She vowed to love her children more deeply, to give up her insistence to work so hard, to make things happen as she wanted, to change the world quickly. She knew that vow might not last long, but it was still good to make the promise to her children, to herself. And to Ben. She would write to him and Harvey of this terrible grief and how the Scott descendants would once more gather at a grave.
And she prayed that she would never have to learn what her father knew: how to go on after the death of a child. For him, Jerry was the fourth.
FOURTEEN
Refresher
1862
_______
“You are a godsend, Captain John. And where did you learn how to shear sheep?” Abigail handed her brother-in-law a jug of water.
“Not on board a steamship, I can assure you.” John Coburn had agreed to help the hired man, Sam, shear the animals at Sunny Hillside.
“It’s good physical work, and Sam’s a good instructor,” Abigail said.
“Even without my chew,” Sam grumbled. The hand was testy that day because Abigail had told him she didn’t have the money to buy his tobacco.
Kate watched the children with Clara’s help and waddled as she walked, expecting the Coburns’ second child in September, a month away. “He’s a good sport about so many things,” Kate said.
“Yes, that laundry help he hired for you is an envy of many, including me,” Abigail said.
“Hold ’er tight,” Sam said. “They like to squirm on ye.”
The ewes were in good shape, had dropped their lambs in the spring. The hired hand and Abigail had shared the long night hours watching to make sure the ewes didn’t by mistake roll onto their babies or reject them as though they had no idea such a thing had come from their bodies. Some ewes needed assistance in letting the lambs suck, and more than one baby sat warming by the cookstove at the house. Now they were being sheared and separated, and the bleating was incessant.
“It reminds me of Willis at our Christmas pageant,” Abigail said to Kate. It would be a long day with the women preparing meals in between stomping down the fleeces. Canvas bags hung down from a platform like giant hummingbirds’ nests. The fleece was dropped down into the bags around the women who stepped into the canvas, allowing new fleeces to fall in beside them and be pressed into tight bales. The women grew closer to the top as the bags filled and stepped back onto the platform while the men tied the canvas bales. Men below unhooked the packed fleece and carried them off on their shoulders to the wagons for transport.
“You’d better not stomp, Kate,” Abigail said. “And be careful of the wood floors. They get slippery from the lanolin.”
In all, they had several bags the hired hand would take to the market. “It might be enough to buy coffee,” Abigail said, lamenting the poor harvest.
“More than that, surely.” Kate fanned herself with her fingers.
“At least the chickens are laying well and there’s the butter money and my ever-optimistic hope that Ben will return healthy, wealthy, and wise. Refreshed, perhaps, but with emphasis on the wealthy.”
“Oh, Abigail. It can’t be as bad as that, is it?”
“You know about those notes Ben signed? I told you, didn’t I?”
“Not directly. The Farmer’s Wife did, though.”
“I don’t know if we’ll make the payment this year. It scares me to death. I’ve been trying to confer with Dear Bob, but he’s nowhere to be found.”
“Maggie says the Lord never gives us more than we can handle,” Kate said.
“Then the Lord has to work on his estimation of my capacities. I’m reaching the end of my already frayed rope.”
“You’re missing Ben.”
“That I am. I told him in my last letter how the children wake with ‘Pa’ on their breaths and how Clara sleeps with me now and moans ‘Pa’ in her dreams and how I think I will surely die if he doesn’t come home soon, that I’d rather have him here healthy more than wealthy. I miss him terribly.”
Kate patted Abigail’s hands. “That lanolin really makes hands soft, doesn’t it?”
It was Kate’s way of saying she’d heard enough of Abigail’s laments. May as well speak of hand care than of longing, homesickness, and worry. She’d just have to wait for Ben to return for things to get better.
At dusk, John took Kate home, and then Abigail saw their wagon stop just at the corner at the end of the lane. What’s wrong now?
It was nothing wrong; all was right. Ben had come home.
The children climbed all over him; Abigail hugged him tight. She didn’t care that he hadn’t written her of his homecoming. He’d read between her lines and come back to them all.
“I’m sorry I’m not bringing bags of gold,” he said.
“You’re my bag of gold.”
“I’ll remind you of that when things get tough,” he said.
She held him close all through the night.
Harvest went easier with Ben there, directing the hired men, conferring with them about tobacco costs and whether such was included in their wage. She didn’t even mind cooking for the crew or the extra visitors Ben brought home with him. Her eyes would catch that now-empty teapot, but she imagined putting egg money into it again someday. She still taught at her private school, but with Ben back, she handed her wages to him. At least they talked about how to spend them. Abigail knew other wives who handed over their laundry wages or brought resources into the marriage and then their husbands drank up any profit at the local tavern. Her life was so much better than that. Best of all, he was home. Safe.
In the evenings, they talked about public things—the war, the commissioning of the 1st Oregon Cavalry and whether Ben might join them.
“No. You’re needed here,” Abigail insisted. “Don’t even think about going off again.”
It was pleasant to have a sarsaparilla while they watched the sun set and shared opinions about the area’s rate of recovery from the floods. She was grateful they had similar views about slavery and how the state appeared conflicted, having entered the union as a free state but having an exclusion clause in its constitution meant to keep out free-black people. She didn’t see many of that race, but they had hired one or two, and they’d been good workers, pleasant to the children when they sat together at the table for their noon meal.
Yes, she loved having Ben back, but when he rode off to spend an evening with his friends, or when he bought a new hay rake with money she’d earned, she realized how much she missed the singular command she’d had while he was gone. And he’d insisted she let the hired woman go as soon as school ended for the term.
“Hazel could have helped with the housework,” Abigail pointed out. “She was also very good at getting the children to make their beds and pick up after themselves.”
“You’re their mother and I’m their father. We can sway their behavior better than an outsider.”
“Perhaps.”
“Don’t you worry.” He tapped his pipe, tidily cleaned the bowl. He’d begun to smoke it now. “You’re a wise mother.”
“It isn’t my wisdom I need help imparting. It’s saving my back and body so my mind can work.”
“You know I can help.”
“When you’re not otherwise occupied.”
“I can take care of them—and you. It’s what husbands do, Wife.” He smiled, looking at her with those big blue eyes that had won her over those years before. “Trust me.”
They’d left the conversation there. It was a woman’s role to step back and let herself be taken care of. Abigail had grown up with her mother imparting such wisdom. There were roles men and women played that kept society in order and moving forward. Still, when she remembered her mother’s reluctance to go west and what not challenging her husband’s wishes had cost her, she wondered if some roles didn’t just need to be changed. She glanced at the teapot while Ben smoked his pipe, a habit taken up in Idaho. It had been her mother’s china pot; one her mother had given her with the birth of the l
ast of her mother’s twelve children. Something to celebrate, she supposed, was that she wasn’t expecting another baby. And she had another idea for making money. She had to run it past Ben.
In the spring of 1863, they attended Harvey’s graduation in Forest Grove—the first graduating class of Pacific University founded by that feisty Tabitha Moffat Brown. Harvey was the single student receiving his degree. Mrs. Brown had broken the rules of roles for men and women, Abigail thought as her brother received his diploma. I should think about going to the university. She’d let her character in her novel go on to school and even start a magazine. But that was fiction. Besides, what would such a degree give her that she wasn’t already able to do with her teaching certificate? Garner a bit more respect? Or disdain that she was moving too far outside her expected lane? Harvey had been successful in teaching himself Latin and Greek, and while she wasn’t sure if those languages had gotten him the job as a librarian in Portland, at least it had earned him employment where he would use his mind instead of his back. She envied him that he wouldn’t need to help slaughter a pig or ever again have to plow a field as they had back in Illinois. But no amount of advanced education would enable a woman to rid herself of backbreaking laundry. It was a woman’s fate.
Later, back at Sunny Hillside Farm, with Ben off making arrangements for their stud to travel to a nearby homestead, she mused that momentous events seemed to happen at dusk, when one was already tired and had not yet time for the contemplative evening prayer, the labora—work as prayer—having filled the day. It ought to be a time of calm, recounting the successes of the day. Instead, bad news took the whole day to arrive, it seemed.
She had heard a coyote howl near the sheep pen and started down the lane to yell at it to protect her sheep. Ben had been away the whole day. They’d acquired a dog—Hubert had named it Buffy—and she told the dog to “Stay!” She thought when Hubert named him, he was trying to say “Fluffy,” as the mixed breed of black and white with a roly-poly body and long tail looked like a ball of wool when they’d gotten him as a puppy a few months back.
“You stay back there, Clara. Hold Buffy. I don’t want him to get called out by the coyote.”
That task finished, she returned to the house, when she heard a horse clopping at the front. She recognized the sheriff as he dismounted, and her first thought was that something had happened to Ben. She felt a weight in her stomach. “Everything all right with Mr. Duniway?”
“Yes, ma’am. After a fact.” He didn’t meet her eyes, pulled a folded document from his pack. “I’ve this summons to give you, Mrs. Duniway.”
“Summons? For what?”
“For nonpayment of your notes.”
“My husband’s notes.” Her heart pounded harder now with Ben safe somewhere but her having to bear this catastrophic news. Alone.
“Your notes too, missus. The law sees you as responsible too.”
“Even though when he signed it, I had no say. Ah, yes, justice is a man’s name.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Duniway. You’ve missed the last payments.”
Are you really sorry? Enforcing laws that turn people’s worlds upside down? The Duniway state of being was known, of course, in part because of “The Farmer’s Wife” columns. But she hadn’t known that Ben had missed the last payments. She noticed he was gone more often but thought his absences were because he was making money with his horse breeding, a task that took “jawing” and politicking to get potential customers ready to pay the stud fees. He hadn’t shown her the books. But she as well as he was now responsible.
She didn’t invite the sheriff in. He went on his way as she read the word “Sale,” her stomach churning. She slammed the frying pan against the stove, wanted to lift the stovetop and throw the summons into it but couldn’t. She’d had no say in Ben’s decision. She warned him and he patronized her, assuring her that Dear Bob was good for the money, that pioneer hospitality meant helping out a friend. Who would help them? Her face felt warm. She rehearsed what she’d say to him and wondered if this was what her mother felt when her father had to file bankruptcy back in Illinois. He too had signed a note for another man who had failed to pay. Had that been the real impetus that sent the Scott family traveling west?
“Why are you crying, Momma?” Willis asked.
“Just a little sadness. I’m fine.” She forced a smile. “Have you finished your work page? Arithmetic is important to learn, you know.” Especially for a male child. “Though it seems your father could use a refresher.”
“What’s a refresher?” Clara said.
Wilkie started to climb up onto his chair. “Not yet,” she told him. “Wait until Pa comes home. Then we’ll eat.” Then to Clara she said, “A refresher means breathing new life into something forgotten.” She changed her mind. “We’ll eat now,” she said. “Let me get the potatoes on. Willis, put aside your papers and get the ham from the smokehouse, please.” If he’s like his father, he’ll need a math refresher before he turns fifteen. Why make the children wait on their father’s timing? It was something she could do—feed her offspring. At least for the moment.
Vulnerable. That was how she felt as she waited for Ben to come home. Harvey had told her once that the word vulnerable came from the Latin word meaning “wound.” And what healed a wound? She wasn’t sure.
The day waned into darkness. She fed the hired hands and sent them off. While she served the children their ham and washed the dishes in the pan, she stewed. While she read their bedtime story and listened to their prayers, she fumed, waiting, planning all she’d say to Ben when he finally got home, beginning with “I told you so.” She’d remind him of the thousand times she’d scolded him about their financial worries, how he needed to take them seriously and not always brush her concerns aside, and now it was too late. They would have to sell the farm, have to. Sheriff’s sale. It would be in the newspapers, the shame of it for all to read. And whoever bought it would know that they were forced to do so, and the Duniways would be required to take whatever high bid was offered, even if it was lower than a sow’s belly. The bulk of any profit—if there was any—would go to pay the notes. She had no idea what might be left, or once off the farm, what on earth they would do to support the family.
Ben arrived. He took one look at her. “What is it? One of the children?”
“No. They’re safe, thank goodness.” She took in a deep breath. “The sheriff came by.” She slapped the summons in his hand and started her rehearsed spiel. But his face turned pale as he read. He sank onto the divan, folded up like a broken ladder. She saw tears in his eyes when he lifted them from the paper.
“What will we do?” Ben’s words came out as a whisper.
“Sell Sunny Hillside. It’s all we can do, and hope there’s enough left to, I don’t know, find another way to make a living.” She’d been pondering that. “I’ll have to do something more than take a teacher’s salary. You . . . your horse breeding, well, without a farm—” She opened her hands in dismay.
He hung his head. “You’re right, of course. You’ve been right all along. I’m . . . I’m so sorry.”
“Of course I’m right. And of course you’re sorry, after the fact. That’s always the case. You always feel badly. It’s never your intention.” Of course. Always. Never. Acidic insults, nails for her hammer. He deserved them, didn’t he? Righteous outrage fueled more words. She had more to spit out, but she watched his face—pale and grief stricken—and the disdain drained from her. She suspected anger wouldn’t long stay away, that with every dish she packed she’d resent him—but she could see his remorse in that nearby moment; could almost feel his humiliation, not from her words, but from what he told himself.
Anger had always been a secondary emotion anyway. That’s what her mother had once told her, that fury rode on a fast horse charging through a relationship, trampling right over loss, disappointment, and grief. And if one wasn’t careful, wrath crushed love too. “Pay attention to those forgotten feelings when you lose y
our temper, Jenny. Those are the trio of emotions that if not recognized and dealt with, will surely bring a soul down and make ire the driving force in your days. Wounds must grow new flesh.”
Jenny rose from her rocking chair and went to Ben, his shoulders hunched over the trifold document he held in his trembling hands. She sat on the wide arm of the divan, slightly above him. She put her arm around his shoulder, and he gentled his head into her side, the summons falling from his fingers. She felt his body shudder as he tried to hide his sobs. She’d never seen him cry before.
She felt the disappointment and the loss, but he felt it too. Perhaps more. “We’ll weather this storm,” she told him. “Take a refresher course in how to start over. And we’ll make it.”
He nodded. “I’ll do better.”
“It’ll all turn out all right.”
It was a prayer as much as a promise.
FIFTEEN
Moving and Moving Forward
1864
_______
“Hang that linen a little closer,” Abigail told Ben. “We want to get as many girls in here as we can but still give them a sense of privacy.”
“Yes, Jenny—Abigail.”
She heard him trying to accommodate her request to not be called by her nickname, one of many adaptations he’d made. Ben didn’t go very far from home these days, no visiting his bachelor friends. At least they had a roof over their heads because Abigail had invested in the Lafayette property, and now the attic was finished and would be a dormitory bedroom for boarders. Ben built a pen behind the house for the chickens so that they still might have egg money. They kept a cow. The dog had stayed with the farm and she missed him. But he would have disheveled the house with his bulk. Another sacrifice they had to make.
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