The Healer's Daughter

by Charlotte Hinger

  . . . the truth of the matter is that the papers in Kansas are not nearly as troubled at the sufferings of the newcomers as they are about the political power that will be in the colored man’s possession in the state.

  Bethany began to rock faster, eyes skimming across the page before she could settle down to read every word. She picked other papers up off the pile.

  Of course! How could she not have understood this before? Negroes were becoming a political power. Thoughts swirled like puzzle pieces settling into place. If it wasn’t about money and land, it was usually about politics. The people of Nicodemus had no money, and most of them hadn’t had time to file on land, but according to law they could vote.

  Potroff wanted them for their votes. She and Teddy had been going crazy trying to figure out why these white folks were being good to them. It made sense now. She couldn’t wait to tell Teddy.

  The baby boy cried out, and Bethany sprang to her feet. She smiled at the eager look on Libby Hays’s face. “Reckon you two are missing each other right off,” she said. “That’s a good sign.”

  Libby laughed and reached for her son. She shrugged the gown off her shoulder and guided the little lips to her breast. She stroked the soft down on his head. “How long will it be before Don gets back?”

  “Tomorrow evening, at the latest. He was lucky to have a full moon tonight. Makes traveling a lot faster. I’m sure he’ll put up at our hotel, which is our school, too, when I’m around. It won’t take long for LuAnne to get her things together.”

  “How will you get home?”

  “Shank’s mare.” Then she laughed at Libby’s puzzlement. “Means I’ll walk, ma’am. I’m a strong walker. I got it from my mother.”

  “I won’t hear of it! You will not. Don will take you back in the wagon.”

  “That’s very kind of you, but really, it will be a full moon, and I don’t mind walking at all.”

  “Nonsense. Don will take you, and that’s final. He’ll be back by nightfall and then see you safely home. It wouldn’t be good for me to worry about you getting there.”

  “That’s very kind of you. Thank you.” For the rest of the evening they talked as easily as she and LuAnne did.

  Bethany whisked through all the work the next morning, then settled back down in the rocking chair to read some more.

  “Could I trouble you to fetch something from my trunk?” Libby asked. “I want to write a letter to my mother. There’s some special paper inside. It’s in a tray right on top.”

  Bethany went to the small, polished walnut trunk and opened the lid. It was lined with cedar. There was a box of stationery within. The sheets were a heavy, creamy vellum fit for a queen. Pure and unstained. Exquisite. She could not imagine anyone having the courage to put a pen to such fine paper.

  “How many sheets would you like?”

  “Just one. I’ll send the letter back with you if you have a way to mail it. I want my mother to know she has her first grandchild.” Libby smiled radiantly as she reached for the paper. “This little fellow changes everything. When we first came here, I didn’t think I could stand the loneliness.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a bit of lonely,” said Bethany. “I was used to living with just one white woman. At Nicodemus, we were all crowded together until this spring when we could spread out some. I wouldn’t mind the people and the squabbling so much, but I can’t make sense of the weather. In Kentucky, a body always knew what was going to happen.”

  She stood quietly remembering the most recent spring storm. There was a nightmarish quality to being curled up in a dark hole when the wind swept across the prairie. The wind-driven rain had come with a slam of water. If it rained hard enough, fast enough, her dugout leaked, and there was no more miserable feeling in the world than to be inside a wet hole in the ground. “Here it’s like the weather’s plotting against us.”

  “You aren’t married, then?” asked Libby.

  Bethany looked away. “No, ma’am, I’m not.” She briskly walked over to the cupboard and inspected the contents. “Reckon we’d better start thinking about dinner. Let’s see what you have on hand.”

  LuAnne and Don came right in time to eat the fried ham and biscuits while it was still piping hot.

  “Libby, I want you to meet one of the most trustworthy women I know. This is LuAnne Brown, and you won’t find a finer nurse anywhere.”

  LuAnne shyly ducked her head and mumbled, “Just know how to do what I’m supposed to do, ma’am. But I do know one thing, that is one fine baby boy.” She reached for little Irving, and her eyes shone as she crooned and swayed from side to side.

  When Bethany was finally ready to leave, Don reached into his pocket and carefully selected ten dollars’ worth of coins.

  “That’s a Lord’s plenty,” said Bethany. “Really. Half as much would be a fair price.”

  “Twice as much would be even fairer.” Don glanced at his son. “Worth twice as much to get my wife and the little one off to such a fine start.”

  “It was my privilege.” Bethany picked up her satchel. “My pleasure.” She was walking out the door when Libby called her back.

  “I want you to take those newspapers. I’ve read them over and over. And books. I want you to borrow any books you want.”

  “Really, you folks have been generous enough already.”

  “Nonsense. Can’t think of anyone I’d rather loan them to. I know you’ll guard them with your life. One last thing. Don, go fetch my box of stationery.”

  Hays went to the chest and carried the stash of paper to Libby’s bed.

  Libby counted out ten sheets and ten envelopes. “Here, this is for you. A gift. I insist.”

  “I couldn’t possibly, possibly take it,” said Bethany.

  “I want you to have this,” Libby said. “My folks gave me one hundred sheets of Parkway vellum and one hundred matching envelopes when I left for Kansas. Not to remind me of what I left behind; they’re not mean people. But just so I’ll remember that I’m entitled to fine things if I’ve a mind. We all are. And that includes you.”

  Bethany stood stock still, then finally raised her eyes. She barely registered the astonished look on LuAnn’s face. The look of someone trying to take in a new idea. A wonderful idea.

  They didn’t have to just survive out here. They all still had slave ways of looking at things. Slave ways of hoping. Slave ways of keeping yearning small and manageable. Slave ways of just wanting no more than to stay alive and not get maimed or killed.

  She reached for the paper.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Too excited to concentrate on the children, Bethany’s mind whirled. The newspapers Libby had given her said the American Negro had become a powerful political force. Politics and their right to vote would be the blacks’ ticket to power. And acquiring land. Land had been the key to clout since America was founded.

  Potroff may have been the one who brought them here to round out his town, but he could not stop them from voting and acquiring land. There was no way to stop blacks from getting their one hundred sixty acres.

  Eager to talk to Teddy, she hurried through the lessons. She found him at Jim Black’s shop, watching the blacksmith as he wrestled a wagon wheel into position.

  “Morning, Miss Bethany.”

  She mumbled a quick hello, then ran her fingers through her cascade of hair, loosened during her rush from the schoolhouse. “Teddy, what do we have to do to file for homesteads?”

  Incredulous, he looked at her hard. He could not marshal his thoughts fast enough to come up with all the words he needed to tell her this was a terrible idea.

  Later he would wish he hadn’t tried for prettiness and just gone with his age-old gut reaction—not to rile white folks for any reason. Wished he had blurted out the first words that came to his mind. What she wanted would attract too much attention. What she wanted was dangerous. Not worth the risk.

  “Why would you want to do that?” he asked softly. “Lord, Lord, Miss Bethany, w
hy would you want to do something like that? The day we boarded the boat, Mr. Wade done made it clear we was supposed to stay put. In this here town and not go wandering off on our own.”

  “Because it’s our right.” Her dark eyes glittered. She glanced at Jim, then moved toward the entrance where there would be more light. Teddy followed.

  “I honestly don’t know nothing about getting land.” His face tightened with misery. His body tensed like a played-out, hounded fox. “And I sure as hell don’t know nothing about keeping it.”

  Part of his soul protested at what she wanted to do, and part of him was envying her guts.

  He remembered his profound sense of shame the day when he had understood what it meant to be black. He was a slave. A member of a race that was in bondage to another. He had clung to his mother, asking, trying to make sense of it all. Then he was swept with another memory—the day he learned he was part white. He had become obsessed with the color of skin of everyone he played with.

  He knew he wasn’t nearly as white as little Robert from the big house, but he wasn’t nearly as black as little Jack whose daddy worked in the fields, either. When he asked his mother why he wasn’t as black as his brothers and sisters, she sternly told him “not to make no never mind.” Warning him off, always warning him off, of whatever he wanted to know. Another in the long list of things he was never to bring up again. It took him awhile to figure out that he had a lot of white blood, but it didn’t make any difference in the scheme of things.

  A black man was a black man.

  However, he knew there were black folks, too, that had held slaves before they were all freed by Mr. Lincoln. He knew some black folks were plumb jealous of his lighter skin. Some of them who had been free before the war were madder than hell at the ones who were newly freed. Wouldn’t even let them into their churches. They had hired white ministers and let folks know that “no black nigger” was welcome.

  As he grew older, he decided he liked the black race better, but he knew how to get along with the white folks. He had an uncanny instinct for doing that. He knew how important it was, also. They had a chance here to live in peace. White folks would leave them in peace if they didn’t go round riling things up. And what this woman was fixing to do, would rile things up good.

  One thing never changed. It didn’t set right with white folks to see colored folks own land.

  “Do you know how mad folks will be when we start filing claims, Miss Bethany?”

  Her beautiful face radiated ambition. “I don’t care; it’s our right.”

  “No one will help you. No one in their right mind will help you.”

  She smiled broadly and waved airily as she started back to her dugout. “I just thought of someone who will, Teddy.”

  Norvin Meissner watched Bethany Herbert coming across the prairie. Honey-colored, her hair streaming behind her in the late spring breeze, she moved gracefully through the tall grass. Stunned by his delight in watching her move, he drew a deep breath. Abruptly, he went back inside his soddy for his pipe. He had never seen her approach before. Always she simply materialized, like a tawny ghost. Then after the very briefest exchange of greetings, she would come to the point of her visit. She always had one. She always came for a reason. Because her own time was so valuable, she was respectful of his, as though what he did was also of enormous importance.

  Until this evening, he had thought his pleasure in her visits was due to the fact she was the only one with whom he could talk about books. She alone had the breadth of knowledge and learning to provide a foil for his ideas. He had come to depend on her swift, uncluttered insight, her wit, and her wild bursts of laughter when he was showing off. Testing phrases. Deflating other editors.

  Now she fairly flew across the last hundred yards toward him.

  “And to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” he teased.

  She flashed a grin at him. “Unexpected? Not likely. Who comes here more than I do?”

  He turned away from her for an instant, suddenly unable to return the lightness in her tone. So that’s the way it is, he thought. So that’s the way it is.

  However, these were his feelings, not hers. She had never given one whit of indication that there was anything else between them at all.

  “As a matter of fact, you really are my most frequent visitor.” He waited for her to say why she had come.

  “I want you to help us get land,” she blurted. “I know Potroff is set on us taking up all the plots in his town, but some of us want homestead land. I’ve read the newspapers, and we are entitled to it. Men and women alike can file if they’re the head of a household.”

  “That’s true.” He moved to the table and gestured for Bethany to sit down. “You’re going to make a lot of people mad.”

  “Oh Lord, you sound just like Teddy. That’s the first thing he said, too.”

  She rose, went over to the open doorway, and stared at the setting sun. Then she turned back to him, clearly disappointed that he didn’t share her vision. Her dress fell in elegant folds on her slender body. “That’s what everyone keeps telling me. It’s what I’ve been hearing all my life. Not to make people mad. And I learned a long time ago these ‘people’ we were talking about were always white folks. Black folks aren’t people at all, and no one cares about making us mad.”

  He blinked. Withered under her heat.

  “Well, I don’t care who I make mad. I’m not going to think that way or act that way out here. I’m just going to claim what’s rightfully mine. And the law says we’ve got the right to land, the same as white folks that move out here.”

  “You have the right, Bethany; I didn’t say that.” He cleared his throat and looked away. “All I said was, it’s going to make a lot of folks mad.”

  “So be it,” she said. “So be it. I came here to ask if you would help us. Will you?”

  His heart sank. It was one thing to rile folks with words in a paper. It was easy to stick up for black folks in an editorial. It would be quite another thing to help them file for homesteads.

  Fact was, he was a Caucasian. A white man. Damned if he wanted only black folks to like him. It was one thing to see to it they got a fair shake, and quite another to have blacks and only blacks for his friends. Whatever he decided now, there would be no turning back.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked finally.

  She gave a little squeal. Although he smiled at her exuberance, his mouth went dry, like he had swallowed a boll of cotton.

  “I need to know how to file for land. What do we need to know so we won’t be called a bunch of dumb niggers?”

  “Potroff helps people file claims,” he said. “I don’t understand why you aren’t going to him for help.”

  She traced her finger in the dust on the table, then raised her eyes. “I don’t want help from Mr. Potroff,” she said slowly. “Let’s just drop it at the fact that he’s not a good person.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” Puzzled by the flicker of fear on her face, he leaned back on two legs of his chair, his arms clasped behind his head. Then he abruptly rose and went to the crate in the corner of the room where he kept various papers and supplies. He took out the paper for a land claim. It was blank. He went through it with her, line by line.

  “The nearest office is Oberlin,” he said.

  “I’ll go there tomorrow.”

  “Bethany, you can’t. You simply can’t walk into a land office, like you had the right—which you do—and demand filing papers. They’ll figure out some way to stop you. It will take a man like Potroff standing at your side to make them do the right thing. But to just do it on your own, they won’t let it happen. There’s a thousand ways to stop colored folks; you know that.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “It’s not fair. I thought things would be different out here. We should be able to make a living and even prosper. God knows most of us would just love to prosper.”

  He thought hard about the people who were backing his
paper. He thought about what she had said earlier, about voting; about the black people becoming a power in cities. States were courting their votes. Earlier, his backers had understood when he told them Nicodemus could sway the county seat vote. Wouldn’t take much to make them see that if he helped these colonists get land, it would lock in their vote for Millbrook. It would be sure-fire insurance. They could help each other.

  “Miss Bethany, I think I know some people who can help you. They are the ones backing my paper and this town we are trying to start. Let me talk to them, and we’ll see what we can work out.”

  Her smile was dazzling.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Meissner. I know you want to have the county seat, and I don’t think there’s a chance that Nicodemus will ever be taken seriously as a contender. So we’ll support any town that will help us live here quietly and with dignity.”

  Meissner nodded. “Reason,” he mumbled thoughtfully. “I’ll appeal to folks’ reason. And ideals. Ideals work well.” He picked up a pen and started making notes.

  “Most of all, I want my students to have real diplomas. Most of our people just want to make a living and live in peace, but I want our school to be official.”

  “You have to listen to me, then. You can’t rile folks up just now. We must go about this right. But if you can get your folks to vote for Millbrook as the county seat, I think the people backing me will help you get land.”

  She looked at him hard. “I hope you are telling the truth, Mr. Meissner. But if you help us, we’ll help make Millbrook the county seat.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Norvin Meissner dropped a piece of type, swore, then tediously eased it back into line. His hands could not keep pace with his thoughts. It was late spring now, and the prairie was alive with insects. Bright-yellow clumps of wild mustard brightened the landscape. White patches of cow parsnips rose above scattered short stands of bluestem where it had taken over the buffalo grass. He could see so far it was as though the earth had no boundaries.