When Winter Comes

by V. A. Shannon

  “Mrs. Murphy, you have a large family to provide for; do you have so much that you can give half of it away to strangers?”

  There was an uncomfortable stir at this. To be described as strangers when we had traveled so far together and worked shoulder to shoulder was unexpected, and unpleasant as well.

  Mr. Breen stepped forward with his last suggestion. He said we should slaughter all the remaining animals. With no feed, and snow covering what grass there was, it was plain that they would perish in any event, so it would be as well to slaughter them now. And how did folks feel about sharing the meat, at least?

  At this, finally, Mrs. Reed found her voice.

  “I do not wish for charity,” she said, drawing herself up and looking about her. “But my provisions are all gone, and I have no animals neither, so what am I to do? How am I to care for my children and my servants?”

  She reminded us how she and Mr. Reed had shared their stores with those less fortunate, when they came out of the desert, and said that surely the folks that had benefitted then should have some care for her now. There was an uncomfortable shuffling of feet here and there, but no one stepped up in reply.

  Then she said, “My husband will be waiting for me in California, and I will buy some beeves, if anyone is willing to wait for payment until we reach our destination.”

  The Eddys were in the same fix—no animals and scarcely no provisions—and had kept quiet throughout, but now Mr. Eddy said the same, that he would like to purchase beeves, and had the money for them there and then. He unbuttoned a pocket on the inside of his jacket, and pulled out a handful of gold coin, to show his good intention.

  Mrs. Graves looked at the gold and looked at him. “Very well, Mr. Eddy. We will sell you two beeves for fifty dollars.” Everyone gasped. It was all the money he held in his hand, and a good healthy animal could be bought for ten dollars at the start of our journey. These animals were nothing but bones and skin, and it was touch-and-go which got them first—starvation or the butcher’s knife.

  Mr. Eddy had no choice but to agree. Mrs. Graves turned to Mrs. Reed. “There is no guarantee that we will be paid. For myself, I doubt that your husband ever reached California at all.”

  I thought I spoke blunt, but this was cruel. I caught a sight of Virginia’s white face. Virginia was very close to her pa, and I guess she had comforted herself with the thought that he was safe and waiting for them and it was a shock to be reminded that it might not be so.

  “But I wish to be charitable. I will sell you two beeves at sixty dollars, Mrs. Reed, on your note of promise. And the same for the ones you have already had from us and lost.”

  When all this bargaining was concluded, and with much discord and bad feeling in the air, the men began to slaughter the animals. As soon as the first sank to its knees, the blood pouring from its throat, the rest knew that death was come for them. They raised their great heads to the skies and bellowed, and kicked at their traces and tried to escape; and those that were but loosely tethered pulled themselves free and ran away. And in the middle of all this the wind got up, howling round our ears, and it began to snow again.

  * * *

  One morning, Mrs. Eddy and Margaret arrived at our shelter and came in to visit with us for a while. For a little it was like old times back on the trail.

  When we had taken our provisions out of the wagon, I had tucked the little cups and saucers of Ada’s tea set into my pocket. Now, I set them down in a corner for the girls to play, and turned away to look out some crumbs to be the dolls’ food. I heard Ada give a shout of anger, and then the sound of a tussle. When I turned back it was to see Ada crying, and Margaret with a red face, close to tears herself. She had taken the dolls’ food, and crammed it into her mouth.

  I swung Margaret up into the air, hoping to make her laugh and stop the children’s squabble. She flew up in my arms as light as a little bird, not at all what I was anticipating. I hugged her to me, and with something of a shock I realized that beneath her layers of clothing she was wasted away to nothing. I looked more closely at Mrs. Eddy. She had been a plump enough soul at the start of our journey, but now her fingers were like claws, and where her sleeves had ridden up I could see that her arms were thin as twigs, and covered with a fine coat of hair, like to an animal.

  Most casual, I asked Mrs. Keseberg if she would like me to put some coffee on to heat. She cast a quick look at Mrs. Eddy’s face, humiliated and despairing at the same time, and said, “Yes, we will have some coffee, and I don’t know about you, Mrs. Eddy, but I am quite peckish and could fancy a morsel of corn bread. Oh, and you would be doing me a kindness if you and Margaret would help me finish up this jar of preserves, for it will spoil if not used today.”

  But it was the first and last time that we made a pretense that all was well, and that nothing was amiss. After that day we had nothing to spare for anyone else, and all in camp were the same.

  * * *

  What is it like, to know such hunger that you are like to die from it? I cannot speak for the rest, but I am sure their experience was no different from my own.

  I dreamed of food, all night long. Vivid dreams, so real that for the first second or two of waking I believed them to be true. I could smell the food cooking. My mouth watered at the thought of what was waiting for me: a heaping dish of oatmeal with hot milk poured over it and a big spoonful of molasses, to be followed by bacon and biscuits, hot from the griddle and dripping with butter. Cup after cup of coffee, milky and sweet. But that thought fled away as I came full awake, and I could have cried with the disappointment of it.

  Breakfast was flour mixed with water and baked into a cracker, no bigger than the palm of my hand. Our noontime might be a spoonful of rice, nothing more. As the day wore on, my stomach hurt with the hunger, so that I was near crippled with the pain of it; but all that would be there on my plate at the end of the day was a spoonful of stew, mostly water, a few grains of rice, and another cracker, smaller than the one I had eaten for my breakfast.

  Oh! It is easy to be kind, and thoughtful, and concerned for others, when you have a full belly and more food in the store cupboard. It is a luxury to relish hunger after a day’s labor, knowing that the reward for that labor is to sit over a great plate of good things to eat.

  But to spend your every waking moment wishing for just a mouthful of food; to see a child staring at your plate with desperate longing in their eyes; to eat that food in front of them, caring more for the food than for the child—that makes you feel something less than human.

  Hunger is an evil thing, and brings with it the worst of human nature; it is an agony of the flesh, but it is an agony of the spirit as well.

  28

  Every alternate Saturday afternoon, I attend the Ladies’ Quilting Bee. There are a dozen or so of us ladies and we take it in turns to meet in one another’s houses.

  The first Saturday in June our meeting is at Mrs. Gerald’s boardinghouse. We assemble at her house in a most daring frame of mind. It is an entirely respectable establishment, or so we all assure ourselves, but rumor has it that her past is something questionable.

  When Jacob fetched me here, there weren’t above fifty souls in the district. The only businesses were Peabody’s Mercantile, the blacksmithery, and the lumberyard. Now there are near forty families in town, with more folks arriving by the month. And what was once a muddy lane where the cattle were driven down to the stockyards has turned into Main Street.

  Good boarded sidewalks have been built. New businesses have opened. And only last year a Dining Rooms opened up, with a room set aside for ladies only, where we can sit with a cup of coffee and a slice of pie, if we wish. Though it overlooks the not-so-respectable saloon where the roustabouts come in on a Friday night to spend their wages.

  The country families come in once a week to do their marketing, and travelers pass through on their way to the towns on the coast. There are so many babies born, that there are plans for next year to build another room onto
the school, and I can see that we shall need another after that. How respectable we all sound!

  But the truth is that California is the land of brave souls who adventured here, and lost souls who washed up here. Many have fetched up in our little town having encountered hardship along the way, and many folk would rather not dwell on their past lives. We generally try to keep ourselves to ourselves, far as we are able, and carry with us the words of the Bible about casting the first stone and judging not.

  So, although we all know that old Peabody’s son drank and gambled away the fortune in gold he dug out of the hills in ’49, we do not say it aloud. And if rumor has it that Mrs. Gerald bought her boardinghouse with the proceeds of her time as a riverboat gal, well, we do not say that aloud, either; though Minnie and I stick pretty close together as the maid shows us into Mrs. Gerald’s parlor.

  Mrs. Gerald’s parlor is the first thing in fashion. The walls are covered from ceiling to floor in a pale paper with green vines twisting through a brown trellis work pattern. On the mantel she has two green glass lamps with some fancy gold trim to them; a great gilded mirror behind; and there is a rich Turkey carpet on the floor, with button-back chairs in crimson velvet to match.

  It is exceedingly sumptuous, and Mrs. Gerald steps across to greet us, dressed just as sumptuous herself in blue-and-white-striped silk.

  Minnie murmurs to me below her breath, “If only we had our Godey’s gowns to wear!”

  I whisper back, “Oh, my word, yes! I would surely like to be dressed in those wine-colored puffs instead of my let-out brown homespun! But can’t you just imagine, if we had turned up in the Practical Bloomers!”

  Minnie laughs so hard at this that she has to go outside to recover her composure.

  I cannot think why Mrs. Gerald would want to engage in so simple and homely a task as quilt-making, but I daresay that no matter how fancy-dressed she might be, and no matter what she has come from before, she is the same as the rest of us underneath, wanting some friendship and lively conversation as we all do. And there certainly is enough lively conversation in our bee to keep anyone content.

  We are engaged in sewing squares for the pieced quilt we will present to Betsey Mueller for her Hope Chest. Preacher Holden finally plucked up the courage to ask for her, and they are to be married at Christmas. Betsey is a right sensible girl, practical and hardworking and able to keep a confidence. I reckon she will make a good preacher’s wife.

  We have been engaged upon this quilt for some weeks now. To begin with there was some heated discussion over its design, for this year we have a great occasion to celebrate.

  September marks California’s ten-year anniversary of statehood. It is something we are all pretty proud of. We are to have a parade and a dance, and there is to be a baking contest for the best peach pie.

  Some of the ladies thought that the quilt should mark this momentous occasion—the day, that is, not the winning pie. However, hot on the heels of California Day comes the presidential election in November. And here in California the two things are tied together in such a knot that we cannot pick them apart.

  California was the thirty-first state to join the Union. Declaring itself a free state, it tipped the uneasy balance of power between the fifteen free states in the North, and the fifteen slaver states in the South. Two more free states, including our neighbor, Oregon, have since joined the Union, and it seems to me that we three will decide the outcome of an election based on the dreadful issue of slavery. But just declaring ourselves as a free state does not mean every person would vote for Mr. Lincoln. In our own little town there are as many folks here from the South, or with family in the South, as from the North.

  Feelings on this run so very high that even something as humdrum as our little quilt has turned into something political, for a quilt to mark our anniversary would be a quilt to mark the election as well. I am not alone in thinking that sending a new-married couple to sleep under a Political Statement is not the best start to their future. And after a deal of to-and-fro, the matter has been decided in favor of making squares to represent our own lives in our small town in this year 1860; and the presidential election is left to take care of itself.

  My square is a representation of my garden. A row of orange carrots round the outside, and an inner row of purple beets, all with green tops, and a pink rose in the center. Some of the ladies look at my handiwork a bit doubtful, feeling that the colors are something bold and not altogether pleasing to the eye, but I pay no heed to their helpful suggestions and stitch away, perfectly happy in my work. Minnie is making a square that shows her four boys fishing. And Mrs. McGillivray is copying a poster that she found in the pocket of Matty McGillivray’s pants, before he ran away from home; an advertisement for the Pony Express.

  This is mostly in embroidery, for she has a marvelous touch with a needle. It shows a fellow galloping away on his horse, and underneath,

  WANTED—YOUNG, SKINNY, WIRY FELLOWS not above eighteen, expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 per week.

  Seeing his ma working all hours to provide for the family, teaching in the schoolhouse and dressmaking, too, no doubt Matty thought it a brave thing to go off to earn a living in this way. I can surely see how thrilling it would sound to a young lad. Twenty-five dollars for a week of horse riding? What riches!

  I reckon his ma has different thoughts on it entirely. The Pony Express riders race across the country, a hundred miles or more in a day at full gallop, alone against the wilderness and the Indians and any rotten fellow along the way who thinks little of murdering the rider for the sake of whatever he might carry in the mail pouches. Maybe it makes it easier for Mrs. McGillivray to bear, if she stitches her heartache into a patch.

  As I say, along with our sewing, we engage in conversation—more conversation than sewing, most of the time.

  Today the conversation begins straightforward enough. But every topic seems to lead to bad feeling, and we end up hopping from one thing to the next like to a frog on hot stones.

  We start off by talking about California Day. The anniversary itself falls on a Sunday and there is to be a special service at church. But there has been a great debate about the rest of the celebration—the parade and the dance. Some folks are adamant that dancing and parading could not be countenanced on a Sunday, and others equally adamant that to have them on any other day would be to miss the point entirely. In the end it was left to Preacher Holden to decide. The parade and the dance are to be held on Saturday, and after the service on Sunday we are to have a potluck luncheon.

  Even though it was decided weeks ago, not all are entirely happy with the solution, and our conversation about it gets a little heated.

  I sure would like to add my thoughts on the matter into the mix. It reminds me of the way the German folks in Cincinnati were drove out of their homes because of their love of entertainments on a Sunday, and I wouldn’t like to see our small town to go the same way. But it is second nature to me to avoid speaking of anything that will lead back to my past, so I turn the conversation to the peach-pie contest instead.

  Some of the ladies say we should all use the same recipe and be judged on our baking skills alone. At that, a whole chorus strikes up, that it would be pretty dull to have all the pies the same and we should be allowed to make whatever we choose! So our conversation on this matter gets pretty heated as well.

  Mrs. Jackson asks me, very casual, what I think on the matter, and what sort of pie I might be making. She is a light hand at pastry and fancies her chances. I guess she is going to make her mother’s recipe for a pie with a crumble top. I have eaten it before and it is pretty good. But although I may be poor at stitching, I reckon myself a dab hand at baking, and I am dead set on winning that peach-pie bake-off. I have in mind a recipe that uses sour cream and a pinch of spice to give extra flavor. This recipe is my secret and, try as she might, Mrs. Jackson is not going to catch me out.

  Rather than answer her, I turn to Mr
s. McGillivray and ask her what she thinks about the coming-up election for the new president. Here the conversation gets itself so boiled up that it knocks the arguments about pies and parades into a cocked hat, and I wish I had thought of something else to say.

  We start off with talking about Mr. Lincoln, and that goes along pretty much all right for a few minutes. But of course, that leads onto the issue of slavery, Mr. Lincoln being so set against it. And one of the women makes a comment to the effect that she thinks it a terrible fuss about nothing much.

  “Mr. Davies”—Isobel Davies blushes scarlet, for she is very new married—“I mean—that is, my husband—he says, here are folks with food on the table and homes provided for them for the price of a day’s labor. And I agree with him, and can’t see the wrong in it.”

  She is very young, not more than eighteen, and newly arrived from North Carolina. Her head bent over her work, she carries on, “Why, Father says our blacks at home are perfectly happy, and I think it must be true. We treat them fine, just precisely the same as white servants. I surely don’t see that the color of their skin makes any difference.”

  There is a moment’s silence at her remark, broken by Mrs. Gerald. Her voice is surprisingly gentle. “But, my dear, we are not talking about servants. We are speaking of people who were forced from their homes and set to a life they never chose and can never escape, are we not?”

  I cast a quick glance at her, thinking to myself, here is a woman who speaks from the heart. Perhaps her life has not always been as pleasant as it is now.

  Mrs. Davies lifts her eyes from her work, and looks from one horrified face to another in innocent surprise. “But they were pagan savages living in the jungle, before! How can that be better than living in civilization?”