My legs are wet
from stockings to bloomers.
136
My shadow extends long before me.
If I’m not home soon,
I will not last the night.
137
Finally I turn,
face the western sky,
and watch the sun sink
lower,
lower.
It is gone.
I must move while there’s still light.
I stamp my feet to rouse them.
Pain shoots through my toes,
a promise I’m still living.
138
I trudge toward the purple darkness
and turn sometimes to see if the sunlight
has taken pity on me,
if it might wait to see me home.
But it is well beyond that imaginary place
where the sky meets land—
the only light just a memory of this day.
139
Do I see or hear it first,
the shadow where the sun
once was,
distant bells,
the unsure step of a horse’s hooves
battling the snow?
140
Someone is there!
I’m certain now.
I try to run,
trip on Mrs. Oblinger’s quilt,
crash to the ground,
but I am up again.
“Hello! Hello!”
My voice is firm, like I’ve used it every day.
I flap my arms,
and the quilt unfurls.
141
Now the sleigh bells ring clearly.
“Over here!” I say.
A sleigh is steering toward me.
The horse slows,
then stops.
“May Betterly?”
142
“I’m May,” I say,
and reach forward.
A firm hand grasps my wrist.
“Miss Betterly,” the stranger says,
“are you all right?”
I’ve seen nothing move
for so long,
save grass pushing at my feet,
clouds,
rabbits,
this endless blowing snow.
And this is a person!
He settles me in his sleigh,
pulls a buffalo robe around me.
143
In the moonlight,
I make out the man’s blue muffler,
a hat pushed low on his brow.
His eyes;
I have seen them before.
“I’m John Chapman,” he says.
“I helped Mr. Oblinger with his floor.”
The neighbor who brought the wood.
If Ma could see me,
she’d tell me to remember my manners.
“How do you do, Mr. Chapman?”
He nods to me.
“How do you do?”
144
I’m riding in a sleigh
away from the Oblingers’ soddy!
We pass a clump of darkness,
some trees I counted last July?
“The storm came the first of December,” he says.
“I dug out last week,
drove into town.
That’s when I heard …”
His eyes dart to me.
“… heard the Oblingers were gone.
Seemed funny Oblinger would leave
without telling me.
I’d helped him some at his place.
He’d done some work on mine.
I asked if anyone knew where he was headed.
Heard all sorts of stories,
none of them the same:
his wife had run,
he’d given up and sold his land,
he would come back with family next spring.”
Desperate to find the missus,
how easy it would be
to forget me.
Mr. Chapman turns.
“No one mentioned a girl.
I got to thinking,
if he’d run off like some folks said,
and with those wolves about,
what had become of you?”
Someone has thought of me.
These last few days,
someone knew.
145
“I came earlier this week to look for you,”
Mr. Chapman says.
“A couple of miles from my place,
something along the creek caught my eye.
I dug through the snow,
reached the spokes of a wheel.
Oblinger’s wagon must have overturned,
slid over the edge of the ravine.”
My heart claws at my throat,
remembering the way Mr. Oblinger raced.
Something had happened to him.
Mr. Oblinger never made it to town?
“Did you see—?”
Mr. Chapman shakes his head.
“I walked around,
looked for more.”
He clears his throat.
The wolves.
There is nothing I can say.
“Rode faster then,
when I figured you were alone,
but the snow blew through again.
It was a wonder I made it home.
I dug myself out this morning.
Tried again at the Oblingers’ this afternoon.
When I reached the soddy,
I found a hole,
some footprints,
and the house empty.
Followed those prints
until I found you.”
“It was good of you, Mr. Chapman.”
“Nothing more than any decent person would do.”
The horse labors in the snow;
still, we’re moving faster
than I ever did alone.
I lay my head back against the robe’s soft fur.
I will see my family soon.
“My folks are just a few miles
southeast of town,” I say.
His eyes are soft.
“It was foolish of you to try
to make it on your own.
Foolish,
and brave.”
“Guess I’m the foolish type, then.”
He laughs,
but not unkindly.
146
It is strange to hear this story:
a man I’d barely met
taking the time
to try to save me.
I ask, “Could you tell me the day?”
“It’s Friday,
the fifteenth of December.”
Pa delivered me
to the Oblingers
five months ago.
147
I listen but don’t talk much;
there is too much to consider.
I am content to feel the wind
at my cheeks,
to take in the stars
scattered like marbles across the heavens,
to watch the horse’s sturdy legs
step gingerly.
“Pa said he’d come just before Christmas,”
I hear myself saying.
Mr. Chapman says,
“I must have just beat him.”
148
The air is sharp in my lungs.
I’m dizzied
from hunger,
or a lack of sleep,
or from the sweet strangeness
of my circumstance.
If I had waited just a few hours more,
Mr. Chapman would have found me
still buried beneath the snow.
But I didn’t wait;
I pulled myself out of that place
and set to walking.
I left a trail for Mr. Chapman
to come to me.
149
Even though the world has looked
much the same
since Mr. Chapman stopped fo
r me,
I know we’re getting nearer.
The land feels familiar,
and then I see the gentle rise,
a wisp of smoke
escaping from the chimney.
“Stop!”
I shout,
then remember myself.
“Please stop.”
Pa dug out,
as I’d imagined.
The land between the house and barn is clear.
I race toward the door
and shove it open.
“Ma,
Pa,
Hiram!”
I call.
Ma steps forward.
“May?”
Her confusion breaking into a smile.
“What are you doing here?”
I hug her,
not yet ready to explain.
Over her shoulder I see Mr. Chapman
at the barn,
talking to Pa.
Hiram rushes from the barn.
“May Betts!”
he yells,
his face lighting with a grin.
“What happened to your hair?”
Suddenly we’re all together
between the barn and soddy.
Pa folds me in his arms.
“You were alone?”
he whispers.
I nod,
soaking in the warmth of his overcoat.
Ma’s brought a mug of coffee
and a square of corn bread,
thick,
delicious.
The coffee burns
as I gulp it down.
150
“She’s a strong girl,”
Mr. Chapman says.
Hiram’s eyes meet mine.
“A girl who tries to cover fifteen miles
alone in the snow can handle just about anything.”
Pa clears his throat and squeezes me.
Ma wraps her arms around the both of us.
I close my eyes,
lean on Pa’s shoulder.
In time,
I’ll tell about the wolf,
the empty apple barrel,
and the darkness.
For now,
I need no words.
151
Later,
after Mr. Chapman has bid us
good night,
Hiram holds out his hand.
“Come with me,” he says.
He leads me to the rise where in the spring,
the wildflowers grow.
We stand together, side by side.
I don’t know why sometimes
reading works for me,
but other times it doesn’t.
I don’t know why holding something
helps my words to form.
Maybe I’ll never understand
exactly why I struggle.
I am
smart and capable
(as Miss Sanders used to say).
But
tonight in this stillness,
I realize there’s no shame in hoping
for things that might seem out of reach.
I will take the teaching examination
when I’m old enough,
and if I fail,
I’ll try again.
“You can keep your Christmas candy.
I don’t want it anymore.”
Hiram’s eyes grow wide.
“You’ve seen it?”
I smile.
“Not yet,
but just you wait.”
Even though I know
my geography,
even though I understand what is and isn’t real,
there’s no reason to stop hoping
that sometime
I might find it,
that distant place
where the sun journeys
and earth at last meets sky.
A Note from the Author
Growing up, I fell in love with the Little House books and talked about Laura Ingalls Wilder as if she were someone I knew personally. In the late nineteenth century, when Laura was a girl, schoolwork focused on recitation and memorization and favored students able to do those things well. When I became a teacher, I grew curious about what life must have been like for frontier children who found schooling a challenge. Would a girl who couldn’t read well have been kept out of school? Would she have been chastised for not trying hard enough? Or would her intelligence have been recognized?
In this book, May struggles with dyslexia, a learning disability that hampers a person’s capacity to process what is read. Dyslexia was unknown in the nineteenth century. It varies in each reader, although difficulties with reading fluency, word recognition, and comprehension are common, as are the omission of words and anxiety stemming from reading aloud. The techniques that prove helpful to May (repetition, reading in unison with one or more people, holding objects) have benefited many with dyslexia.
While May B. is a work of fiction, I’ve used the short-grass prairie of western Kansas as inspiration, imagining the Betterlys’ and Oblingers’ soddies in the outlying areas of Gove County. In the late 1870s, this part of Kansas was sparsely settled. Families homesteaded far from established towns, with neighbors miles away.
School terms typically ran summer and winter, allowing children to work during planting and harvest. Teachers were often young single women, as it was possible to receive a teaching certificate at fifteen or sixteen.
The text quoted in this book is from The American Educational Reader, Number 5 (Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor, & Co., 1873), which I found in an antique shop just as I was starting to work on May B. I don’t know if this book would have been available in Kansas schoolhouses at this time, though a similar reader would have been. Children often worked with the books accessible to them, many using in school the texts their families had brought from other parts of the country. I’ve included three lessons: “The Grandeur of the Sea” (author unknown), “A Hasty and Unjust Judgment,” the passage about Mr. Goodman (attributed to “Aiken, adapted”), and “The Voice of the Wind” (author unknown). The last stanza of the poem is my own invention, something I altered to create more dramatic movement within the story.
For those interested in learning more about Kansas history, frontier living, or dyslexia, here are some helpful resources:
The Kansas Historical Society: kshs.org
The Prairie Museum of Art and History (Colby, Kansas): prairiemuseum.org
The International Dyslexia Association: interdys.org
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to those who have played a role in the creation of this book:
It’s not often an author is lucky enough to write for two different editors. Nicole Geiger has been an unflagging enthusiast, careful reader, and mentor through this whole process. When she told me May B. was the sort of book she’d loved as a child, I knew it would be safe in her hands. Emily Seife’s commitment to May and her personal growth pushed me to discover new ways to challenge my character and flesh her out more fully. Emily, I’ve appreciated every honest “not there yet” that has kept me working hard.
Michelle Humphrey, my agent, who found me in the slush and took a chance on my quiet verse novel. Your positive attitude and commitment as a colleague and friend have been invaluable.
Chris Griffin, of the Prairie Museum of Art and History in Colby, Kansas, for answering my questions about the landscape, plants, animals, insects, and waterways of western Kansas and for recommending reader and Kansas expert Ann Miner. Any inaccuracies that remain in the story are mine alone.
Shawn Goodman, fellow Elevensie author and literacy expert, for your insight into the frustrations and insecurities a dyslexic child experiences, as well as for sharing common reading challenges.
Ellen Ruffin and Abbie Woolridge of the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection and author Kate Bernheimer for answering my questions about Hansel and Gretel.
My parents, Milt and Polly, who made books a na
tural part of my upbringing; my grandparents, Dick and Gene, for exposing me to authors from Beatrix Potter to Wallace Stegner and for encouraging my imagination; and my sister, Chris, one of my biggest cheerleaders.
Dayle Arceneaux and Bonnie Rehage of the Bayou Readers’ and Authors’ Guild for encouraging me to continue this experiment in verse. My online critique partners, Denise Jaden, Weronika Janczuk, Elle Strauss, and Natalie Bahm, for your keen eyes. Natalie, I will be forever grateful for your question that led me to a newer, stronger ending.
Jamie Martin, for pointing me toward your antiques-shop find, the reader that played such a large part in the creation of this story, and for believing that this story had to be shared.
Molly Bolton and the rest of the Jambalaya Writers’ Conference coordinators, for seeing promise in my story.
May B. Page 8
