Tinsmith 1865

by Sara Dahmen

  Now is not the time to bemoan it though, so I raise my mug to them, circling it in the air at the center of our little group.

  “Many cheers to you both, and a long and happy marriage,” I toast.

  After we all drink heartily, I try to tease them to hide the pulses of sadness eating at my veins and numbing my fingers.

  “You know this means I’ll have to bake the traditional bread for you to break at the wedding. And to have some salt on hand.”

  “Bread we know you can do,” Walter guffaws, but he says it kindly, and they laugh.

  “And you’ll be inviting everyone. Even Horeb Harvey, is it?” I mimic.

  Walter chokes on his beer, snorting. “That is how he talks!”

  “I don’t think we’ll ask Horeb,” Mrs. Andersen says, her blue eyes glowing. “I prefer my privies on the ground.”

  Thaddeus is still quiet through the chatter. He does not seem unhappy about the new arrangement, but it is still news to digest.

  “So, then, that’s settled. We’ll perhaps do a little something soon,” Mrs. Andersen plans. “Gives me time to pack up the old house and choose what I wish to fit in here. I don’t take up much room, of course, but a woman does have a trunk of her own things.”

  Walter nods absently, calm and unflappable as usual. Suddenly I realize their engagement truly is brand new. He may have asked her only an hour or two ago among the rows of carrots and cabbage. I feel particularly fortunate to be included in the first announcement of it. They behave as if I’m family, and that small drop of inclusiveness is a smooth salve to the exhaustion pulling at my eyes.

  Mrs. Andersen stands, and I follow. We manage the cutlery together in our typical rhythm, and she chatters with more vigor than usual about the details of the marriage, and the happiness she bubbles with spills into my spirit. How can I begrudge her this? I find myself smiling, forgetting my money woes, my concerns about the sword, and my loneliness. I focus on her joy, letting it caress me. For a moment, my thoughts drift to Danny. He must propose soon, I suppose. Will I happily go with him, as happily as Mrs. Andersen marries Walter? I like to think I will. I’d like to think it would be more than just using Danny for my debt.

  My God! Is that what I am doing?

  Is that why I string him along?

  Another layer of sadness and guilt buries itself in my spirit.

  If I truly do mean to marry Danny for his money, shouldn’t I be truthful of it? Is my guilt on this why I am so soft-spoken with him? Is it why I can be hard and blunt to customers and friends alike, but not to Danny? Because I am acting on a lie?

  When my meager house duties are finished at the Salomons’ house, I take off the cotton apron and hang it on the hook to dry. Before I can disappear into my shop, Thaddeus pokes his head around the forge door.

  “I have your burin ready. Did you want to take a look?”

  “Oh. I would.” I turn on my heel and walk back in and through to the smithy. It is empty save for the hot fires and Thaddeus, who is already black to the elbows in the time it takes me to help with dishes.

  “Here you go.” He fairly tosses the sharp object, and I grab at it just in time.

  The tool is like an awl, but harder and sharper, with one side narrowed to a point and the other rounded for holding. It is also smaller than I expected, and tell him so.

  His brow creases. “I figured you wouldn’t want anything too heavy. You’ll have to do fine work with it. Smaller is better. Besides, you don’t have big hands anyway.”

  I raise my eyebrows at him incredulously.

  “No? Mine are certainly not small.” I raise my palms, then flip them, showing him the burns and scars rippling along my flesh, and the bunchy thick joints of my fingers.

  He stares at them for a moment, then meets my eyes.

  “So?”

  “So you might have made something bigger and sturdier. And what if something small can’t hold up against the steel of the sword?”

  Thaddeus finally cracks, spilling the frustration he’s bottled inside all of the meal.

  “Damn it, Marya, it’ll work.”

  “I hope so, or else we’ll be further behind.”

  “Then get to it,” he bites, stalking to the back of the forge and yanking down the new sword, where it is carefully wrapped in a layer of soft sheepskin. “And mind, no wrecking it this time!”

  It’s been a long while since he’s reminded me how I ruined his first piece of masterwork, and the accusation stings dully. After the wedding announcement, I don’t think anything else will hurt today.

  “And suppose I do destroy it?”

  “So you keep saying. What good are you as a smith if you won’t stand behind your own work?” he growls, gripping the cloaked sword with a strong hand.

  “This is different, and you know it.”

  “Not really. Either you can work the soft metals or you can’t, Marya. You either are a smith or no. Call yourself what you are and then do as you are!”

  I hold his gaze, but perhaps something in my face remains unschooled, because he puts down the sword and braces his fists and arms around it, breathing heavily through his nose.

  “Ahh … przekleństwo. Damn it.” The curse in Polish is soft, even for his deep voice. “I’m being unkind, Marya.”

  “I know. I mean, I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “I think so. You’re upset because your father is remarrying.”

  “No. Yes. Well. It is unsettling. I never thought he would. And he’s made a good choice. But that’s no excuse to pick a fight with you.”

  “I don’t mind,” I tell him, surprised I mean it. “That is, I don’t mind having an honest conversation.”

  “I’m generally good for that,” he agrees, sighing and standing fully. “You’ll do fine. Take it over to your shop and start to work on it. Let me know how the burin goes.”

  The sword is heavy in my hands. Once more, it feels alive. My fingertips burn with the old memory of the acid, but confidence curdles and grows in my stomach, as if I know inherently I will not make a mess of it this time. Hopefully that feeling is true.

  Carrying the sword out of the forge with both hands to escape back to my own smithy, I pause at the doorway.

  “Congratulations, Tadeusz.”

  He glances up from the band of iron he’s shoving deep into the coals.

  “Whatever for?”

  “For your father’s marriage.”

  He snorts, and I walk home, the sword weighing like a long heavy rock in my arms.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  12 October 1867

  For all the simplicity of the wedding vows at St. Aloysius, Mrs. Andersen—Mrs. Salomon now—is glowing like a new bride. It astounds me. Should a woman of her age and with so many grown children be so joyful in marriage? But she is quite that, matching Walter’s height as she stands near him at our small gathering in the yard. Walter himself is smiling more than I’ve ever seen. It makes me feel glad, and I forget my worries as I am pulled into chatter and other little tasks. Anette handles the majority of the foodstuffs, but I like to pretend I know how to help her.

  “Need a hand?” Danny comes up beside me and relieves me of the platter of small rolls and a pot of jam. He winks and delivers the food to the trestle with flair, and grabs up an apple before immediately getting waylaid by the older Brinkley brothers. It sounds like Young Henry, John, and George all are bursting with energy and beer, and it sounds suspiciously like they plan to leave the party to find Horeb and lock him into a privy.

  “Have you—oh! You put it out. Thank you,” Anette slips by me with a whole bowl of baked beans cut with brown sugar. The wedding is more of a feast than I envisioned, likely thanks to the harvest. She surveys the table and nods, satisfied, and then picks up her youngest toddler clinging to her skirt.

  “So that’s done.” She nods toward her mother and Walter, who are shaking hands carefully with Percy Davies and his very pregnant Sioux lover.

&nb
sp; “It seems they’ll be very happy,” I say.

  “Yes,” Anette studies the pair. “I suppose so. It’s a bit frivolous of her to marry at her age, but I can’t fault her. And she does seem happy, doesn’t she?” Her voice softens as she continues to stare.

  “I suppose now this will be the talk of the season. The elderly couple who married.”

  “Yes.” She smirks at me and whacks my arm. “We have to get the harvest in so we can squeeze together all winter and do what we all do best when married.”

  “Which is?”

  “Make babies, of course!” She laughs at my startled expression, and then turns to her child, who is reaching for a sweet roll on the table.

  I walk away, feeling awkward. Her tease only reminds me of the coming cold. It will be a lonely season to be sure. All those cold, long days! In that big shop! And my brother’s empty beds in the back room. It’s ghostly and eerie, and no matter how tightly I squeeze my blankets I’m still unable to quench the wish in my womb.

  And what will I do when the orders slow over the snowy months? How will I keep the money flowing without Father to help? That damn sword! I went over the numbers with Thaddeus last night, and while I’ll make some cash, it won’t be nearly what I’d hoped to make. My ruining of the first didn’t help.

  “A wedding is not a place to be serious or fret,” Thaddeus mentions as he tromps by with a small table under one hand and a bucket of water in the other.

  “You’re one to speak. You’re rarely in a good mood yourself.”

  He concedes my point without giving in, and follows my gaze. “They’re going to be happy, I think. I’m glad for my father, truly, Marya. And you might as well call her Berit now. Mrs. Salomon has an odd sound to it.”

  I wonder if he simply doesn’t wish me to give his mother’s title to the new woman in his house, but the thought is too sweet to ask. Ribbing him is easier. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were saving the title for your own wife.”

  He scoffs. “No wife of mine would be so formal.”

  “You’d actually marry?”

  He looks affronted, but instead of continuing on this line, he asks a question I have never prepared to hear. “Do you wish you’d married Jimmy?”

  I am glad I’m not eating, or I might choke. As it is, I feel the air go out of me. No one has talked to me of Jimmy since his death.

  “How can I know the answer to that?”

  “You ought to. It’s your heart,” he says shrewdly.

  “Well, then.” I pause, trying to think back and remember the pounding of my heart, the eagerness in my blood, and the response of my body to Jimmy’s. It feels like it was many years ago. The excitement that had tingled with his attentions has dulled. It was so brief it feels as though it never truly happened. But the truth of it is deeper. Even when Jimmy was alive and attentive, I had hesitated. I had had questions in my heart then, same as now. Is that my answer?

  “Perhaps I should not have mentioned him,” Thaddeus says, as if realizing he may be prying open painful memories, but I shake my head.

  “It’s all right. I just never considered such a thing.” I look up at him. “No, then.”

  “No?”

  I clarify. “No, I don’t wish I’d married Jimmy. I never gave him my promise, and I suppose it was because I wasn’t certain. I don’t think I would be glowing so on my wedding day to him.” I gesture outward and include Walter and Berit in the swirl of my palm.

  Thaddeus inhales and nods, perhaps feeling as though his question was answered full enough, and wanders away, though I’m left pondering on Jimmy in a way I haven’t in months. What would we have done, had we married? Would we grow together? Would he be making stews while I pound on copper? Would marriage to Jimmy be any different than marriage to Danny? As though I am thinking aloud, Danny himself appears next at my elbow, having extracted himself from the Brinkleys.

  “How’s that sword coming along, Marie?” he asks at once, likely knowing shop talk will put me at ease.

  “It’s doing fine. I wish I was working on it now.”

  “You can’t always hide from people.”

  “I know.”

  “And it’ll do you good to get out and be social,” he pushes. “Just like at the harvest dance coming up. Now you don’t have to worry about your father, either, so you might enjoy yourself.” He pauses and then grips my arm. “I didn’t mean to sound so flippant about it, Marie, I—”

  “I know what you meant,” I soothe. “And in fact, it is Father’s passing and this marriage that makes me think on what must happen next. For instance, the barn. It’s good for a shop—really lovely, truly—but completely impractical for me to have so much space.”

  Danny lifts his pale, golden eyebrows. “What are you saying?”

  “That I might look for a smaller space. Mrs. Ander—that is to say, Berit—will have her old house to sell. I might be able to take it over.”

  “You mean, buy it?” Danny looks concerned. “And take yourself across town?”

  I’m not sure why it matters. It’s Percy I have to truly answer to.

  “Flats Town isn’t that big. Yes, I’d move a solid two minute walk away,” I tease lightly.

  Thoughts for my future are cut short. People are leaving. I jump in to help tidy up the yard, Danny shadowing me and helping Thaddeus move everything back into the house. I even take initiative around the stove, as the new Mrs. Salomon is too busy with the last guests. I don’t break anything, and even do not forget to change out the brine in the meat barrel. There are so many details to keeping up a kitchen, even more when there is a party!

  “I’ll stop by this week, Marie,” Danny tells me as he surveys the clean kitchen, his hands on his hips. “Just to see how you are, as always.”

  He smiles at me, hopeful and bright, and I smile back before lowering my head to the large iron pot that has held rabbit stew all afternoon. He squeezes my shoulder as he walks out for horse and home, and I can only look up at his back as he leaves.

  I am not sure why his attentions still fluster me. Is it because I love him? Or because he loves me? I am stricken with these thoughts whirling around my mind much like the water I’m scouring does the same to the bottom of the pot. I’d never thought love would be so tentative and careful and sweet.

  “I think it’s clean, Marie,” Mrs. Salomon—Berit—says, tapping my shoulder as she walks by with an empty plate.

  I lift myself up and haul the pot outside to slosh out the dirty water, spilling half of it on the hem of my skirt. There’s a rhythm to housework too, clearly one I am not accustomed to.

  Walter sits outside against the building next to old Henry Brinkley. They are both puffing into their pipes with a contentedness brought on from age and full stomachs. Henry is perhaps a bit younger than the blacksmith, but the head of a brood, which gives him some sort of respect among the menfolk.

  Walter himself is not so lost in thought that he ignores me though, and he shifts in his seat to twist and look up.

  “Marya. Dziekuje Ci. Thank you. For all of your help today.”

  “It’s the least I can do, after all you’ve done for me.”

  “Well then. With your father gone, you’ll forgive me if I am particularly careful about you, even with me an old married man,” he says seriously, in his slow, careful cadence. “I still want to make sure you’re taken care of.”

  “I think I’ll be alright. I have my craft and the shop,” I say, wishing I could find deeper comfort in those facts as I say them.

  “Well, that aside, Marya, know you’ve family in me and in Berit. We’ll be sure you’re happy and healthy as best we can. Perhaps get you married.” His eyes actually twinkle, which makes me want to laugh.

  “I’m not too concerned with that,” I say. “You’re the married one now, Wladisław. You might get in to your wife.”

  “Suppose I might. My thanks, Henry, and tell Susan the squash pies were mighty fine.”

  The farmer st
ands and half-stretches.

  “There is that. So, Walter. Best to you.” He tips his fingers to me and strolls out of the yard, gathering his wife and sons and daughters-in-law as he goes. Suddenly the grass is cleared of people and Walter is at the doorway, staring down at me with a quizzical expression visible even through his beard.

  “Well, then. You’ll be good for tonight?”

  The shop is not very far away, and it will not be the first night I’ve slept alone since my father passed, but his question makes me stop. I realize that somehow I do feel more alone tonight.

  “Of course,” I say anyway. “I’ll finish up this pot and then head home. Might even try to get some work done by candlelight.”

  He considers the sunset, and then shrugs. “Don’t work so hard, Marya. Będzie dobrze. It will be fine.”

  “I just like the work.” Do I need to remind him of my debt?

  “Well. Good night then,” he says, and disappears into the soft gloom of the house.

  I tip the rest of the water out of the pot. It likes to pool in the bottom, even after a first ditch. The porous iron holds water more than any other metal I work with, and even with the heavy black seasoning, it still is difficult to dry.

  “Mil—Marya.” Thaddeus comes around the side of the house, his arms hanging at his side, one fist closed on the bucket from the well. “You’re still here?”

  “Thought I’d help your … Berit and Walter … clean up.”

  He stops short next to me and looks inside the house briefly, making a face.

  “Good of you. I’m going to leave the water and then head over to sleep at the general. May and Harry have an extra bed for travelers, and I should give them a night alone.”

  The embarrassment of his meaning hangs between us, and I’m short of breath. Discussing sex, however vaguely, makes me think of it entirely. The memories of others in the midst of lovemaking on the wagon trail—images of limbs and skirts and shadow—crowd my mind. I wonder if I’m flushed or pale with the remembering. Because he is the one standing in my vision, I immediately imagine Thaddeus in his marriage bed, taking a woman in her nakedness and running his hands along her hips. What an outrageous thought! I cough to cover my gape, and then clear my eyes with a wet hand.