The Star Garden

by Nancy E. Turner

  Lands, the boy sounded fearful. I swapped a gaze with Udell, and said, “It is his house, I suppose.”

  “I’m thinking of asking her to marry me, like Charlie did. What do you think?”

  I think he’d be too young, too inexperienced with money and the workings of the ranch. Where would he plan to live? In the big house with me and both his grandparents and his brother and wife, a mere boy bringing another wife there? The place was beginning to look like an anthill. “Well, son, I haven’t met her yet.”

  I suspect having Udell in Harland’s house seemed as natural as having me, to my little brother, so it went along that with Gilbert bringing a guest to supper, we would send Aubrey an invitation, too. It went along with that, that Rachel put on a fresh dress and combed her hair for a second time that day. In the late afternoon we waited Gilbert’s return in the parlor, talking of the heat and yesterday’s little thunderstorm, and the plague of mosquitoes it left behind.

  At the table, Blessing made a big process of showing me her mosquito bites and counting every one, except two, which, she whispered, were on her backside. Then aloud she said, “The skeeters in the outhouse are terrible fierce, Aunt Sarah.”

  I wanted to laugh, but Rachel frowned at her.

  At six o’clock, Gilbert drove up in the buggy and helped a girl, taking her arm on his own, to lead her up the steps. I took a deep breath. After all, my oldest boy had chosen to marry Elsa Maldonado without any more thought to the whole scheme of things than a whim. Why would I be surprised that here came Gilbert leading that woman from the stage wreck, Miss Charity James?

  She squeezed his arm several times, and when he introduced us as if we’d never met, she tried to smile. I don’t know whether I managed to look pleasant or not. We sat down to supper with roast mutton, a plate of vegetables and another of risen rolls, and chocolate cake. Charity didn’t seem as ragged as she had when I first met her, but I reckon surviving a stage wreck would be trying on a woman’s features.

  “Mrs. Elliot?” Charity said. “This was a fine supper.”

  “Well, I didn’t make it,” I said. “Harland has a hired cook.”

  “Oh. I cook some. Not as fancy as this. Plain fixings.”

  “Plain is all right, isn’t it, Mama?” said Gilbert.

  “Plain is fine,” I said. “Better, mostly.”

  “Gil says you make the best pies in the state. I never could get a hand on pie crust except to get it all tough and it comes out like hardtack.”

  I said, “Well, maybe you need a little lighter touch, that’s all. It’s not hard.”

  Charity giggled. “Mine is. Maybe if I was to try to make hardtack I’d come up with something else for crust.”

  We all started to laugh, and then Gilbert interrupted, just sober as a judge. “Well, Miss Charity, make biscuit dough and put that on top. Cobbler’s as fine as pie any day.”

  After supper, Charity and Rachel and I got to talking while Gilbert, Udell, and Harland went to the front room. According to her story, Miss James made her living in a ladies’ boardinghouse, sewing fancies for rich women in town. I asked her which one, as there are ladies houses and then there are the other ones.

  “It’s Velasquez’s Rooming House,” she said.

  I knew the place, and too easy to check on for her to lie. She used her sewing machine in her room, creating a trousseau for one of Tucson’s debutante’s coming-out ball, and the girl’s mother allowed no flirtatious clothing, but tasteful linens and wools with piping and no lace. She spoke slowly, as if it took more effort than it ought.

  Well, then she and Rachel got to talking of dressmaking and pattern fitting, and by the time Gilbert went to carry Charity home, I didn’t feel so opposed to her company. When he got back to the house, he asked me straight-out, “Mama, what do you think of this marrying a widow woman a year and a half older than me?”

  “She’s a widow? I thought she was Miss James.” I tried to stay calm. Was that the reason she always seemed to be hiding something?

  “No. She said ‘Mrs. James’ to them professors and they called it wrong, and she just never fixed it, because they were so uppity. She was afraid to tell you you’d had it wrong, too. She was scared of everything back then, heading out to start life over and all. There seemed to be so much explaining, she said she just let it go by.”

  “I know you too well. There’s something else. What’s she running from, son:

  He paused a long minute. “She told me her husband tried to break a union picket line to find work in California, and got his skull cracked and died. The old boys that did it called her husband and her scabs—isn’t that the nastiest thing you ever heard?—and said they’d kill anyone crossing their line and their family, to boot. So she packed up her clothes, walked away from their house one day, and bought a ticket east. She never had children, as they’d only been married a couple of months and were waiting until he had steady work. Her folks are dead and she’s making her own way in the world. Seemed like a strong upstanding gal to me. I guess I figured to trust her, that’s all.”

  “Where were you planning the two of you to live?”

  “Town, I reckon. I’ll find a job. I got some ideas.”

  “Thought you gave up school to be a rancher.”

  “Maybe I’d start a job as a ranch hand. Work up to foreman. Know anybody hiring?” He grinned.

  “I’ve got eleven cows and twenty-five horses. Zachary could foreman my place. I can’t pay you a nickel, either.”

  “There’s another thing I’m thinking doing. I talked to a couple of the old fellows that knowed our pa. Knew Pa. About schooling back East. Did you know I could go to the same academy he did, just like that, account of he took those medals?”

  Took medals? Took? Jack paid for them in blood and scars, in time gone from home, in war and death and sickness. Lord. This boy is still a child, trying to make up his mind to be a man. I tried not to sound as irritated as I felt when I said, “Military academy? When you couldn’t abide the torment of doing your lessons at a second-rated territorial college where half the pupils are less than fifteen and they can’t even qualify most students for degrees?”

  He bristled, but tried to keep still. “I’m older now. Got something different on my mind.”

  “You can’t take a wife to West Point.”

  “I’ll just write them and see. Surely not everyone there is a kid fresh from grammar school.”

  It took all my strength not to reach over and pet his arm like the little boy he seemed. I declare, if there was one of my boys I might have pictured in a uniform, it wasn’t Gilbert but Charlie. Taller and stiffer. Rugged, harder stuff. Gilbert was the one who’d pet a newborn horse for months just to temper him for being handled later on in life. Not that the army couldn’t use a few fellows with some human kindness, but I reckoned wars were not won on kindness but hard bursts of frightening power that some men seem to have inborn. Like Jack. Like Charlie.

  I knew that if I asked Gil whether he was trying too hard to fill Charlie’s boots, he’d take offense. Likely run off and do it to spite my words, though he’s not a spiteful boy. He’s just a boy trying to figure what boots to fill. There was no way for him to do that but try them on, same way Charlie had done with the Rangers. So, I said, “Gilbert, you have to make your own choice on these things. I can’t see my own future nor yours. Sounds to me like you have done some growing up, thinking about all this. You just go ahead and write them. Remember, though, if they let you in and you choose to go, you have got to do your papa proud. You’ve got to show them the stock you come from every step of the way. You’ll come out an officer, but you’re going to have to shed being a country boy before you ever put on their uniform. Remember who you are. That’s all. Make your papa proud.”

  “I aim to make you proud. Miss Charity? Do you like her, then?”

  “Well, I reckon if a widow woman was good enough for George Washington, one’s good enough for Gil Elliot,” I said.

  August 3
0, 1907

  I drove the one-horse buggy to school, to see how long it might take to get there, then I tried the trip riding Baldy, searching out a place to tie him with some shade and water. I looked in the residencies, and wondered if applying for a spot there wouldn’t be better, so I could be right next to the library and classrooms. How wonderful to be so close, in case I needed to ask a teacher a question or read extra books to catch up with all the others who have gone to school their whole lives. Yet since my old house is closer to the Carnegie Free Lending Library, it may do well being halfway between so I can use both.

  I got a list in the mail of all my studies to put in my scrapbook. I thought I didn’t know any teachers, but the names of Professor Osterhaas and Professor Fairhaven fairly jumped off the page. Lands. Never in my days would I have imagined meeting those two haughty rascals again, both of them useless as wings on a toad when I tugged them out of the wrecked Wells Fargo stage. Well, this will be some kind of adventure.

  September 2, 1907. Monday. The University of Arizona. The first of my college days. I have opened this tablet of genuine Collegiate Blue-lined Composition Paper,to keep a record of this, as I am sure by the time I finish here, I shall think upon these—my first—days with fondest memories.

  I drove my buggy to the school just as I’d practiced, my hands trembling, my heart racing. But at the hitching rails this morning not a square inch of open space remained for me. I ended up going down the road, so I’d have to come get my horse at lunchtime and take him to some water. I kept a list printed with the times and titles: “Domestic Science, 8:00, Mathematics, 9:30, General Science, 10:45, English Composition, 1:00, and Latin and the Classics, 2:30-4:00.” I had a lead pencil, an erasing rubber, a pen holder, and a little jar of ink in my draw purse, along with my kitchen pistol. Out of sheer habit, I reached under the buggy seat for my rifle, then I smiled to myself and put it back. They have a rule against rifles. I didn’t figure they’d mind the pistol, though. It was still Tucson.

  Going to school was almost like getting married for the first time—walking in a strange land, surrounded by strange people and smells and a flurry of schedules and names of things that everyone seemed to understand except me. I put on my best face, wore my best dress. I determined to sit at the very front of the class in each room, and copy down every word every teacher spoke.

  As I strode across the grounds, some students already had their cadets’ uniforms and were marching and singing in a formation. Most of the women are not in a school uniform, and the ones that do wear them have variety, depending on the college each is doing. I’m not sure where I will fall, as I have studied the list of all classes and I want every one of them. Only found a few I don’t care to take up—those being Men’s Gymnastics, Men’s Singing Society, and the football league. There are societies for every pastime under the sun, and some are pure mystery; I cannot feature what a Junior’s Glee Club could discuss. Just how much glee can a person contain, day in and day out?

  My first class of the day was Domestic Science. Mrs. Everly said we should learn to make white sauce but first we had to sew ourselves the school apron and cap, a little flat getup like April’s maid Lizzie wears. I got to wondering if this class taught only becoming a maid, doing someone else’s cooking and scrubbing, but Mrs. Everly did not let anyone ask questions. She passed out paper patterns and a hank of white muslin to each one, said they attached the directions to each pattern and for us to get to work, but class let out.

  The mathematics professor, Alice McGinty, said we might all call her Miss Alice. Seeing such a friendly and helpful teacher was pleasant. She talked about how some ancient Indians invented the zero, then we started in on sums. I put all in my tablet and looked forward to the next day’s learning, added the arithmetic book to my parcel.

  A little sawed-off man named Professor Fergus Brown taught General Science. No bigger than a boy, he was dressed up prim in a black suit and a bow tie. He asked twice whether I was looking for someone, and when I said I came as a student, he said, “Well, you should sit by the door,” then gave a speech about how important science was, which I took down in my tablet. At the end, he asked if we had any questions about the class, and since Miss Alice was so kind, I asked how we should call him. He gave me a stare and said, “Professor Brown will do.” The students around me got very quiet.

  After noon, I got to Professor Osterhaas’s class. He also asked why I’d come, and did I need something, but I said again, I was a bona fide student. So he showed me to a seat, then read some poetry and talked about things called narrative points of view and how we’d be expected to pay strict attention to them. I wrote that in my tablet and underlined “pay attention.” Then came Professor Fairhaven’s class in Latin and Classics. I took my usual front row seat, ready for any questions. He kept looking at me like he couldn’t place my face. Then he called off the names of students, and when he came to mine, he paused so long that it made me feel plum foolish when he finally said it.

  The first Monday came and went so fast I hardly knew what happened. At home I got out my scissors and thread, pulled a line in that hank of muslin and whipped up my apron in about half an hour. Then I studied everything I had written down, sparing a new page of paper for each class, and memorized all of it. Then I went to help fix supper.

  Tuesday morning, I wore my new school apron in Domestic Science class, expecting she’d show us that sauce she wanted us to learn. Mrs. Everly asked why hadn’t I brought my pattern and cloth to work on. I stood and said, “Here it is, I’m finished.” Well, you’d have thought I just shot her best housecat. What I had on was not the school apron, I had not used the directions, nor was it useful that I saved the pattern for someone else, nor did she care that I’ve been making aprons since my mama taught me at the age of six and could do it with my eyes closed. I couldn’t possibly learn sauce if I couldn’t learn aprons and since there was only one hank of muslin per student, I was not allowed to try again. I had failed apron.

  My first Friday of school, Miss Alice gave a test in mathematics on foundational skills, and since my skills amounted to figuring pounds of moving hoof-stock and praying for rain, I failed that too, but in somewhat better form than aprons: three correct answers out of the ten. In Science, I got most of the answers and came out on top of the class. In Osterhaas’s English class we read a poem and answered questions, and then in Fairhaven’s Latin, I got best in the class. Soon as school was over I headed for Harland’s place to pack up my duds for the trip home. Sitting on the front porch as I drove up, Gilbert and Charity James were on two separate porch swings, having lemonade and talking. Gilbert was sitting up stiff as a board, and Charity looked only a little bit less troubled. I nodded to them both. “Evening. You heading home with me, son?” I said. “For I am making tracks to get there before dark.”

  “No, ma’am. I was fixin’ to stay in town until tomorrow. Maybe take a stroll in the morning. Isn’t that a nice hat Miss Charity has on?”

  “I made it myself,” Charity said eagerly.

  “It’s real fine, hon. I’m just tired and have to hurry or I’d sit and visit with you both.” I left them with just a wave a few minutes later.

  The sun had gone but it was still summer so I got home by twilight, though it was nine o’clock. Well, when I got there, Chess threw a ring-tailed conniption that Gilbert had stayed in town when he should have been riding with me for safety. But I said Gil wasn’t seeing quite straight as he’d had some fine handmade millinery in his line of vision, and I’d give the boy a little room to be smitten for the first time. I’d had too much on my mind to think of needing a rider along, too. Seems we were both served well by our inattention, this time, at least.

  Saturday afternoon, as promised, Gil showed up just fine. Later on, Udell and I took a ride. He said he knew how to settle our troubles with Rudolfo without it coming to blows. But his plan to get Rudolfo to settle down was to give over to him and sell out. “I can’t sell my mama’s land,” I said.


  “She sold a piece of it to save your ranch. Don’t you think she’d sell a piece of it to save her own life?”

  “She’s pretty stubborn. Still, it’s me that doesn’t want the blessed railroad coming through here.”

  “Help me push my cows back home. Then we’ll go have a talk with Rudolfo,” he said, “and see if we can’t do this peaceable.”

  I didn’t like feeling as if Rudolfo had some kind of sinister power over my family. Lands, I’d forgotten all about this during my week of school. Now it felt as if school had never happened. After we got the cows moved, I breathed up the smells of the desert. The evening air touched my face, cool and sweet, as we rode toward Rudolfo’s place.

  When we got over the first hill away from my place, Udell pulled reins and reached for my hand, held it for a minute, then said, “I’ve been missing you.”

  I leaned toward him and we shared a kiss. Lands, I wanted to wrap my arms around him, but our horses stepped apart. “I’ve missed you, too. I need to talk to you, about everything.”

  “And school?”

  “Some of it is better than I imagined. I like my composition and Latin classes.”

  He smiled and clucked to his horse and moved ahead, not waiting for the rest I intended to say.

  We followed an old wagon rut. New tracks cut north before we got to Rudolfo’s border, in a direction I speculate could meet the end of that rail spur. I turned my horse toward the next hill so I could see. Udell followed without asking what I had in mind doing. Below that hill, a wash had cut deep and filled with sand. During rain it drained into the Cienega but now it lay dry. Lizards slithered past, changing places from bush to bush at the fringes of sand. The sky faded to green in the east; we had but a couple of hours of light left. The hill itself formed part of the ridge that went up by my place and shifted into loose scrabble where the stage had wrecked, and another half mile up caught up with the stage road. Someone had cut a wide, even place down the side of the wash. We got off our saddles and eased the horses.