The Personal History of Rachel DuPree

by Ann Weisgarber

  Isaac studied the envelope, his eyebrows raised. I said, “It’s about Johnny,” and that was some true.

  “She’ll be glad to get it,” he said. He put both letters in his knapsack. I let out some air, relieved. Isaac rolled his shoulders like he was trying to get rid of an ache. He was sore, I knew, from sawing Jerseybell. Then too, just three days ago, there had been the hard walk home in the rain and mud. For a moment I wanted to put my hand on his arm and tell him I was grateful for all that he did. For a moment I wanted to say I was sorry for how it was all turning out. Instead, I thought of our children, hardened my heart, and looked past him.

  “Rounder,” Isaac commanded. “Stay home. Be on guard.” The dog’s tail drooped, but he came to my side. I put my hand behind his ears and watched Isaac and John walk off, tears coming to my eyes as the Chicago-bound letter started on its way to my mother.

  Me and Mary got busy with laundry as soon as they were out of eyeshot. We made a fire outside and had just gotten the kettle of water to a strong boil when Rounder sat up, ears perked. He let out a loud bark and shot off down the rise, running toward the two people—Isaac and John, as it turned out—that were walking back up the road toward the house.

  My insides went weak. Isaac had turned back. He had read my letter.

  Mary and the girls ran down the rise to meet them, calling to them. I stepped back to the porch and leaned against the railing, drawing in big gasps of air. A sob rolled up from the bottom of my throat. Isaac, I thought. Don’t do what you mean to do.

  “Mama!” John hollered.

  It was all going to end.

  “Cows got out!” John hollered louder. Then Isaac was calling, “Rachel, you all right?”

  I lifted my head. He was hurrying up the rise to me, the children staying at the barn. “Rachel,” he called again. There was worry in Isaac’s voice, not cold hardness. Maybe he hadn’t read the letter. Maybe he thought the baby had started.

  “You all right?” Isaac said when he got closer. Relief washed over me. I saw that he hadn’t opened the letter.

  “Yes,” I said. “Just some tired.”

  “You sure? I don’t have to go.”

  “You do,” I said. “The milk cow.” Then, because Isaac expected it, I said, “Some cows got out?”

  “Seven of them. Came across them on the road, a few of them nicked up a fair amount from the barbwire. We rounded them up but I’ve got to fix that fence. Need my fencing pliers.”

  All at once, I saw the meaning of it. The letter wasn’t meant to be posted. The cows broke out for a reason; Isaac’s coming back was a second chance. I wasn’t meant to go to Chicago, I wasn’t supposed to take the children. “Mama’s letter,” I said, putting my hand out.

  “Still in my pack,” Isaac said. “Safe and sound.”

  “I—” Words jammed up in my mouth. I had to get the letter back. Isaac wasn’t looking at me; he was looking off to the road that stretched west. I had to have a good reason for wanting it back.

  “Damn cows,” Isaac was saying.

  “The letter,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Been fighting all summer to keep them up on their feet, and what do they do? Turn on me, trying to run off.” He looked back at me; he wasn’t thinking about the letter. “Like they think it’d be better somewhere else.”

  Heat rose to my cheeks. Isaac might not have read my letter to Mama but he knew what was in my heart. He said, “I’ve got to fix that fence before any more break out. I’d still like to get over to Al’s today. You all right with that?”

  “Yes,” I said, because all at once I was. The letter was written. I was doing it for our children. I wanted it posted.

  “Going through the rest of his herd will take awhile. Means I’ll likely stay the night.” He nodded toward my belly and gave me a questioning look.

  The bleeding from the baby had stopped. There hadn’t been any pain, but neither had there been any kicking. Most usually, before going into labor, I had a day or two of twinges. That hadn’t started yet. “Go on,” I said, thinking how I wanted that milk cow and how I wanted the letter sent. “But I’ll be looking for you early morning.”

  He gave me a quick smile. “I’ll be on my way home first dawn.” He cocked his head, looking at me. “You look all done in.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “I’ll have John stay, help with the chores.”

  “That’ll make him sorry.”

  Isaac scanned the sky, reading the clouds. “Place needs a man,” he said. “John knows that.” Then he put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me to him. “In the morning then.”

  “First dawn.”

  Isaac let go of me, nodded, and headed to the barn for his tools. It wasn’t but a handful of minutes before he left again, waving good-bye to me and the children, both letters riding in his knapsack.

  The rest of the afternoon passed like every other—with chores—and I was glad of it. Work was good for tamping down all my queasy feelings. I left the laundry to Mary and the little girls while me and John shoveled out Jerseybell’s stall. It turned my belly but I kept at it, scrubbing Jerseybell’s blood and small meaty bits from the wheelbarrow. Better me than Mary; it’d break her heart. When we were done, John got the rake, I took the long-handled sickle, and the five of us—Rounder too—went down to the cottonwood.

  “Can I?” John said, looking at the sickle.

  “You’re not big enough,” I said.

  “Daddy would let me.”

  “Daddy’s not here.”

  I raked as best I could while Mary swung the sickle, cutting dried-up grass to put down in the barn for the new cow. I was slow and heavy, held down by the baby in my belly and the worry in my heart. Alise and Emma sat on the piles of cut grass, doing their best to keep it from blowing away, while John and Liz stuffed it in the hemp sacks. Above us, thin clouds stretched low across the sky. It was hot but not like before the storm. Isaac was right. The sun was losing its grip. Fall had come.

  Writing the letter to my mother wasn’t enough; I understood that. I had to raise money for the train trip. I had to find a way to take care of the livestock while we were gone. My hands gripped the sanded wood of the rake’s pole as I followed behind Mary, the sickle swinging, cutting down the grass. The rake’s prongs caught in the tough, long roots that held fast to the soil. I yanked; one of the prongs twisted. Roots had nearly worn me and Isaac raw when fourteen years ago we chopped sod bricks for the dugout and barn. I had cursed those roots—Isaac had too—but we kept on. I was younger then, I thought to myself as I bent over and worked the prong free. Fresher to it all.

  I needed money. And a plan.

  Nothing came to me as I kept at the raking, Emma behind me sitting on a pile of grass. I couldn’t see myself past the November day when I’d hitch the horses to the wagon, load the children, and head to town and the train depot. What was I going to do if John ran off? Panic tightened my chest. Scared, I whispered to myself. I was scared. I had to have a plan, but I couldn’t think. Let it come to you, I told myself, as the rake caught again in the roots. There was time. Just let your mind circle around it; a plan is sure to come.

  Later that day, after supper, things went as always. The little girls played with their rag dolls until bedtime. Mary and John checked John’s rabbit traps—still empty—and then wandered off to the wash to throw pebbles into the running water. I sat on the porch doing my mending, trying to come up with a plan.

  I put my hand down and rubbed Rounder’s ears. He looked up at me and I could hardly bear it. I’d be leaving him too.

  All at once, I felt sick. I had never kept anything so big from Isaac. I had never wanted to or had a need to. But I was doing right. I was doing it for our children.

  We’d only be gone a few months, I told myself. If the winter was mild, we’d be back by the end of March. Not that it would matter. Isaac was going to turn against me for leaving. He’d never forgive me; it’d never be the same between us. But if me
and the children stayed the winter and things went bad, I’d have hard feelings of my own. I looked off toward Grindstone Butte, its sharp edges fading some in the twilight. There’d be hard feelings all the way around. There was no middle road on this one.

  It was when I got up to call Mary and John in from evening chores that the sick feeling in my belly turned into a cramp, its sudden hardness making me suck in my breath.

  I sat back down. Nerves, I told myself. Or maybe something I ate. I rocked slowly in my chair, cold and clammy with fear. I waited for the next cramp, and when nothing else happened, I got up again and called for Mary and John. They came on the first call, and it was later, while Mary was reading Swiss Family Robinson to John in the kitchen, that another cramp pulled me. This time it wasn’t nerves or something I’d eaten.

  My fingers drummed the rocker’s armrests. The front door stood open. The lantern sitting on the kitchen table cast a small patch of wavering light on the wood-planked porch floor. I listened to Mary read but the words meant nothing to me.

  It was too late to send John to get Isaac. He might get lost in the dark. The McKees didn’t live on the road like we did. The last mile to their place was nothing more than two narrow grooves in the ground. And the coyotes—a ten-year-old boy on foot wouldn’t stand a chance against a hungry pack. It’d be the same for Mary and anyway, I needed her with me.

  Rounder nuzzled my knee with his cold, wet nose. The Milky Way, high above me, arced with the curve of the earth. It was bright with hundreds of stars.

  I wasn’t one for asking for Jesus’ help if I could figure out a way on my own. It wasn’t my place to bother Him, especially now that He’d sent rain. He was plenty busy with the war over in France and all those soldiers in trenches shooting at each other. But tonight I looked up at the Milky Way and asked Him to give me strength.

  My prayer said, I gathered myself. “Mary. John. Come on out here.”

  “What’s wrong?” Mary said when they came out.

  “Sit down.” She took the other rocker, and John sat at my feet, crossing his long legs. I said, “There’s something you have to know.” I paused. “There’s a baby coming.”

  One of them made a little squeaking sound. Birthing babies wasn’t something I talked about with the children, not even with Mary. When there was a baby on the way, the older children just came to understand.

  I said, “Daddy might not be here, not in time.”

  Mary drew in some air. John said, “Why not?”

  “It might come sometime in the night or maybe early morning. I don’t know.”

  “You mean tonight?” John said.

  “Could be. Babies are like that, you don’t ever know ahead of time.” My hands shook. I tried to make them rest quiet on the armrests. “You might have to help me get this baby born. If Daddy’s not back.”

  “I don’t want to,” John said.

  “I know it. But you might have to.”

  John’s face was frozen up with fear. I knew what he was thinking. He was remembering when Emma was born. It had taken all night. Isaac had made John and the girls get in Mary’s bed. The four of them covered their heads with the blanket and still they heard me. I heard them too, crying.

  “Listen to me, John,” I said.

  All at once, a cramp took hold, catching me unaware. Through watery eyes, I saw the two of them stare at me. I put my hand up to them, waiting until the cramp began to back off. I blew out some air. “I’m all right,” I said.

  “See there?” Mary said to John. “Mama needs us. And just think what Daddy’ll say.”

  “What’ll he say?”

  “He’ll say how he came home and found a baby waiting for him. He’ll say how you and me did it.”

  “Daddy might not like that.”

  “No, he’ll be proud.”

  John chewed his lower lip, turning that over in his mind.

  “Real proud,” Mary said.

  And he“ll talk about it?”

  “For years.”

  The tension eased in John’s thin shoulders. Mary was her father’s daughter, I realized. Like Isaac, Mary knew just what to say to buck up a person and make him think he could do most anything.

  “That’s right,” I said, “Daddy’ll be proud ’cause your part in this, John, is real important. We can’t birth this baby without you. Even if your daddy gets home in time, there’s things you need to do. Like see to your sisters.”

  As my hand rubbed circles on Rounder’s back, I told them I’d be fine on my own for a long time, maybe most of the night, even if I got to looking a little peaked. “That’s just nature’s way,” I said. “Getting a baby born is hard work. You two’ll go on to bed tonight, like always. When I need you—if I do—I’ll wake you.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Mary said.

  “All right then.” I put my mind to what came next. “You’ve seen calves being born. It’s the same way for babies.” Mary and John sucked in air. I had shocked them. I said, “I’ll be bearing down, pushing to get the baby out. You might have to help; you might have to pull it out some.” My mouth was dry. I ran my tongue along my teeth to work up some spit. “I’ll tell you what to do, and you do it even if you think you’re hurting me. Because you’re not. It just looks that way. Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  In the lantern light, their faces were drawn and their eyes were scared. They’d seen cows struggle when giving birth; they’d seen some of them die. “Come here, you two,” I said. “Give me your hands.” They came to me, and I smiled at them. “I’m proud of you, real proud.” They smiled back, their lips wobbly.

  “There’s one more thing.” I squeezed their hands, wanting to give them courage. “Just like with calves, there’s going to be some blood. On the baby. But the baby’s not bleeding, that’s just nature’s way. Nobody’s hurt, not me, not the baby. Just wipe it up. Like with a calf, there’ll be mucus. Get it out of the baby’s nose and mouth, first thing.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And it’s all right if you get to feeling puny. Just go outside and get yourself some fresh air. Come on back when you’re feeling like yourself again. But come back. I’m counting on you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Remember this. No matter how I get to looking, I’m still Mama. I’ll be there the whole time telling you what to do. Now say it all back to me.” They did, and between the two of them, they got most of it right. I made them say it again.

  That done, Mary and John pressed even closer to me, and we stayed like that, holding hands. Together we listened to the night sounds of crickets and locusts calling for their mates as prairie grass rustled in the wind.

  I didn’t tell Mary and John that the baby hadn’t kicked for a few days. I didn’t tell them I’d been bleeding off and on. Saying anything more would only scare them worse. Scare me worse too. I had to buck them up. “You’re going to have a new brother or sister,” I said. “Won’t that be something fine?”

  They nodded and I wondered if they heard the hollowness behind my words. “Mama?” John said.

  “What?”

  “Think we could get ourselves a boy this time?”

  That made me smile. “We’ll see.”

  17

  PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

  I got ready for the birthing after the children were asleep. John had gotten two buckets of water like I had told him and had put them on the kitchen table. The small butcher knife was clean, but I washed it anyway. In the bedroom, I hung a lantern from a nail on the wall and put the knife on top of the pine dresser beside the white porcelain basin. Before going to bed, Mary had crawled under my bed to get the basin, the one used only for afterbirth. Without me asking, she washed out the layers of white dust that had pooled in it.

  Mary had also gotten out the soft cotton rags, stained from birthings, from my bottom dresser drawer. I had washed, ironed, and folded them into small squares after Emma’s birth two years ago. I put the rags beside the basin and as I did,
I knew that this was the last time I’d ever need them.

  It would be a comfort to have Isaac’s gold pocket watch with me. Its ticking would fill the quiet and I could count along with it. The watch had belonged to Isaac’s father, and inside the cover was a miniature of Mrs. DuPree and Isaac made when he was six months old or so. He wore a long white gown and sat on his mama’s lap—a young, thin, soft Mrs. DuPree what I had never known.

  The pocket watch, like Isaac, had been with me through all my birthings. Isaac liked timing my pains; it gave him something to do when there was nothing to do but wait. But today the watch was with him. He always carried it when he left home, even to go to Al McKee’s. A man, Isaac believed, needed to have a precise awareness of time when he was conducting business.

  Good Lord, I thought, I forgot to have Mary get my birthing gown. It was in the bottom drawer of the dresser. Groaning, I bent down and ran my hand inside the drawer looking for it. Instead, my hand brushed against buttons. Like a blind woman, I traced the buttons to the broad lace collar that circled a neckline. It was my wedding dress, folded into a perfect square more than a foot tall. It’d been years since I’d last admired it; I couldn’t remember when. With care, I lifted it out of the drawer and put it on the bed.

  I found my birthing gown pushed back into the far corner of the drawer. I shook it out and white dust flew everywhere, making me sneeze. I expected that to bring on a pain, but it didn’t.

  I put the birthing gown to my nose. It smelled of soap and sunshine and grit. After each birth, I soaked it a day and a night to get out the worst of the stains. When I wore it for Mary, it scratched my skin so bad that I carried sores on my shoulder blades for a handful of days. But seven births later, the gown was soft from all the washings, even though faint brown stains still showed the birthing of every one of my children.