigid captivity that the reality around her faded. Why? Why? Why, God? She swayed in the steam as she stirred. Why send a baby into the womb and snatch it back at birth? If I had been here ... if Mama hadn’t had to work so hard ... She dropped the steaming twisted sheet into the basket and paddled another out of the water. What was I thinking? I knew her time was approaching! Sarah grabbed the sheet.

  “Sarah, stop!”

  “Drop it, Sarah! For heaven’s sake, drop it!”

  Sarah heard voices, but could not focus on them, could not understand where they were coming from.

  Someone was shaking her. “Let go of it!”

  Miss Victoria’s face floated in front of hers as she felt the burning cloth ripped from her hands. And then she was sinking, her knees buckling, and crashing to the ground as her eyes went hazy and then dark.

  When she regained consciousness, Sarah discovered that she was lying next to the boiling pot, but her hands were wrapped in a cold, wet shawl.

  “Just keep pouring that well water on her hands, Tory.” Sarah recognized Maude’s voice. “Very slowly, that’s it.”

  A cold cloth bathed her face, and Mrs. Boyd’s image floated above her.

  “She’s coming to. Oh, thank God we were here! We must keep her hands as cold as possible.”

  “Mrs. Boyd?” Sarah murmured.

  “Yes, dear. I’m here, and so are Victoria and Maude. We came to check on your mother.”

  “We lost the baby,” Sarah cried. “Little Rose ... we lost her. It’s my fault.”

  “Nonsense!” Miss Victoria leaned over her. “I’m sorry about the baby, but this is not your fault, Sarah! I won’t have you blaming—”

  “Not now, Tory.” Maude silenced her. “Be practical. We must get her into the house. Sit up, Sarah. Don’t think; just do it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Sarah struggled to a sitting position with Miss Victoria’s assistance. “What happened?”

  “You fainted, dear.” Mrs. Boyd wiped her face again. “Do you think you can stand?”

  “Of course she can.” Maude held out her strong hand. “Come on, Sarah!”

  Sarah pulled herself up, but when Mrs. Boyd tried to direct her to the house, she protested, “The sheets! They must be hung up, and there’s more to wash—”

  “Not by you,” Miss Victoria interrupted. “You go with Christine. We’ll handle this.”

  “But you can’t!”

  “Of course we can. We lived through the War. This is nothin
g. Now go!”

  “I’ll do the wringing.” Maude set to work. “You hang them up, Tory.”

  “Let’s not mention your fainting to your mother, dear,” Mrs. Boyd suggested as she urged Sarah toward the house. “She’s been through quite enough.”

  When the ladies left several hours later, all the necessary household chores had been attended to. Sarah’s mother had been settled in front of the fire, and the women had all shared a pot of tea. Condolences had been generously shared, but the conversation had not approached the issues tearing at Sarah’s conscience and heart. When she went to her room after supper, she could not read. Instead, she lay on the bed and pondered how it was possible that less than twenty-four hours previous her sister had been alive and safe. And she chastised herself for the part she believed she had played in the tragedy of the day.

  ***

  The next afternoon, Sarah trudged up the hill to Rose’s grave and sank down in the grass. For her mother’s sake, she had struggled all morning to deny her stinging tears. She had not voiced the questions she needed answered or spoken the self-condemnation she felt. Now, here on the windswept hill with its rough prairie grasses, she was finally alone and free. Her tears came in torrents as did her self-shaming words. If only I had been here ... If only I had not been so selfish. Who am I to think I should have more, that I could make a difference in the world? What a price Mama has paid for my selfishness, for my conceit! Raking her blistered hands through her hair, she sobbed until she was exhausted and then finally slumped over on her side, curled up, and hugged her knees. The warm afternoon sun beamed down on her but did nothing to heal her wrenched heart.

  Sometime later, she heard a buggy down below. Alarm sped through her at the thought of a visitor. She sprang to her feet and gasped as she saw Lee Logan knocking on the farmhouse door. Her mother answered, and after the briefest exchange, pointed to the hill where Sarah stood.

  Sarah froze. No, don’t come up here! But he began the ascent. I’m not ready to talk to anyone. I’m such a mess. Frantically, she swiped at her face with her damp handkerchief, brushed dry grass off her crumpled skirt, and rolled down the sleeves of her faded farm blouse. What will he think of me? She struggled to pin her straggling hair in place as he came closer.

  “You shouldn’t have come!” she blurted out.

  “I couldn’t stay away.”

  “But this is private.”

  “If it’s about you, Sarah, it’s about me.”

  Stunned by the implication of his comment, Sarah dropped her raw hands and allowed her hair to splay across her face. Lee’s compassionate eyes softened her heart, and the two words she had forbidden herself to ever say to him floated past her lips. “Help me.”

  In three quick strides, he was at her side. He took her in his arms, and she sobbed on his shoulder. “I can’t seem to quit crying.”

  “It’s grief and shock. It’s as it should be. Let yourself cry; you will feel better.”

  “I don’t deserve to feel better. This is my fault!”

  “No. That’s not true. Only God controls life and death. You don’t. You can’t.”

  “But she wouldn’t have lost the baby if—”

  “She did not lose it. God chose.”

  “But why would He do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There must have been something I could have done! If I hadn’t been off in town selfishly pursuing my own dreams. If I’d been here helping my mother—”

  “The same thing would have happened. I’m no theologian, but this I do know. God has the power. You don’t. I don’t. It’s very humbling to confess my dependence on God, but it’s a sin to think I am the god of my life or the lives of those I love.”

  “I can’t bear this!” Sarah jerked herself out of his arms and turned back to the grave. “It’s so unfair! Rose never had a chance.”

  “Listen to me.” Lee turned her around to face him. “Your little Rose died, but other girls were born yesterday and lived, and they are going to be stuck in hopeless situations if you don’t do what you have been called to do. You must come back to town and take that examination and become a teacher.”

  “How do you know I’m called to be a teacher?”

  “Look at the cravings of your heart, dearest Sarah. Look at your gifts and the opportunity God has given you to get an education. It all adds up.”

  “I don’t know ... Mother needs me ...”

  “You can make a difference in the world. But not up here by this grave. Not on this farm. Come back to town. You are needed.”

  “You believe in me?”

  “I do! I know God made you to be a teacher. I’m hoping He made you to be a wife—no, I won’t add that burden to your shoulders—not now.”

  Sarah nodded. “I suppose I could let the exam show me the right direction.”

  “No. It’s not safe to think that way. You are so down on yourself, you are likely to scuttle yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You doubt that you deserve to be a teacher. You are so upset with yourself that you won’t let yourself perform at your best.”

  “But how will I know what God wants from me?

  “You already know what you’re called to do. Come back to town and just do it.” He pulled out a handkerchief, leaned down, scooped a handful of the dirt from Rose’s grave, and deposited it in the cloth. “I want you to keep this”—he folded the cloth into a bundle—“and when you’re studying, keep it in sight. It will remind you that you are not striving so hard for self-aggrandizement. You are fighting for little girls, little rosebuds like your sister, who need you.” He pressed the bundle into Sarah’s hand. “I know you will not fail them.”

  Sarah massaged the bundle, her thoughts filled with the sight and sound of Rose’s one gasp of air. Finally, she clasped the solidness of the soil. “I’ll try.”

  “You will succeed.” He stroked her shoulder. “Now come back to the house and rest.” Lee took her arm. Sarah was glad to have his support as they descended the hill but even more grateful that her pa was clearing a distant field.

  ***

  Sarah stayed at the farm for three more days. She appointed herself the task of double digging her mother’s vegetable garden to ready it for spring planting. Every time she forced the shovel through the heavy clay and turned it over, her hands hurt, but her appetite for victory over the barrier of the entrance exam increased. Every shovel of compost she added to the bed became a symbol of the knowledge she could acquire through hard effort. She had been a farmer’s daughter all her life; she knew the result of good soil preparation—in a garden or in her life. The harvest would be fruitful if she worked hard enough to create the right conditions for it to grow.

  CHAPTER 27

  When Sarah returned to Hodges House, she adopted a monastic life of intensive study. She had one month left before the exam that would dictate her future. She entered the library, placed the small bundle of burial soil on the desk before her, and took a solemn vow. “All that I have. All that I am. For you, Rose. For all the denied and shackled young minds God brings to me.”

  For the next month, Sarah settled in the library at dawn, fingered the bundle of soil, and studied until Victoria finally forced her to go to bed long after dark. One day blended into the next as Sarah crammed her mind with facts.

  In mid-May, Miss Victoria drove her to the college and walked with her to the imposing doors of the Carroll Library. “You were born for this, Sarah,” she encouraged. “I am sure of it. Now, take several deep breaths and march in there and show them who you are.”

  Nerves quivering, Sarah nodded and accepted Miss Victoria’s hug, then she climbed the stairs and paused before the ponderously carved double doors. Tradition made one final effort to stop her. A great howl of protest bounded down the centuries and out of the fields of Europe. Generations of tenant farmers—and indeed their wives too—demanded: “Who do you think you are? Do you not see the prescribed pattern?” Centu
ries of her female ancestors hovered in Sarah’s psyche—most denying the possibility, and certainly the propriety, of her outlandish scheme for advancement.

  But there were a few ancient maternal voices—Sarah’s mother the leader of that brave group—who whispered deep in Sarah’s brain, “Do it for us, Sarah. Stand on our shoulders and reach. Reach until your fingers can no longer grasp. Give us a new definition of womanhood, Sarah!”

  Sarah heard and understood. Those women were her roots, and now they were begging her to be the strong stem that could shoot their leaves up to life-nurturing light. They wanted birth, their place in the sun and air, their opportunity to bear intellectual and artistic fruit. And the latest of these voices was surely Rose. Her one gasp of breath was a clarion call to Sarah. The time had come. It was Sarah’s generation that must throw tradition to the wind, that must dare to be different—dare to be more.

  As clearly as if she were standing at the grave, Sarah saw the small mound of earth that covered Rose and remembered the lost hope it contained. “You can make a difference.” Lee’s words roared through her, and she thrust her hand into her skirt pocket and found the bundle of grave soil he had given her. She jerked herself upright, grabbed the door handle, and marched through.

  The exams lasted all day, eight grueling hours, but Sarah tore through them with cold fury. If she felt her energy flagging, she pressed the bundle in her pocket against her side and threw herself back into the questions. She was there to fight for Rose, for all the Roses who would pass through her future classrooms.

  When the noon break came, Sarah distanced herself from the others, determined to retain her focus and certain that they—with the polish of their town upbringing so obvious—could not understand her battle.

  ***

  Victoria never left the college campus. She walked for hours, willing Sarah onward and upward. She thinks I can’t understand, but I can. I remember! It’s the same fight. She must make it. She will make it!

  ***

  Christine Boyd made a pilgrimage to St. Paul’s, and after standing next to the baptismal font and remembering plunging Sarah into it, she knelt at the altar rail and prayed for Sarah’s strength, wisdom, and calmness.