When Winter Comes

by V. A. Shannon

  Mrs. McGillivray sits up quite straight at that. Yes, indeed, she would be pleased to do it. She had been in service as a lady’s maid in Boston before she was married, and was known for her fine stitchery.

  “Oh,” she says, “Mrs. Klein, have you ever visited Boston? It is such a very elegant place! My family—the family I was in service with, I mean—had a great house, right in the very center of the town. And my young lady, Miss Lottie—out at balls and the theater, night after night! And her clothes! The finest silks, and Brussels lace—you cannot imagine!

  “She cried to see me leave, and indeed—that is—when Mr. McGillivray and I married—” She stops, and gives a half laugh.

  “Oh dear. Forgive me. What you must think of me, carrying on so!”

  What she means, of course, is that she did not wish to leave her employment, but had no say in the matter. A married woman could not carry on in service. A married woman’s place was at her husband’s fireside, caring for him, and what an insult it would be, to suggest that a man’s wife should undertake paid employment, as if he could not provide for his own family.

  I make no reply, though I wonder, suddenly, if Jacob has that same sense of aggravation about him with regards to my own employment, and if the fellows at the lumberyard tease him over it.

  I try not to look about me at the poor state Mrs. McGillivray is come to by her husband’s care of her. Instead, I rise to my feet, pretty brisk, and command the eldest boy, Matty, to come along home with me.

  I sit him down with a slice of plum cake while I look out a pile of Jacob’s work shirts that need mending. Jacob is something careless with his clothes and is forever catching his sleeve or pulling off a button or two. And when I send the boy home, I add in the rabbit pie I had set aside for our supper, and a dish of sweet potatoes and onions to go with it. My own family eats eggs and toasted bread, and I say a prayer of such heartfelt thanks over this scratch meal that I suspect they are too cowed to make any comment about the loss of the rabbit pie and the rest.

  The shirts come back two days later, mended much better than I could ever have hoped to. I straight away engage Mrs. McGillivray to come into the schoolhouse twice a week and teach the children knitting and stitching.

  A good job she makes of it, too, setting the little ones to make cross-stitch potholders for their mothers and the older girls on the intricacies of seams and darts, with the promise of dressmaking once they can sew neat enough.

  The older boys are set onto knitting socks. There is some talk round town at this, and a couple of the boys pull faces at the idea. I take no heed of it. I tell them that the Navy men are taught to knit, and if it is good enough for the brave sailors then it is good enough for them. And in any case, the more domestic chores they can do for themselves, the less call they will have to consider their wives as glorified servants, when they come to marry.

  14

  On the morning of July twentieth, when the wagons began to pull out of camp, we did not, but stayed where we were; me folding quilts and blankets in back of our wagon and Mrs. Keseberg brushing Ada’s hair and tying it into its little braids. Mr. Keseberg was harnessing up the animals at the second wagon and speaking in a low voice with Mr. Hardkoop, who was sat on the wagon steps, pipe in his mouth as always, untangling some knot in a coil of rope.

  As they passed us, various folks shouted a good-bye, and wished us luck, but one or two asked us, “Are you sure you wish to do this? For it seems a foolish plan to me.” Mr. and Mrs. Keseberg made a joke of it, saying that when the others arrived in California, the Kesebergs would be waiting there with a cup of coffee to welcome them.

  When all the wagons were finally pulled out, and the last of them could be seen far in the distance, we looked around to see who would be traveling on with us to Jim Bridger’s Fort, the first stop on our new journey. Mr. Reed had been very confident that there were many folks intent on joining this expedition, so I thought to see sixty wagons or more, but we weren’t close to even a third of that number. It seemed that many of those who had planned to join us had thought better of it, and departed with the rest.

  Here were the Donners and our friend Mr. Burger; Mr. Dolan, the big bluff Irishman who’d crossed the Big Blue on the raft with him; and Mr. Dolan’s traveling companions, the Breens.

  John Breen was perhaps a year younger than me, and his brother Edward a mite younger still; quiet, studious boys that I knew from the school wagon. They had a mighty annoying little brother, Paddy, who seemed to spend his whole life tumbling out of trees or being fished out of streams. Then there was a whole parcel of little ones, right down to a baby just learning to walk.

  Mr. Breen was something of an invalid, traveling to California for his health, and I guess his wife and children had to bear the brunt of the chores, but other than the screams that invariably accompanied Paddy Breen’s latest adventure, they never seemed anything other than cheerful.

  Our German friends were to continue on with us, and then, of course, there were the Eddys.

  Mrs. Eddy had become the very best of friends with Mrs. Keseberg. The whole family had become something of a fixture in our lives. Mrs. Keseberg and Mrs. Eddy spent a great deal of time together, walking along the trail arm in arm in the mornings, and Mrs. Eddy might sit up in the wagon with Mrs. Keseberg in the afternoons, keeping her company while Mrs. Keseberg rested. And when we made camp, with the wagons drawn close and the cooking fires blazing up, with biscuits baking in the Dutch ovens and folks visiting with each other and talking over the events of the day, the Eddys would often visit with us and I would mind the children, Ada, and little James and Margaret.

  Margaret was a stocky, rosy-cheeked child, with blue eyes and curly blond hair. She was as unlike my whining little sisters as could be, with a cheerful, sunny disposition and easy to manage. To my surprise she took a great liking to me. She would take my hand, or fling her arms around my waist, or bid me bend down so she could kiss me. I felt foolish at first, to take such pleasure in it, but soon I came to relish the feel of her small fingers clutching my own or her lips against my cheek.

  I had never played any of the childish games that the little girls engaged in, and at first I did not understand what they were at. The first time Margaret handed me her doll, and commanded me to play, I sat there helplessly with it in my outstretched hand. All I could see was a stick of wood with a rounded end and some smears of black and red painted on, wrapped in a rag or two. But after a while I could make out that the black and red was a face, made to resemble eyes and lips and cheeks, and that the rags were intended to be clothes, a dress and bonnet, with a piece of frayed knitting wrapped round all, to be a shawl.

  The girls were playing with Ada’s tea set: some miniature cups and saucers, and a teapot and milk jug. Margaret held out a tiny plate with some crumbs of biscuit on it, and I took a pinch between my fingers, and did as they did, holding it to the little painted mouth and making sounds of “Mm, mm,” as if eating something delicious. Ada poured water into a cup, and held it with her finger stuck out, as if she was a grand lady, and sipped it most delicate. She passed the cup to me and I did the same. Then I said, in a high-pitched, squeaky voice, “Oh, how delightful, your Ladyship, such delicious water!” Ada let out a squeal of laughter, and Margaret joined in, lying on the ground and kicking her legs into the air. And I laughed, too.

  Although I came to love Margaret dearly, and liked her mother well enough, I began to be most wary of Mr. Eddy.

  Mr. Eddy was a strutting little bantam-cock of a man, hardly higher than his wife, and she was a small enough woman to be sure. What he lacked in inches he made up with his tall tales of bravery. He was good company, I suppose, and his tales were entertaining enough. But he stitched them with all the colors he could find, and soon enough folks came to see that he wasn’t overly bothered about the exact truth of a matter. His tales came to be taken with a whole peck of salt, and some good-humored eye-rolling.

  After some evenings spent listening to him
as I carried out my chores, it struck me that although his stories made me laugh, they were amusing at other folks’ expense. Somehow there was a sour taste in my mouth when the laughter had died away. No one was safe from his malice, even those he hailed as friends.

  It was Mr. and Mrs. Eddy and Mrs. Keseberg who enjoyed one another’s company. Although Mr. Keseberg welcomed them to his fire and chatted with them polite enough, often he would take himself away from their company and go off to smoke his pipe with Mr. Hardkoop and Mr. Burger, over at the Wolfingers’ wagon.

  Sometimes he would spend the evening reading stories to the children by the light of a lantern. I would find some excuse to sit and listen, too; and he would hand the book to me, and let me practice my reading, leaning back with his eyes shut, and a smile on his lips, no doubt amused at my poor efforts.

  * * *

  By the time we arrived at Jim Bridger’s Fort, we had been joined by a few folks more. These were Mr. Stanton, a single fellow up on his horse, riding alongside the wagon of his friends Mr. and Mrs. McCutcheon, who had a little girl, Harriet. And there was a spotty-faced French-Canadian lad named Jean-Pierre Trudeau, my age almost to the day. The final family to join us was the Graveses.

  Mrs. Graves was a tall, hatchet-faced woman of most decided opinions, and it was clear from the get-go that she expected all, including her husband, a quiet, gentle fellow, to jump when she said so. They were a right big family, eight children plus a married daughter and her husband. There was a tall, spindly sort of son, William, who at nigh eighteen was all bones, with ears that stuck out to each side of his head, and two daughters about my age.

  Mary and Eleanor Graves were the silliest girls I ever saw. They spent their time making eyes at all the boys and giggling nonstop at the slightest thing. Every night they put their hair up in rags, parading round the next morning right proud of their pretty curls, though both girls were just as hatchet-faced as their ma, so I can’t say that the curls sat right well.

  My little group of friends spent some time with them at first, but it was hard work. Mary and Eleanor talked about the clothes they’d like to wear, and the men they would marry and how they would have their houses done up. They thought us dull company for sure, having no time for the childish games we played to entertain the younger children. Instead, they struck up a halfhearted friendship with Virginia Reed, for the girls Virginia had been such good friends with had departed with the rest of the main train and left her to her own devices. The Graves girls spent as much time in squabbling as they did in gossiping and I caught a sight of Virginia once or twice, looking very straight-faced and miserable in their company. I felt something sorry for her. Not sorry enough to do anything about it, though.

  We left Jim Bridger’s Fort on the last day of July. Mr. Reed gathered us all together, and sitting up on his horse he gave us our orders—that we should all set off along the route he pointed out, and he would ride ahead himself and catch up with Mr. Hastings—the writer of the very pamphlet that had caused us to change our plans—and who was, or so Mr. Reed told us, not more than a few days ahead of us, escorting another group of emigrants. Mr. Reed said he would find Mr. Hastings and ascertain the route, and be back with us in a day or two. With that, he wheeled his horse about, and galloped off. And we did as we were bid, and whipped up our beeves and set off to follow him.

  * * *

  I wonder, now, at the thinking that led these foolish men, Mr. Breen and the Donners and the rest, to follow Mr. Reed and elect to take the shortcut. What was it that spurred them on and blinded them to the dangers we would face? Some set out for California for one reason, and some for another. Some kept mighty quiet about the lives they’d led previous and some—like me—had great good reason to want to leave their past behind.

  But as for the others, the family men who led us to our fate, they’d left happy lives behind them in the thought of providing better for their families at the end of the day. I am certain sure that the happiness of their loved ones was to the front of their minds at the start. But it seemed that this was soon enough forgotten. Their hunger for land and their desire for fortune took them over, so that they thought only of worldly success, and how they would look in other men’s eyes.

  I have come to think that there are no shortcuts in life. It is too easy to choose to do the selfish thing, and to head off in pursuit of your own happiness and your own ambition, and lose sight of what really matters in this world. The slow road, the plain road, and the road that seems dull and much-traveled by others has plenty to recommend it. Men think themselves heroes if they take risks; but to take a risk with the happiness of those who love you and depend upon you cannot be heroic.

  To my mind, the man who fears the path of love as being one of dull duty, but sets along it nevertheless, is the real hero at the end.

  15

  When we first left Jim Bridger’s Fort, our route was so easy that the men were slapping one another on the back for their cleverness. The weather was fine, and there was game for the taking, coneys and deer. The route seemed to be everything Mr. Hastings had promised, and we thought the folks who had stayed with the big wagon train to be fools for not coming with us.

  On the third day Mr. Reed rejoined us. He told us good cheer! He had spoken to Mr. Hastings, who was but a day or so ahead of us. If we hurried we might catch him, but if not, he had gone over the map again and pointed out the route, and Mr. Reed was confident of the way. So we hitched up our wagons once more, and followed Mr. Reed into the shadow of the Wasatch Mountains.

  Our route gradually began to rise upward. There would be a climb up a hill and a gentle descent into a pleasant valley, and then the same again. Each time the climb would be a little steeper, until we got to the point where it was no longer possible for the beeves to pull the wagons directly up the slope. Here, we devised a system of switchback, where the wagons went to the left, always moving slightly up the hill, and then to the right the same. We did something similar to get them down the next side, with the men roping the wagons and pulling on them to slow their descent.

  These hills and valleys were all covered with lush grass, and small streams trickling down through rocky outcrops and giving out into pretty pools here and there. Those of us not involved in driving the beeves or steadying the wagons as they lurched their way along, took off our boots to sink our tired feet into the cool grass, for the heat was something fierce. And we splashed our faces in the streams, and enjoyed the shade from the few trees that were dotted here and there.

  After a day or two of this, we were tasked with a much steeper hill than before. One team of beeves was not enough to pull each of our wagons up the slope, but we had a spare yoke walking along at the back. We hitched them all up to the one wagon and got that up the hill, and then the same again with the second.

  We thought, when we came to the end of that last steep slope, that the worst of our journey was over. But we had a right hard shock when we crested what we thought to be the final rise.

  We expected to see the same journey again down the other side, a series of gentle grass-covered slopes. But what lay ahead of us was a great valley, with a terrifying steep slope straight down into it. Slope and valley floor alike were all utterly overgrown with every type of thick shrub and thorny bush. Beyond that rose a steeper, rocky slope again, and another, higher still, behind it.

  We looked at one another in great dismay. This was not what we had been led to believe at all. Mrs. Keseberg clutched at her swollen belly with one hand, and her husband’s arm with the other.

  “Louis! Louis, I cannot do it!—I cannot climb down through this wilderness! We must turn back, and rejoin the main train—they cannot be so far in advance of us!”

  Mr. Keseberg looked at his wife, and looked at his wagon, and set his jaw. “We have to do it. It will take us a week or more just to return to Bridger’s Fort. By the time we get back on the original trail the others will be too far ahead and we will never catch them! It’s not so bad, my dear
. It will take us some time to blaze through a path for the wagons, and in the meantime they will be left here so you can stay and rest in the shade. When the route is cleared and we take the wagons down, you can follow behind, real slow.”

  It was poor comfort. Mrs. Keseberg’s lips trembled. I was scared myself at the sight before us, and felt right sorry for her. I crossed over to her and took her hand.

  “Mr. Keseberg is quite right. You need do no more than walk down behind the wagons. I will look out for Ada, and help you all I can.”

  The look she turned on me was pure fury; her husband could not see her face.

  “Of course you would agree with him!” she hissed. “He can do no wrong in your eyes—do not think I cannot see what you are about, right beneath my nose!”

  I dropped her hand, and jumped back, startled. I had spoken to her in the spirit of pure fellowship, with no thought of anything other than to comfort her. I disliked her, it was true. But throughout our journey, no matter what the provocation, I had tried my best to bite back the words that jumped into my mouth, keeping my own counsel about the way she spoke to me and about me, and her treatment of her husband. As for my feelings for Mr. Keseberg, I knew not exactly what they were. Unformed, unexamined, I had kept them to myself as well. I had been nothing but loyal. To discover that she had such thoughts of me—deceitful and underhanded—was a shock, and a bad one, too.

  I looked across at Mr. Keseberg. He was in conversation with Mr. Hardkoop, and had seen nothing of this exchange. And I was mighty glad of it.

  * * *

  To get down that hill meant slashing our way through with axes and scythes. It took every one of us to do it—every man, every woman, every child old enough to carry a blade. We hacked our way through brambles that tore at our skirts, and stumbled through vines that wrapped themselves round our ankles, sending us crashing to the ground, with the threat of a broken bone to show for it. Whippy branches lashed our faces and arms, and choking clouds of buzzing midges rose up around us, filling our mouths and noses, making us cough and spit.