"My father and brothers have a sailmaking factory."
"You don"t work with them, then?"
"I did for a while. And I was a minister of religion just out of college."
"And which sect would that have been?"
"We practice Unitarianism, ma"am."
"That"s hardly a sect of religion, sir."
Thomas Newton kept smiling but said, "Many would say that any practice performed by New Englanders soon amounts to a religion."
Alice handed him a cup of tea without changing her expression. She set mine on the table, and I reached for it. I expected her to inquire further into Mr. Newton"s history, but she grew a bit defensive.
"We are Methodists, and we do not condemn our brethren in our church for beliefs and domestic arrangements that are not like our own. Dr. Hawkins just gave a sermon on that very topic this Sunday past."
"No, ma"am."
"And you have funds of your own that your father gave you for this Kansas adventure?"
"I worked for him in his sailmaking factory, yes. I also have a.s.sociated myself with the Ma.s.sachusetts Emigrant Aid Company."
"I see."
Now Alice fell silent, drinking her tea. It was as if the words "Ma.s.sachusetts Emigrant Aid Company" startled or discomposed her, and she couldn"t think of what to say.
I said, "Mr. Newton is an abolitionist, Alice. Just like Miriam was."
All she said was, "I should have known." By this she meant that an abolitionist was just the sort of person with whom I would crown my life with her by bringing home.
"Yes, sister, you should have known, because Harriet knew the day we met Mr. Newton."
Alice cleared her throat.
Now we sat quietly for some ten minutes, sipping our tea and eating the cakes. Alice sat in her rocking chair, rocking furiously. From time to time, Thomas Newton glanced at the likeness of my father on the wall. He still seemed amused, which I found pleasant as well as curious. Nothing Alice said touched me, because, without naming it to myself, I knew that I would soon be on my way to Kansas.
CHAPTER 4.
I Embark on the Ida Marie [image]In packing household furniture, for moving, have each box numbered, and then have a book, in which, as each box is packed, note down the number of the box, and the order in which its contents are packed, as this will save much labor and perplexity when unpacking. In packing china and gla.s.s, wrap each article, separately, in paper, and put soft hay or straw at bottom and all around each. Put the heaviest articles at the bottom, and on the top of the box, write, "This side up:" -p. 316-17 I MAY NOT HAVE MENTIONED earlier in this account that when I was fifteen, I attended the Quincy Female Seminary, which opened on Sixth Street and Maine. Miss Doty was our princ.i.p.al, and Miss Catharine Beecher herself, the very woman who wrote A Treatise on Domestic Economy, came to Quincy to supervise all aspects of the school. I must say that the good opinion that the citizens of Quincy perennially maintained of themselves was always bolstered by the number of prominent Americans who lived in, pa.s.sed through, or involved themselves in the town"s affairs. Of course there were always Senator Douglas and Mr. Browning, but there was also Miss Beecher, and Miss Beecher"s rumored views on the slavery question hardly dented her fame in Quincy. When our school closed its doors after a few months, every pupil was given an inscribed copy of Miss Beecher"s volume. After Mr. Thomas Newton went away that afternoon, I went up to my room and pulled Miss Beecher off my shelf for the first time ever. I opened it, and this was the first thing I read: "The number of young women whose health is crushed, ere the first years of married life are past, would seem incredible to one who has not investigated this subject, and it would be vain to attempt to depict the sorrow, discouragement, and distress experienced in most families where the wife and mother is a perpetual invalid." I must say that this observation did not surprise me at all, but even so I did not consider that it applied to me, or, for that matter, to life in Kansas, where the climate was known to be supremely healthful-just mild enough, of course, but just brisk enough, too. I cannot say that I knew exactly what Miss Beecher was talking about. I presumed that she was referring to the deleterious effects of cooking, cleaning, making fires, washing, ironing, and dusting, not to mention shirt-making, knitting, embroidery, and all other forms of coa.r.s.e and fine needlework. I pitied poor Annie. When I pictured myself in Kansas, I saw myself plucking apples and peaches off heavy branches, strolling by the side of one of those refreshing streams, or taking a brisk walk through tall gra.s.ses, perhaps in pursuit of a pretty little cow who would have come into my possession somehow. I would lead her back to our (weathertight and cozy) cabin and later enjoy having churned her milk into cool and delicious b.u.t.ter.
At Miss Beecher"s I had excelled in the area of daily exercise, and my health had never been threatened from that time to this. Miss Beecher had been emphatic on the subject of "calisthenic exercises," which we girls were obliged to perform daily, to the accompaniment of Miss Ivins playing the piano, in a large room in the school fitted with giant windows, which were open in the coldest weather. Miss Beecher was a great believer in ventilation. Every month that we were there, Miss Beecher herself checked our spines for distortions. We wore loose clothing and undergarments, and I have to say the whole experience gave me exactly that enjoyment of free bodily movement that was such a matter of despair for my sisters. Reading Miss Beecher"s book was much like watching her stride down the hallway, feeling her brisk fingers on one"s shoulders and back, listening to her speak. She did what she pleased and wasted no time.
It was dusk when I stood up and stretched my arms above my head. I had read about the girl who comes home from her boarding school, whose mother is laid in the grave, and who has to take over her duties. I read about the girl who visits her sister in a distant city and a.s.sumes her sister"s role. I read about the woman removed to the west, whose health failed. I thought, Mary Simmons, Eliza Carson, Bella Morton. But of course, I did not think, Lydia Harkness, not once. I had looked at the pictures of my bones and muscles and brain and sacrum and nerves and spine and heart and lungs. I wondered if Thomas Newton had ever seen such pictures or knew that "the throbbing of the heart is caused by its alternate expansion and contraction, as it receives and expels the blood." I wondered if he knew that one"s skin was continuously "exhaling waste matter in a form which is called insensible perspiration." I looked at the back of my hand and smelled its skin. I wondered if he knew, as I now did, that frequent changes of garments worn next to the skin prevented the reabsorption of those very noxious products earlier thrown off by the skin and the decay that resulted therefrom. I wondered for a moment about the organ of touch. "This office," Miss Beecher wrote, "is performed through the instrumentality of the nerves of feeling, which are spread over all parts of the skin." Miss Beecher seemed to know a great deal more than I or my friends in school had ever given her credit for.
Excitement suffused me. It felt like dread, but a sort of eager dread, which moves toward its object rather than away. I knew that I should not have kept reading Miss Beecher"s manual, because now, in addition to looking forward to a strange future in a strange place with a strange man (and all men were strange enough to me), I, with my cerebellum and my left ventricle and my lacteals and my follicles, was strange as well. I remembered one thing Harriet had said to me years before in exasperation when I threw down the sampler I was attempting to st.i.tch and declared that I hated sewing most of all. She said, "If you don"t furnish your brain with what everyone knows, then it will furnish itself with what no one else knows! And a female"s brain is too weak to hold those sorts of things!"
Our courtship, of necessity, proceeded apace, as it was foreshortened by the arrival of Mr. Newton"s boxes and the knowledge that September was at hand and therefore those who were departing for Kansas must make haste and do so, so as to make as much use of the mild fall weather as possible. Mr. Newton was, in general, a reserved suitor, though kind, always kind. We sat in silence much of the time, which he seemed comfortable in breaking only by raising two subjects, my virtues and Kansas. Both subjects were delicious to me. Mr. Newton had never met anyone quite like me, so strong and vigorous, so freely spoken, manifesting so few traits of false modesty and fearfulness, in which, he led me to believe, I was unique among females of his experience. I could ride a horse! I could shoot a gun! (Frank"s character reference.) I could swim! I was fond of reading! I could walk many miles in an afternoon! All of a sudden, my uselessness had been turned upside down. These qualities, he a.s.sured me, prepared me wonderfully well for Kansas, and I had every reason to believe him. One night, in particular, I remember quite well. The August heat had mitigated somewhat, and we were sitting by a window in Alice"s parlor just at dusk, with our heads together, enjoying the cool breeze. Mr. Newton was talking enthusiastically about Kansas, and I was soaking up every word. This was, possibly, the only time in my experience of Mr. Newton up to that time that he spoke with such enthusiasm.
"You can"t imagine such a fine and intelligent man as Dr. Robinson!" His eyes glittered with admiration. "Of course he maintains the highest principles, or Mr. Thayer-he"s our benefactor-would never have a.s.sociated himself with the man, but added to that, well, he"s been everywhere, to California, even, and made a great profit, and he"s said to be a wonderful doctor, compa.s.sionate and knowledgeable far beyond the general run! He has matters at Lawrence-that"s where we are going-entirely in hand. We had a.s.surances of that before we left the east. We couldn"t have chosen a superior leader to Dr. Robinson, and his wife is just the thing for the west-you"ll admire her, I know. I"ve seen her twice. There"s utterly no nonsense about Mrs. Robinson. She"s the very type of a mother!" He sighed with pleasure and grasped my hands. "You need have no fears, my dear! Our Emigrant Aid Company has everything so well organized! When the Missourians see what New Englanders can do in the west, they"ll come around, that"s a.s.sured! I fully expect that these few conflicts I hear reports of will be as short-lived as they are exaggerated. We have nothing to worry about."
I couldn"t help tweaking him just a bit, saying, "Are you reading aloud to me from some bill? Because this is a great advertis.e.m.e.nt for Dr. Robinson," but then, when his face fell, I offered, "You know, my sister Miriam ran a school for the children of escaped slaves in Ohio. I might have gone to teach there."
His answering smile was delighted and delightful.
As far as we knew, we had no place of our own waiting for us, but Mr. Newton was ever sanguine about how quickly things would fall into place once we got there. Our wedding was small and quickly planned, and that very day we saw our boxes, his and mine together, loaded onto the Galena packet for transport to Saint Louis and west. We went on board ourselves, my first time on a steamboat, and we stood at the rail, I in a new bonnet, my only bit of wedding finery, and waved off my sisters and brothers-in-law and nieces and nephews: young Frank, who was smoking his seegar openly, even though Harriet kept trying to s.n.a.t.c.h it out of his mouth; dear Annie, who I believe was counting the days until a much larger steamboat would be taking her away; Roland Brereton, who was d-ing the stevedores every minute but giving them tips for each box of ours they picked up and carried on board; Horace Silk, who was nearly in tears at not being able to go with us; and Harriet, Beatrice, and Alice, who looked amazed and relieved that I had been gotten rid of so suddenly and smoothly, after all.
The Galena packet, the Ida Marie, was a rather small, older boat with only a handful of staterooms, which carried the mail between Saint Louis and Galena, alternating with its sister ship, the Mary Ida, which ran the opposite direction. We boarded in the late morning and toward noon cast off. It was August 27, and the captain himself was the first person ever to address me as "Mrs. Newton."
It was a fine, warm day, bright and breezy. We mounted the stairs to the pa.s.senger deck, but not before I had a glimpse of the open machinery at the interior of the lower deck-the boiler and the gears-and the boatmen and steerage pa.s.sengers standing around, watching the whole works. We walked deliberately aft, and for all their age, the white railings of the boat dazzled in the noonday sun. Mr. Newton stood beside me as the high Quincy bluff and my family disappeared behind us. The great wheel churned and splashed into the turbulent brown water, and after a brief time Mr. Newton led me to the ladies" saloon, which occupied a portion of the lower deck just in front of the wheelhouse. Inside, three other ladies had made themselves at home, but the air was stuffy and close, and the windows were begrimed with soot from the firing of the boiler. On the other hand, the floor of the ladies" saloon was more or less free of the brown stains of tobacco juice that decorated the sunny decking. Men, even married men, weren"t allowed, except to sleep with their wives in one of the few staterooms at night. By the same token, women, even married women, were not welcome on the deck, except under the unusual circ.u.mstances of an accident or a sight of special importance, and there were none of those until just above Saint Louis, when the boat would cross the mouth of the Missouri.
As I stepped over the threshold, all three ladies looked up, first at me, then at Mr. Newton-until he backed away and closed the door-then at me again. Two were gray-haired, already at their needlework, and one, dressed in black, was about my sisters" age. Seated next to her was a little girl, also in a black dress. When the door closed behind me, everyone smiled. I found myself a seat beside one of the small windows and carried my bag over to it. I felt the largeness of Mr. Newton"s presence, which was only the more pressing now that we were man and wife, move off a bit. I fancied that I could feel his weight shifting the boat as he moved here and there. I wasn"t sure about this; it was a characteristic of marriage that neither Alice nor Beatrice, who for some nights had been preparing me for my new duties, had mentioned. Underneath my chair and through my feet, resting on the floor, I could feel the rumble of the boat"s engines and its swaying pa.s.sage through the water.
The water, which I knew was below me, seemed distant and unreachable, as unreachable as the girl who, a year ago, had stepped into the brown river about a mile above Palmyra and emerged an hour later about a mile below Quincy. Frank had conspired with me to row a boat we borrowed from friends of his, to carry my shoes and stockings and petticoats and dress, to watch out for and serve as a screen against pa.s.sing steamers and other craft. The water had been brown, of course, though it looks blue from above, on top of the bluff, and it was full of debris-branches and logs, pieces of broken-up boats and other planks and boards. There were shoes and a pair of pantaloons, a shirtsleeve and two hats and an old cap, caught upon rocks and snags. Half sunk in the mud were bottles and bits of metal, pieces of rope and a bent barrel hoop or two, bits of leather straps, broken fragments of tin and bra.s.s and iron. There was a racc.o.o.n carca.s.s and the skull of a horse, the hind limb of a deer. The true grandson of my father, Frank picked up what looked useful or salable, until I stopped that and got him to row with me to the tiny cove where I sent him off and undressed down to my shift. When I had pushed into the water, he rowed himself to a group of rocks and retrieved the things I"d left there.
The first time I stepped into the river, I was just about the age of the girl across the cabin from me, twelve. I had taught myself to swim that summer, by spying on the boys and mimicking their actions. My mother thought I was visiting Beatrice, who thought I was visiting Alice, who thought I was at home. That first time I stepped into the river, I was royally self-a.s.sured, until I took two strokes and felt the continental power of the brown water seize me and drag me from sh.o.r.e. Two strokes turned into a spluttering ten by the time my feet found the bottom again. But seven years later, when I was nineteen, I knew parts of the river very well, and I knew how to use and relish the six-miles-per-hour push of the water, to go down and over, down and over, how to not be afraid, and to not even attempt a swim unless the river was low and its tributaries more or less dried up. I knew how to hold my breath and dive, how to keep an eye out for logs and debris. I knew that some of the boys swam the river all summer. I knew that there was a drowning when I was fourteen and a drowning the summer I was seventeen. I knew that every man on the river chased the boys back from the big water but that the boys flocked there even so, building rafts, stealing boats, catching catfish and suckers. You couldn"t stay away from the river; at least I couldn"t.
The notion to swim across it came over me suddenly, mostly because that August the river was lower than it had been in years. All sorts of sandbars and islands were dry ground that no one had ever seen before. Even so, the Quincy bluff always made the river faster and deeper than it was farther downstream or upstream. The choice was narrow but fast, or wide and not as fast. But I can"t say I really made a choice. It was like going off with Mr. Newton. One day I knew I was going to do it, and two days later, when Frank got a boat, I did it. The whole time we were rowing across, I was feeling the push of the river against the boat, feeling it try to turn us around or turn us over. Every time we took a boat it was that way, and you could lose a boat in the Mississippi in a second. I knew that. But you always learn things a new way when you"ve got a reason to pay attention. That"s what I told Frank.
By the time I got to the cove, I was ready to forget the whole thing, but Frank was concentrated on it, and I had the feeling that I was going along with him, even though this was my idea. And then I didn"t want him to see me in my shift-I could just hear Harriet on that subject-and so I got in the water, and then I had to take a few strokes just to stay above water, and then Frank was rowing alongside me, and laughing and cursing. He didn"t smoke seegars then, but he had some twig or something he was chewing on, and I concentrated on that. He rowed upstream of me and used his oars to push snags and trash out of my way. I went slowly, knowing my waterlogged shift was dragging me down. The river kept piling up, too, and pouring over my head, but I was a good enough swimmer so that I saw it coming and didn"t take any in. It stank of fish and other, rotten things, but that was just river smell. It was water, a lot of water, warm, and I was drawn to that. I can"t say anything happened. Frank later said there were a couple of logs heading my way that he pushed off, but I had no sense of danger, only the water all around me-its sound and smell and wetness. It seemed to last a long time, and when my feet set down in the Quincy mud, I seemed to wake up. I"d swum the three-quarter-mile-wide river in about a mile and a half-you can"t swim right across it-and I walked out in my shift with the water streaming down and I forgot completely about where I was or what I was doing. Frank had to pull the boat up and then wrap a sheet around me. I think I staggered around, but then, a few minutes later, I felt the heat of the sun. That made me come back to who I was and where I was. I dried off and put my clothes back on, but I smelled of the river. The strongest soap couldn"t get that out of my hair in less than a week.
Roland Brereton thought it was a d- good joke. My sisters, of course, were flabbergasted, but they didn"t start in with me. I later decided that it was such a strange thing for me to do that they made up their minds that I hadn"t done it. I didn"t try it again. I wanted to savor the one time, and the summer was coming to an end, anyway. This year, the steamboat-men were all happy, because the river started high and stayed high, and only a young boy or a fool would brave it.
The two gray-haired dames now put away their needles. One of them had out her pocket watch, a man"s gold one, with a cover. She nodded to the other and said, "They"ll be serving in five minutes, Annabelle. We"d best get ready."
At this, the younger woman nudged her little girl, and all four went to the door of the ladies" cabin, opened it, and peered out onto the deck. The one named Annabelle turned to me and spoke. "Now, have you ever been on one of these packets before, my dear?"
"No, ma"am. This is my first trip away from Quincy."
"Well, if you expect to have your dinner, then you"d better get ready for when the doors open, or the menfolk will push you right out of the way. The ladies are supposed to go to the head of the line, but you can"t be sure what will happen."
"I"m sure my husband ..." I said the word as if I were used to it.
"Oh, dear," said the other one. "You can"t rely on him. We five will all go out in a body and into the dining room, and they"ll make way for us. That"s the best way."
"They don"t mean to," said Annabelle, "but there"s just such a rush for the vittles that a lone woman don"t stand much of a chance. Wouldn"t you say so, Dorothea?"
Dorothea nodded, and the little girl pressed into her mother"s skirts. Annabelle said, "What"s your name, dear?" to me, and I said, "Lidie. Lidie Newton now."
"Here we go," said Dorothea. "Take each other"s arms, ladies, that"s the best. If your skirts drag a little, so be it." We took each other"s arms, with the little girl clinging to her mother"s waist, and we pressed as a group out onto the deck, just as the door to the dining room opened. All around us, male figures in black coats and hats and boots jumped up, but Dorothea and Annabelle smiled, stared straight ahead, and strode forward at a brisk clip. We others stuck to them, and the men fell back around us. We nearly gained the door. Only then was there a little pushing and shoving, but we kept smiling, and Annabelle lifted her voice in firm command: "Mind the ladies! Mind the ladies!" In a moment we were through. Annabelle and Dorothea shepherded us to a place at the long table, somewhat back from the entry, where I noticed that the dishes were quite plentiful. I looked around for Mr. Newton, but he hadn"t made it in yet. I was wondering whether to wait for him, when Dorothea said, "Sit down, Mrs. Newton. Sit down and eat, or you"ll not get a thing!" And it was true; all around us, men were jerking out the chairs, throwing themselves down, and ladling all manner of comestibles onto their plates, one thing on top of another. I sat down.
Near me was some bread, some salt pork, some pickles, another meat dish of some kind, some boiled potatoes, a dish of applesauce, and some johnnycake. I did as the others did and piled it all on my plate, taking as much as I was likely to want, because already the dishes and bowls were beginning to empty. Down the table I saw a dish of sliced cuc.u.mber in vinegar, which I liked very much, but there was no one to pa.s.s it, and even as I watched, wondering how to get some, a boy about Frank"s age served himself almost every slice on the plate. I started to eat what I had. What noise there was in the room was entirely made up of the clatter of china and utensils, the sc.r.a.ping of chairs, the moist sound of mastication, the rustle of wool and calico. There were some twenty people in the room, and at last I espied Mr. Newton, at the far end of the table, looking around for me. He had a slice of ham on his plate, and that was it. As he was reaching for some bread, the man next to him took the last piece right out from under his fingertips. "Eat! Eat!" exclaimed Annabelle. "The porters will take your plate away!"
I did as I was told and found myself doing what all the others were doing: shoveling my victuals in by the forkful, hardly chewing, and certainly not enjoying myself. Before I was half done, the men around us began to wipe their plates with their corn bread, push back their chairs, and leave the table. Mr. Newton caught sight of me and raised his hand with a smile, and I thought that it was a fine thing after all to see him from a distance. He had a grace and a reserve that the men around him had none of. At Saint Louis, our plan was to stay one night at a hotel near the landing, called the Vandeventer House. As I looked at my new husband, my spirits lifted in antic.i.p.ation. Five minutes later, all the food was gone, and all the men had left the room. Dorothea and Annabelle breathed a common sigh. Annabelle said, "Now, ladies, I think we may leave the dining room with a bit more decorum, but be careful of the spittoons that have been pushed about." Indeed, the one against the wall behind my chair was more than half full of dark, odorous liquid.
We got back to the ladies" cabin without mishap.
Our common battle had broken down the strangeness between us, so for the rest of the journey we sat in an intimate circle, just as if we were friends, and told one another bits about ourselves. The two gray-haired ladies introduced themselves as the Misses Tonkin. "Now, my dear," said Dorothea, the older one, "I know that sounds just as if we were Chinese, but we come from Cornwall, in England. Tonkin there is like Tompkins somewhere else."
"But we don"t come from there any longer, Dorothea. We come from Wisconsin, not far from Galena. Every year, we take the Galena packet to Saint Louis and shop for winter things. It"s a nice trip for us, don"t you see. We get to see the river, which is so lovely, and all the best French things are in Saint Louis. You can see this lace, here." She held up her sleeve, and it was true: the black lace that edged it was delicate and handsome. "If Mr. Tonkin, our brother, only knew how we were spending our money!" The two of them laughed.
"But he does know, sister," rejoined Dorothea. "That"s part of the pleasure!"
"Our brother Nicky has been dead these ten years," said Annabelle. "He was a most serious man, and we took care of him all our lives. On his deathbed, he promised to look upon us from on high and continue to guide us, but thankfully we have never noticed anything of the sort since then. We are quite at our own disposal."
"None of the three of us ever married."
Annabelle leaned toward me. "He was unusually exacting, my dear. He would have been quite a trial to an unsuspecting young girl." The two sisters exchanged a cheerful look.
I said, "I just got married this morning, and Mr. Newton and I are on our way to Kansas."
"My goodness, Dorothea," said Annabelle. "What a lovely thing to say! There is all the hope and happiness in the world in that one sentence. "I just got married this morning, and we are on our way to Kansas!" You are the envy of everyone in the United States, my dear, if not the world!"
"The climate is supposed to be mild and healthful-"
"I hope you married for love, my dear," said Dorothea. "If you are going to marry at all, that is the best way."
At first I only smiled, not liking to reveal myself to strangers, even friendly ones, but then the other woman in the saloon looked at me with very serious eyes, and then her daughter did, as well, and with their dark eyes staring so sadly out from under their black bonnets, I said, "I did. Yes, I did." I thought of Mr. Newton, his pale skin and his pale hair and his long fingers, his intelligent look, and his amus.e.m.e.nt, and my sense of how large he was, larger every minute, it seemed, and how much, deep down, I was looking forward to seeing him again at the end of this journey, and I thought that that made up "love" as much as I knew it. The woman and her daughter took each other"s hands and squeezed. Dorothea said, "This is Mrs. Evelyn and her daughter, Mary. They have suffered a bereavement."
Dorothea addressed her, said, "Now, Mrs. Evelyn, if you don"t mind my saying so, I hope you have some money of your own, and won"t be at the mercy of your brother. He may be very dear to you and you to him, but..." She shook her head.
Annabelle filled the silence that ensued. "Our father was a Cornishman to his very heels, and when he died, he left the whole property to our Nicky, even though in this country a man need not do that."
"Our Nicky was a tight-fisted gentleman." They took up their work and sewed industriously. The steam engine hummed and the boat churned. I thought again of the water below us.
Mrs. Evelyn said, "Mr. Evelyn trusted in the Lord to provide for us."
"Perhaps He will, my dear," said Dorothea. "But until then, here is a bit to tide you over." And she pressed a small black silk purse into Mrs. Evelyn"s hand. No matter what that lady then did, Miss Dorothea Tonkin would not take the purse back again. Finally, Mrs. Evelyn put the black purse in her pocket. Mary, who possibly had some private worries about these very matters, smiled a quick, secret smile, and her mother said, "You ladies are too generous! I don"t even know you! I"ll remember this as long as I live!"
"What we say to ourselves, dear, is that we cannot make it up to all of those who needed something of our Nicky while he was alive and were turned away, and so when we have the opportunity, we do for him what he should have done for himself. He was a religious man, but I fear he was mistaken in his beliefs, because he subst.i.tuted many very austere doctrinal restrictions for charity. What Dorothea and I suspect is that he was much disappointed when he came to receive his reward."
"What you might say is that we are buying him off." The two chuckled together. "At any rate, my dear," continued Dorothea, "we have no family, so we are always tempted to spend too much on our own amus.e.m.e.nt, so say no more!"
Mrs. Evelyn said no more but did pat her pocket in a wondering fashion. Not long after that, Mr. Newton appeared at the door of the ladies" cabin and declared that we were pa.s.sing the mouth of the great Missouri River and that I should come to the railing and see what those waters had brought from the west. We all hastily put away our work and went to the door. I saw Miss Annabelle look Mr. Newton up and down. He helped her over the threshold, then held out his hand for Miss Dorothea. She thanked him. I was pleased to observe that the two Misses Tonkin seemed favorably impressed with my new husband.
It was close to dusk, but I could see that my familiar Mississippi had changed considerably and now ran much faster and browner. Had I imagined some sort of turbulent rush, a wall of water pouring over our river as over a floor, I was mistaken. The river only widened into a broader sheet, rimmed by a low fringe of trees. Mr. Newton stared as if he had never seen such a thing, and finally said, "My dear, I"ve read many an account of these rivers, and I"ve talked to many men who"ve made this journey, but I confess I am unprepared for the somberness of it. I expected to feel gratified and enlarged by the knowledge of the distance these waters have come. I find it oppressive." The dull red glare off the flat expanse had the same effect on me, and I realized only with difficulty that the glare was just the reflection of the setting sun. It pa.s.sed in moments, but then the darkness seemed to filter up from the water into the trees. The lights of our boat, including the better-to-be-forgotten lurid reflection of the firing of the boiler, lay dimly over the opaque water. We weren"t alone in being subdued by the sights. Only a couple of drunk men continued to laugh and shout. Finally, they flung their empty bottle in a wide arc over the railing and cursed the fact that they had drunk everything they had with them. Mr. Newton walked all of the ladies back to the door of the ladies" cabin. It was disturbing to hear the two lonely voices of those men cursing and braying against the noise of the boat and the splash of the water.
Back in the ladies" cabin, the lamps had been lit, and they cast a dim but pleasant glow over the papered wall and the few curtained cubicles that functioned as staterooms on this small packet. It was too dim for me to work, but the two sisters needed little light, as they didn"t watch their knitting anyway, only counted the st.i.tches and turned their work. Mrs. Evelyn seemed subdued by the gloom. Her daughter leaned against her. Sometime later, we heard a great shouting, and the clamor of feet upon the deck told us that we had arrived in Saint Louis.
Miss Annabelle put her hand on my wrist as I moved to rise from my chair. She said, "If you"ll pardon me for making a personal observation, my dear, I must say that you seem a young woman of uncommon self-possession and fort.i.tude. So many of these young wives we see, well..." Her voice faded as if ruefully. "The adventure is for the men, my dear; that"s the way of it here in the west."
I said that this was surely true. But I didn"t mean it.
CHAPTER 5.
I Am Much Daunted by New Experiences [image]But, as society gradually shakes off the remnants of barbarism, and the intellectual and moral interests of man rise, in estimation, above the merely sensual, a truer estimate is formed of woman"s duties, and of the measure of intellect reguisite for the proper discharge of them. -p. 156 THE TUMULT OF THE LEVEE at Saint Louis burst upon my sight, unlike anything I had ever seen before. Our boat was undeniably moving toward the land, but the water was so dark and so crowded with other boats that it seemed to be magically pressing itself through a tangle of decks and railings and chimneys and freight. Above the waterline, all was alight with great lamps on poles and torches and fires, and there were as many people about as if it were broad day. We made our way through a thick field of boats, large and small, glorious and humble, empty and full, busy and quiet, among them the most famous Saint Louis-Pittsburgh packet, the Allegheny Queen, which just that summer had won a race from Cincinnati to New Orleans, jostling with the most famous Saint Louis-New Orleans packet, the Paul Revere, whose railings on the pa.s.senger deck gleamed with gold in the flickering light. Their names were clearly painted in ornate script on the wheel housings, and I told Mr. Newton what I had heard of each one in Horace Silk"s store, where talk of the best steamboats and their pilots and captains and owners came second only to talk of Kansas. We pa.s.sed two steam-wreck salvage boats that lay side by side among the others, giant flat platforms on two hulls with a great complex framework like a metal forest that rose into the dark night. Mr. Newton stared at them in perplexity. I said, "That"s what they use to raise exploded hulks from the bottom. Otherwise, the river would fill up end to end and bank to bank with wrecks." One of these, or a vessel just like it, had raised a wreck upstream from Quincy earlier in the summer. My cousin Frank had been the first boy at the scene, pushing himself forward to see, he said, what crinolines and combs and corpses he might be able to catch a glimpse of.
Where the river ended and the land began, the boats gave way to horses and drays and piles of freight, but there was as little room amongst all of these as there was between the boats. Everywhere, every human, animal, and machine was making as much noise as possible-the blowing of horns and ringing of bells and belching of steam formed the background to the shouts of the mates and the draymen to stand aside, or hand it over, or move it this way, or coming through, or watch the lines, or careful of the horses! The horses stamped and jingled their harness and whinnied and snorted; their carts and wagons and carriages and drays creaked under the thumps of the boxes and bales and people loaded onto them. Always there was shouting. Boys younger than Frank, black and white, looked as full of business as the white-haired men: "Planter"s House! Baggage wagon here!" (The Misses Tonkin solicited the attention of that well-dressed porter, and he recognized them with a happy smile.) "The George M. Hardy! Leaving at first light for the Falls of Saint Anthony! One of the foremost sights of the known world! Embark tonight for a convenience!" "New Orleans in five short days! The Arkansas Hopeful is the fastest boat in the west! Sixteen dollars!" "Newspaper! The Missouri Democrat! Tomorrow"s news tonight!"
We were hardly out of our cabin and had only begun pushing our way through the mob trying to get onto the Mary Ida, when I saw that they had begun unloading the freight. Seeing this, too, Mr. Newton began urging me through the crowd with some insistence, his one hand grasping my elbow tightly and his other arm outstretched. A few men scowled at us as they gave way, and one muttered, "Boat must be about to explode! Save yourself, brother!" as I was hurried past, but then all we did on the levee was stand there as the boxes came off the boat. Almost the very last was the one Mr. Newton was waiting for, and when he saw it, he relaxed.
This box, with our two small bags, he directed to accompany us to the Vandeventer House. The others were to be loaded onto the Independence for pa.s.sage to Kansas. I must say that what had seemed a vast pile of baggage when we left Quincy now seemed but a paltry collection of trinkets easily dragged away by the (no doubt) sneering draymen. Kansas! Kansas! If busy Saint Louis was so vast and frightening, how much more so the solitudes of Kansas!
I WILL Pa.s.s OVER our ride through the busy streets and my impression of the Vandeventer House. If I were to linger over everything new, I would prolong my story far past the reader"s patience. Suffice it to say that all things were fresh to me, and the moments, which pa.s.sed slowly, were full of shock, interest, and some fear. I sensed that Mr. Newton, too, felt more strange than he expected to, and more tempted by dread and low spirits. From time to time, we exchanged a glance. I could hardly see his face in the darkness, yet I knew he was full of wonder at how little we had foreseen, he had foreseen, the consequences of our impulses. I said to him in a low voice, "We are true Americans now, husband. We don"t know where we are going or what for, nor do we know anyone we"re traveling with. But we"re perfectly certain it will all turn out best in the end."
He took my fingers in his and spread them apart, staring at my hand as at a strange and wonderful object. At last, he said, "Better than Quincy?"
"Already better than Quincy."
The conviction of my reply perked him up, and I saw for the first time that I wasn"t merely to follow him to Kansas but was sometimes to lead him. My husband was less sure of himself than my suitor had been.
In our room at the Vandeventer House, he set our little carpet bags by the door and the large, heavy box, which he"d carried up the stairs with the heaving and groaning help of the porter, between the bed and the window.
There were two chairs beside the window, and after I took off my bonnet, Mr. Newton led me to one of them and sat himself in the other. We rocked back and forth without speaking. We had the bridal room, which meant that no one else was sleeping in our room with us, though should our departure be delayed, we would have to move the next day. The bridal rooms in Saint Louis were in such demand that you could have one to yourself only for one night, or so they told us at the Vandeventer House.
After some minutes, Mr. Newton said, "Did your sisters speak to you about marriage?"
"They told me what they knew."
"What was that?"
"Harriet said if at all possible not to allow you to fire guns in the house, but if I had to give way on this point, to draw the line at pistols, but absolutely not to allow horses into the better rooms, because sometimes they panic and damage your good furniture. She learned her lesson the hard way with a two-year-old colt Roland had-"
Mr. Newton began laughing.
"Well, he did kick to pieces a very nice lowboy she had, with a sh.e.l.l design on the drawer fronts ..." I cleared my throat. "And Alice told me that my husband would figure very significantly in the conception of children, but she couldn"t bring herself to describe exactly how. She just said that I would be better off if I kept a table between us at all times, especially early on in the marriage. Another tactic was to always have a cup of hot tea in my hands, day and night. Those were her words exactly. Day and night."
I laughed, too.
"And Beatrice said that every town in America had lots of clubs and public betterment organizations, so that if you played your cards right, you could spend an evening with your husband maybe once or twice a year and have the rest of your time to yourself ...."
"You"re making these things up!"
"Do you have anything to add, Mr. Newton?"
"My dear, I am as ignorant as you."