Westering Women

by Sandra Dallas

  “What do you say, Caroline?” Mrs. Whitney asked.

  “I?” Caroline glanced at her husband. She was standing next to him then, and Maggie wondered how so handsome a man had come to marry such a plain woman. She was short and squat with a large nose and small, close eyes. Perhaps he saw the goodness beyond the unimpressive looks.

  Mrs. Whitney nodded.

  “I believe my brother knows best.”

  Clara hit her foot against the pew, and Maggie held her tight. What would the ministers think if they knew she and Mary were listening?

  “Would I be allowed to take my Chippendale chairs? They have been in my husband’s family for many years.”

  “You could take them, but they will be thrown out before we reach Fort Kearny,” William told her. “Or perhaps used as firewood.”

  “What about my dresses and hats? I would not care to arrive in California looking like a scullery maid. They were made by the finest dressmakers, here and in Paris.”

  Maggie felt a surge of pride, since she had made several of Mrs. Whitney’s garments. She worried then that the woman would indeed recognize her and was glad it was dark where she sat.

  “You should take only those clothes that will not wear out on the trail. Calico is best. As for hats, yes, but only if you have a sunbonnet.”

  “My little dog?”

  “If you do not mind him going into some Indian’s cooking pot.”

  Mrs. Whitney looked startled, and Joseph said, “Willie, how could you!”

  “Your servant is going, then?” William asked, glancing at the black girl.

  “I would not leave without her. She is very dear to me.” Mrs. Whitney put a protecting arm around the girl. “What do you say, Evaline? Shall we go or stay?”

  “I will abide by your decision, but I would not mind the challenge,” the girl said. Maggie’s eyes widened at the girl’s proper speech. She had never heard a Negro speak like that, but then, she knew few Negroes.

  “No, you would be up to it. The question is, am I?” Mrs. Whitney asked.

  “You won’t…” William began, then paused as if not sure he should ask the question.

  “Take back my money. No. But I shall think seriously about taking my dog, Whitey, with me, and woe to the Indian who tries to turn him into supper.”

  * * *

  AFTER MRS. WHITNEY and the servant girl left, the ministers gathered up the applications. Mary took Maggie’s hand and said, “It is time. I am going to speak to them. Will you come?”

  Maggie nodded. She was nervous. What if they asked her reason for going to California? “Come, Clara,” she whispered.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Perhaps as far as the moon.”

  “Sirs,” Mary said.

  Joseph looked up, startled, and glanced at the door Mrs. Whitney had used.

  “We would speak with you, too,” Mary said. “The child was resting, and we did not wish to disturb her. She had our full attention.” She stood, and the men stared at her.

  “You heard?” Joseph asked.

  Mary did not lie. “I have heard many things. I keep to myself that which is not my business.”

  William nodded. “Would you go to California, too?”

  Mary, big as a barn, stepped forward and stood in front of the men, turning her head to the side, perhaps to hide the cast in her eye. “I would. I am fit and healthy.”

  “And you know how to drive oxen,” William said. “I saw you raise your hand.”

  “I can shoe them, too, if need be. You will not find me wanting.”

  “No, I can see that. I question whether you might find our men wanting.” He paused, then asked, “Are you wishing to escape debts or leave a husband behind?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are you a moral Christian woman in good health?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Maggie smiled to herself as she wondered how many women had actually admitted to being immoral.

  “Your age?”

  “That is my business, sir. There was no mention of age in your advertisement.”

  “You will do.” William smiled at her; then, without looking to his brother-in-law or sister, he handed her the pen.

  Mary signed her name in plain block letters, then turned to Maggie. “My friend will go, too.”

  Maggie came out of the shadows, gripping Clara’s hand. She shook with fear. What if the ministers asked questions? She should have thought of a story to tell them.

  “A child?” Joseph asked. “We said nothing about children.”

  “You let the woman who is sponsoring the venture take her servant, and she is only a girl,” Mary interjected.

  “Plenty of children have made the journey,” Reverend Parnell said. “They are as well suited to it as the adults.”

  “She is all I have. She must go with me,” Maggie said.

  “Where is your husband?” Joseph asked.

  Maggie started to answer but found the words would not come. What could she tell them?

  “Have you a husband?” he demanded. “We take no runaway wives. If you are among them, I counsel you to return to him and beg his forgiveness. It is your duty.”

  “I…,” Maggie began but was too shaken to finish.

  “Go along with you, then,” Joseph said. He glanced at his wife, who looked down. She would not contradict him.

  “She has no husband,” Mary said suddenly, and Maggie looked up at her in surprise.

  “Are you saying she is a sister of misfortune and the child is a bastard?” Joseph asked.

  Mary glared at him so hard that he leaned away from her. “No such thing. She is a widow, so newly fresh a widow that she cannot speak of it, can barely say his name without breaking down. Her husband”—Mary cleared her throat—“perhaps you read about him in the newspapers. Henry his name was, such a good, hearty fellow. He was run down by a coach and four. He dashed into the street to rescue a boy who was in the path of the horses. Oh, it was a brave and terrible thing to do.”

  As Mary put her hand to her eyes as if to wipe away tears, Maggie stared at her in astonishment. She had known the woman for little more than an hour, and yet she had come to her defense with this story.

  “Ah, the tragedy of it, to leave behind a widow and child, to leave them to the harshness of a Chicago winter.”

  “I have not read of it,” Joseph said.

  Caroline studied Maggie, then looked at Clara. “I am sure I did, my dear. Perhaps you forgot it. Was it not before Christmas?”

  Maggie realized Caroline had addressed the question to her, and she nodded, too astonished to speak.

  “I believe we must accept her,” Caroline said. “After all, it is not only the men in California who need succor. The Lord calls on us to aid all of our brothers and sisters.” She reached around her husband and handed Maggie a pen.

  Maggie took it and signed “Maggie.”

  “A last name, please,” Joseph said.

  Maggie froze. Then Mary spoke up. “I believe you will be pleased with Maggie Hale.”

  Maggie leaned forward, wondering whether the name was spelled “Hail” or “Hale,” but chose the latter. She was glad the men had forgotten to ask her the questions Mary had been asked to answer. As she stepped away from the table, she recovered her voice and said, “The boy lived.”

  * * *

  MAGGIE WENT TO retrieve her umbrella and her bag, which she had left in the pew, and when she looked up, she did not see Mary. She was sorry, because she should have liked to thank her.

  The sleet had turned to snow, and a harsh wind swept it down the street. Clara shivered and said, “It is too cold, Mama.” Maggie took off her shawl and wrapped it around her daughter. She did not know where to go. Maggie had told Mary she could go home, but she would not. It was too dangerous. Perhaps she could return to the church and find a corner in which to hide, leave her bag in some out-of-the-way spot. But what if the ministers found her? She would look for a doorway that would shelte
r them. She had a little money, but she dared not spend it unless she had to. The ministers had said she would need at least fifty dollars for the trip, and she had only half that amount. Still, it would not do for Clara to sleep on the street on such a cold night.

  As she tried to make up her mind, Maggie saw Mary loom out of the blizzard, leading a horse. “I am sorry about the name Hale. It was all I could think of.”

  “It is a good name,” Maggie said.

  “Have you a home to go to?”

  Maggie knew the woman understood the truth of it. “I shall find something.”

  “And in the meantime, you will freeze. Come home with me. We can all three ride the horse. He is strong enough to carry two of me.”

  “Oh, I cannot put you out.”

  “It is no bother.”

  “You said you live with your brother and his family. Surely they will not want me.”

  “They do not want me much either and would put me out if I did not do the farm work. The house is half mine. If they do not welcome you, I will. We can always sleep in the barn.”

  When Maggie gasped, Mary said, “I am only joking. There is room in the house. Come.” Before Maggie could reply, Mary lifted Clara and placed her on the horse. The little girl clapped her hands with delight. Then Mary picked up Maggie and set her behind Clara, handing her the heavy bundle she had brought with her. Finally, Mary herself mounted the horse and, holding tight to Maggie, kicked the chestnut into a trot. As they headed out into the swirling snow, Maggie wondered what she had committed herself to. It could not be worse than what she had left behind.

  Three

  Louise Madrid thrust an armload of clothing into Maggie’s hands and said, “If you are eating my cooking and sleeping in my bed, you might as well earn your keep. These need mending.” She sat down in the rocking chair and picked up a book.

  In fact, Maggie did the cooking now, and she and Clara slept on the floor, but Maggie didn’t mind the sewing. She longed to busy her hands with needlework, and she was grateful to the Madrids for allowing Clara and her to stay. Maggie had heard Louise complain what a nuisance the two visitors were, but Mary had stood firm. “If you want me to finish preparing the fields for spring planting, you will welcome them. Truth is, I have more claim to the house than you do, Louise, it being left to both me and Micah. I have a mind to find a solicitor who will tell me my rights. Might be I could sell my portion of the farm,” Mary had told her sister-in-law. No one had ever stood up for Maggie, and she was grateful. She tried to pay for her keep by doing work that Louise considered beneath her.

  Now Maggie took out her needle and thread and concentrated on her stitching, listening to the clamor outside. Louise’s two children were as smitten with Mary as Clara was. The three followed her everywhere. Maggie recalled her friend’s comment that cats and children loved her, although not men. Women didn’t seem to care for her either. The news was about that Mary was going to California to find a husband, but not a single woman had called to wish her well.

  As if knowing what Maggie was thinking, Louise said, “She is a queer one, Mary is. All the girls she grew up with are married now, with children, some even with grandchildren. They think her odd, and she is, no husband and working the farm like a man. They do not understand it, and neither do I. She could have married our neighbor, Howard Hale—” Louise stopped and looked up from a book she held in her hands. “Is he kin to you?”

  “No,” Maggie replied.

  “Odd, you having the same name.”

  “Mary will find a husband in California,” Maggie said.

  Louise snorted. “The shame of it, her going away like that. What about me? Did she consider Micah and me? Did she give a moment’s thought to all the work I will have to do when she is gone? I am already worked to the bone.”

  Maggie smiled to herself. Louise sat in the house most of the day, reading or doing useless needlework. She had recently painted grapes on a piece of velvet that Maggie had made into a pillow for her, and now she was making drawn-work doilies. The fancywork sat in a basket beside her chair. Did the woman really have any idea how much work Mary did and how she would be taxed when Mary left? “Mary wants adventure,” Maggie said.

  Louise rolled her eyes. “That is unnatural. Women do not want adventure. They want a husband and children. If Mary leaves us for California, Mr. Madrid will not allow her to return. He has made that clear to her. He does not want her back after all the embarrassment.”

  “I thought Mary owned half of the farm,” Maggie said. It was none of her business, but she wanted to prick Louise for her harsh words about Mary.

  “Who says that?”

  Maggie shrugged. She should have kept her mouth shut.

  “Mr. Madrid owns the farm for the both of them,” Louise said sharply. “It is unseemly that a woman should work a farm for herself. Although Mary is … well, look at her. She might as well be a man.”

  As far as Maggie could see, Micah left the farming to Mary, who enlisted the children to help her plow and plant. Mary acted as both hired man and hired girl. She had told Maggie that when she was a girl, she had had her own bedroom upstairs, but as the children were born, Louise claimed the room for them, and now Mary slept on a pallet near the fireplace in the kitchen. When Maggie showed surprise, Mary said she didn’t mind. After all, it was the warmest place in the house in winter, and she did not wake others when she rose before dawn to prepare breakfast.

  “I shall miss her, I suppose. She is company of a sort,” Louise said suddenly. “I am lonely here. Mary is not interested in the finer things, in fancywork or poetry. I have never seen her read anything but a newspaper. She talks mostly of seeds and planting and reaping. I have tried to improve her mind, but she does not care for novels, and she will not gossip. When she talks of something besides the farm, it is politics. Perhaps that will please a man in California, but not here. Politics is for men, not women. I myself would not be able to name the president of the United States if Mary had not talked so much about him.”

  “Then her political knowledge has accomplished some purpose,” Maggie said, choosing to misinterpret Louise’s words.

  The remark confused Louise, and she cast an accusing eye on Maggie, as if Maggie were criticizing her. Then she asked, “Why will you go to California? Surely someone as pretty as you could find a husband in Chicago.”

  As if prettiness is all that is necessary for a good marriage, Maggie thought. She knew better. “I wanted to leave Chicago,” she said. “I could not bear to stay there. I determined to get as far away as possible, and California seems like it is the end of the earth.”

  “Yes, I suppose I understand it, your husband getting killed like that.” Mary had told her sister-in-law the same story she’d told the ministers, that Maggie’s husband had been run down by horses while saving a child.

  “It was in the newspaper,” Mary had said, and Maggie had swallowed a smile when she overheard that, because she knew Louise did not read newspapers. “You must have read it.”

  “Oh yes, I suppose I did,” Louise had replied.

  Now Louise closed her book and picked up her needlework. “I must say I enjoy your company more than Mary’s. It is nice to take a few minutes away from all my chores to sit and talk.” When Maggie only nodded, Louise continued. “You may think me harsh in my view of Mary, but she resists my attempts to instruct her in women’s ways. Perhaps it goes back to an incident when she was young.”

  Maggie knew Louise wanted her to ask what had happened, but she did not care to know Mary’s secrets, did not want to gossip about her.

  When Maggie didn’t reply, Louise continued. “I do not like to carry tales, but I believe you should know of it. The thing happened when Mary was fourteen or thereabout. She was always a big girl, and by then she was unnaturally large. The boys did not care for her, not only because she was an oddity but because she was always besting them at games and would not defer to them.” She stopped as if waiting for Maggie to nod in
disapproval.

  Maggie kept on stitching, however, and after a moment, Louise went on. “There was one fellow. I believe his name was Andrew—Andy for short. He brought her sweets in his lunch bucket and sat beside her in the schoolroom. The boys did not tease him for it, and Mary should have known from that that something was wrong. But she was foolish about him and paid no attention to the others. In fact”—Mary leaned forward—“I believe Mary was quite smitten with him and thought he was with her. Imagine that!” She sat back and dipped her chin to emphasize the absurdity of what she had just said.

  “Sometimes Andy walked her home, and on one particular day, he suggested they go a roundabout way through a copse of trees. Mary was imprudent enough to agree. After they were hidden by the foliage, he pushed her against a tree and kissed her. When Mary did not protest—I do not know this for sure, but it was what the boy claimed—he ripped the bodice of her dress and grabbed her breasts.” Louise stopped to gauge Maggie’s reaction, but Maggie, her face flushed, kept her head bowed. She did not want to hear about Mary’s humiliation.

  “I suppose Mary pushed him away, but by then it was too late, of course. He ran off shouting to his friends, ‘Touched them! Touched them! You owe me a nickel!’ You see, the boys had followed them and had seen the entire incident. It had been a dare. A boy asked what they felt like, and Andy replied, ‘Like shoats.’ For weeks, the boys made oinking sounds whenever Mary passed. She never let on she knew what they meant, but everyone in the school had been told what had happened and laughed. I myself was so embarrassed that I could hardly stand next to her. You see, Micah was already courting me.”

  “Her brother did not defend her?” Maggie asked.

  “He could hardly fight the whole school. Besides, we were both so ashamed of her.” Louise laughed and looked at Maggie for her response, but Maggie kept her eyes on her sewing. Not for anything in the world would she laugh at her friend’s terrible experience. Louise should have offered sympathy, not censure, and Micah, who like Mary was tall and broad, should have beaten the boys within an inch of their lives.