"Kathleen was enraged when Mother and I saw her in the joint. The Mormon Ladies minced in and oh, the way way she looked at them. The Earth opened up beneath them. They were as oblivious as tame fancy pidgeons. My sister had been in Louisiana when we got the call from Ginny and a neighbor brought us as far as to a cousins in Florida and we borrowed a car for the rest of the trip. Ma was right. Some flowers are for cutting and some melt and die in an hour. My probation officer sister sister said that the tears welling up in thier eyes were guilty, like a cop booking in somebody he knew to be innocent just to score a suspect. Lady cops, they got those tears--sheÕd seen them in the eyes of Social Workers." Elise said. "She asked them if they found evil boring--evil bored her to tears.
Inadvertance, Kathleen would have preferred that Death, far from the plutocratic medocracy. It reminded me of my grandfatherÕs fatherÕs death. The way he regarded the women from the agency who looked in on them, sad and pitying. He said they were like the women who took care of him and his brother in the camps, the nuns."
1493. "Your father's father?" Mr. Goldstien asked.
"Kicking and screaming into the cogs of medocracy went our Kathleen.ÕÕ An abomidable beast. Firstit consumed the patients, then their doctors. All the best for the best people and to them according to thier status as lab rats."
1495."Our professor said that Mengele celebrated the idea of the good of the whole over that of any any individual." Elise said.
1496."Yes, and other Mengeles there have been--they have them today. Selection, triage, a rose is a rose. He shrugged. He sent Mother to one side holding my brothers, in her arms one and the other by the hand. Two of us Mengele--fine specimen of the juden he called us. The Nazi's had no majority. We would grow up and vote for our good father, der Furher. He wanted us to survive and worship him. This the Nuns said was his great hope, an adoring democracy. Those who did not venerate and vote for him--off with thier heads.
ÒOff with thier heads, Elise said in a tone that would have done the Red Queen proud. Then she came to the purpose of her visit.
1497. "Dad was sure pleased to hear that you found Kathleen's computer."
1498. "Yes," Mr. Goldstien said.
1499. " We're still missing one. She placed a second SE with a friend who liked her book. I found the address in her old e-mail, and wrote him. He said he thought about throwing it away for the space, but he liked the book, and he liked working on old SE's. The staff used them at the China Lake weapons depot when they first came out. He was an expert in the old programs and has been a great help to me. We archivists have a news group and I posted that I was looking for old literary material and he called me. He helped her on the story about the blind cavefish. They came from the caves at China Lake.Õ
1500. ÒDid you like Kathleen?" Mr. Golstein asked Elise, wondering what she had been like at seven.
1501. "Probably." Elise said. "I didn't show it, and I got pretty sassy. She seemed to be in, from a lower world--the roomer. My father liked her writing and kept her for that." Elise grinned. "I remember that picture, noticing one of a tall woman holding a Japanese child that Mr. Goldstein had taken out of an acid free sleeve. Kathleen had it tacked on her wall in her room--more of a corridor when I was small. Beck‡ and I and our friends and Holly, our dog ran back and forth and back and forth all day. Our Father would get irritated if we ran through the house, but Kathleen liked it. She had a soft spot in her heart for our racket."
Elise thought for a minute. "How did you get it?" She asked Mr. Goldstien.
1502. "I came across your fathers name and recognized it. He shows holographic antiquities and has quite a reputation for One can make quite a business shipping as is items, by concealing the defects, or by selling factory duplications."
1503. "I called him and he said he was going to be in the city and would drop what he had off. He was a little apologetic his inability to produce our writer. He might now produce a holograph of her,had she been able to outwit the doctors longer. A hospital was no place for anyone with her immune system and so very frail as she was."
1504.Elise was holding the photograph. she peered up at Keats."That little kid grew up and turned into you?" She smiled.
1505. "I wondered about your hieght." Mr. Goldstien said. "Kathleen's Samantha, in the books, was also very tall. I would not have suspected that your mother was adopted."
1506."My grandmother was tall too. They gave her Mother because mother's natural mother was tall as well. The agency felt the child would be better accepted in a family where the adult women were tall. Mother says that Kathleen cloned her. She also had a tall Lesbian friend named Samantha, she was more like the other woman, who was from Peoria. Her friend wondered wondered whether the book would play Peoria.
1507. "I don't suppose I could look at what you have here?" Elise said."I will otherwise have to face my fathers wrath."
1508.Mr. Goldstein smiled, "That's why I asked Keats to drag you here. Thank you for coming. Father has been too busy to come down to take a real look, but he trusts your judgement. He said you were so quiet in high school he hardly knew you were there. "
1509. Elise regarded Keats curiously. "You live here?" She asked.
1510."Mr. Goldstien and I are housemates half the week," Keats explained.
1511. "Business partners." Mr Goldstien clarified.
1512. Keats shrugged--Óa rose is a rose,Ó she said, Òand off with thier pretty little heads. I work here, doing this and that. Sometimes when I get tired of having the drapes in the showroom drawn at night, I just try to hold real still and people think I'm a manniquin."
1513. I have some furniture upstairs that I use after closing. It locks. All but the bed. I wish I could lock that, people keep trying to buy it. Three days a week I go home and take care of my grandmother. My mother teaches at State College--Creative Writing. She was in the No No Camp during World War II. Her parents would not sign away Japaneese citizenship and so she went to a little town to live with a Mormon family--all the kids from the ranches went into town to live with families for the School year. They took in Indians as well. Everyone was very interested in her and drove her down to see her family every month or so. They wete quite good friends with the pacifists in that camp and brought bread and bottled peaches. There were some who wrote."
ÒGrandmotherÕs Mormon family brought them a typewriter and paper. They were drawing up a Charter for the Central Commitee for Concientous Objectors--CCCO, in Viet Nam they called it Triple CO. Kathleen worked there as a news analyst when she left SF State.
1514. Elise was working the mouse on Kathleen's old computer. "She was shy about her writing, and sometimes people thought she was lying about writing at all. My father knew she could write, but never saw much of it. Kathleen used to say that her books would be finished when she died. She died the night we got there--Mother did not expect this."
1515."She resented death. When the hospitals ran out of magic bullets, people lost interest in the ill. Then they got coersive--the government paid good money for those beds, when they were full."
1516. "I asked one of my teachers about Kathleen, and she said their first reaction when people wanted to die at home was to regard bed sores as a cardiac condition. All of a sudden neglect had became lucrative, a growth industry. And they moved them in and out as soon as possible. The Death Industry. I wrote a paper on it in sixth grade. Some of the nuns were insulted, but my teacher gave me an A."
1517. "My father said her grandfather grew up in a German Catholic orphanage, run by the Sisters of Seven Dolors in Festina, Iowa. He abhorred Catholic institutions. She said the hospital in Oregon, blasphemously called Sacred Heart, used tiny bowls, half empty or half full, a thin wheat paste gruel. She felt lucky when they gave her consummŽ. They weighed her in at 104 pounds and at 84 before the great escape. She lost ten pounds in ten days.
My father had a book with pictures of the Shoa that he asked me to look at with him. At the time of the Escape she was that thin and frail. And her heart was fluttering. She took her own pulse and kept a chart on a calendar with grease pencil.
1518. ÒI was fit then.Ó Mr. Goldstein said. ÒI do remember thinking the congestive heart failure epidemic odd. Then the Herr Doktors moved on to another paradign. They had a short attention span.Ó
1519. "Did you get her poetry?" Elise asked. "She wasa poet. Her family didn't like it that she wrote poetry. They considered it a form of indecent exposure."
"They did have the only copy, and didnÕt know they did not have the only copy until Keats found her nephewsÕ emails.ÕÕ
Mr. Goldstein groaned and hauled himself to his feet. "I believe one of her Nephews said heÕd pass it by. I have spoken to our Lady of belle lettres, her elusive elder brother. He does cut quite a figure.
ÒI got his e-mail out of Ginny. She walked in with it on a slip of paper and we had quite a revelatory chat.Ó
I'll go upstairs," Mr. Goldstein said. Then Mr. Goldstein dragged himself slowly up the stairs.ÕÕ
Elise turned back to the manuscript. She read under her breath, as
Chapter--Nocturne
Mavis took the food , and went into Mary's parlor. They fed her, quietly, for a quarter of an hour. Then there was the padding of friendly feet,down the stairs, and Laura came into the room followed by a few of the oldest girls. Their hair was wet, but not yet unbraided for the night.
"You have a genie in your kitchen," Laura observed. I thought we'd just have some more bread and milk."
"Well," Sophie said, "let 'em eat their fill. They'll sleep the better for it. Then perhaps someone could mash Mary some peaches and clabber. Has to be mashed very thin with a fork and then milk put into it. Be sure it's mashed well enough before you add the milk. You might think to put it through the strainer ."
"Like Eggs Goldenrod," Katherine, Mavis' oldest said.
Laura laughed," We do see a lot of Eggs Goldenrod down ito Juarez. A cloud shadowed her face."
"I bet," Sophie said.
"You bet what/" Lizzie said, coming up behind her. "Mormons don't bet. Wegamble, or play poker with pine nuts.."
"Not for money," said Ellie. Ellie was Livy's oldest and w;as ten years old. Her name was Elmira, but she didn't like it. Everyone called her Ellie.
"Aunt Katheri;ne's boys do" Elmira said, accusingly.
"Nobody wants to say nothing to them or they'd go back up North and they need the back labor." Katherine said. " That is because theyÕre fiddlers. Ain't none of them got the money for more than one wife. How come men can have more than one wife even if their all poor, and a poor man cain"t marry more than one? "
"Because," Livvy said, "the railroad came through and the Church dropt the Order. If you want the real reason. When the millenium comes won't matter."
"When's it a gonna come?" Ellie asked. She had a crush on one of KatherineÕs Fiddlers, a Grandson.
"I perdict, Mary said sagely from the bed, "that it will not come before supper. You go on in and get yourself some and eat it on the porch or there will be hell to pay from Opal. She chills her dishes and doesnÕt like it if they get cold. YouÕll fancy her cooking, but be quiet. We got the little one sleeping on the lawn. She wheezed and coughed a few times."
ÒMind you donÕt cough yourself into a fit.Ó Ellie said, Ò ÔTaint good when youÕre doing poorly.Ó
"There won't a one of them sleep through dinner anyway. We'll have to watch 'em so they don't eat too much. Boy can them kids eat. We've had mostly bread on the train. They closed the kitchen on acconut of the pox. Bread was mostly what they had at the station. We lived on bread and water like convicts. Didn't like to buy milk in strange towns."
"We seen a sight of fruit too," Katherine ;;said. "I liked the train. Didn't know there was so many places i;n the world as we passed through on the train."
Sophie read aloud:
July 15,1896
My Dearest Mary,
I have a presentiment that I shall not see you this evening, so I thought to take pen in hand.
I heard last night you and Fergus (Fergus, particularly) wearing out your souls in supplication . It pains me to have to watch you bearing Hannah's burden,though I am glad to have lighten it somewhat. I believe that it would be of some help to Him if I gave you the honor of Fergus for all of next week, or until your courses come, which I pray they will not, as I always pray that mine keep to their appointed days and season.I think that I have prayed too much.I thus presume to let Lizzy,give an early crown to my womanhood,and to begin to use precausons. A nurse needs only one blessing,such as I know that she will be to me.If I need a companion for my age,you will have to suffice.I want no more little bundles.
If it were for myself alone, I would prefer another.However,I feel that it would not be of benefit to your sisters if I have too many babies, and begin to do poorly.
Try awhile without the device. For my convience, I have obtained, from our neighbor, the old man of the sea, an improved sort. He makes them for the benefit of those of Zion who were, by profession, upon the sea. I was surprised to see any like this here. I have had a conference with Amy, and she says her father has a peck-sized block of India rubber concealed in his cellar. Amy,
laughing, put a few in my pocket at her shivaree. I wondered how so slight a girl might obtain such urbane ones, and so inquired of her father, having a solely professional interest in the matter, of course.
Paul's devices are not the first of the higher sort I've ever seen. I saw them in their creation once, though I will blush to write it.
You know that,when I was in service at our Lord Jeffrey's, before you were brought there, young Llyman and I used to steal out of our windows at night .We liked to run about when the moon was full. Like that old rhyme,
"girls and boys come out to play, the moon is shining as bright as day,
leave your beds and leave your sleep,
and join your play fellows in the street".
I loved it at the Jefferys'. It was more healthful there than ever it was for us in Baubae',
[accent on second 'a' in Baubae] and so empty of people. One night we glimpsed Lord Jeffreys' valet making them. He was in the scullery making the cundoms,dipping rounded staves into what young Llyman said was a vat of rubber. He then rolled the result so the product could be concealed in the wallets of the masters' patients, for what dread purpose ,only young Llyman then dared imagine. Llyman had a quantity in his dressing table for demonstration of his manhood to other young Lords,but he did not use one when we conceived John.
I can never think that John came to us for the worse. Even Aunt Tess could not think so. How much improved my fate was then. No one thought to shame me. Lady Susan said that Llyman had bettered me by his attentions and I must now be sent to dames school instead of running about the kitchen as I had been wont to do. I was pleased when she fetched you to watch over us in the nursery. I had missed you. And Mona was too young to provide decent female companionship.You were so much older than I remembered, when you came. I almost disliked you for it. What an ancient stuffy ninny I thought you to have mysteriously become. Nonetheless, you have improved since. How much our fortunes have bettered themselves since we ran about our mothers' skirts in Baub‡e.
Nephi Anders is here waiting patiently upon the settle. He says his mother lost water in the kitchen. She is such a bit of a woman, and the wean' is tardy. It will be one of the Cohosh sisters from the neighbors', before the wait is over, I warrant, for they will not hear of doing wthout them.
I will try her with labor.We'll start scrubbing at the basement and work right through to the attic. I should now, if we were in England,do some steeple chasing. It never looks well there, if the mid-wife fails to arrive in a hurry. Here,we must deprive all of any notion of our destination, and must slink about between the juniper and cottonwood trees. I must even asked Nephi to cover our tracks off the road by brushing them. I resent this necessity,and hate the prim ladies of the east for imposing it upon us. If they really ever knew, I don't suppose they see it as their business to know. They dispose, and the Feds impose. See that Lizzy had been taken around to Ann, for that lady's milching.You said that Sadie bled with the last one. Send John with word of how much.
Don't wait meals on me. Nephi tells me that Sadie's cousin has wired to say that she cannot come. I may just as well take meals there.
In patient haste,As always,
your Sophie 8-14-99
Salem, Utah
July 16, 1888
Dearest,
I spoke to Fergus as you suggested and I am sure John and mother were witness to the result. We are lucky to be no longer in London or I am certain that we would have had the neighbors pounding on the door. It was not merely our thought that Ruthmust speak to him more firmly . What put him into matronly hysterics was my gentle suggestion, and indeed he knew, quiet determination ,to write our dear doctor friend about whether your beginning to use devices of an old man of the sea for my benefit in the bearing of children , may not be quite proper. Are we then to inquire of the elegantly dressed about the matching of foul and horses in the barnyard,which bull ought to be mated,to which cow this year and which next? In any case, my dear, I think though your case be justly be brought forward; it will have but a short hearing here,unless you are as determined as Ruthand I.I hope that a result will be, that he will intreat a Bishop to take more seriously our plea for another woman to help you here, so you can more fully respond to the demands of nature.
I have asked him to send the books she showed us up to conference. I think they're not as good as the homeopathy ones you brought from the hospital, but consider them more likely for my study at home.
I will turn down the wick now to let in the stars and perhaps follow them into the night. I will pray for Sadie. I find it so much easier to pray beneath the stars.
Your eternal,
Mary
Sophie gazed at the paper bluring the trapezoidal shapes in grey and gold the old Isinglass lamp had imprinted on the page. The lamp was a casual heirloom which had drifted from one to another of the Marshall summer houses ,until it had come to rest in this room. Sophie read on, after resettling Marys' covers, for she thought that the old girl seemed a little chilled.
July 17, 1896 ?
My dearest Sophie,
John and I had a sweet day today ,he is getting to be so very old,and so large of a shoulders, that I scarce can recognize him.We have lost him to manhood while our heads were turned aside.Was it last week that the change came upon him,or the week before?The frog in his throat first began to croak,and now will begin to leave off entirely.We shall have a baritone for the piano forte, instead of a tenor.The soprano is gone forever,I hear.And we did need a sopraano.The girls are too young to suit.
Fergus went into the tithing office and said that he would know nothing of you in town,if asked.
John is now so much likeness of our young lord, his father.I told him that I considered his father ,Llyman, a wise kind man to have sent you to the nurses school so that you would have a profession and means of support for his son. He seemed to stand a little taller for it. If altitude were wanted. I said, that if Llyman had had the princple and all London with him, you and I would be ladies with a great house to live in ,and he the right heir of a British Lord with an estate and a lovely formal garden. John said he didn't know what we could do about the rest, but we might think to do something about the garden. I thought I should like to work beside him the day ,if you come in the dark of the night, when the stars are whisling.You will see the result in the morning.Fergus is home now,he was less than pleased than we,with our planted flower garden, which pained me. John worried the day itself in his labors beside me.I have been saving seeds ,and can scarcely take them out now. I made Fergus more peacable by suggesting to him that we would use the garden for turnips, a stout Sutherland vegetable with a reasonable and modest flower. In fact I sugessted that no other thought had ever crossed our sober, and practical minds, and promised we would do nothing else with this,or any other new ground. I did afterwards,have John rake in some turnip seeds. 8-17-99
I have spent too much coal oil and too much of Sue's paper in writing our Doctor about the fancy sausage skins ,'about the books,and about the propritey of new fangled and descreet devices of old men of the sea, within sacred ,matrimonal bonds. I am worse with our paper and oil than a drunkard in his cups , and am grateful that Fergus at least says nothing of this. He is sleeping presently, and then snorting himself half awake.I hope that where you are, you have found some way to join him in the land of dreams. If not, make John to tend the girls over here tomorrow.
Your loving friend,
Mary
Dear Sophie,
I heard a fast rider on the sodden road and ran off after her to your house. It was Catherines' Lydia. Upon my arrival here, I found Mary settling her to scalded valarian milk with butter, a blanket,and hot bricks.
It is raining hard,with a strong wind blowing.She was too het up to notice to notice anything but her horses' mane.It would appear that our Catherine did not wake lydia until the business was really finished.Lydia did not like to say that she could delivered the baby ,herself,without us.I asked her if she thought if she would ever deliver a baby alone,and she became very shy. She thought she might someday.I will go with her presently to add my ember of lore to our Catherines' Newcastle. If I am not to breakfast with news of mother delivered and baby well, Mary will make a show of coming to rescue me,if the business is finished when we arrive.
We can at least ask Catherine for some rose cuttings. I do not think she will have a long travail. I will conspire with the cuttings, Marys' eventual,fair apples of love to assist John's solemn turnips in the production of a flower garden. I shall further stop at the church,and borrow a few peonies. Should the stolid Scott's vegetables then fail to outnumber the English lovelies, God has , for this purpose,preserved our Queen.
Father put these packets of items in my pocket, saying that you had asked Mother after them. I detest them for the necessity of useing them.However,I must do so. If my relation was known, I might be moved to speak to Sister Anders about them myself. This is not the first time we have feared after her.She would be shocked,I think,were I to abroach the subject. Papa,being a man of the sea,has reared us to blush little. This for our own safety and to protect our modesty.I would think ,honestly,to bear a child,but I am still very much wanted at home.It does not seem fitting that I should go among strangers as so many of our sisters must, after they embark upon the road to maternity. Mother fears with father that I should be harmed by the Marshalls if taken to court at Beaver. We further fear that my brothers and sisters might be injured by questioning about Fergus, lodging &c. Not least is our reluctance that I should contract our family scourge.
My children might be prey to the disease that took the sight from Marys' mother.How dread it would be for me to see that rheum in my own baby's eyes,or upon it's afterbirth.We must be silent as sages,when we tend women as we do.It is a burden to know in which houses the visitation is known.For not all bear the ourward trace.
I had a long walk with father and asked him to tell me more of what he knows of the carriage and treatment of it. He said that because of my age,he'd never mentioned to me that when he was a sea captain he'd known Master Wilkins, the master of the house where Mary was first put to service. Father said Master Wilken's wife was ill, perchance because Master Wilkins visited many light women. He says that it was a mercy that Marys' mother went and fetched her back to you .Lady Susan was kinder than some to admit her into service , tending her children when she knew of Mary's silent curse.You had not then the proper reading and writing of English between you.He asked me if I'd heard the whole tale.I said that you were simply the eldest girl of the sister of Lady Susan's cook Tess,and she quite early dead,so that she could have no others.Father said that there were many men in London who,kept girl servants in the wrong sort of way.He said this was a princple reason why so many from Britan, had fled to Zion.These, for all their elegante,and society manners,were men like Captain Poll.He asked me if I remembered seeing Captain Poll hanged,for he held me upon his shoulders.I did remember,for he was the only man I saw hanged.We used to speak of it,with our play fellows there,for our parents would sometimes still speak of that felon.Father said that he was an old, sea captain, and a drunkard at that. To see himself hanged for it.
Master Wilkins was an owner of many ships,and was a man like Captain Poll. Marys' mother did not think this to be so.Father says that shame could overtake a girl in such circumstance,so that she might not breath a word to anyone.When Mary joined the church,the thing was seen to. There were many Mormon sea captains in London.More men of the sea than any other propertied trade.She was baptised, and her mother was asked to find another situation for her,as she advadly sought this herself.Mary feared that she would be thought inconstant in character by her mother for having quit her situation.It was a thing that was thought ill off,that a girl should leave,even a bad situation.That was an old country way of which the church thought ill. Father said masters,such as Master Williams, were not few,in country or town. 8-18-99
It has stopped raining. We are sending Lydia home in my fourth best frock,which Mary has had here for its trimming. She is sprouting up and filling out. The one that she was in ,revealed to much of wrist and ankle, and was too tight in the bosom. My frock looks well on her, and she is pleased with it. The storm has drawn away to the west ,chased by a high wind that has gone after it.It was just enough to dampen our road without making it wet and slippery underneith.The smell of dust and manure is still strong in the air.Do sleep when you get home. That there is rest for the weary I do not doubt. But do we ever prove it by our labors?
Amy
Sophie,
Catherine said that the baby was born before it stopped raining. I bathed her after scalding the dish pan. Babies are such odd little fish. I love the kindness of returning them to their element for a little time after they come forth.It seems to ease their sorrow and confusion,which must be great.It is a hard thing to join Eves' kindred upon the land and to breath the air.How many breaths before life is done? It was high joy to frolic with Ella alittle in the water.Our wee wean, was well pleased with her first bath,and smiled a wise smile at us ,and opened her tiny eyes to gaze over our shoulders. Catherine felt sure that her mother was there,and her grandmother,as well.She felt to name her Ella,after her grandmother who was a wonderful singer,in the old tongue. We,then, spent a few blessed hours while she rocked the wean .I did dishes and stirred porage .Then we sat on the porch,while we sang up the sun with the lass and laddies . John pleases Fergus so much with the old Scotch songs, and has such an endearing voice,I regretted he was not with me. I wrote this one down for him.Make him to go to Catherines,and stop first at fathers,to remind him thet she needs a load of hay.
Far away o'er the moor
Far away o'er the moor, Mony waits
For a boat that's sailing
Far away down lowland way,
I dreamed a dream I learned, lad
By the light of the peat fire flame
Light for love, for lilt, or grave deeds
By the light of the peat fire flame The light the hill folk yearn for
Far away and o'er the moor
Far away the tramp and tread,
Tune and laughter of old heroes pulls me
Onward o'er the trail of a dream
My heart may weave, lad
By the light of the peat fire flame
The light the hill folk yearn for.
I heard a Scotch woman sing a song about chaff in the wind. Katherine would not write this, I wish she had more confidence in her writing, but she sang it for me.
shame on the tyrants who brought desolation
Who banished the brave and put sheep in thier place
Where once smiled the gardens, rank weeds in thier station
And deer are preferred to the leal hearted braves
Oh where are the parents and bairns yonder rovin/
the scene o' thier gladness is far o'er the main/
No blithe hearted milkmaid now cheers at the gloaming/
The herd boy no longer seen on the plain/
The leark is still soaring; she sings in her glory/
with no one to listen her sweet morning lay/
The clansmen are gone, but thier deeds live in story/
Like chaff in the wind, they were born far away/
We would knowmore songs if our Scot was more of a singer. He does not like to speak of things that just bring him pain, and his anger is very black against the family that would not let his stay in Sutherland in honor.
Hope we did not wake you with the smell of our shortbread. I brought some vanilla,and Mary's mother has been teaching John and the girls to bake.
Amy
8-18-99
Dear Sophie,
We will go presently to Father and Mother's for supper. We had an excedingy fine dinner here this afternoon.It is hard not to seem fond and glad at high summer. Father and Fergus ,still in the spirit of the day,sat too merrily together at church,and turned a head or two. Mary and I were fit to be tied. Mother noticed my agitation and attempted to catch Fergus' eye while all heads were bowed, for he was laughing and closed his mug late. It was brother Smithson praying, and his prayers are tedious. Even the beginning of this one was wearisome. Mother took my hand and whispered to me that sometimes when it would otherwise attract undue attention, the safest thing is not to do the safest thing.
It reminded me of when Liza P. got arrested on her way to conference with her fathers' families. When McGeary stopped them she was terrified, she clung to her father so tightly that the said fiend could not be dissuaded,that she was not his wife.Her fathers 'wives pretended no knowlege of him.
John's shortbread is out of the oven and shall provide company to mothers' bread omelet.Our stomach's are too full of mothers' goose for much else.I will take down some carrots and young onions,if Fergus wonders where they have gone.I hope you are resting well. I will send John back with a plate.
Your loving RuthAnne
Dearest,
I have just stopped to get our night things.I am taking John over to ride herd on Billy and Brukee while I tend to their mother. It being Thursday, and Thursday being Mary's day, Fergus will of course offer my Mother his companionship and bed down in his apointed,Thursday place.He will sleep the better for my absents,and be glad of that.Nonetheless, if you were to play the faithful Branwyn and to make me the absent Isolde our Scott would , I think, scarce know the difference. Mother could never mistake us,being largely blind.
Tomorrow evening, it being Friday, Friday being Amy's day and Amy's mother's haggis being that English ladys' hopeful repast.Ruthhas said she will stay at the Anders, and I'll pray to my Heavenly Father to stem the tide of life for long enough that you may have that evening at home and we some peace together.
Your loving,
Mary
"Do you remember that summer, Sophie?" Mary asked. "I remember looking at all of those bellies in church and hoping the dear Lord would have compassion on us in the deliverance of them, that the babies should not come all on one day."
"I do remember that they very nearly did," Sophie laughed, "and that they sorely tried, Mr. Marshall's moral curiosity. Our ward's profligacy, that summer allowed the Feds too much time to prepare, and too easy a plan . Mr. Marshall thought only to offer cover, so we could escape our vicious overlords." 8-19-99
"Well," Mary laughed, "two of us at least came away though, I was so dawdled by the scourge that I scarcely knew who you were except that I was your lamb and you my Lady protectress. I did not grieve the lost use of my limbs as I must do now. I had always,until then,been hale. I grieved that I could not suficently,do as you told me and tried ever the more to please you."
"A transient state of mind, Mary,Sophie said,and one little to be sought,or desired.I was bored to tears with you,and kept leafing through my pharrmocopia,in hopes of making you less docile. I never thought I would have to ask a favor of Mercury,and bitterly resented that we had ,together,come to that pass.I was accustoned to asking you for advise,and felt betrayed,and could not,for the present,give it to me. I was glad when you got better,and could advise me again,you being the older of the two of us.I can only thank Calomel." "Through it,the enemy found it's anabasis,and I had you to myself again.There really ought to be something better,and I suppose one day they will invent it."
"I wasn't noticeing",Sophie said.How much did Lizzy give you?"
"I think,Mary said" a pint of water,and a few cups of mash.It's been hot,she hesitated,I supposeI might take alittle more".Sophie gave Mary a pint of water with a 60cc syringe. Then she read,
Dearest Mary,
I woke in the blue gloaming .The sky was white where it touched the hills to the west.And above,just the color of my blue velvet Sunday frock.Sue was so kind to send it to me.No one would have the patience to obtain that shade of blue,here. I didn't know whether it was night or whether I had slept through until morning. I was so tired when I laid down to rest. The wee one tore sister Anders and there was a great deal of blood, so much so ,that I can say I've never seen the like .I hope never to again. It was more than I saw at the hospital,where women,often ,came to us, already in the worst way. She will be well I think. There are still doctors who bleed people for health, though I have never seen it restore anyone entirely. We can hope that hers was a thick gruel indeed ,aforehand.
I rose,and crept passed the bookcase door . I lay with Fergus, the house being very still,and mother snoring in her sleep. After a time, I went down to play mouse in your pantry.having less on hand than in mine. I was no longer fatigued and decided to bake a honey cobbler for tomorrow's tea. I stopped to kiss Mother on the way past her cot.
She said "Ye're a good girl Mary." and uttered a laugh which certainly must rightly belong to lonely moorsÑan odd little laugh, nonetheless. Ask her if she's quite all right. The cobbler is cooling now, and I have just read your letters. Have Ruthask her mother where Paul got the rubber. Was it very dear? I would desperately love to persuade the elusive brother Anders to use the delicate product. John Thomas is here. It is his mother's time; she would never have called me if Catherine were not supposed to be lying in, and I wonder how to gain her confidence once there.
I should put your letters into the fire but will entrust them to my prayerbook, and may God watch between us when we are away from each other.
Sophie
Sophie colored, for John Marshall had opened the door and caught her smile. He was holding an unlit Coleman and chided her:
"You ought not read in dim light, Sophie. Will you wait up long?"
"Mary is asleep no doubt," Sophie said, "but you may put that down here. I think I shall read evenings with her for awhile, instead of working on the sweaters. I shall keep these in their strongbox."
"And wear the key for fear of Marshalls, no doubt," he said.
"Perhaps," Sophie said, "You may read some of them, though, and I will read some to Mary, and some out at supper."
John lit the new lamp and left, taking the old one with him.
Mary opened her eyes and moved her hand on the bed.
"Sophie, might I have a little bit of milk please?"
Sophie smiled. "Yes," she said, "and the girls picked some strawberries and mashed you a nice bowl of rice. I thought you might like a little. Will you take the glass item for the milk?"
Mary was quiet for a while. "It makes me feel like a darn suffragette," she said.
"Well, weren't you one?"
Mary laughed. "I don't think now I could get to the poll, and if I did, Polly's sister would send Polly to make sure I did not vote." Sophie stood. "I need to punch down the bread for breakfast. I haven't baked this much at once since last time I was in New Mexico; though I don't know why. It's easier to get it from the big house I guess."
Sophie went out and closed the door. She walked into the kitchen, took a wet cloth off the big bread bowl and stirred the spongy punch. Then she added flour from a flour sack until the result was too thick to stir. She replaced the cloth, took a tray from the pantry, and got a clean glass 60 cc syringe from the cupboard. She went back to the bedroom. When she had fed Mary until the latter tired, she took up a letter and read aloud:
Dear Amy,
I love the song you got at Catherine's. It puts me in mind of the ones our mothers learned when they first came to London. They had scarce two feet on a plank floor to lie down together but were rich in North County friends and in songs from Glade,Glen and Fern. Must go now to Sister Thomas.
Your sister,
Sophie
"And we had hunger," Mary mused, "if hunger be counted for riches, we prospered."
"And we did. Remember when we tried to eat leaves?"
Mary made a face. "I do," she said. "What lithe girls we were."
"By god's grace, " Sophie said. She went on then with her reading:
Dear Friends,
I came home today to fell horses in the yard and Mother and John sitting at the table with the Marshalls. I supposed the gentlemen saw the honey peach cobbler through the window and thought they'd stop in for tea.
There were three of them: Marshall Adams is as large a man but not so cruel looking as McGeary. Marshall Scott, is a pupil of McGearys no doubt who in boisterousness and vulgarity does his Master some credit. Marshall John Marshall was a slender boyish man, who seemed to have chosen his profession for no better considered reason than that he had no other to attempt which would so multiply his name. These represent the moral order among us.
Obviously the first thing to be done was to release our young Paul Revere. At this I think our moralists licked their chops. What morsels might I toss them not suited to the untried ears of the young. I would have released Mother too, for she was sorely wanting it, but I am sure they would have considered two gossips better than one and thought that they might not allow it.
Marshall Marshall, twice named, had a badly cleaned wound, which appeared to have been caused by the grazing of a bullet.
Marshall Marshall believed this to have been the cause, as well, for he did himself hear the shot. However, his superiors assured me that no G.D. Mormon would dare shoot at them and that he had scored his arm on a tree. I assured them that I considered them the principal authorities on the subject, which pleased them very much.
When they had sufficiently addressed the hunger of the moment they began their obscene parody of ladies' conversation. I assured them, using much the tone Lady Susan would have used, had she had the same thing to say, that as a professional nurse it was not my practice, nor was it in the interest of my patients to make personal inquiries. In order that they should not leave dissatisfied, though, I began to answer them with what is commonly supposed and less commonly believed: that many of our men are away at the mines. Catherine's husband is a fiddler, Sister Ander's a drover, &c. All this they had heard and so soon departed. Marshall Marshall asked if he might come to read the Book of Common Prayer with Mother and to sing the homilies there inscribed. Mother had said we do this every morning. I think though that he could tell that we were not particularly pleased at the idea of sharing our worship with him on the remote chance of his moral improvement.
I think now that I should go to sleep, or I will later need sleep and find myself wanting. I hope it has not been too bad in town.
Your loving sister,
Sophie
"I believe I just felt my stomach turn." Sophie shuddered. John Marshall opened the door which he had been leaning against on the outside. " Would you like me to read the next one?"
"I do remember how hopeless you ladies were with your constant writing and your endless smuggling of letters. And you three were not the worst!"
"Who was?" Mary asked curious.
"The Youngs," Marshall said. "Or perhaps it was the Youngs who were most often caught."
"And you never found one of ours?" Mary said, genial, but weary.
"Doubtless" John said, "They were never kept in a box beneath Sister Singer's porch."
"You're cheating" Sophie said. "I told you that. Please go away." John went out.
"It would save your throat," he suggested through the closed door.
Sophie picked up another letter, and began:
Dearest,
We had a blessed day yesterday, for the sort of day yesterday was. Catherine was at Ander's when the children's whistles began to blow. I was with Melissa, she was laboring hard but thought she might like a walk anyway. We started off up the ravine and went deep into the cottonwoods and silver birch. It was a lovely day, the ground golden with the first leaf fall of the season. We were blessed that we had had no hard frost. We lay our quilts on the leaves and Melissa lay down upon her own. We were not the first there because of Melissa's slow gait. We sisters were alone for a while, but the children scouted us out, and came by various routes, so as to be as little scolded as possible. They brought news and some of them we thought had been too bold in the getting of it. With those of the women who were there, we had at the last nearly fifty of us. The boys and older girls watched for our enemies while the little ones tried to watch Melissa. Particularly Catherine's girls who had seen Ella born and would not turn away for anything. Catherine and I disagreed about the heating of water. She felt lighting a fire under those circumstances to be quite mad, and English madness to boot! She would let us heat the water only if John alone tended the fire, took it up the canyon, and fanned the smoke well away. This was no more than I had thought to ask him to do. Melissa called the baby "Joshua" because he was born in the wilderness, and should, God willing, see the coming of Zion.
When it was well dark, Melissa's father and brothers came with a litter to carry her farther up the canyon. She left with a baby and in good spirits. Her father said that her aunt was born on two planks placed across barrels in Mississippi mud - not even any trees about the place, so she ought to think she had fared not too badly. We may not see her mother during her lying in, (or lying out as one might regard it.)
I am wondering where you are. I am sick with worry when you do not leave notes and pray now that you are safe. I have had no word of Fergus. Mother believes that one of the Marshalls struck you - the Scott - Oh my dear Sophie.
At least our Paul Revere had his ride. I wonder if the original would have fared so bravely had he first been made to take tea with the King's men.
Your Friend,
Mary
3
John Marshall opened the door having come down the stairs from his tepid room.
"I shan't help with the reading," he decided, "Those letters have lain here too long for me to disturb them now. I believe I'll go visit Mother and attempt to unruffle her feathers. I'm afraid we have indeed ruffled them."
"Not for the first time, John."
"No, the trouble is my dear, that your attempt to convince her, or shall I say shall innocently present her with a presumption that they are her unrefutable equals. I expect considerable umbrage on my account, we're not sending them packing immediately."
Sophie considered, "It would not be difficult to keep them all over here." she said.
"No," Mary said, with a slight slurring of fatigue in her voice. "That would however deny her the opportunity for works of charity. Once she knows they are here, she will certainly wish to improve their station. In the eyes of the Jefferey's. She shall discover of course, that they are bound hence. And be further annoyed on that account."
"Neither Sue nor Lord Jeff are certain to care. The girls will care. They are more penurious thou than poverty stricken. And I'm afraid that will be poorly understood."
"No doubt," John said, and left the house.
Mary sighed. "I'd give her a good piece of my mind if you dared risk John's position without necessity. I feel so darned ineffectual. If wishes..." she said.
"...were horses." Sophie finished, "we would both ride away. I'd never want to see another Marshall in my life."
"Excepting John" Mary said.
Sophie smiled, "for the most part excepting John. The children have brought with them something of a robustness of unsettled land and untried parameters.
Everything is so stuffy and fixed here. Not as bad as it was in England, but it's not what I'd choose."
"John must care for his mother and keep the servants from running riot over her. He would not do it I think, if he had a sibling."
"Not everyone does," Mary said, "or really ought to."
"No," Sophie said.
"Don't you wish though..." Mary said.
Sophie stood up quickly. "There is nothing that I wish." she said. "Florence said that once."
"What did she say?" Mary asked.
"That the first thing you have to learn in nursing is not to wish. It's doing. Our Sammy is a doer, and not a nurse."
"Don't suppose I'm a nurse anymore."
"I think my occupation now is waiting, with a little bit of hoping as an avocation."
"As for hope, and speaking of Sammy..."
"We might go to quinine. The Navy doctors still swear by it."
"Yes," Mary said. "We could even probably supply our own mosquitoes. The short course, Sammy says, is the best. But let's wait until the children are gone. The Navy doctors do quite insist that one disease throws off the other. I might try it myself, as a constitutional."
"Yes," Sophie laughed. "I don't know why the idea so readily provides amazement. How would I know if it had worked? Samantha or I, she has had both."
"And is twice the stronger for it." Sophie said, "If wishes..."
"I wish that wasn't the only thing either of us to think of to try."
"We haven't tried not trying yet."
"Yes," Mary said.
"Then more laudanum, and more mashed food to clog up the syringes and make Polly break them in your mouth."
"I've given up, long since," Mary said.
"You might go to sleep."
"I don't think you've genuinely done that in a while."
"It will come for me in the end." Mary said. "It does for everyone."
"Does it really?" Sophie said.
"Or are we taken by dreams? I have heard some say, who have your condition, that they never sleep, only dream even with the laudanum."
"I don't know, Sophie," Mary mused, "that it will be so. I have heard the old people go on about all the people they've buried long since. Who they would see at the moment of their passing. I miss the sleeps we used to have in the North Country, when we had danced ourselves until we dropped. And our mothers laid us upon the cot to rest. It is such a clean thing, sleep, the dreams of the day though, are worse than those of night. And the laudanum at least keeps them in their rightful place. What did we ever do without the poppy? My Great Grandmother told me once that there was a time, but it was said that laudanum went against the Bible, in taking the punishment of Eve during childbirth, and so the woman were forbidden to use it. We'd have it here I suppose, but the men wouldn't let it aboard the ships. Sammy heard that once, when she was upon the sea. They would have hung anyone found with it as a witch."
Sophie shook four chalky pills out of a bottle, and gave them to Mary.
"Men of war, more often get body wounds," Sophie said, considering, "in the belly and in the heart."
"Perhaps our old ones rued Our Little Sister Among the Flowers- as the old wives called it- for its sympathy to the travail and frailty of women. It eases the dolor particular to us as naught else can."
"I should like to live again, as people say in Hindustan, be a big bully boy, without a thought or care in the world."
"I like you this way." Sophie said, and kissed her on the cheek.
She changed the bedding and washed her and went out. Leaving this till last, as she always did, so that the drug could ease the pain.
"The rubber tubing Dr. Mesmer said he would send ought to be here soon and I think you'll like that better than the glass. I won't pretend it will improve Polly. I would keep her more readily if you could want her. Frances would not have approved of Polly's administrations."
Sophie stole out of the bedroom and went through the quiet house leaving by the back door. She put her head under the pump for a minute before sitting with a towel plucked off the line on the back steps. She watched the bats chase the fireflies until she felt ready to knead the bread.
She opened the screen door as quietly as she could, emptied a few cups of creRuthwhite flour onto the breadboard then upturned the heavy bread bowl and pulled it away. Then she began to knead the dough, pushing the heels of her palms into the summer warm wheaty leaven flesh. She usually slapped it, back and forth between her hands, but did not for the sake of the sleeping house.
It occurred to her that she was a grandmother. She did not really see herself as a grandmother, having ceded her brood to her Fergus' Ruthwhen her girls were still young. The sheer mass of protoplasm for which she and Fergus had by now been responsible brought her up short. The strange bulk of it would have put her off. Wondrous was the absolute din which had exuded from it at supper.
John's mother had asked to see the children when they came, but two thousand miles cooped up in a train had not rendered her grandchildren either compliant or suitable to a Lady Quaker's fireside. She knew all of their names of course and even had fond photographs of each. Still she could not pick out any one of them immediately, being in motion as they were and more or less resembling one another.
She recognized herself in them, and Fergus. She could not however relate them to her own childhood and the fetid rancor of the east end.
There was something else which brought back memories of Aspens and white water and it took her a minute to put her finger on it. Unlike the people of New England who were very formal about correcting children, always correcting their own and no one else's, her own erstwhile children seemed not to care a bit. In fact, she knew they did not strictly recognize the distinction. This at least was like Baube. The parent in charge was usually simply anyone over twelve at home at the time.
She dreaded mornings and the resumption of children's din. She was just wondering whether she and John might not consider the prudence of stealing away in the night when she felt a hand on her arm and jumped. It was Peg in a calico nightgown which showed signs of actually belonging to someone larger. Katy, Sophie surmised.
"I can do that," Peg said. "or if there's anything else you want me to do." She took a lock of Sophie's wet hair and wound it around her finger.
"You might go up to bed," she said. "I had quite a nice sleep on the train and here. We must have been asleep for hours."
Sophie let out a long breath.
"Not so long," she said. "I might go and settle Mary. I don't do much maternity work here. One of my favorite things was making bread. Mothers fret about their bread."
"Do you still take maternity cases?" Peg asked, "I could sure use somebody to bake our bread when the next one comes. Mariahwill stay in the kitchen only if you put a rope around her waist and tie her there."
"I could at least send you a rope." Sophie laughed. "Actually, there isn't much maternity going on on the Cape. I get a few cases. The families who summer here usually stay in town if there's a chance of that sort of thing. What we have here are syphillis and neurasthenia -- plenty of each, and few dare say which cases are which."
"Mary?" Peg asked.
"I can never decide. Sometimes the syphilis goes and the calomel stays."
"Pick your poison," Peg said. She smiled grimly showing her still chipped tooth. Sophie remembered what a fuss there had been about Peg's looks when she had first broken it. She and Mary had lived in Beaver City then with Fergus and the girls and they had been young.
Sophie returned her mind to the matter at hand,
"For the most part such families have maids and more urban physicians, they don't call me unless things are really bad. They get to doing poorly and there's not much advantage to traveling back to town."
"Do you have a doctor here?" Peg asked.
"I'm afraid they've all gone modern, or half modern."
Peg grimaced,"I'm not sure I know what that is."
Sophie laughed,
"I do like you better that way. Your sister's namesake is modern. It used to be called other things, quite a number of other things. They are simplifying the language now, and, have decided to settle on just one word."
"Is keeping maids modern?" Peg asked.
"I'm afraid not, dear," Sophie said.
"Are you?"
Sophie regarded Peg with sleepy lethargy.
"I very much doubt it. If you ask Ruth the younger in the morning, I'm sure she can enumerate my faults in this regard."
"Perhaps not, " Peg said. "You go on, kitchens are pretty much the same. I'll find everything."
"Are hearts?" Sophie wondered aloud.
"I don't know," Peg answered. "but I rather doubt it. I prefer kitchens personally."
"So do I," Sophie said, laughing lightly and retreating towards Mary's room.
Mary opened her eyes as Sophie came in and laughed.
"I haven't got a sink in here," she said, looking at Sophie's dough covered hands.
Sophie blushed and returned with scrubbed ones.
"Do you want your laudanum now or after we read a few more of these?"
Mary yawned reflexively. "After," she said. Sophie fished a letter out of the strong box and began to read it silently.
"Is this one about Sadie?" Sophie nodded.
"I hadn't thought about Sadie in years," she said.
"Do you think Mr. Maeshall thinks about her?" Mary asked.
"I'm not sure John even really knows about her." Sophie read:
Dear Mary,
Sister Anders is dead and I, weary as a stone. Father advised me that he considered this place as safe as anywhere so your mother says that I should sleep upstairs. I think we are as worried about you as about Sophie. Mother says that you rode off on Clover behind a Payson man who said that his sister had come to her time early due to a brisk ride on horseback and had suffered a bloody show. I hope it is true, and that if the babe is sufficiently to term, it will live.
John was very grieved last night to be able to gain no word of his mother. For when he went to chop her wood, Sister Babbott further grieved his heart by accusing you of lighting the fire in order to reveal Melissa to her enemies. John told her that there are little animals in the water that make women die in childbed and that his mother had seen them through a glass at her college. I think to her it was a story out of Arabian Nights. She scolded him as for vulgarity and said that no real Mormon boy would talk like that.
I think we need to take care with Sister Babbott. Now for my siesta. With both of you gone, I do not hope for a long one.
Baby Bear
Dear Friends,
I have heard from Father. We have a letter brought north by one of his old mates. He says that he is bound for the colonies in Mexico, where he will build me a bit of a butt and a ben. He says that he would that he could pick up Sophie and Mary's house for to carry it there, but alas and alack 'tis not the way o' the weal. He says he will build another for you if you will go there without the bookcase. He has had enough of bookcases, of strategem and subterfuge. He wants Fergus to come there and bring his families. In our family only Kathryn, having been a fiddler's wife before father's, will immigrate. It is mother's feeling that she and my brothers have put too much sweat into the farm to pull up stakes entirely.
Roderick says that Father better not leave Mother up here alone too long or Fergus will return and marry her for her haggis. Mother says that Fergus makes superior haggis and if suitable arrangements might be made, she is more likely to marry him for his. After all, he taught her how to make it. Only for his would she undertake such an arduous journey. In my view, Kathryn exceeds either in the making of haggis and has tutored them without success many times.
We were all very merry tonight. We took our supper to the cottonwoods. Kathryn's brood played and sang for us. It reminded me of the Bible where it says "Shall we pipe and ye not dance?" We did fey dance, from Mother, forty-six, who is our oldest to Little Ella; who did some pretty turns in mother's arms.
Sophie, Roderick is going tomorrow to ask after you at Beaver City. They may not let him go again, but my brother is brave and this he is determined to do. Failing this Father thinks that since you are Church of England, we may get a Gentile lawyer to swear out a writ of Habeas Corpus, but this can only be done as a last resort.
Mary, Catherine dreamed that you were at the lambing ground teaching the women there the uses of hot water and I think you may be with some girl who is laboring with her first, or led from one case to the next with no way to send word. We are aught like feathers; where the wind blows we 999go. In any case you are both as Fergus says "among the seven mithers." Welcome home dear ones. For if you are not at home, my letter will go unread, and you will not need this greeting.
Your Sister,
Amelia
P.S. Father left Nephi to come back north not long after his letter left in the hand of its courier. The Bishop said that they were so hard pressed in Fillmore that he'd do just as well to go back home. Father said that Fergus and Sophie took the road south feeling that they were at little risk from interference as to their persons. Sophie feared to be questioned.
999
Mary would have slowly shaken her head in rememberance if she had had the strength.
"I remember that," she said. "I told him that I was the first Mormon wife in our family. He had noticed, however, that my lower limb was bare to the ankle, and did not understand why I had not been to the temple, then, as he knew of a similar case where the temple offices were performed.
The second wife in this case was well known being that of a prominent gentleman, but the first wife was deserted and in the East-Ruthwent through the temple with Fergus after we left. It would have been me if I had not been doing so poorly."
"We thought it was the syphilis."
Mary smiled, "I thought it was the syphilis. The whole way east on the train with you dosing with that big bottle of calomel, I felt like Master Williams was beating on my head with a quarter staff. He did beat us."
"And God knows what else."
"I think he does," Mary said. Sophie shrugged,
"I detest Calomel for the mercurial poison it is. Perhaps it worked--on the sphyilis anyway. You don't seem to have syphilis now."
Mary cringed,
"But it isn't what little Ruthand that German say."
"Well," Sophie said. "It's still ordinary neurosthenia like half of New England has whatever our German thinks about New England. I think lecturing their old aunties is how these young girls come to feel modern. Perhaps the chancellor might withhold graduation if they didn't come back from holidays without being able to show proof of lecturing at least three elderly invalids on their previous lives of sin."
"Poor little Amy," Mary said. "That leaves two to go."
"You're too good tempered with her," Sophie said. "I haven't been."
"I'll miss Amy, " Mary sighed, "not to mention Katie. They'd set it all in a clear light."
"I'd expect to see Ruthsooner this way than otherwise. She meant well but I don't think she would ever have gotten away."
"I've seen so many nurses go that way, and so many go the way that you have gone, " Sophie said.
"I would have preferred to have fallen in the line of duty, " Mary said.
"I'd like that best too, and perhaps I would have liked it best for you. I think so anyway, in my unselfish moments. As it is I prefer your company."
"You always were selfish, " Mary said.
Sophie chose a new letter and read on:
CHAPTER 4, IN BEAVER CITY
Dearest Friends,
I had a deep shock today and am but little recovered. Mother and I have Sudie Anders middle girls with us. I was sitting on the parlor bed with sewing a frock for Mary, the girls were making frocks for their dolls when I looked up to see a Marshall in the door. It was the youngest of them and the one who came to Anders the night the girls mother died. He asked if he might sit and read our Bible and I asceded. He read so quietly and for so long, that we might have continued our employments had the girls not clung to me so tightly that I wanted for breath. They know him from that night. Mother at last came around the house. It was a blessing she did not come through the bookcase door. The Marshall introduced himself as Marshall Marshall and said to mother he had come at the request of her daughter to get their book of common prayer.
Mother thought this very strange, since we had noted the night before that Sophie's prayer book is no longer in the downstairs bookcase and could have been taken by herself alone. The ways of Marshalls being many and devious, Mother went to the bookcase and handed him her own.
He was a pleasant young man and me thinks were this country one of peace or he one of our own and I in my former state, I might really have thought to walk out with him and him I think with me, for he stayed long and spoke of the beauty of the countryside. I had though, for the sake of Sadie's poor girls, to cut the interview short. As Leah had wet through my frock, and Mavis was near to a swoon for this was the man who came after we put their poor mother into the place beneath the washtubs. She was insensible when we took her out and the quilts we had lain in her place soaked with her blood.
After the Marshall had gone, mother set about to get dinner believing that for the sake of our girls, it was better that we should conform ourselves to custom. I was stirring apples for a custard when I turned at ta tugging on my shirt. It was your Amy.
"Aunt Amy" she said, "Are you going to die?" I crouched beside her and asked her why she thought I might die. She pointed a finger at Mavis who at the apparent accusation lit out the door and I after her. I rocked her for a long time when I caught her not knowing myself the truth of the matter. If her mother lay still in her own bed where I had settled her me thinks she would still be alive. The girls are asleep, the younger in Sophie's bed with me and the older through the bookcase with mother in Mary's. John was here long enough to change his clothes and take three loaves of bread. He came after dark, and said he has the third watch tonight with an older boy. The boys have a double watch on the roads.
We are burying Sadie Anders tomorrow. Her children want nothing at the church and I've sent word to their father not to try to come. But did not think until after I'd sent it that with their mother dead he is no longer in the principal. I think that at the least Aunt Harriet will come. I have not yet had time to weep, and me thinks that I may soon entirely give way.
Your loving sister,
Amy
Dearest Amy,
I have come home to a silent house-how strange that seems to me. The girl I went to deliver was very young and not very far along but was suffering and there was a great deal of blood which I staunched. Her family had heard in town that the midwives here were gentile. And so they would not let me go until she could be moved, nor, did I choose to go knowing that they would move her as soon as I left. They were good people and kind to me. Sophie has gone with Fergus and I suppose that if there is hot water at the lambing ground when they get there, she will teach the women how to use it.
I am terribly sorry about Sadie, I think Aunt Harriot will say that we can keep Sadie's girls, until other arrangements are made for them.
Your friend,
Mary
Dear Miss Anders,
I have heard from one of the younger federal marshalls here, John Marshall, that my mother has engaged you to care for our girls during our absence. I regret that the circumstances of our departure prevented our taking them with us.
You may know that victims of bigRuthare sometimes housed at the jail here while their supposed husbands and benefactors are awaiting trial. Since I am under no suspicion of wrong doing, I have been asked to accept a salaried position as an infirmary nurse here until my husband can be cleared of suspicion. You may write me concerning any wants you may have there, at 125 East, 300 South Beaver, Utah. I will write mother and ask her to employ a boy to assist John with his stock. I hope you will consider me a true friend, as I have long admired your devotion to your mother and grieve her death.
Sincerely,
Sophie Murdock-Sutherland
"Oh lord," Sophie said, and stretched her back against the back of the chair. The door opened and Peg came in carrying her baby who was eighteen months old and leading Katie's three year old by the hand. The baby was asleep. Peg sat down with her back against the wall and put the older infant to her breast.
"Katie," she said, "was about to wean this one, but, on a train isn't the best time. Mariahis off midwifing, so, I have to play cow half the time anyway.
"I expect Lady Susan won't mind, but I think, dear, that the ladies of her society would be quite shocked."
"Only if I go," Peg said and suppressed a yawn. "There doesn't seem much sense without Katie. I've tried to read some of those books of hers and I can't tell one word from the next. I never was much interested in the study of latin, so, I could hardly really take her place."
"John will want you, Peg," Mary said.
"Yes, but I'd feel like a chained bear. I'd feel like that even if I was John's only wife. I used to think when I read magazines that if I could make a dress just like the fine society dresses I saw, I'd somehow turn into a real lady. Just like the ones depicted. I'm not anything like them. If it weren't for John and the detail that these are the Jefferey's grandchildren of a sort, I doubt I have the polish even to be taken on for waged labor."
The three were silent and listened for a moment to the crickets outside.
"It sure is muggy," Mary said. "It's as sweltering as a spinning mill."
Peg nodded. "It was hot as blazes in the kitchen. I'm considerably overheated."
"It's that flannel," Sophie said. "You really need not stand on ceremony with us."
"Thanks," Peg said. She took the baby off her breast. It objected sleepily. Then she pulled the damp flannel night gown over her head. She arranged it over her chest and thighs so that it satisfied the minimum concerns of modesty. She replaced the baby and said,
"I think, that I could play cow and read a letter too." Sophie handed a letter to her and she began to read:
Dearest Mary,
We think we have finally found a reliable courier, a man who was here on suspicion of plurality when we arrived and was released a few days afterwards. He is a sales man who delivers catalogues and circulars to stores throughout the territory, apparently not a member of your church, though Fergus found many signs of him in truth having gathererd with the saints hence. Brother/Mr. Whitmore has at the very least, his first family in Salem and visited me last evening at Fergus'request. He says he will call again in the morning to receive anything that I might wish to send home. His honor is exactly as he says it is, and he has sworn on his honor not to break the seal of the letter that I commend to him.
My heart is all aflutter at the sight of pen and paper before me. I so miss your soft embrace and my Lizzie Lizard tugging at my breast. I pray that you not wean her since she must be kept at breast through next summer at the least. If not we will the more risk summer complaint which all the babies here had when I came. It was scarcely then, anymore, summer.
I have had little trouble keeping my milk. The mothers here invariably feel that they have lost theirs, though I tell them I little think it is so. It is only that at home both they and thier infants have many occupations, so many that the mothers are scarcely able to sit down with their young at all. When they do find time for them, their breasts are always full. Here the opposite situation obtains and they believe their breasts always to be empty. No words can reassure them so well as the offer of a full one.
Afterwards when their little hoydens and curmudgeons rage and pull at their bodices it is easier for them to understand the true case. The babies are anxious here, as are their mothers, and both seek reassurance. Not that there is any want of supplemental nourishment for them beneath the roof,999 only sisters who need establish that they have never born a child.
Matron routinely betrayed these to court, fearing to lose the sustanence she provides her own children. I refer all such questions to the government physician who is far too lazy to see them. I, in fact owe my position here to him. He believes medicine to be the province of Mercury rather than Hypocrites. He routinely resorts to the knife to remedy all errors already having been subjected to the universal medicine. Here as elsewhere calomel remedies too few, simple hygene being the want.
The Marshals, having an interest in retaining their fingers and hands, do what such men may, to induce me to stay, since my staying is to their personal advantage. Their minds are generally too small to admit of any but a self seeking motive.
Marshal Marshall confided in them my longing for Lizzie. They have since frequently reminded me that they often pass my house with some poor woman in tow who would be perfectly competent to conduct my lizard hither. Should any such party call upon you, assure them that I prefer my own arrangements and shall have her here within the fortnight.
Please arrange with someone coming to conference to bring her. Someone of course whom you trust and will be able to trust me. Simply say that Fergus and I are legally married and so I am under no suspicion and wish to stay as near to him as I can. In truth, I would prefer that no one know that I am working at the jail, but secrecy might damage us once the true fact of the matter became known . The the only course, I think, is to give a clear and forthright explanation to as many people as possible.
If I am not at home when my little parcel is delivered, she may be deposited downstairs with my landlady who is as good a sister and a saint as might be found anywhere. She and her children have agreed to keep Lizzy while I work, if I will but feed her Roger with Lizzy at night. She is in delicate health and nights unbroken by Roger's squalling , will, I think, prove a considerable boon to her constitution.Give my love to all, in particular to Mother, Amy, John, and the girls. Assure them that I will explain everything at my next opportunity. You are forever dear to me,
Your Beloved,
Sophie
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