by Karen Osborn
Miss Alden’s suggestion that the Indian children be mixed with the white children met with disapproval. In fact, it is still the main topic at the sewing circles and in after-church conversations. Although I am in the minority, I must say that I understand Miss Alden’s point. If assimilation and conversion are our objectives, then the Indian children must not be separated out or treated in any way as different from the others.
I will send you the letter I got from Margaret. It is really only a note, but the first thing I have received from her since she left. Pass it along to Amy when you have read it. As you will see, she mentions her father’s death only briefly. I wonder if she feels some remorse that he is gone and she can no longer make amends. Perhaps she still hates him. Señora Teresa is afraid Ramon will take up gambling and thieving to get back the cattle that he lost. At times I hope they will return to live in the valley, where they might lead a more decent life, but that would be nearly impossible. Neither the Catholics nor the Protestants would accept their union. It would be easier if he were the Anglo and she merely the dark beauty who bewitched him. But as it is, disgrace will follow her.
Your Sister,
Abigail
Mama,
Got your letter about Daddy, but could not get there for the funeral. We lost most of the cattle we had bought to start the ranch and are trying to see what next. Ramon says you know we are married but you did not say it in your Utter. At least you could say that was good and not just the two of us running wild with no license. Finally I get what I want, to live like George, and better because I am boss of myself, but it is hard to keep from losing the cows. I speak Spanish all the time so sometimes English is hard for me to make out. Could you send me some money? We are low here from losing the cattle.
Margaret
March 7, 1895
Dear Maggie,
I was pleased to hear that Susan will soon have her university degree. You are blessed to have four children, all so accomplished. George arrived for a visit in mid-February, and he left yesterday morning. He has been driving cattle north in the fall to Dodge City the last two years, where they are sold. This past September, he helped drive thousands of cattle. Part of the herd was lost during a large stampede and some of it lost to the river, but in all it was called a successful drive.
He is a young man now, Maggie, twenty-five, think of it. He was a mere boy when he left here. Now he has grown tall and has his father’s dark hair. Next month he will leave on a cattle drive to Wyoming that will take him the better part of a year, and he may agree to stay on in Wyoming to help establish the ranch. He is to be one of the lead drivers and is quite proud of his position in this cattle drive, which he says will be larger and longer than any he has been on before.
I gave him woolen socks and winter underclothes, as the weather is unpredictable this time of year and the nights will be cold in the north for some time. I also had a book of prayers and verse for him, even though he has never cared much for reading. He promised he would open it sometimes in the evening.
“It will keep you in mind of how to live while you are in that wild country,” I told him. When he goes on the drives to Dodge City, he collects his pay and heads back for the ranch, not like some who stay on, spending all they have made in the bars and saloons. But Wyoming is so far away that I fear for him.
In fact, Maggie, I am loath to admit it, but the night before he left, I begged him not to go on the drive. With Clayton gone and the rest of my children buried or scattered, it is as if the wind that blows across the desert has battered this house until it has swept away all except for me. I do not think I can stand to lose George for more than six months at a time. But his heart is set on going. And I suppose each of my children is only as stubborn as I myself have been. Once they have made up their minds, it is useless to try to sway them.
I remain your sister,
Abigail
April 20, 1895
Dear Maggie,
Pamela Porter held a luncheon yesterday for Miss Jenny Alden to discuss how we might raise money for textbooks, which the school is badly in need of. Our church congregation is still small, with less than fifteen members, but it was decided that we would have several ice cream socials this summer. Pamela Porter has been working two mornings in the school, teaching reading to the younger students. For the most part, our time spent there is voluntary, but I am not in need of money. The sale of the land last summer gave me sufficient funds for my few needs.
If not for my days at the school and my visits with Señora Teresa, this winter would have passed drearily. Several times this past winter I began to make plans to come east for a visit, but there were either the animals I could not find care for or I felt especially needed that week by the school. It is difficult for me to leave, to go against habit, for this place has surely set itself deeply in me. I cannot imagine not waking with the mesa visible through my window.
Señora Teresa lost her husband several years ago, and she too lives alone, but her married daughters live in the valley. “You are lucky,” I tell her, “to have them both so near.”
I was afraid she would wish we had never settled here, because if not for Margaret, Ramon might have also stayed. But last week when I said this to her, she denied it. “He would have found a way to go, some other girl or a fight.” I suppose they are well matched, both wanderers with an eye for trouble.
It is almost as if there is an unspoken agreement between Señora Teresa and me not to discuss their lives, all the possibilities, for we both can guess them and are frightened. Instead we sit and talk of the weather or the planting. I listen to the stories she tells about her youth in this place. We speak a strange combination of English and Spanish to each other, which we have used over the years. I doubt if anyone else could understand it, but it suits us two nicely.
Since George left the first of January, I have had few visitors. Each morning this winter I woke early and went to the barn that Clayton built. Some mornings the wind was so strong I was not able to wedge the door shut against it. But even on those mornings, when the steaming milk froze as it hit the bottom of the pail, I would smell the sweet alfalfa and remember suddenly whole fields of it turned purple just before cutting.
Much of the day I spent keeping the house and barn tight against the cold, reading, sewing, or painting. So you can see why I looked forward to my afternoons at the school, working with the children. Twice I was snowed in and spent the night with Jenny Alden. Late one night she told me of her childhood, how she was raised by missionary parents in Texas and came farther west to settle here on the last frontier. She loves and respects the Indian children, sometimes following them on long rides up into the mountains, and she sees no reason to stop them from participating in tribal rituals. “My work is not to tear down but to build,” she told me. She is satisfied to see the children incorporate her teachings into their thinking.
You asked if I spend much of my time mourning for Clayton. If you mean do I still shed tears or sit bemoaning his absence: I do not. But he is never far from my thoughts. When I milk the cow, I am thinking of his hands, that were placed just so last winter. When I carry armfuls of alfalfa to the barn, I am smelling the sweetness that was woven through his shirts and hair. Perhaps that is part of why I stay on. For if he is anywhere, he is here.
Your Sister,
Abigail
July 29, 1895
Dear Maggie,
Last spring when I wrote to you of Clayton, I did not mean to worry you. I realize that I could move east at any moment I choose and live with Amy and her husband. I also can see plainly that it is my decision to stay here, and that loneliness need not be a condition of widowhood. Perhaps the word loneliness would better be applied to someone in my situation who did not wish to remain alone.
You asked about my paintings. Mr. Wagner, the gentleman who runs the gallery Clayton sent my paintings to more than two years ago, finally returned them. He commented graciously on those of the mesa, saying they were
the best of the group. He did not comment on my portraits of the Mexicans and Indians. I suppose that is because I did not paint them in costume or feathered dress, the way easterners expect them to look.
Mr. Wagner has said I should send more canvases for his inspection, but I will not. He wrote that Dr. Mayfield saw them and would like permission to purchase one privately. I sent a letter to be forwarded to Dr. Mayfield, stating that I was pleased for him to have the painting. The letter of course has my return address on it. I wonder if he will write to me. I am curious after so many years to hear from him. I do not think it would hurt me now, for I am not so disappointed with how my own life has gone. I am glad that he will have the painting.
All through May it rained, and so the alfalfa fields have been high with color and sweetness. The roads in the valley are lined with wild roses. I have hired someone to do the cutting for me, but I go out into the field and help with the harvesting each day. Much of the spring and early summer I spent repairing the irrigation ditch. Fortunately, I had helped Clayton often enough that the work was not foreign to me. In the garden I have planted lettuce, squash, corn, tomatoes, beans, and the peppers which I have become fond of. Yesterday I canned a bushel of tomatoes and made a basket of grapes into grape juice, which I will bottle this evening.
I am your sister,
Abigail
December 24, 1895
Dear Maggie,
I have spent hours this past month preparing two older students for the exams and teaching the others the hymns and verses of the season. Fortunately, the weather has been benign, enabling me to travel the miles back and forth to the school.
When I woke this morning and realized that Christmas was suddenly upon me, I had no idea how I would spend the holiday, as George is in Wyoming, helping to build a ranch. But then I remembered Pamela Porter’s invitation to spend the day with her family and Miss Alden, who will join them for Christmas dinner. I was much relieved that I will be in good company.
I heard from Dr. Mayfield, a brief note stating his thanks for allowing him to purchase the painting and his assurance that he and his wife will enjoy it. Mr. Wagner sent me the money Dr. Mayfield had paid for it, fifty dollars—can you imagine it?—even though I had never given a price and did not intend to be paid for it. I have sent it back with a note that Dr. Mayfield and his wife are to keep the painting as “a gift from the desert.”
Our hopes for statehood have been set back again by yet another controversy, that over the free coinage of silver supported by a number of those with mining interests. I wonder which side Clayton would argue for were he still alive. I have sold nearly all of the mining interests, and so I do not care if there is a silver standard. I wish that we could move more certainly towards statehood. Surely, that is our main hope for an end to the roughness and violence.
As you know, Amy and Everett were here for the month of August. They arrived just in time to help with the harvesting of the fruit trees. Their presence was invaluable to me, although both of them hover over me since Clayton’s death, and they would not let me into the orchard on hot mornings for fear that I would succumb to a heat stroke. This seemed a bit preposterous, as I have spent most of my adult life working out-of-doors in all kinds of heat and cold. All summer I had spent the hottest of days in the alfalfa fields. But no matter. She is a good daughter to come and see her mother. When she told me of the advances she has made for the school she teaches in, I was quite proud.
One evening the three of us rode out along the river. The sun had dipped behind the mountains, streaking the cliffs of clay with rose and violet. “How could you leave this?” I asked her as we sat on our horses, staring out across the river and desert and mountains.
“I miss it,” she said. “You think I was glad to leave here, but I miss it.” And Maggie, I believed her.
Your Sister,
Abigail
July 17, 1896
Dear Maggie,
I was delighted to learn that Amy has been delivered of her first child. Can you meet me the first of August at the railroad station? I am following this letter with a telegram in case you do not receive it in time. It is difficult to believe I am truly going back. By the end of this month, all of the alfalfa should be in, and so I will miss only part of the harvest. Teresa has told me of a responsible man who could look after the farm and see that the beans and corn are brought in as they ripen. Amy wanted me to come later in the fall and stay through Christmas, but there is the school to consider. I am as bound by it as I am to the land. I will plan to stay for two weeks, which feels like such a lot, but I am sure it will be over before I can turn around.
I will see you finally, Sister, and soon. I look forward so to meeting your children and grandchildren. How many are there now, five? I lose count. And Amy writes that Alex may soon marry. I had thought him a bachelor like our George. Meanwhile, I pray for Amy’s recovery and the baby’s health.
Your Sister,
Abigail
October 7, 1896
Dear Maggie,
Thank you for your letter. My visit was not “a disappointment,” not in any way. I enjoyed seeing all of you immensely. It was only that so much had changed—Stillwater, you, John, the children, some who were babies when I left, some I had never seen, all grown. In truth, the grandchildren were, some of them, older than Irene and Robert when I left. And Maggie, I have changed the most. I could not imagine living in the east anymore; everything felt too close and busy, so civilized. I had not thought the ladies would dress so, for every occasion. They would be astonished to see how I live my life here, riding everywhere, putting on a pair of men’s trousers to wade into the irrigation ditch and pull out the fallen branches. I believe they thought me odd, and yet to me it is odd to be afraid of riding out alone into the desert or up some mountain.
But never mind, it only served to show me that I would feel displaced living in Stillwater. You commented that if I were to stay longer, through the winter and into spring, I would find I could not leave the wide streets, the gardens filled with peonies and roses, the flowering dogwoods. I could go with you to the sewing group and with Amy to the museum or to the library. I could meet the woman at the school where Amy has taught who paints. This is, I am sure, all true, but I do not know if they would touch the loneliness in me; only the desert does that.
But Maggie, it was worth the trip, and I will do it again, to see you and Amy and to hold wee Ellen in my arms. You say we have gotten too old, but when we were together, I felt I was a girl again, laughing with you over our follies, sharing a story or secret. I suppose Amy is still insisting on doing all of the housework herself. I do hope she will not go back to teaching. She is so like me, to insist on doing all for herself. Watch her for me, Maggie. I will keep her and the dear child in my prayers.
Your Sister,
Abigail
April 7, 1897
Dear Maggie,
All day I have spent on horseback riding along the irrigation ditches, marking in my mind the sections that will have to be repaired. Señor López has offered the services of his sons, at a fee, to help me, and I may accept his offer, as the walls of the main acequia have collapsed in several places and will require major repair. His wife makes excellent sausage, and for years we have traded, my butter for her sausage, once even during a season of drought when we were thick with animosity.
It has been a long winter, with snow for two weeks in the middle of March. But riding out along the river today, I could already smell the sage brush, and the soft pastels of early spring cover the earth. When I got back, late in the afternoon, I brought out my paints and easel and returned to the river to paint them.
One whole wall that runs along the front of the house I have hung with paintings and sketches. As you walk through my front entrance, you see them as they are lined up in the hallway and dining room. I enjoy gazing at them, and it is so seldom that I get a visitor, other than Señora Teresa, that I do not worry what others might think. There are
several landscapes, all in reds, yellows, blues, and purples. One of these paintings is nearly all sky, with a few dark mountain peaks.
Also, I have painted the nearby churches and one of the priests, along with a few of the Indian children. Most of the charcoal sketches are of the people who live in this area. Señora Teresa has posed for me, and I made her portrait in oils for a gift. I like best to draw the children and some afternoons will sit at the school with my sketch pad while the students go about their lessons.
Pamela Porter and her husband came by last Sunday, and I accompanied them to church. I try to attend at least twice a month, but the long ride does not always seem worth it when I am alone. Instead I often choose to spend the morning with my paints or riding out towards the mesa. Sometimes I recite a verse or sing a hymn, my voice dwarfed by the long mesa and wide sky. It keeps me in mind of how small my place is here on this earth.
Your Sister,
Abigail
October 24, 1897
Dear Maggie,
I received a letter from George last month. It seems Wyoming is such a cattleman’s dream, I do not know if I will ever get him back. He says the fields of grass go on forever and they are knee high. He is working hard for Mr. Dunn to establish the ranch, and I don’t believe I will see him again for some time. “Go east for the winter, Mother,” he advises, stating his concerns for me staying here alone without visitors during the cold.
For the first time since Clayton’s death, I dread being so much alone during the long winter months. Last March when it snowed, I was house bound for more than a week and saw no one. Amy says I must come east for Christmas, and perhaps I shall if I can make arrangements for the care of the animals. Meanwhile, I will bundle myself against the cold and, as I watch the first powder of snow appear, dream of pale-green shoots of alfalfa and corn and beyond them the bright flowering of the desert.
