27
If the first day seemed long with its various events and occupations, the ones that followed were not, for Leon, long enough. He dreaded every nightfall, knowing it brought nearer his return to the poor farm that had been his birthplace. For minutes and even hours he might feel suspended in time and believe the golden days would last forever; but then shadows would lengthen, a bell ring, a voice call him indoors to remind him of time passing, winter coming, his mother’s return.
He walked with his father and he rode with him, at first in front of the saddle on Jupiter, then alone on gentle Minerva, the mare Sarah herself rode occasionally and considered suitable for his learning to ride. Every day or two Benjamin and Leon went to see how Otis was getting along. The first time he saw the farm again he was ashamed of it, and of himself for being so. He wouldn’t get off Minerva until Benjamin reached up and pulled him down. Even then he would not enter the house, afraid its mean spirit would catch and hold him if he did.
There hadn’t been much for Otis to do, so he showed them over the barn for them to see how he had got the loft in order, and mended old hanging harness and chain, and cleaned the stalls of the cow and the mule. The pigs and chickens were thriving, and Leon guessed that Otis fed them more than his mother did.
There were mornings and afternoons with Davy and Bobby Lee, playing marbles and hide-and-go-seek, or merely climbing, skipping, running, falling and pretending to fall, to roll on the ground like the hounds rolling on their backs in loose dirt. They spent an hour one day trying to ride the Todd goats, called simply Billy and Nanny; but those amiable creatures avoided their attempts to sit astride by stepping smartly sideways. When Bobby Lee finally secured a seat on Billy’s back, the goat froze, would not lift hoof or horn despite Bobby Lee’s entreaties for him to run. They cut poles and tried to fish in the creek, without luck, and the two older boys blamed Davy’s noisiness. Although the days were warm, Leon would during the night wake and pull up the quilt Mabella had thrown loosely over the foot of his bed. One morning there was frost. Everyone protested that it was too early for it, but there it was on fields and pastures until the sun melted it.
Sarah took him with her one afternoon when she paid visits to Roman and Selma and Pauline and Roscoe at Elk Institute. She was surprised to discover Frankie Saxon there on an errand for her mother-in-law and to learn that her daughter Fanny was at Roscoe’s house, where she had demanded to be set down to play with Luck. The children, having taken a liking to each other on the Fourth of July at Beulah Land, had confirmed their friendship. Frankie strolled back to Roscoe’s house with Sarah and Leon. Leon was at first snubbed by the girls, but they were too curious to be exclusive and before long he was removing the bandage from his thumb to show them how he had pierced it with a fishhook. They vied with each other in admiring shudders while Leon boasted that it hurt only when he washed with soap. After that they chased each other about until Sarah concluded her visit with Roscoe and was ready to go. Although Sarah did not ask Frankie, she found that she and Fanny were accompanying her and Leon to Beulah Land, the two buggies rolling side by side as their occupants called remarks to each other. Benjamin saw them arrive and joined them on the porch for tea.
There were country dances both planned and improvised which entire families attended. If a child grew sleepy, he was laid down on a big bed of the host’s house alongside other sleeping children, close as the kernels of an ear of corn by the time mothers and fathers collected them to go home. Sarah and Casey, Benjamin and Jane, even Daniel—all loved dancing. Only Priscilla stayed at home. She used to dance but said she would no more. The dances were not only for the farming families; townspeople came too, just as country people went to events in town. It was from such a party that Elizabeth Oglethorpe ran away to marry Tom Cooper.
The autumn days were always a time for marrying, and there was usually no reason for a couple to run away, as it was called more romantically than realistically, because the bride and groom’s parents were seldom surprised at a union, and by the time it was accomplished had reconciled themselves to it if they could not be enthusiastic. For Elizabeth, though, to run away seemed the best, perhaps the only way. Ann Oglethorpe declared herself against dancing, but so generally accepted and enjoyed was the diversion that she did not forbid it. That she might soon do so, however, was suspected by Elizabeth. There is no mind quicker than a young girl’s when she sees her advantage at risk.
Where everyone knew everyone, no chaperon was thought necessary, and when a single girl was not escorted to a dance by a father, mother, brother, or married sister, she went with whoever else was going. Mrs. Oglethorpe was suspicious of this relaxed custom, but on the night of her younger daughter’s elopement, she would not have considered that she had reason to fear.
Having invited herself to spend a couple of days at the Glade, Elizabeth proceeded to visit Jane Todd and have herself and Priscilla and Benjamin asked to come back for supper that evening. For once Priscilla did not discourage a social proposal, although she would later blame herself and be blamed for her seeming acquiescence in the affair. In good time and in excellent order—cheerful, clean, combed and brushed—the young Davises and their sister presented themselves at the Todd house, where they were welcomed to a festive supper. It was hardly finished when Tom Cooper appeared, happening, as he said, to be passing. Shortly after, an itinerant fiddler stopped and wondered if his services might be needed, whereupon Elizabeth looked so eager, Daniel told him to wait a while in the yard if he had nothing better to do and they would see. Almost on his heels came another musician with a banjo, and behind him a wagonload of young people who declared merrily that they were looking for a party and had heard there might be frolicking tonight at the Todds’.
If Daniel doubted the spontaneity of developments, still, such things did happen, and one hesitates to question the opportunities of pleasure. Word of such gatherings always spread with mysterious speed, and an hour after supper two wagons and several buggies had brought other friends and neighbors ready for dancing. Hearing sounds of jollification across the few acres that divided her from the Todds, Sarah powdered her face and, taking Casey by one hand and Leon by the other, joined the party. At the first squeak of fiddle and pluck of banjo, Priscilla murmured to Jane that she would slip away and to Benjamin that he was to make himself responsible for Elizabeth for the rest of the evening.
Sarah was not one to assume a grandmotherly pose and superintend the children. She told Leon to find Bobby Lee and Davy, and if he got sleepy to go home and put himself to bed; and when the first set was formed after more casual dancing, she and Casey were ready. Elizabeth Oglethorpe stood up with Tom Cooper and Jane with Daniel, but Jane had to drop out to welcome newcomers, and before she could rejoin Daniel, Elizabeth took her arm and said she must speak to her privately and immediately. More amused than alarmed, thinking no more at issue than the mending of a strap or pinning of a hem, Jane led Elizabeth to her sewing room, where Elizabeth quickly confided her plan for elopement and admitted that she had devised her visit to the Glade for just that purpose, and Tom had plotted the surprise party, putting several young farmers up to arriving in groups and paying fiddler and banjoist to appear as if they were idling by.
However busy her mind during this recital, Jane found herself speechless at its conclusion and could only gape at her guest until she was saved from protesting by Daniel’s entering the room. Daniel never lost sight of Jane when they were with others, and he had wondered at her abrupt withdrawal. Jane told him to fetch Tom and Benjamin. This done, two minutes were not gone before the party of five in the sewing room were laughing, if with some nervousness, at the scheming of the young lovers. Daniel was reserved and cautious, but Jane and Benjamin were soon persuaded to lend their support to the event.
Nothing much beyond complicity was asked. Elizabeth and Tom were to go to his father’s house, where a preacher already waited to marry them to each other. Benjamin and the Todds were to continue the dancing
party as if nothing untoward was happening. When he went home, if he found Priscilla awake, Benjamin was to tell her as little as he could, no more than that Elizabeth was safe and happy and married and that she and her husband would appear before her family as soon as they received word that they were welcome. This agreed, the couple, who were after all eloping merely to what now was to be their permanent home, left by the back way while the others resumed their social roles for the evening. Sarah was aware of something afoot more than tripping to tunes, but after Benjamin turned aside one or two indirect questions, she let him be. The evening ended as all such evenings did, with tired feet, a dozen new crosscurrents of attraction and jealousy, and a chorus of good nights.
Carrying a sleeping Leon in his arms, Benjamin walked back to Beulah Land with Sarah and Casey, and when their good nights had echoed each other, continued alone to the Glade. The house was dark, and he crept into his room without waking his wife and having to provide explanations. Next morning, after having his first coffee in the kitchen with Freda, he knocked at Priscilla’s door. She was awake and called permission to enter, thinking it Freda bringing a breakfast tray. It was many months since Benjamin had seen Priscilla in bed in disarray and the sight, perhaps surprisingly in the circumstances, amused him.
“I’m on my way to Grandma’s for breakfast,” he said, “but you must know that Betty married Tom Cooper last night. They are at his father’s, where they plan to live. After you’ve told Mr. and Mrs. Oglethorpe, they would like to visit you-all and get your blessing. I’ll have the buggy ready to take you to town whenever you want it.” She could only stare. “You would do well to persuade Mrs. Oglethorpe not to act like a fool for once in her life.”
28
It was not in Priscilla’s power to heed her husband’s advice; nor was she much inclined to urge a course of forgiveness upon her mother. Thoroughly vexed with her sister, she condemned and hanged her a dozen times over as she drove the buggy into Highboro. She considered that Elizabeth, in betraying her trust, had offended against honor and duty; yet what most disturbed Priscilla was her junior’s setting herself up as an independent woman. How dared she so presume beyond the state of childhood? Priscilla had, too, an awful suspicion that her sister looked forward to the night side of marriage with no great alarm, indeed with anticipation rather than that apprehension any good woman might be expected to bring to such an occasion. She reminded herself of Elizabeth’s unhealthy curiosity. She was no more than ten when the two came upon stray dogs attempting to mate in the public road, and she asked if a boy’s thing was anything like that she saw before her. And only a year ago the inconstant creature had confessed to kissing a young man other than the one she had now married and to enjoying the experience. Priscilla had been shocked and disgusted and had said so, since when Elizabeth had kept her own counsel.
Sisters do not always cherish one another with that tender regard society expects in such a relationship. The eight years that separated Priscilla and Elizabeth made for gaps in their interests and attitudes only emphasized by the difference in their natures. Priscilla was a plain, sober woman of twenty-five. Elizabeth was a lively and pretty girl turned seventeen who had refused to take her sister as model. She’d had to survive without much sympathy and encouragement from any of her family. She could hardly remember a day her mother and sister had not scolded her, whatever she did or said, with the hope that she “would soon grow out of it.” When at last she began to answer that she did not wish to grow out of being her own self, she was pronounced vain and pert. Her father was not susceptible to the charm of his daughters; however unfair, he would never forgive them for flourishing after his beloved sons had been slain in battle.
Elizabeth might have responded cordially to any young man who wooed her, but so formidable was the reputation of her family, none had ventured to do so before Tom Cooper. Ten years her senior, Tom had put off marrying until he’d helped his father back to prosperity after the lean postwar years. Then one day he saw Elizabeth as if for the first time, fair and waiting to be loved. He was not long in deciding that her family presented no impossible barrier; and Elizabeth soon knew, if they did not, that she had been lucky in attracting the affection of a man superior to the general run in character and every eligibility. Discovering his kindness, she determined not to submit him to the humiliation of begging her hand of her mother. Elopement was dictated not by frivolity but by reason.
At the Oglethorpe house Priscilla presented the few facts of Elizabeth’s defection without elaboration or comment. The rage of Mrs. Oglethorpe was initially private, her husband and elder daughter being the rocks upon which it broke. Was ever Christian mother so wickedly served by erring daughter, or wife offered such frail support by husband? She called upon Heaven to witness she was distinguished for misfortune. She expressed gratitude that God did indeed chastise those He loved; but that she might bear her precious burden, she asked for strength. She prayed to know the grace of resignation but hinted that it might wait until the sinners had been discovered and wrenched apart. Mr. Oglethorpe was to whip both publicly with that instrument customarily reserved for the disciplining of horses. When the poor man lifted one empty sleeve as plea of his inadequacy for the assignment, Mrs. Oglethorpe scorned it as the excuse of an indulgent parent who had never shown proper authority.
Priscilla offered to take her to the Cooper farm.
At the time mother and daughter were making their way thence to accomplish the ends of righteousness, Benjamin Davis was drawing on his trousers for the second time that morning in more cheerful spirits than he had the first.
“A shame to cover that noble behind,” Frankie teased him.
Appearing to study the construction of his belt buckle, Benjamin smiled. Slipping the belt around his waist, he said, “What are you up to, visiting Roman’s school, making Grandma give you tea at Beulah Land? Leon was saying at breakfast this morning—”
“He is Fanny’s hero. She says he can whistle and cross his eyes at the same time.” She looked about the little room and laughed. “Bedded in the cotton gin! How have I come to it?”
“The trail is long and winding,” he said. She arched her back and stretched her arms, yawning. “By God, Frankie, you are a sight.”
“Come and tell me.”
Rejoining her on the bed, he held and kissed her as she shifted her body to accommodate them.
“Your shirt is scratchy.”
“I’ll take it off.”
“I must go and so must you. Why do you always dress right after?”
“Because you tell me to!”
“When I don’t, you start again. Don’t you ever feel: ‘enough and done’?”
“No.”
“Don’t unbutton yourself.”
Knowing she meant it, for she turned to reach for a petticoat, he took her and kissed her again. “You want me to tell you how you look?”
Slipping the petticoat over her head and swinging her body to sit on the side of the bed and so rise, she said, “I know how I look. You leave me red, almost raw. I have to use more and more face powder. I’ll be known as the snow maiden.”
He circled her waist with an arm and kissed her back through the petticoat. “But not the ice maiden.”
“Benjamin—”
He let her go.
Standing, she continued to dress herself. “You’re certain your man is safe?”
“He asked no questions when I brought the bed and chairs and told him to clean out this space. Nor will he.”
“Where are his quarters?”
“They’re hardly that. One room where he sleeps and cooks and talks to his cat. Down a flight of rickety stairs and on the other side. You won’t see him coming or going, unless there’s some danger to us. You’re safer with Isaac than with me, I promise you.”
“I’m safer with any man than with you; but will he not wonder?” She examined her face in a hand mirror.
“No. You agree this is a good place to meet now that col
d weather is coming? It’s out of the main way. No one ever thinks of it during the winter.”
She nodded and began to dress her hair with quick skill. “I never thought to enjoy it in the morning.”
“I wake up hungry for everything—food and work and love.”
“Well,” she agreed temperately, “it’s a practical time of day for us. No one is going to suspect us of infidelities in the morning.”
One arm folded across his chest and chin cupped in the hand of the other, he watched her ready herself for the eyes of others. “Frankie, you’ve saved me.”
“Just remember that isn’t why I meet you.”
“Why do you meet me?”
“That sounds coquettish or begging. No need for you to be either. I meet you because we are loving friends.”
“I’m glad to hear the word ‘love.’”
“You didn’t. I said ‘loving’ deliberately. How is your famous conscience?”
“Asleep.”
“Don’t say so; it doesn’t please me, and it isn’t true.”
“Do you want me to complain to you even as we’re making love?” She smiled and picked up a cloak. “When we’re together, my conscience sleeps.”
“And bothers you when we’re not,” she said with another smile, impatient but helpless.
The Legacy of Beulah Land Page 17