by Diane Munier
I gave the bundle of baby things from Addie. Lenora went over each thing with this grace she had. I saw it. I understood. William and that pipe, but if you knew him like me, well his eyes. There it was. He touched her shoulder when we went out. I laughed to myself to see it.
I spent a time ordering windows. I could have bigger windows than what folks used as a rule. The kitchen is where most of them would be. If she was to spend so much time in one place, then that place should be worthy. “What you want so many windows for?” Foley asked.
Well, I knew the talk would run. “For my house,” I said. And so I went in search of Amuel to come work for me and help with the building, both house and barn. He had two sons worked with him some of the time. One drank heavy since the war, but sober he was hell of a carpenter. The other was good help. I told him to bring one more. Then we’d need six or more to raise the ribs on the barn, and he would handle it. He gave me names, and I said they would do.
While Johnny stayed with Allie I went outside of town to the sawmill and checked on my wood. Everything was in readiness. My boards were stacked on pallets and dry. It was a lot of wood, and it made me laugh to see it. The roof would be shakes, except for the porch covering the whole front. That roof would be tin.
I went to the hardware and talked for two hours there about indoor plumbing. The bowl for the water closet would be ordered special and hand painted. I’d have to design the plumbing myself, and the cabinet it sat in would have to be carpentered. I ordered nails and doors and an endless amount of things. Foley would say I needed it, and I would tell him how many. Back and forth we went and the hours passed.
At the store I got some things we were low on, sugar and coffee, tea and paper for Johnny. Yards of muslin, and Allie helped me pick cotton for gowns for Janey. And stout material for a boy’s britches. And I ordered the sewing machine. What a great day it would be when I could bring that home. I bought her ribbons then, pink and blue. Some would go for Janey, but I bought a rich blue one just for her.
We ate with Allie and Jimmy and it was home then, too soon. I hugged my tiny sister. This bugger Jimmy Leidner made her happy, no denying. She looked like she was born to town now, her clothes fine, and her making the posters for his election. “Least the spelling will be good if you do it,” I said.
Well, Johnny made them a picture. He showed it to me before we left. In it, Allie held a baby. My first thought was, “Oh no. Hope she’s not insulted,” for there was no evidence of it. But when I looked at her, she smiled. “Don’t tell Ma,” she said. “I want to.”
I almost picked her up, but I remembered to be careful, so I hugged her easy. Well, I was so happy for them knowing the joy of children as I did. “I’m glad I dragged your old ass home,” I said to Jimmy as we shook.
“Tom,” Allie corrected, but Jimmy hugged me then laughing. And I did care about him mayhap much as I loved Garrett. Reckon I always had, but it came rough. When he went through Monroe’s yard then got shot…when he called for me…I knew.
We were nearly clear of civilization when we saw that little girl squatting side of the walkway edge of town. Well, Johnny knew her. She had her a big basket, and pups inside. “Pa,” Johnny yelled, and he was nearly over that wagon bed. I stopped, as did Gaylin. There were four, and we took two, boy and girl, one for us, one for Rosie.
Johnny was in heaven holding those two all the way home. Him laughing no let-up, those two climbing all over him licking and wagging. “Get your old ass offn’ me,” I heard him say to one of the pups.
Gaylin looked at me and laughed in his glove.
“Johnny,” I said, “no saying old ass.”
“But…it’s in the bible,” he said.
So was a lot of lascivious things, that didn’t mean we’d be throwing them around. “No arguing,” I said. Then to change the subject, “What should we call that pup?” He’d already announced we were keeping the boy.
“Well, Toby or Butter,” he answered thoughtfully.
“How about you call yours Toby, and I’ll see if I can get Rosie to call the girl Butter,” Gaylin suggested. Well, he liked that. Then I could have wrung Gaylin’s neck when he gave Johnny a mouth-harp he’d had in his pocket for a surprise. So all the way home we had us a concert and I was never so glad to think of spring and the great outdoors.
“You just wait,” I told Gaylin. “Time you get yours I’ll be giving him some clanging cymbals and mayhap a bugle.”
“I can’t wait until that day comes,” he said. Seemed like he meant it. Well a child would certainly help the pain I imagined…the pain Rosie felt. But I did not say such. It was too far beyond my ability to mention such a thing.
But our Allie. Our Allie. Peace kept coming.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Twenty-Four
Last day of school I was on the porch talking to a neighbor Pa had sent. He’d been selling me on the insurance alliance they’d formed our county. Man had a barn he wanted protected he joined the alliance. That meant he had to install lightning rods on his barn to ward against fire. Next he had to pledge a share of livestock, hay and lumber, along with his labor, to do his part in building any fellow member a new barn in the event he had a fire and got cleaned out. I was signing the papers.
After that I was waiting for Johnny to ride into the yard. It had been the last day of school and I had wanted to meet him at the bad part of the road where William and me killed those outlaws. I had done that a few times over this spring term, wanting to put a happier face on that stretch. He had not complained riding through there after the killings, but it worried me that it was in him somewhere deep.
He had been shaken that day, but his recovery was quick. Over the months since he’d drawn a stack of pictures. When he saw me and William stand up he really hadn’t been as aware as I’d thought. He saw Buster pitch forward, but he did not see me shoot the other it happened so fast, and I had shielded his view somewhat. So when my gun went off he froze thinking we were under attack. When he saw that outlaw’s horse run off and the man fall from the saddle, he understood. And I’d sent him off quick. So he got the feeling he’d been in on the victory. It was not the helpless feeling he’d displayed after his pa was killed. It almost left him feeling a little too big for his britches, I feared. Then with all the building going on, the new pup, and that god awful harp, he was pretty well spilling with himself.
So there I stood when he rode in. His pup was shut in the barn for it got underfoot all-day and we feared it would get hurt. But he looked less than cheerful all things considering.
“What ails you?” I asked when he got off my horse. I was still eating a biscuit with honey Addie had given me when I’d come to the house just to get a look at her and mayhap talk with that fellow about the alliance.
“Nothing,” he said, and my mind flew to that part of the road again.
Well, we would talk later. I only had a hundred things on my plate at present.
Gaylin had been digging with me, but with Seth gone, Pa had needed him to run the crew in the field. Same crew plowed and planted for Pa was covering me. So now I was digging with some boys William got me through Mose. Well, a camp sprung up in my yard, and Lenora’s aunt and her two daughters came to help Addie with the cooking and washing and minding of Janey. For we had a dozen carpentering and to raise the barn we would have a small army for that day. And already many nights those girls stayed over and me and Johnny found ourselves in the barn.
Well, I had him and that harp and that pup. “Johnny,” I said that night, the same day school ended. We were bedded like stock, mind you, and I was so tired I couldn’t put life in my voice, “You play that harp again when we’re supposed to be sleeping I’m throwing it down the well. And quit winding that pup up like that.”
“Yes Pa,” he said. Then, “Pa?”
“What?” I said, barely moving my lips. Tired as I was I wanted Addie so bad. She might as well been back in St. Louie all the good it did me. Well, you can’t have everything. Bu
t I wanted everything.
“Well…,” he said and it came out then. Seems he had boasted at school about growing his melons for cash money, and that big boy and his sister gave him all the trouble over the year said first time he took his crop in to market they were going to show at the house sometime no one was around, mayhap while we all slept, and they were going to smash those melons. Said they liked to do that.
“That’s all bluster,” I said about ready to cry if he didn’t shut his yapper and go to sleep.
“Pa…can I have me the Enfield so I can sit up nights and protect my melons?”
“You would shoot someone over some melons?” I said.
“Mayhap,” he said.
“Enough of this fool’s talk. Go to sleep. We’ll figure it in the morning.”
Well, first sign of light the rooster crowed about three feet away from my head, standing over me on a rail. I woke up and threw my boot at him. “Gol-durned thing,” I said, as he flopped around. “How’d he get in here?” Of course Amuel probably had something to do with it.
Then I saw Johnny beside, his pup awake and licking his face. Johnny woke up laughing.
Before I could even find my boot he was back on those melons.
“Reckon no good comes from boasting,” I said pulling my suspenders in place. “Go on to the porch and get those buckets,” I said going out for the cow.
“So I just gotta take my licks?” he said following, his hair sticking up fierce with straw in it. Made me check mine and I had straw, too.
Amuel and the boys had coffee going around their campfire.
They laughed low. Yeah, hardy-har on that rooster.
“Get those buckets,” I barked at Johnny.
Well, he kicked dirt and took off for them and I got Bossy in the stall for milking about the time he came with the buckets.
“Get those filled quick for the girls,” I told him. They would already be making the breakfast. I was never so glad William got that stove here when he did. Well almost didn’t, but it was here now.
Johnny did that, and when I finished with the milk, he was standing there, foot to foot like he did when he was agitated.
“You wouldn’t roll over,” he said. “I just won’t plant no melons. I should a done taters,” he said all defiant.
I just looked at him. We took the milk to the house and I saw my girl then, and I said hi to Janey. I ached to be with them. What was I thinking to let myself get run away from my girls? No house, no barn was worth it. Well, I was cantankerous, arguing in my mind, complaining. Addie smiled at me, but she looked tuckered, too. But I was out the door quick for she had so much work.
Well, Johnny dogged me on to the barn where I let those horses out in the corral and the new green was shooting here and there, but I still pitched them hay. He helped, and hauled water.
“Tell you what,” I said when he was done, “we’ll put those melons where they can’t ever find them. At the edge of the corn we’ll put in the patch. Then we’ll put five, six rows of corn around. Now…you tell on this…and you ain’t learned a thing about keeping your business to yourself.”
“Yes sir,” he said, catching the idea.
“Man can’t control his tongue…he plays the fool. But I tell you what…you make a mistake…I’ll always help you figure it. But you need to learn from what you do wrong. You keep making the same mistake…even I can’t help you.”
“Yes sir,” he said.
“You tell me this…what might a foolish boy do to make his difficulty come back worse?”
“Huh?”
“What might you better not do once I go through all the trouble helping you hide that patch?”
He looked thoughtful for a minute. “Reckon I best not boast we hid those melons so good him and his big ol’ sister wouldn’t ever find them.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Now you’re learning.” I ruffled his dirty hair, then I ran my hand through mine. “Tonight you and me are going for a swim.”
That evening after supper, I went to my darling and said, “We are all going for a swim and you and Janey are coming.”
But the girls said they would watch Janey and Addie had never left her before and she got kind of stuck there.
“One hour,” I said.
“Just us?” she said.
“Well, I was going to bring Johnny…he’s counting on it,” I said seeing the opportunity I’d missed and knowing a strong regret.
“Yes, I have not spent near enough time with him,” she said, ever guilty over us it seemed.
So off the three of us went. I rode bareback, Addie before me. Well, I loved this, my arms around her easy the whole way. She held the reins. This was the best thing had happened to me in days.
And Johnny rode bareback on his own mount, the pup yapping and running crazy and we went to the pond, for the river was a mite too far.
“Watch for snakes,” I told him, and he was in his drawers and running in quick, and that pup was barking on the bank and then running in and learning to swim, and Johnny was hollering.
Well, I was stripped to my drawers, and Addie had her shoes and stockings off and holding her dress around her knees she put her feet in. “Oh glory,” she whispered.
I was treading water watching her. She had to be the most lovely thing God ever made. I was sorry she was working like this. What was I thinking to get us in this? We had everything. What more did I think I needed?
She went for the soap then and had Johnny come get it. She rubbed it in his hair. It was good lye soap my ma made every fall after butchering. Once he was soaped he brought it to me and I worked myself over. She liked to watch me, so I watched her watching me.
When Johnny was good and logged with water I told him to ride home. I said, “This is Ma’s time. I’ll stand guard. You get home and make sure the girls don’t need more water. Fill the wood box.”
“Yes sir,” he said greatly put upon.
Once he was gone, all the noise in the world seemed to go with him.
I came for her.
“There’s so many about this farm…,” she said by weak protest.
“Just get the dress off,” I said, get down to your drawers and your corset and come on in.”
So I helped her cause I understood how it all went together now, and in she came. Well, I washed her hair, and it did not need it, but I could touch her then, and I did, all over. And I told her, “Girl you take the steam off the kettle.” It felt so good to be with her.
“They will know,” she said, her forehead on mine after we had dressed.
“They don’t know nothing but we’re married. That’s all they need to know.”
So I led her home, her on the horse me walking like Joseph.
Well, once the digging for the cellar and the leveling for the foundation was done, Amuel and his sons Tam and Brace started to lay. They did work those bricks like layer cake and icing, it was so pretty to see. And I told Tam first time he went on a bender and didn’t show for work he could take his drunk ass home, and he listened for we had marched together some, but I knew the thirst would dig at him like a demon and prayed it would hold off long enough for him to leave his mark on my house.
Amuel and I worked out the underground cistern for the water closet, the indoor water pump in the kitchen and the hot water reservoir on the stove. It meant more digging and they got to it. Amuel went to town to order materials for the plumbing. And the days passed with this type of work. Rooster crowing, three meals shoveled, falling in the hay and making sure Johnny was beside while I ached to hold Addie. That was me now.
Once Amuel got the boys on the bricks, him and me marked off my barn. It was not near as big as Pa’s, but decent. Every fool knows the barn is the most important building on the farm. Well, I got ears and some of what I heard made me boil. Talk was I had gone loco over the widow Varn and was determined to build her the biggest “I” house ever seen. Talk was that everyone knew I should be working on the barn and not spreading myself s
o thin. But I was a young buck, and couldn’t tell me nothing, everyone said so, and so I was causing all manner of difficulty by what I was demanding of everybody unfortunate enough to be under my hire and it was a shame slavery was over for I surely could have used a couple hundred or so for all my big ideas and I may be a hero but who did I think I was anyway. And all the while their tongues wagged they took my money and did my bidding.
Pa did come and oversee the foundation for that barn, for this is what he loved, this building rising up. We had bought red cedar logs came all the way from Canada, and they had cost, I tell you, but the last thing I wanted to do was build my barn on the sinking sand, so cedar it was, and that got them tongues wagging even faster. They was sawn according to our measurements. I never seen anything so glorious as that strong redwood being hauled into our yard that day.
Well, it was the end of June. Planting was pretty well done for now. We set the raising and folks planned to come. I had my hired crew and they would oversee the volunteers. But there was paid crew, too, and that took a load off I tell you, for Mose had come to see me. Young men coming up from the south looking for a way, and I said send them.
So now we had a harvest of workers seemed like, and we had the work.
In the old country Pa said they used stone and timber and those barns would go generations. Well, I wanted that if possible. So when it was raised that great day and the ribs of it showed like a giant set of bones from the time dinosaurs walked the earth, I forgave all who had spoke against me or about me. All that mattered was that it was really going up and without their help it wouldn’t. Not as quick anyway for nothing could stop me short of God’s big hand.
William came and helped, Lenora with the womenfolk, my wife, my sweet wife, and they were right I was loco for her, and I did kiss her more than once for all of them to see, it wasn’t done, I tell you, but I gave them a show, something to talk about years ahead. I grabbed her, swung her round, kissed her good, and set her down, me all sweaty and so tired and revved same time. And I did it more than once, three times at least. For along with that barn, my house was rising up. And if they had the wife I had, my sweet girl, they would do better, be better, walk taller, live harder, move quicker, laugh louder, dance faster, they had my Addie, but they did not, for it was me.