Something Worth Doing

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  “He’s good for it. Don’t you worry. Apple markets are excellent. Wheat is too. Remember that proverb. ‘He who waters will himself be watered.’”

  She considered that. “I’m not sure watering our neighbor’s field means we should risk our own supplies though, and just expect God to deliver our water from somewhere else.”

  Ben patted her crossed hands as they sat at the table. “You worry over much,” he said. “Haven’t we done well here on Sunny Hillside Farm. And your Lafayette school, in season? Everything is turning out fine.”

  “And I’m grateful. But my egg-and-butter money is our only cash until fall. And Californians are planting again, so not buying our wheat. Several of our neighbors have opted out for schooling, lacking the cash for tuition, they say. It’s worrisome. Something is happening all around us. It makes me nervous. I feel . . . vulnerable and—”

  “You’re oversensitive. It’ll be better when the baby comes. Work on your story. You always do better when you’ve had a time to write—even those farmer’s letters.”

  “I get to blow off steam like our kettle,” she said. “Writing helps turn the heat down. But it doesn’t ease my worries.”

  “You’ll always be sheltered,” he assured her. Then added, “First lamb was born last night. We need to start the watch.”

  “So much for my writing,” she said, though she’d get a few lines in—memorizing them—while she huddled in the lambing shed awaiting the arrival of lambs whose mothers often needed help. All mothers did. She would trust Ben. What else could she do?

  Oregon’s status changed from territory to statehood on Valentine’s Day 1859. In March, Hubert arrived. He was a smaller baby than Willis had been, and though she bled again, the doctor had been there and stitched her up. “Three babies,” she’d cooed to the round face. He was a plump child. “My best delivery yet. Don’t tell the others.” His eyes followed hers.

  A month later, Jenny made another delivery—her book. Captain Gray’s Company or Crossing the Plains and Living in Oregon was published.

  “I did it, Ben.” She handed him the book. “Turns out it’s the first published novel in the newest state. Will you read it?”

  “I’ll think on it,” he teased, then realized she couldn’t decide if he jested. “Of course I will. I’m married to an author. How about that?” She beamed. “Not right now. But I will read it.”

  That night she watched him while he turned the pages, then left him to put the children in their beds. She sang to them one verse, then stopped, saying, “Singing’s not my talent, is it?”

  Clara Belle answered with her own sweet notes. “We all have our gifts, Momma. You always say that.”

  “Singing is one of yours.”

  “And you write, Momma.”

  “Yes, I do. I hope your father likes my story.”

  “Is Papa in it?” Willis asked.

  “Hmm. Maybe a little of him is. As are each of you. It’s hard not to include the ones we love in a story.” She lowered her voice, whispered, “There’s a villain too.”

  “What’s that?” Willis tucked the quilt around him so Clara Belle, lying next to him in the featherbed, wouldn’t touch him. “What’s a ‘vill in’?”

  “Someone the heroine of the story has to fight against. It wouldn’t be much of a story if she didn’t have someone to fight against to win her cause.”

  “So it’s good when Willis and I fight? It makes a better story?”

  “Not all tales need arguments.” She kissed their foreheads. “And sisters and brothers should never fight. They should look after each other. Now get some rest.”

  Her sisters applauded when she handed a copy to them at a family gathering after church. She hoped to be invited to the Presbyterian academy, though novels weren’t exactly a preference of the literary crowd.

  “Congratulations,” Harvey told her. “After I read it, I’ll place a copy in the school library. If it’s suitable.”

  “Why, thank you. I think.”

  “There are few novels in the collection. They’re somewhat of an anomaly, more of a curiosity than anything learned, of course.”

  “Are they checked out?”

  “Oh, of course. By students studying fiction as a format. And by what I call simpering women who are somehow engaged by such. They have to make sure it’s suitable for our students.”

  “I would expect nothing less. If you reject it, of course, as not good enough, I’ll have to take an ad out in the paper and mention that it’s banned. That’ll make my sales go up.” Might they reject it? Could it be so bad?

  He grunted.

  Jenny waited for the reviews, but no one wrote a one. Except for her family, it appeared that her book landed like a stone in a pond, making no waves at all.

  Her father told her the family back in Illinois would love it, as it was a story of the Scott crossing with the sadness of the widow’s death, “being your mother’s, I assume” and poor “Effie—I guess that’s you? Having to work so hard once they arrive.”

  “It’s not me, Papa. It’s a novel.”

  Her sisters said little after they’d had time to read it. She’d sent a copy to Shirley Ellis in Sacramento and hadn’t heard back from her friend, either.

  Ben had deemed it “interesting,” and then added, “You’ll get your saddle under you with the next one.”

  “So it’s not appealing?”

  He shrugged. “What do I know about novels and such? And firstfruits aren’t always the best.”

  Then the reviews came, and she knew why her sisters and friends hadn’t known what to say. Newspaper editors did. “Bad taste” and “slang language”—“simplistic plot full of sickening love stories.” Tears seeped from her eyes as she read them. Harold Bunter wrote a scathing letter lamenting “Poor Mr. Duniway” married to such a wretched writer. Poor Ben!

  The Argus, that had sold more advertisements and increased subscriptions from the letters from her “Farmer’s Wife,” wrote nothing at all. Not a single word of praise or piercing. They simply carried the ad and the price. It was the first commercially published book in the new state, and the Argus didn’t even do a story about that?

  Ben stroked her arm as they sat side by side on the divan while she nursed Hubert. “Maybe it was your strident letters about men and their treatment of their women where you used your own name now and then, maybe that’s why people haven’t taken to the book.”

  She wanted to blame someone for the disappointing response. I hate to hear what Harvey thinks, if he even reads it. “But my characters, at least one of them, is the proper wife, the one who wouldn’t speak in public or challenge her domineering employer, and eventually the lovers find each other again and marry. It’s a happy story. The husband’s not the villain, the employer is.”

  “But the men don’t come out so well.”

  “She has failures too. And her brother sends her to school. Some of the men are good.” She cried now—for the wasted hours writing, for the time away from the children and from Ben, and for what? “It’s all rubbish.”

  “Jenny, Jenny.” He pulled her closer. “Celebrate that you not only delivered a child, a ‘little man,’ a future voter in the cradle as you put what mothers do—”

  “That might have been too forceful,” Jenny said. “About women making voters and not just giving birth. My last ‘Farmer’s Wife’ might have turned some readers away.”

  “I think you write better about real things than imagined ones. You birthed a book while teaching and taking care of the little ones and me. That’s quite an accomplishment, Mrs. Duniway. Quite amazing indeed.”

  “Everything didn’t turn out all right, now did it?”

  “It’s what comes after that matters,” Ben said. He thumbed her lashes and brushed her cheeks of tears. “Best thing to do when you’re bucked off a horse is to get back on. Ride another one.”

  “You think so?”

  “I do. You found satisfaction in the work, didn’t you? Isn�
�t that part of your scribbling? It can’t be all about how others like it or don’t. You’ll learn from this.”

  She wiped her eyes. The pain ached, made her wince as she took a deep breath. “Will I learn something from this?” The scathing reviews cut like a knife, but the wounds would heal and she’d see what she could do differently in the next novel. She might have to publish it herself and anonymously write a good review. But first she’d read those rotten rejections to glean what she could learn from them. Yes. That’s one way to make things turn out better. Learn. It was the only surety she could count on.

  TWELVE

  The Farmer

  1860

  _______

  Sunshine warmed the earth, and early plantings ensued throughout the region. Abigail—since the publication of her novel she went by her official name, Abigail Duniway—loved her view on Sunny Hillside and only wished she had more time to sit and enjoy it. Or had a chair that felt better on her back. Or didn’t have the morning sickness. Again. This child would be due next February. Abigail wrote now too for the Oregon Farmer. Her essays included information about the economics of the area, advised women to “buy local,” and took on California merchants who had complained about Oregon butter costs. She proposed a union for women who “do the work and get little of the profits.” She advocated for hired help for farmers’ wives; urged women—and men—to save; and preached about the value of staying out of debt. She winced when she wrote those words, knowing that Ben had signed those notes. She still signed her columns “The Farmer’s Wife” and often gave examples of what “the Farmer” himself had been up to, personalizing her pieces. She was paid small amounts for her articles, whose topics continued to garner interest both from the ladies of the region and also at men’s gatherings. Words have power, she told herself more than once. But did they really have the power to change a woman’s lot?

  The extra money, though, felt good in her teapot bank, so words were changing their financial lot. It wasn’t much, but if disaster struck, she would have a next step to take and a little money to make it.

  Her sister Kate gave birth “with ease,” she told Abigail. John was an attentive husband, and Kate’s life seemed more sublime than Abigail’s. She was happy for her sister but a bit wishful for those hours Kate had to read or simply sit and spend time with her baby. “You have time too,” Kate told her when she commented.

  “Holy cow chips, when?”

  “Early morning. But I suspect you’re writing then.”

  “I am. And during school days, I’m preparing lessons.”

  “We all make our choices.”

  “Yes, we do.” Writing was one of Abigail’s. Becoming financially secure was another.

  The summer eased its way into their lives with daily toils. Maybe Kate was right and she wouldn’t know a moment’s leisure if it washed her with warm water in a copper tub. Work consumed, though she did find joy in attending meetings at the Butte Creek Store, startling the men when she and a few stalwart women showed up not to speak, mind you, but to listen to the conversation about the fall election when a Republican had a chance to become president—an Illinoisan whom they had known as a lawyer from their small town back east.

  Their wheat harvest that year was abundant, filling the warehouses along the Willamette River so ships could take their goods afar. Ben was happy and Abigail was too when America did elect its first Republican president in Abraham Lincoln. Abigail hoped he could stop the spread of slavery. All people should be free, in Abigail’s mind. Regardless of race—or sex.

  Close to home, Sunny Hillside Farm proved productive too. Abigail thought there might be enough to buy a few household conveniences like a self-propelled butter churn and decent chairs, but Ben informed her that he’d spent $500 on the purchase of an adjoining farm. “We wouldn’t want someone else to come in under our noses and take that good property.”

  “I could have used a new wringer. And I’ve read that a carpet sweeper has been patented. I’d like to have such a thing. Honestly, Ben, the hardest housework I do is sweeping. It agonizes my back no end. Couldn’t the needs of the farmer’s wife get a little attention?”

  “Your back is likely worse now because you’re expecting.”

  “Whatever the reason, it’s hard labor sweeping the carpets and floors with a broom.”

  “I’ll sweep for you.”

  “And where will you be when I’m gathering crumbs from beneath the table? You’ll be out on that additional farm with your paid helpers while I’m in here preparing food for them.”

  “Now, Jenny. It’s in our best interest.”

  “Our best interest would be to get out of those notes, to be able to set aside money. We’re paying interest and I haven’t seen Bob around reimbursing us.” She grunted at Ben’s silence and returned to her churn.

  Wilke arrived February 13, 1861, the day before Oregon’s birthday—and right after six more states seceded from the Union. Abigail worried there would be war, but there was nothing she could do about it. Instead she delivered another boy for Ben to cuddle as he loved to do. Clara, at seven, was old enough to help by looking after Willis and Hubert the way that Abigail—as an older sister—had looked after her siblings while her mother gave birth. Clara, with her dark curls and puppy-dog eyes, big and brown and round, followed Abigail’s directions, then got out of the way when the midwife arrived.

  “Good girl, Clara. Momma will be all right.” Abigail prayed even as she held her newborn in her arms that all her children would grow up healthy and able to spread their wings toward safety and goodness.

  A few days after Wilke’s birth, Ben brought in the mail, including a large envelope with no return address. “This was in our postal box.”

  “What is it?”

  “A valentine perhaps?”

  She looked to see if Ben had a glimmer of tease in his eyes.

  He brushed at his copper-tinted hair, then bopped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I totally forgot. You give me another son for a valentine, and I get you nothing. I am a clod of a spouse.”

  He bent to kiss her while she opened the envelope, not sure if he was the conveyor of the missive or its originator.

  Looking inside, she knew. It was a drawing of a hen-pecked man with children crawling all over him, crying, clinging; and a disheveled woman, snaggletoothed and worn, holding a rolling pin like a weapon over the man’s head. The handwritten words were “Fiend, devil’s imp or what you will / you surely your poor man will kill / with luckless days and sleepless nights / haranguing him with women’s rights.”

  “You . . . you gave me this?”

  “What is it?” He stared. “Never. Jenny, no. Forget it.”

  The sobs were as deep as they’d been when she’d read the horrible book reviews. “Have I ever given you reason to say such a thing?”

  “I didn’t send that card to you, and if I’d realized that you’d take it seriously, I wouldn’t have brought it home. It’s from one of those ‘Farmer’s Wife’ readers. Bunter maybe.”

  “Bunter. No, it’s too creative for him.” She paced. It scared her that everyone knew who the Farmer’s Wife was. “There are others out there, Ben, men who hate me, who besmirch you. I . . . I’m so sorry.” She set Hubert in his cradle. Will they threaten my children?

  Like the reviews, the image was difficult to set aside. She didn’t want people thinking Ben was hen-pecked just because he loved his children or because his wife had opinions. Perhaps she should be a little less strident in her columns. Maybe back off from some of her suggestions, even though there were other writers—men—who advocated paid household help for farmers’ wives, and others—men—who wrote of women’s health and the depletion that came with too many children too close together. Even the Oregon Farmer carried articles now about family planning, they called it, and wrote discreetly of contraception. The economists—men—recognized the role of farmers’ wives in the successful weathering of the vagaries of markets. The moneymen saw
how women marshalled attacks against everyday challenges of cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Of course, laundry.

  Ben had told her of a man seeking a loan to build a bigger barn, and the lender had said unless he improved the condition of the house first, they wouldn’t make the loan. “A happy woman can make all the difference to the success of a farm. The lender said that.”

  “Smart man,” she said.

  She’d have to build stronger armor and not let such things as a mean-spirited valentine set her eyes to sprouting wells. Maybe having delivered a “new voter” to his cradle, she was oversensitive. Yes, she’d pony-up, as Ben told her when he wanted her to ride with him and go forward, forgetting past disasters.

  At least she didn’t have the fate of the nation to deal with. Poor Mr. Lincoln would be inaugurated in March while a Confederate government had already installed its own. What do I have control over? Think on that. It became her new mantra.

  War news dominated the summer. Harvey had had his fill of combat from the regional conflict, and he now slept in a tent in Forest Grove so he could attend the university there. Heavy snows fell early that winter in the Cascade mountains, and once or twice a foot or more at the valley floor.

  “It’ll be good for the soil,” Ben said, though tromping the snowy mud through the house did little for their hardwood floors. More scrubbing on hands and knees ensued. More meditation with the broom.

  Then it turned cold. Bitter cold. Rivers that had never frozen did. Cattle died for lack of feed in the eastern part of the state. Even in Lafayette, ice in water troughs had to be broken daily.

  Abigail shivered as she rolled out egg noodles, looking with longing at the teapot, hoping she wouldn’t ever need the money inside to see them through.

  At first when the warm rains came that November, people were relieved to have the snow melt. But it kept raining, for days, weeks, then months, off and on, through Christmas holidays and all of January 1862, pouring on them harder than any could remember. “Ark Rain,” the old-timers called it. Sheets of silver so dense Abigail couldn’t even see the fruit trees from the window. What should have been more snow in the mountains turned out to be early snow melt, the heavy snowfall in the Cascades earlier in November now swelling rivers and streams. The news from California and Nevada, too, reported heavier rains than usual and flooding. Rivers swamped the storehouses on the Willamette, carrying buildings and trees and bloated animals all the way to Astoria and the sea. The Duniway home stood above the waters with no risk of flooding—but getting across bridges to town proved a challenge, so eggs and butter remained unsold; letters for her column couldn’t be sent; no one was able to attend school; apples failed to reach their California or Chinese markets.