Alice's Tulips: A Novel

by Dallas, Sandra

  The men are no help to me, because I do the inside work, and I never knew a man who was worth a red copper at the laundry tubs or cookstove. No, I should say the hearth, for there is no cookstove. Now you know how I hate cooking over an open fire. When I asked Mother Bullock why she never got a stove, she said they were dangerous. I have burnt a hole the size of a pawpaw in my brown dress, and my arms ache from lifting the heavy pots and chopping wood. Mother Bullock criticizes everything I do, until one day last week, I had had enough. She had accused me of not testing the heat in the brick oven in the hearth before putting in the bread. “Do it this way,” says she, thrusting her hand into the oven.

  “Do it yourself, then,” I reply pertly, which drew a stern look but no rebuke. To redeem myself, I boiled up a kettle of black walnut hulls yesterday to make a dye, then colored a length of homespun, and will make a dress for Mother Bullock.

  You have asked about my health. I am feeling finely, with the constitution of a hog. This morning, my stomach felt queer, but maybe I should not have lifted the heavy kettle. You say let them pamper me all I can, because they don’t do it for the second baby. Well, who is to do the pampering? I ask you. Not Mother Bullock. I guess you are talking about the hired hand or the Negro. Maybe the hogs.

  As tired as I am of an evening, I still go to piecing, even if it’s only for a few minutes. I am never so tired but what I feel better when I have my pretty needlework about me. Last evening after supper, I spread the scraps around whilst I searched my head for a pattern. Mother Bullock commenced to read the Bible aloud, and we sat in sociable companionship for an hour. After she closed the Book, she went to her room and came back with an old split basket and thrust it at me. Inside were pieces of a quilt. “My angel mother cut them out just before she died. I wasn’t yet a year old then,” Mother Bullock says. Mother Bullock does not do fancy stitchery, so she let them sit all these years.

  Lizzie, they are chintz flowers, cut from whole goods for one of those coverlets of the old-fashioned kind, such as Grandma Keeler had. I was so pleased that I gave Mother Bullock a hug, the first time I have done such a thing. She pulled away and turned aside and smoothed her dress, since she is not one for sentiment. “I always thought time was better spent in such other than fancy sewing,” she says to me. “But I see it pleases you, so where’s the harm in it?”

  I reply, “Sewing pleasures me, it does,” and told her how I won the first-place medal for my sampler at Miss Charlotte Densmore’s Academy in Fort Madison, where Mama hoped I would be turned into a lady. I did not mention how many times Miss Densmore rapped my head with a thimble for whispering or for making what she called “gobblings” of my first lumpish attempts.

  “Where’s it at, that sampler?” asks she.

  “In my trunk.”

  “Get it, then.”

  I was surprised, because Mother Bullock had never displayed interest in my work, but I took it out and showed it to her. She ran her hand over the stitches and read the little verse. Do you remember it? It goes:

  Then let us all prepare to die

  Since death is near and sure

  And then it will not signify

  If we were rich or poor

  I never liked it.

  But Mother Bullock nodded her approval, for she broods over death; she seems to enjoy brooding. “Well, if it’s won a prize, it might could have a frame to it,” she says. I decided right there to make those cut pieces into a quilt for her.

  But then Mother Bullock spied this letter I had just started to you, and she says real sour, “You ought to write your husband oftener than you do your sister.”

  So I tell her, just as tart, “I have wrote him four times already. Lizzie writes back. Charlie doesn’t.”

  This morning, Mother Bullock took the buggy to town, and she came back with a little frame. She put the sampler inside and hung it on the wall. Now, Lizzie, here is the thing of it: It’s a real nice frame, not a cheap one, either, but there is no glass.

  You ask what is her appearance. We don’t look a thing alike, me and her. I am still as short as piecrust, just five feet tall, with chestnut hair (that is turning black from living in a dark log house with only an open fire for heat), and my eyes are still blue as a doll baby’s. She is four or five inches taller, with wheat-colored hair and eyes, and skin as dark as an Indian because she goes about with her head uncovered. She is fit, although dried up, but then, she was twenty-five when Charlie was born and now is almost fifty, so lucky to be alive.

  Accept the best of love from your affectionate sister,

  Alice K. Bullock

  December 25, 1862

  Dear Lizzie,

  I have never had such a dull Christmas in my whole life. First off, the weather was miserable. I love a good snow, but we got sleet. I was chilled driving to church, where there was no heat because the stovepipe had come loose. Afterward, we went to Aunt Darnell’s for dinner. We had roast pig that was all fat and no lean, and suet pudding, and desiccated vegetables from the army, which she had got hold of somehow. The Lord knows why. I called them “desecrated,” which is a joke I heard, but nobody else thought it was funny.

  They take Christmas serious around here. It’s all Bible reading and prayer. No parties, not even a round of visits. I asked Mother Bullock to open the black currant wine we had made (for medicine, of course) before Charlie left, but she would not, saying as both she and Charlie had taken the pledge, she did not believe it acceptable for Charlie’s wife to imbibe. No matter, as it would not have gone with our supper of cold corn bread, Irish Murphys roasted in the ashes, and sauerkraut. Besides, we did not get a single caller to wish us Happy Christmas!

  I gave Mother Bullock a nice pocket I had made for her. She presented me with a Testament, saying she thought I did not have one of my own because she never saw me study it. Well, I do, and now I have two, and I don’t care to read either one of them. Mama and Papa sent me a copy of The American Frugal Housewife, which I think I shall use to start a fire. I know more about cooking than Mama ever did, for she was either having babies or primping. She still has not forgiven me for marrying Charlie, but I never cared so much for her good opinion as for yours, and you love Charlie like a brother.

  The only good thing about Christmas was your gift of the silk corselet, which is the prettiest I ever saw. When I unwrapped it and held it up, Mother Bullock’s eyes grew as big as half-dollars. I don’t know where I’ll wear it in this godforsaken place. Maybe I’ll put it on over my nightdress and prance around the room.

  Were you the hit of the season in your scarlet velvet dress? Oh, I wish I could have seen you. And did James give you the diamond ring you fancied? Now, Lizzie, you naughty girl, did you do like you said and tell James on the way to the ball that you were not wearing your drawers? He must have been in a state all evening, and crazy with jealousy every time you danced with someone else! Since the ball was at the Customs House, what you wore (or didn’t wear) must have been a federal offense. You must tell me how it was when you got home, and don’t spare the details. Were you shameless? Oh, I do miss Charlie that way.

  Mother Bullock thinks I have gone to my room to spend time with the Testament. Well, I haven’t. I’d rather pout than read the Bible.

  Don’t forget me, my dear sister, and I shall never forget you.

  Alice Keeler Bullock

  January 17, 1863

  Lizzie dearest,

  The hired man is as lazy as Pussy Willow, that fat old cat of Mama’s, and Mother Bullock has been laid up with poor health, so it is up to me to do all the work. I have started milking the cows, and you know how much I hate milking. The cows know it, too, and they are a mean bunch, especially Lottie, who is the worst cow I ever saw. Yesterday, she kicked me with her sharp hoof and knocked me off the stool. It is blizzardy outside, and the cold sets hard on Mother Bullock, who keeps the fires high because she has the chill. It is so hot inside the house, it most roasts eggs. I can’t get comfortable leastways. I wish Charlie wo
uld come home. I never missed anybody so much in my life.

  Mother Bullock is improving, and yesterday we went into town for the first meeting of the Slatyfork Soldiers Relief Society, which event was held at the home of Sara Van Duyne, who is rich as cream. Slatyfork is not much of a town, and every other person you pass is a hog. It has many log houses and a few of plain red brick, but this was very large and such a pretty place (although Mrs. Van Duyne herself looks like a fleshy plucked goose, with faded hair and cap, and uses lamp black on her eyebrows). She has mirrors in gilt frames and mahogany furniture with the latest horsehair covering, hard and slippery and as black and as smooth as an icy pond at midnight. There are orangy red velvet curtains at the windows and tidies on all the furniture, and she served us cake on dainty blue-and-white feather-edge plates. We looked like a Methodist camp meeting. A few ladies wore their best. One had on the new military jacket, with epaulets, brass buttons, and gold braid; I am going to make one for myself the first chance I get. But most were dressed plain, some in butternut. There were only a few hoops, and those small ones, and fewer corsets. No traitors welcome. The wife of one attended, and we scoured the little copperhead as bad as you would scour a copper pot—all but Mother Bullock, who is a spoilsport, you bet. All were very nice to me, or perhaps more curious than nice, and each asked for news of Charlie.

  “Oh,” cries Jennie Kate Stout. “Charlie’s the worst there is for letters. He promised to write me every week when he went to Fort Madison, and he never did once, and us being all but—” And she stopped of a sudden, hiding her face, which had turned the color of the draperies, which tickled me.

  Mother Bullock says to her quick, “Why, he never wrote to me neither, the wretched boy.”

  Afterward, Jennie Kate came to sit beside me on the horsehair love seat, her slipping and me sliding on the hard fabric, and she says, “Alice, if they got to go to war, I’m glad Harve and Charlie have each other. One’ll keep the other out of trouble.”

  “Or in it,” I reply.

  “Harve’s wrote me five time,” Jennie Kate says, a little too proud for my taste. “How many time has Charlie written you?” She was knitting socks and poking me with her needle, and I misdoubt it was an accident.

  “I guess one of ’em’s got to spend his time learning soldiering, and Charlie’s it,” I tell her right back, getting up so fast that when she leaned toward me for another poke, she almost slid off the horsehair.

  We elected Mrs. Van Duyne president of the society, which was fine by me, for I hope we can meet at her house each time and eat her cake—spice, with cloves and nutmeats. She wasn’t surprised in the least at being asked and already had a list of duties wrote out. Mother Bullock agreed to take charge of bandages, and Jennie Kate volunteered to make the havelocks, since she’s already run up a dozen or two. Do you know them? They look like sunbonnets, and the men wear them to protect their faces and necks from the sun. I heard soldiers at Fort Madison say they’re good for nothing but to wipe their guns, but telling Jennie Kate something is like spitting in the rainstorm. I guess she’s no different from me in that regard.

  Other ladies will be in charge of knitting socks and sending food bundles to the Wolverine Rangers. Mrs. Van Duyne appointed Phoebe Middleton, a Quaker, to see to the knitting of mittens, which caused one lady to remark she hopes Mrs. Middleton will not follow the example of other Friends and knit mittens without trigger fingers. We all had a laugh, and Mrs. Middleton seemed to enjoy the joke, too.

  Then, Lizzie, what do you think? Mrs. Van Duyne asked me to be head of the quilt making. “I have it on the best authority that you are most accomplished with your needle,” says she. “And we all take pride in the flag you made for the Wolverines.” The ladies set down their knitting, for nobody goes anywhere without her knitting, these days, and there was a clapping of hands, and I blushed bad. I bowed my head a minute, to keep them in suspense about my answer, but Mother Bullock says, “She’ll do it.” Serves me right for trying to act important. The committees are going to meet as often as necessary to get the work done, and the whole group will gather once a month. Dues, five cents. Mother Bullock said they should be voluntary and left in a bowl at the door, since money’s hard to come by. Jennie Kate asked to be a member of the quilters. Well, that is all right, for she can sew a good seam. I wonder if she will take orders from me. I wouldn’t take orders from her, but then, I don’t take orders from anybody. A body who tried to boss me would wear herself into a grave.

  Now, Lizzie, I want to remark on what you wrote in your letter. Do not fret about what lies people tell about James. He is not a skulker, nor a shoddy, nor a copperhead, even if he should have known better than to open his mouth and claim Mr. Lincoln had cheated James’s family out of a piece of land way back. James is his own fool, and he should let that old dog die. You have done nothing wrong, so hold your head high and don’t listen to rumor’s thousand tongues. That was real nice of Mrs. Grant to mention you in her letter to the Sanitary Commission. She is choice. I liked her right off when I met her that time at your house. I never even noticed her eye.

  Give my respects to all inquiring friends. Do any inquire?

  Alice Bullock

  February 1, 1863

  Dear Sister,

  I seat myself to pen you a few lines and ask you for your help. Me and you raised all of Mama’s babies, so I guess there’s nothing you can tell me on that score. But I don’t know leastways about giving birth. Those women shooed us out of the house when Mama’s time came, and we never paid attention, except for that once when we hid under the bedroom window and heard her holler so. We thought it served her right for bringing another baby into the world for us to tend. All I know about having babies is it causes men to get drunk. So please to write and give me the details. I never saw the sense of being dumb about a thing. Don’t spare my sensibilities, because I’ll know soon enough. I can’t hardly ask the details of Mother Bullock, who doesn’t suspicion my state, since I do more than my share of the work and try to be cheerful about it.

  I know enough to eat good for the baby, no knickknacks and plenty of milk. And I don’t put kraut or pickled beans into my stomach. I heard one of the ladies here say if you cross an ax and a hatchet under the bed, it cuts the pain of childbirth. And a jar of water on the dresser helps the after pains. I’ll tell you one thing: I’m going to have a girl. I read in a doctoring book Mother Bullock keeps that too much lovemaking makes it a boy child. With Charlie away, it’s got to be a girl. So tell me all, Lizzie, just the way you did about the other thing, because Mother Bullock doesn’t read your letters. She’s no snoop, I’ll say that for her. I never thought about pleasuring myself the way you said, but with Charlie gone, I guess there’s no reason I can’t do it as well as him. Do you think a corncob will do the trick? Mother Bullock has a nice silver mirror with a handle, but I don’t want to borrow it for that.

  I presided at the first meeting of the Soldiers Relief quilt group last Wednesday. Mother Bullock let me use her pretty tobacco-leaf plates, which I never saw before. They’re for good, she says, and I guess I wasn’t good enough. I made a nice gooseberry cobbler, with fresh cream over the top. Jennie Kate Stout asked for seconds. She is a big girl. Besides her, my committee has on it old Mrs. Kittie Wales and Nealie Smead. Mrs. Kittie’s last husband got killed off at the second Battle of Bull Run. He is the third husband to die on her, but Mrs. Kittie is not one to carry on. It was all the scandal in Slatyfork when she read his name off among the dead listed at the telegraph office and said matter-of-factly, “The first one drowned, and the second one hanged hisself from a hickory branch. At least this one I lost honorable. Still, don’t I have the damniest luck with husbands? Don’t I?” Whether she did not care much for Mr. Wales or just feels lucky she survived another husband, I don’t know, but she is cheerful as a hog under a persimmon tree. Nealie is the copperhead. I didn’t want to let her in, but Mother Bullock says it’s a good joke on her people that she’s working for the North. The
y say Nealie’s got family fighting for the North and fighting for the South, and some that don’t fight at all. That includes her husband. He fights only with his neighbors.

  At the meeting, Jennie Kate, who is duller than the widow woman’s ax, said we should make our quilts in Churn Dash, the pattern I used for Charlie’s going-off quilt. I think she wants to try to best me. Each of us would sign a square, so the boys would know who to thank, she said. But even the copperhead knew that was a fool idea, for what if the quilt goes to a soldier who can’t read? Besides, why make a fancy quilt top, when in the same amount of time, we could turn out ten plain ones? Nealie proposed tacked one-patches. But Mrs. Kittie said even a dumb soldier knew that was a cheap way to quilt and suggested nine-patch. So it was up to me to come up with the compromise again. And just like that, it came to me, and I says, “Let’s make four-patch blocks, then cut an equal number of one-patch blocks, the same size as the four-patch. We’ll alternate them in long stripes. Then we’ll put bands of fabric between them.” Jennie Kate suggested we call them Slatyfork Stripe quilts, but the rest of us did not care for the name, so we shall think on it. Then Nealie suggested we write “Soldiers Relief, Slatyfork, Iowa,” with the name of the person who finished off the quilt. That way, if someone wants to thank us, he’ll know where to write.

  We made out the templates right there, to make sure they are all the same size, and cut out squares, for we’d each brought scraps, and began our stitching. By the time the others left, I myself had finished sewing five four-squares. At this rate, we’ll make a quilt for every soldier in the Union army by Christmas. Lizzie, I know I’m bragging, but only to you, and that’s what sisters are for, aren’t they?