by Jane Smiley
For many months, one of my main pleasures in life had been to linger in L and S, prolonging my errands there for Alice and gazing upon the delightful bills, with their neat street maps and architectural drawings. Quincy, which had been a mere handful of buildings when my father arrived, seemed old and run-down by comparison. Even so, my chances of getting to any of these places seemed at least as remote as Horace Silk’s, and as often as I gazed upon my favorite bills, I also vowed to put away the thoughts that agitated me. My sisters were as fixed in their various homes as stones, and as difficult to lift. I had no money of my own and no companion. Even my father’s old horse had died some three years before, never to be replaced, since my father had no use for a horse. That horse was the last familiar creature that he remembered the name of. As recently as six months before his death, sister Beatrice found him in the barn, looking at the horse’s empty stall and muttering, "Wellington." That was the horse’s name, after the duke himself.
I turned from the glare of the window and crept back to the carpet roll. There I squatted and peered down. Harriet was fanning herself. Her face was bright red. Beatrice was saying, "... a nice chicken business."
"And where," said Alice, "would we set her up with this nice chicken business? And ..." She paused and caught her breath indignantly. "If Horace is going to set anyone up in a nice chicken business, then in my opinion Annie is far more deserving and would certainly do well at it. Annie gets very little consideration, I must say. You have more room on your farm, Harriet, for any sort of nice chicken business than we have on our town lot, a double one though it may be and as big as any."
"I know the end of that," complained Harriet. "More work for me when she lets her chickens run wild. I have my own chickens, as many as I can handle."
I wanted to shout down through the grating that every woman in Quincy had a nice chicken business, that the chicken trade was oversubscribed, but I held my tongue.
"I still think," continued Harriet, "Beatrice ..." There was a portentous pause while Harriet made sure to stake her claim to Beatrice’s full attention. "Bonnets! She can trim bonnets for Horace and Jonas. She’s all thumbs with a needle, but—"
"Lydia is all thumbs!"
"Annie, on the other hand, has a tremendous gift for trimming bonnets! She—"
I let out a single stifled bark of merriment. Harriet looked around, startled, but didn’t guess where the noise was coming from. I have to say, though, that my sisters’ ventures into the question of what was to become of me had taken an unexpectedly creative and comic turn. It was clear that I would have to make an effort, or I would soon find myself gainfully employed.
Below me I saw the top of Annie’s head glide into view, neatly juxtaposed to a large round tray covered with tea things. The severe white parting that ran from the front of that crown to the back was so fine and straight it might have been done with a knife point.
"Shh," said Harriet. "Thank, you my dear. Lovely."
It was a principle of the family that no business was discussed in front of Annie, who was generally considered too innocent to withstand the shock of most topics, though of course not too fragile to be worked to death. They did not invite her to take tea with them, so she set down the things and once again removed herself.
"This whole question," said Alice, "is too much for such a day as this. We’ve just buried our dear pa, after all."
"He was a fine-looking man," said Harriet. "The very picture of a patriarch."
"Mrs. Rowan said he was the fairest creature of either sex she ever saw. She told me that yesterday when she was in buying sugar," said Beatrice. " ’He cut a wonderful figure.’ Those were her very words."
They all sighed.
CHAPTER 2
I Become Acquainted with Mr. Thomas Newton
Wash the fine clothes in one tub of suds; and throw them, when wrung, into another. Then wash them, in the second suds, turning them wrong side out. Put them in the boiling-bag, and boil them in strong suds, for half an hour, and not much more. Move them, while boiling, with the clothes-stick. Take them out of the boiling-bag, and put them into a tub of water, and rub the dirtiest places, again, if need be. Throw them into the rinsing-water, and then wring them out, and put them into the blueing-water. Put the articles to be stiffened, into a clothes-basket, by themselves, and, just before hanging out, dip them in starch, clapping it in, so as to have them equally stiff, in all parts. Hang white clothes in the sun, and colored ones, (wrong side out,) in the shade. Fasten them with clothes-pins. Then wash the coarser white articles, in the same manner. —p. 286
THOMAS NEWTON WAS WHAT Harriet’s husband, Roland Brereton, called a "d— abolitionist." So was our sister Miriam. Roland Brereton called her "your d— abolitionist sister Miriam." Roland was forever d—ing everything, even those things he was fond of, like his dogs and his horses. Roland was from Kentucky; he and his three brothers had moved across the Ohio River into Illinois when Roland was a small boy. Roland’s family had gotten entangled in an Illinois legend almost as soon as they set foot in the state, and all the old settlers knew who the Breretons were.
The story runs as follows. There once was a family of killers who lived down near the Ohio: an old man, his four sons, and the women who might have been their "wives." They lived in the woods in a primitive fashion, making camps at night and taking shelter as best they could. It was said by reliable authorities that the women took the babies away from the camp every night to sleep, because they knew that if a baby cried, the old man would kill it. To meet up with these men was almost certain death. Many men of that day were lost and never heard of again until their bodies were found. One man was caught and tied to his horse. The horse and the man were blindfolded, and then the horse was driven over a high bluff. Another time, a group of pioneers got separated from two of their children, as it was easy to do in those days, and when they found the children, a day later, it was only to discover that they had been run down and brutally murdered for the sake of stealing what little clothing they were wearing. This father and sons were said to have killed over a hundred men, women, and children in two years or so, and heaven knows how many before they came to Illinois.
Roland Brereton’s father, Lyman, came into Illinois from Kentucky right at the time when all of these killings were taking place, and sure enough, one evening, when they were pushing their way along a woodland track down in Edwards County, three men, one old and two young, jumped up in front of them, far gone in drink but deadly. Lyman was walking along at the horse’s head, Roland and his two brothers were in the wagon. The mother was behind the wagon, and their dog, some sort of Kentucky hound dog, was walking next to her. As soon as the three men approached, the dog slunk away.
The brutes were greedy, and they paused to rummage through the Breretons’ belongings, though they didn’t pause long. Any object was good enough for them to kill for. But the dog had made good use of this moment to seek out Burton Brereton, Lyman’s brother, who was some yards ahead of the group. Burton was one of those Kentuckians who seemed to take after red Indians rather than his white ancestors, and he was there before they even heard him coming. The only one of all of them who saw him was the mother, and what she saw was Burton setting the muzzle of his long rifle against the back of one of the sons’ heads and pulling the trigger. At the very moment of the shot, she called out, "Praise the Lord!" at the top of her lungs. The old man and the other son got away and lived to kill other pioneers, but the Breretons got famous all the same for at least reducing their number.
For all that, Lyman and Burton Brereton didn’t make much of a success in Illinois. According to Roland, they didn’t have any use for good prairie soil and stuck to little patches here and there in the woods. Like most Kentuckians, they were satisfied to shoot something for supper and have some greens with it. But Roland had made himself a nice prairie farm out east of Quincy, and the only Kentucky left in him was the everlasting d—ing of this and that, and the dogs that over-ran the place,
all said to be descendants of the famous hound that saved the family. Roland wouldn’t have a slave, not even in the kitchen, but he’d die for the right of all his second and third cousins that he’d never met to own as many slaves as they wanted. I doubted he’d be called upon to offer his life, unless he died as a result of an apoplectic fit after a dispute with some d— abolitionist. But abolitionists weren’t all that common in Quincy, though there were some who sympathized with "poor Dr. Eels," as Beatrice called him, who’d tried to rescue an escaped slave who’d swum from the Missouri side, back when I was a little girl, and had been convicted on account of the wet clothes that were discovered in his buggy. Most people in Quincy didn’t go out of their way to help the swimmers from Missouri, but they didn’t go out of their way to return them across the river, either. My brother-in-law Horace once said, "My opinion is, it’s a pretty short swim over but a pretty long row back, and I just don’t want to make the effort." That was Quincy all over.
I found Thomas Newton much milder and quieter than you’d think a "d— abolitionist" would be. He was so mild and quiet, in fact, that the first time I met him, when he came over to Harriet’s in the company of the neighbor Howell, who was also a d— abolitionist, I didn’t find out a thing about him. I was out at Harriet’s helping her boil bed linens about two weeks after my father’s funeral. I was trying to be as little use as I could be, but I could hardly fail to stir the boiling clothes, my assigned labor. It was a hot day, and I had tied up my skirts to keep them out of the fire and rolled up my sleeves to keep them out of my way. My hair was so heavy with damp from the work that it hung around my shoulders. Harriet’s boy Frank was tending the fire. Howell drove up in his wagon, and he and a tall fellow with pale hair and fair skin got out and went into the house. I can’t say that I made much of him. There was a creek down behind Roland Brereton’s farm, and I was thinking mostly about taking a swim back there if I could slip away from Harriet after the clothes were washed.
But Harriet was thinking about something else, and not three minutes after Howell and this pale fellow went into the house, they came out again, with Harriet right behind them, and she had a tray in her hand and on that a jug of cold spring water. Pretty soon, she set them up on a cloth in the shade of a big hickory tree, went back in for glasses and a plate of cakes, and then she sang out to me, "Lidie! Surely those linens are clean by now. You better fix yourself up and come over here and have a glass of water in this heat! Isn’t it sweltering!" And the two men made themselves comfortable, all smiles.
This neighbor, Roger Howell, hadn’t owned his farm long. He’d come down from Wisconsin, along the bluffs of the Mississippi, and was said to be consumptive, which was why he found the winters up there too much to bear. He had gingery whiskers and a bald head with a gingery fringe around the sides, and he was always taking his hat off and putting it on. Harriet told me that every night he smeared on his pate a mixture of hartshorn and oil, which Jonas Silk swore would grow hair on a stone, but no new shoots were as yet in evidence. The only thing I’d ever heard him talk about was his mare, which he was very proud of—he’d won her in a poker game from a Missouri man, and she was a long-legged, haughty-looking thing with a white circle around her left eye and a wide blaze.
"Well, Tom," he was saying as I came up, "you were impressed. I saw you holding your hat, but that mare wasn’t even stretching out. On the one piece, that straightaway before you get to the gate here, she whipped Solomon Johnson’s colt, hardly even breathing. Broke that colt’s heart—"
Thomas Newton started to stand up, but I sat down so quickly on the cloth that he didn’t have a chance. Harriet pushed a glass of water over to me and beamed on me as if I were her dearest child, while at the same time shooing away Frank, who was twelve at the time. "Yes, Mr. Newton, here is my sister, my baby sister Lydia, the last of us girls. Do you know, my father had thirteen daughters altogether?" She motioned to me to straighten my bodice and otherwise surreptitiously rearrange myself, but it was too hot for that. I sat down as I was. "Good land," Harriet went on. "It’s miserable weather for boiling clothes, but Lidie simply would do it. There was nothing I could do to stop her."
Howell remarked, "My mare don’t notice the heat. She hardly turns a hair in this heat. Tom Newton, you ever seen a mare like this one? I swear!"
Frank stood opposite us, under the hickory tree, with his thumbs notched in his braces.
Now Thomas Newton spoke for the first time. His voice was low and agreeable. "You know I’m not a horseman, Howell. And you weren’t, either, the last time I saw you. You’ve been transformed by this Missouri mare!"
Howell grinned at this as if it were praise. Harriet grinned to be agreeable. Howell said, "Now look at her just stand there. She—"
"Miss Harkness, are you fond of horses?"
"When there’s one to be fond of I am."
"Lidie’s just a miracle worker with dumb creatures," said Harriet. "More of our delicious spring water, Mr. Newton? Will you be with us long?"
Very slowly and with much aplomb, Frank pulled the stub of a seegar from his pocket and put it between his lips. A moment later, he pulled out a lucifer and lit it. He sucked through it and then let the smoke pillow out of his mouth. Harriet, I could see, was trying to ignore him. Mr. Howell seemed to be ignoring him, too, except that he turned suddenly and spat a thin brown stream toward the woods. Thomas Newton, it appeared, neither smoked nor chewed.
I came to realize that this is what my sisters had decided on, marrying me off to the first stranger to pass through Quincy, or the second, or the third.
He said, "Only as long as I can help it ..."
"Tom Newton’s on his way to Kansas," said Howell. "He’s with the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company. Roland around?" Now Howell grinned again. "I do want to make sure that Roland meets Tom. I know he’ll want to."
"My goodness me," said Harriet. "You mean you want to give him a fit! Are you an argumentative man, Mr. Newton?"
"He’s from Boston, an’t he?" said Howell, laughing aloud.
"Let me suggest, sir," said Harriet soberly, "that you refrain from engaging Mr. Brereton in discussion if you find him armed."
"He’s always armed," said Howell.
Harriet nodded at this, as if to say, There, you see.
Howell roared, "He’s itching to kill some d— abolitionist!"
Thomas Newton paled and quickly took a sip of his water. Howell shouted, "Here he comes now!" and Harriet started and looked around, and Thomas Newton kind of hunched into himself, but Howell was laughing to beat the band, pleased to have made fools of us. I finished my glass and stood up, ready enough to get back to stirring the clothes, but Harriet said immediately, "Lidie, pass Mr. Newton one of these cakes you made yesterday," and what could I do? I passed the cakes, which I had never seen before, and they began to slide off the plate, and he didn’t have the sense to catch them, so they all fell in his lap. A hapless young man, that much was clear.
Frank fell over laughing.
Harriet seemed to place the blame on me. She exclaimed, "Oh, Lidie, for goodness’ sake!" Howell was laughing, too, but I got up without glancing at Mr. Newton and went back to stirring my clothes, which heaved and billowed in the steaming waters. It seemed the most harmless thing I could do.
Soon enough the bald-pated older man and the pale young man got into the gig and went off, and not long after that, Harriet, with a distinct air of disappointment married to long-suffering resignation, declared that she was going to her room—"because, Frank, you have given me a headache with that infernal cheroot"—and after we were finished with the rinsing, would we leave the clothes to sit in the bluing tub, and so we did, Frank pausing twice to relight his seegar, because, taken all in all, he wasn’t nearly as experienced with it as he liked us to think.
The stream below Roland Brereton’s farm cut down its banks in muddy steps, and in spots you could stand in the middle of the stream and see only the sky and tufts of thick grass edging the bank
s high above your head. By late afternoon, there were two shady spots, cool under the giant cotton-woods, and at one of these Frank had dammed a little pool that in mid-August ran about a foot deep, deep enough for bullheads, sunfish, a crappie or two, and, of course, numerous scuttling crawdads. The small terraces that defined the height of the waters in earlier periods of the year were dried and cracked into angular shapes. Frank liked to pluck the little squares out of the mud and spin them into the pool, or follow the crawdads with a stick and poke after them into their hiding places. A few late rays of sunshine through the cottonwood leaves fell on the muddy water and sparkled, but without disturbing the sense of cool shade and privacy that I always felt in this spot. I could hear Roland’s cows lowing in the pasture above us, but the banks of the creek were too steep for them until some quarter of a mile downstream. Often, we saw turtles in the water, snakes, which held no fear for me, and the tracks of coons and skunks in the mud. The banks had a number of otter holes, and a ways upstream the otters had made a slide, but we didn’t often see the otters themselves, unless it was the flash of a rounded little head accompanied by the sense of being looked at with sharp, black little eyes, and then, as soon as you turned toward them, they were gone. The creek had a different, more solitary and less appalling, feeling than the big river, which I also frequented. The high banks and tall trees gave it the almost domestic air of a dwelling place. Of course, I resorted to it far more often than Harriet thought proper for a young woman of my station.