by Ann Towell
“You, dear sister-in-law, will do nothing of the sort,” he said those words through clenched teeth.
I was spellbound by what was happening. I wanted to believe that right would win out in the end, and as far as I was concerned, Uncle Amos would always be in the right over Aunt Sadie.
“You have proven yourself incapable of watching over him,” Aunt Sadie placed her hands on the table, leaned forward, and stared at him. “Who looks after him when you do your runs to Sarnia?”
“He stays here.”
“Alone?” Aunt Sadie acted appalled. “How dare you leave a child alone?”
“He’s not alone, Aunt Sadie,” Lem interrupted. “Tom sometimes stays with him, and Mercy is here too.”
“A mere child with a child,” Aunt Sadie was not impressed by that.
“I’m not doing runs after Christmas,” Lem continued, “so, I’ll be here most of the time too.”
“Most of the time? Well, that’s not good enough. In a town of rough men, you dare leave my nephew alone?” Aunt Sadie was screeching now. “He’s a child for heaven’s sake!”
I didn’t move in my seat in case Aunt Sadie noticed and turned her anger my way.
“The child needs a father and a mother, something you can’t supply.” Aunt Sadie was triumphant. There was no disputing the fact that Uncle Amos was unmarried.
“You would coddle him too much. He’s grown up in the short time he’s been here. He’s becoming responsible for himself.”
“He’s not a man yet, Amos. He still has years to go before then. I agreed to Lem living here, but I never gave permission for Titus –”
“Granted, that’s true.” Uncle Amos sighed and covered his eyes for a moment. Uncle Robert remained silent as if none of this was his business.
“We made the best of it when he came,” Lem was sticking up for Uncle Amos. “He goes to school some of the time and writes essays and such. You should read them, Aunt Sadie. They’re really good. Ask Mrs. Ryan. I think Titus would make a fine writer.”
“He was supposed to be a lawyer.” Aunt Sadie made it all sound so final, my future and everything.
“What if I don’t want to be a lawyer?” I asked in a squeaky voice, but no one took any notice of me.
Mrs. Ryan and Mercy were still in the kitchen. I took some more plates from the table and joined them while the argument swirled in the dining room. Mercy took the plates when I entered the room.
I walked over to Mrs. Ryan and threw my arms around her waist. I was crying and didn’t even know it until my tears fell freely on her apron. She patted my back a few times. We stood like that until I stopped sobbing. “I don’t want to leave. I’ll miss everyone….”
“Hush child. Hush.”
A powerful feeling filled me. Crying wasn’t going to do much good. I needed Aunt Sadie to see and understand that I belonged here. I needed to convince her that I should stay. It was up to me to say my piece.
I straightened my shoulders, smiled at Mrs. Ryan and wiped away the remaining tears. I turned around and headed back to the dining room. The argument was loud and heated now. Mean things were being said by both my uncle and aunt.
“I’m staying, Aunt Sadie,” I shouted, trying to be heard over their loud voices.
They continued to yell. I tugged on Aunt Sadie’s skirt. She turned around, her face red and eyes glaring.
“What do you want? Go pack your bags. We’re leaving this instant! I will not spend another night under the roof of this house!”
“I’m staying. If you don’t want me to be alone when Uncle Amos does his runs, I can stay with Mrs. Ryan, I’m sure. You might find this town rough, but the people are good to each other. I have made friends and I work hard. I study too, Aunt Sadie. I can show you the essays I wrote. I also study science and am learning the process of distilling the oil. I watch Lem when he makes new hooks for the jerker lines. I am learning so much …”
I said a lot more to her then. She was quiet the whole time I was talking. It was like her anger had gone out of her. Finally I was done.
“Fine. I tried my best. I let you stay here against my better judgment, thinking you would be ready to come home after Christmas. But no, you’re an ungrateful boy. You want to be selfish and destroy your future? Go ahead.” She turned to my uncle. “Robert, we’re leaving in fifteen minutes, just as soon as I pack our bags.”
Uncle Robert followed Aunt Sadie. Later, the three of us admitted we felt a little ashamed that we had hurt her so much. But, Uncle Amos had fought to keep me here. This was like a song in my heart. I was loved and needed – and it had nothing to do with duty.
CHAPTER
16
A few days passed and Aunt Sadie and Uncle Robert were still in town while they waited for someone to give them a ride to the train station in Wyoming. They stayed at one of the hotels where Uncle Robert was able to get them a room.
In the meantime I was trying my darndest to bring Mrs. Ryan and Uncle Amos together, but that was more for me than them. I really liked my teacher and thought she would be a good person to have around to take the rough edges off of us Sullivan men. Besides, she liked adventure as much as the rest of us. I knew that if Mrs. Ryan married my uncle, I would have a mother, and Aunt Sadie would have a harder time getting me away from Uncle Amos.
Uncle Amos finally decided that he would take Aunt Sadie and Uncle Robert to Wyoming so they could catch the train. He wanted Lem and me to go with him, since it was a family affair. I dreaded seeing Aunt Sadie because I thought she would still be angry.
Uncle Robert was in the lobby reading a paper. When he looked up over the edge of it to see me, his eyes appeared to be smiling. That gave me the courage to go up to him.
“Hello Uncle Robert, sir,” I said with a smile.
Lem reached around me to shake Uncle Robert’s hand. “Boys, good of you to come.” His voice was hearty. “Your Aunt Sadie is overseeing the final details of packing up. I daresay she’ll be down shortly.”
He pulled his pocketwatch from his vest and studied it for a few seconds. By this time, Uncle Amos had joined us. The two men greeted each other, and Uncle Robert offered Uncle Amos a cheroot. They sat down companionably and lit their cigars.
We didn’t talk much while we waited for my aunt to come down the stairs. I was the first to notice her. She sailed through the lobby in her bombazine dress as if she owned the place. One thing about Aunt Sadie is that she has what people call presence. I supposed that comes from being born to quality.
We Sullivans were just dirt farmers from Ireland. It was still a puzzlement to my aunt that her sister, my ma, married my pa. It were no puzzlement to me because Pa was a good man with laughter in his voice. He was a loving father and played the fiddle so well it was enough to make one weep, at least that’s what Uncle Amos said.
I try hard to remember things about my parents, but sometimes I forget and feel guilty because they’ve only been dead about a year. Other times, just before I fall asleep, I see them clear-like and hear them as if they were in the room with me. Those are special times for me, and I hoard them like treasures.
“I see you are on time. I thank you kindly, Amos.”
Aunt Sadie’s words were nice enough but her tone wasn’t. It was cold and crimped-like. I could tell she was controlling her temper, something fierce. Uncle Amos studied the smoke that spiraled around his head before he answered. He was controlling his anger too.
“No thanks needed, Sadie. You’re family.” His voice was gruff.
Lem got up quickly from his chair and offered it to her. Aunt Sadie sat down with a huff. She leaned forward in her seat and whispered to Uncle Amos, “Don’t think I’ve given up yet. But I’ll make a concession. You send that boy to school full time, and I won’t bother you about him until summer.”
Uncle Amos eyebrows rose at these words. “That long eh?” He smiled to take the sharpness out of his words, but Aunt Sadie was having none of it.
“I was appointed guardian, a
nd I can take you to court,” she threatened.
“Now, now Sadie,” Uncle Robert leaned over to touch her knee. “Let’s not do anything rash.”
“Fine for you to say. I’m a woman who has always taken my duty seriously. I promised to see that Titus finishes his education. I always keep my word.”
She was dabbing at her eyes again. Truth be told I was getting heartily sick of her crying. Uncle Amos stubbed out his cheroot and leaned toward Aunt Sadie.
“The boy will go to school full time. I promise you that.”
I was disgusted. There’s nothing like tears to make a man agree with a woman. Aunt Sadie nodded, sniffed, and wiped her eyes one more time. She put away the scrap of lace in her reticule and snapped it shut. “That’s that then. I suppose we should be on our way. Some colorful character said there’s a storm on the way.”
“A colorful character?” Lem hooted. “The town’s full of them.” He picked up their suitcases and led the way out of the hotel to the waiting sleigh.
The ride to Wyoming was beautiful and uneventful. The sunlight made the snow sparkle like diamonds as it sifted and flew from under the sleigh’s runners. There wasn’t hint of a storm at all and I supposed Aunt Sadie just said that to be ornery and contrary.
She sat in the back with me and Lem. She was on the other side of Lem so I didn’t pay her no mind for a good part of the trip. The air was frigid, and my face was numb. I stomped my feet a few times to get some life in them. Sharp pains ran through my feet and almost made me cry out.
None of us said much on the trip because there wasn’t much to say. Uncle Amos sat hunched over against the cold and I could tell by the set of his back he was not in a good temper. Uncle Robert made some commonplace statements about the snow and cold, but other than that, the swish of runners and the jingle of the harness were the only sounds we made.
At the station the good-byes were quick and to the point. We could already hear the whistle of the train in the distance. Within five minutes it was there, and we helped my aunt and uncle onto it. The porter was a black man and I wondered if he had escaped from the south. I smiled at him as I handed him one of the valises. He smiled back and touched the brim of his cap.
Uncle Amos relaxed on the way home. I could tell from his back, so I ventured to ask a question or two.
“Uncle Amos, how come Aunt Sadie don’t like you none?”
“Titus, that’s not a fair question. Besides, what makes you think that?”
“Well you two never seem to agree on anything, and she doesn’t want me staying with you.”
“It’s not unusual for a woman to think a bachelor is incapable of looking after a young boy.”
“But it makes the most sense, since you were a boy once yourself.”
“So was Uncle Robert. If you stayed with Aunt Sadie you would have the benefit of a woman’s kindly touch too.”
Saying Aunt Sadie was kind was really just hogwash as far as I could figure. Amos had more kindness in his pinkie finger than she had in her whole person. I was about to say something like that when Lem shot me a warning look. My brother knew me too well. But I didn’t think Uncle Amos was given enough credit for doing a good job of looking after me.
“I know she thinks you’re not doing a good job, but I disagree.”
“Not good enough, Titus. I think she was right when she said I should send you back to school full time. You did a mighty fine job writing essays for me, but in the New Year you’ll be attending school every day with children more your age.”
“But what about my job?” I wailed.
“You’d think you were sending him to the gallows the way he’s carrying on,” Lem joked.
I sat still for a minute or two because I was angry. But then, the anger went away and left me sad.
“Uncle Amos?”
“What, son?”
“How come I’m feeling a mite sorry for Aunt Sadie right about now? You figure that I would just feel happy about staying. But, this sadness keeps interrupting my happiness and I regret I had to hurt her to stay with you.”
“That’s life, son. You will never make everyone happy, no matter how hard you try. People are always seeing the same things in a different light, and well … people are just plain contrary.”
I leaned against my uncle’s shoulder for a while. I was drawing from his strength, even though he seemed to be disagreeing with me. He put his pipe in his mouth and patted my hand that rested on his shoulder. The smoke was a thin spiral above his head.
“Look over yonder,” he whispered.
There were five bucks, the oldest leading the way over the tree-lined road. The leader had a huge rack, but the other four were young and their antlers were small.
“Too bad we didn’t bring the gun,” Lem whispered back. “There’s meat for the winter.”
“I’m glad,” I said. “I wouldn’t want anyone to shoot them.”
I spoke too loud for the big stag lifted his head and looked around until he spotted us. Lem stopped the sleigh while we watched each one run and jump and disappear into the forest.
CHAPTER
17
It was a week before Moses’s family made it back. In that time we managed to move Uncle Amos’s small house to Crooked Line. We used two teams of horses and logs to roll it over there. Rocks and stumps made the foundation, and we laid straw around the bottom of the house to keep it warm for them. Uncle Amos, Lem, and Adam McCabe took a week off to do this. Mr. McCabe had returned from London after leaving his wife there with her mother. They never had any children, so I suppose Mr. McCabe was a mite lonesome. He seemed to take a shine to me because he used to tease me something fierce, but there was no meanness in it.
Mercy cleaned the shanty, and we installed the Crouchers’ woodstove in it. It was my idea of a surprise for them, seeing that Mr. Croucher was so busy working he didn’t have much time to fix up his home.
Then I had doubts that maybe we had moved too quickly doing this. What if we offended them? I knew they were a family with dignity, and they might look on our gift as charity, instead of simple neighborliness. It really wasn’t much of a house anyway and it would have just rotted in our front yard. Turns out I worried for nothing. When the Crouchers returned they were as pleased as punch.
Winter kept up with snowstorms and frozen temperatures. The going was pretty good for taking oil to Wyoming or Sarnia, and Amos was out a lot with the team. I attended school and found it wasn’t so bad, though I missed Moses something bad.
The colored folk worked hard wherever they could find work. Moses and his pa cut down ash trees or hauled wood if they weren’t hauling clay from the wells. At the store there was still grumbling ’bout the coloreds working for less pay. I figured it could all have been taken care of if the bosses just paid them the same as the white folk.
When I told Moses what I thought he replied, “That is a good idea, but who is going to convince the bosses that we are worth as much as the whites?”
I spent a good part of that winter just being plain sick. I seemed to catch a cold so easily and often I had stomach upsets. Uncle Amos said it was due to the water not being quite right. The water got mixed with the oil sometimes, and it didn’t always taste so good. Uncle Amos blamed the cholera epidemic on the drinking water and had always told me I had to boil it before I drank it. I tried my best to do that, but sometimes I was real thirsty and didn’t bother. Mrs. Ryan came one day to ask why I wasn’t at school. She could see that I was sick when I opened the door. But other than that, the winter passed by all right. In all this time I never saw so much as a hair on John Longville’s head. Max McQuarrie was also nowhere to be found. I figured after they got out of jail they must’ve been in Sarnia, maybe working on the ships or something. We’d hear rumors about them, but that was all.
When spring finally did come and the frost left the ground, the earth was mucky again. It was very hard to get the oil to the refineries. It also was powerful hard trying to keep anything clean.
Lemuel laid a wooden sidewalk to our door. He built it with Tom and me on a quiet afternoon. The cold was still there and it froze up the fingers when you were nailing the boards. He made his own nails and made sure I didn’t waste any when I helped with hammering. I only hit my finger once and that was enough because it’s pretty hard working with frozen fingers plus one that’s purple from the swelling. Still and all, we were pretty proud of that sidewalk.
One morning when I was feeling poorly, I went down to the kitchen to watch Mercy work. Anything was better than being in my bedroom. It almost felt like a jail cell, no offense intended.
“Everyone is getting sick,” she said as she tied an apron around her waist. She had spent the day in the sick room with Uncle Amos. After washing her hands, she began to peel potatoes for supper. “Don’t you get near me,” she warned when I stood next to her.
“It’s nothing much,” I said through my stuffed nose. “Just a little cold.”
“Then why are people dying?” she asked. “I saw a whole bunch of coffins outside the hotel this morning. They shipped them in from London because Mr. Whelan can’t keep up.”
Mr. Whelan was the local cooper and he also made coffins, when someone died. This scared me something fierce. I thought it was just a cold. Maybe I would die just like my parents. I could feel the water entering my eyes and my nose started running. I wiped it on the sleeve of my nightshirt.
“Don’t do that. It’s not very nice.” Mercy got a handkerchief out of a drawer and handed it to me. “Maybe you should ask your uncle to put you in the sick room.”
“I’ve been in bed all night. I want to go outside.”
“Well, you can’t. So stop whining.”
“I’m not whining. It’s just so boring sitting here all day.”
“Why don’t you read to me while I get the washtubs ready.”
I could tell she really wanted me to do that. It made the time pass quicker if she was thinking on a story.
“I like the way you read. You make everything sound so exciting.”
I was about to look in the parlor for a book, but she surprised me and pulled a penny novel out of the pocket of her apron. “I brought something myself.”